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Tamara Drewe [Paperback]

Posy Simmonds
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
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Book Description

3 Sep 2009

Winner of the Grand Prix 2009 de la Critique Bande Dessinée.

Tamara Drewe has transformed herself. Plastic surgery, a different wardrobe, a smouldering look, have given her confidence and a new and thrilling power to attract, which she uses recklessly. Often just for the fun of it.

People are drawn to Tamara Drewe, male and female. In the remote village where her late mother lived Tamara arrives to clear up the house. Here she becomes an object of lust, of envy, the focus of unrequited love, a seductress. To the village teenagers she is 'plastic-fantastic', a role model. Ultimately, when her hot and indiscriminate glances lead to tragedy, she is seen as a man-eater, a heartless home-wrecker, a slut.

First appearing as a serial in the Guardian, in book form Tamara Drewe has been enlarged, embellished and lovingly improved by the author.


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Tamara Drewe + Gemma Bovery + Literary Life
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Product details

  • Paperback: 136 pages
  • Publisher: Jonathan Cape (3 Sep 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0224078178
  • ISBN-13: 978-0224078177
  • Product Dimensions: 22.5 x 1.6 x 26 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 74,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

"Posy Simmonds is the laureate of English middle-class muddle, a peerless observer of their romantic confusions, emotional insecurities and professional vicissitudes. She gets to the heart of them more incisively and wittily than any number of her contemporaries... Tamara Drewe offers not only the psychological intricacy of good fiction but also the pictorial subtlety of art" (Mail On Sunday Anthony Quinn )

"Simmonds manages to be both sympathetic and merciless...she has a novelistic insight and ear for dialogue... If civilisation falls leaving only Tamara Drewe behind, it can be used as a blueprint for a flawless reconstruction of English village life in the mid-2000s, right down to the hoodies in the bus shelter" (Daily Telegraph )

"Posy Simmonds is a true child of Hogarth, her accomplished cartoons a merciless commentary on the way we live now" (Penny Perrick Sunday Times )

"Simmonds is much more than a cartoonist: she makes us realize that a great cartoonist can be a great artist too" (Stella Tillyard Prospect )

Book Description

A brilliant new graphic novel inspired by Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, by the author of the widely acclaimed Gemma Bovery.

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Customer Reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Painfully moving 15 Aug 2010
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.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and very nicely done 27 Sep 2010
By Stephen C TOP 50 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
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.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisitely detailed and unputdownable 1 Jan 2008
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.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Graphic Novel 30 Dec 2010
By Simon Savidge Reads TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
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. I can't say that it was something I particularly looked out for because I would catch it rarely and I do like to read things in order. However it came out as a graphic novel back in 2007, yet it wasn't until seeing the film adverts on the telly that I really gained awareness of it, but I am so glad that I have finally picked it up and read it.

Stonefield is a writers retreat in the fictional town of Ewedown deep in the English countryside. The owners Beth and her writer husband Nicholas Hardiman who are currently in their latest brawl over one of his affairs and the writers, including Glen Larson, and the gardener Andy are having a garden break when a girl in a mere vest and hot pants appears. This siren is Tamara Drewe, a woman who lived in Ewedown but left to follow a career in journalism and also to get a nose job, a column on which has made her career so far. She is back and wittingly or unwittingly (as the reader can decide as they go) she causes chaos and changes the lives of some of the villagers for good, especially as it appears she has some history with several of the people at Stonefield.

Posy Simmonds is not only a wonderful, and I mean really wonderful, artist she is a brilliant storyteller who can be both incredibly funny and also rather emotional. As Tamara causes chaos in almost all her relationships with others you could be taken on a farcical tale of middle class England and its bed hopping and gossip.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Great purchase.
Posy Symmonds changed my life with one cartoon from the Guardian some years ago so I am a grea fan.
Published 2 months ago by Eleri Carrog
5.0 out of 5 stars 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 on 31 Mar 2011 by Mr. Ta Salt
5.0 out of 5 stars 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 on 18 Dec 2010 by Lexi
3.0 out of 5 stars 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 on 17 Dec 2010 by booksetc
5.0 out of 5 stars 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 on 9 Nov 2010 by Taff Gorge
5.0 out of 5 stars 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 on 11 July 2010 by carrie d-b
5.0 out of 5 stars 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
3.0 out of 5 stars 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
5.0 out of 5 stars 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
5.0 out of 5 stars 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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