Rating: 
Summary: A LOVELY CADENCED READING
Review: Trezza Azzopardi burst upon the literary scene with a hauntingly beautiful novel, "The Hiding," which was a Booker finalist. Her initial work was a heads up that here was a new writer of note. She undergirds our original assumption with "Remember Me," an equally compelling story related in lovely measured cadence through the voice of Winnie who narrates her life in flashback form. Corrie James presents a splendid reading, capturing perfectly the voice of an elderly homeless woman who is lost in the world. Winnie has precious few material possessions and suffers trauma when they are stolen from her. She begins a search for the thief and as she does so recounts a past of pain and disillusionment. Born to a mentally deficient mother and uncaring father the girl is left with a grandfather and later foisted off on an aunt. There comes a time when she is a teenager when all she knows of relatives in this world are gone. Thus begins a downward spiral during which she becomes a pawn, used to satisfy the greed and lust of others. The tale sounds depressing yet it is anything but as it is uplifted by Azzopardi's elegant prose and Winnie's gumption. - Gail Cooke
Rating: 
Summary: Tender and gentle, the story of a innocent
Review: Welsh-born Trezza Azzopardi has followed up her remarkable debut novel ("Hiding Place") with one that shows maturity and skill in addition to a gentle empathy with her characters. The narrative is related by an old woman who is what was once called "simple-minded." Passed around as a child amongst adults who alternately love, use, tolerate and scorn her, she struggles to make sense of events in terms she can understand. Painfully aware of her "differentness", she learns to ride the hard times patiently and fight back only when pushed beyond endurance. Azzopardi has cleverly allowed the thoughts of her protagonist, as expressed in the story, to be articulate and perceptive, although the character struggles to express herself out loud to others. The result is a sustained level of tension with poetic imagery that never becomes overwrought or maudlin. By the end of "Remember Me", Winnie has made her peace with the world, and neither wants nor needs our sympathy. Nevertheless, we should be ashamed that she was based on a real life "resident of the streets", one of those forced to squat in abandoned buildings in the middle of so much affluence.
Rating:
Summary: I must be dense...
Review: What was the shocking revelation at the end? Do help - where did she get the "tell tale" hair? Was the shoemaker actually her father? What was the connection with the red haired woman she kidnapped when the woman was an infant? Was it a lapse of reason related to the abortion incident or something more significant? Great read though. highly reccomended - Azzopardi's first novel even better....
Rating:
Summary: I must be dense...
Review: What was the shocking revelation at the end? Do help - where did she get the "tell tale" hair? Was the shoemaker actually her father? What was the connection with the red haired woman she kidnapped when the woman was an infant? Was it a lapse of reason related to the abortion incident or something more significant? Great read though. highly reccomended - Azzopardi's first novel even better....
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