Andrea Levy - Small Island - Book Review

Small Island was a deserving winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year and the Orange Prize for Fiction. It tracts how the escalation of racial tension and the first tentative steps towards racial integration after World War 2. Gilbert Joseph from Jamaica, despite fighting in the RAF to defend Britain from the Nazis, struggles to make it as an immigrant in urban England with his Jamaican wife, Hortense - who herself had high aspirations only to have them dashed almost immediately on her arrival in England. Queenie, their landlady, struggles to make enough to get by while her husband is apparently lost in action, she also struggles to hide a secret that could potentially bring her great shame.

Andrea Levy writes a superb novel that will move everyone, however, what should be the most shocking plot twist of all is not hidden adequately to give it the potence necessary to surprise the seasoned readers among you.

I give Small Island by Andrea Levy an official Great Book Guide score of 79% - certainly worth a read if you have a couple of long return journeys with little else to do.