Nina Stibbe

I'm not sure about this one. Most of it was kind of tortuous for me because I don't enjoy lots of details about daily life, and I don't know enough about the 1980's London literary scene to know who in the world the author was talking about. I mostly enjoy the second part, when the author started attending college and the writing improved greatly. I didn't find it to be particular clever or funny, just a bit odd. Maybe you need to be British to find it funny.

Recommendation from a penpal.… (más)

Sweet, much like I imagine Cold Comfort Farm might have been described by a younger child. Lizzie Vogel’s parents are divorced and her mother is trying to cope with the changed circumstances despite being the sort who stays in bed a lot and writes plays.
Meanwhile the kids range about in a crowd with a motley abundance of pets (I particularly liked Maxwell the pony) and write letters to various men trying to match up their mother. Cheerful disasters ensue and all is much fun despite the grimness of the situation.
Nina Stibbe is so very good at capturing the logic of children in this, the small hurts, the pride, the struggling to make things right, the coping of kids with no responsible adult to look after them. At one point Lizzie wakes up with a heaviness in her chest…and her mother describes it as “the pig” that comes sometimes and sits on you for a while but eventually goes away again and that’s a pretty clear and true description of how depression might feel to a kid.
Despite the challenges, the Vogel kids and mother keep on keeping on in true British spirit and by the end of the book I was quite in love with them all.
Funny but in a way that gives you more in emotional depth than it at first appears. Highly recommended.… (más)