I almost didn't read this book, mostly because of the length and some of the subject matter was a bit disturbing. Also, I usually don't like books that use the f word or other swearing, but thankfully it was contained to a couple of bad characters, which made it realistic for the time period. I thought of "Call the Midwife" when Mavis had her baby as well as "Oliver" when the girls were in the orphanage. Overall, I think it was an okay book and didn't take it as long to read as I thought it would. ( )

This book is an example of great storytelling done with mediocre writing. The plot is well developed - in fact too developed. It goes on and on and on and on ... you get the idea. The copy I read had 489 pages and I think this novel could have been at least 100 pages shorter and been a better more concise story. The author also tends to use too many words and depends on cliched purple prose too often. Some of the passages made me roll my eyes with wonder that an editor let that get through to the final copy. The author's big strength in this book is in characterization. She has filled the book with wonderful characters about whom the reader comes to care for on a very intense level. The reader comes to want each of the main characters to succeed and it is a reality check when they don't.

That said, this is a great story. It points to the difficulties of living in post World War II in Britian where the end of the war brought little relief to the general population. Life was tough with rationing being a fact of life all the way into the 1960's. It is also a book about the period of great social change in Britain after the war and in that way reminds me of the same sort of chronicle found in "Call the Midwife." This book is not an optimistic look at the social changes that were to be managed by the Child Welfare Committees. In fact, it points out the flaws in that system. In that way, this novel is a fine example of fiction used to illustrate those flaws in a way that grabs public attention. Fiction as a forum for documentation and raising awareness of real life problems. All of this makes for a novel in which it was easy to overlook the technical flaws. This book is an emotional well into which readers will be happy to sink. But for the technical problems I would have rated this book higher due to the fact that it kept me up reading late into the night and voraciously reading while devouring my lunch and finding my lunch time far too short. ( )

This novel, set in London after WWII, features Mavis and her two daughters, Rita and Rosie. When Mavis' husband is killed in the war, Mavis is desperate for the attention of a man and settles for a brutal man named Billy, whom she marries when she becomes pregnant. Billy is physically abusive to both his wife and stepdaughters, and insists that Rita and Rosie are not welcome in his home. Mavis' mother lovingly cares for the children until she is involved in an accident that requires hospitalization and a long recovery. During this period, Mavis terminates her parental rights and makes them wards of the state. In the state institution, Rita is deemed as a miscreant and badly mistreated while trying to care for Rosie. Eventually the girls are sent to a sister institution in Australia, where the mistreatment of Rita continues and Rosie is adopted into a family, where she endures the sexual abuse of her adoptive father for ten years before running away.

This is such a sad story for "throwaway children" left without any adult protection or compassion once they were in the system. The people charged with their care were motivated by greed. Rita and Rosie basically lived with no adult to trust except their grandmother, and then she was taken from them despite her desperate efforts to find them. There is redemption at the end for Rita, who fought so long to earn a life she valued. ( )

Well written with well drawn, solid characters. Set in England, then Sydney, Australia, it's the story of 2 little girls and their ridiculously difficult life. A bit heart-rending and frustrating. Which means it's well written - that it can make me feel the frustration of the grandmother searching for her granddaughters and the huge irritation at the woman charged with caring for them. I wanted to wring her neck! Though a bit dark, I recommend the book. ( )

sad book but really enjoyable. At first I wasn't going to read it because of the way the children were thrown away, basically, but so glad I read it. Looking forward to more Dinner Costeloe books. ( )