Reviews for Guppies for tea

The average rating for Guppies for tea based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-07-16 00:00:00 Philippe Lavallee Selma Merryman believes she is moving to Cherryfield Nursing Home for rest and recuperation, not realising that her son Robert has sold her home and is moving to Brazil. Meanwhile Selma's granddaughter, Amelia, is starting to realise that her relationship with Gerald has run into difficulties. Amelia's mother Dagmar has always struggled with OCD so it falls to Amelia to make regular visits to Selma and try to keep from her that her home has been sold and she will not be going back. This book manages to deal with the truth about getting old and declining health in a humorous and entertaining way. The characters are entertaining yet completely recognisable. The author manages to express hard truths while keeping a comic atmosphere and it works. There are some wonderfully comic scenes, yet ones that we might identify with. Dagmar is sure she should have lived a different life but while normal mothers fretted over the Cold War and what Mick Jagger's lips might do to their daughter's innocence, she had spent precious hours worrying whether or not a door handle could pass on a deadly disease. Amelia feels she always had to compete for her mother's attention with dog's mess, germs, worms and things that needed wiping down in the night. Selma has been the one who was always there for Amelia and now she tries to repay that as her grandmother slips into senility. She thinks that life which once seemed quite a decent length now appears pitifully short. At the end it doesn't seem more than a moment, perhaps it never does. In spite of dealing with subjects which seem depressing this book was delightful, funny and thoroughly entertaining. Although written in the 1990s it does not seem at all dated. I loved it.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-02-11 00:00:00 Mark Provenzano This was a book that I really found interesting and a change from many of the stereotypical novel settings. Perhaps a reason that I could relate so well to it is because my own mother is in her late eighties and petrified of being moved to a nursing home and also of dying. The novel really brings out the plight of the elderly: their physical helplessness, the lack of hope for life changing for the better and the loneliness that exists in between sparse visits from family or friends. The author fleshes out the main character quite well so that the reader is able to relate to her, see her crazy side and continue to believe that she will succeed in her attempt to make life better for her beloved grandmother. I loved the interplay between other characters as well and the insight that the author showed in many situations which we all face in our lifetimes. Some of the things that Amelia thinks and feels are akin to our own but we squash them because they seem wrong. But Amelia states them and continues on in her own fashion, doing finally what seems to be the only possible alternative to giving her grandmother hope and dignity.