One Minute To Midnight by Amy Silver

At first I thought that I was not going to like this book, which was a bit of a surprise to me as I have loved every Amy Silver book I've picked up so far.  I was rapidly disabused of this notion and soon got completely sucked in to Nicole's story; although it probably helped that I was reading it over the New Year period and, as the title suggests, this book is very firmly set around the New Year - taking us from a teenage Nicole in 1990 to a present day (2011) one via the medium of how she spent each New Year.  The book covers every aspect of modern life beautifully - student days, first crush, first love, enduring (and failing) friendships, birth family and the family you make when you marry with big doses of real life drama - a wedding, a death, grief that distorts your entire being.  Safe to say I REALLY enjoyed this book.

The characterisations are spot on, without falling in to either stereotype or cliche.  Told from Nicole's point of view she does manage to feel real on the page and as though you are having a dialogue with her rather than the story being foisted upon you.  The peripheral characters of Alex, Julian, Aidan and Dom are well described and never fall in to parody - particularly surprising as each seems to be there to portray one particular stereotype (party girl, gay best friend, the one that got away / womaniser and steady, good bloke).

Loss is dealt with so well in this book, both of a friend, of a marriage, of a family and of a parent.  However, this is also where it lost a star as I felt that rather too much was made of Nicole's behaviour surrounding her birth family.  Maybe that is just personal bias but it felt more fictional than the rest of the book - the rest of it mirrors real life quite well.  There is some good humour in the book too, but it isn't in your face, your have to hunt for the in jokes between the characters and I am actually jealous that Nicole only ever has half a stone to lose - you would have thought as her years increased so would the hips but she has been a lucky (or disciplined) girl.

This is a very enjoyable book but I would not recommend reading it on the commute - missing your stop is never fun and this book is almost designed to make you do that.