I really enjoyed it - had not much expected to

I heard about this book from BBC’s “A Good Read” and of course had already heard of the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

It’s not the kind of book I usually read but I think it was on sale in Audible so I decided to give it a go.

It was cery well read/performed though without the Scottish accent I was expecting, I suppose because the story is set in London.

The story was very entertaining and engrossing. I listened to all but the final hour in one “sitting” and even laughed out loud a few times. The writing was so well done and so easy to listen to that it made time pass so quickly.

Highly recommended for a light, entertaining few hours.

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Super novel, delightfully constructed

Having read this novel many years before, I decided to revisit it via Audible. I loved the use of extracts of poetry in each chapter the setting of the May of Teck club and the engaging cast of largely female characters. Spark is expert at creating humour but also manages to deliver a powerful emotional charge at the end. Well worth revisiting!

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Great listen

Narrator is great. Really great little book. Writer really takes you to the time and place. Great characters too.

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Quietly Wonderful

This story of a group of women's friendship during WW2 is quaint but culminates in an eventful ending. Superboy narrated as usual by Juliet Stevenson, it is a real hidden gem.

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Succinct and elegant writing

This “novelette” is set in immediate post II WW London. It’s a window into a crowd of predominantly women with a variety of personalities written in an amusing, succinct and elegant style.
There is a dry English humour, with razor like descriptions and scenes that capture the spirit of the times; and I’m sure an autobiographical element in her experiences of residences from where she has drawn inspiration for her characters.
Well crafted by MS and expertly performed by a narrator who could easily have been one of cast.

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Perfection

Life in a hostel for young women in London at the end of World War 2. Immaculate reading by Juliet Stevenson of Muriel Spark’s unforgettable, sad and funny, novel.

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Great

I loved this short novel. The quality is high and there is nothing to complain about with it.

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perfect!

I just live this short novel and Juliet Stevenson reads it perfectly. She really brings out the dry humour in Muriel Spark's writing

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You Have Been Listening, By The Way

For a book to compel me to write a review, it has to be pretty impactful. This was my first Muriel Spark, though I have seen the film of Miss Jean Brodie with Maggie Smith. In that sense, I sort of knew what to expect. I have heard Spark described as possessing a dark sense of humour, and this is present throughout TGOSM. What surprised me was how short it was, but this suited; any longer would have been tedious.
Nothing much happens in this book until the last third, yet something about it kept me listening. Maybe it was Juliet Stevenson's superb narration or the sense of melancholy that pervades the book, symptomatic of the end of a kind of bubble brought on by VE and VJ Day. 'We're all in this together' we say when a war or a pandemic happens.
These things look bad and we want them to be over, but they have the potential to bring out the best in us. Spark seems almost sad WW2 ended. She reminds me of an everywoman's Virginia Woolf.

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Delightful

Beautifully read by Juliet Stevenson. I will definitely be downloading another. The story is a very short snip of life after the war

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