Hideous Kinky
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Hideous Kinky for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Product Description
Two little girls are taken by their mother to Morocco on a 1960s pilgrimage of self-discovery. For Mum it is not just an escape from the grinding conventions of English life but a quest for personal fulfilment; her children, however, seek something more solid and stable amidst the shifting desert sands.
‘Just open the book and begin, and instantly you will be first of all charmed, then intrigued and finally moved by this fascinating story’ Spectator.
About the Author
Esther Freud was born in 1963 and lives in London. Her previous novels are Hideous Kinky, which was made into a film starring Kate Winslet, Peerless Flats, Gaglow and The Wild.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
It wasn't until we were halfway through France that we noticed Maretta wasn't talking. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
It wasn't until we were halfway through France that we noticed Maretta wasn't talking. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I loved this book, it was fresh and intersesting with a gentle (but never dull) plotline. The people involved were sympathetic and different, and writing from a child's point of view made the book a lot less pretentious than it could so easily have been. However, there were many loose ends which weren't tied up. Characters simply came and went, and although I unerstand that things sometimes seem that way when you're five years old, one also ends up yearning to know what happened to Marreta and her body lice, or to their friend Danny. But I suppose neat endings don't really fit in with the lifestyle portrayed in this book. An innovative take on the hackneyed 'road movie' style of fiction, and immensely enjoyable with it.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I actually read this book out of interest because of all the hype about the film based on it and i was pleasently suprised. It wasn't action packed but never the less it was a 'kind' book, well written with a fantastic setting and made you read on just because you wondered what would happen next. Not the best book i've read but nice.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I thought I wouldn't like this at first, but actually it was really good. I think the title does it a real disservice because it sounds so ridiculous. Once you know what it means, it makes sense, but when you first pick up a book, the title shouldn't be so off-putting, should it?
That aside, this is a very subtle piece of writing. The child's point of view is strictly adhered to, so no interpretation of events is offered. Yet the reader is given plentiful evidence of the child's increasing distress and grief over the rootlessness and disorganisation of the life to which the mother exposes her. She is too young to be able to separate herself from her mother (as the slightly older sister is forced to do), so she has to just cling on and try to survive.
From the feminist point of view, this book is full of ironies. The mother has gone off on her own to 'find' herself, yet she is still economically dependent on men - and her daughters' habit of searching for any men that they feel might rescue them is proof that this dependence is being passed on to the next generation. Their lives are lived in the suspension of waiting ... either for the father to send them money, or some one or other of their mother's male acquaintances and boyfriends to supply their material and emotional needs.
This is a fascinating exploration that manages to chart the awakening of consciousness of the late sixties/early seventies, while also showing how the economic shackles of the past prevented any real achievement of freedom for women. In the end, the children are burdened with the results of their mother's apparently impotent and futile struggle for independence.
That aside, this is a very subtle piece of writing. The child's point of view is strictly adhered to, so no interpretation of events is offered. Yet the reader is given plentiful evidence of the child's increasing distress and grief over the rootlessness and disorganisation of the life to which the mother exposes her. She is too young to be able to separate herself from her mother (as the slightly older sister is forced to do), so she has to just cling on and try to survive.
From the feminist point of view, this book is full of ironies. The mother has gone off on her own to 'find' herself, yet she is still economically dependent on men - and her daughters' habit of searching for any men that they feel might rescue them is proof that this dependence is being passed on to the next generation. Their lives are lived in the suspension of waiting ... either for the father to send them money, or some one or other of their mother's male acquaintances and boyfriends to supply their material and emotional needs.
This is a fascinating exploration that manages to chart the awakening of consciousness of the late sixties/early seventies, while also showing how the economic shackles of the past prevented any real achievement of freedom for women. In the end, the children are burdened with the results of their mother's apparently impotent and futile struggle for independence.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
hideous irresponable
The behaviour of an English hippy mother and her small children from a middle class family living in Morocco in the 1960 tys . Read more
Published 1 month ago by mutti
Esther Freud, growing up
This little book is about growing up with a hippie mother who feels as though her life is incomplete, and therefore must travel to one of the most cliché religious... Read more
Published 2 months ago by steelo
Fundamentally Flawed
In some ways it could be said that Hideous Kinky, by Esther Freud, is a throw back to a carefree, amoral age of hippiedom. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Herman Norford
On the Hippie Trail
Freud's first novel: the story of two small girls travelling in Morocco with their hippie mother, who is searching for enlightenment. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Kate Hopkins
going to morocco
I bought this book as I was planning a trip to Morocco with my 2 daughters and was a suggested read by a colleague. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Ms. Therese Brehaut
disappointing
I found this book to be rather disappointing.I love travel books and reading about different cultures and I must say I did get the colour and smells of Morocco. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Ms. Mc Fawcett
Wonderfully evocative, don't be put off by some of these reviews
Clever and subtle, told with an economy of style and a straightforward narrative, this book conjures up the mystery and sensual overload of North Africa before mobile phones and... Read more
Published 23 months ago by J. Thompson
Marrakech hasn't changed!
I read this on a recent trip to Marrakech and thought it was a lovely story... no real ground breaking conclusion to it but i definitely found it an enjoyable read and much better... Read more
Published on 3 Jun 2009 by J. Wood
NOT RECEIVED YET!!!
PLEASE SEND ME THIS BOOK SO I CAN READ IT AND REVIEW IT!!!
IT IS 4 WEEKS OVERDUE.
THANK YOU
IT IS 4 WEEKS OVERDUE.
THANK YOU
Published on 4 May 2009 by Fiona J. Morrow
How times have changed!!
This day and age travelling to Morocco wouldn't be such a big thing but in the early 70's it must have been the 'in' thing to do! Read more
Published on 14 April 2009 by Sterile
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
