My Life On a Plate - Softcover

Knight, India

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141000937 ISBN 13: 9780141000930

Publisher: Penguin, 2001

Synopsis

Clara Hutt (known to herself as Jabba the) is a ripe size 16 with a secret liking for kitten heels and see-through organza tops. She is 33 with a husband and two small boys, but some days she wakes up with the sneaky feeling that her life isn't all it should be. Her 6-year-old thinks he has nits; all the other mothers at the school gate are perfectly groomed but Clara is in pyjama bottoms. Clara, like millions of other women, is going through the motions of responsible adulthood, and only clinging on by the skin of her teeth. And just why is her husband so perpetually mysterious?

About this title

Review:

Some would say Clara (Jabba the) Hutt has achieved "the goal": husband, house and 2.4 children. She is a "smug married." However, there's always a downside and Clara's not-so-perfect life consists of carting her boys to and from school, giving her a chance to see how the truly flawless mothers exist; trying to decipher, after eight years of marriage, whether her mysterious husband actually exercises his bodily functions or not; and, of course, her eccentric family, which consists of a thin, beautiful, insane mother and a string of ex-step-daddies, plus ex-step-siblings. Added to the Clara cocktail are her swinging single friends, the perfect mothers who turn out to be Jezebels in M & S clothing, and the strange Irish dancer who she must interview, renamed by her five year old as "bloody Dunphy."

Hailed as the Bridget Jones of the 21st century, India Knight's first novel My Life on a Plate is a good giggle. If anything, it is the inverse of Bridget Jones since Clara Hutt starts with everything and heads in completely the opposite direction. Funny, warm and full of "does my bum look big in this?" sentiment, Clara ponders the question: "everyone wants to be married--don't they?" --Neena Dutta

Review:

A wickedly funny and painfully honest comic novel. It's a triumph (Sue Townsend)

Made me laugh out loud. Does for divorcees what Bridget Jones's Diary did for singletons (Lynn Barber Daily Telegraph)

The funniest novel of the year. A brilliant take on modern matrimony (Evening Standard)

A sharp, witty novel...groundbreaking in women's fiction in that it attempts to investigate modern marriage: what it does to women, to their sex drive and their sense of self (Marie Claire)

Brilliantly funny (Vogue)

A comic tour de force (Daily Telegraph)

That rare thing: the lightweight comic novel that is well written, neatly constructed and actually funny (Guardian)

Clara is a thoroughly engaging, modern heroine who never descends into head-clutching cuteness. If India Knight doesn't produce a sequel, sharpish, she needs her head examined (The Times)

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0141000937
• ISBN 13: 9780141000930
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256