Dunmore, Helen: A Spell of Winter

This book won the Orange Prize in 1996. It tells of Catherine and her brother Rob who have been abandoned by their parents and are living with their grandfather, in relative opulence but with many limitations. We follow Catherine as she "fights free of the past" and breaks the "spell of winter that has held her in its grasp" (words in parentheses from the backcover of the book).

Frankly, I was disappointed. It was shocking in its way, which in itself was a disppointment, but I didn't get it. Perhaps there was a hidden meaning I didn't get, as with some of the prizewinners I've read, but really, there wasn't much point to the story. I ended up despising Catherine for her ways - seducing and sleeping with her brother, getting pregnant, trying to get rid of the lovechild in a backward manner and then having to bear the consequences. And in all this, the brother remained very 2-dimensional, while the grandfather was more 1-dimensional, almost never there.

It was a very weird indulgent story, it was as if she wanted to write this just because she wanted to write a story about a brother and sister who fall in love with each other. Read only if you want to be grossed out. LoL

Rating: *out of 5