Book Review - What Have I Done? by Amanda Prowse - Paperback Summer

Amazon UK

Title: What Have I Done?

Author: Amanda Prowse

Format reviewed: Paperback

Source: Competition Win

Publisher: Head of Zeus

Publication Date: 1st July 2013

Rating: 5 Stars

Could you destroy your family to save your children?

Kathyrn Brooker seems the very picture of a fulfilled wife and mother. Anyone who peered through the downstairs window at the four figures sitting around her kitchen table would see a happy family without a care in the world. They would envy Kathyrn her perfect life.

But they would be wrong. Kathryn is trapped in a nightmare. And she is about to do something to change it. Something only a truly desperate woman would do...

Kathyrn Brooker did a truly despicable thing, something that was shocking, and doesn't show any remorse for her actions. But yet as the story evolves going back and forth over a ten year period, you can see how she was driven to her actions and even if you don't agree with her, you can understand her predicament. 

Noone can really tells what goes on in a marriage. You can put on a happy front for everyone, but yet have a spine chilling, truly fearful relationship in private. And what happens when you can no longer maintain that pretence, and have finally had enough. 

What Kathryn had to put up with during her marriage was truly awful, and I was filled with a hatred myself for her husband.  It is a topic that is dealt with in Amanda Prowse's usual sensitive manner, shocking with the truth of the situation, but equally filling you with compassion towards Kathryn. 

I found What Have You Done to be enthralling and utterly gripping. I was hooked from the first few paragraphs, and the only reasons I put the book down for short periods of time, was to get my head around what I was reading, and to absorb it fully. 

This book shows how you can attempt to rebuild your life, and how you can take a second chance if you are offered one. In the more recent years, her friendships become vital, and the work she is trying to achieve is awe-inspiring. 

Kathryn is a truly remarkable lady, and one that displays huge amount of courage in her life. I am saddened by how her children treat her throughout the book, although after the incident, I can understand them a bit more. 

Each chapter is just titled by how many years ago the chapter is set in, which gives you a good idea of the passing of time, and just where you are going to next in the story. I didn't find it confusing at all, and was glad of the reminder. 

What Have I Done? is a brilliant story that is full of the deep and rich complexities of human life.