Book Review - A Crowded Marriage

A Crowded Marriage - Catherine Alliott

There are three people in Imogen Cameron's marriage - herself, her husband, Alex, and their son, Rufus - and that's the way she likes it. But that's all about to change...

When the Cameron's his dire financial straits they're forced to leave London and accept Elenor Latimer's offer of a rent-free cottage on her country estate. Ordinarily, a free home in the country is not to be sniffed at but, as Elenor is Alex's beautiful and flirtatious ex, Imogen is very sniffy indeed.


Any with good reasons. Once installed into Shephard's Cottage, Imogen's life is suddenly full to bursting with surly locals, psychotic chickens, a maddening (if handsome) headmaster, mountains of manure, visits from the infuriatingly bossy vet, and Elenor, who seems to be glued to Alex's side.


As far as Imogen's concerned, two's a marriage, three's a family and this...well, this is just silly, someone's got to go. The question is who?


First things first, I have been reading this book since my last book review. To be honest, since last Sunday I had probably picked it up no more than 5 times. It took a long while to get into it. I was bored yesterday so was forcing myself to read it and at page 200, I was expecting something exciting to have happened. But nothing major.


The book does take a loooong time to get into, well it did for me, but there are some really exciting parts in the book.

It is full of humour however. The Cameron's arive on the farm, in their cottage, and an agreement to them living there means that they have to feed and look after the chickens and cows. However Imogen is a bit slow with this and keeps wondering why the chickens are attacking her...

And her and her son Rufus name the animals. The cows are called Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Princess Consuela Banana Hammock. This amused me so much, being a huge Friends fan myself :')

Anyway, like I've mentioned enough the book took a while to get into. However, I've been reading it most of today and last night and it's been hard to put down. The end of the chapters (after around page 250...) all make you want to read on, make you want to find out what happens next. There are a lot of mini cliffhangers in the book which make you want more which is good.

There are three things which shocked me in the book. One involves Imogen's sister, one involves Eleanor Latimer and the other involving Alex. The one which involved Alex I am actually impressed to say that I figured out just before we got told. I don't know how actually, I just thought about everything and sort of figured it out in my mind.

I actually felt at home a lot of the time with Imogen and Rufus, felt part of the family. Alex was hardly there due to work and I was made - weirdly - to feel as though I was part of the family.

Apart from the slow beginning, the only other fault I have with this book is the ending. I can understand that endings are hard to write, you've got to close up everything in a couple of pages. But I think most endings of books could do with an 'epilogue' of their lives a few years later, just really bringing the book to a close. Because the ending of this book makes me want more, I want to find out about Alex's life (which would be hard to write about seeing as the book is writen from Imogen's POV...but it still could be done), to find out how her sister and parents are, to find about her own life and friends.

It's hard to do a book review without giving too much away. I used to be good at these but I haven't done one in what feels like ages. Sorry!

Anyway overall, a good book to read but you must have a bit of patience with the beginning. If you must, do what I did and read the last page. I usually do this with books I can't get into that well as it makes me want to find out how that last page did actually become, the last page.

:)
xox