Alice Peasbody was born with no nose. People laugh and jeer at Alice and call her ‘Pancake Face’. Even when she is given a prosthetic nose and gains the courage to move to the big city and take an office job, she cowers in dark corners. The only place she feels she can truly be herself is the roof garden of the office block. But one day a handsome and good-natured man comes to work in Alice’s office, and she finds herself drawn out of the dark corners.
How did I get the book? Received from publisher in exchange for an honest review
Genre: Historical Fiction
Review: There is one sentence in The Girl with No Nose which broke my heart:
“Alice read and read, but she couldn’t find any stories where the heroes had missing parts or looked different.”
It’s one sentence in a chapter in which Alice is reading books with the realisation that the fiction world, just like the real world, will not accept people like her.
I wanted to turn this around now by saying; ‘well this story is set in Victorian Times and it’s much better now’. Sometimes I’m really not so sure, but books like this are little stepping stones.
The Girl with No Nose is a novella that focuses on Alice’s life from when she’s a little girl to becoming a young woman. While her parents loved her the rest of the world did not, to blend in Alice asks for prosthetic nose. Unlike the people around her Alice is kind and she sees what other’s don’t (or choose not to). She makes friends with the chimney sweep and the tanner boy.
I thought that the illustrations were lovely and worked well with the story. Georgia Byng’s writing has a flowing and engaging style so as reader you’re quickly swept into the story.
Recommend it?
Absolutely
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