Book Review – How to be Brave by Louise Beech

About the Book

All the stories died that morning … until we found the one we’d always known.

When nine-year-old Rose is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, Natalie must use her imagination to keep her daughter alive. They begin dreaming about and seeing a man in a brown suit who feels hauntingly familiar, a man who has something for them.

Through the magic of storytelling, Natalie and Rose are transported to the Atlantic Ocean in 1943, to a lifeboat, where an ancestor survived for fifty days before being rescued.

Format: ebook (367 pages) Publisher: Orenda
Publication date: 30th July 2015 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Find How to be Brave on Goodreads

Purchase How to be Brave from Amazon UK

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My Review

When I tell you How to be Brave is the seventh novel I’ve read by Louise Beech, I think you’ll get the message that I’m rather a fan of her books. (I also have two more of her novels, The Mountain in my Shoe and The Lion Tamer Who Lostm in my TBR pile.) The six books I’ve read – Maria in the Moon, Call Me Star Girl, I Am Dust, This Is How We Are Human and Nothing Else – may differ in subject matter but what they have in common is that they take the reader on an emotional journey. Sometimes that’s combined with an element of suspense or sometimes, as in the case of How to be Brave, with a touch of the supernatural.

How to be Brave, Louise Beech’s debut novel, draws on her own experiences and her own family history. When Natalie’s daughter, Rose, is diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, Natalie feels metaphorically lost at sea. With her husband away on active service, she has to face the challenge of managing her daughter’s chronic condition alone. Always protective of Rose, Natalie now finds herself having to do the last thing any parent would want to do, inflict pain on their child. We see Rose’s struggle too; the daily injections of insulin, the restrictions on what she can eat and the sense of being different from her schoolmates. No wonder Rose’s initial reaction is one of rebellion. With Natalie at her wit’s end, she falls back on Rose’s love of books as a way to distract her and to re-establish the bond they’ve always had.

Here’s where the magic starts because intertwined with the contemporary storyline is another set in the Second World War involving Natalie’s grandfather. In the author’s hands, the boundary between past and present is gossamer thin, with love and encouragement passing between the generations just when it’s needed most.

Like Rose, I was enthralled by the story of the struggle for survival of Natalie’s grandfather and his comrades. (If I’m honest, for me, this was the more powerful element of the book.) It’s harrowing at times but it’s also a story of courage, determination, sacrifice and comradeship that makes you marvel at the resilience of the human spirit. We know Natalie’s grandfather survives the ordeal but the fate of the others aboard the tiny vessel is never certain. I’ll admit some scenes moved me to tears. But, as Rose points out, it’s OK to be sad because that’s part of being brave.

In three words: Moving, emotional, magical
Try something similar: The Last Lifeboat by Hazel Gaynor

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About the Author

Louise’s debut novel, How to be Brave, was a Guardian Readers’ pick in 2015 and a top ten bestseller on Amazon. The Mountain in my Shoe was longlisted for the Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize 2016. The Sunday Mirror called Maria in the Moon ‘quirky, darkly comic, original and heartfelt’. It was also a Must Read in the Sunday Express and a Book of the Year at LoveReadingUK. The Lion Tamer Who Lost was described as ‘engrossing and captivating’ by the Daily Express. It also shortlisted for the RNA’s Romantic Novel of the Year and longlisted for the Polari Prize 2019. Call Me Star Girl hit number one on Kobo. It also longlisted for the Not The Booker Prize and won the Best magazine Big Book Award 2019. I Am Dust was a Top Six pick in Crime Monthly and a LoveReadingUK Monthly Pick. This Is How We Are Human was a Clare Mackintosh August Book of the Month 2021. Louise’s memoir, Daffodils, came out in audiobook in 2022, as well as her novel, Nothing Else. (Photo/bio: Goodreads author page)

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