Making It Up

as we go along

Lucy Dillon

One Small Act of Kindness by Lucy Dillon

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(Note, Kindle was showing 0.99 yesterday – I think the book is currently in the Amazon valentine sale 🙂 )

I am a sucker for a hard done by book. It’s one of (many) reasons why our house is filled with books – I rescue them from charity shops, adopt them from boxes outside houses (seriously, a house round the corner from us sometimes leaves books outside with a sign saying free) and liberate them from library sale shelves.

That’s where I found my somewhat battered copy of One Small Act of Kindness. I haven’t read a lot of Lucy Dillon books, which is a bit bizarre quite frankly, given how much I enjoyed A Hundred Pieces of Me. (review here) It was because of how much I enjoyed it that I picked this one up, and unusually, started reading it within a couple of days of acquisition, and even more unusually, I’m reviewing it the same day I’ve finished reading it.

You’re bewildered aren’t you? Not nearly as much as I am.

That’s partly because when I posted up on my new book club facebook page (you’ve not seen it? over here…. I share my bookstagram pics and facebook book related giveaways I’ve found, as well as book related posts from here ) that I’d just finished reading it Candi from Oftencalledcathy pointed out it being in the sale. So I thought that getting a review live quickly might mean a few more people would find it while it was cheap.

I daresay it may well be shelved as a romance novel – there’s romance as a thread running through it. But there’s also a much stronger thread of self discovery, identity, friendship and growth. And of course dogs. It wouldn’t be a Lucy Dillon book without dogs really, would it? The most interesting people in it for me are the two main female characters – Libby who has just moved to Longhampton from London to help do up and run her mother in law’s hotel, and the mystery woman she names Pippa who she discovers knocked down in the road outside the hotel. That’s a good starting point for any novel I’d have thought, and this doesn’t disappoint at all. A growing friendship, a couple of relationship mysteries to solve, and a family in dire need of therapy are all untangled gradually over the course of the book, and while I wouldn’t say I couldn’t put it down, I would point out I read it over two guitar school sessions on consecutive days and then finished it at my earliest opportunity the next morning.

Which is pretty close to couldn’t put down, it’s just I have this complicated thing called a family to manage as well.

I also love the centre idea of an act of kindness wall where people leave post its with kindnesses they’ve done. If you’ve any acts of kindness you’d like to bob in the comments I’d love to hear them 🙂 Or if you’ve any great book recommendations to share, I think I might finally be in a reading mood again!

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A hundred pieces of me Lucy Dillon Read 52 book 6

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100 pieces of meRead 52, book 6.

A hundred pieces of meiconby Lucy Dillon will be described, no doubt, as chick lit, or women’s fiction. Because it’s about women’s things. Lives, illnesses, love, death. It’s also about men, and relationships, and a dog. It’s about careers, and houses, and work.

It’s glorious, and moving, and heart breaking, and even, amazingly, life changing.

Yes, I actually mean that. Physically, literally, life changing. I read it. And then a day or two later I found myself in the kitchen, hauling all the mugs out of the three cupboards they were spread across, and downsizing our motley collection. I put this squarely down to the effects of reading this book.

Which *is* about decluttering. Sort of. It’s about recognising what is important, and what isn’t, and having a life where you can’t quite turn around in your kitchen for all the things that don’t fit into your cupboards because they’re stuffed with mugs you never use is not quite how I saw my life. So, time to change.

(It’s not just about decluttering things. It’s about decluttering your mind, emotions, memories. But if I go into too much detail, I’ll blow the whole plot.)

Try the blurb.

As heart wrenching and life-affirming as One Day or Me Before You, A Hundred Pieces of Me is a story about what it means to finally live life to the full. Letters from the only man she’s ever loved. A keepsake of the father she never knew. Or just a beautiful glass vase that catches the light, even on a grey day. If you had the chance to make a fresh start, what would you keep from your old life? What would you give away? Gina Bellamy is starting again, after a difficult few years she’d rather forget. But the belongings she’s treasured for so long just don’t seem to fit who she is now. So Gina makes a resolution. She’ll keep just a hundred special items – the rest can go. But that means coming to terms with her past and learning to embrace the future, whatever it might bring

The story is cleverly told. Present life interweaves with object inspired flashbacks as Gina moves on from the end of a relationship, and works her way through the backlog of her life, now stored in (lots of) boxes. There are past climaxes and present ones, if that makes any sense as significant events from her history, still influencing the present are gradually unfolded before us.

It’s emotional, but never mawkish, and the strands come back together to a finely balanced but highly charged ending.

I can see me recommending this book to people left right and centre. And pressing it into people’s hands. Particularly anyone who hoards.

Now, I wonder which wall I can cover with a list?

I’d love to hear what you’ve been reading this week. Feel free to stick it in the linky, and grab the badge if you’d like.