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I have a feeling I'm not going to be very popular by posting this review, everyone seems to love this book so far and I feel more disappointed in myself and my tastes than the novel or the author. Code Name Verity is one of those books that are the ...more
I have a feeling I'm not going to be very popular by posting this review, everyone seems to love this book so far and I feel more disappointed in myself and my tastes than the novel or the author. Code Name Verity is one of those books that are the reason why I created the shelf its-me-not-you. I mentioned this very recently in my review of The Book Of Blood And Shadow and it is also similar to the experience I had trying to read The Book Thief and Feed. I just found 90% of the book long-winded and unnecessary.
The novel opens where the narrator has been captured by the Nazi opposition during WWII. She is given paper to tell her story and she does so through the eyes of her friend Maddie. Different, definitely. Maddie's story is told in various anecdotes, a technique I've already failed to appreciate in The Book Thief but I suppose the intention was to subtly build up a picture of both girls' pasts and their friendship. This book is not very plot-focused or fast-paced, it's about conversations and people and female pilots during the second world war, which would all have been great if it had been balanced out with a touch of drama.
I cannot tell you just how much I wanted to like this. It's about women's involvement in the war and us Northern girls - two topics that don't get nearly enough press. But, for me, there was just too big a focus on piloting and aircraft and I'm sorry but I struggled to care. If you read the author's note at the end she will tell you that this book is actually meant to be about pilots:
"This book started off rather simply as a portrait of an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot. Being a woman and a pilot myself, I wanted to explore the possibilities that would have been open to me during the second world war."
And not enough else was brought in. There's only so many descriptions of a pilot's job I can sit through before I start to snooze, each to their own but flying planes has never been an interest of mine. The best parts of this book were the touching ending and the fact that the narrator is delightfully unreliable (I love them, I do! Eugenides, I miss you...) but I needed more. All I really want is for a book to rouse some passion in me, whether it be excitement, sadness, anger even... I felt nothing.(less)
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3.5
I did that stupid thing where I don't check what a book's about before I start reading it with Don't Breathe a Word. The synopsis on the back of the paperback I have is quite ambiguous but it looked like a relatively short, interesting read. I b...more3.5
I did that stupid thing where I don't check what a book's about before I start reading it with Don't Breathe a Word. The synopsis on the back of the paperback I have is quite ambiguous but it looked like a relatively short, interesting read. I began to be concerned when I realised it was another tale about abuse, I would never have started it so soon after a powerful novel like Split had I known.
However, Don't Breathe a Word is actually a completely different type of novel. Split is very realistic, brutal, in-your-face and painfully honest. It is also the significantly better book of the two. This novel, on the other hand, felt somewhat dreamlike. Joy's narrative alternates between the past and the present, the reasons for her decision to run away are introduced gradually in random flashes of memory. The writing is prettier than that in Split and I liked reading it, but it wasn't as powerful or meaningful for me either.
I'm starting to lean too much towards the negative here and I don't mean to, I rounded it up to four stars for a reason. Because this book isn't just about abuse, it's about the troubles faced by the 1.6 million runaways in the United States every year. How the majority of them will be assaulted in one way or another in their first month of living on the streets, and how many end up selling sex to buy food and clothes. Several colourful and intriguing characters are present in this novel, each with a different story and a vibrant personality. May, a girl who through struggles and heartache discovers she has talents beyond what she can offer with her naked body. Santos, the boy with the secrets and a pet ferret, who sneaks away in the evening and comes back with haunted eyes. And Creed, the musician who speaks to Joy's soul with his guitar.
And my comments about the writing were not supposed to be negative, take a look:
"At home, they'd clipped my wings and then caged me so I couldn't fall. Here, they bandaged one another's broken wings, helped each other fly."
I think the factor that most let down this story and made it 3.5 stars was the ending. Split does not have a perfect ending and some opportunities are missed, but Swati Avasthi recognises that in real life things don't always go the way you want and not everyone gets a happily ever after - and that's kinda the beauty of the novel. Don't Breathe a Word feels like a rushed super-happy conclusion, everyone's problems get solved within a few pages and the only unhappy one was the bad guy. I don't want to be left heartbroken, but the too-perfectness of it took something away.
Also, I think I should stop reading afterwords. I get choked up at nearly every single one, even when I've spent an entire emotional novel not shedding a tear.(less)
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So I finally decided to pick this up after sifting through all the reviews and reading positive after negative after positive after negative, sometimes I guess you just have to see for yourself. And Legend was all right, pretty good when compared to...more
So I finally decided to pick this up after sifting through all the reviews and reading positive after negative after positive after negative, sometimes I guess you just have to see for yourself. And Legend was all right, pretty good when compared to some of the crap I've read recently, it just wasn't anything particularly spectacular either. That being said, I'm still probably going to read the sequel because I seem to have come down with that annoying disease known as "caringaboutthecharactersitis".
In my opinion, this book was significantly better than Delirium, Matched, Shatter Me, Dark Inside, Pure and Article 5. It stood out amongst other members of the overcrowded dystopian genre, but that was mostly because a lot of the others are so atrociously bad, rather than this being overly mind-blowing. It was fun, though, easy to read, quite entertaining, I don't have any regrets about reading it.
The main characters are far less annoying than some I've had the displeasure of encountering in this genre. They're not that original or inspiring but they're the kind of carbon copies I don't mind seeing so much. She is self-reliant and can kick ass without the sexy love interest's assistance. He's kind, considerate and brave. The chemistry between them never seems forced, despite it being yet another "they felt drawn to one another" scenario. Somehow it doesn't matter that much here.
The world building is the weakest part of the novel, something that seems to apply to most new releases in the dystopian genre. A fact which is strange when surely the whole point of a "dystopia" is the world the characters interact in. But whatever, I will begin to sound like a broken record. It does get better towards the end of Legend with clues being introduced about the time before the Republic existed. This gives me hope that Marie Lu is simply withholding her world building to prolong the reader's interest, but I just hope that I'm not left hanging on this matter at the end of the second book too.
Another thing I didn't like - because I couldn't believe in it - was all the huge leaping to conveniently accurate conclusions. The protagonists would look at an unbelievably small piece of evidence and manage to solve an entire mystery out of it. I wasn't convinced, I don't care how smart you are, you would not have gone from A to B like that. You just wouldn't.
Though this isn't going to make it onto any of my "favourites" lists, I'd recommend this book to a lot of people. Those who keep loving trashy dystopias with a forbidden romance story, those who liked any of those books I listed in the second paragraph. Those who look for light entertainment rather than deep meaning or fantastic writing in their books. I conclude that Legend is not that bad, it'll probably be a hit with anyone who isn't getting tired of reading poorly constructed dystopia after poorly constructed dystopia.(less)
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I was going to go to bed and write a review in the morning but I can't sleep because this book has affected me so much. I'm really quite disturbed and upset by this so if you're looking for something light and easy: stay away from Hush.
The first p...more
I was going to go to bed and write a review in the morning but I can't sleep because this book has affected me so much. I'm really quite disturbed and upset by this so if you're looking for something light and easy: stay away from Hush.
The first piece of advice I would give someone who's going to read this book is to stick with it. I normally find that my initial instincts are correct when reading a novel, if I struggle to get into it in the first few chapters I often never do. However, though I was immediately turned off by all the confusing Jewish terms I'd never heard of and found it difficult to connect with the story and narrator at first because of this, I quickly got used to it and Hush turned into a novel I won't be forgetting any time soon.
This book is about a strict Jewish community where keeping up appearances is what matters most and what happens behind closed doors stays there unless you want to bring shame upon your family. What I didn't know at first is that Eishes Chayil grew up in such a community and has experienced the lifestyle first-hand, the story is actually loosely based on what she witnessed herself as a child (read the afterword). I recently keep finding these novels where the author really knows what they are talking about and it does make all the difference to the story, everything is more detailed, more easily imaginable.
The story reminded me a lot of Speak, but it was more frustrating, more upsetting even, because the protagonist and the victim wanted and tried to speak out. They told people they should have been able to trust - parents, teachers, etc. - and were told to be quiet, were accused of lying because the truth would mean scandal for the family. I was horrified by how many adults failed a nine-year-old girl, how if they'd just put the child's pain before their desire for a squeaky-clean reputation she would still have been alive. Parts of this book felt like the narrator and myself were screaming at the other characters who just put their fingers in their ears and refused to listen.
This is a sad, sad book about guilt and misunderstandings, and those things you tell yourself you don't understand but fear you understand all too well. There's a letter near the end of the book written by the protagonist to her friend who died and it's one of the saddest things I've ever read. I could cry again just thinking about it. The reason this got four stars instead of five is because there were a few parts in the middle that could have been cut out or shortened (like the beginning of Gittel and Yankel's married life) and because I wasn't keen on the beginning. But these are small matters and I highly recommend this book to anyone who isn't afraid of an emotionally challenging read.(less)
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I didn't get it.
This is the third book I've read by Meg Rosoff, fourth if you count my failed attempt to start Just in Case. What I've discovered to be most true about Rosoff's novels is that reading and liking one is far from a guarantee that you ...moreI didn't get it.
This is the third book I've read by Meg Rosoff, fourth if you count my failed attempt to start Just in Case. What I've discovered to be most true about Rosoff's novels is that reading and liking one is far from a guarantee that you will enjoy the rest - or, in fact, any of the others - so I cannot offer words like: "if you enjoyed How I Live Now (etc.) this will be your kind of book". This novel is a million miles away from anything Meg Rosoff has previously written, and generally quite different to anything I've ever read.
My brother gets annoyed with me because he says that I have to have a reason for everything. That I expect books to have a point, to make a statement, and to leave me with an important message that makes me think for a while afterwards. This is only partially true - I love a bit of fun nonsense like Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, but I think if a book takes on a subject like God and creation and the reasons for bad stuff happening in the world then there should be something important that the author wants us to take from it. To put it simply, I wanted more from this book. I don't think there was a hidden message and if there was I didn't get it.
There's always the chance that this book was too deep for me and that special metaphorical something-or-other went straight over my head. But, for me, this book was simply about an horny teenager who got the job of God because no one else wanted it... which would actually explain a lot. This horny teenager falls in love with a zoo-worker called Lucy, he has an assistant who can't stand him and a mother who has lost his beloved pet in a poker game. It's so ridiculously bizarre that I kept waiting for it all to come together and symbolise genesis or some interesting philosophy... or just, you know, something. I'm clueless as to what the point of this book was.
The novel seemed to try to be an odd combination of Monty Python-style blasphemy and Douglas Adams' humorous philosophy. The former I absolutely love and grew up on and was probably the reason that this book did give me a few laughs, especially near the beginning. The latter I still struggle to understand. Adams is the kind of author who I occasionally love to quote - about dolphins, creation, etc. - but really don't enjoy reading that much.
I decided to read this after I noticed it got a starred review on Kirkus that promised interesting questions like "if life were without flaws and no one ever changed or died, what role would God have?" And sure, it delivered the questions, but made no attempt to answer them... sorry, but I can come up with plenty of these questions myself. It's the discussions and possible answers that I wanted to read.
If you're looking for a bit of strange, British humour (yeah, I know Rosoff is from Boston, but she moved to the UK in 1989 and it looks like we got to her) and philosophy, then you might actually like There is No Dog. But I, for one, would suggest you get your fix from an author who does it best and leaves a lasting impression - and I love him! - Stephen Fry.(less)
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Nomansland
by
Lesley Hauge (Goodreads Author)
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Warning - I gave away some spoilers while ranting
Well, um, I have no idea why this book was written. And this is just one of those books that definitely requires an explanation, it is quite clearly not for basic entertainment value... there's a mes...moreWarning - I gave away some spoilers while ranting
Well, um, I have no idea why this book was written. And this is just one of those books that definitely requires an explanation, it is quite clearly not for basic entertainment value... there's a message in there somewhere, I'm sure of it, a message that's all about women and men and feminism, the way we live now and the way we could live. I'm just not sure what that is. In fact, "not sure" seems too mild a phrase, to say I haven't got a clue would be more appropriate.
Furthermore, Nomansland read like a short story that someone had desperately tried to stretch into a full-length novel and failed miserably at it. There is only one important chapter in the whole book - the one where the girls find the house from "the time before" - and the rest appears to be just filler, shock tactics, and some of the worst world-building I've ever read. This novel could be set at any time, even in our present time, it could be set anywhere in this world or another. The world is there to form a weak backdrop against some sketchy feminist discussions ramblings.
I admit I read this because I thought The Gate to Women's Country would be too hardcore for a sci-fi wuss like me and saw this as the young adult alternative. So there's this land (somewhere, at some time) whose population is made up entirely of women, I would tell you how this happened and where the men went if only I knew the answer to that myself. But anyway, they are trained warriors, an idea I would very much like to comment on but risk giving away spoilers so I will restrain myself. They are also taught to accept that the lives they live, no matter how stressful, are better than the way things were "before". Before what, one can only imagine.
The big event of this book is when a group of girls stumble across some objects from "before". These objects include magazines, barbie dolls and make-up. They are astounded at the shiny images of women, some unbelievably skinny, when they are muscular and hairy. The clothes and shoes they find seem ridiculous. It is noted how the barbie dolls prove that the women of "the time before" walked permanently on tiptoe. Whether you agree with the ideas portrayed or not, it seems rather clear what the author's intention is with this, right? Basically, poke fun at modern society with it's stick-thin models and obsession with beauty to the point of having painful "spiked" shoes. Uh, no, not quite...
Because this novel's evil bitch character is determined to never return to these ways of the past, she sees these women as weak and submissive to the patriarchal society, the story of genesis as a way for men to hide their fear of their own lust behind the forced subservience of women, and she sees that those who disagree are punished in a variety of disgusting ways. So... confusing. And underneath it all there is an uprising brewing, girls who have not fallen for her lies and wish to escape Nomansland to the world outside. So is the message that the society we live in is actually good? That we should stick with the skinny models and make-up and beauty pageants?
Who the hell knows? Lesley Hauge, just what is your point?
I admire any author who tries to incorporate feminist philosophy into their writing, it doesn't get enough publicity, but I can't figure out what this wishy-washy message is trying to say to me. I almost miss Kristin Cashore, at least I knew what she was going on about, even if her message was scarily radical most of the time and not what I agree with. I won't give away the ending to Nomansland, but I will say that it only confuses me even more and I wonder if Ms Hauge even knew herself what she wanted to say with this novel.(less)
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