From Amazon

Maud was brought up amid the austere Plymouth Brethren. Yet instead of happiness, her faith brought only guilt and resentment and set her apart from other people. This novel presents her reflections on her years of struggle with her doctrine and her instinct, her faith and her motherhood.

My review

I'd never heard of the Author before until someone passed me the book to read. After reading this I will go on and read other books by her. 7/10 in my opinion.

The story is well written, flows well and gives an insight into the feelings and in some ways stigma that young people have to deal with when being brought up by religious parents. The story centres around Maud and is told as a flashback to her early life.

Maud's parents are deeply religious and attempt to bring Maud up the same way but as most teenagers do at some point in their lives they rebel and want to live life the way they want to live it. In some ways this was quite reminiscent of my upbringing as we were brought up to go to Church every week and I did rebel. Maud's parents are quite strict about her seeing young men and don't always agree with her choice of boyfriend/admirer and the fact that she wants to go out socialising in ways that they don't always agree with. We journey with her through her innocence to early adulthood and relationships.

The book has been likened to Oranges are not the only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson, so if you enjoyed that story then you'll more than likely enjoy this. At 119 pages of narrative this is only a short story but it certainly packs a lot into it.

I started work as a secretary in a firm that sold fixings (nuts and bolts etc) to the trade when I was seventeen.  It was a small family business and the family were Plymouth Brethren.   I didn't know this before I started work there.  

It was an eye-opening experience and they certainly wouldn't get away with the way they treated their staff these days.  I came away with a horror of all things Plymouth Brethren - they were so small-minded it was unbelievable.   Women (including employees) were not allowed to wear trousers and the women in the family had to cover their heads when outside.  Men were the higher power and we couldn't disagree with a man, we had to do anything that a male told us to do.     Couples who were not married could not spend any time together alone and we as employees could not talk about our partners if we were not married to them.  They didn't have newspapers, radio or TV and we were not allowed to mention them.  

It was a horrible experience.

The family in the book doesn't come over quite as bad as that Anne but they don't like her (Maud) being alone with members of the other sex without other people being there with them.   There is also without giving too much away a part where she stays with a female friend and her Mother needs a letter from the Mother of the friend to confirm that the other Parents will be at home as well.  The other friend writes a letter as if it was written by her Mother.  I suppose this is something that we might all do to cover up that sort of stuff. To Maud's parents though this means a great deal and they need to be able to trust Maud.