Read in 2026 - 27: The Museum of You

Back from our hiking holiday in Austria since Wednesday afternoon, before I start writing about the very good time we've had there I want to post this review of a book I highly recommend and finished reading the evening before I left for the holiday:

The Museum of You

Carys Bray

A charity shop find in Ripon, this paperback for a mere £1.49 was one of the best reads I've had so far this year.

The main character is Clover Quinn, whose mother died when Clover was a baby. She lives with her father, Darren, who has raised her alone while working shifts as a bus driver. An elderly neighbour has been most helpful, as has been Clover's granddad. 

The book starts at the beginning of the school holidays. This summer, Clover is finally deemed old and responsible enough to be on her own while her Dad is at work. Instead of having to spend much of the day at her neighbour's, she is tasked with looking after the allotment (which she loves) but otherwise left to her own devices.

Just before school closed for summer, her class went to a museum where the story of the Titanic was told from the perspective of individual passengers; who they were, what became of them and so on. Clover is fascinated with this approach to history and hatches a plan that will keep her occupied all summer: She'll create a museum for the mother she never knew!

She has always known very little about her. It pains her Dad to talk about her, and everyone else who knew her (mainly the neighbour and her granddad) don't freely share their personal memories. But there is the bedroom where her parents slept and that has become a place of storage; full of boxes and things piled up on the empty bed and around the wardrobe. Clover usually doesn't go in there, but now is the time.

Without her Dad knowing what she's up to, Clover systematically sorts through the things she finds in the room, and interprets them in her way. Some items obviously belonged to her mother, like the beautiful skirt balled up at the bottom of the wardrobe. But what about the piles and piles of holiday brochures? And why was she "a surprise"?

When the chapters aren't told through Clover's eyes, it's her Dad's turn. Darren has never stopped loving and grieving Becky, and he loves his daughter with all his heart, making sure she is happy and has everything (and more) she needs. But once upon a time, he thought his life was going to take a very different path, and sometimes he can't help but think of what was, what could have been and what is.

Then one day, before Clover has finished her work in the bedroom and can lead her Dad through the exhibition she has created about her mother, he enters the room by himself, completely unaware of what his daughter has been doing there...

There is much, much more to the book than what I am describing here, but I would like you to read it for yourself and don't want to give it all away. It is very touching; there is friendship and family relationships, happiness and grief, how we remember the same events and interpret the same things differently, and ultimately, love - between parents and children, neighbours and friends.

Some bits are quite funny, others can move you to tears. The language is beautiful and the characters are plausible.

I'd not heard of the author before, but I'd like to read more of her work. Carys Bray's website is here.