A sensitive portrayal of childhood and grief, with lovely writing and some excellent characters. I haven't read the author's previous work but am interested to seek them out now.

This was a story about a father and daughter dealing with loss. It was sad and moving. Not a book I would normally go for but it was a nice change. I enjoyed it.

I didn't really enjoy this book, and as my second Carys Bray book that didn't land for me I think that's confirmed that she is not the author for me.
That doesn't mean that this is a bad book at all! I can see how if you got along with the writing this could be a very moving story about love, loss and family.

This story deals with a father and his daughter, and the loss of her mother years previously. We're given both of their perspectives which was interesting to see how they both deal with different emotions.

The daughter, Clover, has an interest in museums and this is where the novel is centred around. Her father, a bus driver who once dreamt of going to university to get away from the small town he lived in, but his parents having another baby changed that.

This is a cosy and sweet read dealing with a difficult subject. I did however feel like it was lacking in places to make it just that tiny bit more interesting. Its the kind of book where the family find the answers to questions they've been longing to draw to a close.

I so much fell in love with this book and especially the character of Clover. A wonderful story that kept me enchanted right through the whole book. Fabulous..

The Museum of You is a stunning novel. Carys Bray has such a wondeful way with words and knows exactly how to draw a reader in to her beautiful stories. Her characters are rich and relatable and her writing flows effortlessly.

The Museum of You is a very emotional book and deals in depth with grief and recovery. the story is bitter sweet and full of hope.

I really wanted to like this book because I had heard so much about it. and the premise sounded so interesting. While it deals with grief in a different and moving way, I found the characterisation a little problematic in places (for example, I didn't believe Clover was really only 12!). It has moments of real depth and lovely writing, but I didn't fully connect with it in the way I hoped, and the way I know others have. This one just wasn't for me, sadly. Thank you for the opportunity to read it and provide feedback.

It's been a while since I finished reading this book, but it's stayed with me. I loved the characters, the quietly developing mystery and its resolution, and the descriptions of place, sounds, smells, weather are so vivid that you almost feel like you are there. Sheer delight from start to finish.

Was enjoyable. Haed to follow between the chapter changes from clover and darren.

Great story, full of emotion and fab character development

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for this review copy.

As soon as I saw this book advertised I wanted to read it. I really enjoyed her previous novel A Song for Issy Bradley because of the storyline and local setting. I think I liked this novel even more.

At the heart of this book is a daughter and her father, both trying to deal with the death of their mother and wife. The daughter, Clover, is sensitive like her Father, and at age 12 wants to understand more about the death of her mother, Becky, who died when Clover was weeks old. After a visit to a museum she decides to build her own, mostly misguided and misunderstood and fantasised, image of her mother with mementoes her father has kept. He has struggled to deal with the death of his wife and has hoarded her possessions. It is these possessions that Clover uses to build what she thinks will be an exhibition to her mother's life.

Clover has a happy life and her father and family / friends love her and that was comforting. It was through her father's flashback memories that we begin to learn a little more about Becky and how she died. I think this was pieced together really well and the slow reveals made for an interesting story.

Again this book was set in Southport (old Lancashire, now Merseyside). A town I know very well and I was easily able and enjoyed piecing the locations together. For me the setting and even some of the side notes like putting the plastic charity bag out for collection, which for some might seem too colloquial, really added to the appeal of the novel.

Overall a fabulous read I'd recommend.

‘When you grow up in the saddest chapter of someone else’s story, you’re forever skating on the thin ice of their memories.’

Grief. It’s all pervasive and its repercussions are felt throughout the generations, even to those newly born as tragedy strikes.

This is only too true for Clover, almost twelve, who has lived under the cloud of her mother’s death when she was only six weeks old. A ‘surprise’ to both her parents, her well-meaning father, Darren, has tried to protect his daughter from any further unhappiness.

His reluctance to talk about his wife, Becky, is clear to sharp-minded Clover as she sees her father’s deep sorrow and fear when she raises the topic with him and he replies with the oft repeated sound-bites, sharing only minimal information about her mother.

On the cusp of teenage years, Clover becomes desperate to break through the palpable dark shadow of her life and learn more about her elusive mother. However ‘she has recently become attuned to the way Dad takes the temperature of her mood and attempts to chart it. He’ll stop once she smiles – a small smile isn’t enough, it takes all her teeth to convince, and even then he sometimes inspects her expression like a worried dentist.’ In her attempt to get to know her mother Clover recreates Becky’s life from her belongings, which have long since been stored with other junk in the seldom entered second bedroom.

‘This was her mother’s room. This was her mother’s view. These are her mother’s shoes. She teeters over to the crowded space at the end of the bed, back and forth she treads, back and forth and back and forth as if eventually, she might step into her mother’s life.’

As the poignant and moving story unfolds, the reader gradually learns the reasons for Darren’s reticence and the patchwork of sorrow and guilt permeates the book.

The novel is written through two narrative strands, that of Clover and Darren. Both are in the close third person perspective and the author’s deftness and skill ensure that each voice is distinctive and it is easy to relate to each character. The sense of immediacy is achieved by the use of present tense for current day events which slides into the past tense for the story of Darren and Becky’s earlier life.

Clover’s courage, keen observation and emotional intelligence is strongly portrayed throughout the novel, not only through her relationship with her father but also with her kindly, loud and older neighbour Mrs Mackerel who has often helped care for her. As Clover experiences the first independent summer holiday she is inspired by the school visit to Merseyside Maritime Museum exhibition about the Titanic to create her own museum about her mother, with a special exhibition in the second bedroom entitled ‘Becky Brookfield – The Untold Story’. The descriptions of the various items recovered from the boxes and suitcases in the second bedroom punctuate the two viewpoints of the story, with each exhibit clearly named, logged and its history guessed at (often wrongly).

Darren is a brilliantly crafted character, flawed, slightly rough. He’s an academic at heart whose passionate interest and intent to study geography at university was cut short by his own mother’s illness and death in his teens. As Darren’s father effectively withdrew from life, silence filled the gap of his mother’s former presence. After losing Becky, Darren once again experiences intense grief as he is ‘poleaxed by the old ache of missing her (Becky)’.

The themes of love and relationship between parents and children is explored throughout the book, including that of Becky and her damaged younger brother, Jim, who grew up in a traumatic household. Despite her Uncle Jim’s chaotic life, Clover accepts him with the same unreserved love as her mother had. Meanwhile, further characters become as family and these include Colin, the odd but stalwart friend from school who is a constant presence in Darren’s life. There is also the outsider Dagmar who becomes an unexpected friend to Clover and finally her father’s female friend, Kelly and her two young sons. Ultimately they all become closely linked, caring for each and showing that ordinary people are extraordinary.

Locations feature heavily in the book, particularly as Darren has never left the area he grew up in. As a bus driver he drives back and forth between Liverpool and Manchester, recalling the street names, homes, allotment, sights and sounds and these quickly become familiar to the reader as the events of his past unravels in a veritable stream of consciousness.

‘The Museum of You’ is written with a unique form of whimsical realism, the grittiness of life interlaced with the magical recreation of Becky’s life in the form a one room museum. In places the novel can seem to be meandering and some might consider the pace too slow. Personally, I was captivated by the unfurling of the story, the shifting perspectives, the varying tenses, the excellent dialogue and museum details providing an engrossing, thought-provoking, memorable read. At no stage did the book become mawkish or morbid, rather it’s a seductive tale, tenderly told and overall enchanting with a perfect feel-good factor for the summer holidays!

I received a free copy of this book from the NetGalley in exchange for an honest and impartial review.

The Museum of You was a great easy read. Interesting storyline into the depths of grief.
Have a read I'm sure you'll love it too.

A lovely story. Written from the point of view of Clover we follow her quest to try and piece together the story of her Mum. It is unclear at first where her Mum is and we slowly learn the truth with the help of the elderly neighbour, a school friend and the bits and pieces that her Mum left behind.

Clover Quinn is twelve years old when she visits the Merseyside Maritime Museum, where she is assigned the name of a passenger on the Titanic, and discovers their fate at the end of the exhibition. This tourism gimmick has a profound effect on Clover, who decides to create her own museum telling the story of her mother Becky. After all, “she is incomplete, a part-written recipe. How can she imagine what she will be if she only knows half of her ingredients?”

There is a lot to like about this book, not least Clover herself. There is a lot of Anne of Green Gables in her – the plucky orphan with the rich imaginative life – and Clover is both a sensitive soul and has a strong will to survive. While there is a quiet heartbreak in the difficulty her bus driver dad has in communicating with her (and in how worried he is leaving her on her own as he works shifts) this book moves steadily towards an upbeat ending. This is a tender book, about the versions of our lives we never live and the versions of our lives we live but do not acknowledge, but ultimately it was slightly too cosy for me – which is undoubtedly more to do with my cynical heart than it is a fault of the book.

The Museum of You is a delightfully heartwarming story filled with interesting and sometimes quirky characters. I found Darren Quinn's efforts to raise his daughter, Clover, while coming to terms with his single-parent status, very moving, while Mrs. Mackerel's malapropisms had me laughing out loud. Clover's hunger for information about her mother and her determination to create a museum in memory of her from items secreted by Darren, in a room Clover is not supposed to enter, is both touching and, at times, humorous. Highly recommended. Thanks to Cornerstone (Penguin Random House UK) and NetGalley for the ARC.

Enjoyable read, interesting characters who I really cared about. A bit quirky and pulled the heartstrings, but should do well.

Not for me. I didn't manage to finish it as I wasn't enjoying the story or characters'

A real finding out about yourself and others growing up story. Well worth reading