She manages to weave humour and pathos through her books, making them eminently readable and slipping truths into them under the cover of odd characters and interesting situations. By the time we got to the bit when she was thinking walking to her ensuite to use the toilet was wrong, as she was "leaving the bed" and asked hubby to get some large plastic bags and tubing so she can deposit bodily fluids from the bed I was rolling my eyes and praying it got better, guess what? One moment you’re chuckling at Eva’s labyrinthine instructions to her inept husband on how to “do” Christmas.

The Woman who Went to Bed for a Year (Penguin Picks)

Characters appearing for no apparent purpose, only to be abandoned or just briefly sketched out - Sandy Lake and the anarchist, the Hos, even Poppy. Sue Townsend's latest comic novel taps into that universal maternal desire to, occasionally, throw in the towel.Obviously, I am aware that this series itself ‘darkened’ as Adrian grew up and matured but Townsend's transition to almost ‘pitch black’ within this book surprised me greatly.

The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend

The narrator, Caroline Quentin, did a fantastic job on this I felt, which made it all the more enjoyable for me. They have been followed by several more in the same series including Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (1993); Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction(2004); and most recently Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (2009). I appreciate the easy writing style but then it makes the book a very monotous read and yes, it is rather long unnecessarily. And then right at the end, we find out, in one paragraph, the one interesting and tragic thing that ever happened to her.I liked the way the characters unfolded and could sympathize with Eva's weariness with the whole repetitive and thankless domestic cycle. I reckon Brian’s pre-bed routine alone, from gargling and spitting to hunting for spiders with a fishing net, would be grounds for divorce, let alone his affairs, his sludge-coloured clothes and his interfering mother. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. Several of her books have been adapted for the stage, including The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾: The Play (1985) and The Queen and I: a Play with Songs (1994), which was performed by the Out of Joint Touring Company at the Vaudeville Theatre and toured Australia.

The woman who went to bed for a year - Henpicked The woman who went to bed for a year - Henpicked

The kids of this women are nerds but that doesn't mean that they are extra special and considered superior to everyone else. However much we all may loathe Eva’s vain and stultifyingly hopeless husband, he does seem to have a point. So many sensitive issues about marriage, child rearing, pregnancy, lgbt/gay, family, disability issues are dealt with very insensitively. I am begrudgingly giving this book one star out of five, simply as I managed to drag myself through 346 long pages and not reach the end, thus the one star is a feeble thought that in the last hundred or so pages it might have gotten better.Her husband Dr Brian Beaver, an astronomer who divides his time between gazing at the expanding universe, an unsatisfactory eight-year-old affair with his colleague Titania and mooching in his shed, is not happy.

The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year - Goodreads The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year - Goodreads

I’ll have to check out her other work when I get a chance between my regular true crime reads and memoirs.It is, consequently, an occasionally ragged book, its comic touches dissipated by lingering moments of bleakness. And, though the world keeps intruding, it is from the confines of her bed that Eva at last begins to understand freedom. For over thirty years, after the publication of her instant and iconic bestseller The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ in 1982, she made us weep with laughter and pricked the nation's conscience. I for one think Eva was completely selfish in her actions and wonder who on earth could manage to stay hidden away in their bed for months on end, while family and friends tend to her every need.