Book Review: The Truth About Melody Browne by Lisa Jewell
The Truth About Melody Browne is Lisa Jewell’s seventh novel and is a complete departure from her usual works. Aged 9, Melody lost everything in a house fire - all of her material possessions.
But she also lost something more - her memory of the previous 9 years. Now in her thirties, with a teenage son, she goes out on a date one night to see a hypnotist.
After bringing her up on stage and hypnotising her, Melody collapses and it causes her memories to start coming back slowly and she begins to piece together exactly what happened in the first 9 years of her life…
The Truth About Melody Browne, as I’ve said, was completely different to all of Lisa’s previous novels (that I’ve read, anyway). Lisa’s writing style also seems to have changed. Yet there was still the warmth there in her novels like her previous ones.
The Truth About Melody Browne was an enjoyable enough read, I loved the plot - Melody losing all her memories from being a baby up until she was 9 years old. It’s not one I’ve seen before! I found it a bit hard going at the beginning and it took a while to get into the book as well as the jumping from decade to decade but eventually I was hooked and really enjoying Melody’s back story.
All of the chapters jump from the present day, to the 70′s of Melody’s childhood to the 80′s of Melody’s pregnancy and it takes a while to get used to as I said. I also found the whole book was focused on Melody in the 70′s than in the present day so we didn’t really get to know Melody or her son, Ed. We knew enough about them to care, but not as much as you usually learn, but that was fine by me. At first it irritated because I wanted to know more about Melody now but as we learnt more of her childhood I found I wanted to know more about her childhood than her adulthood!
I thought Melody was a fabulous character and everything she dealt with, past and present, she dealt with very well. Child Melody was incredibly brave and went through a lot of happenings - not all of it bad, but enough of it. It was great to read about Adult Melody’s search for the truth - taking her to Broadstairs and to different parts of London, reading about how certain places held something for her but she just couldn’t figure out what.
There were plenty of minor characters throughout the novel - Melody’s mother & father, Ken and his family (Melody & her mum lived with them for a while), Melody’s aunt’s Maggie & Susie, her father’s second wife, Jacqui and his children Emily and Charlotte as well as Melody’s son Ed. My favourite of all of those were Ken and I hoped the rumours about him were false because he was a really nice character.
I liked the fact that all of Lisa’s characters were real - they all had faults and problems. I really felt for Melody’s mum who also had a heck of a time.
The Truth About Melody Browne was really well written and, although it dealt with some nasty topics, was an enjoyable read. The way Melody coped with losing her memory and then piecing it back together was fabulous and she was a real fighter. She raised her boy single-handedly and made him into a man. Melody really is a heroine you will love.
Rating: 5/5
Tags: lisa jewell
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August 17th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I’ll definitely be reading this one, just waiting for the paperback to come out!
May 6th, 2011 at 8:59 pm
great read - it’s like having 2 stories in one book…keep them coming Lisa.
May 21st, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Personally, much as I usually enjoy Lisa’s books, I thought the story was far too hard to swallow. We’re supposed to believe that these memories of her previous life, which were so dark and traumatic she could remember nothing about them for the best part of 30 years, were unlocked in an instant by one stage hypnotist? Seems fairly unlikely to me.
Not only that, but when she gets back in touch with old family members and friends at the end, all of them are thrilled to hear from her and tell her all about how desperately they searched for her but couldn’t find her. This is despite the fact that she was adopted by a family who was in fact related to her, and whose names and adresses everyone was aware of. Funnily enough, once Melody has remembered them, all it takes is half an hour in an internet cafe googling their names and she’s reunited with the lot of them within the week.
The book was well written, as with all of Lisa’s novels, but the complete ridiculousness of the story made it hard for me to enjoy it. It seems to me as though she has abandoned thinking through her storytelling in the interests of tugging at the heartstrings with ‘darker’ material. Frankly, I was disappointed.