Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle, 0224078674, Lowest Book Price Finder

Customer Reviews:

Disappointing

Having first encountered Paula Spencer in 'The Woman who Walked into Doors', I was eagerly looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with her in this book. However, I was disappointed by the novel. It was good to witness (on her terms) her struggle to establish a new alcohol-free foundation for her life and to read of attempts to repair or accept past mistakes. I was also interested in Paula's ambivalence about her daughter, Nicola, and her sister, Carmel: these felt like 'real' complex relationships. Too often, though, characters were under-developed and used as cyphers for Paula's struggles. This may be the nature of this 'inner world' type of writing in which the reader enters into a character's interpreted world with all its complexities, delusions, non-sequiturs, pettiness, as well as struggles, spirit and courage. However, it needs more creative handling than Doyle offers in this book.

Gloomy, though convincing

Roddy Doyle introduced the character of Paula Spencer in his earlier, much acclaimed, novel 'The Woman Who Walked Into Doors'. Reading that novel isn't necessarily a pre-requisite of reading this - I read it many years ago and couldn't really remember the plot - but there are some spoilers in this novel for its predecessor.

This story picks up years after the last left off. Paula's children are now nearly all adults, and she herself is making an effort to turn her life around. It's written in Doyle's usual, direct style, paying careful attention to the smallest and most mundane aspects of life. At times this can be fascinating, at others annoying.

Paula is a complex, well drawn character and one that you can't help but sympathise with. There's also plenty of humour and there's a definite vein of hope running through the story, probably more so than in many of Doyle's other works. Nothing terribly dramatic happens, it's not the sort of story you could film easily, but that's to it's credit and adds to the believability.

There were things I found irritating about the story at times, mostly due to Doyle's style of writing which alternating pleased and annoyed me. There is a tendenancy to jump around in time - sometimes between paragraphs in some sections - which I found very annoying. It's also a rather 'grey' story - I found the whole thing vaguely depressing and grim, even despite it's theme being more one of hope. Despite the flashes of humour, it is quite gloomy and unmemorable. But it is a convincing and well written, if not wholly enjoyable, read.

Fabulous

Is there any more stars available? I truly loved this book. I enjoyed 'The Woman Who Walked Into Doors' so much it was nice to pick back up with the character of Paula Spencer. If you haven't read the prequal I think it will help but would say it isn't a must. Well actually, it would make a lot more sense if you did.

The plot wasn't as good as the first one but still deserving of more than 5 stars. The kids are all grown up now and it was interesting to see the effect on them of Paula's life when they younger. The dialogue could have been a little better, I'm more of a fan of speech marks than I am of dashes; but that's personal preferences I suppose.

Well thought out, well written and well worth a read.

Are there any more stars available?

The Woman Who Walked into a sequel

I am a huge fan of Roddy Doyle and `The Woman Who Walked into Doors' so I couldn't wait to get hold of its sequel `Paula Spencer'. To say I was disappointed would be a huge understatement.

First off Roddy had abandoned the first person telling of the story which made Paula Spencer `s initial book so believable and the emotions so convincing. Also the third person story telling is chronological rather than the switching from the past to the present so that the story was not showing us the course and effect of someone's conditioning, which was so successful in the first novel. Also the themes were less dramatic, whist `The Woman Who Walked into Doors' takes us through the emotional ringer of abuse and domestic violence, `Paula Spencer' is more the story of a baby boomer coming to terms with the mobile phone and Starbucks coffee houses. Whilst I appreciate that these are thing our best writers should be criticising in print I can't help but think a character of Paula's backlog of emotional baggage could be better served.

It is generally excepted that sequels very rarely live up to the initial story but I was hoping this would be an exception to the rule as indeed most of Roddy Doyle's writing has been.

View more reviews or product details from Amazon.co.uk