Quick, funny, poignant, but the strangest most rushed to an ending I've ever experienced. ( )

The first words of this, as narrated by Coventry Dakin are "I am beautiful and yesterday I killed a man." She ought to add that she's not exactly the brightest cookie in the box either. Initially this annoyed me, but she does have a kind heart and she gradually grew on me.
Coventry seems to have drifted through life, never really making much of an effort, trying to appear small and insignificant. She married Derek, who may well be the most boring man alive, and has two teenage children. As we discover through reading her diary, Coventry has been trying to expand her horizons by attending art classes under an assumed identity. As a result of seeing Gerald Fox trying to strangle his wife, Coventry hits him over the head with an action man and fears that she has murdered him when he drops dead on the carpet. At which point she runs away to London wearing her chimney sweeping clothes and without her handbag.
In London she encounters a range of different people, some of whom are rather more odd than others. They all expand her horizon a little, even if the life of the down and out in London felt to be sugar coated in the extreme. Her house mate in Cardboard city was the sister of a disgraced minister and money seemed to not be an object when Dodo didn't want it to be. All somewhat farfetched.
It was, in places, sweet, odd, mildly amusing and bizarre all at once. As a pretext for a woman to leave her life, the murder is ridiculous, but if you can look past that, Coventry does grow and find something about herself. Her attitude towards her family is, at times, rather at odds. She describes her husband and children as "drearies" in her diary, but at other times she describes the children in much more glowing terms. As to the marriage, well how Derek ever married her is surely an exploration in itself.
It had its passing moments, but didn;t seem, to me, to nest as a coherent whole. ( )

Well known as the creator of Adrian Mole, Townsend writes quirky books of comic satire, and although this one wasn't my favourite (that would be The Queen and I) there were many darkly funny moments in this entertaining novel. The story tells of Coventry Dakin a woman who believes she has killed her neighbour's abusive husband with an Action Man figure and goes on the run, finding herself homeless in London. No one else writes like Townsend who has a remarkably clever sense of humour and can imperceptibly weave political and social comment into the story. ( )

[magyarul lent]

I made the mistake of reading this book on public transport, chuckling through the whole journey. I love her sense of humour. Sue Townsend’s books are all laugh-out-loud funny but I’m also suffering tremendously with the protagonist. However, Coventry kept me at a distance from a certain point in the book onwards. It was rather short but with many characters introduced and then abandoned quickly. It was very enjoyable but left me a bit perplexed.

I appreciate that her dull routines were replaced by this chaotic life full of uncertainties, a whirlwind of new characters and events. I was sad and lonely and hungry with her. I suffered with her, then suddenly was distanced from her so much that I just read with interest but couldn’t identify with her any more.

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Nagyon szeretem Sue Townsend humorát. Elkövettem azt a hibát, hogy tömegközlekedési eszközökön (is) olvastam, ahol, ugye, furcsán néznek az emberre, ha magában nevetgél. Sok, nagyon rövid fejezetből áll, amelyekben sok szereplő életébe kukkantunk be, hogy aztán ne is halljunk róluk többet. Nem lehetett elmerülni benne, mert mire megszokott az ember egy környezetet, már pörögtünk is tovább. Kissé kaotikus, gyors, érdekes, vicces és szomorú. Jó volt, el is gondolkodtatott. Csak az elmerülés hiányzott. ( )

Plus a half star, especially for the characterisation. Never too predictable, but never out of character so a very satisfying read. Great sense of humor. ( )