Ben Robinson is a 44-year-old secondary art teacher who has a lot in common with other parents at the end of the school year: the dreaded six-week school summer holiday. As well as trying to keep his three children occupied and not killing each other (or him for that matter), Ben has the extra burden of trying to save his marriage and also having his senile Dad moving into the family home. Throw into the mix that he is in the midst of a midlife crisis involving a gorgeous Aussie backpacker, trying to get into his wife's good books and refraining from smacking a large bum which just begs to be hit, this year's summer holiday for the Ben looks trying to say the least...
Rance's latest tome does not disappoint. In fact, I think it is his best one yet. I literally laughed and cried my way through the whole book. Rance empathetically and sensitively deals with themes which I think every parent and middle-aged person can identify with: the loss of youth, the emptiness we can feel as our children grow up and become more independent, pressures of marriage and sometimes how in life we as adult children find our roles reversed, becoming the carer of parents as they become elderly. Well written and told with an array of wonderfully realistic and empathetic characters, I cannot praise this book enough. (LP)
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