The Golden Rule: Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2021

I love all of Amanda Craig's work and think she holds a unique place in modern fiction - someone who writes entertaining, page-turning fiction that goes after the issues of the day fearlessly. She is a generous writer who is always warm towards her characters. She's the modern day Trollope and her books will be loved by many readers as his have been. In this novel, she takes a very fair and balanced view of a slice of English life, wrapped up in a gripping story that pays an affectionate nod to DuMaurier. She is not a political writer, but a politically aware one. Above all she is humane and full of heart. Her vision is much more than of the moment - it is universal and timeless.

I enjoyed this , not an author I'd read before but well written and a decent pace. It's not as frothy as chicklit and the characters are more meaty,a little more contemporary . I did find it a tad cliched and a little far fetched . SPOILER : ridiculous that "Jinnie" would have been allowed to get away with what she'd done, especially since Hannah was supposed to be a strong character. As a mother I found this aspect of the plot unrealistic. I prefer the darkness of Highsmith and DuMaurier . Touting Craig as Dickensian is ridiculous . She deals superficially with a few socio-economic issues but nothing as profound or perceptive as Dickens. It's a 3.5* rather than a full 4* but I pretty much read it in one go and it held my attention.

This book has been difficult to review because I have really contrasting feelings on it. And I think that's because the book itself is maybe trying to be too much. So I'm going to review it in sections.The stories of Hannah and Stan: this is what kept me turning the pages. It was gripping and interesting, especially the way their lives were mirrored opposites and the lessons they had to learn from each other. With Cornwall as a backdrop this was a great story.The omnipresent nattrator: there was a very distinctive third voice which I presume was the author. Through this we had lots of info dumping, lots of telling but no showing and lots of political pontificating. Just sort of random lectures on the benefits system, brexit, and poverty. It was all stuff I agree with but it wasn't delicately laced within the plot but rather one minute a character would be talking about their Iraqi grandmother and the next they are giving a lecture about the middle East. It was unnatural. Almost like it was the authors notes and character backstories that should have been edited out. ****SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT****The ending;"Yes. No more landlords. No more generation rent". It pissed me off 😑. I know the author wanted to give Hannah the happy ending alot of us won't have - but here's some magic money now by a 400k flat in London. It just seemed to undermine it all. And Jake went from beating his wife to being really sorry about it 🤷🏻‍♀️. And Jinni? No justice? Hello she tried to murder a child!! ***** END OF SPOILERS ****So yes, this book was infuriating and relatable, full of clever social observations and improbable realities, was a story well told and book not well edited. I really enjoyed it. And I didn't enjoy it.

I have come to realise that Amazon reviews are the most reliable, not because they all agree or reflect exactly my taste but because from the range and comments I can work out whether or not I’ll like the book. High profile authors and celebrities have given glowing reviews of The Golden Rule. The marketing has been very thorough, even through lockdown. Though the cover image could easily have been a man and a woman holding hands in a Cornish sunset (and I wouldn’t have bought it), the publishers have lured me in with a sophisticated and intriguing image. Social media used to the max. Newspaper reviews splendid. But I can’t trust them anymore. They are all just boosting the industry. Only Amazon reviewers give their own genuine take.Though many Amazon reviewers have criticised the politics (and it’s certainly heavy-handed), The Golden Rule chimes with my own politics so I don’t mind that. However, it reads like a self-published and unedited clunky romance. The setting in Cornwall and London is nice enough. The storyline is predictable, which takes away from any tension that might have built. The main protagonist is weak and unlikeable, not able to solve any of her own problems and ultimately relying on others (people she generally fears or despises or pities or feels let down by) to bail her out in various unlikely ways. You might like it though.

There is such a lot in this novel it is hard to know where to start. It is a great story, kept me up far too late far too often, a real page turner. The characters believable and larger than life. It deals with difficult issues whilst maintaining a lightness and unerring optimism: poverty, divorce, spitefulness, loss, single motherhood, sexual harassment and domestic abuse. Read that list and you might think it would be a depressing story - far from it. I laughed out loud often. It shows that suffering lives alongside joy, and love alongside hate, and that usually it is possible to forgive. I particularly appreciated the subtlety in which Amanda Craig describes the long slow climb back to self-respect, confidence and trust which the main character Hannah takes. Thank you Amanda I will now rush and buy all your other books!

I agree that this book seemed to ride lots of cliches and there were elements of different stories here from' Jane Eyre' to 'Beauty and the Beast'. However,The Golden Rule - 'Do as you would be done by' is a sound principle - and the story stuck to that regardless of the rich = immoral, poor = upright /moral cliche.I sympathised with the single mother struggling to survive I thought that was well drawn- and there are men who discard their children in an off-hand way. And social snobbery is alive and well in the UK and this too is illustrated here.I preferred 'The Lie of the Land' which to me was a more coherent read - however wouldn't dismiss this book, I enjoyed it.

Amanda Craig is my current favorite writer. I have lots of favorites, but she's right up there. I fall into her books like I'm sinking into a very comfortable easy chair. I quote Matisse, “What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity… something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.” Ms. Craig provides balance and serenity but not at the expense of a whopping good tale with all the sturm und drang of real life. Her latest, The Golden Rule, explains a lot about the state of England at the present time: the difficulties faced by single moms, exorbitant houseing prices, Brexit.... It's all made very real. And the writing itself is incredible, which is what makes all her books work so beautifully.

I've enjoyed a few novels by Amanda Craig, particularly The Lie of the Land. I don't know what happened with The Golden Rule - did someone tell her to dumb down, did she not have time to write it properly...? It's not a good novel, and I could not go on with it after the first forty or so pages. Firstly, it's not well writtten, and I see no reason to persist with poor prose. Secondly, it's full of silly clichés and heavy-handed authorial commentary, eg, on Brexit. Thirdly, I just could not get interested in the character fo Hannah, which seemed to me hackneyed beyond belief. All in all, I regret spending money on an unreadable novel, and I won't be buying anything else by this author in future.

A completely predictable, cheesy story, badly written. Full of one-dimensional personage acting like lunatics. Kind of Cinderella meets Mr Rochester but so flat you sometimes have to laugh about the rubbish, and that's what the author seemingly tried to achieve. What a waste.

I’ve never written a review before but this book made me so angry I need to warn others - do not purchase!This book was horrendous - preachy, condescending, offensive to women (and men), and tedious. The protagonist was intensely dislikable, one-dimensional, and unrealistic, and the plot was basically non-existent. The entire book (whyyyy did I finish it?!) felt like a vessel for the author to share her sexist, classist, outdated, smug views on all manner of things not connected to a murder plot in a faux-woke way that only highlighted how out of touch and misogynistic she appears to be herself. Particular low points in this book included the protagonist refusing to attend her own birthday party as she had nothing to wear, and (because women only care about clothes!) feeling equally as guilty about plotting to murder someone as she did about ruining his grandmother’s Dior dress. Normally I love the books that have been nominated for the women’s prize for fiction but this was WAY off the mark.

An enthralling set up, love the involvement of Strangers On A Train and where that was taken. Cornwall, my many times there as a child, and then visiting ex-family, is well drawn. Plus, what I read it for, a book about England now, London, Cornwall, Brexit, going to university as a plebeian, just a great read and well worth the time.