IBG Tuesday Meetup - The Other Hand by Chris Cleave

Hi All,

We had a great meetup last week when we discussed How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran.

We all loved it and those of us that weren't previously are now firm fans of Ms Moran.

I expected it to be preachy and aggressive but I was pleasantly surprised. It was instead it was more of a memoir / biography. Starting at age twelve, we get a look into her working class upbringing in a large and very poor family and how it helped / hampered her development into a woman. She discusses porn, masturbation, waxing, body confidence, feminism, fashion, women in the media, motherhood and her own abortion among other things.

Her style is open, self deprecating and light hearted even when the topics are deeply personal. Please read it ( even you chaps!! ). I promise you won't be disappointed.

We then had a vote for the next book.

To my delight no other book were forthcoming so I got to choose!!

The next book is The Other Hand by Chris Cleave. Please see a synopsis of it below from Foyles:

" Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and Costa Novel of the Year, this international bestseller has become a reading group classic. We don't want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this: It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific. The story starts there, but the book doesn't. And it's what happens afterwards that is most important. Once you have read it, you'll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds..."

I've had it on my Amazon wishlist for months now so I'm really looking forward to reading it.

See you then,

Hannah :-)

p.s. I've put this on the second Tuesday of the month to give everyone an extra week after the bank holiday