Book info

• Title How Was It For You?
• Author Carmen Reid
• Year 2004
• Genre Romance

Five years of gruelling IVF still haven't brought Pamela and Dave the baby they long for. Their marriage is now so rocky, they need hiking boots and crampons just to negotiate dinner. So they probably shouldn't be moving out of London for office-bound softie Dave to follow his dream of running an organic strawberry farm. Especially as out there in the countryside is devastatingly handsome farmer, Lachlan Murray. While Dave takes up chanting and becomes obsessed with manure, Pamela wonders if she should escape to Lachlan's Land Rover. Although there's Lachlan's wife, Rosie, to consider. Her London friends think she's gone insane, but they don't know just how far Pamela is prepared to go for a baby.

Thoughts

Pamela and her husband Dave are living in London, struggling to find time for each other and trying desperately to have a baby. The IVF just isn’t working out for them and they’re tired and miserable and falling apart. So, they pack up and move to the country to run an organic farm in the middle of nowhere.

So begins a predictable tale of Pamela not fitting in well, finding herself a local hottie with whom she starts an affair. It results in tears all round until all the issues are resolved after some heart-wrenching, misery-inducing soul searching.

I could not relate to Pamela at all - I wouldn’t want to. She’s a city girl at heart, but promises her husband she’ll give the country a try. She absolutely doesn’t, setting out to hate it from the moment they get her. The husband is so nice, it’s hard to have any sympathy for her once she starts cheating on him. The way she breaks news and reacts to things really winds me up.

The writing is fine, although can be a bit confusing as Reid tends to switch between each person’s thoughts without a clear break in the text. Once you get used to that, it does start to flow a bit better. There’s plenty packed into the book, with the story quite a lot more complicated than I’ve whittled it down to here. There’s plenty of history for the characters, with a lot of current action as well. The trouble is, I just didn’t like the current storyline at all, with far too much cheating and heartbreak that seemed completely unnecessary. Overall, the whole thing just felt mean.

Rating: 1 / 5