A young woman plots against her germ-obsessed mother's attempts to put her grandmother in a retirement home. Meanwhile her partner is straying. Amelia found herself capable of plots, diversions, and friendships she had never encountered before.
"The touch is light but accurate and telling. Her avoidance of sentiment makes this reader feel that she really cares for her subject - a really good achievement." - Elizabeth Jane Howard
"An original, painful, funny, fresh book." - Joanna Trollope

I took this to the BookCrossing convention in Mainz, hoping to read it and release it before I left, but I didn’t have time. I only started reading it on the train on the way home on 28 April.

Guppies For Tea by Marika Cobbold

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was surprisingly good! It has been on my shelf for 10 years or so, donated to the expat club’s book boxes. I had planned to release what I thought of as a light, fluffy, romance, maybe a humorous look at active people in care homes. I took it to the recent BookCrossing convention in Mainz, but it wasn’t registered and I ran out of time. I started to read it on the train on the way home and realised it was more substantial than I had thought. It covers a lot of ground: aging, dementia, the physical indignities of age, mental health issues and OCD, the lies people tell. Marika Cobbold could have played it for laughs. Instead she produced a well-nuanced story that raises a great many issues, without becoming heavy and somber. In fact, it made me cry, but not where I feel I should have cried.

The main character, Alice, has learned to mould herself to what other people expect of her, but disappoints her commonlaw husband, Gerald, who once fancied himself as an artist, but has settled for being a village solicitor. He is irritated by her scattiness and myriad enthusiams. As the novel progresses, Alice’s relatively restful life starts to disintegrate. After her grandfather Willoughby dies, her fiercely independent grandmother Selma seems to spiral rapidly into decline and is admitted to a care home. Meanwhile, her uncle sells Selma’s house and moves to Brazil and her mother Dagmar is no help: she has an extreme form of anxiety, which would now be termed OCD. Amelia is left to pick up the pieces, but feels guilty when she promises Selma that she will take her home for Christmas.





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This book has been released as part of the following BookCrossing challenges:
- The Ultimate Challenge - read and release books, with extra points for a monthly theme
- Reduce Mount TBR (To Be Read) - read and release books on the TBR list since before the end of the previous year. My reading goal is 36 books.

As bookguide enjoyed it, I will give it a try as wel :)