Review: Mum & Dad

Mum & Dad by Joanna Trollope
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Gus and Monica moved to Spain 25 years ago and have successfully built their own prestigious (if not necessarily financially) vineyard and farm shop. Then Gus has a debilitating stroke and things start to unwind, Monica can't run the vineyard, their eldest son Sebastian refuses, their daughter Katie is a successful London solicitor and won't which only leaves the youngest, Jake.

At first, frankly, each of the characters comes across as unpleasant, in turns snobby, misogynistic, weak, mercenary and self-centred. Little-by-little we see into the lives of Gus and Monica, their children and their spouses and their grandchildren. Things start to make more sense, the characters become more relatable, the children and their spouses in particular change their behaviours.

My biggest issue with this book is that it ends very suddenly, I actually thought my Kindle had broken when it wouldn't move to the next page. Maybe it was deliberate, leaving the reader to imagine what happens next, maybe my more regular diet of romance has conditioned me to expect everything to be wrapped up but this felt like the start of something … and then nothing. Overall, I was left feeling 'So what? What was the point?'

The writing was excellent, each of the characters (and there are a lot) is given their own voice and the reader can empathise with each in turn (well maybe not all) and I was drawn into the lives of these three generations, but I was left hanging at the end.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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