Der Klappentext verspricht ein Buch voller Geheimnisse und Spannung, doch wer darauf hofft, dürfte reichlich enttäuscht werden, denn viel passiert nicht zwischen diesen zwei Buchdeckeln. I chose this book to take with me on holiday for the simple reasons that I wanted something light and humerous to read and that as a fan of Dawn French's comedic talent I was interested to see if this would extend to her writing. The cliched attempts to breath life into these characters simply didn't work, and their cumbersome ways of self expression was extremely hard to read.

Dawn French’s voice is so distinctive and her bawdy humor and wry talent for comedic observation is evident when reading. Her first three novels, A Tiny Bit Marvellous, Oh Dear Silvia and According to YES, are all Sunday Times bestsellers. She’s about to do something unusually wild and selfish, which will leave the entire family teetering on the edge of a precipice.Yes, it was funny, but it was also sometimes touching, sometimes poignant, and even thought provoking. Now this is in the blurb right but somewhere in the middle of the story, it’s like the plot is not progressing.

In her career spanning three decades, she has been nominated for six BAFTA Awards and also won a Fellowship BAFTA along with her best friend Jennifer Saunders. Her husband whose inner self we see little of as, well he's just 'Dad', then there is Dora, a foul mouthed, self-obsessed seventeen-going-on-thirty-year-old and her divinely camp-over-the-top brother with a kind heart and damaged psyche who rechristens himself Oscar. Only one of them is on goodreads so Randi, if you're reading this, I'll try to be a little nicer in the meeting but here I'm going to be brutally honest.Her bestselling memoir, Dear Fatty, was published in the United Kingdom to critical acclaim, and her first novel, A Tiny Bit Marvellous, was a number-one UK bestseller. Whilst not seriously pretending to present a psychological analysis of family dynamics, I also found the book reaffirming in the traditional family values of reliability and dependability over the perceived attraction of infidelity and illusory excitement. French has managed to create some really vivid characters and through the chapters their quirks and values come to life. Mo is heading towards a mid-life crisis, although from what I can see she actually does have a life. I had high hopes for this book, but found it sadly lacking in originality, laughs and an engaging story.

The story is about a family -- Dad, who remains voiceless and nameless until the final scenes, Mom/Mo, a surprisingly uninsightful child psychologist, Dora, her 17-year-old ditzy daughter who sounds a lot more like a 14-year-old, and Peter/Oscar, her 16-year-old son with an Oscar Wilde obsession. This is a poignant novel by Dawn French which is told through the eyes of a mother and her two teenage children. However, the great laughs I was promised just didn’t materialise, as I only laughed out loud once – a huge disappointment. I didn't manage to read the whole thing, because I just couldn't cope with the exaggeration of teen Dora and the not-so-believeable Mo. Her narrative is strong in that without even looking at the chapter headings, you can tell that Dora is speaking.A Tiny Bit Marvellous may have improved in the last 100 pages, but I'm afraid that I just couldn't suffer through it to find out which is a shame because I so wanted to like it.