Book Review – Mutton by India Knight
This is a guest book review of Mutton by India Knight, by my good friend Rowena Paramour.
‘Here are some of the things I have started doing due to age. I am forty six years old.’
To say that ‘Mutton’ spoke to me in the first few pages of browsing, may possibly come too close to me admitting my age. However it was the very beginning where the character Clara listed some recently acquired foibles which my friend pointed out to me, and we stood reading these together snorting with laughter at the same bits and agreed, yes, we must buy this book.
You know that pleasure of sharing something because the fact that someone else ‘gets it’ simply makes your enjoyment even greater? Well that’s how reading this book felt for me. It seemed as though another woman, a friend, a mate was nattering away to me and she got it. She understood how difficult it is when you go out shopping and you don’t know which areas of the department store you are allowed into. You don’t want to be caught browsing in old lady’s mackintosh land but neither do you really want to be in teenage hot-pants shop either. Or how you might hate the discomfort of walking past a building site and getting whistled at, surely nothing could be worse than that, actually there’s something much worse.
And she also gets that while you love your girlfriends dearly, if one comes back from the states having become a yoga goddess and looking ten years younger it’s really hard not to get pulled into the whole to Botox or not to Botox quandary.
Do you need to be 46 to enjoy this? No in fact I don’t even think you need to be a woman. A romantic with a dirty mind, is how I have heard India Knight described she is also funny and clever and goodhearted and I am sure of all these things because after reading two of her novels I feel like I have found a new friend who ‘gets’ me.
SCORE: 4 out of 5
The simply marvellous India Knight. Follow her on Twitter and get her latest news and updates.