Will Silvia, who’s in a coma in the hospital, ever speak again? If not, then her visitors, friends and family will help piece together her story, while also revealing their own.

She has also, over the past three or so years, spent a lot of time dissecting the nature of marriage. When she was writing her novel (which begins with a visit from Silvia's ex-husband, still trying to work out what the power relationships were in their marriage, how they capsized) she was acting alongside Alfred Molina in BBC2 sitcom Roger and Val Have Just Got In. Set in real time, in the half hour when they get home from work every day, it is "a piece about the intricacies, and the smallness of a marriage," the day-to-day glue, particularly when, as in the case of Roger and Val, they are in the process of surviving the death of a baby, distracting each other, as French puts it, "with play and constant blether". French has described the sitcom as "like stealing money from the comedy department to make a drama"; it was reviewed in this paper as "not … comedy as we know it, but Roger & Val manages to mix beautifully written dialogue with a quiet observational humour that can nevertheless leave the viewer gasping for air"; French's performance was one of the best of her career. Although French didn't write the sitcom (twins Beth and Emma Kilcoyne did that), the idea for it was hers, developed while her real-life, 25-year marriage to Lenny Henry was breaking up. Oh Dear Silvia is the brand new novel from one of Britain's most loved comic writers and the number one bestselling author of A Tiny Bit Marvellous. Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives. I loved it. Having just finished, and thinking about the book as a whole, it is very assured and from one you might think is an experienced writer.How does she think comedy has changed since she started out? For instance, it's hard to escape at the moment a strong thread of cruelty, of which comedians such as Frankie Boyle are the apogee. "Yes, I agree. But maybe it's a bit like buses – maybe quite a lot of cruel comedians just happen to be in the ether at the moment. [Maybe] it'll pass, and then we'll get lots of lovely people pretending to be animals for a while. That would be great," she laughs. The housekeeper Tia almost seemed like an irrelevant character only brought in to show cultural diversity and an extra point of view. I did think that Tia was very stereotypical; she is an Asian housekeeper stealing from her employer to make some more money who calls Silvia 'Mrs Shit' and apparently doesn't want to understand why her sons laugh at her when they teach her new words (which are actually expletives). I couldn't fully understand why Tia was there as a character because she had no real emotional connection with her employer and therefore it seemed odd that she would be visiting her in hospital. The visitors Silvia receives range from her sister, daughter, ex-husband and friend through to her housekeeper and nurse. I’ll admit that I found it quite difficult to keep up with who everyone was, even in the later stages of the book I had to keep reminding myself who was who and what kind of relationship they had with Silvia largely because the chapters were quite short. Nevertheless every character had merit, and I liked the way each character and their visits throughout the novel helped you learn something new about Silvia, and them, and effectively shapes how you feel as a reader towards Silvia as the book evolves.

I really wanted to like this book and in fact I had mentioned it enough times that my boyfriend bought this for my 21st birthday (3 years ago, oh my goodness). I really just couldn't get into this book and I had some major issues with it. Starting with the character of Ed, Silvia's ex-husband, I struggled to understand why he was in her hospital room when according to him, she had completely beaten down his self-esteem to the point where there marriage ended and he no longer wanted to be around her. I couldn't understand the rationale for wanting to be there for somebody who supposedly broke you. Ed doesn't like sister Jo either and that just makes the whole bed-watching a chore and very painful. It also makes no sense that he was forced to sleep on his mother's couch when he owns his own successful wood where he spends most of his days. As she lies there, captive to the beloveds, the babblers, and the stark-raving bonkers who alternate at her bedside, the dark and terrible secret she has been hiding for years begins to emerge.Instead what I got was the tale of a complex woman, one misunderstood by almost everyone in her life, told through the visitors to her hospital room, where she lies in a coma. As I am meant to, I started the book feeling certain ways about several characters and slowly and with revelations suddenly found victims and their controllers were switching places, reasons for behaviours were shed light on, misconceptions were cleared. But only for the reader. Though there was the underlying sense of morality there was a level of humour through the events that occured within Suite 5. Unfortunately I just felt it was all too forced. I love the idea behind this book - The whole book takes place in Coma Suite 5, where Silvia, a friend, lover and mother lies in a coma. The story is told through several people - her ex-husband (Ed), her sister (Jo), her daughter (Cassie), her 'lover' (Cat), her housekeeper (Tia) and her nurse (Winnie). There isn't really a progressive plot as such, but this is more of a collection of memories, wishes and thoughts have about Silvia and how she has changed each narrator's life. I find books like this very intriguing, so I was interested in seeing what each person had to say.

The second problem I had with the novel is that it just doesn’t make any sense. I understand that the whole point of the novel with its multiple storytellers is that we understand how multifaceted people are and that different people mean different things to different people, but there is no cohesiveness within the character of Silvia. Even timelines were confused and illogical and changed inexplicably from chapter to chapter. Before I start critically reviewing this book, I wanted to first express my love for Dawn French. I think she is a fantastic person with a wonderful personality and brilliant comedic timing. I have previously read her autobiography, Dear Fatty as well as her first fictional novel, A Tiny Bit Marvellous, both of which I loved and gave 5 stars without question. This book was pitched as 'if you liked the previous books, you'll love Oh Dear Silvia'. Unfortunately this wasn't the case for me. The first problem I had with the novel is that two of the six main characters have their speech written in dialect – Winnie in a Jamaican lingo - “Right, sidung ‘pon dat chair, sista. Yu better start talking. Gimme some reasons for dis craziness” (p193). No, just no. Tia, the Asian housekeeper, oh so amusingly refers to Silvia as “Mrs Shit”: “Tia has been taught to swear by her two sons who were born and grew up in England, and who amuse themselves by cajoling her into using utterly inappropriate language. She’s not stupid, she knows they are having a laugh at her expense, but she can’t be bothered to deduce exactly why, and frankly, she doesn’t care”. Again, just no. It’s cringeworthy. After having read "A tiny bit marvellous" - Dawn French's debut fictional novel - I had high hopes for Oh Dear Silvia, but I was also slightly apprehensive. There was something magical (in realistic terms) about "A Tiny Bit Marvellous" and I feared she wouldn't be able to live up to this. And indeed, this novel is very different from "A tiny bit marvellous"; so much so that you feel slightly confused in the beginning. Is it a comedy? Can you even laugh about this subject (yes, you can, to a certain extent)? Is it a drama? Or a thriller? But I should have known I could relax: Dawn French is an excellent writer, and you're safe in her hands. Fantastic, passionate, compassionate, so much wisdom, a lot of humour, very real and credible' BERNARDINE EVARISTOTo explain my rating of this book, although there was a lot of elements of this book which I enjoyed, it did take me a while to get into it. At first I was very unsure about the book. There were parts that held my attention and some parts I struggled with. At the beginning, I didn't enjoy the writing, particularly the way most of the words were underlined for emphasis. I got used to it, then different dialects were brought in which, again, made me unsure. I did find Winnie's Jamaican dialect to be charming, though I was unsure about Tia. Tia is foreign and her children taught her to use lots of swearing and incorrect words when talking - sure, it was funny at the start, but I found it to be tiresome after a while and didn't like it. Our most serious character in the book is probably Ed, who I did enjoy reading about, but sometimes, in contrast with the other characters, felt a little dull. The dialogue is comedic at times which I found to be a small reprieve from the slowness of this book. Ed's dialogue really bored me. The characters are well-developed which I found to be a relief. Each chapter of the book is told by someone who knows Silvia. The main characters that have their own chapters being Ed, Cat, Jo, Cassie, Winnie, and Tia. Ed is by far the most boring character that could ever be in a book. All he mostly talks about is his boring trees. Whilst I did find him to be a well-developed character, I found him extremely dull and found myself wishing that he'd just stop talking. Winnie and Tia were my favourite characters. Winnie has a big heart, and it really comes across in this book. Tia is from Indonesia so has a hard time pronouncing Silvia's surname which always made me laugh!! I found Tia and Jo to be the characters that brought the humour, and they delivered! Cat is the high strung character, and Cassie is the angry daughter. Each character has a unique personality. Well done to Dawn French for making each character unique! Through each of the characters' stories, we learn more and more about Silvia. When Dawn French wrote her first novel [[A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French]] I was eager to read it, looking forward to plenty of silly humour and those elusive-when-reading out loud laughs. I was disappointed unfortunately, and actually came away from the book feeling annoyed with the characters and quite discouraged and depressed somehow. So, I approached her new novel with a little trepidation, unsure as to whether she deserved a second chance. I'm glad I gave her the benefit of the doubt!