80 Books No.72: Arthur, High King of Britain by Michael Morpurgo

We've already established I don't really get Morpurgo, and I feel like I should because the kids love him so. I just can't find a book I connect with of his, even Private Peaceful, because I never really truly love his characters. This probably makes me the hardest hearted person ever, but there it is: I cry more at Boxer dying in Animal Farm than at any of the events in Private Peaceful.

Given this, it will come as no surprise that Arthur, High King of Britain didn't really grind my gears. I do like an Arthurian legend and I'm immensely gutted that Anna Elliott's Avalon trilogy has been completed on e-book only, as I not only don't own an e-reader, I have no intention of buying one. It seems I am doomed never to find out if Trystan and Isolde are ever going to get together (I mean, it's pretty blindingly obvious they will but whether they'll come to a sticky end is anyone's guess). This little book, I hoped, would fill the void a little and educate me somewhat in less romantic Arthurian myths.

In terms of conveying the legends, Morpurgo does well. It's essentially a little run-down of key tales from the Knights of the Round Table which means it was always going to be a little picaresque in style. He therefore does well to tie it together a little (even if he for some reason involves the Isles of Scilly again). What lets it down is that I don't actually rate his style of writing and that he introduces some frankly weird plots into the story. Okay, so he doesn't make up that Arthur sleeps with his half-sister and has a bastard, but does this really need putting in a kids' story? Acres of awkwardness if we had to teach this. In terms of reading for meaning and analysis, it's also completely void of any material. The planning needing to surround this novel would be ridiculous.

Basically, not a recommended read. I feel I could probably blag a few answers on University Challenge off of the back of it though.

80 Books No.72: Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Like You Don't Know Me, this is a book which has been staring me in the face in the book cupboard for a couple of years. Perhaps more so than Klass' novel as I've actually heard of this one before, though I've always assumed it's about a delinquent chicken (cause so many YA novels are about poultry). This clearly shows me off as a bit of dimwit.

Instead, Artemis Fowl is about a master criminal who is only in his teens, and his clash with the fairy world. In the light of this, it being about a delinquent chicken sounds marginally less far-fetched. I'm almost tempted to write a novel about a delinquent chicken now in order to justify this expectation.

I was pleasantly surprised by Artemis Fowl as at first I was a bit sniffy about it. I'm not sure why, beyond it feeling like one of those books which is written by somebody with a pseudonym which wind me up. In reality, it was quite witty and interesting, although the last few chapters didn't wholly hold my attention. It suffered a little from my knowing there were further books in the series and so key characters were highly unlikely to snuff it, but there was a creativity and inventiveness that kept it from being too stale. Definitely a good example of how to build a 'world' and stay within it.

Teaching this one in January. Why I've selected this year as the one to start teaching about five new novels, I have no idea. This fact further supports the viewpoint that I am in fact a dimwit.

80 Books No.67: Why the Whales Came by Michael Morpurgo

I've spent some time over the last week or so tidying out the book cupboard at work (something that will hopefully be completed this week). It is impossible to believe how many books there are in there, some of them barely touched. Why the Whales Came is a reasonably old book, in comparison to my new purchase of The Hunger Games anyway. It is a Morpurgo classic, and for some reason kids seem to love Michael Morpurgo. I can't say as I entirely understand why, even after reading this book.

It is a short enough book with a decent enough story of two children in 1914 (why always the war, Morpurgo?) on the Isles of Scilly. Tales of curses and scary men had some correlation with things like To Kill a Mockingbird. It was a little fantastical, as I'm still not really sure 'why the whales came' apart from some curse that was apparently on the island. That was a little frustrating, but maybe I missed a key point.

The story was predictable and ended too neatly, but it was interesting enough whilst it lasted. Perhaps my lack of enthusiasm comes from the fact that I was reading it till 4am one night because I couldn't sleep. Bitter, mumble mumble mumble.

It's on my redesigned curriculum for this year anyway.

80 Books No.65: Until the Next Time by Kevin Fox

The amount of labels I've added to this post will demonstrate how hard this book was to categorise. I've hesitantly called it 'historical', although I'm not entirely sure 1970s Ireland and the Troubles are really consigned to the past; I've called it 'fantasy' due to the beliefs about and occurrences of reincarnation present throughout the narrative. I added 'thrilled' as Amazon categorises it as such. 'Romance' I'm definite about, as certain as I am that this is indeed a 'book'. This vein of uncertainties dogged me throughout the reading.

Sean Corrigan receives his uncle Michael's journal on his 21st birthday - an uncle he never knew about, if I remember correctly. This drags him from New York to rural Ireland to investigate what happened to his uncle in the 70s. The novel makes use of both Sean's 1996 first person narration and Michael's journal in order to tell the story. The author himself has said he found the dual narrative very easy to use as the voices of the characters were very similar and so was their story. This does, however, make it really rather confusing for the reader, an effect which was partially intended as the novel goes on to explore the idea that all of these characters have lived before and are doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes until they learn they lesson. In my opinion, it got a bit bogged down with this.

The confusing nature of the narrative meant this was quite a slow read for me, as part way through Michael's sections I'd have to remind myself that we were in the 1970s and he was on the run from US police, as opposed to Sean who seemed to have upped and left his life in America on a whim and some odd dreams. To confuse things further, Michael was frequently called 'Mickaleen' which was HIS uncle's (or great-uncles's) nickname - he'd been on the run from Irish nationalists. Then Sean was occasionally called 'Mickaleen' by people who'd known him when he was Michael...

I'd really recommend a flow chart if anybody else wants to try reading this. It was a fairly interesting story, certainly in its more 'historical' sections, although I preferred Sean as a character. The romantic element came in the form of Kate/Erin/whatever her name may now be, and Anne, who was a brilliantly drawn character. Fox really captured Irish conversation for me and the characters leapt off the page when they spoke. Definitely a writer who I would read something else from if it was slightly less convoluted and confusing.

80 Books No.61: The Queen Must Die by K A S Quinn

This book was similar in concept to King of Shadows in as much as a modern teenager (both American now I think about it) whose life is in some way unsatisfactory travels through time to a point he/she is interested in. He/she then interacts with a number of famous historical figures and is involved in some drama before a return home to his/her own life where he/she realises the lessons he/she has learned.

I won't apologise for the spoiler above by the way; The Queen Must Die is the first in the Chronicles of the Tempus series, so of course Katie and co were always going to survive to live another day. This isn't Game of Thrones.

I sound incredibly cynical and I don't mean to, because I really enjoyed this. From the very beginning it was engaging and captivating as Quinn has created a very likeable character in Katie. She did adapt to being in Victorian England even quicker than Nat in King of Shadows but it was a little less noticeable here. I also really liked the inclusion of Princess Alice and James the doctor's son, and they formed a nice little trio at the heart of the story. The big background story involving the Tempus, which will presumably be explored further in the following books, added another level to the novel which Cooper's novel sort of lacked for me.

I enjoyed this novel so much I even tried to get into reading A N Wilson's The Victorians again. This came to a crushing defeat part way through Chapter 5 as I discovered again that non-fiction and me don't get on. This is something I may have to address in 2014.

However, a solid children's/teen novel which I would probably recommend as further reading for anybody who enjoyed King of Shadows for the time travel aspect.

I'm concerned by how often I've googled 'The Queen Must Die' as part of this blog entry though; MI5 will be at my door shortly. MI6, however, I could get on board with.

Oh yeah, Queen of Tenuous, that's me.

80 Books No.42: The Midwinter Child by FJ Reid

This was recommended on TES as a potential class reader and I quite liked the concept: modern day child receives the sword Excalibur and has to complete some quest vaguely connected with King Arthur. I like an Arthurian legend; actually I need to find Sunrise of Avalon by Anna Elliott to complete that trilogy - I've only just remembered that. Anyway, I like an Arthurian legend because it's sort of historical and yet fantastical as well - which makes it pretty cool.

Within about a page of The Midwinter Child, it was clear that this was either self-published or from some minor publishing house. The cover* and font and generally type-setting smacked of a lack of money and also it needed editing in some places, which led me to believe self-published. It's certainly available on Authonomy. This doesn't necessarily mean it's bad or anything, but it is quite a jarring experience to keep having to work out distances between letters and things. There were a few misplaced punctuation marks and things which did basically colour my decision on using this as a class reader. It was also a bit long and in places not amazingly written.

However, judging it on its own merits, it was an enjoyable enough read. The main character was reasonably engaging and there was a mystery and mythological element which I enjoyed. I found it difficult to get into at times, which may have been a reflection of my lack of concentration whilst reading it, but also that it wasn't the most attention grabbing book ever. Indeed, I skim read parts of it.

I probably read this too much with a teacher's hat on. Someone without a teacher's hat on give it a whirl.

* You'll have to trust me on that; I couldn't actually find a picture of the cover for this blog :(

80 Books No.41: King of Shadows by Susan Cooper

I need to re-read this book really, despite only having finished it yesterday. I think I'd appreciate it more on a second run-through as I think I expected a different pace and climax which then put the whole structure of the novel off kilter for me. Despite this, I'm genuinely considering buying a class set for school, and these are the reasons why...

King of Shadows is about Nat, a young American actor who is in the midst of rehearsals for a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then he falls ill and wakes up in 1599, where he's rehearsing for A Midsummer Night's Dream with Shakespeare himself. You know, what usually happens when you have a vomiting bug, right?

Things happened quite quickly in this book, and Nat accepts his transportation to 1599 exceptionally quickly, which did irritate me somewhat; however, like Black Swan Rising, if he'd taken forever to adapt it would have been a very dull 100 pages or whatever. There's probably something in this for me to learn in my own writing. The pace of the novel never really dipped which means this will likely appeal to teenagers, especially reluctant readers. I think a re-read would help with emphasising key parts of the story in my own head, let alone with a class.

The amount of background detail of Shakespeare's London and theatre is, I'll admit, a key part of this story's appeal. There's only so often you can complete comprehension activities on what the period was really like before it becomes completely boring; at least an actual story might engage students. Also, the timeslip element is, for me, hugely appealing as I love time travel stories (although not TimeRiders, I found that quite tedious).

Lastly, I really liked the ending and how it tied up with other Shakespeare plays. There was an emotional heart to the story which would be even clearer on a re-read.

All in all, an enjoyable little book. And short...

80 Books No.39: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

I'm usually pretty reserved on these blogs. Maybe it's because I've been writing them days and sometimes weeks after I've read them, maybe it's because most books don't knock me over sideways, maybe it's because I'm a miserable cow. However, no more. Because I'm going to be enthusiastic.

Oh dear God, this book was good. Like, could hardly put it down good and wanted to know more good and I just have to share this book with somebody GOOD.

On paper, it doesn't sound like a particularly amazing book: a boy's mum has cancer and a monster arrives in order to help him to deal with it. So far, so depressing and all-too-real version of The BFG. However, if you know anything about children's literature, just the names associated with this should get your heart racing. The original idea was Siobhan Dowd's, author of four novels and posthumous winner of the Carnegie Award. She never got a chance to write this novel; she died at the age of forty-seven of cancer. The idea though was noted down in quite a lot of detail and so her agents and publishers looked for somebody to complete it. Enter Patrick Ness, author of the Chaos Walking trilogy - which is basically a Hunger Games-esque series with a male narrator. Admittedly the trilogy did tail off somewhat, much like The Hunger Games, but the first one was absolutely amazing. Given all of this, and even given that I wasn't hugely enamoured with some of Dowd's writing, it's surprising it's taken me this long to get around to reading this one.

There is so much depth in this novel that I can't really do it justice. It's dark and truthful and a bit scary and uplifting and comforting in many different ways. It's the sort of book you don't come across very often and the sort of book that I so want my students to read. This is a definite contender for being whacked on the curriculum next year; I just need to convince other people of that!

Oh, and the illustrations in this are incredible too. Just in case you're somebody who likes pictures.

80 Books No. 38: Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan

Argh. A pet peeve of mine cropped up in this book. Two actually. One is the reason I just can't bring myself to read A Series of Unfortunate Events even though I think the film is actually quite good and an underrated family classic. The other is why I find marking kids' books such hard work at times.

But I'll come to them later.

Cirque du Freak is a book I've seen bandied around as a good class reader so as I'm embarking on spending money on new texts, it seems I should actually read some before I commit. This is reasonably short and seems popular enough (there's certainly enough sequels) so I haven't ruled it out just yet, despite the pet peeves. It does come with some reservations though.

So Pet Peeve No.1: Darren Shan is not the author's actual name. It's his pen name. And he tries to pretend he's writing his own story. That is, Darren Shan is the main character in the novel. I have no idea why this bugs me so much; I think it's just crossing that invisible line between truth and fiction, breaking the fourth wall, if you will, and it gets right up my nose.

Anyway, Darren and his friend Steve go to the Cirque du Freak (freak show/circus for those who can't work out basic French) and then it all goes quite odd. Up until then, it was actually quite a good read. Even after that, there was an enjoyment in the novel, even if there was a horrendously large spider in it and it all became quite dark towards the end. I think children would enjoy it. However, I'm not sure if it's not just too dark and strange; I can see that this would give some more sensitive kids nightmares and I'm just not willing to do that. I'm going to hand it onto a colleague and see what their verdict is.

Oh, plus Pet Peeve No.2 sort of puts me off: 'Darren Shan' full on overuses exclamation marks. It's completely unnecessary and frankly exhausting to read. When my students do it, it drives me nuts, as exclamation marks are for a purpose and to create a particular effect. If you use them all the time, it just suggests you have no idea how to actually use punctuation. And here we have a published author doing just that, and suggesting it's okay. I'm not sure I can put this in front of my students and maintain any sense of integrity.

80 Books No.30: Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

Whilst it may seem as though I read a lot, I wouldn't consider myself well-read. I believe this primarily for the reason that the type of thing I read is very limited. I pretty much only read fiction novels. I almost never read non-fiction, autobiographies, poetry, plays or short stories. I'm basically very stuck in my ways.

However, I like Stephen King and this book was recommended on a website I visit, so this seemed as good a read as any. King's work is always readable and enjoyable, so there seemed little harm in giving this a go. The whole collection is centred around the theme of murder and whether it is ever justified. Considering it is a collection of short stories, I'll treat each one separately before summing up the whole collection (this also makes this post longer - I know all the tricks)

1922
A Nebraska farmer relates the reasons he murdered his wife and what happened as a result of it. From the outset, this was a dark and disturbing story, and it really didn't let up. The wife was, admittedly, horrible, but then this was a story narrated by a murderer: he was hardly going to make his wife sound nice! This subtly changed throughout the story, emphasising his unreliable nature. The corruption of his son was the real heart of the story, and it was a shame that the subplot involving him and his girlfriend became slightly far-fetched. In some ways, this made it less disturbing than the later stories, and yet it was this story which gave me nightmares and freaked me out. At this point in the collection, I wasn't wholly enjoying myself.

Big Trucker
A novelist is attacked on her way home from a book reading and seeks revenge. This story continued the dark nature of '1922' and took it even further. This was a more believable tale, to a point, and the graphic descriptions of the attack made it worryingly real. There was a twist in the tale, as ever with King, but it worked well. However, it was such a disturbing story that I still wasn't really enjoying this book; I could have happily given up at this stage!


Fair Extension
The story of a man who wishes to be cured from his terminal illness - and is, but you have to wonder if it is worth it. This was where the collection came alive for me. There was a change in narration style, to a more detached perspective. It was far more moralistic, in my opinion, and had more of an edge of magical realism about it than the other tales in the collection. The ending was the most disturbing part of this one as the main character did not respond how you'd want him to.

A Good Marriage
A woman discovers her husband is not the man she thought he was. It was pretty obvious from its inclusion within the collection that her husband was going to be a Bad Man. What was fascinating was how much of a Bad Man he was and how she responded to him. Whilst the initial situation was less likely than 'Big Trucker', the emotions seemed more real and true. I really enjoyed this one.

Bonus story: Under the Weather
An advertising man remembers something he has worked very hard to forget. A terrible summary for what turned out to be an excellent and devastatingly sad story. Why was this only included as a bonus in the paperback edition? Whilst the other stories were more disturbing, the emotions this one brought about were more overwhelming. Stunning.

Overall, Full Dark, No Stars is a decent enough collection. Stephen King writes beasty books (see In which size definitely matters ) and I can't always face a full 1000 pages. This was a nice little taster of readable and well-crafted tales. The title is one-hundred per cent accurate though: this really is thoroughly dark with absolutely no hope. Not to be read whilst in a depressive state of mind.

80 Books No.29: Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll

I bought this because I thought it would have some connection to Swan Lake. It sort of did, very slightly, in as much as black and white swans seemed important in some way (I sort of lost track of those bits). Mostly, however, it was to do with vampires, fairies and the sixteenth century alchemist John Dee. Which, you know, is completely logical.

Falling into a genre apparently known as 'urban fantasy', Black Swan Rising was about Garet (or Margaret dependent upon how you want to be introduced to her) who seems normal on the surface but has a lot more hidden beneath the surface. She finds out that her mother's death in a car accident was far from accidental and that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in her philosophy.

Okay, it's essentially Twilight for a slightly older audience (I think; I don't know why but it feels more adult than Stephenie Meyer's novels).

However, this is not all bad. Being pretty much Twilight means you do get some overblown angst, a sexy vampire and a massive fight between good and evil. And the characters here are at least more likeable and perhaps more believable; they're generally quite 'normal' anyway, with, naturally, the exception of the elves, fairies and gnomes which crop up around every street corner in Manhattan. This element I liked, as all of these mystical beings lived their every day lives alongside humans, either as nurses or pawnbrokers or radio DJs. It probably shouldn't have worked, but did, and these characters were just the backdrop the novel needed.

There was logical progression in the plot and it came to what I consider a satisfying ending; it was slightly open-ended but gave a sense of closure. I would criticise Garet's almost instant acceptance of this magical world, even given her complete immersion into it, but then if she hadn't immediately got on board with it, it would have been a hell of a tedious novel! As it was, it was actually quite gripping and exciting, and I desperately wanted Garet and Will to get together even if he seemed horrendously dangerous.

A pretty decent read if you like ridiculous fantasy. Would make a good film!

Oz the Great and Powerful

I’ve always quite enjoyed The Wizard of Oz as it’s frankly an amazing feat of cinema given that it came out in 1939 – the switch from black and white to Technicolor is still magical. And the 1985 Return to Oz is another treat, in another whole way: the scariest kids’ film I have ever seen! I’ve also read Gregory MacGuire’s Wicked out of curiosity to see what all the hype was about, although it didn’t persuade me to go and see the musical.

Despite all of this, I’ve never really counted myself as an Oz fan; I’m more of a Narnia girl in general. Still, Oz the Great and Powerful has been on my ‘want to see list’ for 2013 since I heard it was coming out, and whilst I’ve been feeling pretty rundown and tired, I still wanted to see it.

A basic run down of the plot is that it explains how the Wizard came to Oz, and how the witch became wicked. Admittedly the latter part of that plot was a little tenuous and left unresolved in my mind. James Franco plays the Wizard (or Oz as he was actually known) and I spent a lot of the film wondering what else I’d seen him in. I’m still none the wiser, as having Googled it, the only thing he’s credited as being in that I’ve seen was the godawful Pineapple Express, and I’ve blocked that from my memory. The various witches of Oz are played by Rachel Weisz, Mila Kunis and Michelle Williams.

First off, I really enjoyed it. I liked the plot and it was vaguely humorous. I’m sure I’ll be struck down by somebody for saying it was a more likeable plot than Wicked as I found that just too clever-clever. I liked that things weren’t overplayed, like the encounter with the lion, and that some things about the 1939 film are directly referenced.  Franco was alright and I thought Michelle Williams was a perfect Glinda. Also, the use of 3D in the opening credits was frankly the best use of 3D I’ve ever seen; the rest of the film used it pretty much as pointlessly as any other film I’ve ever seen, but the depth on the credits was amazing.

Rachel Weisz was, for me, underused, as her part was very small in the grand scheme of things. Her character wasn’t really developed in the same way that Mila Kunis’s was. However, on the subject of Kunis, I felt she was a little miscast. For me, she’s best when she can be slightly comedic (really good in Friends with Benefits and the best thing about Ted), and her role didn’t allow her to be. She’s too light and fluffy for the frankly iconic role she was given.

Visually, the film was lovely (and how epic is the poster above?!), although I will admit that I’m becoming saddened by the overreliance of film upon CGI so that lavish sets are no longer built. Yes, the Emerald City here was amazing, but look at what Victor Fleming achieved in the Judy Garland classic without any computer effects at all. I liked the addition of China Town, even if the China Girl initially freaked me out. The monkey I could take or leave in all honesty.

This was quite a dark film so I’m surprised it was only rated a PG – definitely some scary moments for children. Actually, scratch that; some scary moments for me.

For me, though, definitely Sam Raimi’s best film.

80 Books No. 10: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Unhappy boy who doesn’t feel like he fits in meets a girl who is ostracised by the community. He becomes infatuated. It turns out the girl is magical and has some awful curse and her family are quite weird and she shouldn’t be mingling with a mortal. Their love is almost all conquering.

It sounds sort of familiar, doesn’t it? It could be Twilight by almost any other name. Piggy-backing on the heels of Stephanie Meyer’s series, is this series, but this time it’s Casters (sort of witches and wizards) who are the topic rather than the rather ubiquitous vampires of late.

I really wanted to see the film of this, but having subjected my friends to the Twilight saga (and wanting to store up some Brownie points for The Host at the end of March) I gave into peer pressure and gave up. When I saw the book going cheap in ASDA, however, I decided to buy it as I like magical stuff and the first page seemed reasonably engaging.

And engaging it was as a whole. It seems unfair to judge the book by the sparkly vampire standards, but it is almost certainly aimed at the same audience and has so many similarities that it would be silly to overlook them. So here’s my opinion of it compared to Twilight.

The narrator is infinitely less irritating. Bella Swan pouted and sulked and generally mardied her way through four novels, whilst Ethan at least comes across as a likeable enough bloke. He behaves in a generally decent, if slightly over-the-top way, falling for Lena almost before he’s had time to even quite catch her name. And you have to admire a boy who is willing to stand up for his girlfriend against the whole town.

The relationship is also less weird than Bella and Edward’s. Yes, Ethan and Lena spend almost every waking minute together (either physically or communicating psychically) but it doesn’t become the demanding moaning miserable mess that the Swan-Cullen alliance is. Even as the climax of the novel approaches, their relationship still maintains some charm and innocence.

The setting is more believable than Forks. I mean, how likely is it that an average high school would just be fine with the Cullens and not react to Bella’s downright odd-ballness? At least here we get the real bitchiness girls are capable of which would absolutely be directed towards Lena, not least because she steals one of the popular boys from right under the cheerleaders’ noses. The reaction of the community makes this a far more believable tale within the world it is set. No, Casters are no more real than vampires, but the situations in this book ring truer than Meyer’s world does.

The writing is generally better too. It’s not Pulitzer Prize worthy, and there are perhaps too many descriptions of how Lena’s hair curled, but there is not the endless description over how wonderful she is, and how amazing she is, and how incredible she is, which frankly drove me insane in Twilight. And after all, this is generally a teen-read: they’re not really looking for War and Peace.

Which brings me to some of the negatives. I would have said this was too long, at over five hundred pages, and with some dodgy pacing at times, but in all fairness, the novel does make good use of almost every chapter, introducing key characters and events which tie together. Perhaps the flashback sections could have been cut down as they weren’t entirely necessary, although perhaps they will be picked up on in the following three books in the series. The shift of narrator towards the end, whilst necessary due to events, was jarring and slightly lazy on the part of the authors in my opinion; had they decided they wanted to switch narrator, perhaps they needed to do this earlier in the novel to set it up to be more natural for the reader. This smacked of convenience. After this shift, the ending was a little wet and I would have liked a little more punch, but I suppose five hundred pages of engaging material is quite a feat.

So now the question is, am I going to read the next three? Part of me says yes, it would be nice to see what happens next, but a (perhaps larger) part of me says no. It was enjoyable enough and kept me reading late into the night, but I’m just not sure I care what happens to Ethan and Lena. I would guess that some great event will mean that they can be together, potentially forever, and probably some characters will die along the way, and good will triumph over evil… and I just don’t care.

So maybe Stephanie Meyer wins out in the end after all.

80 Books No.6: Changeling by Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory is an odd one. Her Tudor Court novels are largely quite exciting and salacious and keep you reading, and yet if you try re-reading them her overlong sentences seem to hide some quite limited vocabulary at times. I didn’t really get into ‘The Cousins’ War’ series, after reading both The Red Queen and The White Queen, maybe because I didn’t know anything about that historical period and so lost interest.

My main problem with her is that I tend to believe her implicitly and so have a quite twisted view of British history.

This book was largely an okay choice, even if it was made by my mum on a whim to bulk out an order she was making. It’s Philippa Gregory; it’s young adult fiction; it’s about the Catholic church. It should be a win-win all round for me. It was enjoyable enough in places and I particularly liked the character of Freize.

Yet this book just seemed to expose Gregory’s apparently quite limited vocabulary: characters were constantly ‘demanding’ something. The plot sort of ambled around without much direction to it. There is an absolutely ridiculous scene involving nuns attacking people, and the word ‘wimple’ (always entertaining anyway) appeared so many times it was untrue; I couldn’t take killer nuns seriously when their wimples kept falling off.

Basically, I agree with everything this young reviewer said in The Guardian. I’ll probably keep reading the series if I can get hold of them, if only to find out who the ‘real-life historical figure’ they’ll meet is. I’ll admit it was interesting to find out so much about Islam at this time and how Islamic nations were at the forefront of educating women. However, I doubt I’ll be parting with cash in order to read them; I’ll pay more when Gregory buys a thesaurus.

80 Books No.5: The Night Circus

Last year, through some sheer hard graft and forcing myself to concentrate, I managed to read seventy-six entire books, starting the seventy-seventh on 29^th December. Loving reading doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes need to persevere with a book more than I’d necessarily want to, and it’s almost always easier to flick idly around the internet than sit down with a book, but I can honestly say that I got more from those seventy-six books than I did from many a TV programme I watched last year.

So this year, I’ve sent myself the challenge of reading eighty books. This is one of my six challenges for this year (perhaps more of which in another post) and it may be the one which kills me as I’m already falling way behind schedule. Still, with some crafty selections of books (e.g. Where’s Wally?) I may be able to catch myself up.

So far, I’ve read:

1.    Spell it Out by David Crystal (29^th December 2012-2^nd January 2013) – the first non-fiction in over a year and a hard read at times. Interesting on some levels.

2.    Grimm Tales by Philip Pullman (2^nd-5^th January) – really enjoyable if you like fairytales and Pullman – I do, so it was good!

3.    Looking for Alaska by John Green (8^th-9^th January) – only because a student insisted and it was okay – pretty average teen stuff.

4.    The Stand by Stephen King (9^th January-3^rd February) – see previous post for my thoughts on this!

Book 5 of 2013 was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. The blurb on this gave almost nothing away, beyond the fact that it sounded magical and Audrey Niffenegger really liked it. This I met with some mixed feelings: I loved The Time Traveler’s Wife but Her Fearful Symmetry was one of the most disappointing novels I have ever read. Still, the cover of The Night Circus is pretty so I gave it a chance.

I’m really glad I did. This was magical and mysterious and romantic and charming all in one. There are certain books which have that certain something about them which whisks you away on a journey and when you finish them, everything seems slightly different. The Night Circus is almost one of those books for me, perhaps only missing out because there was no character I fully loved in the way I loved Inigo, Penelope, Charlotte and Harry in The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets. In spite of this, I enjoyed the story and the style in which it was written, not least the way so many mysteries were kept from both the characters and the reader. Even at the end, I still wasn’t 100% certain exactly what had happened but far from frustrating me, this somehow gave the circus itself more life, which was really what the novel was all about in the end

 

And if I haven’t convinced you to read it, it might be worth knowing Wikipedia uses the word ‘phantasmagorical’ in order to describe its genre. That alone surely makes it worth a read.