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Marshmallows for Breakfast by Dorothy Koomson


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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

I have this on my TBR pile (along with The Cupid Effect and The Chocolate Run) and I did start the first couple of chapters then gave up for some reason. I will eventully get round to reading it someday :D. I've already read My Best Friend's Girl and Goodnight, Beautiful. MBFG had me in tears at the beginning for some reason.

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  • 9 months later...

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Synopsis from Amazon:

When Kendra Tamale returns to England from Australia she rents a room from Kyle, a divorced father of two, and begins a new job. She's looking forward to a fresh start and simple life. Kyle's five-year-old twins, Summer and Jaxon, have other ideas and quickly adopt Kendra as their new mother - mainly because she lets them eat marshmallows for breakfast. Kendra eventually becomes a part of their lives, even though she's hiding a painful secret that makes her keep everyone - especially children - at arm's length. Then Kendra bumps into the man who shares her awful secret, and things fall apart: she can't sleep, she can't eat, she's suspended from work, and the kids are taken away by their mother. The only way to fix things is to confess to the terrible mistake she made all those years ago. But that's something she swore never to do ...

This is a truly beautiful book which touched a whole range of emotions. This is chick-lit, but with hard issues that add amazing depth to this book. Kendra is good at running away. Something bad happened to her when she was twenty. It changed her. She became someone who didn't really feel, she became jumpy and she locked away her feelings. When a chance to leave England arose, she leapt at the chance, and off to Australia she went. But she fell in love over there, with someone who she couldn't have. So she returned to England when she could, and move into the studio in the Gadsborough's back garden. She has the shock of her life when she wakes up on the first morning to see Summer and Jaxon, six year old twins standing in her flat. She soon grows attached to them, as she realises their life is falling apart because their parents are getting a divorce. For someone who wanted to keep away from children, she quickly becomes their "other mumma", and can't live without them. So when their mum kidnaps them she is distraught. alongside that, she has to face up to what happened to her when she was young, and the reason why she left Australia.

There is so much addressed in this book. Ashlyn, the twins mother is an alcoholic, there is attempted suicide, rape and divorce. Brave issues to tackle in a novel, but Koomson handled all of them well, and she brought believable and realistic conclusions to each issue. She dedicates sections and memories to each issue and storyline so they are thoroughly examined. This in effect means Koomson can look into these issues properly, but it also allows the characters to develop in their own right.

 

I loved the characters, and Koomson writes in such a way that I was completely in tune with them. When the twins were upset or scared my heart broke for them; when they went missing I felt Kendra's pain and anguish - this is just a well written novel. I loved the twins. They were easily my favourite characters. They were so vulnerable and so easy to love. They were just gorgeous children.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a gripping book that I didn't want to put down. Well worth reading even if chick-lit is not a genre you usually enjoy.

9/10

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It is a while since I read this book, so it is not fresh in my miind. However I believe that when I read it I felt that no way is this plausible in real life (I know, ....it is a book after all!) and that Kendra could have explained herself/ her past life much better at times.

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  • 4 weeks later...

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