Because of You is a glorious, beautiful book. I knew what Hope had done was so wrong and on many levels evil, but I also couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Grief is a strange and difficult emotion to control and I can understand the want to hold a baby and love a child like the one she had lost. At the same time, she causes so much grief to the other family by taking their daughter. Minnie is raised in a much lower social class than she was born into. The vocabulary of the incredibly immature Hope, and how she raises Minnie as her BFF, is really grating. While Dawn French's latest novel contains a dash of humour, it's also heart-wrenching The Hunsbury Handbook

I listened to this as an audiobook and as it is narrated by the author herself, there is a real quality of diction and a good variety of voices and accents. It is entertaining and well produced and you can tell that she reads the text overall with warmth and a smile. The author is a compelling narrator and storyteller, she is after all quite a national treasure. The humor in all situations felt forced to me, the characters and their behaviors illogical and unrealistic especially for the situations they were in, also no character actually had real characteristics. I can’t even remember the names of them… i think the stillborn was called Minnie. That should tell you something, if i can only remember that name! It all felt a bit random and disconnected, jumping from one thing to the next. The time jumps in the book certainly didn’t help with that. I absolutely loved Because of You. Fantastic, passionate, compassionate, so much wisdom, a lot of humour, very real and credible BERNARDINE EVARISTO, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other I grew up watching French & Saunders so I could hear Dawn French’s very distinct voice in my head as I was reading it. She’s funny and talented but I really disliked this book. It was upsetting and irritating in equal measure. Because of You is very much a story about a mother’s love. It is a tale of deep sadness, of regret and of anguish, at times uplifting but also filled with a suffering and torment. There are characters we should intensely dislike in this sometimes challenging tale but Dawn French somehow makes the reader have empathy and compassion instead.

But that night one gives birth to a very healthy little baby girl and the other faces the most unimaginable heartache when their baby is born a stillbirth. Florence isn’t noticed as missing for some time with her parents asleep and the midwives leaving them to rest. When the news breaks the hospital presume Hope left way before Florence was taken and she isn’t a suspect. Dawn French moves between the aftermath of that fateful night and 18 years later, when the explosive impact of Hope's actions is finally felt Daily Express

Unfortunately, Hope’s baby is stillborn whilst Anna has a beautiful baby girl she calls Florence. A few hours later as Hope is heading home she goes past Anna’s room where both she and her partner are asleep and she sneaks a peek at the baby. Little Florence lifts her hand to Hope and at that moment she loses all sense of what is right and wrong and puts the baby in her night bag and carries her out to the car where her other half is waiting. My review is of the audio book version, as well as the story. I’m rather an audio book novice – I have this terrible habit of falling asleep whilst listening to books – its not boredom – especially not in this case, but rather a voice in my ear soothing me to sleep! Heartbreaking but redemptive, and lightened by French's trademark humour, this is a compelling read that will keep you poised between laughter and tears Daily Mail Now, the first thing I’m going to say about this book is that I have some complicated feelings about it. There were things I loved about it, but also things that I am still questioning.

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I could see the charm in the writing that others have praised in the narrative – it is indeed warm and heartfelt but sadly it really didn’t work for me. The publicists have highlighted Russell Brand’s one word comment – “incredible” – to promote the book but if you look up the dictionary definition of ‘incredible’ you will see that the word actually means “impossible to believe / difficult to believe. Extraordinary“. I am firmly in Russell’s camp. Harrowing but uplifting . . . It is a book about mistakes, regret, forgiveness and unconditional love Daily Mirror I think feeling sorry for Hope also came from knowing that Florence’s dad was a self-loving idiot who would have ruined his daughter’s life, just like he did his wife. I like the way that Dawn French kind of made him out to be the baddy in the book, and that he was an MP too.

I read this book due to its surprise (to me) longlisting for the 2021 Women’s Prize – an explicit sign from the judges (the chair of whom blurbs the front cover of the book) that they were looking for a range of books from literary to storytellers. There are way too many holes in the plot. How could someone commit a crime of this sort and get away with it so easily with an ongoing police investigation (the police inspector was another one dimensional character) is beyond me. Whatever happened to the stillborn baby that Hope & Isaac left at the hospital? . I felt very emotionally engaged by the opening section of this book but, as the story progressed, it came to feel increasingly melodramatic and sentimental so it turned into something like a soap opera. The characters' actions seemed more directed by the plot rather than feeling logical or real. In particular, I felt the character of Anna was thinly drawn and it was hard for me to believe she'd act so graciously given the circumstances. There are some funny and tender moments within the story but overall it felt a bit too forced for me to fully enjoy it or find it impactful. It's a bit unfair to react to French's writing in connection to her celebrity status. However, I feel like there are some well-known public figures such as Graham Norton who've written popular novels which are fine but they probably receive undue attention just because the authors are already known to the public. I probably wouldn't be so harsh criticising this novel if I weren't reading it in the context of a book prize because I think it's mostly enjoyable, but I don't think it's as impactful as the other books listed for this award. Told with French's unfailing wit and warmth, Because Of You is the tale of family bonds and the mother-daughter relationships that ultimately make us who we are IndependentWarning: Stillbirth and a stolen newborn are mentioned in this review as they are brought up in this book.* Because of You is a story of a mother’s love, loss and sacrifice and shows how those bonds between a mother and child can never really be lost. I have to admit to being rather wet-eyed by the end. You may well need tissues. There might be some aspects that seem rather far-fetched but for me there could have been no other other way for the story to go. As if its want to be this light and fluffy story but the plot itself doesn’t really fit with that, and its too silly and full of plot holes that honestly don’t make sense, if the author actually sat down and researched a little? Dawn French said in her interview that she wanted to explore the themes of nature vs nurture and loss. Honestly, the very thought of hinging the exploration of nature vs nurture on a stolen baby and a stillbirth makes me uncomfortable as a parent. The exploration of loss felt no more than a lip service as it seemed like the author wanted to generate warm feelings for Hope in the readers' minds, so she conveniently chose to sideline the grief of Anna. Maybe it's me, but I fail to see why there should even be an expectation of warm feelings here for someone who committed the unimaginable crime of stealing a newborn, no matter what circumstances drove her to do it or how much effort she put into raising that baby. As a parent, this not only felt disturbing to me but it also felt offensive. Fans who have waited five long years for French's fourth novel won't be disappointed: Because Of You is a book with a beating heart, a story told with warmth and verve Daily Express