Reviews for Saffy's angel

The average rating for Saffy's angel based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-03-29 00:00:00 Viv Live Saffy's Angel is poignant and hilarious, and very, very British, and absolutely fabulous. I don't quite know how to recap it without ruining the constant surprise of the humor, but why don't you meet the characters? Here's Rose: Rose was still awake, late though it was. She was painting a desert landscape on the white wall of the landing. She had got rid of her father very successfully when he telephoned. Saffron had hardly been mentioned; the discussion had been all about art. The desert landscape was the direct result of her father's telling her to start small and stick to painting only what she knew. Meet Sarah: "I will say I want to take my beanbag," said Sarah, ignoring Saffron's squeaks on the phone. "I often take my beanbag on car trips. It's enormous and you're not very big. I'll empty it out and cover you in the cover and pile a lot of stuff around, and they'll never notice. They're used to me having a lot of stuff. As you know. What do you say?" "Goodbye," said Saffron. "You have obviously gone mad." There's Caddy, of the debatable driving skills and immersive studying techniques and love of guinea pigs. She's quirky and individual, a quintessential Casson, but also a recognizable teenager, and I wish she was in the story more. There's Indigo of the photographic ears, who tries to combat fear of heights by facing it head-on - to be more specific, by dangling his feet off his second-story bedroom windowsill. (Don't worry, though, he can hold onto the curtains; they're very sturdy.) And, of course, there's Saffron, the Saffy of the title, who isn't on the Casson color chart. Who meets Sarah, the girl next door, and finds out that maybe Eve isn't just messing around painting in the shed.Who is willed a stone angel by her grandfather - a stone angel that is missing. I haven't even mentioned the adults yet - Mr. and Mrs. Warbeck! Peter the taxi driver! The dysfunctional parenting duo of Eve and Bill! Michael the driving instructor! The book builds its characters very cleverly, with little anecdotes just real enough to be inherently humorous and smart enough to be intentionally, side-splittingly funny. Then comes the end of the book, one giant laugh-out-loud conclusion as all the pieces come together in ridiculous, unexpected ways complete with sparkling dialogue and notes from Rose. (The notes from Rose are not to be missed.) This isn't much of a review - in fact, I'm amazed I got out this much - and it's fractured because I've been rereading chapters and checking paperback prices in between paragraphs. Saffy's Angel is that great.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-06-22 00:00:00 Eric W Johnson A LiveJournal friend introduced me to the novels of Hilary McKay. They are not fantasies or science fiction, and yet one of their attractions is that peculiar timelessness of certain types of family novels that center around kids, as written by English authors. Well, no, a few Americans have done them, though not many as far as I know. Elizabeth Enright being one. But anyway, they remind me of Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle and Antonia Forest's Marlows (note just how much used copies go for!). It's not that the characters live sunny lives full of fun and games, a la the delightful summers of Swallows and Amazons'the emotions can be quite harrowing, all the moreso because they resonate with truth. But at the core there is deep family love, and no attempt made to divide people into bad guys and good guys: just stories about delightfully quirky people trying to make sense of the world. And when the world tries to reshape one into conformity, there is the family ready to accept you back as you, with all your warts. Saffy's Angel begins with the Cassons when they are small, and one by one we get to know them, and their friends, and even the parents (who are not boring at all) in this lovely, lovely book and series.