#TheMiseducationOfEvieEpworth

Cold Comfort Farm meets Adrian Mole in the funniest debut novel of the year.

Yorkshire, the summer of 1962. Sixteen year-old Evie Epworth stands on the cusp of womanhood. But what kind of a woman will she become?

Up until now, Evie’s life has been nothing special: a patchwork of school, Girl Guides, cows, milk deliveries, lost mothers and village fetes. But, inspired by her idols (Charlotte Bronte, Shirley MacLaine and the Queen), she dreams of a world far away from rural East Yorkshire, a world of glamour lived under the bright lights of London (or Leeds).

Standing in the way of these dreams, though, is Christine, Evie’s soon to be stepmother, a manipulative and money grubbing schemer who is lining Evie up for a life of shampoo- and-set drudgery at the local salon.
Luckily, Evie is not alone. With the help of a few friends, and the wise counsel of the two Adam Faith posters on her bedroom wall (‘brooding Adam’ and ‘sophisticated Adam’), Evie comes up with a plan to rescue her bereaved father, Arthur, from Christine’s pink and over-perfumed clutches, and save their beloved farmhouse from being sold off. She will need a little luck, a dash of charm and a big dollop of Yorkshire magic if she is to succeed, but in the process she may just discover who exactly she is meant to be.

Published by Scribner on July 23rd 2020, 361 Pages

I really enjoyed this light, fun, coming of age tale set in the 60’s. I quickly fell in love with Evie as, I too, am a bracket-loving, celery hater! (read the book and it will make sense). Taylor really manged to capture the characters essence as you fall in love with Evie, feel sorry for her Farther and strongly dislike Christine.

I really enjoyed the small interludes that gave us quick snippets into the past and felt they worked really well to give us the parts of the story we were missing with it being in first person narration. I loved Taylor’s style of writing and will definitely look out for his future work!

Also I cant not say it, I LOVE THE COVER!!

The only thing that I didn’t buy into was how old Evie was, she came across as very young for her age, had I not been told she was 16 I would have put her at 12. This may have been done purposefully by the author to give us a sense of how grown up our teenagers are now or may just be that I feel teenagers are older, either way it didn’t take any enjoyment away from the book, was merely a feeling I had whilst reading.

Thank you to @ScribnerBooks @matson_taylor_ and @randomttours for my #gifted copy in exchange for review.

Matson Taylor grew up in Yorkshire but now lives in London. He is a design historian and academic- writing tutor and has worked at various universities and museums around the world; he currently teaches at the V&A, Imperial College, and the RCA. He has also
Camden Market, an Italian TV and been a pronunciation coach for Catalan worked on appeared commercial, in opera singers.