My
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Book Description (Goodreads):
Melody Browne can remember nothing before her ninth birthday. Now in her early thirties, Melody lives in the middle of London with her seventeen-year-old son. She hasn’t seen her parents since she left home at fifteen, but Melody doesn't mind. She’s better off on her own.
And then fragments of her past start to come back. At first her memories mean nothing to her but slowly, day by day, she begins to piece together the real story of her childhood.
But with every mystery she solves another one materialises, with every question she answers another appears. And Melody begins to wonder if she'll ever know the truth about her past...
My musings:
What a beautiful, touching story! As usual, Lisa Jewell has
created characters that seem to leap out of the pages of her book, and became
so real to me as the story progressed that I felt I had known them all my life.
Even more so, since we slowly get to discover the truth about Melody’s past,
feel her joy and her pain, which at times broke my heart – expect to cry! There
is a rich cast of supporting characters which defy any stereotype and add a
depth to the story lacking in many other books. It shows what a skilled,
accomplished writer Jewell is, and why she is firmly embedded on my list of
favourite authors.
Written in a dual time format, the story starts with Melody
Brown’s life in the present, and it may seem a bit slow and run-of-the-mill for
the first few pages – but don’t be fooled! The rest of the story jumps back and
forth between Melody’s past (starting with her earliest memories) and the
present, as she slowly uncovers the truth about her childhood. Whilst this is a
format that can feel disjointed in some
books, Jewell marries the two stories together so cleverly that it worked
perfectly for me. a) I never got bored with one of the stories, wishing to jump
back to the other; and b) I never got confused as to what period she was
relating to, even with the audio version. And whilst I am talking about the
audio version, I must give credit to Julie Maisey, who lent her voice to the
characters and made them come to life for me. I loved Maisey’s ability to give
each character their unique voice, especially the small Melody Brown, whose
voice I loved!
I could say a lot more about this book, but it is best delved
into without spoilers, so I will leave it at: read it, you won’t be sorry. A touching,
thought provoking and emotional read by a writer on top of her game. I loved
it!
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