I’m delighted to welcome you today to my stop on the blog tour for the poignant and laugh out loud funny All the Fun of the Fair by Caroline Hulse. Thank you to Tracy Fenton and Orion Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review this lovely book.
About the book:
Fresh and hilarious, All the Fun of the Fair is a deeply poignant coming-of-age novel from sensational talent Caroline Hulse
The Fair is the only good thing that happens every year. And 11-year-old Fiona Larson is the only person in town who’s never been.
She’s pretended to go – but she’s never been allowed. Because before Fiona was even born, her sister died there. Her perfect sister. Who always ate her greens and always tidied her room, which is still an untouched shrine.
But this year everything will be different.
Fiona is about to turn twelve – older than her sister was. This summer, Fiona will save some money, make new friends, and finally have some fun at the fair.
But what she’ll actually do is:
- Find a mysterious bag in a bush
- Spy on everyone
- Lose her only friend
- Make a lot of lists
- Learn the truth about what happened at the fair…
About the author:
Caroline Hulse lives in Manchester with her husband and a small controlling dog. Her books have been published in fourteen languages and optioned for television. All The Fun of The Fair is her third novel.
My Review:
All the Fun of the Fair by Caroline Hulse is a warm and often hilarious coming of age story that stole my heart from the very first page. The year is 1996 and eleven year old Fiona Larson is the only person in town who has never been to the annual fair, something she desperately wants to do. Every year, so she doesn’t feel left out, she has pretended to go, but the truth of the matter is her parents have never allowed her to go. Because the perfect sister she has never met, the sister who was even younger than she is now, died there, leaving behind nothing but an untouched shrine and many questions that Fiona doesn’t know the answer to.
But this year everything is going to be different. About to turn twelve, Fiona is determined that this is the year she’s finally going to get her chance to enjoy all the fun of the fair. And so begins a warm and poignant tale that will see Fiona go through many changes and, at last, finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister at the fair.
Caroline Hulse has written a book that is a pure delight from beginning to end. Fiona is a memorable character who is always trying to fit in, but never quite seems to be able to do so. Her quirkiness is one of the things I loved about her, with some of the things she gets up to in her quest to belong making me howl with laughter. But as funny as some of the events that happen in the story are, I also couldn’t help but feel a deep empathy for her and her longing to be accepted for who she is and not to be defined by the sister she never even had the chance to meet.
All the Fun at the Fair is a profoundly moving coming of age story that had me laughing out loud one moment and then tearful the next. It is a beautifully written and poignant tale that once started I did not want to put down. It completely stole my heart, instantly transporting me back to the summer of 1996 as Fiona, often hilariously, tries to navigate her way through the ups and downs of this difficult stage in her life until, at long last, the truth about what happened at the fair is finally revealed.
Highly recommended.
All the Fun of the Fair by Caroline Hulse is available to purchase now.
Check out what these other fabulous bloggers have to say about this book:
Cal Turner Reviews 