Book info

• Title
• Author Dawn French
• Year
• Genres

Thoughts

I quite enjoyed Dawn French’s first book about a family working through some drama, told from various points of view and in very different voices. Oh Dear Silvia takes a similar form - each chapter from the point of view of a different character - but the story is vastly different. Anchored around the hospital bedside of Silvia, who is in a coma after falling from a balcony, the characters talk to her, tell their tales, and gradually the story comes together.

In all honesty, it was a bit slow-paced for me. I found the dialogue chapters particularly hard to read, as each sentence had to be read at least twice to make sure it said what my brain thought it said. The overall story was pretty depressing, how a family falls apart, but I guess there was some light at the end of the tunnel.

It was a good idea, and handled quite well, particularly the more sensitive points of nursing and death, but it just didn’t quite hang together as I might have hoped.

Rating: Unrated