Dawn O'Porter

When am I going to learn about impulse buying? Anyone who knows me knows why I grabbed this book – how could I possibly walk away from a book called the Cat Lady?

I should have. I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but this was the most gratuitously vulgar book I’ve read in memory and I mean gratuitously, graphically vulgar in that way that British writers can excel at and make it sound like that’s just the way everybody talks. I realise everybody grows more conservative as they age, but I’d have found this as over the top offensive 30 years ago as I do now.

I really wanted to DNF it after chapter 3, the first time the author wallows in the vulgarity, but I really hoped it was a one-off thing, the way so many author’s will have that one, obligatory explicit sex scene. In the space between chapter 3 and the next spree of vulgarity there was a compelling and touching story, so I committed myself to the end.

If this book had been written without all the how-disgustingly-explicit-can-I-get; if the author had left all that crap out – this would have possibly been a 4.5, maybe even 5 star read. One that required a box of tissues by one’s side. Because the parts in between are lovely, touching, and so often on-point about how much love and acceptance pets bring to our lives and how important they can become to us.

There’s a character in this book that’s described as a genuinely kind, loving, grieving man who hide his true self behind a wall of angry tattoos that cover his body. This story is exactly that – a genuinely lovely story hidden behind an almost impenetrable wall of graphic vulgarity.… (mehr)

Paper Aeroplanes by Dawn O’Porter is a coming-of-age story about Renee and Flo, two fifteen year old teens living on Guernsey Island in the 1990s. While Renee is the class clown, outspoken and considered wild, Flo is quiet and totally under the thumb of queen-bee Sally, who cruelly uses Flo to make herself more important. Yet these two girls find themselves drawn together and are beginning to develop a strong friendship which they both desperately need as each one has a non-supportive dysfunctional family. Unfortunately, their insecurities and juvenile betrayals threaten to destroy their friendship.

The author who herself grew up on Guernsey Island used her teen diaries and memories to create this entertaining story that was at times humorous while at others quite heart breaking. She captures both the times and the voices of these teens accurately as she portrays their good and bad behaviour as well as their troubled home lives. The dialogue strikes one as authentic and the book captures episodes of drunkenness, bad sex and the casual humiliation that the young seem able to dish out to each other so easily.

Paper Aeroplanes manages to be both poignant and innovative as it explores how this friendship both strengthens and empowers these two young girls and has the reader rooting for the two to reconnect and save their relationship. With it’s well-drawn characters and realistic situations, I found Paper Aeroplanes highly readable and one that I thoroughly enjoyed.… (mehr)