The Family Way / One For My Baby by Tony Parsons

The Family Way (2004) by Tony Parsons
Read: February 2009



One For My Baby (2001) by Tony Parsons
Read: March 2009



I read these two books as they were recommended as "easy reads" - although I did turn down two other fiction books as I felt they were too easy a read. These were light reads, something to get stuck into on holiday I guess, but after reading them I don't think that "relationships fiction" is really for me.

I started The Family Way thinking it an interesting story of three sisters and their different families as they grow up; one loving the single life, the other desparate for a baby and the third wanting a partner, but no baby. However I soon got frustrated by the superficial decisions that the characters, especially the mother was making. I am sure that one aim of the novel was to discredit the mother's attitude to children (that as a child you live your parents life, and as an adult you live the life of your child), but actually her attitude and some of the other negative attitudes towards family and friendship didn't make this a totally enjoyable, laugh-out-loud read for me.

Maybe it was a good thing that I started on The Family Way, as the attitude of the protagonist in One For My Baby was even worse in many ways. I did feel for him as a character when we flashback to his wife dying in a scuba accident - I don't like to think about how I would feel in such a situation. Although I know his father was designed to, again, be a character with a difficult-to-understand attitude towards finding love and family values, this first upset me and then annoyed me. The redeeming aspect of the story was that of Jackie and Plum, and of the grandmother. Descriptions of her slow death to cancer felt painful accurate to me. Despite the unbearable sorrow that I feel for the protagonist on losing his wife, his actions and attitudes to relationships with those around him were not justifyable. I don't think that he turned himself around enough for the book to end on the positive note that it did.

Sorry! These seem like two really negative reviews! I just think that I now understand why I don't like relationship fiction - beacause I am not in control of the characters and how they act in relationships and this is frustrating for me to follow a story about love, when I cannot read about love the way I love.