BEDA Day 15

{ Reading makes you grow ,,
Originally uploaded by B a r ش a

I always thought that I read alot but the more that I look at my 100 Books list I seem to have slowed down. I managed to finish reading two books yesterday. I finished Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell but also finished The More You Ignore Me… by Jo Brand.

I don’t know whether it’s because I saw the film first – and also because the film Julie and Julia is a merge of Julia Powell’s book and My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme (her Great Nephew) or whether the book just wasn’t what I expected – I spotted bits of the film plot in the book and was able to identify the order (Although some of the events in the book are in a different order to those in the film)

I do prefer Julie and Julia the film over the book, however the book still has the inspiration to get cooking. I tried to find an Artichoke in the supermarket but having had a read of Wikipedia it looks like it’s out of season in the Summer (and the Boeuf Bourguignon challenge is to follow).

The More You Ignore Me was definitely a bit out there lol. It deals alot with mental illness especially seen through the eyes of a child. Alice, that child, starts the book at around the age of 5 or 6 – with her first major encounter with her Mum’s illness. The book then finishes at around age 20. I would say that most of the plot is how Alice deals with her Mum’s schizophrenia.

Alice’s major encounter with her Mum’s illness is when Gina becomes obsessed with the weather reporter from one of the TV stations, Gina climbs on to the roof of their cottage with no clothes on – refusing to come down until she is able to tell the forecaster how she feels about him.

After a little coaxing, Alice’s Dad is able to get her down and somehow (and will some force) manages to get Gina (Alice’s Mum) to the local psychiatric ward. She then spends the next 15 years on drugs to keep the illness at bay.

Alice has a lot to deal with during this time, her Dad brings her up single handedly – the in laws on both side are involved but neither really admit what is going on – Gina’s parents just think she’s having a funny turn and that it’ll be over soon whereas Gina’s In Laws (Keith’s parents) think she’s not good enough for their Keith and so generally dislike her anyway.

To add to the family issues she is having at home with the half life her mother leads through all the medication, Alice has to deal with the bullies at school, who use her Mum as ammo to call her a nutter and equally other things.

At one point in the middle of the book it was really sad and in all honesty nearly made me cry. I wanted to reach in the book and hug Alice – not that thats really possible lol.

Anyhoo I would recommend either. I’ve now started a book called Sucking Eggs: What Your Wartime Granny Could Teach You About Diet, Thrift and Going Green by Patricia Nicol – me and That Boy were given it a while ago and it’s taken me this long to get to reading it lol.

On a side note of sorts: I received some fab post from Jana this week which made me smile :). I also received my stickers from Stick Up For Love so will start posting about that too including an interview with Chelle who is behind the project. And I won a Giveaway hosted by Roxy @ GrrFeisty and Trisha @ Mary Sew but you already knew that cos I told you the other day lol.