Critics Corner - give us your reviews of your recent reading

[Howard]

Most women do prefer a suitable boy more once they have matured a bit... ; )

[[deleted user]]

Lol!

[Angela]

The Book Thief

This is only a vague review because that's how I felt about the entire book. It was vague.
The Book Thief left me feeling underwhelmed. As sometimes happens, my desire to love a book meant it was virtually impossible to impress and, as such, I have designated it to the box labelled "probably wouldn't read again". I'd still love to see the film out of curiosity, but I felt that, stylistically, there was too much of the 'down' or 'rest' narrative and not enough tension. And any tension that did capture intrigue resulted in an anticlimactic sense of waiting. By the end there really wasn't much happening.

The final eight was the most impressive and it seems the author tried to bring the entire book to a head here. Overall, it was easy to read and very interesting from a writerly perspective, but I am happy to be putting it back on my shelf.

[Howard]

@Hilary - good review. The final sentence sold me. Good insight on your part, and a theme that sounds like one I would like one- TBR it is.
@Angela - good review also. I already have a copy, would like to read soon, approaching now with a bit of trepidation, will let y'all know how it strikes me.

[[deleted user]]

Two excellent reviews
@ Hilary - I unfortunately overdosed on "war books" some years ago when I read everything I could find on WW1 (having said that I have just bought Ice Cold in Alex - though that's really more of an adventure story). I would, however, totally recommend Lyn Macdonald's WWI books - which tell the stories of 100's of soldiers based on diaries, letters and extensive interviews. My favourites were Somme and They Called It Passchendaele: The Third Battle of Ypres & the Men Who Fought in It.
@ Angela - The Book Thief wasn't really my cup of tea either - I found it a bit gimmicky.

[Anna]

@Angela & Lee - I enjoyed The Book Thief once I got into it. I put off buying the paperback for ages because when I browsed it the layout looked really weird, but then got the kindle version for 99p. I've got 3 main criticisms:
1. the Prologue was too cryptic and confusing (I had to go back and re-read it later in the book)
2. the author puts a massive spoiler in the middle of the book, so taking away the 'wonder what will happen' tension
3. the personification of Death is ambiguous - is it a comic character (cf. Terry Pratchett books) or a compassionate angel of mercy?
But I still loved the people in it - Liesel, Rosa and Papa, and above all Rudy Steiner. I'd like to read it again some day.

[Anna]

Just finished Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. It's a short novel, very pleasing to read, full of colours and domestic scenes (intended to bring to mind Vermeer's paintings). It tells the story of a 16-year old shy, modest but intelligent young girl sent to the Vermeer house as a maid to clean his studio, and who becomes the model for the eponymous (love that word!) portrait. I thought it was a very good depiction of teenage emotional turmoil as Griet is caught between her awe of the artist, sensible attraction to Pieter the butcher's boy and revulsion of the lecherous Van Ruijven. But there is one episode that felt completely out of character, which I can't give away. Apart from that, a book worth reading, especially for Vermeer fans, as long as you don't want anything very dramatic.

[Angela]

@Anna - I hear what you are saying about the characters. They were likeable, particularly Papa, and I felt a genuine sadness as the book came to its climax. But, like Lee, I found the gimmick of the writing style a bit tiresome after a while and felt the book could probably have been shorter than what it was. An interesting one to discuss as it really is in the limelight at the moment.

I wonder if it will age well.

[[deleted user]]

@ Tracy - glad you enjoyed Girl with a Pearl Earring - you'll have to let me know what you think of her other books. The one which really put me off her was Falling Angels - set in Victorian Britain - it just seemed entirely unrealistic to me and annoyed me so much that it has put me off rereading Girl etc. which is v daft of me because I really loved that one

[Laurel]

I enjoyed The Book Thief but don't get the hype - the way people go on about it I was expecting something amazing. I think the gimmick as Angela says was too overdone and also the spoiler thing was an experiment on the author's part (according to my brother who I borrowed the book from and who wasn't that impressed with it) (view spoiler)[ apparently he wanted to see if he could still get readers to empathisise with a character even when they knew he was going to die from quite an early stage - well that just wound me up, I know that all authors try to manipulate the reader but it only works if it isn't blatanly obvious! (hide spoiler)]

[[deleted user]]

I totally agree Laurel - how annoying of him!

[Angela]

Exactly how I'd describe it Laurel - experimental.

[Hilary]

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed The Book Thief. I read it after his I Am The Messenger which I loved too.

[Anna]

@Laurel, @Angela - re the 'experimental' spoiler in The Book Thief - it worked for me, I did feel more empathy with the character involved, and although the element of shock is lost there's a feeling of impending doom instead, which is what people at the time would have felt.

@Hilary - will definitely be putting his other book on my Authors I Like And Want To Read More Of list.

[Laurel]

Just finished Laird Barron's The Croning which was good but felt like it had been 'padded out' to make it into a full-length novel when it would have worked better as a novella. There was a bit too much extra detail about things and people that didn't really have any bearing on the story and kept detracting from the tension. That said, when it was to the point, it was a good story and very creepy, and the ending was great-horrible so I will definitely be trying his short stories.

[Marie (UK)]

just finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
I found this an extremely difficult and at times very boring read. I enjoy philosophy so it is not the content but the way it is relayed.
I couldn't decide whether the main character was just mad, bad or dangerous to know. would be really interested in what others thought

[[deleted user]]

I've never read this one - it's on my "maybe sometime" list :0)

[Hilary]

I had an idea that this was a humorous book, obviously wrong!

[Anna]

OMG! What a blast from the past! I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance back in 74 when it first came out. Absolutely loved it - read it about 3 times - there's so much in it - a motorbike journey through America, bits of native american culture, bits of mechanical advice, a lot of philosophy, (Aristotle etc), and mostly psychology of how an obsession (searching for 'Quality') can lead to a mental breakdown. But through it all is the building of a father-son relationship and the gradual re-integration of a fractured mind. It had a bit of a 'cult' following at the time, but there's just no other book quite like it.
Somewhere I've still got my battered old original copy.
So now I've got to climb into the loft and rummage around in old boxes until I find it!

[Angela]

I tried so hard to read that but bailed about a third of the way in. It was proving a bit too much effort at the time. One day!

[[deleted user]]

A Time of Gifts
In the winter of 1933 the 18 year old Patrick Leigh Fermor decided that perhaps the army wasn't the career for him after all and instead of enrolling in officer training school set off on a walking tour from the hook of Holland to Constantinople.
Why should you read this book?
- For a glimpse of Old Europe - already fast disappearing, it was all but swept away by WWII.
- For the pleasure of Mr Leigh Fermor's company
- For the delightfully eccentric people he meets along the way
I particularly like Konrad who has learnt English almost entirely by reading Shakespeare
Konrad is down on his luck but has a cunning plan "for many moons, dear young I have been longing to be a smuggler , a saccharin smuggler, dear young" .Various European countries had placed a huge tax on saccharin and there were large profits waiting to be made - all you needed was a small initial outlay and "there are people - wise, daring and nimble ones.... who on nights when the moon lacks, scull across the Danube in barques" bringing "succour to persons who ail " and enabling "those of great girth to become slender again"
I loved this book which follows Mr Leigh Fermor from Holland to the boarder of Hungary - there are 2 further books tracing the rest of his journey.
P.S. If you've ever seen the film "Ill Met by Moonlight" about the kidnapping of a German General by British SOE agents and the Cretan resistance you will already know something about Patrick Leigh Fermor who is the character played by Dirk Bogarde.

[Hilary]

This sounds just up my street Lee. I'll add it to the To Buy list which I am trying very hard to develop into an To Acquire From Somewhere At a Very Low Price list instead.

[Angela]

Great review Lee - sounds like an epic and colourful journey indeed.

[[deleted user]]

Thanks Angie
Hilary - that's a very good idea :0)

[Anna]

I love travel books. I've put this on my Amazon wish-list but will try and get it from the library. It sounds a bit like As I walked out one Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee - only this lad goes even further. Another all-time favourite of mine is Autobiography of a Supertramp by W.H.Davis about a young Welsh poet who goes to America in the 1920's and becomes a hobo.

[[deleted user]]

Just downloaded the Autobiography of a Supertramp for £1.79 - sounds excellent :0)

[[deleted user]]

Pointed Roofs is the 1st part of Pilgrimage - a series of 13 semi autobiographical novels by Dorothy Richardson who is often credited with being the 1st author to write in the "stream of consciousness" style ( though Richardson herself preferred to call it interior monologue).
This instalment covers the 17 year old Miriam's time as an English teacher in a German girls school. I Found the experience of being inside her head really quite enthralling but I can see that some might find it irritating and/or dull.
The back of my copy has fulsome praise from both Rebecca West and Virginia Woolf and I think that if you like Ms Woolf you're likely to enjoy Pointed Roofs. I shall definitely be reading more of Pilgimage.

[Hilary]

This sounds interesting, you do come up with some unusual reads, or ones that are unusual to me anyway!

[[deleted user]]

I think I discovered the last 2 I mentioned in various editions of the a Slightly Foxed magazine https://foxedquarterly.com/buy/curren...

[Laurel]

Oooh I'm very tempted to take out a subscription!

[[deleted user]]

I very much recommend it - I always find at least 5 books I want to read in each issue.

[Anna]

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman
A fairly good 'light' (pardon the pun) read set in 1920's Australia. A lighthouse keeper and his wife find a crying baby and a man's body in a dinghy washed ashore on the isolated island they live on. They decide to keep the baby as their own and thereby start a chain of deceit and conflict that draws the reader into their moral dilemma. Jodi Picoult fans would like this, I think
For a longer review see https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Angela]

Thanks for the review Anna - I have heard of this one and wondered whether to TBR it or not. I'll mull it over. Great review too :)

[Angela]

The Unbearable Lightness of Being was a wonderfully written piece of philosophical fiction. It describes the intertwined lives of five characters, the aspects and characteristics that make them similar and different, strong and weak, independent and reliant. It's about what haunts them, what they value, and why. It confirms the opinion that a person has only one life and, as such, can only make choices once with no reliable guidelines. As I mentioned in the readalong, their was enough sex to cause me to flashback to the film 'Closer', but it was used well and demonstrated several points all the more clearly.
The only section where Kundera started to lose me was his focus of 'kitsch' and the subsequent interlacing political discussion. Overall, it was a fascinating book and I'd love to read more of his work.

[[deleted user]]

Great review Angie :0)

[Hilary]

Thanks for the reviews Anna and Angela. I've always fancied reading The Unbearable Lightness ... And I me sure I have the film recorded on my set top box but have never watched it. The Light Between Oceans is on my TBR list from a review I read in the newspaper so I'll keep it there for the moment although I'm not a fan of Jodi Picoult.

[Angela]

Thanks Lee and Hil :)

[[deleted user]]

The 15 year old narrator and heroine of Claudine at School is a clever, sophisticated and mischievous mixture of honesty and deceitfulness. She is also entirely charming.
This book, which covers her last few terms at a school which would definitely be under special measures these days, is highly amusing and really quite shocking - it may sound like a work by Enid Blyton, but it would be hard to find anything less similar.
I loved it.

[Joy]

I've just read Americanah. This story starts as Ifemelu, who has lived in America for 13 years, prepares to return to Nigeria, where she grew up. We then have flashbacks, revealing Ifemelu’s life so far. I liked the way the flashbacks are handled so that, even though we know certain things about the course of Ifemelu’s life (view spoiler)[ (for example that she will be in a long-term relationship with Blaine) (hide spoiler)] that surprises still occur (view spoiler)[ (I was sure when she first met Blaine on the train that it was the start of their relationship and was shocked when he didn’t return her calls.) (hide spoiler)] The story concerns racism, how our sense of self is moulded, integrity and how we change to fit in. I found the discussion of racist issues interesting and thought-provoking in these early sections, with hair-styling as a metaphor for racial oppression.There is also a romance – before she leaves Nigeria, Ifemelu is in a relationship with Obinze and the story is about why this founders and their continued passion for each other.
I loved Half of a Yellow Sun and I expected to love this book, which I did until Ifemelu had returned to Nigeria, when I gradually lost my absorption in the story. I think this was partly because it becomes more linear in structure, but I also began to feel differently about Ifemelu herself. One of her admirable qualities is her straightforwardness and honesty, but I felt this became selfishness and the grand romantic fervour left me cold, as the two main characters didn’t seem to care who they hurt.

[Angela]

Great review Joy! It is a shame when authors let a potential love story take over a plot as it can really detract from a powerful story if not handled well. I'll have to look at Half of a Yellow Sun.

[Angela]

I recently re-read a YA book from my teenage years called Shoovy Jed. Written in diary format, Jed describes all his pains, anxieties and ultimately his disturbing plans. It ages well for the most part - Stewart doesn't date the entries and handles the language with skill, although some of the vocabulary ie. referring to something as 'choice' would not be relevant to today's teenagers. Capturing words and slang is a challenge for a YA writer: jargon is a moving target and can often make a book feel dated and unrelateable.
However, this sad and oddly haunting tale of Jed reminded me again why I saw so much of my young, angst-ridden self amongst it's pages.
"I'm just not normal, that's all. Other kids seem so normal, so together. They laugh at dumb things. I only wish I could."
A heart-breaking read.

[Angela]

Another one (sorry to hog the space!).

I spent a good hour and a half reading Salome by Oscar Wilde without prior knowledge of the story or it's length. This one-act play details good old King Herod's scheming to get in the pants of his young step-daughter. Salome, the object of his lecherous lust, is more than a little mentally unbalanced and prattles on endlessly to the prophet/prisoner Jokonaan (John the Baptist) in an attempt to ultimately gain a kiss from him. At Jokonaan's refusal, she is rejected, scorned, and downright fuming.

Moving along, Herod convinces Salome to dance and she finally relents on the proviso that he owes her a favour. After she sashays around a bit, she requests (as most of us know) the head of said prophet/prisoner on a silver platter, to which King Herod responds with a lengthy soliloquy on what he would prefer to give her instead (not quite THAT honest actually...)
True to the biblical account, the head is served. But all does not end there!

On further research, it seems there are some magnificent paintings that accompany this brief tale but my version was text-only so I used my imagination. The question I am left with is how would someone never acquainted with the Bible story take this play? And what was Mr. Wilde's intention?

[[deleted user]]

I like the sound of Shoovy Jed - could only find an audio version on Amazon so I'll have to trawl the 2nd hand shops.
Don't think that Salome would be my cup of tea :0)

[Angela]

I'll lend you my copy when I'm next in Cheltenham ;)

[Laurel]

I've just finished S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst which I really enjoyed. It's the novel Ship of Theseus by the fictitious author V.M. Straka plus coded footnotes by his translator and annotations by Jen and Eric, a student and a post-grad who are trying to unravel the mystery of Straka's life and death. Fascinating although maybe difficult to follow at times if you like a nice linear narrative - the annotations are from different periods in Jen and Eric's friendship/relationship (they write in different colours each time they go through the text)so sometimes you get them referring to things in one colour ink that haven't happened yet to the Jen and Eric writing the earlier notes...
Loved the mystery and even though it left some questions unanswered (like life), I felt like I got enough to be happy with the story - 5 Stars.

[Hilary]

This sounds intriguing but I'm not sure my brain could cope with it at the moment!

[Marie (UK)]

I have just read The Curiosity. This is a fabulous book with an individual story line a real change from some of the repetitive ideas in today's fiction - I am all over slave fiction. Essentially a story about the edges of scientific research (or beyond the edges) but also a love story and one that makes you think about humanity and what it really means to be human.

In contrast i also finished Five Days a book that i would tell everyone to avoid - too much detail and not enough storyline

[Marie (UK)]

Angela wrote: "The Unbearable Lightness of Being was a wonderfully written piece of philosophical fiction. It describes the intertwined lives of five characters, the aspects and characteristics that m..."

interesting - i hated this book it appeared repetitive to me but it is good to read another view

[Marie (UK)]

Lee wrote: "A Time of Gifts
In the winter of 1933 the 18 year old Patrick Leigh Fermor decided that perhaps the army wasn't the career for him after all and instead of enrolling in officer traini..."

I like the sound of this one

[[deleted user]]

Marie wrote: "I have just read The Curiosity. This is a fabulous book with an individual story line a real change from some of the repetitive ideas in today's fiction - I am all over slave fictio..."


Sounds interesting