Book Review: One Apple Tasted by Josa Young
December 4th, 2009 by Leah
It’s 1982 and Dora Jerusalem has just come to London and has managed to land a job at glossy magazine Modern Woman. When she meets Guy Boleyn at a party, her whole world changes as she finds herself falling in love with him.
Meanwhile in 1958, two sisters are getting ready to go to a ball. Once they arrive, in their home-made dresses, the hostess’s sons make a beeline for them and nothing will be the same again.
Finally, in 1939, a young teenager is sitting crying in a Harley Street waiting room, when an older woman offers her sanctuary. Just what is it the connects these three generations of women and why is it so important to hear all of their stories?
One Apple Tasted is Josa Young’s debut novel that she self-published a few years ago, the book has finally found a mainstream publisher and was subsequently re-released. One Apple Tasted is a book I had never even heard of until I was approached to review it for the site. I thought it sounded intriguing and was pleased to not be disappointed.
One Apple Tasted begins in 1982 just as Dora Jerusalem is about to meet the man who will become the love of her life, Guy Boleyn. At first it’s easy to see why she’s so attracted to Guy as he’s rather suave and confident of himself. As the book progresses, though, it turns out Guy has a lot of faults and is actually a bit of a love rat. Dora puts up with him though and they eventually marry in secret just before Guy is due to fly out to New York. He promises to come back eventually… We then fly backwards in time to 1939 where a young woman is sitting in a Harley Street clinic, worrying about her pregnancy when another woman sitting in the waiting room, Emma, tries to cheer the girl, Leora, up. Emma offers Leora a place to stay, as Leora has only just recently come over to Britain, from France, due to the war and doesn’t like the people she’s meant to be staying with. We then arrive in 1940 and find Emma died during childbirth and Leora decides to look after Emma’s daughter as well as her own. We then fly forwards in time to 1958/1959 where two young women, Hilly and Tirzah are getting ready to go to a ball. Once at the ball, though, their lives are about to change as the hostess’s sons catch the girls’ eyes.
The book covers a lot of time periods, the 30′s, 40′s, 50′s, 80′s, 90′s and, briefly, the 00′s. I thought so many time periods would confuse me but, although I’ve mentioned several time periods, we spend most of our time in the 80′s and 90′s. It’s safe to say the main plot of the story is Dora’s love for Guy and it’s Dora we spend most of our time with. I would have liked more time spent in the 30′s/40′s and 50′s as I loved the storylines set there as well as the descriptions of the time periods. I’m not usually a fan of books set in anything other than the late 90′s/00′s so it was refreshing to enjoy something set in the past.
The thing Josa Young does best in One Apple Tasted, is weave all of the stories together as well as give us some fantastic female characters/relationships. Dora is a very enjoyable main character, although I did, at time, question why she was so loyal to Guy when he was so disloyal back. I felt very sympathetic to everything she was going through and I could see that she truly loved Guy, no matter what he had done to her. I absolutely loved Leora, she was probably my favourite character, the way she so selflessly gives up everything in 1940 to take care of Hilly, as well as her own daughter Tirzah, is quite outstanding and I wish she’d been present in the book a bit more. I found it very difficult to compare the Hilly we meet in 1958 to the Hilly Dora tells of in the 1980′s/1990′s, as she seems so young and innocent in 1958 whereas she’s bitter and cold in the 80′s/90′s. It seems quite a dramatic change of personality but as we uncover family secrets, all is kind of revealed. I also liked Tirzah, Leora’s daughter, and I’d loved to have seen more of her also. Guy is the main male character in the book and I wasn’t a huge fan of him. I thought he took advantage of Dora’s good nature and didn’t like that. There are many more characters interwoven into the story but I found it very easy to keep up with all of the them.
The writing is fantastic as Josa Young really makes each decade it’s own and I felt transported from one decade to the next as we went through them all. Josa Young is a hugely talented writer and deserves huge respect for setting a book in multiple time periods and managing to make the entire thing immensely interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book although I do have a few gripes. My main problem is just how fascinated Dora was with Guy. I can understand the whole first love thing completely but even after everything he did, over a period of over twenty years, Dora still would go running back to him. I mean, I loved what Dora did at the wedding, that was a truly fantastic scene. However pages later, Dora was off to India which ruined it all completely for me. My last gripe is the ending, and again, it’s related to Guy and Dora. It was all a bit… quick. If it had to end the way it ended, then I would have liked a few more pages telling us precisely how it all happened. I mean, I truly thought it was ending one way about 5 pages towards the end when it suddenly veered off into another direction and we only had 5 pages to tell us all about it. Very rushed I feel and a tad confusing; I had to read it twice to fully understand it.
I would still wholly recommend you read One Apple Tasted as it is a hugely enjoyable novel, spanning numerous decades and written beautifully. Coming from a girl who hates books set in anything other than modern times, that is a huge recommendation! One Apple Tasted is a truly fantastic read and one I thoroughly enjoyed.
Posted in 2009 Releases, Book Reviews, Rating: 4/5 | 2 Comments »
Thank you for this fascinating review. It is clear the characters lived for you, and that is the best thing you could possibly have said. I love all of them, but there wasn’t room to tell you more about Leora – what happened to here when she went to America although there is a hint of her happiness. I must also tell you that years after I wrote this, a close relation did get back together with someone she had been in love with 20 years before and never got over – a far worse character than Guy but now reformed by her love. Sometimes us writers believe we write things into reality. Fantastic stuff, Leah. Keep it up!
Wow, it does sound like a great read, plus the cover’s really pretty too!