Published on goodreads: Absolutely marvellous. A wonderful, poignant emotional journey and a compulsively readable story. One of the best I have read in many years

Francesca Jakobi has given us a compelling, moving, and, at times, appalling picture of a misunderstood and much maligned woman. The novel begins with a depiction of Gilda’s estranged son’s wedding. During his speech, he turns to his wife, Alice, proclaiming that she has ‘taught him what love could be’. From this we infer that his mother did not. However, Gilda does not have a trouble-free youth herself. Sent to England from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, she grows up feeling unwanted and friendless, with the exception of the ever-loyal and fairly appreciated Margot.
Gilda’s parents arrange her marriage to a much older businessman, Frank, who is kind enough but neither one of them feel more than a luke-warm affection. When Reuben is born it is clear that Gilda suffers from undiagnosed post-natal depression and it is only when she begins working with refugees in WW11 London that she has a fleeting sense of her potential. Always concerned that she is not a good enough mother, her relationship with her son Reuben feels detached and she has so little self-esteem that she slips into the notion that he hates her. Passed between Gilda and her second husband Leo and Frank and his second wife Bertha, it is clear that Reuben learns to blame his mother for all his troubles and resent her for her distant parenting. Unsurprisingly, the middle-aged Gilda who narrates the story is a very unhappy, unfulfilled alcoholic.
One of the real strengths of this novel is the way in which Jakobi uses the first-person narrative. Through her own distinctive voice, Gilda is exposed as a self-pitying, tough, angry, jealous, thoughtless, insensitive woman and yet, over the course of the novel, she is, at the same time, revealed as well-meaning, loving, and desperate for approval. Her daughter-in-law, Alice, whom Gilda initially resents, sees her for who she truly is and gradually the two women begin to appreciate each other. By the end of the novel, tenuous new shoots are growing out of the very fragile plant that is Gilda’s family as she learns to tend it in a more sustainable way. This is a moving and subtle novel which reminds the reader that judging and labelling people neatly, in this case in the roles of victim and perpetrator, is rarely the whole story.
My thanks to NetGalley and Weidenfeld and Nicholson for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

An enjoyable engaging and enthralling read. Recommended reading makes you question your own parental relationships. Well written intelligent. Definitely recommended.

I wasn't sure what to expect but I was really impressed with this debut novel. The story is fast and pacy and yet very emotional too. The characters were layered and complex and really brought the story into its own. The short chapters meant I whizzed through, just wanting to 'read one more' and the dual timeline worked well. Moving, fascinating and emotionally complex.

A slow start, but absolutely worth persisting with.

At first I thought I would soon tire of this novel, as the leading character just isn't someone you can relate to on any level. However, giving it a couple more chapters paid serious dividends, as i had hoped it would, as she starts to develop into a fully rounded woman with whom not only can we relate, but can develop a deep relationship with.

Taken from home and family and thrust into a completely incomprehensible world, our already socially inept heroine struggles to find her place and before she really gets a chance, is taken away once more and pushed into marriage, society and motherhood with not a single tool to cope with any of it. Her mistakes may be of her making, but your heart cries for her and for her pain.

Bitter is an excellent title. as Gilda has every right to feel this way, and paradoxically no right at all, as does her son. Yet it's also a plea: bitte. Please... A word this proud, desperately unhappy and lonely woman can never bring herself to say.

A beautifully written story that will have a profound effect on you and how you look at people: it's so easy to judge, but unless you know the absolute reality of someone's life, you really shouldn't.

I absolutely loved this book! A protagonist who, despite her many flaws and stalkerish tendencies, you can't help but root for,

Funny, heartbreaking and moving, Bitter is a story of obsession, love and lies. A breath of fresh air in this genre. Highly recommended!

Five stars for this phenomenal and touching novel about a mother who tries really hard to love her son but just can't get it right. It's a book about identity, selfishness and selflessness, motherhood, dignity and honour. The main character is the ultimate unreliable narrator but you trust her implicitly: the book is so well written that the reader knows that any lie she tells is only a lie because it's a lie she's telling herself as well as the reader. What a book! I LOVED it so much.

There is something heart-wrenching about this book, and stifling at the same time. It is the story of Gilda, a troubled woman watching from the sidelines as her son, with whom she has a tense relationship, gets married and sets up home with his young wife. Gilda is twice divorced, and other than her loyal friend Margo, she is lonely. She is desperate to reconnect with her son, and tries repeatedly to force herself back into his life, interfering between him and his wife, spying on them, and making many misguided and clumsy attempts at reconciliation. The book switches back and forth between this situation, which takes place in 1969, and Gilda’s earlier life. Born in Germany and sent to boarding school in England before the outbreak of the war, Gilda lacked any emotional support from her parents, who married her off to an older man.

At its core, Bitter is the story of someone who is always on the outside - not quite the daughter her parents wanted, a Jewish girl in a troubled Germany, then a German girl in an English boarding school, all the way up to her adulthood, where she lingers on the edges of her son’s life, quite literally hiding in the bushes and peering through windows.

What struck me about the story was how complex Gilda’s character was. The reader feels sympathy for her, certainly - but also for her son, who suffers from her absence as a child and then her suffocating obsession as an adult. The story is heartfelt and emotionally led, and the characters are beautifully developed.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.

Francesca Jakobi walks a skillful line in creating an unlikeable yet ultimately surprisingly sympathetic character in Gilda, the central character in Bitter. This is a compelling study of a woman who is as much a victim of circumstance and the conventions of the time as she is the architect of her own misfortune. Her own worst enemy at times, Gilda's story takes us from pre-war Germany to late 1960s London as she navigates motherhood, marriage and infidelity. Marketed as a psychological thriller, it does have elements of that genre, but I don't feel that's quite the right fit. It is, however, a page-turner and Jakobi's is an assured new voice in fiction.

A beautifully written sad and poignant book. Gilda is forced by her father into an arranged marriage that suits him for business purposes. Frank and her split up after she suffers from post natal depression and meets Leo. Her pain and her emptiness is so sad. Frank is happy with his second wife and Gilda feels alone and lonely. This is a story that pulls at your emotions and makes you think. I would definitely read another book by this author.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Excellent book! I found the plot exciting and the characters engaging. The characters kept me interested throughout. Five stars.

What a compelling, unique book. It tells the sad and poignant tale of people whose lives and relationships are doomed because of their childhood and how they were treated then. I loved it, and highly recommend it.

A delightful read. I read this book so quickly on holiday and wished I had paced myself more. Bitter tells the story of a mother desperate to repair her relationship with her adult son. When Reuben marries Alice, claiming at their wedding that she ‘taught him how to love’, it triggers the beginnings of a dangerous obsession in Gilda. She is soon snooping on her new daughter in law. The author has created a brilliant, compelling character that was a joy to read about. I absolutely loved it and will be recommending to friends and family.

Bitter is a superbly told, and at times claustrophic tale of Gilda Meyer, a woman more pushed about than pushing and more sinned against than sinning, or is she? Well, the whole story is told from Gilda’s point of view and she will do things you agree with, and things you disagree with, but despite her very frequent “I needed a whisky” moments, I couldn’t help siding with her.
Now, brace yourself, because there are 125 chapters in this book, but the prose is so vivid and stretches across two fascinating eras- post war Europe and London in the Swinging Sixties, that I was just carried along by the vivid descriptions and could barely look away from this portal into the past. Gilda has one motive and one motive only: she wants to be involved in the life of her cold, indifferent son. However, she can see that her son’s new wife brings out his warmth and this makes her envy young Alice, her daughter in law.
Despite Gilda’s unhealthy obsession with the pair of them, she is entirely redeemed by a completely selfless act that she carries out towards the end. She could have undone her son’s deep seated dislike of her, but that would have meant hurting her son, and ultimately she makes a huge sacrifice for the sake of his feelings.
Both Gilda and Alice are products of their times. They are both passionate women that find themselves almost handcuffed by societal limitations of the eras they live in.

There are no murders and no whodunnits here, just a beautifully nuanced story about two different women who love the same man in different ways and who are both victims of their time and the men who run their lives for them.

Wonderful character study for fans of obsessive fiction, with a hint of Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal. Sharp characterisations, and both witty and sad. The characters willl stayvwith you for some time to come.

I loved this book!
The moving between timelines really helped us to understand Gilda's character and how she ended up where she did and the book managed these switches seamlessly.
I loved the relationship between Gilda and Margo, and the relationships between all of the characters felt real and authentic.
I would only say that parts of the narrative seemed to peter out, I thought the stalking of Alice would be the main storyline and it felt like it was going somewhere dangerous but just seemed to end (same with Gilda's' alcoholism). In fact I thought were heading somewhere incredibly dark with the whole tale but it actually ended quite benignly. Which might really be a relief as I did want Gilda to have some kind of happy ending. And her dreadful son could do with a bit of a slap!

Overall a really different, refreshing read that shows not every mother gets it right and explores the reasons why.

A wonderful observational first novel.
It is a moving and painful story that highlights a mother’s undying love for her son.
Gilda has made some difficult decisions in her life none more so than leaving her unhappy marriage and her adored son. He is grown up now and married but their mother and son relationship is on a knife edge - can it be saved?
I found myself sympathising with Gilda and hoping for a happy outcome for her. A different type of book to those I normally read but I was fully engaged to the end.

Bitter by Francesca Jakobi is exactly the kind of book you would expect it to be from looking at the blurb. Gilda is a bitter woman who is unable to accept responsibility for the way her life has turned out.

Gilda abandoned her son, Reuben, when he was a young boy and fears the resulting damage to their relationship can never be overcome. Now her son has married someone who is the total opposite as her and Gilda will go to extreme lengths to discover what his new wife has that she doesn’t.

Gilda is not a likeable character, but she is an intriguing one, you want to know how her story ends and whether she will be able to repair her relationship with Reuben.

Bitter begins at Reuben’s wedding to Alice and we immediately get a sense of the kind of woman Gilda is; critical and prone to errors in judgement which she usually proceeds to blame on everyone but herself.

“I thought I looked so smart when I left the flat this morning, but I’ve come to my own son’s wedding in a white suit and veil.”

This is the kind of action that makes it so difficult for her to repair her relationship with her son. She is aware of the distance that exists and is desperate to bridge it, but her actions only seem to make things worse and to make her more bitter.

Her son’s wedding should be a happy occasion for her but everything about it serves only to remind her of their difficult relationship.

“He says she taught him how to love; that she taught him what love could be.

And I can’t look at him because he didn’t learn about love from me.”

During the course of the book we learn that Gilda was married twice and that both marriages failed. Her first marriage was to an older man named Frank, a business partner of her father’s and a match she would not have chosen. Frank was a kind husband and whilst she didn’t love him she was content with him for a while.

However, when Gilda learnt she was pregnant with Reuben that began to change. Once he was born she was scared that she wasn’t able to look after him properly and found herself reliant on the nanny and her friend Margo to look after hm in her stead. When Margo left to work during the war Gilda found took to her bed with depression and her relationship with Reuben was further separated.

Eventually Margo and Frank decided she should take work to try and bring her out of her depression. During the course of this work she met Leo and embarked on the affair that would serve as the final nail in the coffin in terms of her relationship with her son.

Now Gilda takes any sign of Reuben’s love for his wife as a slight to their own relationship.

“He’s holding her hand like it’s a trophy he can’t believe he’s won. This is the son who never touches his mother, not even on the cheek when he kisses me hello. This is the son who never calls me; never visits me unless he knows he has to.”

Gilda often feels overlooked in her life, redundant.

“I can’t remember the last time anyone looked at me and really saw me.”

Bitter is an interesting display of the difficulties that can occur in the relationship between a mother and her son. It was an easy read and one I enjoyed at the time, but I can’t say it was particularly memorable. However, I think it is an ideal holiday read as it doesn’t take too much of your attention and isn’t too heavy.

I was really unsure about this book to start with as it isn't my usual genre. But i am so glad i read it. It really feels like you are reading someone's diary and listening to their thoughts. It is wonderfully written and i would really recommend reading it.

Such a beautifully written and interesting book. I read it fair;y quickly as it was so easy to read. Poignant, funny and sometimes dark it ticked all the boxes for me.