There can be few writers that I'd consider more "humane" than Carol Shields. She sets up realistic situations, with characters who are not always sympathetic, but she does make you care about them and their dilemmas. This story has a young girl make a puzzling and sudden change to her apparently contented life, dropping out in a big way to make an inscrutable public protest about the human condition on a street corner, to the utter bafflement of her family. How her family (her mother in particular)deal with that, the questions it makes them ask about themselves, and their place in the world, occupy Shields's strong and artful skills. I'm not sure I was happy and content with the ending though, as I don't feel you ever understand why the daughter does this but that's a minor quibble about a very moving book, which, after all, addresses the unpredictability of life.

RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

i caught this on the 59 bus a few weeks ago, at around 5pm in meridian business park. it must have been going round leicester all day. stranger was that i was only there that day for a short training course, it must be fate! slow to start, i'm having trouble getting into this book. will have another go this weekend i think...

a well written book. not the sort of thing that would usually cross my bookshelves but i guess thats the point of bookcrossing, right?! moving and a touch philosophical, but as the previous review notes, the ending lacks a sense of closure.

RELEASE NOTES:

on top of the public telephone in the lobby outside St margarets bistro (aka the canteen)

when i have finished reading it im going to take it on holiday with me and leave it there

CAUGHT IN LEICESTER ENGLAND