Reviews

A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards

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arrianne's review

4.0

Intergenerational trauma is a hell of a drug and the story here is all about the daughter of a woman who unintentionally lets a man into the lives of her and her daughter who ruins everything. Jinx lives a normal life just her and her mum until this man comes in and takes that all away, and we meet her full of guilt for her mother’s death while hating her at the same time. Her relationship with her ex and their son is strained and her feelings are locked right down. An old family friend appears from nowhere and thus begins a few nights of disclosure as to the events surrounding Jinx’s mother murder at the hands of her stepdad-to-be.

There’s some good stuff on interpersonal relationships and family dynamics, some teenage politics but I was a bit disappointed by the Happily Ever After as if that kind of trauma can just be fixed by part of the problem showing up in your house and forcing you to dig all that stuff up over a weekend and ABRACADBRA sorted, here we go, got the rest of my life ahead of me.

CW: teenage pregnancy and being sent away, sex between an adult and a teenager (?age) where the power dynamic is all wrong though it’s ‘consensual’, domestic abuse, murder, internalised racism.

jewelleryjen's review

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4.0

I was immediately hooked by this book, the story telling was so enjoyable. I loved the descriptions of the food and drinks, it added a layer of depth and a feeling of really looking in on a family, weaving mouth watering memories of food through the story.
It's a heart wrenching story but it left me feeling lifted and hopeful.

cphunter's review against another edition

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3.0

Not a fantastic book but intriguing nonetheless. I was hooked from the first page and Edwards cleverly takes the whole book to answer the hook-question she poses at the beginning. An excellently original story, with interesting, albeit not fully-formed characters and a book that served the purpose of relaxing my mind for an hour.

niaforrester's review

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5.0

Complex multi-layered drama about mothers and daughters, women and men, and the children of those women when the men in their lives are not their children's father. About adolescence, coming-of-age, lies, betrayal, loneliness, and the sad co-existence of love and violence in some relationships. This is an incredible novel for a debut, like a story that had to be told. Highly recommended if you like character-driven fiction.

opticwater's review

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4.0

This was very good. I recommend it.

emmkayt's review

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3.0

Still mulling! This is Edwards' first novel, and it is quite accomplished. Set in the Montserratian community in Hackney, with some wonderful cadences in the language. I'm also a sucker for gorgeous descriptions of food. The narrator, Jinx, is still scarred emotionally many years later by the violent end of her relationship with her mother, who chose an abusive new partner over her teenage daughter. There's lots to think about in the relationships among the characters, and in the author's approach to the story, and this would be an interesting book for group discussion. The structure felt somewhat 'stagey' and predictable, and some of what the reader may be supposed to take as a message was problematic to me

Spoiler

such as the notion that when a woman is killed by a partner it may just have been 'her time'