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Raking the Ashes (Paperback)

by Anne Fine (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
Price: £6.88 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Customers buy this book with Fly in the Ointment by Anne Fine

Raking the Ashes + Fly in the Ointment
Price For Both: £11.86

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  • This item: Raking the Ashes by Anne Fine

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

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Product details

  • Paperback: 409 pages
  • Publisher: Black Swan; New edition edition (5 Jun 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0552772852
  • ISBN-13: 978-0552772853
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 88,278 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #29 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > F > Fine, Anne

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Product Description

The Times

An enjoyably black and bracingly unsentimental novel.


Independent

‘A fearless novelist...also a constantly amusing writer. The result is an unsettling, sometimes angry but always engrossing story.’ --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Raking the Ashes
53% buy the item featured on this page:
Raking the Ashes 4.0 out of 5 stars (2)
£6.88
Fly in the Ointment
21% buy
Fly in the Ointment 4.7 out of 5 stars (3)
£4.98
The Tulip Touch
10% buy
The Tulip Touch 4.1 out of 5 stars (44)
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Telling Liddy
9% buy
Telling Liddy 4.4 out of 5 stars (5)
£28.95
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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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4 star:
 (2)
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Painfully accurate dissection of a relationship, 18 April 2007
By Jaybird (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
Raking the Ashes is another brilliant book from Anne Fine, although Telling Liddy remains my favourite.

The book discusses the breakdown of a relationship from the point of view of the woman, Tilly. She is a feisty and confident, a health and safety engineer on an oil rig. Tilly is a woman you go to if you want a problem solved, not for a sympathetic hearing. She has no female friends, a dementing mother, and an ambivalent relationship with her stepchildren.

Her partner is kindness and consideration itself; everyone loves him. But, he will do anything to avoid confrontation, preferring to stick his head in the sand no matter what the problem.

The book is the story of the relationship, with Tilly considering leaving but then not quite managing it.

Anne Fine always writes well and this book is no exception.

Why not 5 stars? Well, the ending felt a little tacked on to me. Otherwise, as a dissection of human foibles, this book is highly recommended.

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4.0 out of 5 stars A shock too far?, 18 Sep 2009
By E. Shaw "Kokoschka's_cat" (Leeds, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Geoffrey is a lovely man in most respects. Marriage to the impossible Frances has broken down but he gets his two children, Minna and Harry, for tea once a week and to stay every other weekend. He is kind and considerate, but he doesn't like to confront trouble, so he evades the truth rather too often.

His girlfriend Tilly is quite a different sort of person. It's her house they are living in and she has rather a good job as an engineer, ensuring that oil rigs don't break down. Tilly has done all she can to fit in with Geoffrey's family, but she still feels as if his ex-wife treats her like a suspect and incompetent baby-sitter, so it's probably good that Tilly is away a lot with her job.

Tilly is the narrator of this tale so we only get her version of things, but it is not hard to see through the acerbic persona she favours to the somewhat embittered and revengeful monster lurking within. A lot of what Tilly espouses is feminist good sense. Men, it is true, prefer on the whole not to confront what is going on behind their back. They are good at swallowing the gruel with the caviar and looking on the bright side. But women like Tilly are not inclined to let them get away with it. Tilly catches on to Geoffrey's moral dissembling once too often, and she decides to have her final revenge.

This is a beautifully enraged and lucidly intelligent little story, full of spite and elision and sparkling with the kind of wit that delights and half-shocks. The ending, however, might be a shock too far.
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