Advantages: entertaining, funny, relevant to current culture Disadvantages: disappointing sweet ending, social diagnosis replaced by psychobably one, second part weaker
Just to get the obvious out of the way, 'MayContainNuts' is a very funny, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny book. It starts out very promisingly: as a farce, really, an almost (but not quite, as not to alienate the potential readership) vicious satire on ridiculously competitive urban upper middle class parents hot-housing their children into Prokofiev appreciation and contract bridge; children scheduled, tutored and stimulated; never left alone to do 'whatever', never let go. Satire on paranoid parenting with mothers checking every label of every foodstuff and not allowing an 11 year old to walk down the road to a newsagent, never mind travel on a bus to school. Satire on public (private) education system of preparatory schools and secondary colleges thriving on pretence, snobbery and unshakeable belief that children who don't get ...
Advantages: Easy unchallenging and sometimes funny writing. Disadvantages: Cliched, repetitive and you may suspect you've heard it all before.
It was only really because I'd so enjoyed John O'Farrell's non-fiction book "Things can only get better" that I'd persuaded myself to try a couple of his fiction offerings "The best a man can get" and this one "MayContainNuts". Not believing myself to be a big fan of the multitude of "thirty-somethings relationship type books" which have dominated the book shelves of the local bookshops for the past few years I put off reading "MayContainNuts" for some time as not only was it a "thirty-somethings relationship type book" but it was also written from the perspective of a woman and I really thought I might have to struggle through it all.
Alice is what John O'Farrell would have you believe is your typical middle class mother, over fretful and worried about her children, their safety and their educational successes. She's the sort ...
Advantages: It will make you chuckle out loud Disadvantages: It will make you question your own parenting!
I was browsing the book sale list of Politico's Books website a few weeks back, and spotted this novel by John O'Farrell. The blurb seemed quite encouraging, and so I ordered it to have a read. The hardback cost me £9.99 as there was £3 off during their autumn sale.
MayContainNuts is a comedy, and follows the fortunes of a family with three children (elder daughter and two younger boys). Already the clue is there, as she has had more than two children. Unbeknown to her, she is already diversifying from the norm.
I think the title is great, as along with all the other things that a parent has to worry about these days (and I mean these days, as I am sure I must have been a very neglectful mother as I was totally unaware of the dangers that I put my four spawn into when I was bringing them up!!) that it is of utmost ...
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