Synopsis: Told through notes left on the door of their kitchen fridge, reflecting the relationship between a single mother and her teenage daughter, and the way each reacts to the diagnosis that the mother has cancer.

Review: An original format for thought-provoking novel of the sometimes destructive pace of modern life. Claire is sixteen, and communicates with her single parent doctor mother mainly through the notes they leave for each other as each rushes about her own life with never quite enough time to stop and talk properly. Claire’s adolescent irritation with her mother’s expectations of her are expressed in the angry (sometimes bitter) remarks she writes in answer to her mother’s pleas for her to shop, tidy or stay in, which makes her feel like a ‘live-in servant’.

When her mother is diagnosed with breast cancer Claire varies between terror, anger and resentment – reactions which aptly express the range of emotions felt by those who watch a loved one suffer. As her mother’s condition worsens, Claire copes no better, and tries to escape the situation by going to stay with her father, before facing reality and returning for the short time they have left together.

Readers will recognize how we all neglect to make time in our lives to be with those who have always been there, and this is as true of mother as daughter in this powerful novel. Each woman comes to understand the other better through the devastating illness, and each also comes to understand better their own personality and what drives them. Sad – yes, funny – yes, life-affirming – certainly, and as valuable a text for adults as teenagers.

2008-01-25