The publicists have highlighted Russell Brand’s one word comment – “incredible” – to promote the book but if you look up the dictionary definition of ‘incredible’ you will see that the word actually means “impossible to believe / difficult to believe.

We then see how this plays out and how their lives come back together, 17 years later, when the girl herself falls pregnant. There might be some aspects that seem rather far-fetched but for me there could have been no other other way for the story to go. Bottom line here is, the author stripped the story of all complexity by manipulating her characters in a way that fit her agenda.I bought the audiobook expecting usual Dawn French humour and general loneliness, so was shocked to find myself listening to a ‘live’ depiction of a still birth in the first few chapters. It’s to the book’s credit that there is a surprising amount of thematic nuance touched upon, with both families caught up in the story being mixed race, and Hope’s parents suffering with addiction problems, but sadly I felt none of these issues were explored with the depth or impact they could have had. But what happens is not about the crime, about the whodunnitry of the story - that is at the very heart of what happens - it is about the people behind the story. Hope has escaped her own fairly dysfunctional background in Bristol and loves her indpendent life, where she is a cleaner in a London hospital. Hope and Minne become more than just mother and daughter, they are inseparable and are best friends, talking about everything under the sun and creating their own secret language.

Sal Flint has written and published over 300 chapter books for children and has recently branched out into writing picture books about topics close to her heart, such as dementia and generating kindness. I rather struggled with the, I suppose, rather simplistic response to a very serious event which then snowballed.The warmth of the mother / daughter relationship (with both mothers) was there and true to the Dawn we think we know.

The slapstick manner in which it’s done though stretches credulity (and my patience and tolerance) to breaking point. His poor wife is devastated and feels like her heart has been ripped from her chest whilst he is wondering which of his suits to wear on TV. The exploration of loss felt no more than a lip service as it seemed like the author wanted to generate warm feelings for Hope in the readers' minds, so she conveniently chose to sideline the grief of Anna. It's a story where a bad decision is made but where you will find it hard to condemn the person for making it, or for what follows.It’s a solid enough piece of commercial fiction, but it seems destined to suffer when held against the supposed best fiction of the year. I try not to be so negative about books but really feel that this was only published because it was by Dawn French. Dawn French has played this part of the story very carefully and cannily, capturing the emotion whilst developing a very clear picture of the characters at the heart of the story.

Just some of the niggles that I could have forgiven if the story was based around something as daft as the plot, but it wasn't. Good point about the longlist context changing the way a reader may be approaching this novel- I suspect that was part of the trouble I had with expecting more engagement from Small Pleasures as well, and it makes me feel a little better about not picking this one up- I probably wouldn’t be able to help approaching with the same bias. I've been quite harsh but I'm annoyed I wasted time on this, I should've dnf'd but I was weirdly compelled to read on, I wanted to know how it would end, hence the 2 stars. I think this story broke me, but in a beautiful good way, it’s a complete tearjerker, it looks at the nature of relationships and family, a mother’s love, her emotions, it’s full of heartache, grief loss, but it’s absolutely beautiful, it’s happy as well as sad, don’t want to put anyone off , it’s full of forgiveness and the most important things, full of hope and love.I only finished it because it wasn't taking up my physical book reading time, and I wanted to have full thoughts in my journey to read the Women's Prize longlist picks. In Because of You, Hope gives birth to a still born baby and goes on to steal the child of another woman, Anna, who had given birth the same hospital that night. As someone who liked but never loved Dawn French as a comedian I was surprised to find that this was my local Women's Institute book club read. I had seen so many good reviews of this, I couldn’t pass this by, especially as it was narrated by Dawn French.