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james1star's review
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
This little book is made up of passages from Laurie Lee’s first autobiographical work Cider with Rosie selected for their focus on summer. It can work as a short story but there is no plot, it’s more about nothing in particular except the author’s childhood and life growing up in a small Gloucestershire village. There are some nice passages with Lee painting his past in a pleasant light despite some challenges and this is why I didn’t entirely dislike the book. I guess my main issue was how I just couldn’t connect to the ‘characters’ (real life people) much at all and despite sounding strange… I didn’t like young Laurie all that much or his attitudes, sort of. There are parts where he talks about pretending to be ‘savages’ and makes other racist remarks which I know was more common in the time it was set and written (late 50s) which I couldn’t jam with. Overall, I think the lack of any real story and it being rather dull made this slim book quite difficult to get through, I wish I had DNFd it earlier but as I went on I just thought ‘why not finish it’ and I did. I doubt I’ll read anything else by Lee, possibly some of his poetry or prose but I’m definitely not interested in any more autobiographical works.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Animal death, Death, Racial slurs, and Religious bigotry