Oh Dear Silvia: The gloriously heartwarming novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of Because of You

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I wished for a little less use of dialect in the nurse looking after Silvia, though I have to admit the housekeepers malapropisms (due to her sons teaching her the wrong words in English) were hilarious. Now, I have to definitely read this book to see if “Dear Silvia” comes out of her coma and if she has overheard remarks that her visitors wish she hadn’t! I knew that the novel was supposed to be quite morbid but I imagined that with Dawn French behind the keyboard, there was sure to be level of humour, and in this I suppose I wasn't wrong. Winnie was very optimistic and talked to Silvia as if she was awake and chatting back which made me realise how difficult it must be to work as a nurse on such a ward with no interaction. There isn't really a progressive plot as such, but this is more of a collection of memories, wishes and thoughts have about Silvia and how she has changed each narrator's life.

Each character talks to Silvia in her coma, their stories all seen from her hospital bed (including occasional clunky exposition but that can e forgiven). But then we find out that the end of the marriage was precipitated because Silvia helped Cat dispose of her dead husband’s body, which happened three years ago, so Cassie can’t have been kicked out over four years ago.And indeed, this novel is very different from "A tiny bit marvellous"; so much so that you feel slightly confused in the beginning. Perhaps it was the omniscient point of view, mixed in with the first person narratives of Silvia's nearest and dearest. The Silvia of the title is a lady in a coma in hospital and although she is the central character of the story we don't really actually hear from her and, instead, it's the cast of characters who come to visit her who create the character of Silvia for us.

Some aspects I would rate very highly, and towards the end of the book, I was shouting internally that it couldn't possibly end satisfactorily (but it actually did, sort of, I think). Although her character initially provides a balance against the others who actually know Silvia by the end her role is crucial, not just for Silvia but for many of her visitors too. The story centres on Silvia, who is in a coma following a fall from a balcony, the setting is predominantly the hospital and the narrators are a series of visitors Silvia has over a period of time. The characters are all very well portrayed, and the only one I felt was perhaps played for laughs a little too much was Silvia's cleaner, Tia, although even she has her own little back story going on and so she isn't only there to be funny. That said, the characters are distinctive and you will love and/or hate them each in turn (I liked Cassie the best).It starts slowly and the reader is introduced one by one to Sylvia's visitors ( Tia was a brilliant character to lift the mood of the book)and I wondered where exactly the plot was going, but right in the middle the book took a completely different direction and from then on i couldn't put this book down! Cassie was living at home when she discovered she was pregnant and then a week after telling her mother, she is evicted from the house. I enjoyed Dawn’s style of writing, as mentioned I thought the style was different and fresh, I never found the book predictable and was thankful for that. It's hard to have any action, except in flashbacks, when the whole novel takes place in a hospital room. I was also impressed with the depth of each character - the character building through the chats to Silvia in the suite was very well done.

There is a vast amount of characters buzzing around the coma patient Silvia, and they all contribute, slowly, to build a picture of her; a picture that gets more and more complicated the further into the novel you come. I've tried for weeks to get into this book, but the going from character to character, never sticking to one train of thought, just made my head hurt. Starting with the character of Ed, Silvia's ex-husband, I struggled to understand why he was in her hospital room when according to him, she had completely beaten down his self-esteem to the point where there marriage ended and he no longer wanted to be around her. Her first three novels, A Tiny Bit Marvellous, Oh Dear Silvia and According to YES, are all Sunday Times bestsellers. All of the visitors, with the exception of her nurse who never knew her and her housekeeper, Silvia seems universally disliked.An interesting, amusing and often poignant exploration of not only how people react when faced with the loss of a loved one but also what they reveal of themselves.

The resolution that then came together over the second half of the book did not drag or feel superfluous and the ending was to be expected. I was disappointed unfortunately, and actually came away from the book feeling annoyed with the characters and quite discouraged and depressed somehow. Shunned by her daughter Cassie and son Jamie, cared for by nurse Winnie, visited by Tia her cleaner, Ed her ex husband and her eccentric sister Jo.

Having the climax occur in the middle of the book, that had been slowly revealed up until that point was surprising, as although some of it had been telegraphed earlier, some of the big reveal was obvious but yet it was still shocking. I love the idea behind this book - The whole book takes place in Coma Suite 5, where Silvia, a friend, lover and mother lies in a coma. Some of the characters felt a little too bonkers and I was worried the book would end up feeling forced with these character-based chapters.