RATING: OKAY
SPOILERS!!!
The novel explores how to carry on with life when your better half has passed away, and it is not yourself you have to contend with. Nick finds himself attracted to a colleague in the factory just four months after Kerry dies. Beverly is a good woman who shows her interest soon, and Nick falls for her. Yet, Oliver, his son, is outraged and shocked. The first time Nick kisses Beverly is at the party she throws on New Year's Eve which she invites him to. At midnight she pulls him toward the toilet and they kiss. And then as luck will have it, Oliver and his friends have joined the party, and he opens the door to the toilet and finds his father with Beverly. I find that part a bit too convenient and unbelievable. Would you open the door to the toilet in someone else's house without knocking?
From that point onwards Nick has to put up with Oliver's cold treatment, and Diane, his sister-in-law, is also disapproval and critical. In reality, Diane has never been very welcoming in her relationship with Nick. Beverly feels Nick hasn't treated her well when he refuses to answer her messages, but then they eventually talk and decide to see where whatever they have leads. Interestingly, Dora, his mother-in-law, is much kinder than her own daughter. Then Oliver also walks on his father and Beverly when they spend the night together the first time. This makes more sense, but again so convenient in the book.
Throughout the book we discover that Nick and Kerry's marriage was not always a bed of roses. Six years before her diagnosis Nick found that she had been spending too much money on things they didn't even need. We don't get any explanation why that happened. And he also had to confront her about rumours that she and the local butcher were having an affair. Kerry never confirmed or denied the rumours, but from then on she never saw the man again.
At the end of the book Beverly discovers she is pregnant, and when she is telling Nick, Oliver agains overhears them and gets in a strop. Nick lets him go, and tells Beverly that he wants to be there for her and the baby, and Oliver will need to accept. At the end of the book, which happens two years later they seem to be happy with little Archie. The factory where both Nick and Beverly worked decided to close down as a building company gave them an offer for the land. And Nick, Beverly and Eric had the idea of taking over the business, and two years later they are making it work.
Eric is one of the best characters in the book. Since he was a boy, he has been in love with Jen, Nick's sister, but she has always ridiculed and refused him. Feeling fed up, Eric decides not to pursue her and instead he decides to emigrate to Australia. When Jen learns the news from Nick, she gets upset and confesses that she does love Eric but she has always been afraid of being rejected. That comes from the time when Nick was a boy, and their father spent all the time with him and his two friends, and Jen felt excluded. At the end of the book Jen finally tells Eric that she loves him, and Eric decides to go to Australia just for a one-month holiday and return.
The part I liked most about the book is the parts in 1992 when Nick, Eric and Alex were ten, and they had the project of building a bike from a frame that Nick's father gave him. They were very happy that summer, but it was hard for Eric too. His mother left his father for the milkman and moved to Derby. Then she returned to take Eric to Derby and announce she was pregnant. The boys were very upset, but the separation only lasted a few weeks, and Eric returned, saying that his mother didn't want him there.
The book was okay, but I found it dragged too much. And I didn't like Oliver too much. He was selfish and childish in his attitude for a eighteen-year-old man. I understand that he had suffered a great loss, but I found his attitude immature to the extreme
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