THE TRUTH ABOUT MELODY BROWNE (Lisa Jewell)

If you enjoy chick lit, this is a good one. But it's not your everyday light and fluffy read; in fact it goes into deeper issues the further you get into the story and, like many of the books I like, a lot has to do with the protagonist's childhood.Melody Browne is a 33 year old woman raising her 17 year old son and living her life as a lunch lady in England (the author is British). Everything is cool until Melody goes on a date with a man to a hypnotist and she is chosen to go on stage and become a 5 year old. She ends up from that point on having these intense memories of when she was five, and then six and seven. She had up until that point had no recollection of her childhood before 9 years old, at which point there was a fire and all her possessions were burnt up and, for some reason (very interesting reasons, actually), her memories. Throughout the book you are given snapshots of life of a young Melody and then back to the present time. It's done very well . Her parents, she knew, weren't her true parents and bit by bit you see how she came to live with different people and how the alleged parents, who thought they were doing a good thing, actually weren'tWithout giving anything away, just know that the life Melody had suppressed was bittersweet. You get to see how something that seemed abnormal and disapproved of may have actually been fine. To each their own. You see how parenting, even if by a motley crew that you meet in the book, doesn't necessarily have to be from your biological parents. It could be a guy who runs a commune, a crazy aunt or two and some other children in tow. Lisa Jewell has written several good novels geared towards women but have been compared to Nick Hornby and Helen Fielding. Ralph's Party was my favorite and has been heralded as being a guy book, too.