Oh Dear Silvia: The gloriously heartwarming novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of Because of You

Product Information

The Silvia of the title is a lady in a coma in hospital and although she is the central character of the story we don't really actually hear from her and, instead, it's the cast of characters who come to visit her who create the character of Silvia for us. The fact of the matter is that the lady in the coma has ostracised almost everyone, and all of their lives have well and truly moved on without her. I have heard people say that this depiction of a Jamaican woman was stereotypical but I personally disagree because I liked that you read it through her voice. The writing style itself felt incredibly amateur, and maybe it's because I was writing my own novel at the same time, but it just seemed so cringeworthy and I could spot exactly the same tactics I was using to increase my word count without writing anything of quality.

It starts slowly and the reader is introduced one by one to Sylvia's visitors ( Tia was a brilliant character to lift the mood of the book)and I wondered where exactly the plot was going, but right in the middle the book took a completely different direction and from then on i couldn't put this book down! For example, when Jo tries animal therapy on Silvia, including a stick bug who "alien-like" clamps onto her face and "does a little clinging-on bouncy dance instead. Cassie has a four-year-old daughter and was kicked out of the family home one week after telling her mother Silvia that she was pregnant, so the end of the marriage was at least four and a half years ago. The early chapters can be fairly dull, but the novel gradually picks up speed and I read the second half in one bleary-eyed, sniffly sitting. As is quite common in French's writing, “Oh Dear Silvia” is quite simple to read but is grounded in reality with a number of life's hard truths contained amongst the often humorous prose.It is also about relationships and family, huge focus on both, with Sylvia being in a coma, all the characters address all their issues with her in a very honest and raw emotive way. Some of the characters are hilarious, Tia is her cleaning, proud and very funny in some of her chat and outlook on matters.

I felt myself looking forward to her chapters and hoping that if I were unlucky enough to ever have to spend some time in hospital that I would be blessed with a nurse like Winnie. I couldn't tell you what genre this book is because i found it dark, funny, moving it was so much more than i was expecting after reading some of the mixed reviews.We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. Each character talks to Silvia in her coma, their stories all seen from her hospital bed (including occasional clunky exposition but that can e forgiven). Although I loved Winnie and Cassie as people, I thought other points of view were very stereotypical and unnecessary so that is why I gave this book 2 stars. The threads of all the different stories come together to a satisfactory and quite bittersweet conclusion.