Recent Review Round Up - Holiday Reading

Its'a amazing how many books you can go through when you give you brain a week off from everything else. Ok, so three and a bit books in two weeks might not sound like very many, but this is pretty impressive for my easily distracted brain right now. I'll start doing the odd full review again soon, but in the mean time here are three reads that got me thinking this summer...


The Paying Guests - Sarah Waters

This is the first Sarah Waters book I've read and it certainly won't be the last. Is that enough of a review do you think? If I don't end here then I'm in danger of offering you up an essay about it, but I shall continue and try to keep it brief. I've made a resolution to start reading a bit more adult fiction, and this book has set the bar, quite frankly - a masterclass in how to write a well-drawn, living breathing character. I was slightly daunted by the length (as I said, I get easily distracted), but there wasn't a single wasted word. The story of how the arrival of Lilian and Leonard impact on the formerly well-to-do Frances Wray and her mother is tense and romantic in equal measure.

Am staring to think I should have written a full review of this because now, as I'm typing, I have ALL THE THOUGHTS. Oh well.



Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Jesse Andrews

I'm conflicted about this one. I enjoyed it. It was smart and funny (very funny) and refreshing, and I wish there was some way to bottle that feeling you get when you read something truly unique in YA fiction (sorry, but it just doesn't happen that often). I just wasn't entirely convinced by Andrews's attempts to subvert a the common dying teenager YA trope. It just felt like he should have pushed the button a bit more - tricky, I know - because I was just left with the feeling that the book hadn't quite managed to detach itself completely with that particular trope and that it had shied away from a few issues it touched upon. But whatever drawbacks I had with it, the voice is one of the most convincing I've read in recent months.



Since You've Been Gone - Morgan Matson

I enjoyed Roger and Amy's Epic Detour and I was looking for a good contemporary YA to get my teeth into. This had been sitting on my kindle for a while and seemed to fit the bill. However, I was THIS (imagine me holding up my fingers to indicate a short distance) close to giving up on it about half way through - shy Emily may have felt realistic, but my patience with her as a main character was starting to wane, I still hadn't gotten any sense of who her missing best friend Sloane really was and the flashbacks felt cumbersome. BUT, exactly slap bang int he middle, it drew me in and I started to care, really care, about all of them. I adore YA books about complicated friendships and I'm happy to say this one ended up being incredibly moving. Plus, there were also some excellent playlists hidden in these pages (although I much preferred Frank's taste in music to Emily's - sorry country fans).

Recent Review Round Up

In lieu of about six month's worth of reviews, I bring you one big post containing some of the stuff I've enjoyed recently. You may have noticed that this is not a 'YA Review Round Up' because it is not exclusively YA (trying to broaden my reading a bit here). But it's still mostly YA. There's no way I'm cutting down the YA intake.


If you remember my review of Pantomime then you've got a great memory - well done. If not, the gist was that I loved it and it brought me out of a reading slump so top marks all around. So of course I read the sequel Shadowplay and loved that too - more Micah, more Drystan, more magical sexual tension than you could shake a stick at (not that I would shake a stick in the face of sexual tension - that would be very odd behaviour). As a result of my love for these, I was very sad to hear that the publisher of these fine books, Strange Chemistry, was folding. However, I also love a good silver lining and the author Laura Lam has already self-published a short story, The Snake Charm about Drystan before he met Micah, with more stories to follow and perhaps a third book in this series...


I'm not quite sure how I can sum up reading a Courtney Summers book. I finished Cracked Up to Be a while back and I barely said a word about it because I couldn't form a coherent sentence that summed up my feelings, apart from perhaps 'I would saw off my right arm to be able to write a book like this.' Jo buys the best presents and she didn't let me down at Christmas with a copy of This is Not a Test. Just read it. Please. You'll know what I'm on about then. Oh, and there's going to be a sequel.

THERE'S GOING TO BE A SEQUEL



I've been increasingly drawn to middle grade books (do we call them middle grade in the UK? Apologies if we don't) and they've been another thing that has rescued me from many a reading slump recently. My eldest daughter is just getting to an age where she's starting to enjoy chapter books and I'm getting great satisfaction out of stockpiling titles that I'll probably foist upon her at some point in the future. First one? Dead Man's Cove by Lauren St. John. Think Enid Blyton but as contemporary as they come. I would have adored this when I was nine or ten because I adored it when I read it a couple of weeks ago. Proper good mystery, topical, beautifully written, just ace.



I'd been meaning to start a book by CJ Skuse for ages because she is one of the funniest people on Twitter and now I feel stupid for leaving it so long - Dead Romantic is very amusing, very British, very icky and very very very very very good. A YA contemp with an undercurrent of The League of Gentleman, if you can imagine such a thing. Go read now please.







Talking of YA contemp, if you haven't read Trouble by Non Pratt yet, I think you need to have a good long think about your life choices. Please do not think this is an 'issue' book and you must therefore avoid. Because as we all know, when books that are written about the big stuff (teenage pregnancy in this case) are well written (as in this case), then that's a good as books get (as in this case).






Do you remember where you were when you found out that Robert Galbraith was none other than JK Rowling? Ok, so we didn't have a clue who Robert Galbraith was but still, the news that she had written a crime novel was a welcome one. It took me a criminally long time to get around to reading The Cuckoo's Calling but as I suspected, she does this sort of thing very well indeed. And the fact that a novel written by JK Rowling contains the word 'pubehead' pleases me greatly.





Beautiful Ruins was the first bit of literary fiction I'd read in quite a while and it was my 'dipping into when on the bus or tube' book. It wasn't until about a third of the way through that I really started to get lost in it and this is why I don't read literary fiction that much anymore - I have the attention span of a gnat these days - but then again, it makes it all the more satisfactory when a title holds me within it's grip like this one did. And it made me cry on the bus. 'Nuff said.






Better finish here because this post is getting far too long but I promise I'm going to start writing proper reviews again soon...

TRAVEL MONTH REVIEW - 'The Beach', Alex Garland (Penguin 1997)

Richard, a seasoned traveller, is passed on details of a secret idyllic island community on his first night in Bangkok. This starts a quest for an apparent utopia tha has far reaching effects on his perceptions, friendships and psyche.

So I couldn't really do a travel month without reviewing the most famous title in travel ficiton in the last 15 years now, could I? Well, I could, but it would have been a travel month with a great big gaping Beach-shaped hole in it. I first read this book in about 1998 when I started university. I was THE book to read at the time. Everyone had either been on a gap year on was planning a jaunt to South-East Asia and if you hadn't read this then you would have a copy shoved under your nose at every opportunity. Since then it appears to have become a bit of a modern classic, with the author going on to script UK and Hollywood blockbusters.

Escape through travel works. Almost from the moment I boarded my flight, life in England became meaningless. Seat-belt signs lit up, problems switched off. Broke armrest took precedence over broken hearts. By the time the plane was airborne I'd forgotten England even existed.

My own memories of this are a little more vague and mixed, much of which has to do with a memory tainted by the truely dire film adaptation a few years after it's release. How can the director responsible for Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire produce such an awful adaptation? To be fair it's been a few years since I saw the whole thing, but it was on the telly a few months back and I got so annoyed with it that I switched off halfway through.

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about the film (but I will. A bit. You'll see why soon). Back to the book. I have to admit I wasn't particularly relishing the thought of reading this one again. My first impression when I found a copy on the library shelf - I DON'T REMEMBER IT BEING THAT LONG. That's never a good start to any book-reader relationship. I was expecting it, rather unfairly, to be rambling and slow-paced. Not sure why. On the plus side, I had genuinely forgotton the specifics of the ending. Which is a great thing when embarking on a re-read. This is why I am able to re-read Agatha Christie's on a constant loop and still being genuinely surprised when the perpetrator is revealed is the drawing room at the end. She did write A LOT of books, mind...



So, The Beach. Well  I am happy to say that it was a brilliant, gripping read. In a book where most of the action takes place on an island where not an awful lot of obvious goings-on are, well going on, the pace is taut and the story fascinating.

The masterstroke is Richard. Our narrator is, the put it bluntly, a complete arsehole. But the skill is the fact that he is engaging arsehole and you want to hear more from him all the time. He thinks things that we all suspect we may feel ourselves, deep down, but would never admit to.Wouldn't want to be stuck on a desert island with him, mind. He slow descent into a rather dubious psychological mindset is subtle and believable. And shockingly done. The dropping in of a blunt statement here and there reminds us that this man is teetering on the edge.

...But I was also buzzing. It looked like the problem with our uninvited guests was about to be solved, and if that wasn't enough, I was also going to find out what happened when the dope guards caught someone. Better than that I was actually going to see it.

THE ANTI-RICHARD

I think the reason that I loathed the film so much is that they tried to make the audience like Richard, and if not like, then sympathise with him, which completely misses the point of the whole thing, in my opinion. I mean, the Leonardo version gets the girl, for Christ's sake. Richard would NEVER get the girl.

All the the supporting characters are surprisingly developed, given there's quite a few of them. My only niggle was the female characters. Self-appointed leader Sal - the one character with such unconvincing dialogue - she's like a bad caricature of a cult leader - surely if someone's talks like this, you would be automatically suspicious of their motives? Also, Francoise, nothing against her, per se, it's just the key female characters here are all portrayed as arch-manipulators, which is a touch irritating and seems like the author seems to be ramming home a point. I love a well-written bad girl, but it's also good to have a bit of balance, I reckon.

Also, the ending. THAT ENDING. I don't think it will be particularly spoilery to say that they don't all exchange hugs and farewell presents, then disappear of to their respective homelands, with a future of exchanging witty emails and the like. The tension leading up to it was GLORIOUS. I really, honestly, could not remember the specifics of it and well, when it came I was like, really, REALLY?

No, but REALLY?????

It doesn't pull any punches, but felt like a massive cop out. I can't say anymore, sorry. Just read it and let me know what you reckon. Or let me know if you've had a ganders recently.

This book brings up so many questions that make my brain hurt. This is a good thing and I think everyone should read something like this every now and again. But avoid the film. Or you might end up writing off the book for like, 14 years or so and only reading it again when you feel like you have to for your travel month. And, well ,the rest is history.

TRAVEL TIPS?

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I could go on. Um, don't listen to mad-as-fuck Scottish nutters who pass you strange maps in dodgy Bangkok hostels before they top themselves? Don't share your island 'paradise' with a bunch of militant drug lords? Um, don't be naive enough to think you can claim paradise as your own because paradise bites back in a big way? And maybe phone home once in a while to stop yourself going crazy. Oh, and there's really nothing wrong with following the usual backpacker trail, It's actually quite fun. That's why lots of people have done it. Duh...

LETS GO TO...BRIGHTON!

Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him...

Ok, so I promise not all of these posts are going to be about a location that starts with the letters BRI... Promise, this is the last one. I SWEAR.

Brighton, Brighton, Brighton...what can I say. 'London by the sea' as some folk might call it? This city on the south coast of England is famous for it's hipster-ish qualities, alternative vibe and just general trendiness. So, my reasons for including a location that is just shy of an hour's train journey from where I live at the moment?

Well, one hour on the train does still technically count as travelling. Fact.

Secondly, despite have lived in London on and off for the last nine years, I have never been to Brighton *hangs head in shame*. I know, it's ridiculous and embarrassing and I'm not quite sure why. I'm 99 percent sure I would love it there, but I guess it's that old saying all those people say (you know the ones), something about what's on you own doorstep and that you might over look it, or something. Ok, maybe there isn't a saying. Well, there should be. Or I should be able to remember it.

So, why a literary tour of Brighton? Well, only for the reason that I'm planning on going there in the next couple of weeks and it's probably the only place I'll talk about this month that I will actually visit in the near future. And I just wanted to write a bit about these books. So there. Well, I've picked a few books to talk about, not all of them I've had the good fortune to read (yet). The first is probably the most famous Brighton related book. And when I wrote the first book review I'd written since my school days last year, it was about this classic. So still fairly fresh in my memory then (hopefully).

It is, of course, Brighton Rock by Graham Greene.

And what a book. It has it's faults in terms of some of the characterisation, but when it comes to utterly compelling villains, teenage psychopath Pinky takes some beating.

The 1930s Brighton here is a bleak, tacky affair, where people fall victim to their weaknesses and they is always someone looming to prey on the vulnerable.

And the most amazing, most fabulous thing about this? It has THE BEST opening and closing lines ever. Seriously, they're just magnificent.

I've never since the original film adaptation. You know, the Dickie Attenborough one. Yes, him out of Jurassic Park. But I so want to after watching the more recent 1960s set one. (Looks good, but god, it was LONG). (And felt even longer when you're watching it in an empty room, sitting on a very uncomfortable plastic chair after all you normal furniture has been shipped half way across the world...)

So, if you've never read Graham Greene, you love classics and you love YA, then I would thoroughly recommend this - it goes for the extreme end of the teen angst spectrum but is defintely worth it.

Brighton Book Number 2 - Sugar Rush by Julie Burchill.

I can't believe I still haven't read this. I've been planning to for my YA classics month coming up in the not too distant future (ok, I haven't actually pinned down a month yet, but I'm guessing it will be closer to the end of the year then the beginning). In terms of UKYA, I would argue it has the reputation as a bit of a modern classic, with the Channel 4 adaptation from a few years ago gaining a slight cult status. Anyway, it's written by Julie Burchill, who you can find out a bit more about here. Trust me, you have to read this *lifts jaw up off floor*. To call her controversial is a slight understatement. Famous journalist and 'militant feminist' she appears to have pissed off pretty much everyone in the last 30-odd years. Having not read the book myself, I can't comment on the whole Brighton aspect of it all, but I know this is a bit of a milestone in LGBT literature and any book considered a 'milestone' is worth a read, in my book. (cue cheesy comedy drum roll)

When I started writing this, I was mulling the depths of my memory for some more Brighton-set YA, THEN - light bulb moment - of course, not that long ago, I read...

Brighton Book Number 3 - Let's Get Lost by Sarra Manning.

Apart from being one of my favourite titles of a book ever, this has a great mix of comedy, snark and tragedy, following queen bitch Isobel as she comes to terms with an event from the past that's been haunting her and the fact that she has fallen for a slightly-less-than-acceptable older guy. I can't remember whether the location gets that much of a look in, apart from all the trendy references, but I love books about bad girls turned good(ish). And it has an awesome cover.

So, I'm fairly sure calling Brighton 'London by the sea' doesn't do it anywhere near enough justice. Maybe I'll go there, fall in love with it, move there and write a book set there. One day, Anna...One Day...

...She walked rapidly in the thin June sunlight towards the worst horror of all.

TRAVEL MONTH REVIEW - 'Are You Experienced?', William Sutcliffe, (Penguin, 1998)

Liz travels to India because she wants to find herself. Dave travels to India because he wants to get Liz into bed. Liz loves India, hugs the beggars, and is well on her way to finding her tantric center. Dave, however, realizes he hates Liz, and has bad karma toward his fellow travelers: Jeremy, whose spiritual journey is aided by checks from Dad; Jonah, who hasn't worn shoes for a decade; and Fee and Caz, fresh from leper-washing in Udalpur. (Synopsis from Goodreads)

Ok, warning firsts. I've had a bit of a think about this and I've decided it's impossible to write a review of this without giving away a few spoilery spoilers in the process. Which I usually try to avoid doing, but hey-ho, there you go. So, BIG OLD (sort of) SPOILERS BELOW. If you're interested in that sort of thing.

Well, even though our protagonist, Dave, is technically a teenager, I'm not sure I would class this in a strict young adult fiction category. I'm going to try and avoid a big analysis of what constitutes YA etc etc. -  I should imagine a lot of older teenagers would enjoy reading this, but there is something about the tone and humour that screams 'adults looking back in nostalgic/mocking fashion' if this makes any sense whatsoever.

Well, I was in a bit of a conundrum about this one. On the one hand, the writing is VERY good, very sharp, witty, to the point. And this book is extremely funny. They was one particular scene that had me weeping. I make no apologies, I'm British and will therefore find toilet humour hilarious. I dog-eared so many pages with sublime quotes that this is yet another book I have left in tatters.

Seeing these fresh-faced scared little bunnies about to head off around India reminded me how pleased I was that I'd got the whole thing over with. In the end, I was glad I'd done it, but I had to admit that the having done it was more fun than the doing it. Crapping your pants, for example, is a dire and miserable experience; but having crapped your pants - I mean, that's a pretty good conversational party-piece.


HOWEVER, mmmmm, this is an out and out satire and is so full of vitriol, it oozes from every page. Most of the characters have no redeeming features - they are either clueless, trust-fund, sloany-ponies, or faux-hippy snarky, uppity madams. Even our narrator is far from lovable. Yes, he manages to cut through the bullshit with his cynical barbs, but he is whiny and sex-obsessed and you can't really blame most people he comes into contact with for trying to get as far away from him as possible.These people don't learn any lessons, they don't get their comeuppance, they don't kiss and make up. Which is kind of the point. As a satire it works really well. In showcasing the more unpleasant aspects of the backpackers' relations with their host country, it touches on issues of racism and colonialism. In terms of plot, it doesn't work quite so well -  characters are dropped at the, er, drop of a hat, and certain scenes are ridiculously contrived, which just doesn't fit with the honesty of the tone.

So a funny, intelligent read, yes. Maybe I'm getting a bit soft in my old(er) age, but after I finished this, I wanted to read something light and fluffy and heart warming to compensate for the slightly unpleasant aftertaste it left me with.

Oh, and just a quick note about he cover of this particular edition - AWFUL. Penguin, what were you thinking?

(told you it was a quick note).

TRAVEL TIPS?

I don't think you'll find a better book that depicts the horrors, boredom and therefore the truth about the backpacking experience. But if you're a backpacker, don't expect any sympathy. The main thing I think you get get from this one is don't eat burgers in India. Seriously, don't. And don't expect to remain on good terms with you travelling companion by the end of you trip.

REVIEW - 'The Lover's Dictionary', David Levithan (Fourth Estate, 2011)

How does one talk about love? Do we even have the right words to describe something that can be both utterly mundane and completely transcendent, pulling us out of our everyday lives and making us feel a part of something greater than ourselves? Taking a unique approach to this problem, the nameless narrator of David Levithan’s The Lover’s Dictionary has constructed the story of his relationship as a dictionary. Through these short entries, he provides an intimate window into the great events and quotidian trifles of being within a couple, giving us an indelible and deeply moving portrait of love in our time. (Synopsis from Goodreads)


I love a new storytelling device. As long as it works, mind. As long as it actually succeeds in telling the story effectively and is not just used so a writer can show off - 'LOOK AT MY TOP WRITING SKILLS, FOLKS. AMAZE'. And thankfully, this book falls into the former catagory. 'A love story in 185 definitions'. Well, that's it really, in a nutshell.


This is a quick read. Most of you should be able to breeze through this in a few hours - most pages only contain one short paragraph, some only one sentence. (For a number of reasons, my reading is moving at a bit of a snail's pace at the moment, but I am the exception, I think). There are some downsides to this method - for every profound entry, there is one that comes across as an obvious filler. Yes, all books have sections that meander somewhat, but when an author has opted for such a sparse technique, every word, every sentence is exposed, ripe for analysis and this makes the little faults here and there all the more obvious.


But when he gets it right, my word does he GET IT RIGHT. I have a tendency, like many, to dog-ear pages with my favourite quotes etc. on them. Well, I pity the poor bugger who gets my mangled copy of this library book once I have handed it in with my head hanging sheepishly low. I swear at one point, for about ten pages in a row, there were countless moments of genius.


Our apartment didn't have any good doors to slam. If you wanted to slam a door, you would either end up in the hallway or trapped in the bathroom. Those were the only options.


This book confused me a lot. I wasn't too sure how we' re supposed to feel about the 'lovers'. Is this the picture of a obviously doomed love affair? Or is this just holding a mirror up to every relationship and we're all teetering on the brink most of the time? And maybe that's the point. Love is a messy business. End of. 


This book got me a-pondering. Which is always the sign of a great book. When I started writing this review, I thought I didn't have a huge amount to say about it. But what the hell do I know?