Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
Warning: Stillbirth and a stolen newborn are mentioned in this review as they are brought up in this book.* Terrible. Dawn French is a talented comedian, but this book is dreadful and so unrealistic with so many errors. There seems to have been no research done on any of the themes. How did it get past the editor? All characters in this book fit neatly into a box, they are either nice, funny, dim or nasty. There is an absence of any complexity , ensuring that the reader is not unnecessarily taxed by thinking. This is a good job, otherwise they may ask questions such as what happened to the dead baby which is presumably still unclaimed in the hospital at this point ! There are way too many holes in the plot. How could someone commit a crime of this sort and get away with it so easily with an ongoing police investigation (the police inspector was another one dimensional character) is beyond me. Whatever happened to the stillborn baby that Hope & Isaac left at the hospital? .
Florence isn’t noticed as missing for some time with her parents asleep and the midwives leaving them to rest. When the news breaks the hospital presume Hope left way before Florence was taken and she isn’t a suspect.Harrowing but uplifting . . . It is a book about mistakes, regret, forgiveness and unconditional love Daily Mirror Both women are very different. Hope is 20 years old and a cleaner, however she is ambitious and has plans. Her boyfriend Quiet Isaac, is from Sierra Leone and an engineering student. with strong family values. Their baby was unexpected but nevertheless, much wanted. I really wanted to like this as it was given to me as a gift. Instead I found myself skim-reading. Dawn French has tried to do a Jodi Picoult and failed. I found this book depressing from the word go. The premise is an interesting one but we spend far too much time inside the heads of the characters and this really means that the story was actually thin.
The final scenes are so perfectly executed they almost broke my heart. Because of You is a story to cherish Sunday Express Because of You is a glorious, beautiful book. I knew what Hope had done was so wrong and on many levels evil, but I also couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Grief is a strange and difficult emotion to control and I can understand the want to hold a baby and love a child like the one she had lost. At the same time, she causes so much grief to the other family by taking their daughter. I listened to this on audio with Dawn French reading it and was very enjoyable in the fact she could express how she wanted the story and words to come over to its reader. I grew up watching French & Saunders so I could hear Dawn French’s very distinct voice in my head as I was reading it. She’s funny and talented but I really disliked this book. It was upsetting and irritating in equal measure.
I could see the charm in the writing that others have praised in the narrative – it is indeed warm and heartfelt but sadly it really didn’t work for me. The publicists have highlighted Russell Brand’s one word comment – “incredible” – to promote the book but if you look up the dictionary definition of ‘incredible’ you will see that the word actually means “impossible to believe / difficult to believe. Extraordinary“. I am firmly in Russell’s camp. I adored According to YES. It's so different to anything I've read in forever, so charming, wise, brilliantly written. I loved it all Marian Keyes Dawn French said in her interview that she wanted to explore the themes of nature vs nurture and loss. Honestly, the very thought of hinging the exploration of nature vs nurture on a stolen baby and a stillbirth makes me uncomfortable as a parent. The exploration of loss felt no more than a lip service as it seemed like the author wanted to generate warm feelings for Hope in the readers' minds, so she conveniently chose to sideline the grief of Anna. Maybe it's me, but I fail to see why there should even be an expectation of warm feelings here for someone who committed the unimaginable crime of stealing a newborn, no matter what circumstances drove her to do it or how much effort she put into raising that baby. As a parent, this not only felt disturbing to me but it also felt offensive.
The story then focusses mainly on the mother-daughter relationship as baby Minnie grows into womanhood and finds herself pregnant at 17. This is the trigger point when all secrets that have followed Minnie and mother around start to be revealed. The reader already knows much of the story, therefore there are no real surprises as such. It is the emotional fall-out that takes centre stage.An enlightening and feel-good read offering a fresh look at life and how to embrace it. Funny and enjoyable to the end We Love This Book We can definitely understand the impulse in that moment. The hard part for her and anyone else to be sympathetic to is that she kept the baby. And so she does, for 17 years. I'm going to keep this short because I don't feel like writing a proper essay for Goodreads, and the other long option would probably be rambling and vitriolic. What you need to know: the plot is tired, the characters are two dimensional, and there is no accountability. Oh, also, trigger warning!: there's suicide at the end cuz why not throw that into the mix ... It's also probably a little racist, but I'm White, so I'll leave that to other reviewers. Lets use my biggest issue as an example: i am not an expert at all, but i am almost positive that a woman that suffered from placental abruption and bleed very heavily during labor would have just send home hours later, or even capable of getting there. I mean maybe in the UK? it just doesn’t sound right to me. Because of You is a gloriously, beautiful book. I knew what Hope had done was so wrong and on many levels evil, but I also couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Grief is a strange and difficult emotion to control and I can understand the want to hold a baby and love a child like the one she had lost. At the same time, she causes so much grief to the other family by taking their daughter.
Great Deal 
New Comment