The More You Ignore Me + Giveaway

Alice lives in 1970's England with her hippy dad and her crazy mom.  As she grows up, she see more and more of how her mother's spirit has been dampened by all her psychiatric medicines and one day she decides it's time to set her mom free.

She paid the pharmacist and turned to embark on the well-worn walk of the teenager exiting the chemist bearing a product she neither wanted nor needed.  p.131 ARC

This was definitely different from my usual YA fantasy fare.  It was more like the books I read when I was a teenager.  It's described on the back as in "the tradition of the Adrian Mole novels" and I got that impression right off.  It was like a cross of Adrian Mole and Susan Juby's Alice, I Think.

The More You Ignore Me was very poignant.  It was sad in places, and funny in others.  Alice grows up in an odd life, with two parents around but her mom has mentally checked out.  After an obsession with the local weatherman and an incident of nudity on the roof, her mom has been placed on a heavy course of drugs to tamp down on her schizophrenic tendencies (it's the 70's so the diagnoses is uncertain).  Consequently, Alice tends to dampened down her emotions so though things happen to her, the book reads like it is far away from these events, like Alice is not really involved.

I enjoyed this book.  I liked Alice and felt sorry for her whole family.  I thought her mother's family was funny and was amused by her love of Morrissey.  I liked her dad and I really wanted the best for everyone.  This was a good read and I'm glad I got it.


Won from Library Thing's Early Reviewers
Hogwarts: Muggle Studies

Giveaway!  I'm giving away my ARC copy of The More You Ignore Me by Jo Brand.  To enter, just fill out the form below.  Winner will be chosen at random.  US only.  Ends June 25, 2010.