Blog Tour ~ All The Good Things by Clare Fisher

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be hosting today's stop on the 

All the Good Things Blog Tour

 

Published by Penguin Viking

1st June 2017

What's it all about...

Twenty-one year old Beth is in prison. The thing she did is so bad she doesn't deserve to ever feel good again.

But her counsellor, Erika, won't give up on her. She asks Beth to make a list of all the good things in her life. So Beth starts to write down her story, from sharing silences with Foster Dad No. 1, to flirting in the Odeon on Orange Wednesdays, to the very first time she sniffed her baby's head.

But at the end of her story, Beth must confront the bad thing.

What is the truth hiding behind her crime? And does anyone-even a 100% bad person-deserve a chance to be good?

What did I think about it ...

Twenty one year old Beth is in prison, she did something really terrible but at the start of the novel we don't know what crime she committed. Gradually piece by jagged piece, Beth's sad and sorry story is revealed after her counsellor, Erika, encourages her to write about all the good things she has in her life.

I found this sensitive and well written story so very, very sad. Beth broke my heart into a million pieces as she lurched from one badly made decision to another, none of which was Beth's fault but rather the fault of a system which let her down on so many levels. Naive and vulnerable, Beth could be any one of a number of susceptible young women who gets tangled in the nets of the social care system.  A system which seems to fail more times than it succeeds.

The author writes with perceptive ease and there’s starkness to the story that gets right into your bones and as the story progresses you just know it’s not going to end well. Like me you’ll probably guess what happened but that’s not really the whole point of the story. The focus is the route which Beth took to get to her point of no return and for that I commend the author’s delicate and subtle handling of a story that is so sad, it hurts.

It’s a story about a life fractured and splintered, of ruined relationships, uneasy role models and the desperate cries for help which went, largely unheard.

Best Read With...a handful of chocolate covered beans...

About the author

Clare Sita Fisher was born in Tooting, south London in 1987. After accidentally getting obsessed with writing fiction when she should have been studying for a BA in History at the University of Oxford, Clare completed an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. An avid observer of the diverse area of south London in which she grew up, Clare's writing is inspired by her long-standing interest in social exclusion and the particular ways in which it affects vulnerable women and girls. All The Good Things is her first novel.







Follow on Twitter @claresitafisher #AlltheGoodThings

@PenguinUKBooks @PenguinViking

My thanks to the author and also to Josie at Penguin Random House for their invitation to be part of this blog tour.

Blog tour runs until the 28th June so do visit the other tour stops for more exciting content.

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