Almost completely unremittingly depressing, yet I couldn’t put it down. ( )

Los mellizos Jeanie y Julius tienen 51 años y viven con su madre, Dot, en una casa antigua en mitad de la campiña inglesa. Julius sobrevive gracias a empleos ocasionales; Jeanie apenas sabe leer ni escribir. No tienen internet, televisión ni cuentas bancarias. Ninguno de los dos tiene pareja. Tampoco tienen padre: murió cuando eran niños. Cultivan verduras en su huerto y, cuando cae la noche, tocan sus instrumentos y cantan juntos. Sobreviven con poco y no necesitan más: su casa es a la vez su armadura contra el mundo y su santuario. Pero cuando Dot muere de forma repentina, todas las cosas de las que siempre han prescindido pasan a ser indispensables. Jeanie y Julius se enfrentan a un mundo desconocido e inabarcable y, cuando los secretos de Dot comienzan a salir a la luz, todo lo que creían saber sobre sus vidas se desmorona.

Con sensibilidad e inteligencia, Claire Fuller compone un relato desgarrador sobre la pobreza rural en el siglo XXI. Sus personajes luchan por salir adelante en una sociedad que no es del todo consciente de haberlos dejado atrás.

This story oozes with Poverty with a capital “P.” After their mother dies unexpectedly, 51-year-old twins are left to pick up the pieces of their lives. Little by little they discover that their mother owed money all over town. They owed money on the cottage they thought they lived in rent free, due to “an arrangement” their mum had with the owner. Money was owed to friends. Money was owed to the shops. Jeanie has had a heart condition since she was 13, missed months of schooling, and eventually dropped out. Julius, her brother, was tasked with the job of looking after his sister, and not doing well in school, also dropped out. Now, she can do little except gardening with her mum, while Julius picks up odd jobs around town. This lack of an education just adds to their poverty. After their mother dies, things get much worse. Eventually, secrets their mum had been keeping are exposed, but it is too little too late. This book should have been better than it was. It does have some very good ratings and reviews, but I don’t agree with them. It goes on much too long in the same vein. We get the idea - they are poor and much of it can be attributed to a lack of education. The twins do what they can to survive, which isn’t much. They don’t want to ask for help, either of their friends or government problems, but why they don’t is unclear. Even worse things happen to them. The whole outlook is bleak and depressing, rather than the uplifting and hopeful tone I think the author was going for. If she was trying to portray the struggle poverty brings, she succeeded. But the solution still eludes this family, and all I got from this tale is a feeling of utmost unhappiness at three wasted lives. ( )

4.5* This is quite a sad story of 51 year old twins. They have lived a sheltered existence with their mother and when she dies suddenly they have to adjust to life on their own and they are very ill equipped.

When I started reading the book I thought it would be a 3 - 3.5* read for me, however, when I wasn’t reading it I was thinking about it and it is a book I would like to re read in the future. ( )

For a minute I thought I was in 1920s Ireland
A disappointing novel. The descriptions of poverty and homelessness was full of pathos, primroses and pity. A misunderstanding, folk-singer siblings, a kindly gossip, a nasty lad, a woke young single-mother, subsistence farming, a mean-spirited wealthy landowner, a freckled and feckless lass …

Yet we have smart-phones and an up-market deli in a tiny village, and references to the effects of Brexit on the cost of organic milk. Plus an apparently generous welfare system idealized and exaggerated, appearing suddenly story-years after the damage is done.

Verging at times on Mills and Boon albeit a well-written one, I was uncertain what century or country I was in. In the cottage gardens reminiscent of those of Agnes in Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, 51 year old Jeannie tends her vegetables with love when she is not cooking, cleaning, worrying about overdue bills, or playing folk music about lovelorn villagers. Meanwhile twin brother Julius spends time doing odd-jobs and having a pint, or suffering PTS by throwing up if he has to sit in a car.

The narration is maudlin middle-class English which does not sit well with the underlying Irish vibe. Chapters are announced with the emotion of the previously read chapter, which is disconcerting. As is the nasal accent of the upper-class landowner, contrasting jarring with the dulcet tones that fit perfectly with the well-written descriptions of poverty. If only that there weren’t so many of them.

I can’t write any more or I’d spoil-pun-intended the story, and I would never do that. Or would I? ( )