Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
totally charming rom-com, 3 Sep 2009
One Apple Tasted is by far the best-written new romantic comedy I've read this year, and I'm amazed it didn't find a more mainstream publisher.
Beginning with the adventures of Dora in the early 1980s (a period so well rendered you can almost smaell the Opium - or, in this social circle, the Floris Rose Geranium)it moves back in time to the 1950s and the 1930s, linking three generations of women in love. Dora, the second last virgin in Britain besides Lady Diana, a bright, [pretty Cambridge graduate, works on a magazine called Modern Woman (a thinly disguised version of Vogue)and is mad for the handsome, enigmatic, and it turns out depressive son of a rich man. Their mutual attraction involves much fumbling and tumbling but no actual sex, and it's something of a surprise when he proposes to her. You have to remember just how weirdly fashionable weddings were (even before Richard Curtis)to make sense of it, but they do, secretly, get married.
The story then cuts back to the start of the War, when two women meet each other in a Harley St obstetrician's. One is barely out of childhood herself, a French Jewish refugee, the other a middle aged Home Counties wife and mother. A rapport is struck, and the younger woman comes to stay with the elder. They give birth almost at the same time; opne dies and the other feeds the other's daughter. When they grow up, the refugee's child finds out how hard marrying love and lust can be.
It would be unfair to give away too much of the plot - and, unusually for this kind of novel, there's a lot of it, making it reminiscent of Nancy Mitford as well as Mary Wesley. The posh but poor Dora and her mother Hilly are so alike that they could be the same person - sweet, innocent, sensible and idealistic. They are absolutely charming creations, and needless to say, the men they adore come across as horribly selfish, immature and snobbish (by far the nicest is Dora's father Stephen, and I'd have liked to see more of him). I can't imagine that Dora's future is going to be a bed of roses but then she's too sensible (despite the one absolutely bonkers thing she does) to expect this.
This is very much a novel set in a particular segment of upper middle class life, where men work as art dealers and women dabble in journalism. There's a LOT about clothes, which will no doubt win Young an ardent teen audience. The scenes set in India come close to parody, and weaken the rest even if, again, this is a typical rite of passage. But what it is absolutely marvellous at is capturing the beauty and intensity of being very young and passionate, and not really knowing what to do with yourself.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Delicious Read, 27 Jul 2009
I devoured my pre-launch copy of One Apple Tasted in one sitting. This novel is just too good to save a bit for later. Dora Jerusalem is a talented young magazine writer in 1980s London. She loses her heart to arty rake-about-town Guy Boleyn and disaster ensues.
Ms Young is a writer who not only knows women but has clearly gone to great pains to get inside the male psyche. With her Austenian sense and sensibilities, you root for Dora but the author's insight won't let you write Guy off as a feckless Willoughby.
He may be infuriating but he is refreshingly complex. Too often, I think, female writers reduce male characters to absolute stereotypes-The Bad Boy, The Knight In Shining Armour. Ms Young never pretends men aren't both those things and a lot more besides.
The novel skips backwards and forwards in time. From Dora's Chelsea we journey to the West End of the 1940s to meet a beautiful young Parisian, pregnant and in need of a mother. Then we jump forward to the 1950s, where two restless country debs long for romance and adventure. Female relationships are beautifully depicted, particularly the sororal bond between the debutantes, who are not blood relatives.
What do these women have to do with Dora's disastrous romance? All is revealed in an action-packed plot that is surely destined for Hollywood. Not one twist is typical of chick-fic and you will be gobsmacked by the cliffhanger ending. This is the perfect autumn pageturner.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
hot new novelist, 27 Jul 2009
read One Apple Tasted in a single sitting. I couldn't put it down! This is a real page-turner - but also rich, funny, clever, informative and moving. Not to mention the writer's elegance and acuity. Young handles three different worlds with astonishing skill for a first-time novelist. The best part of the book is set in war-torn and post-war Britain. She sucked me straight into those worlds. I felt I was there. Her handling of the clashes and interplay of the classes in Britain is fantastic. The weakest part of the book is the first chapter - don't be put off, read straight through to the treasures which lie beyond. I'm longing to read her next book. Josa Young will go very far indeed. One Apple Tasted - read it now!
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