Book Review: The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend

Hello! I'm trying to make my way through some of the books that have been collecting dust on my #tbr for months (years?) and I've just finished Sue Townsend's The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year.

Official blurb:

The day her twins leave home, Eva climbs into bed and stays there. For seventeen years she's wanted to yell at the world, 'Stop! I want to get off'. Finally, this is her chance. Her husband Brian, an astronomer having an unsatisfactory affair, is upset. Who will cook his dinner? Eva, he complains, is attention seeking. But word of Eva's defiance spreads. Legions of fans, believing she is protesting, gather in the street. While Alexander the white van man brings tea, toast and sympathy. And from this odd but comforting place Eva begins to see both herself and the world very, very differently. . .

I enjoyed this, although it was slightly bizarre! Eva has decided that she can no longer cope with the world and retreats to her bed where she stays for a whole year. Meanwhile, her husband is conducting an affair with a colleague in their shed, her mother and mother-in-law are on a shift rota for bringing her food and drink, and she's got legions of 'fans' crowding the street outside her house because they think she has mystical powers.

Apart from one, perhaps two characters, every character in this book is unpleasant and horrible. I don't like or warm to any of them. I do feel a smidgen of sympathy for Eva, who, after firstly realising that her husband has been having an affair for eight years, and tired of being the only person to do any of the household chores, decides to leave her scrounging family to their own devices, everyone else except a couple of characters is vile. And despite this ounce of sympathy towards the main character, my main feeling towards her was frustration and rage. We've all dreamt of staying in bed and shirking all responsibility, but her refusal to even set foot on the floor to pick up the food that her family are putting through the gap in her door, and yet wailing about how hungry she was when there is food about a metre away, just tipped it over the edge.

I like when a book has more complex characters; you don't have to love the protagonist and agree with every decision they make, in fact it's probably a more interesting book when you don't. But I think you do need to feel like you're rooting for the protagonist, that you want them to succeed and want their outcome to be positive. I just didn't feel that way about Eva, or about any of the characters in this book. They're pretty much all horrible people.

I didn't hate this book and there were moments I enjoyed, but overall it was just a bit bland and nothing seemed to really happen.

The reviews on the back of my copy describe the book as 'hilarious' but I just didn't see it. I enjoy Sue Townsend's work and would still read more of it, but this is her weakest work for me personally. 

3/5