Book reviews

Posts tagged ‘read’

I Will Marry George Clooney (By Christmas) by Tracy Bloom

george

I Will Marry George Clooney (By Christmas) by Tracy Bloom was a light and mostly entertaining read, apart from the heroine’s issues with her horrible teenage daughter.

The title of this novel was the only reason I picked the book up. This title would have worked equally well using any number of other actors,* but at the time this book was written, George Clooney was probably the most well known bachelor in the world. Now, of course, he is married and not nearly as interesting as he used to be.

Michelle, the 36 year old single mother of the afore-mentioned horrible teenage daughter, works in a chicken factory. She gave up her dream to be a chef when she fell pregnant with her daughter Josie, who is now 15. Michelle has never disclosed to her parents, her best friend or her daughter, the name of Josie’s father. Who Josie’s father is, is a complicated matter. To set you straight from the beginning, it wasn’t George Clooney. Michelle obviously has a bit of a crush on George Clooney, or at last the character he played in a movie called One Fine Day.

Josie is a pain in the neck. She and Michelle constantly butt heads, very often over Josie’s attachment to her loser boyfriend, Sean. (My advice to Michelle would be to pretend to love Sean as a future son-in-law, in a type of reverse psychology thing, as then Josie would have realised Sean was a loser much sooner than she actually did).

Michelle is horrified when Josie announces that she intends having sex with Sean at Christmas, when she turns 16. Michelle makes a deal with Josie that if Michelle marries George Clooney, then Josie will abstain from giving Sean this particular present.

Josie ridicules Michelle’s likelihood of marrying George Clooney, but agrees to the deal. (I’m with Josie on this one, as short curvy women who work in chicken factories don’t seem to be Mr Clooney’s type). However, Josie spends most of her time ridiculing Michelle and it gets a bit tiresome after a while. (My next piece of advice to Michelle would be not to buy into Josie’s ridicule, as it only encourages her to continue behaving badly).

Michelle pursues George Clooney by organising a charity event for Not On Our Watch, which is actually a real charity founded partly by George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon for the purposes of providing relief and humanitarian aid to the victims of human rights violations. Michelle sends an invite to the charity event which is being held on a day when George Clooney is in London for a movie premiere. The event raises a significant amount of money, however George Clooney does not attend Michelle’s fundraiser. (Don’t think too badly of him. Obviously he couldn’t attend, because Michelle is fictional).

During the course of the story Josie’s father turns up, and Michelle, Josie and an old boyfriend of Michelle’s drive to Lake Como in Italy to hand over the cheque to George Clooney. The characters also manage to resolve some family issues.

I probably wouldn’t read another book by this author. The heroine’s delusion about marrying George Clooney was funny but not strong enough to carry the whole novel. Plus, Josie’s behaviour was terrible. Her character would seriously put would-be-parents off having children. However, if the author writes I Will Marry Johny Depp I may rethink my decision.

*How about, I WILL Marry Colin Firth Tomorrow. That’s true, I would. Or I would if I knew him and he wanted to marry me too and I wasn’t already married. I hope he isn’t already married too, because then it would get messy. I would also consider I WILL Marry Brad Pitt if He and Angelina Jolie Get a Divorce, although I wonder what the magazines would make of that. I don’t think photos of me alongside Angelina Jolie would do me any favours at all. Probably my ego couldn’t cope with the criticism which would likely come my way from stealing gorgeous Brad from the beautiful Angelina. I WILL Marry That Gorgeous Fellow Who Was in that Movie With Whats-Her-Name, You Know the One? might be more suitable. We’ll see.

 

 

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The Travelling Tea Shop by Belinda Jones

travelling

Is there a genre of fiction called Food Lit? If so, The Travelling Tea Shop by Belinda Jones fits right in. Sadly, there weren’t any recipes mixed up in the story, but there were lots of references to yummy things. I liked the cover too, the pink and green is really pretty and the cake silhouettes look fantastic. Since I love cake and biscuits and pastries and pies and just about everything that can be found in a bakery window, this cover is my idea of perfection.

The story is a romance, (yes, this is obvious from the pretty, girly cover), but with travel and food thrown in.  The story was enjoyable while I was reading it, but not memorable in any way. Just the thing for an afternoon on the couch.

The heroine of The Travelling Tea Shop is Laurie, an English woman living in the USA. Her business is arranging the most wonderful holidays for her clients, one of whom is a famous English baker named Pamela someone-or-other.

Pamela is writing a new cookbook, which are to be based on areas visited during the trip Laurie plans for Pamela and her family. Laurie ends up accompanying the group as they travel between New York and Vermont, visiting areas which are famous for particular sweet treats, with Pamela swapping recipes with other famous chefs along the way. Boston Cream Pie, Victoria Sponge, Whoopie Pies, Salted Caramel Cupcakes, Red Velvet Cheesecake and many more lovely descriptions of cake left me raiding the pantry to find something sweet to scoff while I read. (I found chocolate, if anyone cares).

Laurie gets caught up in Pamela’s family troubles, of which there are many. Pamela is getting a divorce and is struggling with her emotions. Her feisty mother, who is driving the red, double-decker bus the group is travelling in is a breath of fresh air, but Pamela’s spoiled teenage daughter, Ravenna, needs a good smack. (Not that it is politically correct for parents in Australia to smack their children anymore, but you know what I mean). Ravenna has an eating disorder, a nasty boyfriend and a sense of entitlement, which poor old Laurie gets to deal with. The situation is complicated when an accident leaves Pamela’s mother in hospital and an old boyfriend of Pamela’s joins the group to drive the bus.

Laurie has problems of her own which come to a head during the trip too, but fear not, with a cover this pretty, you know things will work out for the best for everyone.

I would read another book by Belinda Jones on a lazy day, but the story, (apart from the fantastic idea of combining travelling with a cook book author and all of the lovely descriptions of baked treats), was probably not distinctive enough for me to particularly recommend unless you’re a sucker for romance, travelling and cake.

 

 

 

 

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Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

leaving

You always know where you are with a Jodi Picoult novel, reading about some terrible dilemma or other and trying to guess the twist. Despite the character’s difficulties, the knowing there is a formula almost make her books to be comfort reading.

I guessed the twist in Leaving Time about half way through, and texted my guess to Honey-Bunny, who already read this book. Wisely, she didn’t respond, leaving me to enjoy the rest of the story without knowing how things would work out.

Leaving Time followed the story of Jenna Metcalf, who had been searching for her mother, Alice, for over ten years. Alice was a scientist who studied grieving elephants. Alice disappeared after a what might have been a terrible accident or a possible murder at the family’s elephant sanctuary, when an employee was trampled by one of the elephants. Jenna’s father had been in a mental asylum since the accident, which happened when Jenna was a toddler.

Jenna lived with her grandmother, who refused to talk about Alice with Jenna. Eventually Jenna started actively searching for her mother, using the services of Serenity Jones, a once celebrated psychic who had her own television show, and Virgil Stanhope, a former police officer who had investigated the first accident at the elephant sanctuary.

The novel was told by all of the characters in turn, Jenna, Serenity, Virgil, and Alice. Alice’s chapters told the history of Jenna’s search, from when she first met Jenna’s father in Africa and fell pregnant, to when she came to live at his elephant sanctuary in New England. Alice’s story was mixed in with the findings from her research, which included the most fascinating examples of elephant behaviour. These were more interesting than I expected.

I’ve read quite a few Jodi Picoult books and enjoy them, despite some of the issues she raises having no happy solution or answer at all, but Leaving Time was an unusually gentler read. Sometimes with this author I feel as if I am reading the same book over and over, just with a different set of characters and issues to resolve, but as I said earlier, sometimes this is comforting.

In Leaving Time, there were no nasty dilemmas to ponder over, except for the plight of elephants in captivity. I will never see an elephant in a zoo or away from its natural environment again without feeling terribly sad for the elephant.

I don’t think Leaving Time was one of Jodi Picoult’s best books, but readers who enjoy her work will enjoy it.

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Saving Grace by Fiona McCallum

saving

Farm romance is a popular genre of fiction in Australia at the moment and Fiona McCallum’s novel, Saving Grace, fits right into this style. Personally though, I would rather get up in the middle of the night to assist a cow to give birth than read another farm romance novel. Once was enough, thank you very much.

I found myself cringing with embarrassment while I was reading this, hoping that no one outside of Australia ever reads Saving Grace and thinks these characters are representative of our national character. If I had read it on the train, I would have hid the cover.

Saving Grace is an extended Mills and Boon-type novel, except without any romance, a hero or a plot. To make matters worse, the heroine, Emily, is a dopey, whinging, wuss. There was some sex, which sadly, was bad. Not dirty bad or even bad because it was unbelievable and ridiculous, but bad because we learn that Emily’s husband is selfish both in and out of bed. Ho hum.

At the age of 28, which is almost ‘on the shelf’ in the Australian country – according to this story anyway, Emily married the richest farmer in the district. Three years later, after lots of bad sex, not being allowed to work, not being allowed to have a dog and being constantly ridiculed and put down, Emily gets herself a puppy which she names Grace, finds a friend and starts to think about leaving her husband.

Emily’s mother is also an emotional bully, so it is not surprising that Emily chose someone with a similar personality to marry. I’m not so hard-hearted that I couldn’t feel sorry for Emily, but she voices every anxiety she has, which stops being interesting really quickly. Emily even whined to her best friend at her best friend’s husband’s father’s funeral about her own problems! *

Eventually Emily left her husband and rented a beautiful old farmhouse which she dreams about turning into a B & B. She has the opportunity to buy the farmhouse, but after accepting a very low financial payout from her husband when they separated, she didn’t think she could afford the property (which was actually ridiculously cheap). By the end of the novel, this issue still wasn’t resolved. Nor were any of Emily’s other problems, because the rest of the story is to be dragged out over another two novels.

Several potential heros presented themselves during the second half of the book, but nothing came of them either.

I’ll tell you the biggest reason why I think Emily is dopey, but beware, skip this paragraph if you intend to actually read Saving Grace. Emily’s grandmother had a big jar of buttons with some other funny little stones which no one was ever allowed to touch. Emily’s grandmother died and Emily kept the buttons as a keepsake. Then Emily found an old letter to her grandmother from a Prince (Oooh)who was from a country famous for diamonds. Emily’s grandmother sometimes talked about her diamonds, but no one knows where the diamonds are. I wish someone had asked me, because I think I know where the diamonds are, but believe it or not, by the last page of this bloody book, the diamonds still hadn’t been found.

Hopefully something will actually have happened by the end of the next book or the one after that. Personally though, I don’t care, because I’ll be out in the paddock helping some poor cow give birth.

*If anybody is any good at punctuation, are all of the apostrophes in that sentence right? I’m never quite sure about apostrophes.

 

 

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Author, Book Review, McCallum - Fiona

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The Broken by Tamar Cohen

tamarThere is an important lesson to be learned reading The Broken by Tamar Cohen, which is; DO NOT get involved in other people’s marriage break-downs.

Josh and Hannah are a young married couple who are struggling. Money is tight, as Josh is a lowly paid school teacher and Hannah is a freelance writer, who needs to fit her work around looking after their four year old daughter, Lily. Josh and Hannah are best friends with a golden couple, Dan and Sasha, who are well off, attractive and who seem to have everything going for them. They all pop in and out of each other’s houses, eat out together, get drunk together and their respective children are playmates. (The other lesson in this book is probably to make sure you have a wide circle of friends, rather than an exclusive sort of friendship with just one other couple).

Dan, however, has been shagging around, and when he falls in love with a 24 year old model, he tells Josh. Josh tells Hannah, who tells Sasha and surprise, surprise, she is heartbroken. Dan and Sasha ask Josh and Hannah if Josh can move in with them temporarily, so their daughter, September, can adjust to their separation. In the beginning, Dan truly believes he and Sasha will have an amicable break up, while Sasha is convinced Dan will come to his senses and come crawling back to her. Josh and Hannah believe that they will be able to stay friends with both parties and are determined not to take sides, although Hannah hopes Dan and Sasha will reconcile.

Sasha’s unhappiness and anger grows as she realises that Dan is not coming home, and she imposes dreadfully on Hannah, who has never learned to say ‘no.’ This situation would probably have improved eventually, except that Sasha’s behaviour becomes more and more unhinged. Hell has no fury like a woman scorned and all of that.

Josh and Hannah’s marriage, which was already struggling, suffers from the added pressure Sasha and Dan put on them. All of the characters are dysfunctional in their own way, including the only person who I thought was sane, in a last minute twist which I didn’t see coming. The Broken is an apt title for a book with this particular set of characters. It is very difficult to know which of the character’s stories to believe.

To be fair to Josh and Hannah, it wouldn’t have mattered what they did when they were placed in this situation, because there was no right thing for them to do. Taking sides with their friends came back and bit them. Trying not to take sides didn’t work either. Sadly, the marriage break-downs of your friends in real life, although not as dreadful as Dan and Sasha’s, often means the loss of friendships too. Like everyone else, I know this from experience.

If you like psychological thrillers, The Broken will probably be up your alley. I wouldn’t go out of my way to read another book in this style, because I prefer more sweetness and light in my recreational reading, but that isn’t the author’s fault. I will heed the author’s warning and mind my own business when it comes to other people’s affairs. The most unlikely people can turn out to be bunny-boilers.

 

 

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The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Sparks

girls

The Girls of Slender Means, by Muriel Sparks is actually a very slender novel, and up until the last chapter, when the story unexpectedly made me cry, I would also have said that it was also a very slender story.

The book is set in 1945 in London. The girls live at a hostel called the May of Teck Club, which was founded by Queen Mary before she married King George. (She was known as Princess May of Teck). The girls are all poor and under thirty years of age, except for three older women who for reasons unknown, were allowed to stay on past the age of thirty when most were expected to leave the hostel.

The girls are a mixed bag. There is the beautiful Selina, who has oodles of lovers. Joanna, who has a captivating voice, teaches elocution and recites poetry and psalms.  Jane works in publishing, which she calls “the world of books,” while writing fake letters to authors with the intention of having them write back to her so she can sell their letters (and autographs) to her boss. Nancy is a nondescript clergyman’s daughter who is having an affair with a married man. Dorothy tells the others of her filthy luck when she falls “preggers,” and Pauline pretends to the other girls that she has a lover.

One of the girls owns a Schiaparelli dress, which all of the girls who can fit the dress, borrow. They count calories and sunbake and laugh. It is wartime, with rationing in place. Food and other necessities are scarce and London is a dangerous place.

Each word in the book seems to have been carefully chosen and is exactly the right word. The humour is clever and occasionally even laugh out loud funny. The characters are very human and range from good to bad to wicked.

The story seemed very slight to me, until a terrible event in the plot turned me on my head. After this, I couldn’t read fast enough to find out what was going to happen, and if all of the girls would escape unscathed. Sadly, they didn’t, (I didn’t expect to get teary on the train over this book either, but I did).

I haven’t read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which is probably the author’s most well known book, but will make the effort soon.

 

 

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Marrying Mozart by Stephanie Cowell

mozart

Marrying Mozart by Stephanie Cowell didn’t thrill me the way Mozart’s music does.

To cut a long, (and mostly true) story short, Mozart came to know the Weber family (Dad, Mum and their four daughters) as a young man. As young men tend to do, he fell in love with Aloysia, who was the pretty one. The other girls were Josepha, who was Daddy’s girl, Constanze, who had a great personality and Sophie, who as an old lady narrates the story to a Mozart fan.

Unfortunately, Aloysia played up on Mozart while he was out of town, fell pregnant and married someone else.

Daddy Weber died, so Mummy Weber and the other three daughters moved to a new town. Mozart found himself in the same town as Mummy Weber and her three remaining daughters, and despite Aloysia’s fickleness and Mummy Weber’s craziness, he moved in with the Webers as a lodger. Mozart then fell in love with and married Constanze, (the one with the great personality), who, although she couldn’t sing as well as Aloysia, had great legs.

If you are a Mozart fan, you may enjoy this book, which highlights the Weber family, with Mozart as a character of middle importance rather than as the main focus of the story. For me, I’d rather listen to Mozart’s music.

 

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An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

I read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green last year on the recommendation of my niece and really enjoyed it, but I have to say, I enjoyed An Abundance of Katherines even more than TFIOS, (as the teen mags call the blockbuster book and movie).

The main character of An Abundance of Katherines, Colin Singleton, is a child prodigy, a fast learner, and a champion anagrammer who also speaks multiple languages. Colin has other talents too, but he is also a social disaster. Somehow, (and this was the only sticking point of the whole novel for me), Colin has gone out with and been dumped by 19 Katherines by the end of High School. At the beginning of this novel, Colin has been dumped by his 19th Katherine, otherwise referred to as Katherine XIX, although some of his ‘relationships’ with the various Katherines have been very short lived – a few hours in some cases.

So, my problem is that I have no idea how Colin managed to meet 19 Katherines, let alone go out with them all. Is every second girl in the United States of America named Katherine? I don’t even know 19 men named John, which is the most common man’s name I can think of. Here is my list.

1. John B, who was family friend of my great aunt, who died years ago. Obviously I didn’t go out with him.
2. John who worked with my husband, also known as ‘Shallow Hal’. Notice the use of the word ‘husband’ in my last sentence? I didn’t go out with this John either.
3. Lucky John, who I worked with (if anything went wrong, he was involved). Nope, I was married, so didn’t go out with Lucky John.
4. John V, who I also worked with, who is kind, funny and generous (and happily married). We’re both married to other people, so obviously not.
5. John B2, who is my sister’s fellow’s father, although strictly speaking, I have never met him. I hear so many funny stories about him I feel as if I do, though. (Our family are actually closer than this not-meeting implies, but my sister and her fellow and his family live in England and I live in Australia). Nope, we haven’t even met.
6. John someone whose last name I have forgotten, who I knew very casually through work. I’m not even sure if I would recognise this fellow again.
7. I can’t think of any more real John’s who I actually know.

My point is, Katherines are even less thick on the ground than men named John. And Colin is a geek. How did he persuade anyone to go out with him?

Anyway, on with the story. Not only has Colin’s heart been recently broken, he is in despair as he believes the specialness of having been a child prodigy is coming to an end. Colin recognises that he is not an actual genius, (apparently there is a difference between prodigies and geniuses, who knew?) and is worried that his opportunity to make a mark on the world has passed him by.

Colin and his friend Hassan, who is a Muslim Arab, (Colin is half Jewish), go on a road trip, partly to cheer Colin up and partly to get Hassan out of his parents house. Hassan deferred college to spend a year watching television and is in desperate need of a shake up.

They get as far as Tennessee, where they end up in a town called Gunshot to look at the tomb of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (whose death was used to start WW1). Colin is sceptical about the authenticity of the tomb, but he and Hassan are tired of driving. They meet the heroine of the novel, Lindsey, who is working behind the counter of the Gunshot General Store, when she takes them for the tour of the tomb.

On returning, they meet Lindsey’s mother, who recognises Colin from when he won a television quiz show several years ago. She offers Colin and Hassan a job researching Gunshot’s history and accommodation in her and Lindsey’s surprisingly palatial home, which of course they take. (Okay, this bit was also hard to believe, but the reader has to go with it, because the author gets to decide what happens in the stories we read. 19 Katherines? Okay. The mother of a girl you’ve just met offering a teenage boy and his mate a home and a job? Sure, why not, I’ll believe that).

While in Gunshot, Colin comes up with an idea for a theorem which tracks the relationships he had with his various Katherines. The theorem accurately shows how long each of Colin’s relationships lasted for, based on variables such as age, relative popularity and other factors. For people who are more mathematically inclined than me, this may or may not be interesting. I got as far as learning my times tables and no farther so will not comment.

Not to give the whole story away, but Colin has a few Eureka moments creating and furthering his theorem, and makes self discoveries which are very good for him. Lindsey is a good heroine and has a few adventures and learning moments of her own, and Hassan is a great character too. Between hornets, Thunderstick (you have to read about Thunderstick for yourself, I am not going to go into details here!!!), surprising items manufactured by factories and moonshine, I laughed a lot while reading this book.

I would certainly recommend An Abundance of Katherines right back at my older nieces, although the younger ones had best wait until they have finished with Mary Poppins and The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, since this is an older teenager’s book.

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Mrs Ali’s Road to Happiness by Farahad Zama

Mrs Ali’s Road to Happiness by Farahad Zama is a gorgeous novel, full of delightful characters who made me laugh again and again during the story. I haven’t read the other books in this series, (I believe this book is the fourth) but that didn’t matter at all. This novel was well able to stand-alone.

The story centred around the household of Mrs Ali, a woman with a recently retired husband and a grown up son. Mrs Ali was a wonderful manager, who encouraged her husband to open a Marriage Bureau for Rich People, which he ran from the veranda of their home – the main purpose of the business was to keep Mr Ali from getting under his wife’s feet, a complaint my mother made constantly about my father after he retired from work.

Mr and Mrs Ali lived in Vizag, a town whose inhabitants included both Muslim and Hindu families. The Ali family were Muslim and when Mrs Ali’s niece Pari, adopted a Hindu orphan, Vasu, both the Hindus and the Muslims were up in arms. The Imam and members of the Ali’s mosque wanted Vasu to convert to Islam, while the Hindus were adamant that Vasu be brought up as a Hindu, which Pari had already committed to. The religious differences left the Ali family on the brink of being excommunicated from some of their family, their mosque and community.

Other household problems included the power being disconnected because of an electricity meter reader who recognised that the household should be on a commercial meter because of the family business, a road widening project threatening their home and ongoing arguments about the exact dates when Ramzaan (Ramadan) would begin and end.

The cover of this novel said it is, “A novel of sense, sensibility and exceedingly trying times,” which is clearly a nod to Jane Austen. Mrs Ali had both sense and sensibility, and dealt with her trying times admirably.

On one occasion, Mrs Ali took a taxi to visit her family and made the observation that the driver appeared “to regard anyone overtaking him as an insult to his manhood.” This made me snort with laughter, as I have noticed this trait in various male drivers in my own family.

Another character bought a microwave for her family, in order that they could impress their friends and neighbours. The family only had one power point, so the television was unplugged in order that the microwave could be tested and admired. Water was heated up, to everyone’s astonishment, but then two eggs were placed into the microwave… resulting in egg on someone’s face, literally. I howled with laughter when I read this.

Mrs Ali’s good sense also extended to her advising a new groom to give his bride flowers and take her out sometimes on their own, despite the groom’s father telling him not to spoil women, lest they “climb on your shoulders and dominate you.” Mrs Ali told the groom that in the early days of his marriage he should be depositing happy memories so that when trying times eventually came, the couple would have a bank of shared emotions to draw upon. This sounds to me like good advice for all engaged and newly married couples.

I used to work with an Indian man and I recognised some of his traits and mannerisms and even some of the sayings in the characters in Mrs Ali’s Road to Happiness, which also made me laugh. People are the same everywhere, regardless of their nationality and this book reminded me of that. For me, this was the most important message from the book, along with a saying which Mr Ali quoted from the Qur’an, “Your religion for you and my religion for me.”

I am so glad I read this book. Mrs Ali’s Road to Happiness was an absolute delight.

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Saving Grace by Jane Green

jane

When I saw Saving Grace, the most recent book by Jane Green, I wasn’t really enthusiastic about reading it. I’ve read and enjoyed most of her novels, but some of her more recent novels have felt too choppy for me. Jane Green has a distinctive style, in which the character’s voices can be quite abrupt, but Saving Grace was much more to my liking with characters who thought in full sentences.

The heroine of the novel is Grace Chapman, a beautiful and elegant middle aged English woman, who is married to a best selling American writer. On the surface, Grace’s life looks idyllic. Grace has a grown up daughter, good friends lives in a farmhouse on the Hudson River in New York state. She sits on the board of a shelter to assist abused women and cooks for the shelter. Cooking is Grace’s passion and there are recipes at the end of some chapters, which is a bonus for people like me who like to read recipes. (I often have great intentions of making recipes I’ve read in novels, but despite occasionally going so far as to buy the ingredients, so far have never followed through with the actual cooking).

Underneath the surface though, Grace’s life is not ideal. Her husband, Ted, is a bully, whose books are becoming less popular. Grace has a history of being a victim. Her mother had mental health problems and when she was ill, treated Grace very badly. Ted’s long time assistant has also recently left their employ, causing their well organised life to deteriorate.

Grace and Ted attend a function where they meet Beth, who seems like the answer to their problems. Grace employs Beth as Ted’s assistant and she quickly becomes indispensable to him. Beth also takes on household jobs and assists Grace with work for the shelter. Little by little Beth insinuates herself into their lives. Beth quickly transforms from a plain and frumpy woman to become slimmer and more elegant, modelling herself on Grace’s style.

Beth also begins to undermine Grace, with Ted and with her work at the shelter, calling into question her sanity. Eventually Grace is misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and becomes dependent on a cocktail of drugs. (The author makes a very strong point here that Americans have the highest incidences of bipolar disease and drug use in the world, and suggests that this is because of the influence of drug companies rather than true cases of mental illness in society). Either way, things come to a head when Grace catches Ted and Beth in an embrace and is locked up in a mental asylum because she became very, very angry. (I found Grace’s anger in this instance to be completely normal and understandable, but what would I know?)

Grace escapes to back to England to her surrogate family, where she is weaned off the drugs, correctly diagnosed with menopause and meets up again with the man who has always loved her. Things end up working out, (I suppose they always do, one way or another) but for me, the biggest part of Grace’s growth was realising and admitting that as both Ted and her mother’s victim, she had also played a part in enabling them to bully her. I don’t agree with bullying in any form, but all of the bullies and victims that I have ever known have both had a particular role in their relationship.

Based on my enjoyment of Saving Grace, I’ll go back to looking forward to reading the next Jane Green book.

 

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Cry No More by Linda Howard

cry

My niece S, who was 11 at the time, gave Cry No More by Linda Howard to me. I’m not sure why she chose it, or even where she got it from. I don’t really have a ‘type’ when it comes to books, but this wasn’t a book I would have chosen.

However, despite my scepticism, I read Cry No More and I actually did have a little cry at the end of the book.

The heroine, Milla Edge, was a new mother, living in Mexico with her obstetrician husband when two men snatched two month old Justin from her in a market and disappeared with the baby. Mila was taken to her husband’s hospital with stab wounds, where her husband had to make the choice of whether to save his wife or to search for their baby. He chose Milla, but ten years later, when the story gets going, the reader learns that Justin was never found and Milla and David have divorced. David has remarried and has more children, while Milla founded and works for an organisation called Finders, who search for lost people. Milla has never stopped looking for Justin.

Milla receives anonymous information about the whereabouts of Diaz, a man who is rumoured to know something about Justin’s disappearance. Watching a meeting between four men from undercover, Milla recognises the man who took Justin and in a rage, she reaches for her pistol, but before she could shoot the man, a stranger knocked her to the ground, holding her down until the four men concluded their business. The stranger disappeared after the meeting without harming Milla.

In a fury after the meeting, Milla goes into a cantina and offers an enormous reward for information leading her to Diaz.

Soon after, the stranger who prevented Milla from shooting the kidnapper turns up at the Finders office. He turns out to be Diaz and he had nothing to do with Justin’s kidnapping. They team up on the search for Justin, who was taken as part of a complicated baby smuggling ring.

The story moves along very quickly and is quite exciting. Milla is a single-minded heroine, who is kind and attractive and honourable. Diaz is a dangerous assassin, a social misfit who is absolutely frightening, yet he loses his heart to Milla. Diaz ends up betraying Milla, but romantically, I wanted them to become a couple.

I’m glad I read Cry No More. If you read it, keep the tissues handy.

 

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The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

jk

Everyone I have spoken to about The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling has told me how much they have hated this book. Some people said the story was too slow, or there were too many characters or that they just couldn’t get interested in it. Someone said that they didn’t like The Casual Vacancy because they wanted Harry Potter and Ron and Hermoine to be involved and of course, they weren’t.

I quite enjoyed the Harry Potter books, although the movies didn’t really grab me. As a reader, I nearly always enjoy a book more than a movie based on the same book. Brokeback Mountain is the only movie I can think of at the moment that I’ve preferred to the book.

I also struggled (at first) to become interested in The Casual Vacancy. There are a lot of characters whose lives are entwined and it wasn’t until I was a bit more than half way through the story that I didn’t have to actively try to place each character’s when the viewpoint changed.

The story starts with the death of a man who held a place on the local council in the English town of Pagford, leaving what is known as a ‘casual vacancy’. Almost as soon as the news of his death becomes known, jockeying for position begins amongst the remaining councillors and other townspeople, to promote their own agendas. The most controversial issue is that of the Fields, a housing estate where the poorest people in the Pagford community live. Some of the councillors would like to hand the Fields, with its drug addicts and criminals, over to a neighbouring town to administrate. This change would also remove children from the Fields from Pagford’s schools, particularly Krystal Weedon, the high school aged daughter of a drug addicted prostitute.

Barry Fairbrother, the man whose death brings about this story, was a generous, popular do-gooder who had himself come from the Fields. He and Krystal Weedon are the true heroes of this story.

Whole generations of families feature as characters in this book. They include teachers and doctors, social workers and local business people. Some are wife beaters and others are victims. Some are middle aged women looking for their youth. I enjoyed reading the stories about the teenage characters most of all, (I’m not sure if this is a true or a biased opinion on my part, since JK Rowling is best known for her teenage characters from the Harry Potter books).

All of the characters (except Barry, who died) are miserable, some with good reason. Most of the characters also had secrets or agendas they wanted to hide, some emerging as the story is told. By the time I was three quarters of the way through the book I felt very involved in some of the character’s lives and struggles and wanted better things for them, particularly Krystal. Others were just annoying, and I wanted to tell them to grow up and to appreciate what they had.

I would read another book for adults by JK Rowling, although I would appreciate an editor removing more of the boring bits and anything that doesn’t move the story along.

 

 

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Ten Little New Yorkers by Kinky Friedman

kinky

I have a Kinky Friedman story.

Many years ago, while living on the south coast of New South Wales in Australia, a local music promoter named Texas Dave used to bring Texan acts to Moruya, a small farming town. I saw several Blues and Country artists and quite a few who didn’t really fit into any genre in Moruya, thanks to Texas Dave’s promotions. Kinky Friedman was one of the acts who played at the Pearly Shells Hotel, located on the banks of the Moruya River. I believe the Pearly Shells is a nice place to go these days, but at the time, it was a dive, the kind of place you went to if you couldn’t get in anywhere else – either because you were underage, or so smashed you had been kicked out of all of the other pubs in town, but as always for Texas Dave’s shows, loads of people turned out to see Kinky Friedman.

I don’t remember much about his music, but Kinky Friedman told the audience in Moruya some really good stories. He wore a moustache, a huge hat and had a big cigar and was travelling with a former Miss Texas. My strongest memory of the night was Miss Texas standing alone in the middle of the dance floor giving a demonstration of line dancing, which hadn’t been seen in Moruya before. Miss Texas was wearing a big hat of her own, a short skirt and cowboy boots, but she couldn’t get anyone in the Pearly Shells to join her on the dance floor. I remember saying to someone at the time that I didn’t think line dancing was going to take off in Australia, (I was wrong).

Ten Little New Yorkers is the first Kinky Friedman book I’ve read. I think I tried reading one years ago, (probably around the time of the Pearly Shells show) but found his humour not to be to my taste at the time. My outlook has obviously broadened as I’ve gotten older, since I roared laughing quite a few times while reading Ten Little New Yorkers and thoroughly enjoyed the story. The author may not be politically correct, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t funny, and to be fair, he doesn’t discriminate when he takes a humorous swipe. Everyone is fair game.

The author actually stars in Ten Little New Yorkers as a fictionalised version of himself. The Kinkster lives in New York and is a detective, with a missing cat, a cast of unusual friends, neighbours and associates. The story starts with a friend of Kinky’s explaining that the words in this novel are directly from a diary left by Kinky.

The plot is quite slim, but the humour and side stories fill the story out considerably. The story is that murders are occurring in the neighbourhood and Kinky seems to have been framed for them. The victims are all men who have physically or emotionally harmed women.

As a whodunit, I found it quite easy to find the link between the murders and the murderer, as I’m sure most other readers did also. The simplicity of the mystery really doesn’t matter, since the story is enjoyable. As a character, Kinky is clever and funny and enormously likeable. The title seems to be a tribute to an Agatha Christie novel with a similar title where the victims are picked off one by one, (although if I remember rightly, I couldn’t pick the murderer in Christie’s book).

So, if there is a moral to my story, I think it is to give things another go, even if you don’t get them the first time around. I will read more Kinky Friedman stories. I have also been known to take part in line dances.

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Flowers for Mrs Harris by Paul Gallico

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I’ve read Flowers for Mrs Harris (or Mrs Harris Goes to Paris) by Paul Gallico several times, and I’ve also seen the movie, which starred Angela Lansbury.

The story is corny and the romance between two of the characters (not Mrs Harris, thank goodness) is almost cringe-worthy at times but I still really, really like this story.

The story is set in London during the 1950’s. Mrs Harris (or ‘Arris, as she would say) is a hard working char lady, whose clients range from eligible bachelors and society women to actresses. While cleaning for Lady Dant, Mrs Harris opened a wardrobe and saw two Dior dresses. Lady Dant shows them off to Mrs Harris and told her the dresses cost 450 pounds. Mrs Harris, who is somewhere between middle and old age, is completely enamoured of these beautiful dresses and decides then and there, that somehow, she will buy a Dior dress of her own. It does not matter to her at all that she is unlikely to wear the dress, or that the cost is far more than she can afford. (This is the part where the book wins me over. I would probably sell a child to own a vintage Dior dress, even if it was a dress I could never wear).

Soon after determining to buy a Dior dress for herself, Mrs Harris wins just over 100 pounds in the football pools. The win sets Mrs Harris on her path to save the money for her dress. She has several ups and downs while she is saving, including attempting to win the remainder of the money she wins on the dogs.

Several years later, Mrs Harris has scrimped and saved the required 450 pounds, plus enough for her fare to Paris. Having bought a new hat for the occasion, she obtains her passport and flys off to Paris. This may not sound very exciting now, but believe me, at the time this book is set, a trip like this was a very unlikely, enormous and costly adventure for anyone to take, except for the Lady Dants of the world.

Not surprisingly, The House of Dior does not at first welcome Mrs Harris, whose appearance and manners clearly identify her as a cleaning lady. Mme Coulbert, Dior’s manageress, coldly advises her that there are no places available for any viewings of the collection for weeks. When Mrs Harris pleads with Mme, Mme recognises that Mrs Harris has set her heart on a Dior dress, and finds a spot on the stairs for her to watch the show. At the last moment, Mme seats Mrs Harris in the front row with the richest and most elegant women in the world.

Mrs Harris loses her heart to a dress named Temptation, a floor length black velvet gown with a cream, pink and white top. The dress is modelled by Dior’s top model, the beautiful Natasha.

Mme is disappointed that Mrs Harris has chosen Temptation, which was designed for young, beautiful women, but Mrs Harris tries on the dress regardless, which fits her. Mrs Harris had expected to return to London that afternoon with her dress, and was horribly disappointed to learn that the dress would have to be made for her over several weeks.

Dior’s accountant, M Fauvel, and Natasha, come to Mrs Harris’s rescue, offering her accommodation with M Fauvel. He is in love with Natasha, who had no idea he existed, although she is tired of social engagements with counts, dukes and politicians. Natasha is desperate to return to fall in love, have babies and return to her middle class background (huh???)

Over the next week, Natasha and M Fauvel spend time together with Mrs Harris, who engineers their engagement, as well as helping Mme Coulbert’s husband in his career.

Once the dress is made, Mrs Harris returns to London, where she impulsively loans the dress to one of her clients, a young actress, who ruins the dress.

The ending of the story is disappointing, because of the harm done to Mrs Harris’s heart and property, but doesn’t prevent this book from being a feel-good novel. I believe there are other books by Paul Gallico with Mrs Harris going to New York and Moscow, but I haven’t read them.

Flowers for Mrs Harris is full of morals and lessons and is very often twee, but it is still a charming read.

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The Quarry by Iain Banks

quarryI nearly stopped reading The Quarry by Iain Banks after a few chapters because I couldn’t get into the story. I’m not sure why I persevered, but after only a couple more chapters my opinion had reversed, feeling grateful I hadn’t put this book aside.

The Quarry tells the story of a single weekend, from the point of view of Kit, an eighteen year old English boy. Kit is autistic, a socially inept genius, whose father, Guy, is dying of cancer.

On the weekend of the story, a group of Guy’s old friends come to stay. The weekend is a chance for Guy and his friends to remember the glory days of their friendship, when they shared a house while in university. During this time they made films together, but Hol is the only one still working in the film industry, as a critic. Paul became a lawyer, Rob and Ali are in business, Pris is a needy, single mother and Haze is a drop out and drug addict. Guy’s friends also have an ulterior motive for visiting, which is to find a particular movie they made together, which has the potential to embarrass or even harm their careers and family lives if it were to become public.

As I said earlier, the characters and story grew on me the more I read. Kit is a likeable character and I could come around to his way of thinking, which is slightly different to the norm. For example, I’ve never thought of my age metrically before, but Kit’s way is such a satisfying way to measure age and time, (for the record, I’m 4.5 decades old). All of the characters drink too much, use drugs and do stupid things. Their behaviour is selfish, mean and cruel. They are also generous, loving, funny and interesting.

Guy is the most interesting character. He is angry about dying, and rants and raves and says terrible, unkind things to Kit, who he is dependent on. Guy’s behaviour is understandable, but I hated him for his behaviour towards Kit. More than anything, I wanted Guy to tell Kit the truth about who his mother was, something Kit should know. Instead of telling Kit the truth, Guy suggests that Hol or Ali or Pris might be Kit’s mother.

The story is full of clever and funny observations and situations. Hol made a comment about girls being swept off their feet and ending up on the backs, which left me snickering. This may seem obvious, but the idea was new to me, and funny because it is true. Hol also tells Kit that just because you can trust a person with your life, that doesn’t mean you can trust them with your money, rang true also.

The Quarry had a happy-sad ending, which was probably inevitable, although the story is quite satisfying in that all of the loose ends are tidied up. I haven’t read any other books by Iain Banks before, but will actively look for others.

 

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The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

rolf

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen is one of the most unusually laid out books I’ve ever read.

The story itself is also very unusual. The story is told by 12 year old TS, who lives with his parents and sister on their ranch, high up in the mountains in Montana. TS’s father is a laconic rancher who TS has little in common with and his mother, who TS calls Dr Clair, is a scientist who has spent the last 20 years searching for a beetle which is either extinct or mythical. TS’s brother, Layton, died the previous year when he accidently shot himself while assisting TS with an experiment.

The book itself is an unusual size for a novel, maybe five centimetres wider than normal hardback books. The extra space is used for pictures of TS’s work and side tracks to the telling of the story. The illustration below is TS’s picture of the skeleton of the sparrow he was named for.

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TS, although only 12, is a mapmaker. He charts absolutely everything that moves and plenty of things that don’t. The pictures down the sides of the text relate to the part of the story TS is telling, and usually have an explanation also. The illustration below serves to show the difference in the way TS and his brother Layton’s brains work, in that Layton coloured in his First Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims colouring book and TS used his to make measurements.

rolf2

TS’s mentor, Dr Yorn, has been forwarding TS’s work to the Smithsonian Institute for years. The story begins with a phone call telling TS he has won a major award from the Smithsonian for the advancement of science, which includes a year-long placement. The caller doesn’t realise TS is a child when he invites him to the award ceremony the following Thursday.

Instead of telling his parents or even Dr Yorn what is going on, TS hops on a freight train and travels across the country to attend the ceremony. After a great many adventures, mapping, stories and sidelines, TS arrives, not quite intact. Once in Washington DC, TS has to navigate an adult world where a great many demands are made of him.

At first I was annoyed by the pictures and notes in the margins, but once I slowed down and relaxed into the book, I started looking forward to the markers in the text telling me I was up to the next illustration and explanations. They were very interesting sidelines which sometimes filled in backstory or helped the story to move forward. Sometimes though, the sidelines didn’t go anywhere, except to give the reader an idea of how completely random the thoughts in other people’s heads must be.

TS’s character was lovely too. He was terribly serious, sometimes child-like and sometimes not, but he was always charming. His family had been fractured by Layton’s death, which was never spoken of, and there were other issues and mysteries that TS learned more about and understood more of as he travelled further from home.

I did enjoy The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet once I got over feeling that the footnotes were interrupting the story.

Note: several weeks after reading this novel, I watched The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet which was a very enjoyable movie. The story had been abbreviated and simplified and was suitable for children to watch also.

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Teen Idol by Meg Cabot

teen

As a diligent aunt, I like to keep up with what my nieces are reading, so took the opportunity to read Teen Idol by Meg Cabot which Miss S has been ploughing through. (Plus, I remember enjoying The Princess Diaries books and movies when my daughter, now grown up, was reading that series at least ten years ago).

Teen Idol was a very enjoyable read, even for a woman in her mid forties. The book is ten years old, but isn’t at all dated. The book is aimed squarely at teenage girls and has a lot of appeal for that age group.

The heroine, Jen Greenley, is a no-nonsense type, who has three big secrets. The first is, she secretly writes the problem page for her school magazine. As ‘Ask Annie,’ she provides advice to her fellow students regarding their romances, parents and relationships with their peers. Jen’s role as a confidante and giver of advice extends to her friends and classmates, who rely on her to smooth over their issues.

Jen’s second secret is that Luke Striker, an incredibly popular heart throb from Hollywood is attending her school to research his next movie role. Luke is in disguise, but Jen is tasked with helping him to stay undercover. Luke didn’t attend school as he was tutored on set as a child, and finds high school to be a place he doesn’t like. He can’t believe there is no coffee, but struggles even more with the bullying that goes on towards susceptible students and teachers.

Not surprisingly, Luke is outed when he takes off his shirt at a car wash, revealing a distinctive tattoo. He is mobbed by groupies and escapes with Jen. Before Luke returns to Hollywood, he pressures Jen to effect social change, by standing up to the bullies and providing more of a hands on approach to helping people rather than just giving them advice.

Jen’s third secret is that she has been in love with Scott Benson since primary school. Scott is the editor of the school magazine and goes out with one of Jen’s friends.

Teen Idol has good values for teens to follow and good advice for girls which are disguised in the story. The book was light and entertaining and I can highly recommend Teen Idol and other books by Meg Cabot to my other high school aged nieces.

 

 

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Mr Mercedes by Stephen King

mr

Yay!! Another book by Stephen King!! Mr Mercedes by Stephen King is a ripper of a book, an absolute ripper. In my humble opinion, all Stephen King books are good. Some are great. Some are excellent. As I already said, this one is an absolute ripper. Hurry up and read it so you too can have a headache all of the next day from staying up too late reading because you can’t wait to find out what happens.

Mr Mercedes is, unusually for Stephen King, a straight story. No magic, no fantasy, no unworldly creatures. The story is set in the present time in an ordinary American city and the characters are all normal (including the psychopaths, if psychopaths can be considered normal). This book could be described as a detective novel.

There are several heroes in this story, but the main good guy character is a retired police detective, Bill Hodges. When the story begins Bill is divorced, lonely, bored with retirement and, is almost casually considering suicide. Apparently a large number of men in Bill’s position do commit suicide.

When he retired, Bill handed over a few unresolved cases to his former partner. One case was the search for a mass murderer, a killer who ploughed through a crowd of job seekers in a stolen Mercedes, who became known as Mr Mercedes. Bill retains a high level of interest in these unresolved cases.

The bad guy, or Mr Mercedes, contacts Bill via email, using carefully crafted words to try to lure Bill into conversation, with the intention of goading him into suiciding. In Mr Mercedes’ email to Bill, he says he has no intention of carrying out another mass murder, but as it turns out he does.

Bill should have turned his email from Mr Mercedes over to the police in the very beginning of the story, but had he done that, there wouldn’t have been a story. Or if he had, the story would have been different, in that Bill couldn’t have been the good guy. Stephen King would have needed another character, still in the job, to have tried to stop Mr Mercedes from striking again.

Bill’s fellow heroes are a very clever boy who mows his lawns, a woman named Janey who Bill almost falls in love with and Janey’s cousin Holly, who has serious mental health issues. As a team, they have to try and work out who Mr Mercedes is and what he is planning to do. I won’t say if the good guys succeed in stopping Mr Mercedes or if Mr Mercedes lives to fight another day.

My only issue was the romance between Janey and Bill. Had she been another ten years older I would have believed it, but from a 44 year old woman’s point of view, overweight, 62 year old men are not that attractive. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Bill as a character, but I did not see him physically as a romantic lead.

The scariest part of this book is how ordinary Mr Mercedes presents himself as. He is a working, functioning human being who, as another character says, walks among us. Bad guys don’t have to be aliens or demons to be truly evil.

This book contains references to other Stephen King books, which I love. Recognising the references gives me a feeling of belonging, of knowing that I am a valued Constant Reader.

For those who have read this book, I Googled ‘Under Debbie’s Blue Umbrella’, and of course, it exists. Such is the power of Stephen King. I shouldn’t have logged on as Bill though, the fright I got served me right. Read the book and then do this yourself. I got chills all down my back.

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Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

colorless

I’ve been looking forward to reading Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Marakami all year. The story completely lived up to my expectations.

The main character, Tsukuru Tazaki is a 36 year old man living in Tokyo, whose passion is building railway stations. He is a loner, having been terribly hurt as a young man when his four friends, for reasons that he never understood, kicked him out of their group.

The group of friends had met as idealistic teenagers, three boys and two girls, who got to know each other while performing community service. Tsukuri’s description of their friendship was that they were a five sided shape, an equilateral pentagon, each with a contribution to make to the whole.

Tsukuru’s friend’s names all contained colours; red, blue, white and black. Tsukuri felt different from his friends because his name did not contain a colour, which reflected his belief that his personality was also colourless. As a reader, I did not believe this to be the case at all. Tsukuru’s name also had associations with building, and that was the career path he eventually followed.

At first the mystery of the book is why this happened to Tsukuri. The reader gets to know Tsukuri and he is a good person. He was so hurt and bewildered by his friend’s dropping him that he contemplated suicide. At the age of 36, he recognised that he had never formed a really close relationship with anyone since, in an attempt to protect himself from being hurt again. However, he met and became close to Sara, who pushed him to get in contact again with his old friends for closure, so that he could move forward.

The issues were eventually resolved, at least enough so that Tsukuri and the reader felt that they had closure. Some mysteries remained and relationships were left up in the air, but nothing that annoyed me. This book also reminds readers that there are as many viewpoints as there are people.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage has been translated into English from Japanese. The words are very precise in the way translations are and there is a lot of prose about grabbing drinks of orange juice and other trivial events mixed in with the story. The words and images are beautiful and the lessons are gentle. I would love to know if anyone has read this book in Japanese as well as in English and if the story changed at all because of differences in the languages. I have to admit, I was slightly afraid that this book would be a difficult read, but it wasn’t at all.

There is also music running through the book, which prompted me to Google some of the pieces used to tell the story. I wasn’t the only one either, Liszt’s Le Mal du Pays had a great many comments in English, saying that the listener had come to the piece because of the book. I imagine quite a few of the Japanese comments also say that Murakami sent them too.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is a lovely book, quite different to my usual reading, but very satisfying. I will not be afraid to read another book by Haruki Murakami.

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The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

prim

The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera is a story that held my attention from the very first page.

Miss Prudencia Prim, the heroine of this novel, begins by answering an ad for a librarian in a remote village, San Ireneo de Arnois. She takes the position in the household of the Man in the Wing Chair, (who is never named), to catalogue his books. The household is filled with children, his nieces and nephews and other children from the village, where he educates them according to his principles, to be able to think.

The village turns out to be a kind of utopia where the occupants have chosen to live a simple life, working no more than six hours each day to allow them time to think and read and live. The community was founded by the Man in the Wing Chair. Miss Prim’s character, and the story, develops through the conversations she and other characters have about books, literature, education, philosophies and life.

Miss Prim becomes a member of a feminist group, who set out to find her a husband. At first Miss Prim is deeply offended, and can not understand why the women believe she needs a husband, but later she comes to understand their philosophy and they make a list of possible husbands. The women are full of good sense and their works are the backbone of the community.

Miss Prim and the Man in the Wing Chair clash very often over their respective opinions of the merits of books, for example, Miss Prim defends Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, while the Man in the Wing Chair says the book is sentimental rubbish. I’m on Miss Prim’s side here, Little Women may be sentimental, but that doesn’t make it a bad book in my opinion or Miss Prim’s. They also clash on whether Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy is the perfect man.

The Man in the Wing Chair runs rings around Miss Prim in arguments. Miss Prim is very correct and has strong opinions, however during their arguments she becomes heated and angry and lashes out verbally, while the Man in the Wing Chair is always calm, clever and amused. He is unfailingly courteous and good tempered, two qualities that make him a contender for the perfect man in real life.

Not surprisingly, Miss Prim falls in love with the Man in the Wing Chair and realising that their beliefs are too different for him to commit to her, she leaves the village to go to Italy, as advised by his mother, who says that a woman’s education is not complete until she has travelled to Italy. There, Miss Prim finds faith and the book ends. There is hope that Miss Prim will return to the village and a romance with the Man in the Wing Chair.

The book had a feel of Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, possibly because of the way Miss Prim’s education is guided by her conversations with the people who live in San Ireneo de Arnois and by the Man in the Wing Chair. I enjoyed the book very much, but wanted more from it. It wasn’t quite a romance or about religion or philosophy or literature, more of a mish mash of a lot of interesting things. Still, I would recommend The Awakening of Miss Prim as a very enjoyable read.

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Christmas Bliss By Mary Kay Andrews

christmas

I never read novels by the same author in succession, or even close together usually, but lately I’ve been reading some really good, big novels and just wanted something light and fun to give my brain a break. Plus it’s nearly Christmas and this book seemed timely.

I read Savannah Breeze by Mary Kay Andrews earlier in the year and enjoyed it, and Christmas Bliss by Mary Kay Andrews, featuring the same group of characters, BeBe, Weezie and their circle, gave me the frivolity I needed. This time BeBe is heavily pregnant and Harry is a happy father to be, while Weezie is preparing for her and Daniel’s Christmas Eve wedding at home in Savannah.

Weezie becomes suspicious of Daniel’s relationship with the glamorous owner of the New York restaurant where he has been working as a special guest chef, so when he becomes sick Weezie hops on a plane to New York to nurse him. Happily for Weezie, Daniel’s boss is lovely and her fears were completely unfounded. Weezie gets to do all of the things she has ever dreamed about while in New York the week before Christmas.

BeBe, in the last month of her pregnancy, is feeling fat and unlovely. Harry gives her a few frights when he comes home late from deep sea fishing. The only other exciting thing to happen in Christmas Bliss is that BeBe learns she may still be married to husband #2, which would make the terrible Richard the legal father of her and Harry’s unborn baby.

Not much else happens in Christmas Bliss.

Weezie’s parents are just as funny as they were in Savannah Breeze, although her father appears to be suffering from dementia. I wish there had been a recipe included for Weezie’s mother’s dreaded cake, which had a massive build up throughout the book before making it to the wedding buffet. Even a description of the taste would have pleased me.

The characters are lovely, but they don’t have any rollicking adventures the way they did in Savannah Breeze. The whole novel has the feel of a leisurely Sunday afternoon, rather than the excitement of frantic preparations for an upcoming wedding and birth, and the anxiety caused by a former husband casting his long shadow over present and future happiness. Every potential drama resolved itself easily and neatly.

I think Christmas Bliss could have been improved by introducing some different characters and relegating BeBe, Weezie and co into secondary roles. I still like the characters, but there wasn’t enough friction or drama for storyline to really interest me. Still, this book suited my purpose. My brain had a rest.

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Andrews - Mary Kay, Author, Book Review

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Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding

mad

OMG, Bridget Jones is in her fifties!! When did that happen? I can’t believe it!

Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding is a fast, cheerful, happy read. Bridget is fun. I’ve missed her. I’m glad she’s back.

Bridget still tells her story to her diary, but now we get to read her emails and social media entries also (the world has moved on since she was a singleton in her thirties, alternately shagging Mr Darcy and Hugh Grant – oops, I meant to say Mr Wickham – no that’s not right either – Daniel Cleaver). Bridget still obsesses over her weight, although her alcohol units are not as big an issue now she is a responsible parent. Physically, for a woman who regularly drank and ate too much, she has aged surprisingly well.

Bridget is now a single mother. She and Mark Darcy got married and had two children, before sadly, Mark died in a horrible accident four years ago. Bridget is struggling along with the demands of the children and her career, although thankfully she does not have money problems.

Bridget’s children are Billy and Mabel, who are delightful, apart from the head lice thing. Billy is like his father, very sensible and clever, and he has Colin Firth’s eyes. (Not that the author said that exactly, but you know Billy is the spitting image of him. Think of the BBC production, where Mr Darcy is looking soppy while Elizabeth sings at the piano and you will picture Billy’s beautiful brown eyes exactly). Mabel hath the cuteth lithp.

Bridget’s besties are still there for her, although they have grown up too. They convince Bridget she needs to find another man, or at least someone to shag. Bridget discovers Twitter, where she obsesses over how many followers she has (her numbers fluctuate, apparently some followers are put off by drunken ramblings). She hooks up with Roxster, a gorgeous 29 year old who follows her tweets.

Bridget ends up having a hot romance with Roxster, who is perfect apart from being too young for her. Lurking in the background though, is Mr Wallaker, one of Billy’s school teachers. He regularly rescues Bridget from ridiculous situations, or argues with her. I liked Roxster and thought he was the perfect person for Bridget at this point in her life, but the whole way through the book I was hoping that Mr Wallaker would rip his shirt off and dive into a pond (maybe I’ve watched the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice too many times).

Bridget’s mum is as self obsessed as ever. Bridget’s father has also died since the last book. Daniel Cleaver is as big a man-whore as ever, yet somehow he still pulls the girls with his terrible lines about underpants. Funnily enough, he is the children’s godfather.

I read Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy yesterday, and to be honest, I’ve already forgotten bits and pieces. I expect in a few weeks I’ll have forgotten all about the plot. As I said earlier, this was a fun, frivolous read, rather than the sort of thing that sticks with you. I suppose the next time I see Bridget she’ll be an empty nester or a grandmother or something, doesn’t time fly?

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Author, Book Review, Fielding - Helen

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Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre

vernon

Wow, Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre is a f***en ripper of a book. Since Vernon God Little won the Man Booker Prize in 2003, I rest my f***en case.

I don’t usually swear, but Vernon Little, the fifteen year old main character of this books swears a lot, and it rubs off. As a narrator, he has a way with words. He tells his story in the first person, and is hilarious, despite his best friend going on a shooting rampage at school and killing 16 people. Poor old Vernon, who seems to be one of life’s losers, has somehow become guilty by association.

Vernon lives with his mother, who is bloody hopeless. His father is gone, presumed dead. Vernon’s mother’s friends are a posse of bitches, one-upping each other every chance they get. The small Texan town Vernon lives in, Martirio, is the kind of place where everyone knows each other and everyone else’s business, although a few dirty little secrets come to light during the telling of this story.

Vernon becomes a “skate-goat” for his friend’s killing spree because the people of the town are looking for someone to blame and the actual murderer, Vernon’s friend Jesus, ‘got away’ by killing himself. Although innocent, Vernon is implicated by a series of co-incidences and a con man presenting himself as a reporter. The con man wheedles his way into his mother’s pants, house and surprise, surprise, bank account.

Vernon eventually escapes to Mexico and just when you think he is in the clear, things go from bad to worse for him. I won’t say how things end up for Vernon, but bear in mind, Texas has (or has in the novel) capital punishment. I will admit to shedding a tear in the last chapters. The con man, who has now dumped Vernon’s mother for a better offer, has created a reality show for death row, where the inmates go up against each other on votes to be executed.

There are good people and bad people in this book, just like in real life. Frighteningly, there seem to be more stupid people than clever too, and combined with various faults, including greediness and vanity, Vernon never had a chance. Vernon’s own fault, lust (not surprising in a fifteen year old boy) is his undoing.

On an aside, Australian Prime Minster John Howard changed the laws to tighten gun ownership in Australia after a gunman went on a rampage and shot loads of innocent people. Since then, it hasn’t happened here. Just f***en sayin’.

Back to the book. I loved it. Vernon is wiser than most and funnier too. I can’t wait to read Ludmila’s Broken English, also by this author. Vernon God Little is a wonderful book.

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Author, Book Review, Pierre - DBC

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Lost & Found by Brooke Davis

lost

Lost & Found by Brooke Davis is a written in an unusual style, which I didn’t like. I didn’t like the story or the characters either, which is mostly set in an un-named part of Western Australia.

There are three main characters in this novel, Millie Bird, who is seven, Karl the Touch Typist, 87 and Agatha Pantha, 82. (Really, agapanthus? Groan.) All of these characters are lost in their own way (the title is a little obvious too). The telling of the story swaps between these three characters.

The story begins with Millie, who makes lists of dead things she has come across. Millie’s conversations with other people regarding death do not give her the information she is looking for, which to sum up, is the mystery of life and what happens when we die. Most of the people she questions are quite uncomfortable with the subject. Not surprisingly, she does not receive any satisfying answers, probably because there aren’t any. Mille will just have to wait and see, like the rest of us.

The story starts with Millie having been abandoned by her mother in a department store. Millie waits for her mother to return, hiding under a mannequin and writing notes to her mother so she can find Millie when she returns. The reader learns that Millie’s parents were unhappily married and that her father has died quite recently. It is apparent to the reader that Millie’s mother is not returning. It doesn’t seem fair of me to say that I didn’t like Millie’s character, as I should at least have felt sorry for her, but I just couldn’t connect with her.

Anyway, after a few days in the department store Millie is discovered by the store detective. She absconds with Karl the Touch Typist and a mannequin, who it turns out has also been living in the department store after escaping from his retirement home. Karl has a nervous habit of tying everything he says or thinks onto whatever surface is available. He desperately misses his wife Evie, who died. Karl is a man who wants to be alive and have adventures.

Millie and Karl leave town along with Agatha Pantha, who has not left her home since her husband died many years ago. Agatha has spent the time alone measuring her body daily for signs of aging, shouting out at passers-by and listing her daily routine. Agatha is a woman who has forgotten (or possibly never knew) how to live.

This very unlikely trio decide to catch the bus to Kalgoorlie and then travel to Melbourne by train, where they believe Millie’s mother has gone. For Agatha and Karl the trip is an opportunity for an adventure although for Millie the business is much more serious.

I found the characters in Lost & Found too crazy to like. Millie’s, Karl’s and Agatha’s personalities were too disjointed to feel as if I connected with any of them. For me, the description of characters in Kalgoorlie and the train trip across the Nullabor Plain were the most enjoyable part of reading this novel, but that is not a good enough reason to recommend this book when you could flip through a Lonely Planet guide with photographs of exotic areas.

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Author, Book Review, Davis - Brooke

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It’s a Crime by Jacqueline Carey

crime

Yawn. I’m not sure why I finished It’s a Crime by Jacqueline Carey. Maybe because I kept hoping the story would go somewhere. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

To sum up, Pat Foy is a landscape gardener, who fluffs around for the enjoyment of plants rather than to make a living. She doesn’t need to work anyway, because she and her husband Frank are very rich. Frank is a dodgy accountant who has fudged some very big numbers on behalf of his company. Pat is clueless about Frank’s work and his crime, although she enjoys living in their expensive home and the other benefits of being rich.

The bodgy practices are found out and Frank, despite assisting with the investigations, goes to jail. Pat meets up with her old friend Ginny, who has been hurt financially by the company’s share prices diving. Pat and Ginny mess around paying back (some) shareholders who have lost money because Pat feels sorry for them. I’m not sure why Pat still seems to have plenty of money in her cheque account.

Along the way, Pat also takes in her former boyfriend’s son as a nanny for her delinquent daughter. Pat’s former boyfriend is a successful mystery writer. Pat loves mystery novels, although she never realised her husband was a thief.

Spoiler alert. Eventually Pat admits that it was wrong of Frank and the company (and particularly of the directors and other employees) to have gained financially from the company using criminal means, which would mean the point of the story is that we all need to take responsibility for our behaviour.

Unfortunately, It’s a Crime was boring. The story and characters were wishy-washy. I had my doubts about this book by the end of the second page, but I’m not very good at not finishing books. No mystery here, but I won’t be reading another novel by this author.

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Author, Book Review, Carey - Jacqueline

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Save Me by Lisa Scottoline

save

If I was Lisa Scottoline, I would not have named my novel Save Me. My reason why is if the novel was bad, there would be too much chance of some critic savaging the author using her own title. Luckily, the story and the writing were good. Not great, but good.

I really enjoyed that the author was able to have me feeling as if I cared about the main characters by the end of the very first page. Some authors are unable to create this feeling of empathy from their readers with a whole book to work in. I also really enjoyed the first half of this novel.

The main character of Save Me is Rose McKenna, a former model who looks like Snow White. Rose is married to a lawyer and has a school age daughter, Melly and a baby whose name doesn’t matter. Rose is a stay at home Mum, and on page one you learn that she is on her first day as a volunteer in Melly’s school cafeteria. By the end of the first paragraph you realise that Rose’s ulterior motive for volunteering at the school is because Melly is being picked on by other girls in her class. Melly has a birthmark on her face which makes her a target for bullying.

Rose intervenes when Melly runs and locks herself in the handicapped toilet, after the bullies make fun of her birthmark by remonstrating with Amanda, the ringleader of the bullying. All of the other children have gone out to the playground when the other volunteer parent leaves the cafeteria to get a teacher, telling Rose that she is not permitted to discipline the children, or to detain them in the cafeteria.

While this is going on an explosion in the kitchen sets the cafeteria on fire. Rose is torn between helping the bullies to escape the fire and rescuing Melly, who has locked herself in the toilet. Rose manages to get Amanda and another child out of the cafeteria to the corridor before she runs back through the burning cafeteria to rescue Melly. Melly is taken unconscious to hospital and Rose is hailed as a hero for saving her child.

Later in the hospital, Rose learns that three other people died in the explosion. Amanda, the child who was bullying Melly, ran back into the cafeteria after Rose took her out and is now in intensive care, expected to die. Melly is fine.

At this point, the school principal advises Rose that legal action may be taken against her by Amanda’s mother.

If the novel had continued in this direction, I think I would have enjoyed Save Me more. Rose’s husband was angry with her because she put the safety of the other children before rescuing Melly. The other parents ganged up on Rose and treated her horribly because they believed she had put her own child’s safety before that of the others (duh), but they also falsely believed she had not even tried to assist Amanda or the other children. Rose underwent a trial by media and her past was raked over. There were also questions raised about the cause of the explosion and the obligations of the school and the volunteers in an emergency situation.

Rose does some snooping around to find the cause of the explosion, at which point the story goes in a whole other direction. There is no way that a reader could guess where this story was going to end based on the beginning of the novel. I wouldn’t let this put me off reading another book by Lisa Scottoline, but I felt that the questions raised in the first half of Save Me were not answered to my satisfaction.

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Author, Book Review, Scottoline - Lisa

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Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid

North

Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid was written as part of the Austen Project, where contemporary authors re-write Jane Austen’s six major novels. This author is well known for her crime novels, which are very good.

I quite enjoyed Val McDermid’s version of Northanger Abbey, but I did finish the book feeling slightly disappointed, as I always do after reading Jane Austen tribute novels, or sequels or whatever they are called. Nobody writes Jane Austen like Jane Austen. Still, I keep picking these novels up because I’m not ready to let go of my favourite author.

This version of Northanger Abbey is set in Scotland in the present time. Cat Morland, a 17 year old, home schooled, would-be-heroine, goes to Edinburgh for the festival with her wealthy neighbours, the Allens. In a whirlwind of social engagements, Cat meets and becomes besties with Bella Thorpe, who is keen on Cat’s brother, James. Bella wants Cat to fall in love with her brother Johnny, however Cat is already sweet on Henry Tilney, a young lawyer.

Cat becomes friends with Henry’s sister Ellie, both of whom appear to be bullied by their widowed father, General Tilney.

Really, I don’t know why I am telling you all of this. The story is the same as Jane Austen’s, just set in the present time. The characters have Facebook and mobile phones. Cat’s reading of choice features vampires, zombies and werewolves. Cat and Bella use expressions such as OMG and LOL. The faults and failings and the good points of the characters haven’t changed since the original Northanger Abbey. Cat is naïve and Ellie is sweet. Bella Thorpe is still a young woman on the make and her brother Johnny remains a jerk.

However, I have the same problem with Val McDermid’s version of events that I do with Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Why would a young man, specifically Henry Tilney, who is a lawyer, fall in love with and remain in love with, a 17 year old girl? I think the age differences and intellectual differences between Catherine and Henry are too great for their relationship to work in real life. I can understand Henry’s initial interest in Cat’s pretty face and her lovely personality, but at some time in the future, he is going to be bored stupid with her. And then what? In Jane Austen’s time they would politely have lived separate lives, with Henry finding his amusement elsewhere, but in the present time, Henry would eventually move on and Cat’s heart will be been broken.

Regardless of my fault finding with the plot, I did enjoy this novel and would recommend it to fellow Janeites. In future though, I would prefer to read a Val McDermid crime novel though than her re-telling someone else’s story.

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Author, Book Review, Jane Austen Fan Fiction, McDermid - Val

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The Time of Our Lives by Jane Costello

Time

You know how when you read a novel, sometimes you feel envious of the characters? For example, you get the travel bug after reading something set in a glamorous location, or you get the wants for a fabulous new pair of shoes when the heroine of the book you are reading shops like a character in a book? Or if the characters are enjoying a hot new romance and your husband is snoring like an asthmatic camel?

My personal demons are characters in novels who bake sweets. I do far too much sympathy baking and eating while reading this kind of books.

However, I didn’t feel envious while reading The Time of Our Lives by Jane Costello, although I should have. The three main characters in this novel are young enough to be fun but not so young that they bored me. They have interesting jobs and interesting lives. They go away together on a holiday to Spain and have an absolute ball, despite loads of mishaps. By rights, I should have been crying “What about me?” but I wasn’t. I laughed and cried with the characters and felt as if I got to experience all of their adventures too.

Imogen is the main character of this novel. She has a great job with a major company, supportive parents and is the single mother of a four year old girl, Florence. When Imogen’s friend Meredith, who is heavily pregnant, wins a holiday to Barcelona’s most exciting new hotel, Meredith, Imogen and their friend Nicola head off for a last blast holiday before the baby is born.

Poor Imogen is taken advantage of by everyone (the old ‘ask someone who is busy because they are obviously capable’ thing). While Imogen is on holiday, her mother, who is looking after Florence, constantly phones or Skypes Imogen with every little thing. Imogen’s co-workers and boss are even worse. Her boss gets caught out doing something he shouldn’t have and Imogen gets stuck with the media, trying to manage damage control for the company from Barcelona. Not only that, but she is seated with demon children on her first ever business class flight, gets robbed, meets her old geography teacher on a nudist beach (Ewww) and breaks her arm while on holiday. (Maybe all of these horrible events explain why I didn’t get character-envy with this book).

But, there are loads of good things too. Imogen’s friends are wonderful. They take her out shopping and ramp up her look, which has become dull and frumpy since she became a single mother. There are loads of trips to the beach, the pool, crashing parties they haven’t been invited to and getting smashed and dancing. To cap off all of the fun, Imogen meets a great guy in Spain who is clearly very interested in her.

The Time of Our Lives is a fun holiday romance with far more depth than I expected. There wasn’t anything particularly ground breaking in the plot, but that didn’t matter. The formula was well done. I had loads of laugh out loud moments while reading but I also shed a few tears. The Time of Our Lives left me feeling as if I had just been on a holiday with friends and had a great time too.

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Author, Book Review, Costello - Jane

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The Spa Decameron by Fay Weldon

spa

The Spa Decameron by Fay Weldon is more of a group of short stories than a novel. Not that I’m complaining, either way the book is very entertaining with quite a few twists and turns.

The reason why the Phoebe, the narrator ends up at Castle Spa over the Christmas-New Year holiday is every woman’s dream. Her husband floods the house three days before Christmas, then leaves her to deal with the aftermath when he leaves to assist his mother, who has broken her hip. Phoebe cancels Christmas and books herself a spa holiday in Cumbria. As it turns out her children and grandchildren prefer staying at home over Christmas anyway.

So far, so good. No cooking, no cleaning, no shopping, no presents. No visitors, no drunken uncles, no family fights. I wish I could go on a spa holiday myself. Christmas is over-rated, especially when you are the female of the household.

Castle Spa isn’t everything it was advertised though. The owner, Lady Caroline, hasn’t paid the bills and most of the advertised treatments and indulgences are unavailable. A New Zealander, Beverley, seems to be running the place almost singlehandedly, grumbling under her breath all the while.

The guests, who are all women, are successful, well off and have very interesting backgrounds and stories. They gather daily in the Jacuzzi to share their stories. Quite a few have twists in their tales which I did not see coming.

My favourite tales were those of the Company Director, who looks decades younger than her 77 years and is in love with the most unexpected person, the Trophy Wife’s, who has just been released from jail after having been set up by her tycoon ex-husband and the Step-mother’s story (here’s a clue, the step-daughter always wins). Phoebe doesn’t get the opportunity to tell her own story due to a power failure, but the reader already knows it from Phoebe’s segues between the other women’s stories.

The only other Fay Weldon book I’ve read is Letters to Alice, which is probably an obvious choice for me, due to the Jane Austen theme. I noticed the author used similar phrases and voice in both books, possibly she writes as she speaks. The Spa Decameron was enjoyable but if I had to take either of these books on my spa holiday, I would choose Letter to Alice.

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Author, Book Review, Weldon - Fay

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Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Alice

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin is an historical novel, the imagined life of Alice Liddell Hargreaves, who was told the story of Alice in Wonderland as a child by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), an Oxford mathematics professor.

The novel starts with Alice as an elderly woman. Alice is tired of always being Alice in Wonderland, and of sharing her memories of childhood and the author with fans of the stories. Alice feels as if those who fete her are disappointed to realise she is a real person with a real life, rather than a little girl frozen in time.

As a child, Alice’s father was the Dean of Christ Church at the University of Oxford and her mother, a socially ambitious woman who ruled the household. Alice was one of ten children, but for the purposes of this novel, only her older sister Ina and younger sister Edith feature prominently during her childhood, along with their governess, Miss Prickett (Pricks).

Mr Dodgson was a family friend. His preference was to spend time with the children, regularly photographing the girls, telling them stories while taking them for walks, rowing or on picnics, accompanied by Pricks and occasionally by other adult men from the University teaching staff. Alice is aware that Mr Dodgson enjoys her company most of all, although she and Ina vie jealously for his attention. Alice is also aware that Pricks has romantic feelings towards Mr Dodgson and she laughs and makes fun of her governess’s hopes.

Mr Dodgson very often used Alive and her sisters as models for his photography. The front piece of this Alice I Have Been is a photograph of Alice taken by Charles Dodgson, who posed her provocatively as a gypsy child. The book and this photograph particularly, interested me enough to Google Charles Dodgson’s photography. He was a prolific photographer of young girls (aged between seven and twelve years old) and very often the girl’s poses are provocative. Alice I Have Been stops short of accusing Mr Dodgson of being a paedophile, but the question is certainly raised.

The book describes the circumstances of Charles Dodgson telling Alice and her sisters the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and of Alice begging Mr Dodgson to write the story down, which he eventually did. He also gave the original manuscript to Alice. The story was published and was eventually followed by Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.

The relationship between Alice, her sisters and Mr Dodgson ended after Alice, waking up on a train after an outing with Mr Dodgson, kissed him in the way her “Papa kissed her Mamma”. This was witnessed by Ina and Pricks, and the blame laid entirely with Mr Dodgson.

As an adult, Alice went on to have a romance with His Royal Highness Prince Leopold, the son of Queen Victoria, which ended at the Queen’s request. Alice believes this is because of her reputation having been stained by Mr Dodgson, but the official reason given is that the Queen wanted the Prince to marry royalty.

Alice eventually married and had children of her own, recognising all the while that she still loved and always would love the prince best of all.

Towards the end of the novel Alice and Mr Dodgson meet up again. He is a fussy old man by this stage, while she is the mother of rambunctious boys. Both are disappointed in each other. Mr Dodgson wants Alice to continue to be a child, and Alice wants Mr Dodgson to grow up.

I enjoyed Alice I Have Been, even though as I child I read and disliked Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

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Author, Benjamin - Melanie, Book Review

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