My latest read was 'The Cows' by Dawn O'Porter, I've not read much by Dawn O'Porter before apart from the occasional column in Glamour (which I've always enjoyed) but I came across this book in the library on the new arrivals stand and thought I would give it a go. The blurb didn't give much away but I was intrigued. My mum kindly took it out for me on her library card as a) I don't know if mine still exists and b) if it does, the amount of money owed would potentially bankrupt me.
As I said the blurb didn't give much away, just that the story follows the life of three women who as it states are 'strangers living their own lives as best they can' and that one extraordinary event ties them together. The three women are Tara, Stella and Cam. Tara is a documentary maker, working in a very male dominated company, with a 6 year old daughter called Annie. Cam or Camilla Stacey is a blogger, she's built up her own website called HowIsIt.com which she voices her controversial (to some) lifestyle, no children, no husband just young lovers. Among other things, she is 36 years old but the youngest of four sisters, who are all married with children. Stella is a PA to a photographer, she lost both her mum and identical twin, Alice to cancer and has found out that she has the BRCA gene which means she has a 85% of being diagnosed with cancer.
I can't heap enough praise on this book. It cut between characters perfectly and it takes you through so many different emotions, hate, doubt, pity, a wide spectrum. It was funny and touching and at times extremely cringey but it was real, real life, real scenarios that women have to handle. I could never have predicted what was going to happen and those are the stories I love. I liked how relevant it was to today, with subjects touching on Feminism and Cyber Bullying. The book is quite brazen and the characters are daring and not what I would have expected from Dawn O'Porter at all, but actually really enjoyed, she writes about the things women go through, friendships, pregnancies, relationships, female masturbation. Which if you can't handle reading about this definitely isn't the book for you.
It's funny because without even meaning to a book can mirror what is going on in the world at that exact moment. A specific point in the book reminded me of an incident that sparked such a backlash a couple of weeks ago across all social media platforms. Hetty Douglas shared an image on her in Instagram story, of workmen in McDonalds, with a caption referencing GCSE's and essentially downgrading their intelligence. It was shared all over Twitter and has since made it on to nearly every online news publication. In an instant her life had changed, one small comment, one misjudgment can lead you to be a public laughing stock and ridiculed by people you don't know. It sort of makes you realise how dangerous social media can be, when things spread like wildfire. It felt strange reading this while something similar was going on in the real world, and I was reading REAL twitter comments.
My one critique and really the only thing I did find annoying was the character Stellas' naivety. (Which I suppose is just a tell of how well the character is written when it gets a strong reaction out of you.) There is a point when she is researching ovulation and she says about never having heard of an ovulation test and I just thought really? I've been reading other reviews since I finished the book, and some mentioned how certain scenarios were unbelievable. For example, when one of the men Jason, after his date with Tara, is hit by a cyclist on a busy London road and loses his phone down a drain while texting her back. Now this I think could legitimately happen, whereas a women who has had pregnancy on her mind for a very long time, does not know that there is such an invention as an ovulation test kit. Please. That is farfetched. Has she never been in a Boots or a Superdrug before?
To finish, I would recommend this to book to anybody and everybody, it is definitely worth a read and I think it will be one of those book that I will always remember, I look forward to hopefully reading more of Dawn O'Porter in the future.
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