A Tiny Bit Marvellous and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more

Buy New

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
Buy Used
Used - Very Good See details
Price: £1.65

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Colour:
Image not available

 
Start reading A Tiny Bit Marvellous on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

A Tiny Bit Marvellous [Paperback]

Dawn French
3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (373 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
Price: £5.59 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £2.40 (30%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon. Gift-wrap available.
Want it Wednesday, 19 June? Choose Express delivery at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition £4.99  
Hardcover --  
Paperback £5.59  
Audio, CD, Audiobook, Unabridged £13.29  
Audio Download, Unabridged £9.97 or Free with Audible.co.uk 30-day free trial
Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Certificate, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more.

Book Description

23 Jun 2011

A Tiny Bit Marvellous is comedian Dawn French's hilarious pageturner.

Everyone hates the perfect family.

So you'll love the Battles.

Meet Mo Battle, about to turn 50 and mum to two helpless, hormonal teenagers. There's 17-year-old daughter Dora who blames Mo for, like, EVERYTHING and Peter who believes he's quite simply as darling and marvellous as his hero Oscar Wilde. Somewhere, keeping quiet, is Dad . . . who's just, well... Dad.

However, Mo is having a crisis. She's about to do something unusually wild and selfish, which will leave the entire family teetering on the edge of a precipice. Will the family fall? Or will they, when it really matters, be there for each other?

A Tiny Bit Marvellous is the number one bestselling novel from one of Britain's favourite comic writers.

Praise for A Tiny Bit Marvellous:

'Funny, really enjoyable, highly recommended. A wonderful writer - witty, wise, poignant' Wendy Holden

'A fantastic slam-dunk pageturner. Funny, enriching . . . page after page I laughed out loud' Mail on Sunday

'Beautifully observed. Makes you laugh on every page' The Times

'A brilliantly observed, very funny novel of family life' Woman and Home

Dawn French has been making people laugh for thirty years. On purpose. As a writer, comedian and actor, she has appeared in some of this country's most long running, cherished and celebrated shows, including French and Saunders, The Comic Strip Presents. . ., Murder Most Horrid, The Vicar of Dibley, Jam and Jerusalem, Lark Rise to Candleford, and more recently, Roger and Val Have Just Got In.

Her bestselling memoir, Dear Fatty, was published to critical acclaim in 2008. Her first novel, A Tiny Bit Marvellous, was also a great success, going straight to No.1. Dawn's second novel, Oh Dear Silvia, is out now.


Frequently Bought Together

A Tiny Bit Marvellous + Oh Dear Silvia + Dear Fatty
Price For All Three: £20.81

Buy the selected items together
  • Oh Dear Silvia £9.23
  • Dear Fatty £5.99


Product details

  • Paperback: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin; 2nd Edition edition (23 Jun 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0141046341
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141046341
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 3.2 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (373 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 15,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

Product Description

Review

Beautifully observed. Makes you laugh on every page (The Times)

Hilarious. Chortle-out-loud turns of phrase, razor-sharp observations (The Stylist)

Fresh, extremely funny (Sunday Times)

Has she cracked it with her first novel? Yes. Engaging from the first page (Heat)

Really enjoyable and highly recommended. Dawn French is a wonderful writer - witty, wise and poignant (Daily Mail)

A hilarious and compelling read (Good Housekeeping)

About the Author

Dawn French has been making people laugh for thirty years. On purpose. As a writer, comedian and actor, she has appeared in some of this country's most long running, cherished and celebrated shows, including French and Saunders, The Comic Strip Presents ..., Murder Most Horrid, The Vicar of Dibley, Jam and Jerusalem, Lark Rise to Candleford, and more recently, Roger and Val Have Just Got In. Her bestselling memoir, Dear Fatty, was published to critical acclaim in 2008. This is without a doubt her first novel.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars A Tiny Bit Disappointed 7 Jan 2011
By Book Gannet TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
I'll admit, I didn't enjoy this nearly as much as I'd hoped. Yes, Dora's voice was very teenagerish, and Oscar was quite brilliant, but I couldn't stand Mo. I found her selfish and utterly unsympathetic, not to mention very like Dora, who I found boring after the first few chapters. There are aspects of realism in them both, but I still found them largely unlikeable. And ungrateful. Husband/Dad is clearly a treasure - I'm glad his children knew this.

With no surprises in the plot for me, it was nice to see a shift in Mo's attitude towards the end. It would have been nice if it had been caused by her realising what she actually had, but nobody's perfect.

Except maybe Oscar. And his smoking jacket.

Dragging in the middle, with some characters that were better than others, there is a nice emotional pay-out at the end, but on the whole I was disappointed. If I can't like the main characters, I can't like a story, no matter how realistic they are.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
94 of 109 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A marvellous read! 22 Oct 2010
Format:Paperback
As a big fan of Dawn French as a comic actress, my expectations for this book were very high. And I have to say that I haven't been disappointed.

Having been written in a diary format, it could have been tricky to portray the personalities of each of the characters in the prose style itself, but Dawn has done this to much success! It was great to be reading each chapter and have each one be very different to the one before. This really helped to break up the book into manageable sections, rather than the story dragging on for ages without much going on.

As for the story itself, I really enjoyed reading about the interactions between the members of this family from the point of view of everyone, including their opinions on the minutiae of everyday life.

Being easy to read made me want to keep going and discover more about each family member as the chapters went by. It was easy to compare myself and people I know, with the Battles! This book has exceeded my expectations. I knew it was going to be an entertaining read right from the first sentence.

I won a copy of this book (through another website) before publication and this review comes from my review on that website.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
81 of 94 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Hmmm... 17 Mar 2011
By Kevin O'Keefe TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
[Reviewed by Mrs O']

I wanted to really like this book by Dawn French, as I like her as a comedian very much, but I'm afraid this book leaves a lot to be desired - sorry Dawn! The book is about the Battle family who unsurprisingly live up to their title. The characters are all loudly drawn caricatures and leave no room for imagination by the reader. There is a foul-mouthed sulky angry teenage daughter (Dora), an intelligent eccentric gay son (Peter/Oscar) and Mum (Mo), a child-psychologist who obviously has problems with her own children but can solve other parents' children's issues and has a mid-life crisis to boot. So the stage is set in a predictable way that sadly plays out until the end. The book itself I found to be a bit schizophrenic, not knowing who it was really supposed to appeal to. In my opinion it tries a bit too hard to be 'hip' by its use of shocking language from the outset, which did nothing but annoy me right from the very beginning. Additionally the use of modern day teenage 'isms' pitched it at a younger audience, who I feel were probably not the majority audience for a book by Dawn French. Sadly, this book is a 'miss' from me and I suggest you don't read it on the train if you're concerned about people reading over your shoulder, as the level of swearing and foul-mouthed ranting on the pages could cause early morning commuters to have a funny turn!
Was this review helpful to you?
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars 3.5 stars 5 Dec 2010
By Nicola TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)
This is the story of the Battle family: mother Mo, daughter Dora and son Peter, along with dad and the dog named Poo. It's a pretty dysfunctional family really, with some problems and strange behaviours.

The story is told in fairly short chapters, from the point of view of each of the three main characters, and I thought this was a good device to put across each set of feelings, particularly towards the other characters.

I have to say that when I was reading Mo's segments I just kept hearing Dawn French's voice, even though the character is not really anything like Dawn French. And frankly, Dora is a quite hideous character, and if she was my daughter I would be tempted to disown her. The way she speaks to and about Mo is quite shocking really. I know she's a teenager but even so. Peter was my favourite character. He's otherwise known as Oscar in the book, as he has a real affinity with Oscar Wilde. His sections were amusing and he was a great, quirky character.

I got a bit annoyed with the swearing in the book. Not the level of it, but the words used, as I don't know a single person who uses the majority of the made-up swear words in this book, and again this is where I was hearing Dawn French's particular style.

All in all, I would say this is a reasonable read, and I did enjoy it, but I think the author got away with some poor writing because of who she is. I would still recommend it as a nice, uncomplicated read though.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Not a tiny bit marvellous 13 July 2011
By Lynne W
Format:Hardcover
Well, I've tried but today I am giving up. I am just over half way through this book and to be honest it's rubbish. This is the first time I have bought a book by a 'celebrity' author and it will be the last. I will stick to established authors in the future - how they must be tearing their hair out at this influx of celebrity writers. Dawn - stick to what you are good at and leave the proper writers to it. I agree with a previous reveiwer - this only got published because of who wrote it. A case of the Emperor's new clothes I think with this one. Very disappointing as I love Dawn French.
Was this review helpful to you?
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?   Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Tiny bit floppy
I think the concept of the book wasn't quite what I expected and I've found that now several weeks on from reading it, I really have to try an remember what the story was... Read more
Published 1 day ago by Jenny Brandon
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
This her second book I've read and loved them both thus one made me smile and laff well worth reading
Published 3 days ago by Sharon Gardner
5.0 out of 5 stars interesting
a nice easy to read book following the trials and tribulations of, what could be, any family. dora is fantastic!!!
Published 29 days ago by happy reader
2.0 out of 5 stars A Tiny Bit Marvellous? I couldn't even find that!!!!!!
Oh dear, sorry Dawn but I really didn't like this book. Boring, slow and I'm just irritated that I wasted a number of hours trying to convince myself that it will get better. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Linds
4.0 out of 5 stars Great Read
Really enjoyed this book but probably for the wrong reason! The writing of Peters part was just brilliant and I couldn't wait to get to more Peter chapters of the book. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Bea Wilson
5.0 out of 5 stars Dawn French
What a great book, love her writing style, the way she tells the story through her tree main characters is great, laugh out loud. Would definitely recommend this book
Published 1 month ago by sarka58
1.0 out of 5 stars Tedious
I was unable to finish this book, I found the dialogue frivolous and vulgar. Could only be on any best seller list due to Dawn French's fame.
Published 1 month ago by Ruth M. Mcdonald
2.0 out of 5 stars Boring
I found this book very boring didnt even finish it most unlike me as I usually insist once started must finish but could not with this sorry Dawn
Published 1 month ago by Mrs. E. Barnett
1.0 out of 5 stars Not just A Tiny Bit Awful....
I love Dawn French - usually - and I love reading all different kinds of books, but this book was truly awful. Read more
Published 2 months ago by BontragerGirl
3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Special
Not up to the material standard you would normally expect from Ms French.
Technically okay but not the most entertaining of reads. Read more
Published 2 months ago by G. Kidd
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Discussion Replies Latest Post
Come on - why don't we write our own book right here in the fiction forum ? I'll do the first sentence, and then jump in....hold on, here we go... 7196 5 hours ago
Fed up with all the books not having an Ending? 30 5 hours ago
What are you reading now? 8434 6 hours ago
Self-published books: pain or gain? 6107 7 hours ago
What is the POINT of zombie novels, exactly? 132 9 hours ago
The non author mosty harmless book club. 1634 19 hours ago
Spend an erotic night of BDSM, Domination/submission, and exhibition with Jim and Kay this weekend.. 30 20 hours ago
Children's books with a heroine called Sadie 1 1 day ago
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Feedback


Amazon.co.uk Privacy Statement Amazon.co.uk Delivery Information Amazon.co.uk Returns & Exchanges