This Is the Day

by blythe-daniel

THIS IS THE DAY They’ve got it all. And now they’re about to lose it. Tom and Ella Barclay seem to have the perfect life. Smart, designer house in suburbia. Two lovely children, Ben and Isobel, at private school. Interesting, creative and well-paid jobs. And best of all – a happy marriage? Beneath the surface, things are not so serene. The charity which Tom leads is struggling, about to go under. He also wants to have an affair, but it’s rather more difficult than he’d been led to believe. Ella, meanwhile, despises the hordes who stream through the grounds of the stunning fifteenth-century castle where she works. And then fate turns the Barclays’ dreams inside-out in a way they could never have imagined. Forced to look at the world from a very different perspective indeed, Tom and Ella begin to fall through the cracks – and things are about to get much worse…. A wry, poignant, blackly comic portrayal of the 21st-century nuclear family hurtling towards meltdown. ‘A sharp, observant, energetic writer with a nimble sense of language.’ The Times ‘Chronicled in a fine, acerbic and humorous style; poignant and telling.’ Sue Baker, Publishing News ‘A darkly comic tale of a modern marriage.’ Sheffield Telegraph ‘This well-crafted novel from Daniel Blythe is a real page-turner... Blythe's meticulous attention to detail makes this book all the more gripping, and his metamorphosis of Ella's character throughout the book is nothing short of genius. If you are a thirtysomething and bored with what life is dealing you, this could be the book to make you think again.’ South Wales Argus Daniel Blythe was first published in Virgin's New Doctor Who Adventures. Having been an 80s radio DJ, a teacher of English as a foreign language, a translator, a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University and a Lifelong Learning organiser, Daniel now combines his writing with school visits. He lives with his wife and two teenage children on the edge of the Peak District.

526 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2007

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up after an hour - chick-lit from a man

[Jazzy Stephenson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A trashy chick-lit very clearly written by a man!

[Goth Gone Grey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dragged, sad not entertaining

I'm typically ok with realistic stories - unsatisfied marriages looking elsewhere, the letdown of realizing what married life is, etc. This can often turn into books of men behaving badly, with my favorite example being Nick Hornsby's books and the movie adaptations of them. Humor helps - which is lacking here.

While the writing is decent, this book is repetitive which slows it down. There are only so many times you can read about the lead character wanting to cheat on his wife and discussing it with his best friend. I hit that limit at about 22% and DNF'ed. The book to that point was full of poor (or nonexistent) communication between the spouses as well as other characters, which stretched to the point of needless drama.

[Amal · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF
I did survive first 20 pages and he’s rating her in categories out of ten? Are you serious? Is that supposed to be normal? No I don’t think so..

“Ella would have got : kindness 7,sexiness 8,bed performance 10,……,easygoing 5,…Total,76 per cent”

“He didn’t feel guilty about low marks for easygoing,because she could be a stubborn cow at times,but that was part of her attraction ”

“He couldn’t argue with a relationship that only missed total perfection by 24 percentage points “

Those three quotes are enough for me to DNF a book.

[Julie Clarysse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really didn't like the ending ..

[Mhairi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book got more engaging as it went on. I started out not liking it and ended up finding it interesting and enjoying it.

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like a bit of 'bloke-lit' at times - I've read and enjoyed numerous novels by the likes of Tony Parsons, Nick Hornby, Mike Gayle, John O'Farrell etc. - and this one started encouragingly in the same kind of genre as some of those. I was, however, a little let down in the end.

It's difficult to pin-point why, but I think it came from the book being a little too long (quick to read each page, but 500+ pages of the same sort of stuff was a bit of a trudge) being a little too ambitious (it covered almost every sphere of family relationships, love, loss, parents, social commentary, men, women, and so on and so on) and not having enough humour to counteract the starkness and grimness of some of the issues covered.

It started off as a tale about a man who starts to feel a little jaded with married life, and the first third of the book was relatively light and relatively funny on this subject. Somewhere round the middle, however, the novel shifted in tone and became a slightly heavy-handed story about a woman and her change in circumstances. The final part was somewhat confused and a little cheesy in truth - reliant on coincidences and 'deus ex machina' to tie things together. Many of the characters seemed to be introduced, fleshed out briefly, then forgotten about until they were 'needed' at some later point to reappear and affect the narrative. As easy a read as it was in many ways, it was flabby with tangents and side-tracking, and I think it would maybe have been better as a stripped-down simpler novel of 300ish pages.

[Jue · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful, struggled to get into this book, so boring no proper storyline, has not grabbed me at all, certainly not a cant put this book down.
Its basically a happily married family man spending time in the pub being egged on by his mate Jeff to sleep with anything that moves.
Really persevered to page 130, but such a struggle had to give up, hate doing that, but there are so many other cracking books by better author's that I want to read, therefore cant waste any more time on this book that's not going anywhere for me.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book I've read in a while that I actually enjoyed. For me it was very realistic, although some of the things mentioned in Parkfield, eg dropping a washing machine out of a window, seemed a little over the top to me but that just made it humorous. Although nothing major happened I still felt drawn in. It is a fairly large book at 526 pages but I managed to get through it in about three days and enjoyed each and every part of it.

[Ina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bitter story of a broken relationship. Witness how an “almost perfect” marriage got shattered through blurred communication and infidelities. Sad how sometimes, you thought you both had it all but still chose to not be contented with what you currently have up to the extent of risking your own relationship.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the way this story was told from both the male and female perspective. However, the characters were a little bit 2 dimensional but made a light and easy read.

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good train journey reading' a nice mix of bloke-lit and relationships with several twists to the plot, avoiding the obvious.