I read a galley proof copy of Bitter courtesy of Net Galley and the publishers, W&N in exchange for an honest review. I can't say I enjoyed this book as it is an uncomfortable tale of a sad, misunderstood middle-aged woman who has been taken advantage of since she was a young girl. But it is easy to read, skips along at a good pace, many chapters so small chunks if that's how you like to read. It does skip back and forth in time and in the copy I read this happened without line or paragraph breaks;  the final, published version may be different.  But I didn't find it hard to follow. I would recommend it and it's an excellent first novel.

An unusual story of motherhood,marriage ,divorce and life. How we are shaped by events through our childhood and yet can still manage to change and understand with the help of a little kindness.

Bitter is a really interesting and unusual book. Gilda is a woman who feels her relationship with her son is strained. When he marries his new wife she sees a side to him that she didn't know- a warm and loving side. Gilda is consumed by jealousy and obsession. What I particularly liked about this book was that the mother/son relationship isn't something you often see portrayed in books. I found it gripping throughout.

I found this book really engrossing and really well written. Quite a slight plot, it nevertheless totally engaged me.  Following the life of Gilda, it slowly reveals what has led to her to this point in her life where she is middle-aged, lonely and bitter.  Not particularly likeable, I found myself rooting for her and hoping that she could find her happy ending. I recommend this as a moving and involving novel.

Published on goodreads: Absolutely marvellous. A wonderful, poignant emotional journey and a compulsively readable story. One of the best I have read in many years

Francesca Jakobi has given us a compelling, moving, and, at times, appalling picture of a misunderstood and much maligned woman.  The novel begins with a depiction of Gilda’s estranged son’s wedding.  During his speech, he turns to his wife, Alice, proclaiming that she has ‘taught him what love could be’.  From this we infer that his mother did not.  However, Gilda does not have a trouble-free youth herself.  Sent to England from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, she grows up feeling unwanted and friendless, with the exception of the ever-loyal and fairly appreciated Margot.  
Gilda’s parents arrange her marriage to a much older businessman, Frank, who is kind enough but neither one of them feel more than a luke-warm affection.  When Reuben is born it is clear that Gilda suffers from undiagnosed post-natal depression and it is only when she begins working with refugees in WW11 London that she has a fleeting sense of her potential.  Always concerned that she is not a good enough mother, her relationship with her son Reuben feels detached and she has so little self-esteem that she slips into the notion that he hates her.  Passed between Gilda and her second husband Leo and Frank and his second wife Bertha, it is clear that Reuben learns to blame his mother for all his troubles and resent her for her distant parenting.  Unsurprisingly, the middle-aged Gilda who narrates the story is a very unhappy, unfulfilled alcoholic.
One of the real strengths of this novel is the way in which Jakobi uses the first-person narrative.  Through her own distinctive voice, Gilda is exposed as a self-pitying, tough, angry, jealous, thoughtless, insensitive woman and yet, over the course of the novel, she is, at the same time, revealed as well-meaning, loving, and desperate for approval.  Her daughter-in-law, Alice, whom Gilda initially resents, sees her for who she truly is and gradually the two women begin to appreciate each other.  By the end of the novel, tenuous new shoots are growing out of the very fragile plant that is Gilda’s family as she learns to tend it in a more sustainable way.  This is a moving and subtle novel which reminds the reader that judging and labelling people neatly, in this case in the roles of victim and perpetrator, is rarely the whole story.
My thanks to NetGalley and Weidenfeld and Nicholson for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

An enjoyable engaging and enthralling read. Recommended reading makes you question your own parental relationships. Well written intelligent. Definitely recommended.

I wasn't sure what to expect but I was really impressed with this debut novel. The story is fast and pacy and yet very emotional too. The characters were layered and complex and really brought the story into its own. The short chapters meant I whizzed through, just wanting to 'read one more' and the dual timeline worked well. Moving, fascinating and emotionally complex.

This is a story of a dysfunctional family, and the main character is supremely unlikable and yet pitiable at the same time.. A Jewish girl sent away when she discover her fathers dirty secret , to an English boarding school where she doesn't fit in, in fact she spends her whole life not fitting in and not being loved by anyone. The story is sad and the main characters are hard to like or sympathise with. Nothing much happens, not a book I would recommend.

THE PRICE OF PRIVILEGE.

“I picture the past as a sort of Rolodex with thousands of life events marked out on cards. I didn’t pay attention when the cards were filed and now they’re all in a mess. I need to flick back through and find the cards responsible, then maybe I can sort them out and fix the errors I’ve made.”

Before the war, Gilda Meyer is brought up to a life of luxury and utter privilege in Hamburg. An ungainly but bright child, she envies her sister’s petite figure and popularity. Witnessing a sexual act between her father and a seamstress, Gilda is banished to a boarding school in England. Later she is ‘married off’ to a much older man, a cold transaction that will benefit her father’s business interests, and eventually she gives birth to a baby boy, Reuben. Utterly in love with him but terrified of the responsibility of motherhood, she hands over his care to a nanny, an error of judgement that leads, inexorably, to many more…

What a sad, sorry tale this is. Part psychological thriller, part the tragic story of a mother’s unreturned love for her son, part anatomy of the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law dynamic, this novel is hauntingly written by Francesca Jakobi and was inspired by the author’s grandmother who was divorced in the 1940s when such a thing was scandalous. It is a powerful lesson in learning to trust one’s maternal instincts and the value of capability in the kitchen. Highly recommended. 

My thanks to Weidenfeld & Nicolson and NetGalley for the review copy.

A slow start, but absolutely worth persisting with.

At first I thought I would soon tire of this novel, as the leading character just isn't someone you can relate to on any level.  However, giving it a couple more chapters paid serious dividends, as i had hoped it would, as she starts to develop into a fully rounded woman with whom not only can we relate, but can develop a deep relationship with.

Taken from home and family and thrust into a completely incomprehensible world, our already socially inept heroine struggles to find her place and before she really gets a chance, is taken away once more and pushed into marriage, society and motherhood with not a single tool to cope with any of it.  Her mistakes may be of her making, but your heart cries for her and for her pain.

Bitter is an excellent title.  as Gilda has every right to feel this way, and paradoxically no right at all, as does her son.  Yet it's also a plea: bitte.  Please...  A word this proud, desperately unhappy and lonely woman can never bring herself to say.

A beautifully written story that will have a profound effect on you and how you look at people: it's so easy to judge, but unless you know the absolute reality of someone's life, you really shouldn't.

I absolutely loved this book! A protagonist who, despite her many flaws and stalkerish tendencies, you can't help but root for,

Funny, heartbreaking and moving, Bitter is a story of obsession, love and lies. A breath of fresh air in this genre. Highly recommended!

Five stars for this phenomenal and touching novel about a mother who tries really hard to love her son but just can't get it right. It's a book about identity, selfishness and selflessness, motherhood, dignity and honour. The main character is the ultimate unreliable narrator but you trust her implicitly: the book is so well written that the reader knows that any lie she tells is only a lie because it's a lie she's telling herself as well as the reader. What a book! I LOVED it so much.

There is something heart-wrenching about this book, and stifling at the same time. It is the story of Gilda, a troubled woman watching from the sidelines as her son, with whom she has a tense relationship, gets married and sets up home with his young wife. Gilda is twice divorced, and other than her loyal friend Margo, she is lonely. She is desperate to reconnect with her son, and tries repeatedly to force herself back into his life, interfering between him and his wife, spying on them, and making many misguided and clumsy attempts at reconciliation. The book switches back and forth between this situation, which takes place in 1969, and Gilda’s earlier life. Born in Germany and sent to boarding school in England before the outbreak of the war, Gilda lacked any emotional support from her parents, who married her off to an older man. 

At its core, Bitter is the story of someone who is always on the outside - not quite the daughter her parents wanted, a Jewish girl in a troubled Germany, then a German girl in an English boarding school, all the way up to her adulthood, where she lingers on the edges of her son’s life, quite literally hiding in the bushes and peering through windows.

What struck me about the story was how complex Gilda’s character was. The reader feels sympathy for her, certainly - but also for her son, who suffers from her absence as a child and then her suffocating obsession as an adult. The story is heartfelt and emotionally led, and the characters are beautifully developed. 


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.

Francesca Jakobi walks a skillful line in creating an unlikeable yet ultimately surprisingly sympathetic character in Gilda, the central character in Bitter. This is a compelling study of a woman who is as much a victim of circumstance and the conventions of the time as she is the architect of her own misfortune. Her own worst enemy at times, Gilda's story takes us from pre-war Germany to late 1960s London as she navigates motherhood, marriage and infidelity. Marketed as a psychological thriller, it does have elements of that genre, but I don't feel that's quite the right fit. It is, however, a page-turner and Jakobi's is an assured new voice in fiction.

A beautifully written sad and poignant book. Gilda is forced by her father into an arranged marriage that suits him for business purposes. Frank and her split up after she suffers from post natal depression and meets Leo. Her pain and her emptiness is so sad. Frank is happy with his second wife and Gilda feels alone and lonely. This is a story that pulls at your emotions and makes you think. I would definitely read another book by this author.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Excellent book! I found the plot exciting and the characters engaging. The characters kept me interested throughout. Five stars.

What a compelling, unique book.  It tells the sad and poignant tale of people whose lives and relationships are doomed because of their childhood and how they were treated then.  I loved it, and highly recommend it.

A delightful read. I read this book so quickly on holiday and wished I had paced myself more. Bitter tells the story of a mother desperate to repair her relationship with her adult son.  When Reuben marries Alice, claiming at their wedding that she ‘taught him how to love’, it triggers the beginnings of a dangerous obsession in Gilda. She is soon snooping on her new daughter in law. The author has created a brilliant, compelling character that was a joy to read about.  I absolutely loved it and will be recommending to friends and family.

Bitter is a superbly told, and at times claustrophic tale of Gilda Meyer, a woman more pushed about than pushing and more sinned against than sinning, or is she?  Well, the whole story is told from Gilda’s point of view and she will do things you agree with, and things you disagree with, but despite her very frequent “I needed a whisky” moments, I couldn’t help siding with her.
Now, brace yourself, because there are 125 chapters in this book, but the prose is so vivid and stretches across two fascinating eras- post war Europe and London in the Swinging Sixties, that I was just carried along by the vivid descriptions and could barely look away from this portal into the past. Gilda has one motive and one motive only: she wants to be involved in the life of her cold, indifferent son. However, she can see that her son’s new wife brings out his warmth and this makes her envy young Alice, her daughter in law. 
Despite Gilda’s unhealthy obsession with the pair of them, she is entirely redeemed by a completely selfless act that she carries out towards the end. She could have undone her son’s deep seated dislike of her, but that would have meant hurting her son, and ultimately she makes a huge sacrifice for the sake of his feelings.
Both Gilda and Alice are products of their times.  They are both passionate women that find themselves almost handcuffed by societal limitations of the eras they live in.

There are no murders and no whodunnits here, just a beautifully nuanced story about two different women who love the same man in different ways and who are both victims of their time and the men who run their lives for them.