Review: The Good Part

The Good Part by Sophie Cousens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lucy Young is feeling a bit of a failure. All of her friends are getting on in life, good jobs, buying their own homes, steady boyfriend/girlfriend, getting married, solvent. And she's none of the above. She might be in her dream industry of TV, and she might have just got a promotion, but she still lives in the smallest room in a horrible flat share where water from the bathroom above her frequently leaks onto her bed. After a disastrous night out with her friends which ends in a row, and her having no money to get home, Lucy stumbles into a little newsagents with a wishing machine (a bit like that fabulous film Big starring Tom Hanks) and wishes that she was at the Good Part of her life, the bit where she has a home and a family and a good job.

Lo and behold, when Lucy wakes up the next morning she's in bed with a strange man, a bit older than her usual type but foxy nevertheless and surprise, surprise he's her husband! They've got two children, a big home in the suburbs, and Lucy runs her own highly successful company making children's TV programmes. The only downside? Well she's over forty, which is a bit of a shock when she first looks in the mirror. On the plus side she's got a talking car.

If you read my reviews you'll probably have a good suspicion that I love a time travel/alternate reality story and this one had the added bonus of being set in the future. I loved that Lucy's son knew she wasn't his real mummy (especially asking her his middle name - because an alien wouldn't know that but his real mummy would LOL). It was good seeing Lucy trying to cope with being a mother of two when she has no experience of children, of trying to run a company when she had only been making teas and doing photocopying the day before.

I also liked the way that Lucy was faced with the dilemma of staying or going back and what each choice would mean - that was clever.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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