Product Description

Pippa seems to have everything in life. But suddenly she finds her world beginning to unravel. Amid the buzzing lawnmowers and suburban coffee mornings, she starts to wonder how she came to be in this place. The answer is a story of wild youth, unexpected encounters, affairs and betrayals, and the dangerous security of marriage. It brilliantly reveals the challenges of modern life – and all the possibilities that it holds.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #989 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Guardian
'Unrestrainedly, satisfyingly bizarre, and intensely cinematic.'

Daily Mail
Miller's astute, beautifully nuanced novel explores the unpredictable consequences of choosing to live a safe, but emotionally compromised, life.

Observer
like opening a series of Russian dolls, each intricately wrought, self-contained and self-revealing.

Customer Reviews

An Easy Read of Quality
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and devoured it in as few sittings as possible. It is the kind of book that, for me, has too many extraordinary plot twists and character traits to seem completely realistic, but the writing was so good that I was prepared to suspend belief and just go with the story.

The novel begins with Pippa Lee at 50 years old, married to a man 30 years her senior, and moving into a retirement complex. The first part of the book describes her current life, focussing on her relationship with her husband and two adult children. The second part goes back to Pippa's childhood and charts her wild and self-destructive youth up until she meets her husband and changes her life. The final portion of the book returns to the present day, where all is not right between Pippa and her family, and things have reached breaking point.

I found Pippa to be an interesting if not always likeable character. She seemed to drift through life, easily influenced by others, with little conviction about what she wanted or with any kind of moral compass. Despite this, I liked Pippa. I felt she was very much a product of her childhood and was just a confused, lonely person at heart. I was also interested by a lot of the secondary characters and enjoyed how the author managed to perfectly sum up their personalities in just a few piercing descriptive sentences or lines of dialogue.

Perhaps the one false note was the ending. Part of me feels that the loose ends were all tied up too neatly, within just a few pages, and perhaps the book could have gone on a bit longer to make the ending more realistic. Furthermore, there was also something that happened near the end of the book that just didn't ring true. I won't give too much away, suffice to say that there was almost a metaphysical element to the ending that I found unsatifying.

Overall, I have to give this book 5 stars because it is an intelligent, sensitive novel, and also a real page turner. Who could ask for anything more?

Oh dear!!
I rarely review anything, but this is such a stinker I felt I had to!

I don't think I've ever read about such an unconvincing set of characters in my life; when the book began I thought it was going to b a sub-Ann Tyler story of the American literary set, but then it changes to a series of flashbacks.. childhood, an'angry teen' riff, and then a few unsexy sex scenes. Every relationship seemed to be to sound a false note. I agree with the reviewers who found the book anoying; it is! I'm not sure if it's Pippa herself who's intrinsically annoying, or the way she changes character every 5 minutes... I 'get' that it's supposed to be a charting of how people can change ... but even so...

If you want to read about how a woman can change over the course of her life, as she adapts into motherhood and wifedom, then I recommend Anne Tyler's Back When We Were Grown Ups. It will mean giving up the sadmasochism, but it's a much better read!

Don't judge a book by its cover......
Another or Richard and Judy's recommended books. The first part of the book I was thinking to myself why have they recommended this? Do I really want to read about some boring middle aged old women who has moved to a retirement village?

But then - BAM! Part 2 where she reveals her childhood and growing up. Some shocking chapters which I really didn't expect to read due to the 'boring wife' character portrayed in Part 1.

An interesting read which really shows that you can't judge a book by it's cover or a person just because of the way that you see them. Many of the things Pippa Lee done when she was younger would not be what you think.

A good read with a sad end and nice twist to the plot.