Tuesday's Child (Louise Bagshawe)**

I have given Tuesday’s Child only two stars because there is a lot that frustrates me about the book. But it does have many strengths, and if you’re a different sort of person from me, the strengths will quite likely not be overridden by all the things I didn’t like. So I’ll tell you now – Louise Bagshawe’s novel has many genuinely funny moments, and some really lovely characters. The central character, Lucy, is very sweet in her naivety, and her best friend Ollie is absolutely gorgeous. Some of the other characters are a bit one-dimensional, but that doesn’t matter in this sort of comedy because part of the point is that they’re so fake, they really would seem one-dimensional if you met them in person. Lucy’s snobby, bitchy workmates are called Jade, Buffy and Melissa – somehow, I can’t imagine a better trio of names. And there’s a wanker called James as well – see Lucy in the Sky, Holly’s Inbox and Watermelon.

Tuesday’s Child is Cinderella. Rags to riches. The ugly duckling who becomes a swan. But, for me, it’s a story that’s unrewarding. It’s all very well for Cinderella to meet her Prince if that’s what she wants. But if all Lucy (yes, she’s another of those stupid Lucys, but not too stupid to know what she wants from life) wants is to write about computer games and play football with the lads, she ought to be able to do that.

Maybe most chick lit readers want to read about typical girls, and require the weird girls to acquire at least an element of typicality in order to be considered a likeable character. If this is true, it’s a shame because there are too many books, magazines and people around already telling you that unless girls look good and dress well and give a shit about what perfume they’re wearing (I don’t think I even own any perfume), they are never going to get anywhere in life. I don’t agree with that attitude at all. I would so much rather read about someone with a bit of originality about them ending up happy.

When Lucy gets a job as a secretary with a group of girls who happen to wear expensive clothes all the time, it’s fair enough for her to wear those clothes at work. She doesn’t have a choice about that. But why should she suddenly start wearing those clothes outside work as well? It’s not even as though her workmates are nice, kind, friendly, interesting people. Lucy has no desire to be like them. She had no desire to dress like them before, so why start now?

Of course, Lucy does eventually realise that her job doesn’t suit her, and she leaves. (I might as well give that part of the plot away as that’s usually what does happen in novels like this.) But we never see her playing football again. And that’s a shame because she is astonishingly good. She can play in a team of guys, and score goals against an all-male opposition. Even if she wasn’t good at it, the point is she loves it. She shouldn’t have to stop playing because it’s not very girly. She should be allowed to be the person she is, and to enjoy being that person.

One of Bagshawe’s reasons for changing Lucy’s personality is because she is, apparently, ‘not very mature’. The proof of this is her decision to review computer games for a living. Well, what’s wrong with that? Someone’s got to do it, and why not her? Computer games are not aimed at people of a particular age. Lucy’s only twenty-four, anyway – not that age matters. I don’t think people should be made to feel that there’s any kind of age limit on the things they enjoy. There will be some exceptions to that: for both practical and legal reasons, a mature male can’t start playing rugby with a group of small boys in the park. But there’s no reason he shouldn’t play with people his own age and own size.

Lucy is eventually permitted to return to her computer games – but she does so in a way that’s mature and worthwhile and helps others. There’s nothing wrong with helping others. On the contrary, I think it’s something everyone should do when they can. But Lucy doesn’t need something like this in order to make playing computer games at her age acceptable. There’s no need at all for Lucy to do anything spectacular or revolutionary.

It alienates us because most of us will never get to do anything like that. Even if we wanted to, the chances are we would never have the opportunity. Also (although maybe I’m wrong about this), I don’t think Lucy’s innovation actually exists in our world – certainly not to the extent the book suggests it does. And if it does, Lucy is more or less being credited with it, which is completely unfair and wrong.

Even if Bagshawe felt very strongly that Lucy did need to use her computer skills in an unselfish and helpful way, it was a mistake to have it happen out of nowhere. The theme needs to be strongly in place from the start. It’s fine for it to be subtle – but, when it happens, we need to be looking back and thinking: Yes, of course. This is exactly the sort of thing Lucy has been looking for all along, and this is exactly what she needs to make her happy, and even though it was a surprise, I can look back on the story and see Bagshawe was leading up to it the whole time.

Instead, I was kind of left thinking… what????