Poppy Shakespeare

Poppy Shakespeare

By: Clare Allan
Random House of Canada; http://www.randomhouse.ca/

Through Allan's narrator, N., we meet the patients at the Dorothy Fish Mental Hospital. N.'s story centres around the newest patient, Poppy Shakespeare, who denies she's insane. But no one believes Poppy doesn't belong at the Dorothy Fish, or else why would she be there? N. is assigned to show Poppy around and the two women become friends as N. tries to help Poppy fit in and get out at the same time.

Read this if you: Enjoy involved novels that are rich in character, complex in plot and not necessarily easy to interpret or categorize.

Don't read this if you: Want to read a sentimental memoir of a troubled girl, like Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted.

The mood you need to be in: Willing to tolerate the labels the narrator puts on people until you understand the names are in a way true, and reflect her sense of humour and her sympathetic nature.

Read it while you're: On vacation, because you won't want to put it down and you may want to go back and re-read it again.

The best part: Poppy's attempts to get legal aid to prove her sanity.

Other books on your nightstand:Off-beat books by writers like Kurt Vonnegut, Robertson Davies or Timothy Findley. (Some reviewers compare it to Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest because both books involve humour and arguably sane people in mental hospitals. However, Poppy Shakespeare is not a celebration of rebellion against the establishment.)

Words to live by: "Do you know what I'm saying?"

In a nutshell: Poppy Shakespeare is by turns maddening, hilarious and sobering; while superbly entertaining throughout.

By: Miranda Leigh