Oh Dear Silvia: The gloriously heartwarming novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of Because of You

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It's hard to have any action, except in flashbacks, when the whole novel takes place in a hospital room. The nurse Winnie was probably one of my favourite characters and I really loved that Dawn French supposedly took inspiration from her ex-husband Lenny Henry and his mother. The book is a mix of humour, sadness, tough issues, abuse, possessiveness, relationships, violence, suicidal intentions.

Each chapter is about an individual character, often running as their own monologue of their thoughts about Silvia or the things they have to say to her. Throughout her time in hospital, she is visited by family, her best friend, her ex-husband, her nurse, and her cleaner. Instead what I got was the tale of a complex woman, one misunderstood by almost everyone in her life, told through the visitors to her hospital room, where she lies in a coma.Ed doesn't like sister Jo either and that just makes the whole bed-watching a chore and very painful. So when I picked up "Oh Dear Silvia", I expected more of the same - something light and humorous, something to make me laugh and forget. Nevertheless every character had merit, and I liked the way each character and their visits throughout the novel helped you learn something new about Silvia, and them, and effectively shapes how you feel as a reader towards Silvia as the book evolves. The concept of a person being multi-faceted was interesting, but it just didn't come across well in the book. Badly written, unbelievable plot, intensely irritating and most definitely not a 'hilarious' or 'side splitting, darkly humorous' read as the quotes say on the front of the book.

Additionally, it's hard to believe that each one of these characters would speak aloud and at such length to the comatose Silvia - pouring out their thoughts and dreams in a busy hospital. The motley collection of characters put together by French are certainly an interesting bunch and keep us guessing as to what they will do next.for me, a very mixed bag and whilst there are a fair few characters, each chapter is titled with their name so it is very easy to follow. I had no problems with the book being told from so many different points of view, in fact it was more interesting that way, however, each one of the characters seemed to either a) hate Silvia; or b) be completely ambivalent about her so I started to wonder why they were even there. These characters range from Silvia's family members, her friend, her cleaner to her nurse, Winnie, who really felt like the lynch-pin for the whole story. We meet her ex-husband, her estranged daughter, her best friend, her cleaner and her nurse, who all talk to the sleeping Silvia, revealing what has happened in the past. The first problem I had with the novel is that two of the six main characters have their speech written in dialect – Winnie in a Jamaican lingo - “Right, sidung ‘pon dat chair, sista.