{Book} Small World - Matt Beaumont

* This post might contain spoilers *

I deliberately avoided the chick lit shelves - yes, there is a chick lit section at my local library. General fiction this time, I said. I looked at the books and picked one at random. I read the back cover, seemed complicated. Great, I'll take it.

The book is about how lives meet at random in a terribly middle class North London neighbourhood. It revolves around 3 couples, Ali and Paul (a shop owner and a journalist), Siobhan and Dom  (SAHM to 4 and comedian) and Kate and Marco (head of HR and god-knows-what, even though someone mentions graphic or web designer at some point), their children or lack thereof, the help and not-so-random people they meet along the way.

The format is interesting, it switches points-of-view all the time, as if you are in the head of the characters. Because chick lit probably turned my brain into mush For some reason, I struggled the get the hang of it in the beginning and nearly gave up, but I found it got better as I went along.

I found it slightly disturbing that the weird one has my father's and brother's name. Actually, everything about that Marco bloke disturbed me. What does he do? Who is he? Is he just a bit odd or is he actually mad (clinically speaking, I mean)?

In the same sense, I found the racism in almost every single character unnerving. If racism upsets you, you definitely shouldn't read this book.

Overall I thought it was a good book. Not great, but good. A quick read too - got it from the library Saturday. Possibly 3 stars if I was reviewing for Amazon.

One thing it did leave me wondering about is about the class system in the UK. It's complicated, isn't it? In my country, we would never ever think of someone who drives an Audi TT and buys a Mercedes Class M for the nanny to drive around as middle class. Maybe upper middle class. But then again, there are no nobles and titles and things like that in Brazil so upper class = rich people, end of.

And one final note: it must be incredibly annoying being married to a comedian.

Next up: Isabel Allende's Island beneath the sea.