Jane is Trying (W&N Essentials)

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I also enjoyed the ending, and how it didn't exactly follow the predictable ending I was expecting, but instead felt like Jane making some 'happy compromises', which felt like quite a wholesome ending. But there’s a dry, tragi-comic farce to some of the situations Jane lands herself in and a dry wit in the way many of the larger-than-life characters that populate this small town are depicted, some decidedly quirkier than others. Now, she’s trying to make a new start back home with her overprotective, charades-obsessed parents - having left her career and cheating fiance behind in London.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. This debut novel exudes all the offbeat humour and acute observation you might expect from the actress and comedian who first stole our hearts as Dobby in Peep Show. I can’t say much but Michelle de Swarte is the lead, the script is fantastic and I’m really enjoying it. Suttie portrays the more honest aspects of what are usually regarded as the best parts of life - family, relationships, friends, careers - with warmth and grit ― I NEWSPAPER --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

We shared a bottle of prosecco and watched Billie Piper’s film Rare Beasts, then fell asleep because we’ve all got young kids. Now, she's trying to make a new start back home with her overprotective, charades-obsessed parents—having left her career and cheating fiancé behind in London. I would recommend this book to All - very Entertaining and made especially so by Isy herself narrating - Isy has such an insight into All of us….

Funny (of course), with heavy subjects written in a light, somewhat anxious, tone Suttie’s debut hit all the right marks. I would still perhaps proceed with caution if you’re planning to read this and feeling overly sensitive to fertility chat. I get the phobic / obsessive angle, but Jane’s stubbornness and selfishness isn’t quirkily charming, it ends up being boring and frustrating. More generally, I wish we'd stop getting novels where the female protagonists are lost, helpless oftentimes privileged women who cannot figure their life out. I was drawn to Jane Is Trying because of its synopsis, hoping it would be an honest, introspective depiction of what it's like to feel like for a woman to have to start over in her late thirties when her 'biological' clock is ticking and she's dealing with anxiety.

Jane Is Trying is Isy Suttie's first novel but her voice has the easy, warm confidence of someone whose been at the lark for yonks; slyly funny, gently incisive, compassionate yes but with just enough wicked accuracy about the process of growing up and getting things wrong to make it painfully true. I felt cheated by the ending, and by the reveal of what caused Jane's anxiety about hospitals and "room 3". I even felt myself get a tiny bit emotional near the end, and considering I’m a reading robot, that’s a surprise for me.