Helpful Score: 6
This is a book you won't easily forget! It is a tragic story of a Wales family in the 60's seen through the eyes of the youngest daughter. Parts of it are painful to read, especially about child mistreatment, but it is well-done. The beginning and the ending are worth the somewhat rambling middle section. I wanted to know more about the child who narrates this haunting story!
Helpful Score: 1
This a debut novel that was a Booker Prize finalist and National Bestseller. The cover picture captured my eye and the story hooked me from the first page!
Helpful Score: 1
Very well written, I see why it was a bestseller and Booker Prize finalist. Very sad story, yet compulsive. The poor narrator. Her sisters, some nice, some mean. The poor circumstances of their family. Their DAD! I really didn't like him. Only a well written book could have given me such insight into this family and their circumstances. The hopelessness of it all, the ups, the downs, the children's lives in the balance. I did care about the girls and their Mama. Was surprised, but not surprised, by the revelations near the end. An ugly, gritty reality for many that live in poverty I suppose.
Helpful Score: 1
I read the book and was really glad the children survived their terrible childhood, what a sad family and how they were all affected by their upbringing! So many of their siblings were in denial of what had really happened as their treatment by their parents was so shocking and they were unable to handle the memories...it was a well written book but a disturbing subject.
My father has stopped for now, although, like most of the other Maltese, he won't settle in the city he can't escape the salt-scent of the docks.
Tiger Bay, Cardiff, 1948. Frank Gauci steps off the Callisto into the coldest winter ever, clutching a cardboard suitcase. It's all he has, until he finds a ruby ring, Joe Medora, and Mary.
When Frankie and his best friend Salvatore open the doors of the Moonlight Café, life seems good: downstairs there is sweet music, hot food, beautiful girls: and upstairs, there is gambling. Stick or Twist. It's Frankie's call. But luck becomes a stranger to Frankie. With a mass of debts, five daughters, and another child on the way, he turns to the card table one last time. He gambles, and he prays: this time, it has to be a boy.
It's a boy! cries Salvatore. Bambino, Frankie! And, my father, who is Frankie Bambina to his friends, poor unlucky Frank to have so many daughters, twists in reckless joy...
And so begins the chain of events which will haunt his family for forty years.
Through the eyes of Dolores, the Gaucis' youngest child, Trezza Azzopardi reveals a world rarely seen in fictionthe Cardiff underworld of the sixties. In prose that is sensitive and utterly compelling we discover the cafés and bars, the crumbling estates, the gaming roomsand the secrets that destroy a family.
Tiger Bay, Cardiff, 1948. Frank Gauci steps off the Callisto into the coldest winter ever, clutching a cardboard suitcase. It's all he has, until he finds a ruby ring, Joe Medora, and Mary.
When Frankie and his best friend Salvatore open the doors of the Moonlight Café, life seems good: downstairs there is sweet music, hot food, beautiful girls: and upstairs, there is gambling. Stick or Twist. It's Frankie's call. But luck becomes a stranger to Frankie. With a mass of debts, five daughters, and another child on the way, he turns to the card table one last time. He gambles, and he prays: this time, it has to be a boy.
It's a boy! cries Salvatore. Bambino, Frankie! And, my father, who is Frankie Bambina to his friends, poor unlucky Frank to have so many daughters, twists in reckless joy...
And so begins the chain of events which will haunt his family for forty years.
Through the eyes of Dolores, the Gaucis' youngest child, Trezza Azzopardi reveals a world rarely seen in fictionthe Cardiff underworld of the sixties. In prose that is sensitive and utterly compelling we discover the cafés and bars, the crumbling estates, the gaming roomsand the secrets that destroy a family.
A finalis for England's Booker Prize and a national bestseller in the US. The Hiding Place is a searing debut novel about family, love and the innocence and terror of childhood.
This is one of those books I just couldn't get into. It was so wordy that the story line kept getting lost.
This novel is closely related to "Angela's Ashes", except for taking place in Wales. A touching story of a family just getting by and the challenges they face in their poverty. I liked this book!
Beautifully written book that presents first-person views and keeps the reader on their toes! Subject matter is dark but reflects a true-to-life viewpoint.
