So, after interviewing the lovely James Frey (pronounced Fry) at The Guardian, I came back from London with a stack of books. And it's surprising how quick you can read a book that's less than 200 pages long if you start on your train journey home. The book that was the victim of this? The Apple Tart of Hope by Ireland based writer Sarah Moore Fitzgerald.
Oscar Dunleavy went missing a few weeks ago, and is now presumed dead by those in his village. Meg has come back to the UK from moving to New Zealand a few years ago after Meg never responded to Oscar's emails for a few weeks and then received the news he's left.
The most interesting thing (it seems) about Oscar? He makes the most amazing apple tarts. Apple tarts. Why? The story probably would've worked without the apple tarts in any case, but it may have worked slightly better with the tarts. I was really confused about something else though.
Three characters are focused on a lot in this book, Meg, Oscar and Paloma. I know not how old they are, what their personality is like, about their family, I know barely anything about the characters. And that doesn't help. For example, at the service, they say that the front benches are for Class 3R. But then Meg, Oscar and pretty much all of the characters in the book talk about love. My experience suggests the number in the class code is referring to the year that the children are in. So if these children are in Year 3, I highly doubt that these 7/8 year olds are interested in each other in this kind of way, as in more than friends. That's something that should be saved for the secondary school grounds, preferably later.
Aside from the fact that I think that the apple tarts were pointless, they were quirky, and it added a lighter side to an otherwise miserable plot. I wouldn't, if I'm honest, have wanted to read more than the pages that were given, so if I had to rate the book, I'm not sure it would score too highly. Read it with an open mind if you choose to get this.
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