A Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs

21 Mar 2009 - Oxfam shop

Clayton's novels are always delightful, with this one no exception; her lovely acerbic voice, reminiscent of Barbara Comyns', always lifts her out of the chick-lit canon. The usual scatty heroine, unusual hero, loopy secondary characters and mouldering old houses, mixed with gorgeous descriptions of clothes and food are all here, along with a jolly storyline and lots of atmospheric detail, in this case about the ballet world. Marigold spends the book agonising about putting her dancing before her parents, her love life and, in fact, her self, and is a lovely heroine we can root for as she comes to terms with the richer family her family has always been bound to, her mature feelings for her childhood crush and the show more injury that causes her to lose her greatest love, dancing, for a while. Add in a delightful and very much alive at the end pet rabbit, and there's a recipe for a lovely, escapist and enoyable read. show less

Marigold, who narrates this story, is a talented and highly ambitious ballet dancer. But, as we learn in the first sentence, she has broken some bones... this leads to her recuperating in her family home in Northumberland, and that's where most of the novel takes place.

Supposedly a social comedy, this book touches on some quite deep and controversial issues. There's certainly some humour, and quite a few caricatured people, but the writing is excellent and the main characters realistic and likeable. I found some of the early scenes rather sordid, but that's not uncommon with Victoria Clayton. By the time I was a few chapters in, I could barely put the book down.

Plenty of references to literature, music and the world of ballet, and some show more nicely intertwined subplots. A few surprises, some of which I anticipated, but not all of them. All in all, I enjoyed this book very much. show less

A lot of selfish, unpleasant people have sex with one another. I should have known better - I disposed of another unreadable novel by the same author not that long ago. To Oxfam it goes!

Marigold is a promising dancer.
But a foot injury sends her back to her parents house - which is not without it's difficulties!
The up-side of being back is being back near Rafe, who she has always longed for from afar.
Every girls dream seems to have come true, except...

Een vrouw moet meestal een heleboel kikkers kussen voordat ze achter op het witte paard van haar prins kan springen. Voor Marigold is het nog moeilijker: haar kikker blijkt een giftige pad. Het is Sebastian, de louche directeur van het balletgezelschap in Londen waar ze werkt. Hij stuurt Marigold na een pijnlijke val terug naar het huis van haar moeder op het Engelse platteland om te herstellen.

Meer...

Betekent dit het einde van haar danscarrière? Gelukkig ontmoet Marigold haar aantrekkelijke jeugdvriend Rafe, die staat te trappelen om aan haar voeten te liggen. Maar wie is die mysterieuze vreemdeling in de coulissen?