I enjoyed most of this book but I was disappointed by the ending. I’m not against leaving and ending open but this book just didn’t feel finished. Otherwise I really enjoyed it.

Almost English* by Charlotte Mendelson is a witty and poignant family drama that explores the complexities of identity, belonging, and the immigrant experience. The novel follows 16-year-old Marina, who lives with her overbearing, eccentric Hungarian grandparents in a small London flat. As she navigates her teenage years, Marina grapples with her sense of self, feeling caught between her Hungarian heritage and the British world outside.

Mendelson's writing is sharp and insightful, capturing the humor and tension within the family dynamic. The characters are well-drawn, particularly Marina, whose inner turmoil and longing for independence are relatable. The novel deftly balances humor with deeper emotional themes, offering a richly layered exploration of culture, family expectations, and the desire to fit in.

*Almost English* is an engaging and heartfelt coming-of-age story, with both humor and heart, making it a compelling read for anyone interested in family sagas and cultural identity.

I’m not sure how to feel about this book, I continued to listen to the end but I did really struggle with it. The book was slightly repetitive and I felt like the whole family dynamic was odd and confusing.

I love a good family saga and Almost English hit all the great elements. Deception, secrets and characters you wanted to shake in frustration!

If you line character driven novels and dry humour this is for you.

Laura has been living with her Hungarian in-laws since her husband's (Peter) disappearance. What started off as a temporary solution became a permanent living situation for her and her daughter Marina who, at 17, has her own issues such as her crush on a boy who hasn’t noticed her, feeling out of place at the boarding school she just entered, and being unable to talk about all of the above with her mother.

A touching and deeply relatable story about mother-daughter relationships, immigrant families and class difference.

I loved everything about Marina : This is exactly what I envision when I talk about a layered, relatable (to me, at least) character. With her being a teenager, it would have been easy for the author to make the (very common) mistake of making her too child-like or on the contrary wise beyond her years. Marina was in fact extremely well-written : self-concious, impressionable, constantly doubting herself and blaming her family (but never the right people), struggling to voice her emotions, undecided if she should love or be ashamed of her relatives ... Her character arc was really interesting.
The book was however a bit repetitive at times, and not all the aspects of the story were as compelling as Marina's arc (the whole mystery around the "family secret" didn’t have any added value in my opinion).

🎧 Audiobook : 4/5 nice work, even though the hungarian/english parts weren’t very pleasant to listen to (not the narrator's fault though, since the author apparently wrote words like "VON-DER-FOL").

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan UK Audio for providing this audiobook for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

DNF
I was so bored. Nothing was happening, truly nothing and I simply don't have the patience for it. I couldn't even tell you the character's names. Truthfully, I could (should) have wrote this review weeks ago but it wasn't until I went to download another audiobook and saw this in my last played that I even remembered I'd started it.

Theoretically it had the makings of the perfect book for me but it fell beyond flat for me.

I really liked parts of this, but I found it quite challenging to keep engaged as there were so many facets to it - the Hungarian family, the budding romance, the missing ex husband, the boyfriend’s inappropriate father. I think I would have preferred to focus on the daughter’s perspective with the family angle as I found that the strand most enjoyable.

I dont like to leave poor reviews. However, I will always review authenticly. I'm sorry to say this was challenging for me. It's actually taken me so long to write a review as it took me ages to try and get through this book and then get to writing about it. I read the book description, and it appealed to me, but sadly, this just didn't deliver at all. The story was rather flat, but it didn't ever seem to gain traction, and I found myself losing sight of where the author was taking this. I was so very easily distracted with this.

The narration itself was OK. There wasn't a lot of pitch or tone change, making it slightly monotone. However, it was otherwise an easy listen from this perspective.

I appreciate the ARC none the less. With thanks to Netgalley & MacMillan UK Audio.

Having recently read Wife I was quite interested to listen to this audio book, but it just didn’t pack the same punch as my other Mendleson read.

Both characters felt like they never really got going, and at times they seemed so similar I’d forgotten which person I was listening to and had to really try to concentrate on who’s talking in the first person. A shame because the premise of the book sounded really interesting.

Given my rating of this I’ve chosen not to write a full review elsewhere, as I don’t want to lead anyone’s opinion as this just may not have been the right book for me considering I’ve enjoyed other Mendleson reads in the past.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this in exchange for an honest review

Thank You for the opportunity to listen to Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson.

While listening to this book, I kept wondering when it would start.

The characters seemed so confused and not talking to each other.

All through I kept waiting for something to happen.

There was so much promise in this but somewhere I feel it lost it's way.

I really tried but this book didn't work for me.

Thanks to NetGalley who gave me this book to read and review.
I found myself zoning out with listening to this book. I found the storyline on discovering her Hungarian heritage didn’t feel very well flushed out and the characters didn’t have much depth. The mother daughter relationship started out interesting but devolved as the book went along. Overall it had some funny bits but I also found it quite cringe. It’s the kind of book I would download on libby when I had nothing to listen to.

Always live something a little different. This book was a great get away from the pretty mediocre books I’d listened to the week prior. I really enjoyed the premise and character development. I hope the author writes more similar books and I thought the narrator was well matched with the storyline

This book is based on the stories of a mother and her daughter, the latter from a boarding school and the former from West London with Hungarian family. It's very funny in parts, with a fantastic narrator of the audiobook.

I absolutely devoured this book and could not put it down. The dual POV from mother and daughter, who were both dealing with issues and stresses without the other one realising, were balanced perfectly. The themes were serious but were discussed through a witty bunch of characters and I appreciated that. This one gave me lots to think about in terms of loyalty to home place, loyalty to family, and loyalty to yourself. I would highly recommend this to anybody looking for unconventional family dynamics, strained and hard relationships, and feelings of losing yourself only to be brought back by loved ones.

As a two-person story, I must say I was more interested in teenager Marina than mother Laura. Both stories explore the idea of women who don't quite fit in.

Marina has left Ealing School for Girls to pursue her A-Levels at a co-educational boarding school, Combe Abbey, but quickly realises she has made a mistake. In love with another student, she determinedly keeps up with her science studies, despite an affinity for history. She also becomes entangled with a student in the year below, Guy Viney, whose father Alexander turns out to be a historian she very much admires.

Meanwhile her mother Laura, beholden to her vanished husband's elderly relatives for taking them both in, misses her daughter dreadfully and drifts through work, an affair, and a lot of thinking. I didn't find her story particularly interesting. I found Marina quite a well-written teenager though, very much the obsessive and passionate girl whose longings are clouding her judgement.

To be honest, I wasn't enamoured on the whole. I listened to this as an audiobook and could have stopped several times through lack of interest but kept going. I didn't find the family history particularly interesting either, Laura's obsession with her 17-year-old daughter a little overdone, the story with the Vineys didn't grab me either.

I read this because it made the longlists for both the Women's Prize and the Man Booker, but it wasn't for me. Fairly forgettable, and I'm disappointed because I'd expected more.