As Jess’s dreams of working in a museum begin to take shape, there are other aspects of her life that she needs to take into account– her friendship with Alex, the cracks in her relationship with Guy, a revelation about her identity of her father that could fracture some of the most important relationships in her life – a lot is going on in Jess’s life and we feel invested in her journey as tries to navigate her way through the changes in her life. I couldn’t bear to put it into a skip so it’s currently in a crate with some others of their belongings in my loft. One year on, her boyfriend Guy wants her clutter gone (one mans clutter…) so they can sell the apartment, she needs to find a new home for her precious goods. This has been one of my best reads of 2022 so far and a book that will stay with me for a long time. Why not the sewing machine your grandmother spent so many hours on creating clothes for the entire family?

The Museum of Ordinary People is a heartwarming, addictive, charming story about a young museum curator and her discovery of everyday items that carry great meaning for people. This made it a very easy and approachable read without becoming inaccessible to those without a degree in counselling or literature. There’s a lot here that is emotional, clearing your parents home for a start and often putting their precious possessions into a bin bag or onto a skip as your heart breaks with guilt and love. Jess takes up the mantle of the original owner in seeking to preserve these treasures and let others enjoy them.

She decides to help out at the museum and become Curator of it and with the help of the owner Alex and another volunteer Angel to show the outside world what a special place this is.

I believe we could all use a “museum of ordinary people” to keep the memories and the stories alive. She turns down every offer of help when it comes to clearing out her mum's house, she wants to do it on her own over the period of a week.The house and every possession in it is steeped in precious memories of her mum, it had been just the two of them against the world. Jess Baxter lost her mother to cancer and must assume the difficult (often gut-wrenching task) of going through her belongings. What started as a break from the gore and gruesomeness I tend to read quickly turned into a newly discovered author finding his way onto my go-to list, which surprised me as this isn’t normally a genre I tend to go for.

In a narrative that goes back and forth in time, Gayle depicts how lives and families can be messy, complicated and chaotic in the real world, with unexpected secrets, lies and hidden deceptions, all which Jess has to find a way to handle. An old set of encyclopedias leads a young woman to a curious museum and one profoundly moving lesson: that every life is an extraordinary life.Alex, Jess's best friend Luce, Jess's old neighbours Dougie and Maggie, the museum helpers Dec, Paul and Angel - all had interesting and distinct personalities. It was much more difficult than she’d anticipated, having to make tough decisions because she didn’t have room in their apartment to keep all the things she wanted. This story is about Jess who loses her mum and in the process of dealing with the practicalities following death, she comes across the ‘museum of ordinary people’. If you have helped an older relative move out of their home or done some downsizing of your own, you can relate to the dilemma of wanting to save a special item you have no room for. I think this book really resonated with me because we have recently moved my never married aunt with no children into memory care.