My Favourite Mistake | Marian Keyes
REVIEWED BY LINDA HILL
Marian Keyes is back! The highly anticipated My Favourite Mistake exceeds every expectation. It’s a cracker.
Disenchanted with her life promoting cosmetics in America, Anna returns to Ireland at a loose end. When her friend Brigit calls on Anna’s PR skills to calm antagonism against her proposed upmarket retreat in Maumtully, Anna takes on more than just the community.
The book’s conversational tone, emotion and wit is captivating, as it feels as if Anna is speaking directly to the reader right from the start. Almost every page brings either a hoot of laughter or a tear to the eye – often simultaneously.
My Favourite Mistake: book review & synopsis
Although it is a lengthy novel, the story races past with plenty of twists and turns. It is a brilliant portrayal of small-town Ireland where everyone knows everything about everyone else, including who is to blame for sabotaging Brigit’s business.
But this isn’t just a story about what happens in Maumtully. Rather, it is about the sweeping, fractured, tangled and all-consuming relationship between Anna and Joey, leaving the reader with an overwhelming desire for them to be together.
Although there is a wide cast of characters, they are all perfectly memorable. Fans will know many of the Walsh family already, but the other folk in Maumtully are equally vivid. And Anna is wonderfully relatable. In her late forties, her hopes and fears, her confidence and insecurity, her passion and ordinariness make her completely identifiable.
There are layered and interesting themes, too. We might expect, with Marian Keyes, consideration of family and parenthood, and of friendship and relationships. However, there’s also a sensitive exploration of personal growth, mental and physical health, menopause and grief. All this combined makes My Favourite Mistake mature and sophisticated as well as funny and affecting.
The book is about complicated, messy people leading complicated, messy lives, but above all else, it’s about love – in all its forms.
My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes is out now (Michael Joseph, HB, £22) and available from Amazon.
Read more fiction reviews by Linda Hill including The Intruders by Louise Jensen, A Lesson In Cruelty by Harriet Tyce, Every Move You Make by C.L. Taylor, Every Smile You Fake by Dorothy Koomson and The Happiest Ever After by Milly Johnson.
