The Inconvenient Need To Belong ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Today is my stop on the blog tour thanks to @annecater14 for organising and having me on the tour.

What a heartwarming tale. Really uplifting. So beautifully written. This book explores the loneliness of life along with growing old.

In 1953 Alfie ran away from a troubled childhood to begin a new life for himself in Exeter.

Meet Alfie now. Age 86. Living a lonely and grumpy life in a care home. To add some excitement and escapism Alfie sneaks out every week to feed the ducks. Looking at his younger days and struggling to accept his past. This is the story of loneliness, regret and emotion.

If your a fan of books featuring #pensionersinthepages then I can't recommend this one enough.

Alfie is a resident in a care home, he really doesn’t like other people and he’s a grumpy loner. But, every Saturday he sneaks out and visits a local park to feed the ducks. Here he meets Fred, a young man and Alfie starts to tell his story….

Alfie left his home, parents and sisters in London in the middle of the night, he needed to make a life of his own. At the toss of a coin he arrives in Exeter.

It’s here he meets Grace, but when things don’t go as he dreamed, he turns to drink…

He runs away and joins a travelling funfair and life is good…….but will he stay sober?

This is a tale of a lonely man….as an old man he’s looking back at his life and how his behaviour has left him alone. It is about love, loss, guilt and regrets.

I found the detail as of life in a care home heartbreaking, the monotony and loneliness just so realistic…( my mum is a resident of a lovely care home, but is bed ridden and days are spent alone in a room with only a tv for company….apart from her wild adventures in her mind due to dementia).

Alfie is a complex, troubled man and I really felt for him…..

A beautifully written story that I couldn’t put down. I loved every emotion packed moment.

Thank you to The author, the publishers and NetGalley for an eARC of the book. This is my honest, unbiased review.

This is a simple, yet sweet story weaving an affecting tale of the past with the present. This story felt a bit too simplistic for my taste which led to an ending that felt a bit flat. The characters were likable yet could have used a bit more detail. Sweet yet forgettable.

A story told in two time lines of a carefree youngster Alfie in 1953 England and then moving to his late eighties living out his days in a care home.

Cantankerous now, keeping everyone out, socially inept Alfie has not changed especially the social part. Brought up by a strict dominant father whose word was law and who was to be feared, whose mother just followed his father's orders, the only person he loved was his sister Betty. But to get out from these suffocating circumstances, he crept out in the dead of the night and a reconciliation was never possible.

Now Alfie reminisces about his past with Fred a youngster who joins him on Saturday mornings on a park bench. Alfie sees in Fred a younger version of himself and gives an account of how his life panned out hoping that Fred will not make the mistakes he made. Befriending Anne on a pen pal site was a way of reaching out of his solitude and putting to paper what he has bottled up for decades.

I seem to be reading a lot of stories of people who are loners, who are socially not upto fitting into groups in a casual way and as a result are thought to be arrogant, evasive and just difficult. Alfie fits all the descriptions of being a cantankerous old man, whilst deep down he is just lonely and someone who has never got around to not being judgemental and to accept people as they are.

This was an eye opener of a read for older people - to live and let live, to realize that the end is closer than one thinks.

I absolutely cannot believe this is a debut novel. It is absolutely superb. The author is able to seamlessly move from past to present in a way that really keeps you engaged in the book. 
The ending of this one has been a complete surprise which is always welcome. I have absolutely adored Alfie's story, he is such a likeable character. 
I am definitely a fan of this author, I have been pulled into this one and found that it has been difficult to put down. Her writing style is fantastic and has really kept my attention. I absolutely cannot wait to read more by this author.
This is without a doubt a five star read.

This book is an absolute read. If you are one of those people who feel like missing something in their life, I'm sure this story will resonate with the unexplainable void cast in your heart. When I started reading the book I mistook the story to be incredible plain and boring (first three pages I guess, I know that was pretty hasty of me to reach that conclusion, but I am mentioning it so that you don't quit reading just by finding some first pages boring). But as it progressed it got a lot more interesting.
It is a story of regrets, wrong choices and teaches you to cherish your youth. I liked the character of Alfie Cooper the protagonist and the narrator. He is in his 80s without any children or kin to call his own, he lives in Pinewood Care Home for the Elderly in a small English town, he knows that his life is results of his wrong choices and somehow he keeps on regretting those. The only things that interest him in his monochromatic routined life are his bird motel (a stolen ashtray from his roommate) his weekly library visits and his sneak-out to nearby parks on Saturdays. I often pitied Alfie for his lonely and monotoned life and it is sad to know how his life turned out to be.
The story is beautifully orchestrated and narrated in second person POV. The early 50s landscapes, culture and lifestyle are well described in the story.

I must like to add this book is The Notebook without Allie in it.

Overall very interesting read.