This book had been on my to be read pile for far too long when I finally got round to reading it. I had very high expectations of Three Things About Elsie and I'm thrilled to say that it did not disappoint me in the slightest. I thoroughly enjoyed the book from beginning to end and thought that it was, if anything, even better than Joanna Cannon's first book which was The Trouble with Goats and Sheep. This book contained so many wonderful elements and provoked in me a whole range of different emotions from sadness to happiness and everything in between.
In the book Three Things About Elsie we first meet eighty-four-year-old Florence, the main character of the story, who has had a fall and is lying on the floor of her sheltered accommodation flat. As she lies there waiting to be found she contemplates the events of her life that have led her to be where she is today. Throughout it all she thinks of Elsie her best friend, her voice of reason and the one who has always been there. With the staff where she lives fearing that Florence is losing her memory and threatening to move her to different accommodation, Florence is determined to stay where she is, but she can't deny that strange things have been happening to her of late. First an ornament on her mantlepiece has moved without her touching it, then she finds a cupboard full of Battenberg cake that she definitely didn't buy and why does the new resident, Gabriel Price, look so similar to a man from her past named Ronnie Butler?
Three Things About Elsie is a book that gradually drip feeds us information about the lives of Florence and Elsie who grew up together and also Ronnie Butler and his connection to Gabriel Price. Their stories are told in a way that makes you want to keep turning the pages, I was invested in the story from the very beginning and loved getting to know both Florence and Elsie. As a book that was told from the perspective of not just Florence but staff from the nursing home as well, the reader is privileged to gain an insight into just what it is like to grow old, experience a decline in mental functioning and not always be believed.
Throughout the book, Joanna Cannon's writing style that I loved so much throughout The Trouble with Goats and Sheep really shone through and it was a pleasure to be reunited with her work. She wrote in a way that was compassionate and sensitive but also in a way that made the words on the page truly come alive in my imagination with superb description. Within Three Things About Elsie there were several twists and turns that I could not have predicted and absolutely did not see coming in the slightest.
There is no doubt in my mind that Joanna Cannon has done a superb job with Three Things About Elsie and has written something that is truly beautiful in every possible way imaginable. I am very much looking forward to reading more by Joanna Cannon in the future.
