All You Need is Love

by Carole Matthews

[Leah]

Carole Matthews is a highly-acclaimed author and has novels out regularly – she has had two novels out every year for the past couple of years. As a huge fan of Carole’s later novels that’s great news to me that she’s so prolific. I’ve liked many of Carole’s books (The Sweetest Taboo, With or Without You, The Chocolate Lovers Club & Diet and You Drive Me Crazy) however there have been a few I haven’t liked (Let’s Meet on Platform 8 & It’s A Kind Of Magic). It two I disliked haven’t put me off Carole so I was looking forward to All You Need Is Love.

All You Need Is Love is reminiscent of The Sweetest Taboo in the fact that there’s two men in love with one woman. All You Need Is Love tells the story of Sally Freeman – single mum and super-woman – who is fed up of life in a Liverpudlian “sink estate” and wants out. Out comes in the form of Spencer Knight, rich, handsome and charming. But what about Johnny, Sally’s ex? It seems he is still in love with her…

I really enjoyed All You Need Is Love. I felt it gave a different spin on a chick-lit novel. For starters, Sally is a single mum living on benefits whereas your usual chick-lit heroine is single, no kids and has a great job. I enjoyed that it was from a different perspective.

I liked Sally and found her a breath of fresh air from our usual heroines, as I mentioned. I found it irritating the way she constantly referred to herself as Single Mum & Superwoman; we got it, no need to keep telling us so. I felt Sally got better as the novel wore on, at first she just wanted to get out of the estate as quick as possible but as the changes came around and her opinion seemed to change she became much more likeable.

I also found myself rooting for Johnny, the hapless ex, throughout the novel. I thought he was a brilliant character and I loved his relationship with Charlie, Sally’s son. I thought Charlie was another great character but quite mature even though he was meant to be 10. Then again 10 years olds seem to be rather mature nowadays!

I didn’t really warm to Spencer to be honest, probably because I was rooting for Johnny. He was a good character I just couldn’t warm to him.

I loved all of the minor characters; Johnny’s mum, Dora (the Explorer!), Mrs Kapur. The community feel of the book was brilliant and thought Carole captured it perfectly.

The writing style of the novel was typical Carole Matthews’ style. We get chapters in first person from Sally but we also get third-person chapters telling us what is going on with everyone else. When I first read the alternate way Carole writes her novels it took a while to get into but it’s easy to read and gives you the novel from all angles.

When I sat down to read the book it was easy to get into and I found the chapters incredibly easy to read because of the shortness of them. It was good to know that if I only had 10 minutes I could read a chapter or three.

Overall it was a very enjoyable novel from Carole. She is a brilliant writer. I also have to mention the book cover – which is gorgeous! Carole is having all of her covers re-designed and these new ones are lovely. This one is purple with sparkly writing. Definitely one of my favourite book covers.

Rating: 5/5