As she lays on her hospital bed we are taken through her story, spanning from the midst of World War 2, up to the present day, However, the story ran slightly longer than I would have preferred. I felt that the chapters towards the end could have been shorter as the general idea of her life was already conveyed by then.

Sadly, she died of ovarian cancer in 2017, so she had just more than a decade to live when she wrote this book when she was close to 40 years old. In this era of such affluence we’re in, it’s good to read about those caught up in the ravages of war, having to make decisions they’d never choose in a stable time, but doing whatever they must to survive and provide stability for those they love.It was her granddaughter Frances who found her and as Molly tried to tell her and the paramedics about her letter, she found her voice could only utter grunts and sounds. Now Molly finds herself in a hospital bed having suffered a stroke that has taken her words from her after a fall that has broken her body...but her mind remains alive with memories... And the thought that she must finish that letter. I read this book out of interest from a passing reference to Amy Krause Rosenthal in John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed book of essays and I am glad I did. Elements of the plot were predictable but I think that's always the case with a story which chooses to start at the end and certainly, in the case of this novel, it doesn't detract from the enjoyment. If anything, it heightens the anticipation as you wait for the inevitable to happen. There are a couple of things which happen at the end of the novel, one of which I loved and one I can't decide if I liked or not. Part of me feels it was entirely the right thing to do within the story and another part of me feels it should have been done differently but I can't explain more without spoiling it, so I'll just say you'll have to read it yourself and make up your own mind!

Nawazuddin Siddiqui has gained quite a cult-following after a string of iconic roles in Gangs of Wasseypur, Manjhi, The Lunchbox and more recently, Manto and Sacred Games, the Netflix show that took him to iconic heights. However, this book only gave him further notoriety for all the wrong reasons. Nawaz's story is questionable, and sympathy-seeking. Even when he was writing about two-timing, he was still trying hard to win his readers' sympathy. I tried to imagine the words being said in Hindi by Nawazuddin himself, which carried me through some of the early chapters on childhood. But as adolescence sets in, the voice and the anecdotes become more obnoxious, entitled and hypocritical. Selective showing off turns into blatant braggin. By the time he gets to Bombay, the whining about difficult people turns into vicious mudslinging with names named. The actress Achint Kaur gets blamed for his breakup simply because she is his girlfriend's new roommate (with zero mention of her before or after). We start at the end - Molly is in Chelmsford, Essex on Christmas Eve in 2019, and 94 years old. She has tasked herself with sharing the information known only to herself and her sister, Joyce, now deceased. Information that the sisters promised each other to share with Joe only after the death of one of them. Information that is important to her nephew Joe and his offspring... And without the Doctor, marooned in a time and place as alien as anything they've ever encountered, Steven and Sara may well face their greatest challenge yet. To live an ordinary life.

By hearing the sound of an ambulance coming, Michael and the crowd of doubles depart, bringing with them the assailants. Steven leaves Joseph to Audrey's care and follows them; he sees the doubles carry their captives to a wagon belonging to the company Steven and Michael used to work for. He almost loses it but manages to grab the rope for opening the gates and is dragged away as a result. And now, here she was. Lying alone on a trolley in a corridor, unable to imagine whatever might come next, able to think only about what had gone before: each step, each breath and each day that had led up to that point in time. Her body quite useless now, but oh! The miraculous thing it had done: bearing a child, a boy! A beautiful son . . . THE AUTHOR: Amanda Prowse was a management consultant for ten years before realising that she was born to write. Amanda lives in the West Country with her husband and their two teenage sons. Many of her entries you read and say, "Nah, way off. Try again. Maybe you, but certainly not a lot of others. Get over yourself, why don't you?" For instance, under HAPPINESS, she writes about left hand turns and using your blinker and how that's all it takes to be happy. "What?" you say to yourself. "Only the H's and you're desperate for material already?"

The other issue, she says, is that these days in early adulthood, "it's a challenge not to feel as though finding yourself has been turned into a competitive sport." And when the pursuit of extraordinary is the status quo, that's a game set up for many to lose.

Audiobooks

When I see a slow driver, I have to pull up alongside him to see what this person looks like, to confirm my suspicions. I am certain I will find a distinctly stupid-looking person. Ah yes, he looks totally stupid. Stupid slow driver.” Meanwhile, Sara has befriended Audrey. The two women grew so much in confidence that Audrey tells Sara that Michael was different when she knew him, more light-hearted and jovial. She is worried that he is changed because now he is worried about providing for her and Josetta, and wonders whether they made a mistake coming here. Sara suggests Steven may talk to Michael, but Audrey refuses, saying that husband and wife must sort out their own troubles. Derek Thomas was a leading psychologist based at Northgate Hospital in Northumberland who played a pivotal role in helping to provide a coherent philosophical foundation for a new model of caring for people with learning disabilities, including through the influential paper ENCOR: A Way Ahead published in 1978. He also chaired the working group that informed the An Ordinary Life publication (King’s Fund, 1980). Derek later became Director of the National Development Team. Without giving any spoilers away, suffice to say Molly's life continues throughout the years from post-war Britain to the sexual revolution of the 60s, the decadence of the 70s, the changes of the eighties, the losses that came with moving into another century up until her fall on Christmas Eve 2019. She changes as the times change and she loses many people she has held dear...including her beloved sister Joyce. Leaving Molly the only one remaining who carries the secret. And now, it seems she may never finish that letter that was so important to her. What an absolutely beautiful and poignant telling of British life during and after World War II. The story is told through the memory of a woman 94 years old beginning in 1943 when Molly, our protagonist, is 18.