The new novel from the best-selling author of I Don’t Know How She Does It takes us on an unforgettable journey into first love, and—with the emotional intensity and penetrating wit that have made her beloved among readers all over the world—reminds us of how the ardor of our youth can ignite our adult lives.
Wales, 1974. Petra and Sharon, two thirteen-year-old girls, are obsessed with David Cassidy. His fan magazine is their Bible, and some days his letters are the only things that keep them going as they struggle through the humiliating daily rituals of adolescence—confronting their bewildering new bodies, fighting with mothers who don’t understand them at all. Together they tackle the Ultimate David Cassidy Quiz, a contest whose winners will be flown to America to meet Cassidy in person.
London, 1998. Petra is pushing forty, on the brink of divorce, and fighting with her own thirteen-year-old daughter when she discovers a dusty letter in her mother’s closet declaring her the winner of the contest she and Sharon had labored over with such hope and determination. More than twenty years later, twenty pounds heavier, bruised by grief and the disappointments of middle age, Petra reunites with Sharon for an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas to meet their teen idol at last, and finds her life utterly transformed.
Funny, moving, full of beautiful observations about the awakenings of both youth and middle age, Allison Pearson’s long-awaited new novel will speak across generations to mothers and daughters and women of all ages.
My thoughts
In 1974 Wales, Petra and Sharon are two fourteen year old girls obsessed with David Cassidy and want to attend his last performance in England. Bill is an aspiring journalist but works for a magazine entitled The Essential David Cassidy Magazine. When the magazine holds a contest for someone to visit David on the set of the Partridge family Petra and Sharon do their best to answer each questions correctly and it is one hard questionnaire. Petra’s bubble is burst when she sneaks off to the contest with friends where there is mass hysteria and one girl dies. Back at home, she is punished.
Twenty-four years later while cleaning the house of her recently deceased mother , Petra finds the letter from the magazine stating that she had won the contest. Although, the magazine and th publishing company no longer exists, she contacts the publishing company that bought out the old company and before she knows it (after being considered a kook), she is whisked off to the magazine to made up and soon to Las Vegas to finally meet David Cassidy. Recently, having been dumped by her husband, Petra needs something in her life. And Bill is now the head of this publishing firm. Funny how that is.
This is a story about the struggle of life, whether a teen or adult. It is never easy. I enjoyed the nostalgia first half because I remember David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman and the girls all going gaga over them. The second half of the novel when Petra is an adult losing love and finding it again makes it all the more romantic.
The actual interview with David Cassidy at the end of the novel was an added bonus.
Disclosure: I borrowed this book from my local library.
1 comments:
Thanks for reviewing this book. I actually just won it and loaned it to a friend. I wasn't sure I was going to read it, but I think for the nostalgia, I will eventually get to it.
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