Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard by W. Somerset Maugham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My year could NOT have started with a better book! Ah! What a book! And what a man! In fact, I was surprised that this was my first Maugham ever considering my history with classics but well...better late than never!

Yes, I know you want a review and I am talking way too much. So, without further ado:
Meet Rosie Driffield née Gann, the British version of Holly Golightly, a free spirited barmaid who marries a budding author but is promiscuous enough to start a scandal wherever she goes! Ready to please anyone who seeks pleasure, Rosie starts off as an adulteress you hate to love but ends up saying lot more about how women are not really different from men, how depression sometimes pushes a woman to desperate edges and how the society, though it imposes values like fidelity and loyalty on women, doesn't understand that women are not a separate species and are just as human as men, prone to the same desires, weaknesses and flaws in character as men are! Yes, they can't always justify them but then, who can, really?

I had originally rated this book higher than 4/5 but what made me dock off a star was I have read stories like this before. In fact, it wouldn't be wrong to say that this book is an amalgam of The Scarlet Letter and Breakfast at Tiffany's. What makes it unique, though, is the pop culture references, the subtle sense of satire and hint of sarcasm that Maugham blends with his lucidity of style and the fact that Maugham, while he pretends to be a faithful narrator and a harsh critic of all his characters, seems to be laughing the last laugh at the artificiality of the society throughout! Worth a read and worth the 10 pounds I spent on it in that antique store at Oxford!

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