Emma Beddington

I have been reading the Belgian Waffle blog for a few years now and so, although I have never commented on it or interacted with Emma online in any way, critiquing this book feels a little like criticizing some one I know. I find the blog very funny in a very British way - I read aloud an entire post describing her attempt to exchange a torn bank note to my family, I enjoyed it so much - and I expected the tone of this memoir to be similar. However, I mainly found this book very very sad. I am so glad Emma has Olivier in her life. While she makes clear that she regrets some of the decisions she has made in her life (and who among us doesn't?), I found myself liking her less at the end of the memoir than I did at the beginning.

Anyway, as to the writing itself, I was not familiar with any of the French cultural references (apart from knowing who Gerard Depardieu is) and I am not particularly interested in French cakes, so there was the occasional bit of skimming from me. She is a similar age to me (and we went to the same university and followed the same career, bizarrely), so the British cultural references were enjoyable and familiar to me. I am also an expat (albeit in a mainly English-speaking country) and I also miss M&S (although there is a Canadian website now!) I was interested in her musings on language and whether she is less herself in a second language because she cannot employ humour in the same way in French.

Towards the end especially, I was finding it difficult to remember all the characters she referred to. Who was Helen? Who was Benjamin again? I thought it was a brave book to have written, but I don't think I would read it again.… (más)