So this book... it was not what I expected!
It starts off all cutesy and long distance relationship and people with too much money in private school, going on sailing trips with fathers who are cabinet ministers... and then the IRA get involved.
And there's a mental institution, and the obligatory wise father type figure. And then murder and such. I can't really say more without spoiling the story for you.
So it was pretty grim, but I liked it! It was a fun read, even if it did jump about all over the place. I felt the characters were underdeveloped and I could have known them a lot better...
6/10
Thursday 25 October 2012
Wednesday 17 October 2012
STARTING: The Stars' Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry
My my... Mr Fry knows how to pick awful titles doesn't he?
Another book suggested by DB, he seems to have good taste in fiction so we'll give this one a go!
Monday 15 October 2012
A Grovelling Apology to a New Author
My name is Mary, and I was wrong about 'Hungry, the Stars and Everything'. I was terribly wrong.
I am so sorry Emma Jane Unsworth. I really hope you didn't google your book title and stumble upon that one line stab I put into the heart of your carefully crafted novel.
I started the first chapter and it didn't fit with the synopsis I'd read, it was outside of the story I was expecting, it involved a child seeing the devil out of her window, I didn't know what that was doing there (I'm still not entirely sure, although it was an interesting aspect of Helen's personality).
I decided I didn't like it and put it down, made a throwaway line about it in a blog post about my inability to settle on a book to read and thought little more about it. But it stayed on my kindle, near the top of the list of 'most recently read' books.
And then I found myself alone in DB's flat on a Friday morning in an unfamiliar area. Disinclined to get lost in a part of London entirely new to me, I picked up the kindle and started reading. And I kept reading. And I read all morning. And then all the way on the train back to Birmingham from London, and then a lot last night. And then the vast majority of this afternoon.
And oh god, how wrong I was. So so wrong.
It was beautifully crafted, the structure like nothing I've ever read before. Skipping backwards in time and then immediately back to the present, intertwining the future and the past so you were never entirely sure where the story was going but you were desperate to find out.
I was equally invested in both of Helen's relationships, running side by side in the book but in reality years apart. I felt so emotionally attached to these couples, wanting to scream at Helen to stay with one, or to leave the other or just to put the bottle of wine down. Just put it down Helen for god's sake. It's not worth it.
I just... it captured me. And it did caught me off guard.
And it was rather beautiful.
Sorry Emma, I didn't give you enough credit. I hope I'm fixing that now!
I look forward to your next book!
8/10
I am so sorry Emma Jane Unsworth. I really hope you didn't google your book title and stumble upon that one line stab I put into the heart of your carefully crafted novel.
I started the first chapter and it didn't fit with the synopsis I'd read, it was outside of the story I was expecting, it involved a child seeing the devil out of her window, I didn't know what that was doing there (I'm still not entirely sure, although it was an interesting aspect of Helen's personality).
I decided I didn't like it and put it down, made a throwaway line about it in a blog post about my inability to settle on a book to read and thought little more about it. But it stayed on my kindle, near the top of the list of 'most recently read' books.
And then I found myself alone in DB's flat on a Friday morning in an unfamiliar area. Disinclined to get lost in a part of London entirely new to me, I picked up the kindle and started reading. And I kept reading. And I read all morning. And then all the way on the train back to Birmingham from London, and then a lot last night. And then the vast majority of this afternoon.
And oh god, how wrong I was. So so wrong.
It was beautifully crafted, the structure like nothing I've ever read before. Skipping backwards in time and then immediately back to the present, intertwining the future and the past so you were never entirely sure where the story was going but you were desperate to find out.
I was equally invested in both of Helen's relationships, running side by side in the book but in reality years apart. I felt so emotionally attached to these couples, wanting to scream at Helen to stay with one, or to leave the other or just to put the bottle of wine down. Just put it down Helen for god's sake. It's not worth it.
I just... it captured me. And it did caught me off guard.
And it was rather beautiful.
Sorry Emma, I didn't give you enough credit. I hope I'm fixing that now!
I look forward to your next book!
8/10
Wednesday 10 October 2012
Stuck in a bit of a rut...
So.. I finished The Casual Vacancy and now I can't settle on anything to read. This is exactly what happened after I finished The Book Thief.
I finished Elmify's 'Fools Paradise' which was entertaining considering she wrote it in high school and I liked it a lot, but I couldn't really think of anything to say about it other than "this was fun and cute and not badly written considering".
I started 'Hungry, the Stars and Everything' and hated it. Hated it from the first page. And I don't even know why. It wasn't badly written, it's just, I read the first two chapters and had no empathy with the main character at all. It wasn't even that I disliked her, I just had no interest. So I gave up. It's a while since I've done that with a book.
I've halfheartedly started "The Stars' Tennis Balls' by Stephen Fry but I don't really want to carry it to London with me (my suitcase is already full of seminar reading) so I want to read something on my kindle. I think this new year of university has included so much reading that the last thing I want to do when I come home is look at more words. But I have to stop feeling like that, otherwise I'll just not pick up books and I miss reading when I'm not doing it.
I'll find something, I'm sure. But if any of you have any ideas, feel free to comment!
I finished Elmify's 'Fools Paradise' which was entertaining considering she wrote it in high school and I liked it a lot, but I couldn't really think of anything to say about it other than "this was fun and cute and not badly written considering".
I started 'Hungry, the Stars and Everything' and hated it. Hated it from the first page. And I don't even know why. It wasn't badly written, it's just, I read the first two chapters and had no empathy with the main character at all. It wasn't even that I disliked her, I just had no interest. So I gave up. It's a while since I've done that with a book.
I've halfheartedly started "The Stars' Tennis Balls' by Stephen Fry but I don't really want to carry it to London with me (my suitcase is already full of seminar reading) so I want to read something on my kindle. I think this new year of university has included so much reading that the last thing I want to do when I come home is look at more words. But I have to stop feeling like that, otherwise I'll just not pick up books and I miss reading when I'm not doing it.
I'll find something, I'm sure. But if any of you have any ideas, feel free to comment!
Wednesday 3 October 2012
FINISHED: The Casual Vacancy (INCREDIBLY SPOILERY)
I have an awful lot of feels about this book. So many feels that they cannot be contained in a spoiler-free review, so just... click away now if you don't want to be spoiled and come back once you've finished.
-------------------------------------- SPOILERS FROM HERE ---------------------------------------
Not only was this book written by Jo Rowling, one of the most important literary influences on my life, but it's about a topic incredibly close to my heart, the class divide in the UK.
It's no secret that Jo had a pretty awful time in life before Harry Potter and it's no secret that I went to the local comprehensive filled with a wide variety of people from incredibly different backgrounds. Let's just say I'm no stranger to how horrid life can be to some who don't deserve it.
So this book hit a few nerves.
We are introduced to a number of families intertwined by their involvement in the local parish council. With the death of Barry Fairbrother (a member of the council) this tiny community is plunged into war with itself, rich at war with poor, husbands at war with wives etc. as they fight about the local council estate and the drug clinic that serves it, but I won't try and explain the plot here, I wouldn't do it justice and there are a number of other reviews that will do it far better.
Let's just say that this novel hit me hard, and it didn't let up. The feelings of Barry's wife before and after his death, her annoyance with his preoccupation with the local council estate at the expense of her and their children, her grief after his death but her anger that he spent his last day alive with the wildchild Krystal Weedon, having her interviewed for the local paper rather than celebrating their wedding anniversary.
Krystal's life, acting as parent not only to her 3 year old brother Robbie, but to her own drug addled mother, fighting to keep her in a methadone program so Robbie won't be taken away by social services, is certainly not an easy one. The scene in which Robbie is left on his own on a park bench whilst Krystal and her 'boyfriend' Fats go to have sex was crafted beautifully as Robbie wandered around the park, passing many of the other characters of the book, all too occupied with their own problems to worry about the small boy drifting closer and closer to the river.
His death and eventually Krystal's had me in tears, the descriptions of the way she saw the world and what she had wished to do with her life were heartbreaking.
This book was incredibly clever and crafted in such a way that I cannot do it justice in this review without copying out the book and annotating it. There were so many little things about it that I recognised and that made me smile or cry. Well done Jo, how did we ever question your ability to write for adults?
10/10
-------------------------------------- SPOILERS FROM HERE ---------------------------------------
Not only was this book written by Jo Rowling, one of the most important literary influences on my life, but it's about a topic incredibly close to my heart, the class divide in the UK.
It's no secret that Jo had a pretty awful time in life before Harry Potter and it's no secret that I went to the local comprehensive filled with a wide variety of people from incredibly different backgrounds. Let's just say I'm no stranger to how horrid life can be to some who don't deserve it.
So this book hit a few nerves.
We are introduced to a number of families intertwined by their involvement in the local parish council. With the death of Barry Fairbrother (a member of the council) this tiny community is plunged into war with itself, rich at war with poor, husbands at war with wives etc. as they fight about the local council estate and the drug clinic that serves it, but I won't try and explain the plot here, I wouldn't do it justice and there are a number of other reviews that will do it far better.
Let's just say that this novel hit me hard, and it didn't let up. The feelings of Barry's wife before and after his death, her annoyance with his preoccupation with the local council estate at the expense of her and their children, her grief after his death but her anger that he spent his last day alive with the wildchild Krystal Weedon, having her interviewed for the local paper rather than celebrating their wedding anniversary.
Krystal's life, acting as parent not only to her 3 year old brother Robbie, but to her own drug addled mother, fighting to keep her in a methadone program so Robbie won't be taken away by social services, is certainly not an easy one. The scene in which Robbie is left on his own on a park bench whilst Krystal and her 'boyfriend' Fats go to have sex was crafted beautifully as Robbie wandered around the park, passing many of the other characters of the book, all too occupied with their own problems to worry about the small boy drifting closer and closer to the river.
His death and eventually Krystal's had me in tears, the descriptions of the way she saw the world and what she had wished to do with her life were heartbreaking.
This book was incredibly clever and crafted in such a way that I cannot do it justice in this review without copying out the book and annotating it. There were so many little things about it that I recognised and that made me smile or cry. Well done Jo, how did we ever question your ability to write for adults?
10/10
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