Tell the Wolves I’m Home

I just published a review at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/657494104

Tell the Wolves I’m home by Carol Rifka Brunt

Set in NYC in the 1980s, this is the story of June’s relationship with her Uncle Finn. He is dying of aids, but he is her best friend and the only person who truly understands her. He is painting a portrait of her and her sister Grace and it’s almost finished but there could always be more to add on her Sunday visits as though time stretches before him. At his funeral a stranger turns up, who is not welcome, June later finds out that it is Finn’s partner.

She doesn’t want to be friends with the man who killed her beloved Uncle Finn, but slowly a relationship grows and she starts to see a new side to Finn. At moments she is consumed by jealousy and wants to pull away but she also wants to trade stories to feel closer to her lost uncle. She is seeing things through Toby’s eyes and is questioning her relationship with her late uncle, because what if the things she’d loved weren’t him but were in fact Toby shining through.

I really liked this story of a teenager’s grief but it wasn’t bogged down in this, she is introspective and a loner, yes, but she is making her journey into adulthood. There is a palpable tension between her and her older sister, who is struggling with her own demons even if she appears to hold it together. The silent communication is so much more powerful than the things they say to each other.

The book centre’s around June’s relationship with Finn but also with her sister Grace, Toby and her parents. June has to hide different things from different people which makes things difficult but she is learning what is right for herself without following adults’ opinions. This is her awkward journey through adolescence as well as her discovery of mortality.

You’ll like this book more than you think – I got quite attached to June who isn’t a perfect character.

 

The Shock of the Fall

It has taken a couple of months to get my head round what I want to say and this isn’t the best review, but we have to stop somewhere. I just published a review at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/885867828

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

I really enjoyed this book. It had so many layers to it that each built on top of the other and so it’s hard to write a proper review on it. But simply put … it’s definitely worth a read. The layers don’t unwrap to some big reveal – the narrator is very honest from the beginning about his illness, about his brother’s death and even his reliability as a narrator – we find out the big reveal at the beginning and the layers work to build up the big picture. We follow Matt Holmes as he creates a journal while undergoing treatment as a mental health outpatient, slowly unravelling the circumstances around these two big ‘life facts’.

I can’t accurately describe the tone of the book, it’s conversational, it’s direct, it can be downright depressing and there are moments when he doesn’t want to be writing, because writing is reliving the memories he may want to forget, but it seems honest and a real insight into the inner struggle of Matt Holmes. Some quotes really show the tone of the book in just a snapshot so I’ve (over)used them here. I really got on with this narrator and the book grabbed me in the first few pages:

            “I’ll tell you what happened because it will be a good way to introduce my brother. His   name’s Simon. I think you’re going to like him. I really do. But in a couple of pages he’ll be         dead. And he was never the same after that.”

The narrator has a frank, honest voice and even mocks his own illness, knowing that he can’t escape from it.

            “Whenever I learn something new, it learns it too … My illness knows everything I know.”

It is not him but it is a part of him that he cannot separate from and needs to be in control of. He is not a reliable narrator yet he points out the flaws in his own story and this mirrors how we think of illness. He can see what he’s doing is self-destructive but he cannot see another route than going the way he is.

            “Mental illness turns people inwards. That’s what I reckon. It keeps up forever trapped by the pain of our own minds, in the same way that the pain of a broken leg or a cut thumb will grab your attention, holding it so tightly that your good leg or your good thumb seem to cease to exist.” 

He meanders around painful memories which add to the delayed reveal of the book, it doesn’t seem forced like a literary gimmick, but seems honest in the revelations of a man trying to accept his guilt and what it means, without it pushing him backwards in his treatment. The revelations, which are ultimately for him, not the reader, are very present as he writes:

            “I only just thought that as I wrote it.”

I went to a reading by Nathan Filer, just after finishing this book, and he talked about his experience as a mental health nurse but you can see it in the story, in the details. In the distant way Matt writes about the nurses and his treatment programme. There are some very visual descriptions and Matt almost describes a mental patient from a new point of view so that his actions appear sane and the nurses like prison guards. The point of view is definitely from the inside even though the author has used his experience from the outside.

And my favourite quote from Matt … losing his hallucinations and taking his medication would mean losing his brother all over again, it is a struggle to get better, one that you fight with yourself. But he is fighting and we are reading:

            “Reading is a bit like hallucinating.”

 

Divergent

I just published a review at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/885866837

Divergent by Veronica Roth

This review is a little tricky to write, because I enjoyed this book, but I just think some of the fundamentals are seriously flawed. I love that this is a book with a powerful, young female lead; it talks of bravery, selflessness and determination. But it spends a lot of time ‘setting up’ and the last quarter has a lot of action but lacks the depth of story.

The dystopian setting is an American city that has split itself into five factions: Abnegation (selflessness), Dauntless (bravery), Amity (friendship), Erudite (knowledge) and Candor/Candour to us Brits (honesty). A mix of nouns and adjectives as labels … is there a hidden meaning? I doubt it. Each faction lives separately from the others and at 16 you take a test to see where you belong and then you get a choice to stay with the faction you were born into or to choose where you want to belong.

Tris is our protagonist and she is Abnegation born but after an inconclusive test, meaning she’s ‘Divergent’, she chooses Dauntless. The whole of this book is really her initiation into that faction because only 50 per cent will get in and there’s a whole lot of action in there and lots of characters to get your head around. It’s fun, it’s thrilling and there’s a love interest too – everything you want from young-adult fiction.

Annoyingly, the important things like letting the reader know that being ‘Divergent’ is dangerous just seem to be repeated as though the reader is a child finding it hard to follow that that’s where all of the tension is building from. The hunt for the Divergents doesn’t really build anywhere, Tris is just learning to hide it but she doesn’t know why, and in the end doesn’t build to a great climax for all of those repetitive reminders but perhaps this series was written knowing it was going to be a series and this is all groundwork for the next books. The turning point of the book for the last quarter when all of the urgency and action begins really takes the biscuit: Tris just suddenly has a revelation about how things will work, which seems like it’s there purely to explain to the reader how Roth is making this great hurdle into sudden pace, but it’s all a bit convenient and implausible. (This is where I started feeling negative towards the book and it’s eaten into my enjoyment of the rest of it.)

Without giving too much away my big problems are the ways that she normalises suicide and the ease with which you can choose to shoot someone. Also, the more you think about the whole premiss that everyone should fit into one of these five factions but only a handful of people are divergent, aka well-rounded individuals, the less you can believe in this set-up. Yes, it makes you relate to the protagonist because let’s hope we all have a little of these five qualities in us, but doesn’t that then belittle the whole idea?

If you like action and you like pace and you like teen-fiction then you will like this book, it’s not badly written the action is very visual and strong but just jump in and enjoy it. Don’t question it. In fact, you definitely shouldn’t be reading reviews before reading it!

Oh and lastly … this review explains a lot of my feelings too, genius!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/647602350

 

 

The Crimson Petal and the White

I just published a review at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/743561356

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

This book is set in Victorian London and revolves around a group of characters, including Sugar a 19-year-old prostitute and the extended Rackham family. The narration sets the tone for the book and entices you in with a teasing second-person narrative as you tumble into the story. The narrator talks about your own intrigue into what they’re talking about and tells you who to ‘follow’. In this way he introduces you to a few characters before we find the main protagonists William and Sugar.

William seeks out a prostitute, Sugar, who will do ‘anything’ and becomes infatuated with her. The story revolves around how their ‘relationship’ builds but also includes, in detail, the main characters in their lives, giving an insight into how the family, society and London work. These secondary characters are at times much more interesting and more integral to the plot line than one might assume. There is an unspoken intimacy between Henry Rackham, William’s older brother, and Miss Emmeline Fox, a widow who works for the Rescue Society helping prostitutes. There is a classic Victorian mad woman in the attic when we look at William’s wife Agnes and his unseen child Sophie. And we can also compare the lives of his two young male friends, Bodwell and Ashley, to Sugar’s prostitute friends – the hands that life deals each gender are worlds apart.

For me this book was a slow read, but I’m a slow reader, saying that it took me five months to read! I put this down, in the main, to the fact that the book was so big and heavy that I couldn’t/wouldn’t carry it on my commute to work and I was reading others things alongside it. But I think the fact that it took me this long and I enjoyed it, I wasn’t enduring it, says a lot. It kept me captivated even with big gaps between reads, I could remember all of those intricate details and facts that Faber had woven together and laid before me in this tapestry.

All in all I was in awe, some period books leave you unsatisfied but this book made you think about life, think about people and, for me, think about writing. It had the feel of a period novel but it was explicit in the sex scenes and with how openly things were talked about, which would’ve been beyond taboo if they had been written at the time. Where there would have been a pause or a knowing nod to highlight an omission it has now been filled with the dirty details that a 21st-century audience has come to see as normal. The storyline of Henry and Emmeline waves to these omissions and the tension that we feel in Victorian novels where sexual desire is implicit and ultimately becomes combustive if left fulfilled.

This story doesn’t end happily ever after as I optimistically thought at one stage in the last section of the book. And in fact it ends rather abruptly, which that second-person narrative points out to us that ‘that’s the way it always is.’ But I wasn’t disappointed unlike some fellow reviewers; I was left with a sliding doors moment of possibilities before me, which will ever go unknown. Although, apparently there’s a book called The Apple, which is short stories that cover the missing parts of the characters’ endings, so I might give that a shot once I’ve got through my huge pile of Birthday reading. 🙂

 

The Embassy of Cambodia

I just published a review at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/799426258

The Embassy of Cambodia by Zadie Smith

A great short story, given the honour of a lovely small format and beautiful finishes.

It is the story of a housekeeper from Willesden, London, her life and how it can dramatically change quickly. The small things in life when contemplated always lead us to the greater things and questions in life.

 

Reality, Reality

I just published a review at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/672584085

Reality, Reality by Jackie Kay

This is a great collection of short stories and the more I hear Jackie Kay read them aloud the better they are, some are written in dialect which can be hard but once you’ve heard her read everything becomes clear.

‘Reality, Reality’

A single woman trying to better herself, themes of weight loss, cooking, alcoholism, loneliness, bettering oneself. A nice image of a character – slightly unhinged but enjoying her fantasy.

‘These are not my clothes’

A lovely story set in an old people’s home from the viewpoint of an elderly lady and the care she gets from those around. Sad and living with the small things in life to get you by. Very eloquent.

‘The First Lady of Song’

A lady that doesn’t age and remembers her lives through music. When you live and lose so often do you lose the ability to love or learn to cut yourself off?

‘The Pink House’

A nice story included the stresses of modern life but the optimism to show what is important and what isn’t.

‘Grace and Rose’

A story of two women getting married told from both of their perspectives in turn. Full of love and realising that these two women thought they were the happiest they could be until they got married and they were happier than they ever knew they could be.

‘Bread Bin’

Really liked this story about sex and love and how we find these things in our life. A great relationship with her grandmother.

‘Doorstep’

A nice Christmas story about love and friendship, how we re-evaluate our lives and often what we say is not what we mean – even if we don’t realise it at first.

‘Hadassah’

A lovely story about optimism but more accurately naivety. I had a problem with the lack of speech marks (although it hasn’t bothered me in other books e.g. Handmaid’s Tale) because it wasn’t clear when her speech ended and her thoughts began. I got used to the broken English.

‘The White Cot’

This was a great story and the theme is something I also fear regretting, but it turns into a spooky tale when those regrets manifest.

‘Mind Away’

Quite confusing to try and follow but I suppose that was the point.

‘Owl’

Really liked this story about two old friends and how their lives overlapped. The beginning shows the subtle but harsh bullying that happens between three girls perfectly.

‘The Last of the Smokers’

Two best friends and the problems with feeding each other’s habits and trying to give up the bad ones.

‘Mini Me’

Probably my favourite story but perhaps this is because I heard Jackie Kay read it out loud and she added so much humour to the main character, Pat. A story of the trials of dieting, friendships and relationships told with humour and repeating themes coming round and back to raise their heads and tie everything together.

‘Mrs Vadnie Marlene Sevlon’

This story is about someone’s real life and their fictitious life, at the end it subtly ties in with another story in the collection and I like that because you don’t realise it at first.

‘The Winter Visitor’

A lovely story, steeped in metaphor and mystery from the beginning to the end. A winter visitor comes, stays and leaves again and the surrounding thoughts and outlooks change with time.

 

The Night Rainbow

I just published a review at: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/717132422

The Night Rainbow by Claire King

Officially my Book of 2013.

Wow, okay I probably shouldn’t write a review STRAIGHT away after finishing a book but I really enjoyed this story and saying too much and giving anything away might ruin it for others. So all I will say is that you will love Pea and she will take you through her world and explain things to you in a beautifully individual way as she comes to understand them herself.

And, I’ll also say … read it.

 

Let the Right One In

I just published a review at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/682483092

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindquist

Not what I expected at all.

I was worried about the ‘hints of paedophilia’ (umm be warned these aren’t HINTS, they’re full blown portrayals of it) and the first chapter really turned my stomach, but that is the point in these things – to shock.

That aside, ultimately, for me, this was a book about friendship and a unique connection between two ‘people’. It’s certainly a new twist on the classic vampire tale and I really liked it. I’m not sure I can get my head around the zombie vampire but all other details of the legend were really interesting, revived and thought through.

Oskar is a lonely child who is bullied and lives with his single mother. He meets Eli who moves in next door at night-time. They meet and bond over a Rubik’s cube and Morse code. They spend more time together and because of how well-written this book is you see their relationship develop with the little motifs and symbols rather than through what is explicitly said.

The same goes for the blood and gore, I don’t go in for horror books (my imagination is too active) but this doesn’t seem to be blood for the sake of blood, it’s so intelligently written that the violence seems unimportant.

There are lots of different characters and groups of people who are followed through this story and I was worried I’d get a little lost, or bored with one set and just want to get back to the main characters. But the stories all tie together perfectly and the characters are all individual and fairly well-rounded, even the ones we don’t see as much.

I think this is an amazing piece of writing and I would highly recommend it, perhaps not if you’re easily shocked but give it a go, you won’t know otherwise.

Ultimately this is a story of soul mates regardless of any of predetermined ideas we have about things – it is two people connecting.

 

Dracula (Classic Comics Graphic Novel)

I just published a new review at: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/624338992

Dracula by Bram Stoker

I really like the idea of these ‘Classic Comics’, an easy, accessible way to catch up on the classics you should have read, or the classics you know and love.

Dracula, for me, was a book that I should have read but hadn’t. It’s one of those books that has become so richly entwined with our culture that you know most of the story anyway, which is why I loved that the original text has been used and put into a great graphic novel form rather than ANOTHER re-writing of this tale. The artwork is great and pulls together the characters well in this, what appears to be, quite confusing novel. The novel is different journals from different characters so I imagine a little hard to follow but with this abridged version (losing the repetitive Victorian style)and the Dramatis Personae at the front I found it easy to follow.

I would definitely recommend it and I might try other ‘Classic Comics’.

 

The Woman Who Gave Birth To Rabbits

I just published a new review at: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/562692034

The Woman Who Gave Birth To Rabbits by Emma Donoghue

Really quite enjoyed this collection of short stories. I liked the history behind them all and finding where the thread for the story started. Plucking a single moment or name from history and moulded a story around it. Reminds me of a writing exercise, one that I should set for myself in the coming weeks, so watch the blogasphere.

The Last Rabbit
This is the story that gave the book its title, the story of a women who embarks on a plot to make the whole of England believe that she gives birth to rabbits. The story telling is gentle, easy and the characters although without any real depth have great connections and understandings of one another and the world around them. This tale takes us right up to the ‘last rabbit’ bore.

Acts of Union
A great story of trickery. Although you don’t learn much about the character of the niece I quite liked her, she said little and let others speak to her on their presumptions of her thinking the worst, without her being anything but polite. She also, from one line about the suitor’s alignment, at the end shows she’s quite knowledgable of the world.

The Fox on the Line
A story showing that we don’t always say what we think. Interesting how someone would suppress their thoughts and feelings because of someone else who they thought had a worthier cause.

Account
Debate: is this a story or a list of interesting historic facts to model a story around?!

Revelations
A really interesting story about a cult based on the book of Revelations. Friend Mother is the leader and people doubt and follow backed up by the law. Hugh is a blind follower and it is his view that the story is told through, which is blinded by faith in this woman.

Ballad
I really nice story about connections. I can’t really pin my finger on what makes it great but the intrigue and connections between the characters within a country in turmoil works.

Come, Gentle Night
I think this is my favourite story so far, it suggests no whys but sets a really interesting scene and plays it out well. The first night after a couple’s wedding and what this implies for their future together.

Salvage
I story of two cousins who try to rescue sailors from a shipwreck. A story of salvage and vicarious bravery, nice bit of suspense in the middle of such a short tale and a few mysterious points of intrigue that get you asking questions.

Cured
Women at the hands of men! A woman being told that she’s not intelligent enough to understand what will happen to her under the Doctor’s watch, she is disfigured and then told she’s ill in the mind for thinking so. To be free she must she bow to the power of the man.

Figures of Speech
A woman is about to give birth and talks to her lady’s maid. A history and context is created between them all through conversation, although nothing really happens a lot has in the past – even though she is ‘only’ a woman.

Words for Things
The info at the back implied this story was more about Mary the governess than Margaret the young girl, but I felt much more attached to Margaret. A young girl with a very strict mother who is stubborn and in love with words. She struggles to find words for herself in everyday life and yearns to understand herself.

How a Lady Dies
A woman dying and her loves and longings in the world. Will dying make these things closer to her or enjoying life? Set in Bath two woman are friends and spend every day together building a relationship that differs internally to externally.

A Short Story
A sad, short life for one so short. A human exhibited as a freak of nature and eternalised by science.

Dido
A really interesting story of a black woman raised in a privileged white home during the time of slavery. Conflicting social and family ties when what you feel conflicts with the thoughts of the masses you wonder what is right.

The Necessity of Burning
A lovely story of a peasant woman who gets caught up in the Cambridge riots although avoids them at first. We learn her sad story under the direction of the ‘learned men’ and still she bows to authority as she thinks she should – if only because she believes rioting will get them nowhere.

Looking for Petronilla
A little confusing I like the idea more than the story. An immortal haunted by the love and sacrifice of someone she hadn’t given enough thought to. But the story didn’t say anything of the narrative character it just told a small segment of story using comparisons to modern day.