Review: Moving by Jenny Eclair

Goodreads rating: 4.02/5

My rating: 3.5/5

You know that essay that had to be 2500 words when you only had 200 words to actually write on the topic? Imagine how your professor felt when they had to read it. That's how I felt when I read this book.

I'm sorry, let's go back to the start. 'Moving' by Jenny Eclair is about family, a dysfunctional family. To be honest, the blurb at the back of the book misled me. It goes along the lines of, "Edwina Spinner... lives alone, in a house that has grown too big for her. She has decided to sell it. As Edwina takes the estate agent from room to room, she finds herself transported back to her life as a young mother...". Stupid me thought that she actually somehow discovered a magic time portal and traveled to the past. I took it too literally and I blame Mitch Albom's magical stories and my hyperactive imagination for that. You can imagine my disappointment. Anyhow, as the blurb says, the book begins with Edwina taking the estate agent on a tour around her house when she's ready to sell it - this took up the first 15 chapters, by the way. That's precisely 76 pages of descriptive details of all the different parts of her house with the memories attached to them. After the tour ends, Edwina continues to reminisce. This is when the author builds up the mystery of the family secrets which unfortunately for us readers was, as I was hoping not to be, anticlimactic. Following are excerpts of the parts that actually piqued my curiosity and as you'll see, they would always be at the end of a chapter and what do we do when we see cliffhangers? We dive right onto the next chapter.

The supposedly horrific events that tore Edwina's family apart didn't seem so bad to me. I have read, heard of and watched much worse. So maybe this book would be impressive to someone's who doesn't have much chaos in their life?

Anyway, if like me you continued reading, it would lead you to another character's story. This book is divided into 4 parts that's all written in third person about 4 characters' story of events from their perspective. The events date back from 1980 to the present and all the character's lives converge. In fact, there's a bit of redundancy in Eclair's writing as she repeats certain events more than once from different characters' aspects. Edwina's first part ends at page 119 with an introduction to the next character and it takes the author precisely 136 pages to describe how and when their lives converge. This is why I felt like I was reading an essay that was just elaborated on for the sole purpose of meeting a word count. The second character's part was filled with stories involving lots of adultery, alcohol and drugs that I would have preferred if the story had just continued from Edwina's perspective because although Edwina did talk about sex and alcohol too, she was also seventy years old and it's not often that you get to read a book from the viewpoint of someone that old.

So why does it rate so high on Goodreads? I honestly have no idea but I'm guessing it's because Jenny Eclair is a celebrity and her fans must have been biased in their ratings.

My favourite part of the book was the very last page for two reasons - it's context and the fact that it was the end of the book. As for the content of the last page, one of the mysteries is revealed, the one that I had guesses and was right about.

How was I able to rate this 3.5 and not lower, you ask? Eclair's writing is quite pleasant to read. I couldn't understand why I was still interested in reading details about parts of a house during the first 15 chapters but I figured it must have been because of the warm tone that Eclair set. She was also able to diversify the tone depending on who the character was, you could feel their personalities. Also, it was not the worst book I've ever read. Trust me, I've rated a book 1/5.

The book ends with a depiction of how forgiveness can be liberating. Every family has secrets and nobody is perfect. With all the mistakes that a family member can make, there is love and self development to catalyze forgiveness.

I bet you're curious about the book that I rated 1/5. Tell me, what's the worst book you've read?