- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Jonathan Cape; UK First Edition edition (15 Jan 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0224087371
- ISBN-13: 978-0224087377
- Product Dimensions: 13.6 x 1.9 x 21.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 468,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
`one helluva a ride'
--Tatler
--Tatler
Review
`An exotic, eccentric adventure that explores family bonds of trust, loyalty and love'.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Though this book has a simple narrative and is an easy read, I am left feeling a little confused as to what it was about. It seemed to have very little direction, no structure and no final point to hold it all together.
In principal it is about a mother's stormy relationship with the father, described from the young teenage daughter's prespective. It is about her mother's escape from London, leaving the father behind, to an ashram in California, and about their life there. It still lacks direction and point, however. The relationship between the mother and father is not examined closely enough for the whole dramatic escape to ring true. Her mother's wild, unsettled character receives the same shallow description, which made me feel the move to America was exaggarated and artificial, and I found I could not relate to it.
From then on their lives in the ashram is the main focus, but even here I am confused as to the point of it all - It is about how the ashram works as a commune and how their lives develop, is it about the young narrator's lesbian adventures, is it a critical description of religious communes like the ashram, where lost and vulnerable souls are brainwashed into surrendering their most precious things and thus turning spirituality into materialism? Is it about the bonds between mothers and children, or the powerful praying on the weak? Is it a story about homecoming?
The overwhelming impression was a feeling of nothing much at all. This aimless vanilla tale left me cold.
In principal it is about a mother's stormy relationship with the father, described from the young teenage daughter's prespective. It is about her mother's escape from London, leaving the father behind, to an ashram in California, and about their life there. It still lacks direction and point, however. The relationship between the mother and father is not examined closely enough for the whole dramatic escape to ring true. Her mother's wild, unsettled character receives the same shallow description, which made me feel the move to America was exaggarated and artificial, and I found I could not relate to it.
From then on their lives in the ashram is the main focus, but even here I am confused as to the point of it all - It is about how the ashram works as a commune and how their lives develop, is it about the young narrator's lesbian adventures, is it a critical description of religious communes like the ashram, where lost and vulnerable souls are brainwashed into surrendering their most precious things and thus turning spirituality into materialism? Is it about the bonds between mothers and children, or the powerful praying on the weak? Is it a story about homecoming?
The overwhelming impression was a feeling of nothing much at all. This aimless vanilla tale left me cold.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this book after reading a fab review in a magazine. It sounded intriguing, and a guess in a way it was. I think I was hoping for a bit more detail about life on the Ashram, but the story line, and the fact that it was written from the viewpoint of May, a young teenager whose life was changed overnight on a whim of her mother, made for good reading. The book is well written, I just think I was a bit let down be the ending - especially the origin of the books' title, which becomes apparent in the closing chapters. An ejoyable read, but one that I'll pass on rather than reading again.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found the storyline very weak and boring. i also thought it lacked direction and i felt there was no point to the story. I would not recommend this, not even as an easy holiday read.
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