So firstly, I think to enjoy this book, you need to suspend reality and read for the sheer absurdity. The author is skilled in her use of language to entertain and with the Parker family she has found a great pool of characters to draw from.

Although the pace was a touch frustrating and overall the plot too drawn out, it does provide a complete escape from reality with its ironic, chaotic, nerve jangling simplistic plot.

The larger than life caricatures, exaggerated hugely reflect a disastrously spoilt family and similar ‘friends’ and most not particularly likeable, although I don’t think they are supposed to be.

The book is full of irony and provides a total break from ‘the norm’. The writing reflects the authors voice quite clearly.

The Best Things is a family drama and the debut novel of Mel Giedroyc. It focuses on a well-to-do middle class family which is headed by Frank and Sally. Frank - the breadwinner - is having a crisis of health and wife Sally - the "homemaker" - is having a crisis of identity. When their financial stability comes under threat the family begins to topple like a house of cards.

Whilst I don't think The Best Things had the most exciting storyline the way the story is delivered and the fully developed characters carry it along nicely. It is the characters and the humour that save the novel.

The Best Things by Mel Giedroyc is available now.

For more information regarding Mel Giedroyc (@mel_giedroyc) please visit her Twitter page.

For more information regarding Headline (@headlinepg) please visit their Twitter page.

The premise sounded good but the execution was awful
The pacing was off. The scene setting was dull. The structure was awful too

I must firstly apologise for the amount of time it has taken me to provide a review of this book, my health was rather bad for quite some time, something that had me in hospital on numerous occasions and simply didnt leave me with the time I once had to do what I love most.

Unfortunately that does mean I have missed the archive date for many of these books, so It would feel unjust throwing any review together without being able to pay attention to each novel properly.

However, I am now back to reading as before and look forward to sharing my honest reviews as always going forward. I thank you f0r the patience and understanding throughout x

I think I expected more from this book. I love Mel on tv and although this book did have a little bit of humour in it, I thought I would be able to “hear” and sense Mel’s personality more than I did.
Quite enjoyed the story though although did feel a bit long winded in places

Not bad but just didnt hit the mark. It’s fine for what it is; Mel writes well, it’s decently structured and readable. The trouble is, it all seemed such old hat – to the point of being trite in places. The characters are well drawn but oh-so-familiar and I really couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for any of it.

The Best Things isn’t actively bad by any means; I may not be the target audience and others may enjoy this more than I did, but I can’t really recommend this. Sorry, Mel.

I went into this expecting a book full of personality and fun. Maybe I was wrong to think this, because sadly neither could be applied to describe this book.
The book started off very slow. Which instantly made it a struggle for me. But I had hoped the pacing would pick up. Sadly it didn't.
Instead I got a book full of unlikeable and kind of boring characters living a life I didn't care much about.

The Best Things Mel Giedroyc
I like Mel as a comedian, but perhaps not as an author. DNF as just lost at this stage.

I really, really wanted to like this book…but I really, really didn’t. Mel is such a lovely tv personality and so funny, so I was hoping to see more of her wit in the book. Although there were flashes of her humour in the one-third I managed to read, it just wasn’t enough. I didn’t warm to the protagonist at all and the other characters were awful. Not for me.

I had high expectations for this one but sadly it didn't live up to them. I DNF'd at 24%

I did care for any of the characters

I had really high hopes for The Best Things by Mel Giedroyc. As a comedienne and presenter she brings a lighthearted joviality to her work and I'd hoped that this would be in a similar vein.

Sadly this was not the case and The Best Things became difficult to read and enjoyment was hard to find.

So disappointed that this book wasn't as good as it was hyped up to be! There are a few funny lines but on the whole it was rather beige and not terribly engaging.

Honest, hilarious and utterly joyful. I swallowed this book and laughed out loud at it frequently. It was a tonic in an otherwise stressful time.

Despite being a huge fan of the author, this wasn't for me. I didn't care about the characters and the plot wasn't engaging.

This book has a very different feel to the comedien, Mel Giedroyc that is well known on UK tv. I do love a domestic drama so was looking forward to this but unfortunately, I felt it did not deliver.

Frank and Sally seem to have the idyllic lifestyle - Money is no object and they sure know how to spend it. They are incredibly generous and if truth be told, their children take it for granted. The introduction to this book seemed to take a long time to get into but then the story seemed to just very quickly jump to all going wrong for the family. When things started to unravel, it felt almost too quick. My main problem was that I could not warm to the characters - They didn't seem to have many redeeming features and felt completely unrealistic.

I wanted to like Frank and feel sorry for his predicament but we were not allowed really to get inside his head. The one redeeming moment of the story was the love the couple had for each other when they got together, beating the odds of a family against the,.

The family's friends were awful - Surely most people aren't that hurtful and mean? People going up to Sally's wardrobe and clearing it out of her designer gear and her not saying a word was plain silly. The staff were awful too - again, surely nobody would allow people to work for them in their home that they hated as much as these?

The narcolepsy storyline did not lead anywhere - did he recover?

Very disappointing.

Although some parts of the book were good I struggled to get into it although I don't mind slow burners this was a bit too slow for me. I think the main problem was I didn't really like the characters so couldn't invest in them

This was not a book I would recommend sadly it did not live up to expectations and was hard going at times. Might appeal to a different age group but sadly it wasn't for me

I really wanted to like this one but honestly I found myself struggling to get through it, which was unbelievably disappointing for me.
I really wanted this book to make me laugh a lot but I just found it boring and a little depressing.
I think I probably went into this one with different expectations of what this book actually is. I'm sure other people will like it a lot more than I did, as I think maybe I am just not the target audience for this book. This book is probably aimed more at married people or people with children, which are things that I can't personally related to and is why I did not enjoy it as much as I could have if I related to the characters a bit more.
I did enjoy the writing a little in this book, as it was easy to read, I just simply did not enjoy the overall story

Thank you to Headline for providing me with an advance copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a real slow burner for me and it took sheer determination to finish I'm afraid, it was an OK read at best. I didn't love the characters bar Bronwyn, Frank's sassy 90 year old grandmother and she didn't feature all that heavily. Thanks to netgalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I thought this was good, but not great, it left me very disappointed. I thought it would have more storyline, but I felt this was quite lacking.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.