Ralph's Party

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I won’t continue with what happens through the book as I don’t want to spoil it if you are thinking of reading, but all I will say is I don’t recommend and if you want to read Lisa Jewell, I would recommend these by her instead as they are all a thousand times better: There was some weird descriptions of the fact she’d put on weight and her husband liked it because she ‘felt like a chubby school girl’ and he’d never gotten to sleep with a chubby school girl. Mom and Dad have three grown boys - Tony, Sean, and Ned. Their 40th wedding anniversary is coming up so dad plans a big surprise party and all the boys come home. Mom sings in a local bar for fun and meets a man one evening - Gervase. Gervase is a drifter and mom invites him to stay with them while he's in town.

I thought this was the latest from Lisa Jewell, as it just was added to my library, but a minute into it the anachronisms (a popular rush hour radio dj?) and then realized Ralph's Party was her first book. It doesn't read like the Jewell I know and I was expecting something creepy or a murder to happen at some point, but instead got some sort of romantic drama. The result was refreshing for my usual reads. During all this drama, Gervase has spent time with each of the boys. He does this thing where he holds their hands and looks deep into their eyes and they go all gooey inside and wind up spilling everything to him. Turns out he's a bit psychic, a gift he got from his mom. He advises all the boys. Meet the residents of the London brownstone on 31 Almanac Road who together weave a tangled web of romance. Ralph, a ne'er-do-well artist, suddenly realizes he's head over heels in love with his new flatmate Jem, the most fun and sensible girl he's ever encountered. Unfortunately, Ralph's best friend, Smith, has already won Jem's affections, although Smith has not entirely given up his passion for the femme fatale, Cheri, who lives upstairs. Across the hall, Karl and Siobhan have been happily unmarried for years, until Karl gets a smashing job as a London rush-hour DJ and momentarily gets tempted into Cheri's cozy lair. These six star-crossed tenants become more enamored, and more confused, as the story progresses-until their true destinies are revealed on one crucial night-the evening of the extravaganza that is . . . Ralph's party. This wonderfully hip new novel was an instant popular success when it was first published in England, and American readers are sure to be captivated by the debut of a talented new writer. If I'd had to buy the book the old-fashioned way, it would have stayed on the bookstore shelf. Because I would have been able to flip through the book and easily determine that the Jewell magic, at least for me, just isn't present.

These six star-crossed tenants become more enamored, and more confused, as the story progresses-until their true destinies are revealed on one crucial night-the evening of the extravaganza that is . . . Ralph's party. After The Party isn’t exactly the happiest read you’ll ever encounter because for the majority of the book we see Jem and Ralph’s relationship disintegrate and, believe me, it isn’t particularly pretty. There’s no definitive starting point that marks the potential beginning of the end for Jem and Ralph, it just seems to be the way life has gone for them. They have two children – the ever lovely Scarlett and Blake – and the change in dynamics that came with having children weren’t what Jem or Ralph expected. Up until Jem and Ralph had kids, they were solely focused on each other (as you’d expect) and after having kids, their focuses changed and Ralph ended up feeling left out whereas Jem felt as if she was losing her real self – the carefree and younger version of herself. I’m just going to pretend that this wasn’t written by Lisa Jewell because It’s the first book by her that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed. This story is clearly written last century. The men are all entitled and mysoginistic; one who doesn’t view women as real people (Ralph) and one who cheats on his wife and when the women he’s sleeping with gets an abortion he says she’s murdered his baby and he will ‘get his revenge’. He also seems to feel entitled to cheat on his wife and he mentions her being infertile; whilst it is never explicitly said that this is why, it seems implied. I felt pity for his wife till she used a homophobic slur when talking about how women where she lived were worried about any sort of body hair showing. She seemed to be terrified that if she didn’t get rid of all her body hair people would think she was a lesbian, as if a) that was at all true and b) people thinking that would be horrible. She also used an ableist slur. The characterisation was odd. I ended up not liking Jem very much, which seemed unimaginable to me when embarking on the story. I had little sympathy for her, being as she was so unable to see the best solution to her problem. A solution that didn't involve leading on men, going out drinking and trying to forget she is a mother! Joel was just hideous and I had no idea why Jem was so fascinated by him when she had the lovely Ralph at home. And then Ralph himself! His actions towards the end of the book are incomprehensible to me (and I'm frustrated that I am unable to say anything further for fear of spoilers). This is not what I was expecting from Lisa Jewell. The previous Lisa Jewell books I've read were suspense thrillers, this was more a love triangle and it wasn't thrilling in any way.

Ned finds high school sweetheart, but she's all grown up and over him now. Ned's Australia girl starts sending him pieces of herself (hair, toenails, eyelashes, etc.) in the mail and texting him "cunt" over and over. He finally writes a letter to her parents and we never hear anything more from her. Ned finally decides he needs to get a job and starts working for a temp agency. He meets a girl on the job and they hit it off, but when Ned makes a move, she turns him down stating that he hasn't grown up yet. Ned and Gervase are get close. I read Ralph's Party eons ago, and I vaguely remembered liking the characters. However, whatever had made them likable was absent from this book. Both Ralph and Jem were utter self-absorbed twits. I believe Jewell was reaching for something profound and wise about aging and coming to grips with lost youth and lost opportunities, while also accepting the more constrained but possibly richer and more meaningful life that comes with maturity. But the resulting story came across as shallow and pretentious - basically, everything creepy playground stalker dad accused Jem of being. However, the saving grace was the author's fantastic sense of relateability. The moments when the kids are acting up. When Jem is trying to cope with a stinking hangover and has to get up at 6am to sort out the baby. When she's gossiping with women in a posh bar. All of these moments were so beautifully written that I almost felt I was there. There are several more incidents of this sort of selfish behaviour that made me thoroughly dislike them both. They came across as the epitome of pampered London types, used to getting their own way, using others without thought of the consequences and so forth, and I really didn't like either of them.DISCLOSURE: I listened to the audiobook of Ralph's Party by Lisa Jewell, narrated by Imogen Church and published by Penguin, via Overdrive. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions. For starters, what partner sods off to the US for a nice holiday, after his wife has literally only just had a baby? And then proceeds to flirt with his mate's partner? What woman invites a single man over to her house for 'curry', flirts with him, then goes cold and expects that to be okay?