- Hardcover: 136 pages
- Publisher: Jonathan Cape; First Edition/First Printing edition (1 Nov 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 022407816X
- ISBN-13: 978-0224078160
- Product Dimensions: 23.3 x 2.2 x 26.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 125,930 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Forbiddenplanet.co.uk
'The cartooning is beautiful...let's hope there aren't 7 years until the next'
Evening Standard
`Anyone who still thinks comic books aren't for grown-ups should have a look at Tamara Drewe''
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
First Posy Simmonds I've read and, as with another reviewer, what didn't work in serial form works when collected as a novel.
Some of it is painful to read as the characters cheat and flirt with each other, but it swept along to a surprise ending that wrapped it up perfectly.
Art and story are great and the printing and quality of the paper the book is printed on is surprisingly good.
Highly recommended.
Some of it is painful to read as the characters cheat and flirt with each other, but it swept along to a surprise ending that wrapped it up perfectly.
Art and story are great and the printing and quality of the paper the book is printed on is surprisingly good.
Highly recommended.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I read quite a few novels (generally classics), but have not read a graphic novel in years. I picked up this one on the basis of Simmonds' artwork, but I found it a really entertaining read.
Simmonds draws, paints and inks very nicely. I like her style. Using a muted palette of blues and greens, accented with other colours here and there, she creates very pleasing pictures. She uses these to show action, while using prose to convey the thoughts of her characters. This works very well, giving some depth to what she shows us. Her main characters are distinctive and expressive, and mostly types that one can "get" immediately.
The story is, of course, a vague retelling of Far From The Madding Crowd, set in a modern English village. Simmonds is relentless in using her characters to make pointed comments about life in a village, often using these opinions to give her characters their essential attitudes and personalities. She reserves particular venom for rich weekenders from the city who, having descended upon and bought their way into such villages for their idyllic appearance, have turned what was a hard-working village into a mishmash of suburbia and weekend retreat. Her attack on these people made surprisingly satisfying reading, as I have seen this happen in my once-rural hometown. The story flags a little in parts, especially around the middle pages, as Simmonds presents some exposition that sets up the last part of the plot. Overall though, it was non-stop and rather sharp storytelling.
Simmonds' sense of humour, her artistic style, and her tremendous ability to combine words and pictures in an adult, thoughtful and entertaining way, make this a great page-turner. I know that many people scoff at graphic novels as juvenile and a bit of lightweight junk for the lazy, but that view misses the point of the graphic novel. One of the great things about them is that they get on with it - something a great many authors should learn to do. I enjoyed it a great deal, and have ordered more of her work.
Simmonds draws, paints and inks very nicely. I like her style. Using a muted palette of blues and greens, accented with other colours here and there, she creates very pleasing pictures. She uses these to show action, while using prose to convey the thoughts of her characters. This works very well, giving some depth to what she shows us. Her main characters are distinctive and expressive, and mostly types that one can "get" immediately.
The story is, of course, a vague retelling of Far From The Madding Crowd, set in a modern English village. Simmonds is relentless in using her characters to make pointed comments about life in a village, often using these opinions to give her characters their essential attitudes and personalities. She reserves particular venom for rich weekenders from the city who, having descended upon and bought their way into such villages for their idyllic appearance, have turned what was a hard-working village into a mishmash of suburbia and weekend retreat. Her attack on these people made surprisingly satisfying reading, as I have seen this happen in my once-rural hometown. The story flags a little in parts, especially around the middle pages, as Simmonds presents some exposition that sets up the last part of the plot. Overall though, it was non-stop and rather sharp storytelling.
Simmonds' sense of humour, her artistic style, and her tremendous ability to combine words and pictures in an adult, thoughtful and entertaining way, make this a great page-turner. I know that many people scoff at graphic novels as juvenile and a bit of lightweight junk for the lazy, but that view misses the point of the graphic novel. One of the great things about them is that they get on with it - something a great many authors should learn to do. I enjoyed it a great deal, and have ordered more of her work.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Posy Simmonds' graphic novel, originally serialised in the Guardian's Review supplement, follows the chain of events that unfolds when the eponymous Tamara Drewe - a former wallflower who, via plastic surgery and increased confidence, has transformed herself into a stunning and much-desired woman - returns to her parents' country home. There, her life fatefully intersects with a number of local residents, most significantly the inhabitants of a nearby literary retreat; its married owners, Nicholas and Beth Hardiman; and a pair of bored teenage girls, Jody and Casey.
I devoured this every week in its original comic-strip format, and loved it even more second time round - I literally couldn't put the book down until I'd finished reading. The plot unfolds in both words and pictures, with the author using a number of different narrative voices to tell the story from different angles. The combination of styles makes for fantastic storytelling; Simmonds captures body language and facial expressions perfectly in her illustrations, and her narration is never anything less than totally convincing (the way she skips between fiftysomething, middle-class Beth Hardiman and fifteen-year-old, working-class Casey, without ever losing a trace of authenticity, is particularly impressive). The fact that this is a graphic novel takes nothing away from the fact that it is also a brilliant, compelling, always believable story. I would recommend it to everyone; it's a book I know I will enjoy over and over again.
I devoured this every week in its original comic-strip format, and loved it even more second time round - I literally couldn't put the book down until I'd finished reading. The plot unfolds in both words and pictures, with the author using a number of different narrative voices to tell the story from different angles. The combination of styles makes for fantastic storytelling; Simmonds captures body language and facial expressions perfectly in her illustrations, and her narration is never anything less than totally convincing (the way she skips between fiftysomething, middle-class Beth Hardiman and fifteen-year-old, working-class Casey, without ever losing a trace of authenticity, is particularly impressive). The fact that this is a graphic novel takes nothing away from the fact that it is also a brilliant, compelling, always believable story. I would recommend it to everyone; it's a book I know I will enjoy over and over again.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Very good indeed
I sadly never had the option to read this in the guardian I was not really into newspapers back then and as a result never even heard of this. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mr. Ta Salt
A Great Graphic Novel
I had seen snippets of `Tamara Drewe' by Posy Simmonds when it was serialised in The Guardian whenever I was at my Mum's or my Gran's on a random Saturday visit. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Simon Savidge Reads
Witty, perceptive and fabulous drawings
I wish I could draw like Posy Simmonds. And it's not just the drawings that make this such a satisfying read; it's the characters, the humour, the story and the way it's told. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Lexi
Hardy for our times
Very loosely based on Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd. Tamara, with legs up to her bum and a nose job, of course, is Bathsheba. Read more
Published 17 months ago by booksetc
Beautifully observed
I loved the Guardian strips and as a book, well, what can I say. If you've seen the film, the ending is different, but otherwise the film used whole chunks of original dialogue. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Taff Gorge
tamara drewe
Posy at her best. I missed the first half of it when it appeared in The Guardian several years ago but even then thought it was pretty good. Read more
Published 23 months ago by carrie d-b
Her absolute best work
I came to this after seeing extracts in the Guardian - it really did not work in serial form for me - but the cover of the book kept calling to me in Waterstones and so, one... Read more
Published on 7 April 2010 by Buddy
Disappointing
Clever, as usual. Well drawn, as usual. Boring, not usual. This just seemed to ramble on. And on. And on. Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2010 by Gilly
An Austen rather than a Hardy
Simmonds loosely follows the plot of "Far from the Madding Crowd" in this beautifully illustrated graphic novel, but her sensibility is very different. Read more
Published on 2 Oct 2009 by Monthly Book Group
Beautifully observed and drawn, gently witty
Utterly enchanting, I'd had Posy Simmonds' Gemma Bovery on my wishlist for some time and this is exactly the kind of graphic novel I like, no superheroes, no magic powers, no... Read more
Published on 18 Sep 2009 by Jo Bennie
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