book review because of you

Book Reviews

Because of You by Dawn French – Book Review

Published 21/12/2020 · Updated 21/12/2020

Because of You

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock . . . midnight.

The old millennium turns into the new.

In the same hospital, two very different women give birth to two very similar daughters.

Hope leaves with a beautiful baby girl.

Anna leaves with empty arms.

Seventeen years later, the gods who keep watch over broken-hearted mothers wreak mighty revenge, and the truth starts rolling, terrible and deep, toward them all.

The power of mother-love will be tested to its limits.

Perhaps beyond . . .

On the 1st January 2000 two women, Hope and Anna, give birth to baby girls just a few delivery suites away. Both women have had long, drawn-out labours. One is there with her supportive partner whilst the other is with her husband who is a complete jerk.

Unfortunately, Hope’s baby is stillborn whilst Anna has a beautiful baby girl she calls Florence. A few hours later as Hope is heading home she goes past Anna’s room where both she and her partner are asleep and she sneaks a peek at the baby. Little Florence lifts her hand to Hope and at that moment she loses all sense of what is right and wrong and puts the baby in her night bag and carries her out to the car where her other half is waiting.

Florence isn’t noticed as missing for some time with her parents asleep and the midwives leaving them to rest. When the news breaks the hospital presume Hope left way before Florence was taken and she isn’t a suspect.

For eighteen years Hope kept the secret from everyone, not telling anyone her real daughter was stillborn and the daughter she has now, Minnie, isn’t really hers. But as time goes on Hope realises what she did was wrong and she needs to come clean, but what will happen to her perfect family once the world finds out?

Because of You is a gloriously, beautiful book. I knew what Hope had done was so wrong and on many levels evil, but I also couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Grief is a strange and difficult emotion to control and I can understand the want to hold a baby and love a child like the one she had lost. At the same time, she causes so much grief to the other family by taking their daughter.

I think feeling sorry for Hope also came from knowing that Florence’s dad was a self-loving idiot who would have ruined his daughter’s life, just like he did his wife. I like the way that Dawn French kind of made him out to be the baddy in the book, and that he was an MP too.

The book is emotional. It isn’t a funny book, it is heartfelt and tackles lots of subjects, including regret and forgiveness. It also makes you think. We follow Minnie’s life from the day of her birth and are with her for each birthday. I did wonder how Hope managed to conceal her daughter from the authorities for so long, yes she moved area’s but even if she didn’t have to take her to the doctors, what about school?

I can’t remember the last book of this size that I sat and read so quickly. It certainly is a page-turner. I was moved by the storyline and the plight of these three females.

Book Reviewer – Stacey

Purchase online from:, amazon.co.uk – amazon.com – amazon.in – blackwells – waterstones – bookshop.org, about the author.

Dawn French has been making people laugh for thirty years. On purpose.

As a writer, comedian and actor, she has appeared in some of the UK’s most long running, cherished and celebrated shows, including French and Saunders, The Comic Strip Presents …, Murder Most Horrid, The Vicar of Dibley, Jam and Jerusalem, Lark Rise to Candleford, and more recently, Roger and Val Have Just Got In.

What did you think of Because of You? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!

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4 Responses

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You are so brave, I fear this one would gut me

Ooh, I think I would enjoy this. Thanks for sharing. Great review.

I loved it as well. Great review. And happy holidays!

Great review. It sounds like a heart-wrenching story, and a difficult one to describe and review.

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THE SUNDAY REVIEW | BECAUSE OF YOU – DAWN FRENCH

RAIN CITY READS April 11, 2021 No Comment Book Review , Fiction , Sunday Review

This is going to be a short review because I read this book a few months ago, and the details have gotten a bit fuzzy.

I love Dawn French. Particularly right now – her short Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown revival and her podcast with Jennifer Saunders, Titting About , have been two of the very few and far between bright spots in the past year of incredible stress. So when I hit a reading slump in the fall, this was one of the only books I read (this and another by her). I read it in two days.

Now, the first thing I’m going to say about this book is that I have some complicated feelings about it. There were things I loved about it, but also things that I am still questioning.

The book deals with two couples – one couple are Black and the other bi-racial. The book begins with the two women in labour in the same hospital. What happens next is unthinkable for both women.

I can’t say much more about the plot without spoilers, and this book would be ruined by any. So that makes it a bit hard to review. The story itself was well-paced, written with emotion, and the characters drew me in (with one notable exception, but you’re not supposed to like that one). Once I got into it, I wanted to know what was going to happen and had trouble stopping for the night. There were some bits that felt a little too neat, and I really don’t think that the women would have been able to come to terms with the situation the way they did at the end. But I could acknowledge that and still enjoy the book for the most part. Even a few years ago, I would have been pretty satisfied with my reading experience with this book.

But it’s not a few years ago, and the way I think about representation has changed and evolved. Specifically, I’ve been putting a lot of thought lately into race and how it is portrayed in literature. As a White person, I don’t know for sure where the lines are, but I am questioning if it is okay for a White author to write Black characters, specifically if some or all of the story is told with an interior voice. This book is structured that way, and I don’t know how to feel about it. That is a separate and probably much longer discussion, but it is one of the main things that made me feel uncertain while I was reading. As a White person, the representation didn’t stand out as being overtly problematic in a way that had me putting the book down. But it also didn’t go into a lot of depth about addressing race or the complexities of navigating the world as a Person of Colour. This was the area I felt unsure about, and am not in any position to make that call. It’s the biggest thing that stood out to me about this book though, and something I think I’ll be mulling over for some time to come. (ETA: This book was recently picked for the Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist with Bernardine Evaristo as the chair and a diverse panel of judges, so that makes me feel better about the issue.)

I’m glad I picked this one up, if for no other reason than I’ve been meaning to try French’s writing for years and just never got around to it. I listened to this on audiobook, which I would definitely recommend, and I enjoyed the performance as much as the book itself. I enjoyed it enough that I immediately went into my second Dawn French book, A Tiny Bit Marvellous …. more on that coming soon!

I’d love to hear from any of you who have read this book. What did you think?

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock . . . midnight.

The old millennium turns into the new.

In the same hospital, two very different women give birth to two very similar daughters.

Hope leaves with a beautiful baby girl.

Anna leaves with empty arms.

Seventeen years later, the gods who keep watch over broken-hearted mothers wreak mighty revenge, and the truth starts rolling, terrible and deep, toward them all.

The power of mother-love will be tested to its limits.

Perhaps beyond . . . – Goodreads

Book Title: Because of You Author: Dawn French Series: No Edition: Hardback Published By: Michael Joseph Released: October 15, 2020 Genre: Fiction, Family Pages: 352 Date Read: October 25-27, 2020 Rating: 6/10 Average Goodreads Rating: 4.17/5 (1,617 ratings)

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