I read the book because of title and I enjoyed the few moments here and there when Clare Morrall played up her book's connection to Peter Pan but for the most part Astonishing Splashes of Colour left me bored. Kitty for a variety of reasons is a thirty-something adult who refuses to grow-up. It's not that she's young at heart or playful, she doesn't want to face the harsh reality that life can sometimes throw at a person.Of course, there must be reasons for Kitty's withdrawal from the real world because people don't just break, at least that's what Morrall is implying. And rather than come up with anything "astonishing" or "colorful" she goes with humdrum and hackneyed. Kitty's family must be hiding a dead dark secret from her and if that's not enough, she's also suffered a mysterious still birth. Of course she can now, for no apparent reason try again for another child. Instead she is forced to wallow in the life that might have been for her if things had worked out differently. Whatever.I've ready many positive reviews of the book and it was short listed in 2003 for the Man Booker Prize but I just don't see what all the praise is for. Sure, the book does have some interesting passages and I did love the first chapter, but the story doesn't go anywhere except down a very crowded and cliche ridden path followed by so many other books.
Do You like book Astonishing Splashes Of Colour (2003)?
An emotionally engaging, worrying, beautiful, tragic, wonderful and upsetting book. In the beginning, I kept thinking how amazing it is that the main character, Kitty, is functioning at all. What a tragic childhood, what a dysfunctional family, what a terrible thing she went through as an adult. And then it just goes from very bad to a whole lot worse. As a reader, you know it's all going terribly wrong, but it's still oddly mesmerising. Poor Kitty, she's been lied to all her life, she didn't know the truth about herself and so she could never quite find herself. It's all very sad and tragic, basically everything I don't normally like in a book, but the wonderful writing hooks you emotionally and you can see traces of yourself, and traces of people you have known and loved, in Kitty, and you feel for her, you so desperately feel for her, even though she keeps making the wrong decisions. And although I can't really explain why (as this somewhat rambling review proves), I really quite liked the book.
—Neens Bea
Kitty wants a baby. She needs a baby. Even though she lost hers, she finds Henry everywhere, at the school where she stands with all the nannies and mummies waiting for their children, at the psychiatrist's office where she's prescribed antidepressants, in the maternity ward, at the theater. He's everywhere, calling her name. On top of this, Kitty has a family that keeps secrets from her. Every time she asks about her mother, no one gives a straight answer. Her best-selling brother of an author leaves her out of his autobiographical work without good explanation. Kitty's life spirals out of control as she longs for what she can't have, and finds out the devastating truth of her origins. A finalist for the Man Booker Prize, this book was absolutely riveting. Morall successfully shows how an individual can teeter on the edge of sanity. Kitty is just a few steps from falling into full-on crazy. She has a few psychotic breaks, and in the end, she does fall hard with no hope of re-gaining all lost. It is such an emotional story. The relationship that she has with her brothers and father just adds to the chaos that plagues her everyday. Only her hygiene-obsessed boyfriend, James, can keep things in order, keep things sane. In the end, though, he's just not enough. I didn't think the author would go as far as she did. I was hoping that Kitty would somehow get her life together and adapt. Instead, she snapped. I didn't know how to handle it at first. Here was this character who I felt sorry for, who I liked very much, and suddenly, she was doing really horrible things. As the story neared the end, I became less empathetic towards her. I hoped she would just take her medication and get better, but she didn't. I applaud Morall for making that decision, for not copping out and giving us a happily ever after ending. It made the story that much more powerful and thought provoking.
—Rebecca
I tried. I really, really tried to finish this book, but I just couldn't. I always feel terrible for not finishing a book, but with this one, I also feel strangely relieved.What made this book interesting to me was for one the title and then the concept: being raised as the youngest of a number of siblings, almost all brothers, never knowing her mother, Kitty tries to find out about the history of her family and especially her mother. If the author had spent more time on the supporting characters instead of only the protagonist, this could have been an intriguing family-history-novel.But here, I have almost suffered through pages and pages of Kitty's lost walks through the city, Kitty's conversations with one of her brothers who I still can't seperate because they are all similar card-board figures, Kitty's weird marriage to the guy who lives next door to her, Kitty not taking the medication for the depression caused by losing her baby... and in the end, not even a week had passed in the story.It was hard for me to connect or even identify with Kitty and the more I read of the novel, the more she bothered me. And since there was no other character in the book for me to invest in, I just had to stop.
—Crosy
