Book Tour Review; The Girls from See Saw Lane

Summary:
Brighton 1963. Mary Pickles and I walked along the street with our arms linked, looking in shop windows. We were best friends and together we were invincible.

Dottie and Mary forged a friendship over a bag of penny sweets when they were eight years old. They’ve shared everything together since then – the highs and lows of school, family dramas, hopes and dreams and now, at seventeen, they’re both shop girls, working at Woolworths.

As they go out in the world in pursuit of love and happiness, the simplicity of their childhood dissolves as life becomes more complicated. The heady excitement of first love will consume them both, but the pain of unintentional betrayal will test their friendship in ways neither of them could ever imagine…

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Having A Friend

As soon as I read the synopsis of this book, I knew that I had to read it. I’m not usually someone who likes books set in the past, especially during a time I wasn’t alive but I love books about friendship and this one sounded like a book I’d really enjoy. And I was not wrong. This book kept me hooked from early on and when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it and trying to work out when I could next fall back into the worlds of Dottie and Mary. It was an intense, lovely, powerful and strong book that I loved from start to finish and was so happy to read about a sequel in the acknowledgements too – I am not ready to say goodbye to these characters and this world!

Always Be There

If you’re a regular reader of my blog or know me personally, you will know that I adore books that are character-led and so you can only imagine how much I loved this book. It’s all about Mary and Dottie’s friendship and their lives and the book just pulled me in and kept me there. I really enjoyed reading about their lives. I laughed with them, fell into shock with them, loved with them and cried with them. Their journey’s shaped the plot of the book and I thought it was well thought-out and brilliantly done. I hadn’t expected the ending at all and I love when that happens. I will definitely be waiting on tender hooks for the next book to come out and will be keeping an eye on Sandy Taylor from now on.

Is One Of

As mentioned above, this is a character-led book, so naturally it’s important that the characters are fully-dimensional and not flat. And boy were they! I loved all of the characters mentioned in this book and thier backgrounds and how they all were around each other. I loved how emotionally attached I became to them all and how much I just wanted to make things okay for them all. Personally, Dottie was my favourite. She was more reserved than Mary but still up for adventures. She went through the biggest growth and I just found her to be a brilliant character to read about. I loved Mary’s spirit. She was such a fiesty and fiery character, definitely an interesting one to read about. All the characters were so well written, it almost felt like you were surrounded by people you’d known for years.

Life’s Greatest Gifts

The Girls from See Saw Lane is a rollarcoaster of a book. It is emotional, intense and addictive. It will see you laughing one minute and then crying the next. It will have you grateful for the friends in your life and sad that you don’t have the kind of friendship that Mary and Dottie have – but also grateful for that too, in some ways. It shows how strong but also complicated and complex both love and friendship is. And it is just a novel that will keep you reading from the start to the end. I loved every minute of this book and cannot wait to read more of the story.