Changing Times

Self-regarding Victoria has a fine line in acid put-downs - and we like her not just for surviving her awful parents but for her niceness with boyfriend Daniel. A broken clock, chosen on her 15th birthday from uncle's antique shop, is the device which cracks open her life. It takes her back in time, uncovering patterns which have caused her parents to be as they are, and forwards to an appalling cautionary tale, almost but unfortunately not quite parody of the degrading, stultifying life she'll have with arrant sexist Daniel - if she cannot break these same patterns. She does or, rather, she will. There's plenty of wit and challenge; I found It compulsive reading Perhaps that should be compulsory.