My Best Friend's Girl

by Dorothy Koomson

[Leah]

When Adele Brannon slept and had a baby with her best friend Kamryn Matika’s fiance Nate, Kamryn vowed never to talk to her best friend again. Two years later, she’s living in Leeds and is happy enough with her lot, until a letter comes in the post from Adele telling Kamryn that she’s ill and would like to see her. Without really thinking about what she’s doing, Kamryn heads down to London to see her former best friend and finds her dying of terminal cancer. Adele asks Kamryn if she’ll formally adopt her young daughter Tegan and Kamryn finds herself in a swirl of emotions as she comes to terms with her best friend dying and potentially becoming a mother to Tegan. Kamryn eventually agrees to become Tegan’s guardian and she suddenly finds herself learning on the job about how to look after a grieving five year old after Adele passes away. Will Kamryn be able to stick to her promise to Adele to look after Tegan, or will it all be too much for her?

It’s fair to say that I’m quite a fan of Dorothy Koomson. I’ve only read two of her books (Marshmallows for Breakfast and The Ice-Cream Girls) but they’ve both been fantastic reads and I’ve had all of her other books sitting on my shelves for months. Everyone I know says that My Best Friend’s Girl is her best – it was even chosen as one of Richard & Judy’s Summer Reads but I just hadn’t gotten around to pick it up. I finally decided to take the plunge, because everyone said it was great and I desperately wanted to be part of the crowd that says either “read it” or “don’t bother”. Thankfully, I’m firmly in the former camp.

Dorothy Koomson, from what I’ve read of her thus far, seems to do well when she’s tackling slightly controversial plots; she isn’t afraid of taking something you see so much of and turning it into a fantastic and unputdownable read and the same can be said for all three of her books that I’ve read. She really manages to capture the dilemmas she puts her characters into, even more so in My Best Friend’s Girl. In the book she puts Kamryn in a total catch-22 situation because who can say no to dying friend despite everything she may have done, particularly when there’s a young child involved? Exactly. That is how the story starts, throwing us right into Kamryn’s ordered life before she receives the letter from Adele summoning her to her hospital side and despite not talking to or seeing her for two years, Kamryn does as she’s asked. Then before she can even adjust to having a dying best friend, she’s suddenly looking after Tegan, Adele’s five-year-old daughter and trying to come to terms with her friend’s death.

When it came to Adele’s death, there was no holding back; I figured from the synopsis on the back of the book that it might take some time for Adele to pass away, but she’s dead within the first 50 or so pages. It was a bit of a shock; like Kamryn I knew she was dying but I didn’t expect it so suddenly. From then on, it’s all about Kamryn’s new life as mum to the lovely Tegan. Koomson holds no punches when it comes to Kamryn learning how to look after Tegan and it was pretty much a learn-as-you-go process for her and there were some ups and downs. A lot of the book appears to be about relationships. There’s Kamryn’s relationship with Adele, Kamryn’s relationship with Tegan, Kamryn’s relationship with her ex-fiancee Nate who is also the father of Tegan, and then there’s Tegan’s budding relationship with Kamryn’s new boss Luke. Relationships were a major focus of the book and they were all incredibly well written. It’s easy to see why Kamryn was so hurt when Adele and Nate did what they did, anyone would be, but I liked how there was still hope there that Kamryn could maybe get past it, particularly where Nate was concerned considering he’s Tegan’s father. I loved the burgeoining relationship between Kamryn and Luke and Luke and Tegan, he added a bit of sparkle to their lives, despite his and Kamryn’s rocky beginnings.

I pretty much loved every single character in My Best Friend’s Girl. Kamryn really spoke to me because she definitely had her flaws yet she also had her reasons for not trusting people and for not believing things people say to her. She’ll speak to a lot of women out there, and although I didn’t like some things (her and Nate, specifically), overall I did like her. Tegan, though, stole the book for me. I absolutely loved her. She stole every scene she was present in, even those early scenes where she was hesitant and frightened. I have a feeling I keep saying this about child characters, but I loved Tegan, and she is my favourite child character I think I’ve ever come across. I suppose the only other main character throughout is Luke, Kamryn’s new boss, and despite his and Kamryn’s aforementioned rocky beginnings, I did finally warm to him. Firstly because he and Tegan were so cute together but secondly because he really did become nicer and we learn a lot about him as the book progresses. Finally, we have Nate and Adele. Surprisingly, I liked Adele. I did. I shouldn’t have, but she seemed genuine. We don’t see much of her, she dies early on as I’ve said, but she has some diary-type entries throughout the book and through them we learn more about her. I didn’t, however, like Nate. At all. I just couldn’t warm to him and I he just seemed shifty and wrong and as if he wasn’t what he seemed.

Dorothy Koomson’s writing is brilliant. There’s no other words to describe how great a writer she is. My Best Friend’s Girl is told entirely from Kamryn’s point of view, with the odd letter from Adele thrown in which fills in some of the gaps of the Adele/Nate plot line. It was a fantastic way to write it, as Kamryn is undoubtedly our main focus and although she’s spiky and unable to trust, we learn why which helps us to learn to like Kamryn. I can definitely see why everyone raves about this book because it really did blow me away. I could barely put it down and I urge everyone who enjoys a well-written story to pick this one up as there’s a good chance you will not regret it!