You cannot choose your family (Let it Shine - Josephine Cox)

Member Name: Trishajs

Product:	Let it Shine - Josephine Cox
Date:	12/10/09 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great characters

Disadvantages: Not being able to tell a few people what I thought of them

Let it Shine is the story of different families in the 1930s. All living in Lancashire, but living in what at first appears to be different worlds.

Worlds where money rules and where it does not. Lives where hatred is the thread, lives where love flourishes. We see many other sides of the same coin- selfishness and selflessness, compassion and disregard. Greed, bitterness, regret, despair and grief are all added to the melting pot of their lives.

Family lives united or torn asunder.

Josephine Cox, the author really writes characters well, some you come to care about and some you learn to despise. You will get feelings in between , but there are very few within her cast of characters that you do not form strong opinions of.

It is what I would describe as a typical story type relating to life "oop north" in the thirties.

I have no wish to spoil the story, for you, suffice to say that lives that at first appear to have no connection soon reveal themselves to be intermingled.

A good writer enables you to form opinions of your own, to care, to visualize the scene. I did all this, whilst turning the pages to find out what happened next.

Turning the bedroom light out a night, only to turn it on again to read one more chapter.

It is not a classic or one I want to read again, now that I have read it, it will be going to the charity shop. Not having earned a place alongside the likes of Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare and AA Milne - the books to be retained forever. But I enjoyed reading it and that to my mind is what makes a book worthwhile.

Summary: Good for nightiime or for a journey