Book: The Friday Gospels – Jenn Ashworth

I picked this book up after the author had done a reading at last year’s Birmingham Literature Festival. Yes that was almost a year ago, there has been a long reading list waiting!I’m pretty sure I recall that Jenn Ashworth had been bought up a Mormon and decided against following the religion as an adult. This book features a Mormon family which could be described as dysfunctional, but then isn’t every family in some way?The mum is the most devout and due to some mystery illness, is now in a wheelchair and needing a lot of assistance, especially as she doesn’t leave the house, except for church. Her middle son is away in Utah for 2 years on a mission, although we get the feeling from duty rather than interest. This whole book is based on the day he is due to return home, pending the ash clouds moving out of his plane’s way and through the day, we learn about all the characters.Her elder son has no room for the religion and is counting the days until he can leave home. But what’s stopping him from going now? What’s stopping the youngest daughter is that she’s still a teenager and enduring school. Then there’s the father who also wants to leave the whole, debt-ridden family behind and start afresh.Pauline, the mum wants this day to be perfect and wants everything to go back to normal once her son arrives. The rest of the family is just waiting for Gary’s plane to land before they can put their future plans into action.The book does give an insight into the religion although whereas I’m not sure if I learned anything new, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the main characters and whole host of others too based in this north-west, kitchen sink tale.7½/10 Smile factor 7/10