ASTONISHING SPLASHES OF COLOR by CLARE MORRALL

This was not an easy book to read or to even write a review. So many going back and forth that you had to stop and think where you were with the story.

Kitty is married and has lost her baby recently. To all appearances she seems to have "got over it" but the reality is that the pain of the loss lives with her every single day.  She looks at the mums waiting at school and thinks of the color yellow as the color of optimism. Her husband on the other side with his scrupulously clean house (they live in separate households), meticulous standards and pristine furniture is white (everything in the house is white). Her father a commercial painter loud and exuberant is red. This was the first time I looked at characters and thought of a color myself which opened another vista for me!

Brought up in a family of four boys with a mother who died when she was a toddler  Kitty has always felt separate. Different and separate. Very protective of their only sister all four boys are anxious about her welfare both mental and physical. Kitty is the only one who cannot remember their mother at all and any questions put to her brothers adds to the complexity of her mind. They all have totally different images of the one woman whom they call Mother.

The story progresses on two wavelengths. The unraveling of Kitty's mind with her inability to cope with the reality of her loss of her baby. The other deals with her mother who is apparently not dead and who is also apparently not Kitty's mother at all, when she finally appears. 

Our narrator in the story is Kitty herself. The story is at times child like in its simplicity and straightforwardness and at other times becomes very complex. It is not a dark and heavy novel but it is heartbreaking at the same time. 

This was a recommendation of a fellow blogger - Cornflower Books.