This book was the winner of the 1995 Whitbread book of the year award. It started of quite slowly, and it was hard to see where it was going, but in the end I got sucked into the narrative and enjoyed it all. Ruby narrating her life story from before birth (even before conception!) was engaging and personable - I could understand and emphatise with her well. The book had an English-y feel to it too, being set somewhere in North England (I think). The plot was helped by the fact that her family was a bit off-centre. There's even a very unexpected twist in the end, that catches the reader quite by surprise.
Just one thing I didn't like - the discontinuity of the chapters, when she intersperses Ruby's narrative with flashbacks from her past relatives' lives. They were interesting in their own right, but it was hard to fit them into the storyline. Of course, in the end everything fits together nicely, so if you do get stuck, keep soldiering on!
Rating: **** out of 5
