Jane is Trying (W&N Essentials)

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The first chapter was a set piece about a poetry reading which was a bit lazy as a satire, and in the first 50 pages I was still waiting to understand what the point of this novel was, seemingly a slow reveal about an affair but with wry observations tacked onto most sentences and nothing that made me want to read on despite a lack of plot. That said, I am a fan of Issy Sutty and her writing, and her handling of trauma in the novel was tackled with sensitivity and realism. With an increasing load on her plate, friends and family who think if she only listens to them she’ll have a perfect life, and a brain which questions every decision she’s ever made, can Jane conquer her demons and step forward on her own? She also regularly performs her own shows to live audiences, on radio and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Loved the depiction of OCD, always in the background like a thread running through the story, but not a total defining personality trait. Mark Steel lives down the road and told me amazing stories about living in squats during the 80s that had me crying with laughter. Jane is a woman in her late thirties, stuck in her parents house in the Peak District after leaving her boyfriend behind in London.

Now she’s about to publish her debut novel, Jane Is Trying, about an anxiety sufferer’s struggles to get pregnant. Here, Jane can no longer be the commander of her own destiny, with interference from every quarter: meddling friends, suffocating family, terrible therapists and more.

There is a scene in One Day where Em is at a restaurant with her boyfriend, and moans that every menu item is the setup to a joke of his, and that even though he is a comedian, he isn't actually that funny. Despite being a fan of Suttie's, including seeing her performing live and enjoying her previous book The Actual One, I wasn't sure about this at first.Some things didn’t really work for me and I felt very frustrated with Jane at times, she was extremely privileged but didn’t really seem to think so and took everything in her life for granted. Now, she’s trying to make a new start back home with her overprotective, charades-obsessed parents – having left her career and cheating fiancé behind in London. Suttie brightens the page with her eccentric characters and wonderful observations of small-town life. To begin with some positives it is well written and it is an easy read, I read it in less than 2 days, It isn’t a bad read, I just expected the book to have a more empowering undertone and focus upon Jane overcoming OCD and rebuilding her life as that was the vibe I got from the blurb but she never really did rebuild her life, she just flitted from odd decision to odd decision.

There are some truly chaotic and humorous family scenes and an overall warmth running through the book, with a large cast of quirky characters and a dose of community action to boot. It did feel like a very privileged woman’s story about anxiety, relationships, pregnancy and self discovery (because it was) but it was pretty poignant at times and very funny. Suttie has a keen eye for supplementary detail, which makes her story seem all the more real, and an ear for a nice turn of phrase, which makes it delightful to read. Then I read her latest memoir and found out she quite liked Trump when she was on The Celebrity Apprentice, but it was too late.Other times it was downright irritating and so it was satisfying to see Jane refuse to engage with it. Although she's desperate to prove that she doesn't need her parents' or her nearly in-laws' help, she doesn't actually do much to prove them wrong.