Separate Lives by Kathryn Flett

There are two kinds of chick-lit books – the first focuses on the twenty somethings and their trials and tribulations. The second is more for the thirty/forty somethings – the yummy mummies if you like, married with children.

Separate lives falls into the latter category of chick lit and focuses on the lives of Susie and Alex, together for ten years with two children and Pippa, divorced with one son. Told through Susie and Pippa, with a few emails from Alex, the story follows their lives and the direction they take.

The book starts as Susie reads a text message on Alex’s phone that reads 'Start living a different kind of life ... P :-) xxx'. Susie doesn’t know anyone called P and doesn’t know why her partner has received this text. I personally loved this opening paragraph. It had me hooked with the line “if you dared look me in the eye and tell me you had never done the same thing, I wouldn’t believe you, because we all have”. As my friend said, when I showed her the book, it was so completely true, you had to laugh! And with that candidly honest opening, it's hard not to like Susie as she begins to tell you about how she realised her partner was being unfaithful.
BR> And yet at the same time, what is interesting, is that Susie begins to flesh out and as the book progresses you realise that she’s not the holier-than-thou person you think she is. The text message turns out not to be as clear cut as you’d think, but neither is Susie. She’s been having an affair too and ironically that’s the reason that Alex and Pippa get together. The real affairs and imagined affairs twist and turn beautifully around the characters to the point that it’s hard to know who started what when. It definitely isn’t what you think it will be that’s for sure.

The characters in the book are very well written and are brought to life through their narration. What I enjoyed most was the twists in the characters as you discover something about them you didn’t realise. The author uses the now familiar trick of multiple narration from characters and yet it somehow seems to feel new and fresh in this book. I also liked the way she would write about an event from one person’s perspective and wasn’t afraid to leap back in time and write again from someone else’s point of view. Again, this isn’t a new style of writing but it doesn’t feel clichéd in this book and it works well.

Not only does this book tick all of the chick lit clichés (laugher – yes, tears –yes, shock – yes, cheesy ending – yes) but it highlights the best of the genre. In some ways it is exactly what you would expect, and in others, not at all – in particular the depth of character the author has added to Susie and Pippa.

Despite tending to normally prefer the younger focus of chick lit books, I found this book highly enjoyable. The story flows well and despite the frequent changes of author, maintains the pace of the novel and the storyline flows well. The differences in narration between Pippa and Susie are subtle but enough to feel each character. Alex’s narration is carried out through emails to his twin brother, and this difference helps to highlight his character versus Susie.