Leah
Written on Jan 25, 2011
Since reading Lucky Girl in early 2009, I’ve become quite the fan of Fiona’s work. But because her earlier books aren’t so easy to get, I’ve still only read the one book, so I was thrilled beyond words when I saw Mum on the Run up on Amazon one day, and was desperate to read it. I managed to wangle myself a review copy and with the release date around the corner, I found the perfect time to finally pick it up.
The first thing I’d like to say is that despite how much I enjoyed it, Mum on the Run is a fairly typical run-of-the-mill Chick Lit novel. Yes, I managed to complete it in a day but it is fairly similar to other Chick Lit novels I’ve read in the past. The plot is one you see many times, after having a couple of kids (or in Laura’s case, three) the main character isn’t as slim as she used to be, there’s a new woman on the scene catching the eye of her husband and she goes on a diet of some sort to try and win him back. Very familiar. Not to mention, the obligatory nicer man who in this case is the loveable Danny. So although the plot itself didn’t grab me, and wasn’t as unique as Lucky Girl, I actually did like the book. It might have been a run-of-the-mill plot but Gibson’s writing style still makes it hard to put down.
The official synopsis says Laura is a heroine for the decade (or something similar) and I do agree with that, kind of. It’s very hard to judge who the heroine of a decade will be before the decade is over, but I loved Laura. Right from the shambles that was sports day when she made an absolute fool of herself, I was captivated. She’s definitely a character you root for, and boy was I rooting for her. It took me a while to warm to Jed, her husband, because he seemed very distant and into the new colleague of his, but I think overall he wasn’t a bad person, he just let someone new and shiny take over his brain for a while. I loved Laura and Jed’s kids, Finn, Grace and Toby, all three had such wonderful personalities and Gibson really excels at making her kids in her novels believable. I must admit, I kinda fell for Danny, Laura’s running partner, he was just so sweet and kind and I could see why Laura was friendly with him.
I must admit, as someone who doesn’t yet have kids and won’t for probably some time, if ever, I do usually find it hard to get into mumsy-type stories because I don’t truly know what it’s like to be a mother. But Gibson does a wonderful job of selling motherhood (or rather, putting me off for life) and it comes across in a very believable way, in a way that lets childless people like myself know exactly what it takes to be a mother. It definitely seems like a thankless task, being a mother, I have to say. Mum on the Run is told from Laura’s point of view, which was brilliant, and worked very well especially as it made us more sympathetic to Laura’s life and how much it’s stagnated since she had kids. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, despite the plot I’ve read many times before as Gibson is definitely able to put her own spin on the matter and her writing abilities are brilliant and she manages to capture family life perfectly. I really hope this is the first of many new novels from Fiona Gibson as I love her books.