Customer Reviews
Real characters, real life - By: slow joe, 30 Jul 2008 
I have just finished this wonderful book & know I will be thinking about the twists & turns in the story for a long time. As you turn the last pages you have no idea how it's 'gonnae end.' It's funny to start with but that doesn't last. The atmosphere becomes very dark by half way & I applaud Anne Donovan for keeping the reader in suspense for so much of the book. You can see the story being played out in the lives of so many people walking the streets & shopping centres in town. So many issues to think about. If you're in a book group choose this for discussion! I can't wait for our group to mull this over in the autumn.
LOVELY - By: RB, 02 Jun 2008 I REALLY ENJOYED BEING EMILY, I LOVED THE LANGAUGE AND THE CHARACTERS AND FOUND PARTS OF IT INCREDIBLY MOVING, THERE MAY BE BITS THAT DONT QUITE RING TRUE, BUT I LIKE THAT, IT GIVES IT A KIND OF FAIRY TALE QUALITY.I AM NOW GOING BACK TO READ BHUDDA DA!
Delightful, funny and heartfelt - By: Leo McMarley, 20 May 2008 I loved Buddha Da, Donovan's first novel which was shortlisted for both the Orange Prize & the Whitbread, & it's a real treat to read another of her heart-warming & engaging novels.
Donovan is at her best when exploring the intimacies & intricacies of family life & in Fiona she has created a memorable heroine that you grow to care about more & more as the novel progresses.
Being Emily is also a very funny novel that will leave you feeling uplifted but not in a vacuous & sentimental way. And the language of the book is also wonderful with brilliant dialogue that has this distinctly Scottish hue.
Highly recommended.
Second half much better than the first half - By: SJSmith, 27 Apr 2008 
Fiona is one of 4 children. Her brother Patrick is older than she is (by quite a few years) & then there are the twins, Mona & Rona, a good few years younger than she is. They live in Glasgow with their mother & father & the beginning of the novel introduces alll of the characters with a little information about them; making it easier to know who is who.
Narrated in first person by Fiona, we are told the story of her life from being a child until she has become a young woman. It is a nice coming of age story. Fiona narrates in Glaswegian & whilst the accent initiallly was tricky it soon becomes part of the narrative & you forget about it. Even for words that you may not recognise, it is easy to put them into context.
Fiona's life is challlenging at times & Anne Donovan certainly doesn't hold back but what you have to remember as a reader is that we are party to the challlenges through the eyes of whatever age Fiona is at the time of them happening. It is easy to use the eyes & wisdom of an adult to solve her problems or think about how we might handle them, however using a child's or teenager's logic brings different results; some of which are painful.
I initiallly didn't like this novel, I was reallly struggling to get into it but couldn't put my finger on the reason why. The dialect wasn't holding me back & although I hadn't experienced alll of Fiona's troubles I didn't feel like this was the reason either. Fortunately, I reached a point just over half way through where I suddenly realised I didn't want to leave the novel unfinished & I was pleased I had perservered.
Not having read any of Donovan's other novels I have no idea how this compares. It is well written & the reader is definitely involved in Fiona's life but there always seems to be a feeling of detachment. Unless this is intentional & is meant to represent how detached Fiona feels from different aspects of her life? One other aspect I didn't like was the lack of speech punctuation. Thankfully at least Donovan uses italics to distinguish dialogue from narrative but nevertheless the lack of conventions can often detract from a good plot.
Overalll, it's a lovely story with alll the loose endings tied up neatly at the end. It'll take you through a mixture of emotions & experiences & is worthwhile in the end. So from a beginning that would have been 2 stars, to a much improved middle of 3 stars the overalll experience warrants 4 stars.
