The Beat That My Heart Skipped – A blog dedicated to daily design inspirations. By Rohini Wahi.

I’m back from skiing. It is most depressing. I have decided that this syndrome is called PHD [Post Holiday Depression] and I am disappointed each morning that I do not have a buffet breakfast and no-one is providing me with afternoon tea at 5pm. My cold Victorian-esque flat does not look anything like a nice French Chalet no matter how hard I squint.

I can of course live vicariously through those at the Winter Olympics dreaming that I am there in Vancouver. However, I am not too keen on the odd array of BBC Sports presenters giving their 10p’s worth, I have decided I could do a much better job and should be paid ridiculous money to stand around in a BBC jacket saying non-committal things like ‘Oooh isn’t he really picking up speed’ and ‘Doesn’t his helmet match nicely with his pants’. Have you been watching it?!!

Last night one of them went into a five minute spiel about how the Americans are wearing pants that look like jeans – but they weren’t jeans. No honestly they aren’t. Dear God.

This week isn’t going to be a total disappointment as on Thursday I am going to see La Boheme in a pub in Kilburn. Opera in a pub? I’m up for anything once. Hopefully I won’t get too smashed and start singing along, although most of the songs I know are more ‘cockney lush standing by the piano’ than La Boheme.

I am also very pleased to return and find that my Granny has recovered from her hip operation after she had broken it. Although she not longer has any of her faculties at least she is back in action swatting at old ladies and men in her nursing home once again!

Given this, I was truly excited to read a book about grandmothers. Isa and May, the new read by Margaret Forster held much promise to me as I have had both my grandmothers and my grandfathers play siginificant roles in my life thus far. At a time when it is touch and go with my only grandparent left, I thought this would be a poignant read.

The key character is Isamay Symondson whose unusal name is the combination of her grandmothers, Isa and May. Both woman have heavily influenced her life since her birth in different ways and the book follows the story of how their relationship now effects Isa’s life as she approaches some major turning points. The book explores family and relationship ties and how important it is for us to ‘carry the banner forward’ as well as learn from our relatives of the past.

Isa is the cool, beautiful aristocratic grandmother with a darker past, and May the plump working class matriarch with nothing to hide. Because Isamay is currently writing her MA on the influence and importance of grandmothers with her difficult supervisor Claudia – the book therefore examines famous grandmothers such as Queen Victoria, Diana Holman-Hunt and Dora Russell.

These stories although fascinating had little bearing on the plot and felt slightly misplaced as the book moves slowly and they seem to be added in to draw out the text. The two grandmothers characters are both wonderful in their own way especially May -Forster has perfectly captured her outlook and mannerisms. They are clearly the triumph of the novel as well as the focal point for the plot.

However the language that Isa uses at times and especially in her conversations with Isamay is unconvincing and oddly stilted. We learn that Isa has a brother hidden in an institution since birth but this story is left to wind off with no conclusion.

This is much like the story of the relationship between Isamay and her boyfriend Ian. Ian was one of the weaker characters in the book, he seems to have no emotion and wants nothing to do with the child that Isamay falls pregnant with during the course of the novel and has a hard time deciding whether to keep. Due to his own relationship with his mother Ian does not want a family and wants Isamay to know nothing of his. We learn nothing of the fate of their relationship in the end of the book and are miserably left hanging with the birth of their child.

This book is a good study of grandmothers and is unusual in its subject topic, it is also an easy read mainly because it fails to delve into its own plot. Charming and whimsical it is, but also lacking in substance. It’s a great one to pick up and down if you are busy and haven’t got much time to get into a book, but not if you want a hefty read. I’m afraid that although it is wrapped up as something else it is chick-lit through and through. – Lauren

[Note from Rohini: For someone that doesn't have a lot of time these days and manages to only read books on the tube and hate's to get into books that distract me from work if I can't read them - ths book sounds quite delightful!]