Because of You: The bestselling Richard & Judy book club pick

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This is the 1st book from the WP Longlist that I didn't like at all. In fact, I am even wondering if I read the same book 🤔 Because of You is a story of a mother’s love, loss and sacrifice and shows how those bonds between a mother and child can never really be lost. I have to admit to being rather wet-eyed by the end. You may well need tissues. There might be some aspects that seem rather far-fetched but for me there could have been no other other way for the story to go. This is going to be a short review because I read this book a few months ago, and the details have gotten a bit fuzzy.

Oh my goodness. This was such an emotional read with a difficult subject at its heart but amongst the emotional turmoil there is humour too. Dawn French handles the story with warmth and somehow even though a wrong has been done, the leading female characters feel so credible that you really care about them. In fact they all have vivid personalities, including the minor characters. There are those like DI Thripshaw that provide the comedic and toe curling moments with his malapropisms and crassness whilst his colleague DC Debbie Cheese provides the empathy. French can spin a yarn . . . which sets According to YES apart. Think the vicar of Dibley, without the dog collar. YES YES YES indeed Independent An enlightening and feel-good read offering a fresh look at life and how to embrace it. Funny and enjoyable to the end We Love This BookI could see the charm in the writing that others have praised in the narrative – it is indeed warm and heartfelt but sadly it really didn’t work for me. The publicists have highlighted Russell Brand’s one word comment – “incredible” – to promote the book but if you look up the dictionary definition of ‘incredible’ you will see that the word actually means “impossible to believe / difficult to believe. Extraordinary“. I am firmly in Russell’s camp. The story begins on New Years Eve, on the cusp of a new millennium. Mothers-to-be Hope and Anna are in a London hospital giving birth however only one of them will leave with a baby. Wise and poignant, Because of You is a story about mothers and daughter, love and loss, mistakes and regrets, and family bonds Eastern Daily Press The ending requests you to suspend believe to the point that you could also read the Graffalo and believe that the mouse is real. Hope is the grieving mother and as she leaves the hospital, the grief hits her particularly hard. She is wobbly and bouncing off walls on her way out. She falls against the wall right at the room where the other mother and baby are - and she opportunistically grabs their child. The parents are sleeping.

Obviously without giving the story line away, the premis of the book is the switched baby scenario. The writing in pleasant and engaging and it did hold my attention. However her narrative has more holes than my Granny's crochet blanket. She will have you believe that a baby is taken from a hospital, and the crime is being investigated by a lone detective sergeant and a couple of detective constables. Her treatment of the police is woeful and fuels prejudices that are quite unbecoming by authors of her caliber. I think she has relied solely on her fertile imagination in favor of any kind of research into police procedures' , or still birth hospital procedures. In another room on the ward Hope, and her partner Quiet Isaac, are nervous but excited at the prospect of the soon-to-be new addition to their little family. Hope and Isaac know love, true love, and their relationship is tender, with a shared appreciation for family, for kindness and for knowing what is truly important in life. Although the pregnancy was unexpected, both Hope and Isaac embrace this new future and are very much looking forward to this new journey they are about to embark on. Heartbreaking but redemptive, and lightened by French's trademark humour, this is a compelling read that will keep you poised between laughter and tears Daily Mail We can definitely understand the impulse in that moment. The hard part for her and anyone else to be sympathetic to is that she kept the baby. And so she does, for 17 years. Because of You by Dawn French is published with Penguin Michael Joseph Books. It is the fourth novel from the number one bestselling author and is described as ‘life-affirming and moving, a stunning new novel, told with Dawn French’s signature humour, warmth and so much love.’ Because of You was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021.But that night one gives birth to a very healthy little baby girl and the other faces the most unimaginable heartache when their baby is born a stillbirth. For eighteen years Hope kept the secret from everyone, not telling anyone her real daughter was stillborn and the daughter she has now, Minnie, isn’t really hers. But as time goes on Hope realises what she did was wrong and she needs to come clean, but what will happen to her perfect family once the world finds out? Fans who have waited five long years for French's fourth novel won't be disappointed: Because Of You is a book with a beating heart, a story told with warmth and verve Daily Express Now, the first thing I’m going to say about this book is that I have some complicated feelings about it. There were things I loved about it, but also things that I am still questioning. I absolutely loved Because of You. Fantastic, passionate, compassionate, so much wisdom, a lot of humour, very real and credible' BERNARDINE EVARISTO, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other

All characters in this book fit neatly into a box, they are either nice, funny, dim or nasty. There is an absence of any complexity , ensuring that the reader is not unnecessarily taxed by thinking. This is a good job, otherwise they may ask questions such as what happened to the dead baby which is presumably still unclaimed in the hospital at this point ! This was an awful book. I found the beginning and the end very distressing, and most of the rest of it farcical and not funny. It’s a Marmite book: I’m really not sure it’s one you could be on the fence about. It was a bit of a surprise when I saw a novel by Dawn French on this year's Women's Prize longlist since I knew she'd written a memoir but wasn't aware she wrote novels as well. Of course, I'm a fan of her work as a comedian so I was excited to try her fiction. “Because of You” is a family drama concerning a newborn girl that's stolen from a hospital by a grieving mother whose child died in birth. Minnie is raised by loving mother Hope without any knowledge of her true origins. But, when Minnie becomes pregnant as a teenager, the truth must come out and there are dramatic consequences as she's reunited with her birth parents Anna and Julius. That's a bit of a spoiler but I don't think the plot is the best thing about this book. Where it's most successful are in the lively characterisations and scenes which are imbued with a wry sense of humour. It also realistically portrays a racially diverse cast of characters without making the politics of skin colour a primary element of the story. The humor in all situations felt forced to me, the characters and their behaviors illogical and unrealistic especially for the situations they were in, also no character actually had real characteristics. I can’t even remember the names of them… i think the stillborn was called Minnie. That should tell you something, if i can only remember that name! It all felt a bit random and disconnected, jumping from one thing to the next. The time jumps in the book certainly didn’t help with that.

if you want something special and a well done and written story, that is heartbreaking and makes you feel with the mothers and the child that goes through what’s happening in this book? As if its want to be this light and fluffy story but the plot itself doesn’t really fit with that, and its too silly and full of plot holes that honestly don’t make sense, if the author actually sat down and researched a little?