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Reviewed by Sarah Stuart for Readers' Favorite
Things Fall Apart: A Mother’s Plight by Sharon Brownlie is the story of Mandy, the thirty-five-year-old mother of teenage twins and Jakey, eleven. Divorced from an abusive husband and working hard to stay independent of welfare benefits, she thinks she has life licked. Her youngsters have a secure home, food on the table, and lots of love. Things fall apart when Jakey lets on that Mark is truanting from school. Next, the police arrive; Jenny is in hospital. Mandy’s latch-key kids are spiralling downwards to disaster: alcohol and drug addiction. Will Mark end up in jail? Can Jenny survive? What of Jakey, lonely and scared? Does Mandy, faced with violence from “The Bruisers”, collectors of junkies’ debts, have the maturity to open her eyes to the unpalatable truth and hold her family together?
Scotland, Edinburgh in the 1980s, dubbed the drugs capital of the world, is home to naïve single mum Mandy McCabe. Layabout neighbour Maureen, with one of her four children in care and another in a Young Offenders Institute, is the failure as a mother, not hard-working, caring Mandy. But it’s Maureen who makes Mandy face the truth about missing valuables and cash, and hidden hypodermic needles, and it’s a reality that forces her to grow up. Sharon Brownlie traces one woman’s painful journey from the awakening of broken trust – lies, cheating, theft, and violence – to its conclusion. Things Fall Apart: A Mother’s Plight is a powerful, frightening, “there but for the grace of God go I” story, reaching out to win fans worldwide: gripping and intensely readable.
