Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

 


 "No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No." Me at the end of this book. 


It is completely impossible to review this book without revealing the ending so read no further if you have not read it!

The story is about a woman who believes her daughter to have been the product of a virgin conception. She, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts a local newspaper who sends a reporter, Jean, to investigate. 

I found one tiny premise of the story a little bit odd in that Jean is immediately the main friend of the Tilbury family, she's immediately the sort of surrogate godmother to the daughter, Margaret, and go to confidant for them all. I mean, in a way this is explained away by alluding to none of them really having any friends but it felt a bit, I don't know, not forced exactly but a bit contrived maybe. I could understand her falling in love with the husband and more of a connection forming there... but with Gretchen and Margaret. I know it says that Gretchen doesn't really have friends and I also get that she was potentially setting Jean up to be her replacement or adulterous stooge to bring on the end of her marriage so there is some logic but Margaret running to her and not her friend? I don't know, it's not a plot hole, it's just a niggle.

Now that said, I did actually love it! You absolutely know where the plot is going all the way through. You know very well it's not going to be a virgin birth, it's not that sort of book, and you know that Jean and Howard are heading towards romance from the moment they meet. But the journey to getting there is totally engaging and thoroughly enjoyable.

So why, why, why did she have to do that thing at the end?? I can't bear it! The book starts with a newspaper article about the real-life 5.18 Charing Cross to Hayes train crash in 1957. Of course, I then promptly forgot this reference and assigned no significance to it at all. Then, I get totally invested in the characters and the happily-ever-after for Jean and Howard. I had them married, having Margaret on the weekends, living their best lives, growing old together. And then she goes and kills him! No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no! I mean the death is implied as the book ends with him happily getting on the 5.18 train to go and start the rest of his life with Jean and that's it. Then you flip the page to the afterword all about the crash. At first I was like, wait what? Then I was like, no you cannot do this. And then I thought I surely must be misunderstanding what was going on. And eventually I was curled up in a ball in the corner of the room just muttering, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Ok, maybe I wasn't doing that but the emotions in my head were very much curled.

I'd probably like to read some more books by Clare Chambers but I'm going to have to give her a little time out to think about her actions before I invest any more of my emotions.


 

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