80 Books 2013 Review

I’ve impressed myself with the books I’ve read this year. Not necessarily in terms of the quality I’ve read (come on, Pretty Little Liars, whilst addictive books and TV show, is not ‘literature’) but in the quantity. Whilst I’ve never kept such a dedicated list before 2012 (when I managed 76 books) I’m sure 115 books has to be a record for me.

There’s been a definite slant towards YA fiction this year, although not quite as much of a slant as it felt like whilst I was actually doing the reading. I also read more non-fiction books than I have since I did my degree/Masters, so I’m impressed with that.

 

 

 

Genre-wise, it’s difficult to say – so many of the books I’ve read don’t fit into particular genres. What is noticeable is the dearth of anything from before 1920 (and only This Side of Paradise by F Scott Fitzgerald drags that date backwards). Indeed, most of the books I’ve read have been published since 2000.

Having read so many books, even having kept (several) lists, I’ve forgotten some of them already. Inevitable I suppose. However, some have stayed with me and I’ve therefore compiled my top five of the year. Interestingly, these were read in the first 2/3rds of the year, four of them in the first half. Clearly my taste in books either got worse (as in, I read trash) or I became more discerning (doubtful). I've linked to the original blog review where I've done one. In the order I read them:

 Book #5: The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern. What I like to term ‘magical realism’, even though it isn’t, strictly speaking. Calling it fantasy would be belying it’s inherent beauty, and I do put it in a similar bracket to Angela Carter’s The Magic Toyshop. I’d probably also describe it as ‘romantic’ in all senses, so well-worthy of being in my top five.

Book #9: The Crow Road by Iain Banks. Apt that this book should be in my top five in the year Banks sadly passed away all too early. This was skilfully written whilst still being engaging. I shall be reading more of his work in 2014. 

Book #26: A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale. A book which achieved the impossible – both my mother and I enjoyed it! This is an extremely rare occurrence and testament to Gale’s writing and character-building. A book where nothing much happens and yet everything happens.

Book #39: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. Stunning. Not just one of the best books I’ve read this year, but, I think, ever. So so beautiful. A wonderful concept from Siobhan Dowd, another writer gone too soon. 

Book #73: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor. Okay, so it’s not quite To Kill a Mockingbird, but the way I felt when I read it was like I felt when I read Harper Lee’s novel for the first time. Gorgeous. And screw you, Michael Gove, for believing our kids should only be studying the work of writers from the British Isles. This did more for me than any of Dickens’ dirges.

Being positive doesn’t come naturally to me (perhaps something to consider for 2014!) so where there is a best five, there should probably be a worst five as well. In the order I read them:

Book #7: The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson. I don’t like Jeanette Winterson’s writing is probably what this comes down to. It was short, which was a plus, but just so tedious to get through.

Book #20: True Things About Me by Deborah Kay Davies. I felt a bit grubby after reading this and hated all the characters. The modern day The Bell Jar in her dreams.

Book #51: Once Upon a Prince by Rachel Hauck. Of course. So effing bad it’s insulting. Next.

Book #56: Janie Face to Face by Caroline B Cooney. This is mainly here because it was such a shoddy ending to a series I once enjoyed. Almost offensively bad, like the fans didn’t deserve better. Paper-thin plot and characters and clumsy execution.

Book #63: The Bell by Iris Murdoch. Boring. No other word for it.

An honourable mention for worst read goes to Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult, saved only by the fact that it was at least readable.

I really don’t think I can better 115 books next year. What I think I can do is alter slightly the types of book I’m reading. I need to read more non-fiction, and I may have found my niche in true crime fiction like Columbine. I also think I should read more books published before the 20^th century, even if I find them hard work. There has to be more to it than Dickens, right? I’m also tempted to try the Man Booker Shortlist to try and raise my game.

I can try, anyway!

80 Books No.75: The Whole Day Through by Patrick Gale

In the few months since I've read this, I've sort of forgotten about it which can't be a good sign. This is therefore a very short post, mainly to state the fact I did read it. I remember it was about a thwarted couple who met up many years later and seemed to have some sort of affair, but it became a bit hazy to be honest. The premise was it was set on one day, although much of it was spent reflecting upon what had happened on previous days. However, at the end, I suspected that they were actually two different days as it didn't tie up properly. Either that, or I simply didn't understand it. A whole heap of time-shift here which made A Perfectly Good Man look easy to follow. Enjoyable and well-written but beyond that, I have no idea.

80 Books No.73: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor

Having finished this, I couldn't really understand why I'd never read this before. It's a popular GCSE text, it's got a title which rolls pretty neatly off the tongue and it's so similar to To Kill a Mockingbird that it would seem the natural next choice for anybody to recommend to you. I feel almost let down by my English teacher that this didn't happen before I was twenty-six.

No matter, it was a rare find when I came to it. I enjoyed almost every page and found so much truth and wisdom in the pages. Like Harper Lee's classic, it deals with black segregation in the 1930s, only this time from a black girl's perspective. It was beautifully sparingly written and made me wonder why more people don't rave about this when they rave about Atticus and co (though Atticus totally deserves raving about - he's the Man).

Perhaps the weirdest thing about Roll of Thunder is that it's part two of a trilogy. It seems really odd for people to have decided to stick a middle book on so many reading lists with next to no reference to the other two parts. It would be like whacking Catching Fire on the curriculum and ignoring The Hunger Games. I sort of want to see what part one is like but it seems to be about trees; I struggle to empathise with trees.

But a really good read nonetheless.

80 Books No.71: You Don't Know Me by David Klass

Confession: I read this months ago. According to my log, I finished it on 23rd August. I've read twenty more books since this one and completely failed to blog about any of them. This is therefore a mammoth blogging session in which I shall attempt to make my blog look pretty and organised again, filling it with pithy witty reviews of books I can only a little bit remember in some cases.

Here goes nothing.

You Don't Know Me has been knocking around the book cupboard for ages. We have thirty five copies of this book in near pristine condition and nobody teaches it. I expected it to therefore be rubbish and to have to sigh heavily and re-juggle the curriculum.

People are crazy. This is so up my street it's unbelievable. American high school, angsty, dysfunctional families - this is basically my ideal kind of read. And I was going to ignore it?

In basic terms, this book is about a boy called John who believes his mother doesn't understand or know him at all. He lives his life basically feeling pretty invisible, apart from when the man who is not his father hits him. Gradually he finds out who his real friends are and that not all teachers are useless hopeless blind idiots - which I'd hope my students found as well.

Admittedly, the narrative style is a bit annoying at first as Klass tries a little too hard in my opinion. Once the story proper gets under way (as opposed to mere scene setting) it becomes a much more interesting book. This is why I've opted to teach it starting next week. That, and I cannot do The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas again.

80 Books No.69: Z for Zachariah by Robert C O'Brien

In a weird coincidence, like Buddy, this book has links to my own school life as well as being a find in the book cupboard. I didn't read Z for Zachariah when I was at school, but we did do Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH written by the same author. And I hated it. Looking back, one has to wonder why I liked English so much because I pretty much hated all the books I did until GCSE - a trend which is kind of reflected in my own teaching to date. I just remember Mrs Frisby being so stupid and irritating so why I thought this would be any different is beyond me.

This was worse. I couldn't believe it was as bad as it got in the last seventy or so pages. Until that point I had sort of been bobbing along with it, feeling that it wasn't very suitable as a reader at school, but was actually quite interesting. Set in a post-nuclear world, it's the story of a girl who survives when everybody else doesn't and what happens when a strange man arrives. It is a slow starter but when he suffers from radiation poisoning it gets a bit more interesting. After that, it just becomes odd: he becomes all sinister and she is uneasy, but spends most of the rest of the novel detailing her efforts to plant crops and tend the land. I have to be honest in that I skim read the end of this and feel almost no guilt in doing so. I was so bored.

Disappointing and now I have to decide whether we keep the books or not. Whatever, they'll be buried away on a top shelf at the very most.

80 Books No.68: Buddy by Nigel Hinton

This book is a tale of two Bullens, a 13-year-old Bullen and a 26-year-old one. At 13, I hated this book when we did it at school. I remember loathing it and, having re-read it, I suspect I never even finished it, despite having to complete quite a bit of work on it. At 26, I found it in the school book cupboard and decided to re-read it because there's enough there for one class to do it and money's too tight to mention.

Thirteen years give me a bit of perspective and Buddy is not unfinishable. Indeed, in some ways, it is actually an alright book which tells a reasonably interesting story. It is pretty grim, with broken homes and poverty and criminality and general lack-of-fitting-in-ness. It is also reasonably dated now, in terms of situations and some attitudes towards different races (although this is frowned upon within the novel by the characters we sympathise with). It would need contextualising, but then so will the other texts I've ear-marked as being appropriate for year 7. It is now a book I would consider teaching which at least shows progress from when I was at school. It is also, however, yet another miserable book: why are all school set texts so depressing?

Also, check out that front cover. What on earth is wrong with Buddy's face in it? I mean, it does pretty much reflect the grim miserable-ness of the novel, but why is he green? It's such an odd front cover. Especially when you compare it with this more updated version:

Here, Buddy has been made older and, dare I say, more attractive? More like somebody off of Grange Hill circa 2000 than Byker Grove circa 1988. This is admirable in its attempt to appeal more to kids, but is also a little misleading.

There is apparently also a film. I'm imagining it to be something like a cross between Kes and those strange Look and Read BBC schools programmes in the 80s and 90s.

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 66: Uglies by Scott Westerfield

Those of you with eyes and a vague notion of the patterns in my reading can probably guess from simply looking at the book cover why this found itself from Asda's shelves into my trolley and to my house:
1) It references The Hunger Games and I loved The Hunger Games. This had several similarities to Suzanne Collins' trilogy, but as the cover says, actually came first.
2) It's YA in general which we already know I'm a little bit obsessed by.
3) It has a black front cover. Oh how I freaking love a black front cover.

So it was likely to be a hit. The general concept was also quite interesting without all of those elements: a world where judging people based on their looks has been eradicated by ensuring all people are turned 'pretty' at the age of 16 via extensive surgery. The Pretties then inhabit a different area than the Uglies and are subject to less stringent laws. Tally Youngblood is looking forward to becoming a Pretty until she meets Shay and is introduced to the world of the Smoke, an outlaw community where Uglies can live forever with the face they were born with.

Collins has obviously ripped quite a bit from Westerfield's idea here: the female character, the dystopian world, the burgeoning teenage relationships. However, Tally is a different kettle of fish from Katniss Everdeen, at least in some ways. Tally is happy to conform to society's expectations of her at first and only reluctantly challenges the status quo. However, in quite a bold move, Westerfield actually makes her quite unlikeable as a hero as she begins by intending to betray her friends. Yes, she overcomes this, but things still don't work out well. Katniss, whilst being a bit whiny at times, is at least admirable.

The novel dragged at first as it felt like so many other YA dystopian fictions I've read. It was when Tally left the city for the Smoke that it became more engaging and whilst the relationship with David was a little clumsy, the opening preview of Pretties at the end of the novel seemed to develop the story in a promising way. If I get the opportunity I'd probably read the rest of the series.

Uglies has also been optioned for a film, although it's a slow old process. Would be interesting see how exactly they'd cast it!

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.64: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

After the less than thrilling read reads in the shape of On Beauty and The Bell, this book was frankly a breath of fresh air. It's a book I've seen in shops and heard talked about on a number of occasions and yet only got around to reading when I found it for 50p in a charity shop. The particular edition I bought was from World Book Night 2013, showing again its popularity. I have no idea why it has taken me so long to read this book.

The basic idea is that this book (and indeed the series which is now running to seven books with an eighth on the way) is an alternative 1985 where Wales has become a kingdom in its own right, the Crimean War has been going for over a century, airplanes have never been invented and everybody hates the ending to Jane Eyre. Special Operations law enforcement departments have been created in order to police things as diverse as time travel (The ChronoGuard) and the distribution and protection of books (LiteraTecs). Thursday Next is one such LiteraTec who finds herself investigating a crime where somebody is intent upon changing the plots of classic novels.

It sounds crazy and too far-fetched to be much good to anybody. What is so charming about Fforde's work is how aware it is of its own ridiculousness and the humour present throughout it. I read Shades of Grey last year (no, not the soft-porn series - though I did read that too), another Fforde novel where the future civilisation bases its class system upon the colours people can see. Another bonkers idea, but made entertaining through the wit and skill with which the author writes. How he comes up with his ideas, I have no idea, as he's included so many neat little details just for the sake of including them: the revival of dodos, for example, an aspect I really enjoyed.

The aspects of time travel and the preoccupation with literature made this a really entertaining read for me, and I'm interested in reading the rest of the Thursday Next series, as well as his Nursery Crimes series, where famous nursery rhymes are developed into real crimes and put on trial. There were probably bad aspects of the novel, but I'm ignoring them: I really enjoyed this.

80 Books No.63: The Bell by Iris Murdoch

Like with On Beauty, I was trying to lift my literary level with this read as well as get a clearer view of the A Level reading list. From the blurb, this seemed as though it would be slightly more worthy than some of my recent reads, probably better written and perhaps even a 'best read ever' award-winning book.

Oh. Dear. God.

I will start by being positive. The Bell is not unreadable. It's not inaccessible or written in a foreign tongue or talking about things that the ordinary lay-person would not understand. Admittedly I had to use a dictionary for some words ('rebarbative' for example) but I don't understand most of what Irvine Welsh is writing about and I really enjoyed Trainspotting and Glue. The Bell is not indecipherable like so much of these two novels.

But gosh it was tedious. The description of the novel on the back suggested it wasn't quite going to be in Dan Brown territory of constant cliff-hangers, and I can live with that; I quite like an introspective novel. There was no suggestion here that car chases were involved or somebody would be murdered on every other page. The plot was reasonably straightforward: a lay community filled with random misfits set against the arrival of a new bell for the attached abbey. It was never going to be Bad Boys.

The characters in this novel seemed to suffer from a case of the Hamlets, as they dithered and prevaricated for pages. Dora left her husband for months before the novel even began, then returned, then disappeared again for a day, and never actually spoke to him. I know this is set in a very different time from now, but she had no issue with actually walking out on her husband, something I'm sure would have been frowned upon in those days, but to actually challenge his authority was beyond her. Toby was the young ingénue (or at least the male version) who briefly dabbled in more adult things but spent most of the novel capering around like a Labrador puppy. Michael's whole life seemed to be typified by great indecision apart from the terrible decisions he made because he was incapable of connecting his brain to his trousers. The only characters who made any real decisive acts, Catherine and Nick, were denounced as crazy and not really allowed a voice in the novel. Even Paul, Dora's husband, was judged as a bully and frightened her; frankly, he was married to her so was putting up with a hell of a lot anyway.

Perhaps this novel is a case of judging it outside of its time, as with its subjects of infidelity, homosexuality, religious questioning and mental health, it was quite ahead of the game. Likely it may have held some more intrigue at the time, hence all the praise for its author. Against today's offerings though, it was slow and actually lacked the introspection I thought it would have. Dora's (in)actions were never, for instance, really explained beyond the view of another character that she was a 'bitch'. Whole chapters were concerned with her and she never came across as anything other than an airhead. Indeed, it was almost as though the narrator disliked her - something I can't exactly blame them for.

It's not that The Bell was an especially bad novel. It had a bit more depth to it than books such as Once Upon a Prince (yes, I'm still reeling from that one). It was just such a nothing that I'm gobsmacked.

I'm genuinely starting to wonder if it is me and not the books I'm reading.

80 Books No.62: On Beauty by Zadie Smith

In an attempt to raise my intellectual profile in this challenge, and to also expand upon my knowledge of recommended A Level reads, I dived back into the world of Zadie Smith. I tried her debut White Teeth last year. Interestingly, I read it last August, so almost exactly a year ago, and it took me eight days. My thoughts were:

"I enjoyed this for the most part although I found it a bit of a slog towards the end."

 

These thoughts would very much tally with my thoughts about On Beauty, except I found it a slog in fits and starts. It was a pretty straightforward idea, about 2 families who have opposing ideas on life and whose patriarchs especially disliked each other. From here they get entangled with each other. It was, for the most part, a decent book, and given it's won a range of awards, I probably shouldn't deign to believe I know better than literary experts.

 

I think my main issue was that there were no characters I especially liked. Jerome was good but a bit of a drip and so a pretty boring character. His younger brother Levi was entertaining and a better character, but too irritating to be likeable. Howard was pathetic. Probably this is part of the whole postmodern style which Smith is lauded for - nobody is a pin-downable type and all perceptions are fluid and transient. And it's odd, because I am totally loving the TV show Revenge and almost everybody in that is evil and devious and actually rather unpleasant. I think in On Beauty though, the plot wasn't quite entertaining enough to override that. Plus it was billed as being amusing and I didn't find it especially so.

 

Still, it was certainly better than my next read...

 

 

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.60: Young Bess by Margaret Irwin

Although I always enjoy a historical monarchical novel, it seemed especially fitting in the week the latest heir to the British throne was born. A pretty tenuous link but it meant I could post a completely gratuitous photo from the many I've enjoyed over the last week:

It was only after I'd bought this book that I realised it was not one of those five-a-penny Philippa Gregory copycats that I usually end up reading, but a novel which pre-dated Gregory by quite a way. This was first published in 1944, and even the film of it was made and released before Gregory was even born. This therefore was a bit of a find.

This is set later than the other Tudor court novels I've read this year and is the first in a trilogy. This first part explores the young Elizabeth I's life before her battle for the throne began in earnest. It therefore covers similar ground to The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir which I read almost exactly four years ago. There are several fundamental differences to the stories the two writers weave, but they are both grounded in quite a lot of fact.

Young Bess was hard-going at first and I found the first couple of chapters a bit of a chore. However, once the story kicked off properly (basically once Henry VIII was dead and buried) it became far more enjoyable. I was really rooting for Thomas Seymour even though I knew it was never going to end well for him. I always think the sign of a good historical novel is that you still hope for the best even when you know the real story, and Irwin has done that in spades here.

There were some distractions. The focaliser kept shifting, so whilst this was supposed to be about Young Bess, at times were in Edward Seymour's office and miles away from the young princess. Also a distraction, though almost certainly only for me, was that Anne Boleyn was constantly referred to as 'Nan Bullen'. What was better here than in Dunn's The Queen of Subtleties was that Irwin avoided having to rely on diminutives of people's names in order to differentiate between the many Henrys, Annes, Catherines and Edwards. It was just sort of a case of having to suck it up and realise that everybody in Tudor England had the same name.

Which brings me back around to the Royal Baby, in a way. There has been so much media hype around the birth, hype I've willingly bought into because I have a complete couple-crush on the Cambridges. For a whole 30 seconds my hair looked Kate-esque today - then it got out of control again. I looked positively polished.

Anyway, aside from my obsessions, reading all these Tudor novels and comparing them to how the media and general public deal with the monarchy now is fascinating, not least in some of the online posts I've seen about where Prince Philip is at the moment. I've read countless opinions about how he must be more sick than we know and they're keeping us in the dark (not as crazy as it may seem - Irwin claims that Henry VIII was dead for three days before it was announced). These opinions tend to then drift onto 'when the Queen dies' which highlights just how far we've come from the times Gregory, Irwin, Weir and co write about. One of Anne Boleyn's crimes was treason, a charge which could be laid at her door due to the suspicion that Elizabeth was not Henry's daughter, but also because she'd allegedly been heard to talk about 'when the King dies'. To suggest the monarch would die, at some point, in the far distant future, was treason. This seems utterly bonkers to us in the 21st century but was a real crime in Henry VIII's day.

So whilst people may moan about the birth of another generation of the Royal family, at least we can comfort ourselves with the fact that any speculation over the monarch's health won't land our heads on the block anymore.

Another gratuitous picture for good measure:

80 Books No.58: While He Was Away by Karen Schrek

It's interesting how many books in recent years have been concerned with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a purely 'Home Front' way. Exploring what happens to families when their loved ones are away at war is an interesting concept, updating all those many many (many) slightly sentimentalised accounts of World War 2 which my mother enjoys reading. Nicholas Sparks especially seems to enjoy writing about war veterans in novels such as The Lucky One and Dear John.

The latter is especially appropriate when reviewing While He Was Away. In Schrek's novel, Penelope (or Penna as she is known though I have no idea how you get from Penelope to that) is facing the prospect of her boyfriend David being away in Iraq for fifteen months on a tour of duty. Once he returns, normal life will resume. However, things may not quite work out like that.

I liked the concept, as I enjoyed Dear John, and I think it's a valuable topic to be tackling, both in writing in general and in YA fiction. The relationship between Penna and David is a little too intense, but endearing. She is far too reliant upon him even before he goes to war, but there is some explanation in her upbringing. It therefore wasn't a complete waste of time.

Schrek introduces a number of different strands into the novel, however, which detract from this simple romance. Penna's relationship with her mother and absent grandmother, for example, is tied into the main narrative, but ultimately doesn't add anything to it really. Likewise, her friendship with David's friend whose name I've temporarily forgotten is utterly pointless - she keeps reminding herself he is David's friend but literally only sees him once or twice, so why would she need to keep reminding herself of that fact? It seemed as though she was going to stray from David, yet she didn't.

The title suggested that things would change a lot While He Was Away, and in some respects they do: Penna gains more friends and semi-fixes her family. However, I was also expecting some reflection upon how David had changed While He Was Away and there was a very small part of that. The novel ends with him still only a few months into his tour of duty, so everything is still only being seen from Penna's point of view via Skype and e-mails. Perhaps a more interesting aspect could have been David's return home and what had happened for him in that time; perhaps Schrek will explore that in a subsequent novel.

Not a terrible book, but I'd actually recommend Dear John, both novel and film, over this one. Cause, you know, it's completely saccharine and cheesy...

 

... but it has Channing Tatum with his top off. So, total win.

80 Books No.57: Gentleman's Relish by Patrick Gale

My second collection of short stories of the year and my second Patrick Gale book as well. I was driven to buy and read this based upon my enjoyment of both of these factors, and that I think I should read more short stories in general.

Gale is very good at characters and making you care about them, so perhaps this is what lets this collection down. The stories are reasonable enough and well written, but I just found myself thinking 'and?' at the end of every one. Short stories to my mind should have some sort of twist, something Roald Dahl and Stephen King are very good at. Indeed, on several occasions whilst reading these I found myself wishing one of these had written it instead as they'd have done it more justice.

I'm not going to let this put me off short stories or Patrick Gale, but this was pretty disappointing.

80 Books No.56: Janie Face to Face by Caroline B Cooney

You know when you had a really brilliant holiday somewhere and then you go back to try and replicate it and it's never the same? This book is that for me. It's not that I hated it (you know you'd know about it if I hated it) but I was disappointed.

A bit of background would help with this.

Caroline B Cooney novels are a bit of a special thing. As in, something not everybody is ever going to get on board with. Here's a selection of the book covers of her books I have read in the past:

 

 

Check out the hair and the high-waisted jeans. Wonder how on earth I ended up with a German version of Don't Blame the Music. Cringe at the dodgy titles. These are 80s-90s YA fiction, completely unashamedly cheesy but endlessly entertaining. I mean endlessly: I must have borrowed Cooney's books from the library on almost a repeat for the best part of two years when I was about twelve or thirteen. I even bought Camp Reunion and Don't Blame the Music off the library when they threw them out: even my local library thought they were outdated.

 

However, it would be entirely remiss of me to laugh at these novels. Yes, they read a bit clunkily, but they were far from disposable YA chick-lit. In reality, they were quite something else. I was just graduating from pony books by the Pullein-Thompsons (a whole different brand of vintage) and then I came across these, which felt so much more grown-up. The best way I can describe them is a little like The Babysitters' Club, only grittier. In Summer Love/Camp Reunion, girl meets boy and sometimes boy turns out to be a complete let down. The stunningly attractive girl or boy might be nice or not. In Don't Blame the Music, sisters become dangerous to their entire family. This was high-drama and bitter-sweet endings. I was obsessed.

 

And my obsession was mainly centred around the Janie Johnson series, books I touched upon in a review very recently. This series revolved around Janie, an ordinary girl who recognises her own face on a missing poster and then realises that her parents are not a real family. The novels trace her search for her 'real' parents and the explanation over what happened, as well as her tentative relationships with her long-lost siblings, parents and how her 'adoptive' parents cope with this revelation. Not to mention how her boy-next-door boyfriend supports her - but then completely screws her over. There was a made-for-TV movie which was awful but brilliant at the same time.

 

Frankly, I LOVED these books.

 

I was vaguely aware that there were some more books in the series published much more recently, but it was only when I found this at the most recent book sale I attended that I gave it much thought. I've skipped Book 4 and the e-book and gone straight for Book 5, which Cooney is adamant will be the last one. Frankly, it should be.

 

Here, Janie is at college. Her boy-next-door boyfriend is in her life but they're not together. She's trying to juggle both families, but basically abandoning her now elderly and sick 'adoptive' family. And then a true-crime writer contacts everybody she knows asking for help with writing her story. Interspersed with this story, is what happened to Hannah, her 'adoptive' parents' real daughter and Janie's kidnapper.

 

This could have had legs. It would have been more interesting to see Janie co-operating with the true-crime writer, than what she actually did - generally paying it no attention whatsoever. Indeed, Janie is largely oblivious to most of what really happens in this novel due to her sudden decision to marry the boy-next-door boyfriend in ten days. It is therefore left to all the other characters to maintain any real link to the original story. Perhaps somebody close to her selling her out would have been fun, although already explored in Book 3. Hannah's narrative could have been more interesting if it was given more time and she was allowed to develop more as a character. Cooney very much kept her as comic-book villain rather than a real threat, something highlighted particularly by the complete lack of a climax to the story.

 

Also annoying was the time-scale of this series. Book 1 came out mid-90s and the action here was supposed to be set five years after those events. So why did everybody have Facebook, iPads and mobile phones? So much action revolved around these things (sometimes in a very interesting manner, it has to be said) that it jarred with the origins of the series. It was as though Cooney forgot herself. She also forgot herself with some characters. A good proof reader should have picked up that Brian claimed he'd never worn a tuxedo as he never went to prom, but three pages later detailed he didn't need to rent a tux as he already had one from his days in a choir. Shocking continuity.

 

Ultimately, I'm not sure who this book is aimed at. People like me, who read the originals, are really too old for this book now, but the YA audience are likely never to have heard of the Janie Johnson series.

 

Also, I don't get the cover.

 

Please, Cooney, leave this series alone.

80 Books No.55: Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols

I'm going to keep this one quite brief as I'm struggling to say much about it.

Like A Perfectly Good Man, this was a (wait for it) perfectly good book. By that, I don't mean it was perfect: the relationship between Meg and John was too rushed in my opinion and didn't tie in with the blurb. The blurb said that Meg was going to be punished for her (minor) criminal behaviour by having to ride in John's cop car for a week, and that neither of them were really for it. In contrast, John seemed to be very much up for it from the start, and Meg was up for it in a slightly different way, as she immediately developed a crush upon the officer. This lacked real friction for me, and I would have liked to see it all be a bit more snarky and irritable to begin with. Later in the novel, Meg overcame John's anger too quickly as well, as the author geared up for a fairytale ending, which was a bit of a shame as I'd like their characters.

Likewise, there were some obvious moments, or at least obvious if you've ever read any of Nicholas Sparks' novels, specifically A Walk to Remember; this is very similar but with a happier ending and fewer moral issues. However, the chemistry between Meg and John was good and it definitely passed the time.

80 Books No.54: You Had Me At Hello by Mhairi McFarlane

You know my assertion way back in March that I don't really get on with chick-lit? Perhaps I should revise that. Admittedly this is only the fourth chick-lit novel I've read this year, and of those four, perhaps only two of them (actually including this one) could be deemed books I genuinely really quite enjoyed. But none of them have been books I've flung across the room in a 'what the hell is this?' kind of fit (unlike Once Upon a Prince which is still making my blood boil). So perhaps me and chick-lit  could get on after all.

This one was a pretty standard read: Rachel ditches her fiancé just before the One Who Got Away walks back into her life complete with picture-perfect wife. Lots of angst, some sparky repartee and some mildly comedic moments before coming to a reasonably predictable ending.

However, it stands out as a more superior form of chick-lit than some for the following reasons:

1. It's written for people with a brain. I've read so many chick-lit books that are written using super-basic English as if women can't read complex sentences. The characters are 2D and everything is just geared up in order to describe some cringe-worthy sex scenes. Speaking of which...

2. There are hardly any cringe-worthy sex scenes. There is one sex scene involving the main characters which is actually quite endearing.

3. The characters are quite pleasant and nice. It is a bit Bridget Jones in places, but most chick-lit is influenced by that anyway, so forgivable.

The storyline does swing a bit like a pendulum towards the end as the main characters are unable to make their minds up about anything, a trait which annoys me with real people, but I can overlook in print. It was a quick and mostly enjoyable read.

80 Books No.53: The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock

I know it's wrong to judge a book by its cover, but come on, just look at it. That is one seriously hot cover. I always like a black book cover as I've discussed before and this is whole shades of black and grey which makes it look really mysterious and creepy. The title is also so straightforwardly bold, as it's essentially acknowledging its own unreliable nature which in many ways sums up fiction in general: fiction is a lie.

The book also has a brilliant blurb on the back. A simple quotation from the novel itself, it reads as follows:

“It’s been a fortnight since they found her body and for the most part I’m glad she’s gone. But I also can’t believe she’s dead, and I should do because I did it.”  

 

 

Straight away we're into the world of troubled teenagers and death and suspicious circumstances, and as I've said time and time again, this is totally up my street. What's more, this has an unreliable narrator, a dual narrative and a quirky style of writing. What's not to love here?

 

Now, this won't be everybody's cup of tea. Set in Guernsey in both the 1980s and the 1940s, it tells the story of Catherine who has inadvertently killed her friend/enemy, and her uncle Charlie who inadvertently betrays his whole family during the German Occupation in World War 2. Neither of them are wholly sympathetic characters and yet I ended up pitying both of them. Horlock skilfully binds their two narratives together, both through content and style of writing. There were so many individual threads which tied together so well, in a way I've never seen done quite as well before. The style of writing, utilising footnotes with references to other fictional books added a level of veracity that I enjoyed, and yet this also helped to destabilise the narrative as it was, ultimately, a book packed full of lies, both between the characters and between author and writer. The open-ended nature of the novel was also enjoyable as Horlock treats the reader as an intelligent being who doesn't need everything spelt out for them.

 

All in all, an enjoyable read.