If you haven't yet discovered the brilliant Joanna Trollope then this is the perfect book to start with. On the surface Alice seems to have it all, healthy children, a husband a lovely house and a job. It appears she could want for nothing. But there is one thing that downtrodden Alice wants more than anything. To learn how to read. For the first time in her life Alice takes charge with the book boy.
Alice is thirty-eight. She has a house, a husband, two teenage children and a part-time job. She thinks she ought to be happy. But she isn’t. Instead, she feels she has vanished, that she is like something lost down the back of the sofa. Because Alice has a secret which is never spoken of in the family as they are all ashamed, Alice most of all. Alice can’t read. Then two things happen. Her son, Craig, brings home his school’s leather-clad bad boy, a terrible influence. And Alice’s friend Liz tells her she’s tired of feeling sorry for her and trying to help. Alice — timid, quiet Alice — must start out on her own brave journey and for it she chooses the strangest companion. For the first time in her life, she knows what she wants and she is going to get it. With the help of the book boy.
‘Trollope writes with such elegant precision — revelatory and ambiguous at just the right moments’ Evening Standard
‘Trollope aims for the heart, and she hits it’ New Yorker
‘Deliciously readable’ The Times
Author
About Joanna Trollope
Joanna Trollope was our Guest Editor in February 2012 - click here - to see the books that inspired her writing.
Joanna Trollope is the author of many highly acclaimed and bestselling novels, including The Rector's Wife, Marrying the Mistress, Daughters in Law and City of Friends. She was appointed OBE in 1996, and a trustee of the National Literacy Trust in in 2012. She has chaired the Whitbread and Orange Awards, as well as being a judge of many other literature prizes; she has been part of two DCMS panels on public libraries and is patron of numerous charities, including Meningitis Now, and Chawton House Library. In 2014, she updated Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility as the opening novel in the Austen Project.
Alice is thirty-eight. She has a house, a husband, two teenage children and a part-time job. She thinks she ought to be happy. But she isn’t. Instead, she feels she has vanished, that she is like something lost down the back of the sofa. Because Alice has a secret which is never spoken of in the family as they are all ashamed, Alice most of all. Alice can’t read. Then two things happen. Her son, Craig, brings home his school’s leather-clad bad boy, a terrible influence. And Alice’s friend Liz tells her she’s tired of feeling sorry for her and trying to help. Alice — timid, quiet Alice — must start out on her own brave journey and for it she chooses the strangest companion. For the first time in her life, she knows what she wants and she is going to get it. With the help of the book boy.
The Book Boy features in the following genres: Family Drama, Fiction
The Book Boy is available in Paperback
The Book Boy was written by Joanna Trollope and published by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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