Victoria Park starts with Mona and Wolfie an older couple on the eve of their sixty fifth wedding anniversary struggling to decide how best to deal with Mona's declining health and captures a single year of their lives alongside those of their friends, family and neighbours. In total, we follow twelve individuals throughout the year, learning of their hopes, their struggles and their thoughts and feelings. Told through the multiple perspectives of each character, switching effortlessly between them and staying seemingly connected, it tells twelve individual stories all connected to create Reeves debut novel.
And what a cracking debut it is! Full of emotion and quiet resilience, Reeves story was thought provoking and an absolute joy to read. Covering many delicate topics such as age related ill health, IVF and an acid attack that shook a whole community, it's not short of heartwrenching nor heartwarming moments that show we never know what is happening behind closed doors.
Set in and around London, I loved how Reeve's allows her reader to share in some of the most intimate moments of her characters lives and how each was somehow linked with the next. Each tale (which read like a short individual story) was interesting - some shocking, others emotional, all due to the differences of its varying characters and the stage at which they were at, in their lives. These tales together, show the bigger picture of a community that despite it's differences is closer connected than it at first, seems.
Clever, touching and so beautifully written, Victoria Park and it's residents will stay with you for some time after finishing.
And what a cracking debut it is! Full of emotion and quiet resilience, Reeves story was thought provoking and an absolute joy to read. Covering many delicate topics such as age related ill health, IVF and an acid attack that shook a whole community, it's not short of heartwrenching nor heartwarming moments that show we never know what is happening behind closed doors.
Set in and around London, I loved how Reeve's allows her reader to share in some of the most intimate moments of her characters lives and how each was somehow linked with the next. Each tale (which read like a short individual story) was interesting - some shocking, others emotional, all due to the differences of its varying characters and the stage at which they were at, in their lives. These tales together, show the bigger picture of a community that despite it's differences is closer connected than it at first, seems.
Clever, touching and so beautifully written, Victoria Park and it's residents will stay with you for some time after finishing.