When
Georgie Sinclair meets her elderly neighbour Mrs Shapiro, this is the last thing
she needed to make her life a complete mess. Her husband has just left her for
another woman. Her son flees into a world of Armageddon and her job for a
company which produces glue also is not really satisfying. But old Mrs Shapiro
need her help. After an accident she is in hospital and due to her age, the
vultures are on the watch for her house in a financially interesting area.
What Marina
Lewycka can do like hardly any other is creating characters which are so unique
that they cannot compare to any other in the most positive way. Mrs Shapiro’s
way of speaking, her one the one hand hard-boiled but on the other hand loving
way of treating people, compared with her witty and clever mind make her a
rather strange but hard not to love person. She definitely has known how to
cope with life’s adversities. Georgie also gains character and profile through
the novel, she grows with the responsibilities. What I found most interesting
is the way her work on text related to all types of glue is mixed with the
plot. Albeit a bit strange in the beginning, they make more and more sense. All
in all, a novel full of extraordinary humour and great fun to read.
