I loved this! Funny, fresh and you can help but feel for Susan (I do enjoy an at-first-glance deeply unlikeable protagonist who worms their way into my heart!) Would recommend!

I really wasn't sure what to make of 'The Cactus' at first. I had seen various other reviews where readers wrote that it was a marmite book etc, so I was rather curious to see for myself.

Susan is for sure, a marmite character, I'll agree with that one, however she's rather misunderstood in my eyes. Here is a woman who likes things done a certain way, is very particular about her likes and dislikes, is passionate about what she believes in and what she believes to be the truth (and won't stop until she's proven right). Yes, her delivery when spoken to can be a bit, how shall I put this nicely.....abrupt, and her brain doesn't seem to connect with her mouth (I see myself in her!), but her intentions are good. Susan isn't a social butterfly by any means, in fact, she would rather by 10 feet away from any sort of touching, human breathing space. Most people, like her brother Edward, would take that as her being a snotty so and so, difficult. Whereas I saw it as she didn't know how to act around people who seemed to care about her. She had spent a lot of time over the years doing things by herself, so when someone offers help or a shoulder for her to cry on, her instinct was to get defensive and push them away.

When Susan's life began to change in a way she thought she would never want, something must have clicked in her and it was as though she was finally coming to the realisation that not everyone was against her. Don't get me wrong, her family members didn't leave a lot to be desired, but people like Rob and her neighbour, Kate, weren't enemies, they were actually WANTING to help.

I couldn't help but think of a certain Elizabeth Zott from 'Lessons in Chemistry' by Bonnie Garmus, when it came to forming my opinion of Susan. Both main characters came across as 'awkward' in life, with both having good intentions and a heart in the right place. There were so many similarities between the two, I wouldn't have been surprised if I was told that they were actually long lost sisters! I mean, it's possible!

'The Cactus' is certainly a unique read with a unique main character, yet I really enjoyed that about the book. I liked how different it was, and how different Susan was to many other main characters I have read about recently. I didn't realise until after reading the book, that it was actually Sarah Haywood's debut novel - I honestly wouldn't have guessed otherwise! The storyline seemed as though it had been crafted by an author with multiple books under their belt!

I was pleasantly surprised by 'The Cactus', so much so that I, er, read it in one day. There was just something so endearing about Susan and everything she stood for. I found it be such a comfort read which, given how much Susan was against that, struck me as ironic. I really enjoyed reading Sarah Haywood's debut novel - it was such a thought provoking, humbling novel which was written beautifully.

If you're wanting to read a novel that is a little bit quirky, a chip off the old block, a comforting escape, then I urge you to pick up this one.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

This was a brilliant read. As soon as I started reading this book I just knew I was going to love it. Highly recommended

This was a difficult read for m, in terms of the main character. I couldn’t get along with her at all. I found myself sighing at a lot of her methods and thoughts and found her so unimaginable that it was verging on disbelief and distaste.
By the end of the book I was rooting for her brother.
Even with the explanation of why she was the way she was, wasn’t enough to make me sympathetic at all.
A good read, but a very unlikeable main character.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC for an honest review.

For some reason I started reading this when I was given the ARC and then forgot about it until recently. I started reading it again from the beginning and was amazed that I had not followed the story through from the start. Susan is an interesting character - everything is completely black and white to her and she seems to take everything at face value. When her mother dies and leaves her brother Edward a life time share of the family home Susan feels a grave injustice has occurred and sets out to rectify the situation so that she can have her share of the inheritance. What follows is a string of events that change Susan's life for ever. It is a very engaging story and all of the characters jump out of the page at you. I love the journey Susan goes on and towards the end of the book I couldn't put it down. Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me an ARC of this engaging book.

I have to admit I found this a challenging read and quite a slow burner, it took quite a while to get into, its only because I'm stubborn that I persevered.
The main character at times was quite unlikable and difficult to relate to. I suspect the author knew this would be the case as when the main character and another character are discussing another book there is the line : "She didn't seem very likable. I cant enjoy a book if I don't warm to the main character" This line seemed appropriate somehow.
I think for me this book hit a nerve as my brother and I don't get along much like Susan and her brother.
The ending was good but I have to be honest I wouldn't reread this book.
One thing I did love is the relevance of the title, brilliant double meaning with the title.

Susan Green is a prickly character set in her ways and organised to the hilt. She may not be everyone’s cup of tea but this book is certainly packed with love and tears and just goes to show that a leopard can change their spots with the right mixture of both. A charming debut novel from Sarah Haywood and I look forward to seeing the film. Thank you NetGalley and John Murray Press for letting me review it.

I got through this book really quickly. The story was good, but the ending was kind of blah for me. I would recommend to someone who wants a quick read.

I am in charge of the senior library and work with a group of Reading Ambassadors from 16-18 to ensure that our boarding school library is modernised and meets the need of both our senior students and staff. It has been great to have the chance to talk about these books with our seniors and discuss what they want and need on their shelves. I was drawn to his book because I thought it would be something different from the usual school library fare and draw the students in with a tempting storyline and lots to discuss.
This book was a really enjoyable read with strong characters and a real sense of time and place. I enjoyed the ways that it maintained a cracking pace that kept me turning its pages and ensured that I had much to discuss with them after finishing. It was not only a lively and enjoyable novel but had lots of contemporary themes for our book group to pick up and spend hours discussing too.
I think it's important to choose books that interest as well as challenge our students and I can see this book being very popular with students and staff alike; this will be an excellent purchase as it has everything that we look for in a great read - a tempting premise, fantastic characters and a plot that keeps you gripped until you close its final page.

I absolutely adored this novel! - can't believe I left it sitting on my shelf so long.

Everything about this book is pitch-perfect, the narrative, the prose, and the characters. It sweeps you off your feet and takes you on an emotional journey, that will stay with you long after you have turned the last page.

A gem, you won't want to miss. I'm excited to see if the film is as fabulous as the novel!

A huge thanks to John Murray Press & NetGalley for gifting me a copy in return for an open & honest review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was definitely a love/hate read for me. The things I loved were: the prickly MC, the later life pregnancy storyline, the family dynamics and the back story. The things I hated were: the romance storyline - it brought nothing to the story and could've been omitted with no detriment to the main storyline. I was also annoyed by the implications that there was something 'wrong' with Susan and that she was 'cured' by becoming less introverted and that once she was more 'normal' she was able to be happy/accepted by society. I liked her better when she was obviously written to be unlikeable! Still, I was entertained by this story and, despite the above problems, I did enjoy it.

Read July 20

I’m not sure what to make of this book. Near the beginning I was debating whether to continue at all. Our main character Susan is initially not very likeable at all. She’s 45 but in some ways feels younger, perhaps because her life hasn’t gone in a typical direction at typical times. The vagueness near the beginning was annoying, as was Susan’s implication that she was better than everyone. She seemed to have nothing but complaints.

However, aided in her scrutiny of the past (the “twist” wasn’t overly shocking), Susan grew a great deal as a person throughout. We discover why she’s like she is with so many barriers and we see her slowly letting those barriers down and letting people in. Come the end I’ve really come to appreciate Susan as a character. I would say that the ending was a bit abrupt and the authors constant use of the American “Mom” in a book set in Birmingham and London was rather jarring.

I finally caught up with the rest of Instagram and read The Cactus. My thoughts ... good but not as captivating as I'd hoped (so much so I forgot I read it when I recently trying to recap the books I'd read last month). I thought the premise was good but it was a little predicable in places. Anyone else agree, or am I on my own on this one??

It took me a while to get into this, because I found Susan's voice quite hard to get along with for a while, but as it went on, I came to really appreciate how Haywood had set up little call backs as you went through and references to things that Susan had said or done earlier. I'm still not quite sure whether there was more to Susan's prickly, impersonal perspective than her difficult childhood, but by the end I was swept away.

Also: to various people who are complaining about the use of Mom in the book - I have a bunch of friends from Birmingham (where Susan is from) and they all use mom not mum. Strange but true - regional differences people!

This is going to be adapted by Reese Witherspoon and her company - and I'm fascinated to see what they do with it.

The Cactus is a book that comes with such a visually stunning cover, it is filled with flourishing cactus plants, set against a shimmering metallic background and I will admit that it won me over instantly. I also adore the cover tagline that adds further embellishment to this already spectacular cover. The Cactus is comes with the cover quote “It’s never too late to bloom”. Self acceptance and life changes at a mature age are the central themes that dominate The Cactus, the debut novel from Sarah Haywood. I tend to shy away from book comparisons, but this is a novel that echoes the work of the great Graeme Simsion of The Rosie Project (he endorsed the front cover). The Cactus also reminded me somewhat of another debut I loved last year, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. But, The Cactus is a novel that easily makes its own mark and it will worm its way into your heart.

The apt title of the book refers to the lead, Susan Green’s love for cactus plants, which she keeps in her work office. It could also be seen as a metaphor for the bristly nature of the heroine of the story. Susan Green is the peculiar protagonist who sits at the helm of The Cactus. When the novel opens, Susan is forty five years old, she is a fiercely independent woman, who is set in her ways. With a functional London flat, a long standing career and a relationship that has strict ground rules, Susan’s carefully ordered life is just as she wants it. Until one day, her world comes tumbling down. The death of her mother follows the news that Susan is also in the family way. The Cactus follows Susan as she grapples with getting her head around the prospect that she is to become a mother, which introduces her to whole new set of testing experiences. Life for Susan Green suddenly becomes very complicated.

It was an immense pleasure to be introduced to the writing of debut novelist Sarah Haywood. The Cactus is a novel that I can easily attest to enjoying from cover to cover. Much of my adoration for this novel comes from the lead, Susan Green. I will make it clear that some will not warm to Susan straight away, or not at all. Her spiky, feminist, forthright and often odd nature may get under the skin of some readers, but for me, I loved her from the start. Some reviewers have remarked on their inability to connect to such a cutting character, but persisting with Susan really does pay off. I enjoyed the metamorphosis of Susan very much.

I liked the mystery that surrounded Susan, which hits you smack bang in the face in the first pages of the novel. I liked how Susan was represented by Haywood as a puzzle or enigma. My money was on some kind of trauma from an accident (I was somewhat close in my estimations) and then I gravitated towards Susan sitting on the autism spectrum. Either way, I enjoyed the chance to get to know Susan. As the book progresses we learn more about Susan’s childhood and life as a young adult through the flashbacks that were included in this novel, as well as her interactions with the delightful characters in this novel. It becomes apparent that Susan is a very quirky woman set in her ways, but at times, her reasoning did make sense and even seemed rational. I admired her for sticking to the routines that made her feel safe. All the same, it was thrilling to see her break free from her restrictions and live in the moment in the latter stages of the book.

Supporting Susan is a fine cast of individuals who are all fully fleshed out characters. Protagonists such as Susan’s brother Edward, memories of her mother and father, aunt Sylvia, her twin cousins, neighbour Kate, friend with benefits Richard, university pal Brigid and finally Rob are all so full of life they burst out from the pages of this novel. As the book is solely narrated by Susan in first person, we get an excellent feel for these characters in the eyes of Susan. Her observations of the people in her life are sharp, nuanced and even a crack up at times! The Cactus is a book that I would definitely say is a character dominated novel. The narrative, which mainly revolves around the battle for Susan’s mother’s inheritance and Susan’s impending motherhood, shapes itself around the character set of this delightful novel.

In terms of themes, The Cactus works well to draw our attention to a number of issues. Within the novel, Haywood examines memories, upbringing, sibling rivalry, alcoholism, serious illness, grief, lost love, inheritance disputes, marital problems, single parenthood, adoption and mature age pregnancy. Each of these themes are coloured in perfectly by Haywood. I appreciated the lens in which Haywood puts on these topics, through the unusual guise of Susan Green, the lead.

On the whole I loved this novel, very much. There was only one small drawback. The book beats slowly. It took me much longer than usual to get through The Cactus but I did seem to savour every word. However, as a fast reader, this aspect of the book perplexed me! Despite my reservation about the slow pace, I took great joy in being a part of Susan’s rise. It really was a touching experience to watch her grow into her own and embrace all facets of her life. The final message I took from this book is that it is never too late to bloom, do not let life pass you by!

I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to get round to reviewing this book, I listening to it ages ago. I think maybe I have been afraid that I wouldn’t do the book justice, I loved it so much.

This book is the story of a very unusual woman, and her character is so perfectly formed and then tested by the author that I defy anyone not to be entranced by the story. Susan is a woman whose life is perfectly ordered. She knows exactly who she is, what she is doing, how she wants things to be, and she has it all arranged perfectly, from her flat, to her job, to her relationship of convenience with Richard, who seems to think exactly as she does. Which is a miracle, because nobody sees the world exactly as Susan does. The best thing about her, for me, is her absolute belief that she is always right, her way of approaching things is obviously correct and pretty much everyone else in the world is an idiot that needs to be tolerated at best. Her disdain for most of humanity as irredeemably stupid drips off the page and it is delightful.

You might think a woman like this would be hard to relate to as a character, but it isn’t so. I think because the author sets her up so early on with problems that we, the reader, can see are going to force her to adjust her view, because when we meet her family we can possibly understand that a great deal of her spiky ways have developed as armour against the tribulations of her early life and her dysfunctional family, and because other characters who are more likeable in the book see her as a redeemable character, so we do too. The writing is so clever in this regard, I have to tip my hat to the author.

This book is incredibly warm and funny. The situation that Sarah puts Susan in, finding herself pregnant in her forties, would be ripe for comedy in any situation but, given how ordered and uptight Susan is, the chaos of pregnancy and childbirth is magnified tenfold. There were parts of the book that had me absolutely howling with laughter. The part where she and Richard meet to discuss how they are going to handle the parenting of this unexpected child was delightful in its naivety for anyone who has children. Then the incident with the Bananagrams towards the end of the book made me laugh so hard I had tears in my eyes. I read someone else’s review of this book that claimed it was not as funny as Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, I would beg to differ, I found this much funnier.

As I have now brought up Eleanor Oliphant, I want to say that anyone who loved that book will really enjoy this one. It is a similar social misfit tale, but a completely different story. Sarah obviously has so much love for the character of Susan, it shines from the page and makes the reader fall in love with her too. I listened to this book as an audiobook in the end, even though I originally got the book via NetGalley, but when I had finished it, I immediately went and bought a hardback copy for my shelves because I know I will want to return to it again and again.

I just wanted to say a word about the audio version of this book. I think listening to it via audio gave Susan a really strong voice for me. She is from the West Midlands, and the narrator has the accent down perfectly throughout. I am not sure about you but, when I read text, even if the author places the cast in a particular location, I never read with an accent in my head. Listening to someone read with the accent really cemented Susan as alive and kicking for me, and her tone and pacing was also perfect for the character. I think this is one of those stories where the audio really enhances the story and I would highly recommend it (although it did take me several days to get the Birmingham accent out of my head after finishing the book!). The narrator was perfect and I don’t have high enough praise for her performance, as the narration makes or breaks an audiobook.

The Cactus is already on the shortlist for being one of my Top Ten books of the year. I cannot express how much I adored it. It is no surprise to me that it was chosen by Reese Witherspoon for her book club and everyone who hasn’t read it should get a copy now. It is the perfect antidote to the dark days we are currently living through and you could do a lot worse that share your isolation with Susan Green.

It’s true, most cacti are prickly, but there are other plants that pretend to be cacti when they are really something else in fact. Prickles are grown to protect a plant from being eaten by wandering animals, and prickly people behave the same way. Hey grow the prickles to protect themselves.
And a prickly person who thinks she has her life sorted out is perhaps not the best person to find she is a very late mother to be.
Oops.
I liked the characters in this book and felt for Susan in her predicament.
That said her relationship with her brother and the battles over wills and entitlement to possessions reminded me too forcefully of my father-in-law’s family who fell out over a will and the 7 brothers and sisters split into 2 factions, ad the twain never met again , even at funerals.
An enjoyable read with some serious points to contemplate.

Great book. Really enjoyed it. The book tells the story of Susan, a middle aged lady with a very prickly exterior and very set in her ways. She has a very fractious relationship with her brother and the book starts off with the death of her mother. We follow the story of her relationships with her brother, extended family and work colleagues and see her character develop. Several laugh out loud moments too - especially the door stop!

If you liked Eleanor Olyphant, then you'll like this too. Easy read with well drawn out characters, difficult not to warm to Susan - you root for her from the beginning