Review: Wish You Weren't Here

Wish You Weren't Here by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I requested a pre-release copy from Netgalley for review because I'd enjoyed one of the author's other books. I didn't particularly enjoy this one, though.

It falls into the "Britain is so grey and depressing, ha ha, the weather is completely crap, ha ha, and the bureaucracy and just society in general makes you want to kill yourself, isn't that hilarious?" school of British black comedy, which is not my favourite by a long way. The central family is dysfunctional; Brenda, the mother, is rude and controlling and engages in maladaptive coping using alcohol, without any real compensating virtues, and her husband is one of those people who is always smoothing things over because their partner is awful but he doesn't want a scene. Their son is moody and ineffectual, their adoptive daughter dramatic and snarky, and the only person I would want to spend any time with is the son's husband, who is, in many ways, the true hero of the group, despite having no supernatural abilities.

Rather than satisfactorily resolving the situation, the ending just leads on to the next book. It's not a cliffhanger, strictly speaking, but I certainly didn't find it satisfying and complete in itself. I won't be reading future books in the series.

There's some talent here. I was engaged enough to keep reading to the end. The humour is, though too dark for my taste, still genuinely funny at times. But it just wasn't the book for me.

View all my reviews