I INVITED HER IN
BY ADELE PARKS
THE BLURB:-
Imagine the worst thing a friend could ever do. THIS IS WORSE.
When Mel receives an unexpected email from her oldest friend Abi, it brings back memories she thought she had buried forever. Their friendship belonged to the past. To those carefree days at university.
But Abi is in trouble and needs Mel's help, and she wants a place to stay. Just for a few days, while she sorts things out. It's the least Mel can do.
After all, friends look out for each other, don't they?
THE REALITY:-
This must have had something going for it as I scooted through it in about a week. It became my holiday read, when I had a couple of nights away for my birthday, in Southend. It was something to devour when relaxing in the hotel room, and whilst on the train. But I have to say, it failed to touch me, and I had that thing going on that's happened before with Adele Parks' books, where the person writing the blurb didn't seem to have read the story. Abi did not “take everything,” as stated on the front of the novel. She took Liam- Mel's son- for a while, and ultimately nothing else.
The plot line features a theme I've seen in another novel- that of a woman becoming pregnant with her best friend's man after a one-night-stand, and it reminded me of the other novel as it also featured mixed race relationships. Maybe the author had read that too and subconsciously stolen like an artist (something writers are encouraged to do at university, as “it's all been done before”) or maybe there are really only a handful of basic themes to any story (i.e. rags to riches, revenge, finding a life partner, etc).
A story in two parts, we firstly get to see the Abigail who Melanie is totally enthralled by, and then we get to see the real, “bitch” Abigail. I have to say, I liked all of the well-explored and carefully-studied varied characters, but Abi was my favourite, and she came across as really twisted. There were things that I worked out very early on as, to me, they were glaringly obvious; such as (spoiler alerts coming!) the fact that Rob was Liam's biological father, the fact that Abi knew this and the fact that it was Abi who sent her sex tape to her ex-husband. I'm actually glad that Abi found some semblance of her balls, as she seems to have been manipulated by the husband who denied her a family- she could have left him or fallen pregnant accidentally on purpose, but she stuck with him and accepted his terms and conditions, which made her discovery of his son grate like hell, and allowed her to focus all of her hatred (rather unfairly) towards Mel. Yes, she had a wonderfully warped mind!
The best thing about the book, for me, was the study in young people growing up, and reaching that cusp between childhood and adulthood. It's where Liam is at, and it's an area I tend to write about. It's obvious that Abi wanted him for more than one reason (revenge and his sperm) and I'm glad she got her (another spoiler alert!) happy ending and her baby girl Mila, and I liked that the author added the extra layer of her lying about still being pregnant after her fall, setting Mel, Liam and the rest of their family free.
