The Lonely Teddy Bear

The Lonely Teddy Bear

Blurb

Jink has spent the majority of his days sitting in his chair by the window in his Victorian home, peering out in solitude. After years of waiting for the return of Janie, he grows ever restless. The memories of her are bitter-sweet and painful, like honey and jagged glass. Jink can think of nothing else. One day while gazing out his window in his large empty house, it occurs to him that this window has become his own glass cage. Quickly growing resentful of this realization he decides that he has had enough. He packs his belongings into his suitcase and takes off across the country to fill the void of emptiness that has been there since the absence of Janie.


Our Review

When I first saw the cover of this book it intrigued me, it shows a journal, a teapot, a suitcase and a hat standing on a railway track and that along with the title influenced me to request a copy to read and review with Netgalley.

It only took me three hours to read and I can honestly say this is one of my favourite books of the year so far. In a word this book was amazing and a lot darker than it seems at first glance. I loved it.

Jink’s is a special teddy bear who loves to spend his time drinking tea and looking out the window of his beautiful house. However, after years of waiting for his friend Janie to return he becomes tired of reliving his bittersweet and painful memories that are “like honey and glass.” He realises that his beautiful home is like a prison and after realising this he decides to set out in search of adventure.

One point I would make to anyone thinking of reading this is that it is definitely not for young children despite its title and description on the blurb, it is definitely one for teenagers or adults.

I love the opening sentence of this book, “Once there lived a rather special Teddy Bear.” In fact the whole of the first chapter was enchanting and reminiscent of the style of Enid Blyton. I loved the fact that the author said of Jinks that of his many skills nothing was more impressive than his manners.

There are some brilliant characters in this book including a fisherman Jinks meets on his travels named Sam. They spend many nights discussing their painful pasts and slowly developing a friendship. Sam tells Jinks about his wife who died 9 years ago and Jinks talks about the war and what a scary time it was for everyone and how day Janie’s parents picked her up from school and never returned. “Jinks felt something he had not felt in such a long time; or rather he didn’t feel something: loneliness.”

The author uses lovely phrasing to describe everything from the scenery to the characters. My favourite was a description of a character called Amber as having a demeanour that was “”strong and lone-wolf-like.”

Amber discusses the death of her parents and once again Jinks talks about Janie. Jinks and Amber help each other with their loss but once again Jinks becomes restless and moves on. I found the words to Amber’s song beautiful.

Eventually after moving place time and time again Jinks comes up with a plan to try to find Janie.

I cannot stress enough how much I love this book in particular the way it deals with grief and loss throughout and also the twists and turns in plot throughout. My friends and family will certainly be having this book recommended to them.

Our Final Rating...

Our Rating

  • Currently 5/5

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