Review of ‘Lost for Words’ by Stephanie Butland
I picked up this book in a promotion for Readers First at the Chipping Norton Literature festival – and Stephanie Butland was there in person to sign the title page for me. Little did I know at the time what a wonderful author she is!
Ms Butland has a really great strength in character creation. Her main character and narrator, Loveday Cardew, was beautifully drawn and we, as readers, could really get inside her world. We could envisage her clearly through her own narrative and how the other characters – particularly Archie, Nathan and her parents – saw her. It was also fascinating how Loveday’s feelings towards her foster mother developed.
Archie was fabulously larger than life, Nathan was perhaps – and in Loveday’s words – too good to be true. But then, Loveday, whose eyes we see them through, is a gloriously flawed and, for that reason, lovable character. The only character who didn’t – quite – work for me was Rob. I felt that there were a few words missing here.
The story itself unfolds delightfully and – suffice it to day – my tear ducts were working overtime for the last 30 pages!
The other bonus for me when I put down a really great book is the insights it gives me into a world I otherwise would not have known. I had the same feeling about the world and mores of the American deep south after reading ‘Huckleberry Finn’, and from Margaret Forster’s acute, especially visual, sensitivity after reading ‘Keeping the World Away’. Ms Butland gave me a far more nuanced, and probably more realistic, insight into domestic violence than is otherwise portrayed in the media.
I picked up this book in a promotion for Readers First at the Chipping Norton Literature festival – and Stephanie Butland was there in person to sign the title page for me. Little did I know at the time what a wonderful author she is!
Ms Butland has a really great strength in character creation. Her main character and narrator, Loveday Cardew, was beautifully drawn and we, as readers, could really get inside her world. We could envisage her clearly through her own narrative and how the other characters – particularly Archie, Nathan and her parents – saw her. It was also fascinating how Loveday’s feelings towards her foster mother developed.
Archie was fabulously larger than life, Nathan was perhaps – and in Loveday’s words – too good to be true. But then, Loveday, whose eyes we see them through, is a gloriously flawed and, for that reason, lovable character. The only character who didn’t – quite – work for me was Rob. I felt that there were a few words missing here.
The story itself unfolds delightfully and – suffice it to day – my tear ducts were working overtime for the last 30 pages!
The other bonus for me when I put down a really great book is the insights it gives me into a world I otherwise would not have known. I had the same feeling about the world and mores of the American deep south after reading ‘Huckleberry Finn’, and from Margaret Forster’s acute, especially visual, sensitivity after reading ‘Keeping the World Away’. Ms Butland gave me a far more nuanced, and probably more realistic, insight into domestic violence than is otherwise portrayed in the media.