My children are still home for the Easter Holidays. They are currently sat opposite me “working together” on writing a play. I say working together because this largely consists of them fighting with each other over who gets to press the keys on the computer and trying to sit on the same chair as each other. I am trying my hardest to slightly ignore them and leave them to it, so I thought it would be good to write a book review, as I am trying to catch up with the reviews of the books I have read in the last few months. This review is about a book called Dream Café by author RJ Gould.

“Why on earth am I here?” David wonders as he observes the juvenile antics of ex-classmates at the twenty-five year school reunion. Then he sees Bridget.

David draws up a list of all that he hopes to achieve to kick-start a new life now that his wife has moved in with his best friend. A relationship with Bridget is top of the list, opening an arts café is a close second.

Formidable women – an unfaithful wife, a reckless teenage daughter, a boss from hell, a disapproving policewoman – seem like insurmountable obstacles.

But it’s still OK to dream, isn’t it?

Blurb from the back of the book, Dream Café by RJ Gould

Now, before I start this review I will say that this book was absolutely not what I expected. It is my own fault entirely. I did read the blurb before buying this book, but obviously didn’t properly take it in. Late last year I read the first book in the series of books by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and I sort of expected the same sort of thing as that book. I expected this book to be about a café where you would go in and maybe experience your dreams. Admittedly there was nothing in the blurb that suggested this would be the case. But by the time I started the book, that’s what I had in many head for this book.

Actually this book is about a man who has his life and predictable routines settled, until his wife announces that she is in love with his best friend and is moving in with him. This turns his life upside down and he has to find out what he actually wants for himself and his life. Part of that life is his dream to open an arts café, hence the Dream Café of the title.

Now, bearing in mind that I came to this book with certain expectations that weren’t met, and that were entirely of my own making, this book was not for me. Now I did like that this was a book about someone who was left to pick up the pieces following infidelity and divorce that centres a man who is left at home with the children. It was also an easy read, not too demanding. I tend to read a paper book whenever I read during the day and that can often be a more demanding book to read, and then another book on my kindle in bed before I go to sleep. So I do like to read less demanding books before I go to sleep, and this book certainly fulfilled that requirement.

This was a book definitely written by a man, and of course it was from a man’s perspective. What I didn’t like about the book was that all of the female characters in his life were problematic in some way. Even his love interest, who he met very quickly after separating from his wife, was really quite problematic. They were all either irritating or vampish. I just felt that this was a book where the lesson, if you like, was “Women, eh?”

Now, I have read books written by women where all the men were problematic and I wasn’t all that keen on those either, just this time it happened to be a man’s book.

This book was not particularly long at 270 pages, and as I said it was an easy read. It was not a book for me, and I personally wouldn’t recommend it. I would give this book maybe 2 stars out of 5.