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!

Farmyard Fridays Xmas Special: Away in a manger

 

 

Animals are an incredibly key part of our lives. On the most basic of levels, animals share our homes and appear upon our plates, though that’s probably an illogicality best left untouched for today. Animals also provide entertainment, whether through being raced, jumped or performing amusing dances on the internet and You’ve Been Framed. They can even help to save lives, by aiding those with disabilities and even detecting epilepsy and cancer. All in all, animals and humans have an absolutely solid relationship.

It’s therefore of no surprise that so many animals were present at the birth of Jesus, right?

 Wrong. At least, according to Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. In a book published in December 2012, the former leader of the Catholic Church shared the fruits of his research into the birth of Jesus (cashing in? Never…) and revealed some news that it’s surprising more daytime television shows didn’t pick up on: there are no nativity animals mentioned in the four Gospels of the New Testament. No sheep, no camels and certainly no ox or ass.

Farmyard Fridays is nothing if not thorough and this claim has been verified through reading the four Gospels in question (well, the relevant verses anyway. Life is a tad too busy for anything else right now). And it will probably come as no surprise that Benedict, Pope for the nine years, does actually know his Biblical passages. There are no animals standing around the manger to welcome the Baby Jesus.

One has to question, then, why it’s such a key part of modern day nativity scenes. ‘Away in a Manger’, a carol of 1885, builds animals in as a pretty key part of the whole situation, and the part of ‘Fifth Sheep’ is a pretty standard way of including every child in a school nativity. Why this sudden need to have a whole menagerie crowding into the scene?

Of course, the setting of a stable makes animals that bit more logical, especially if you’re trying to create a believable story. Had there been no room at the inn but plenty of room at the local hospital, a stray cow wandering past would have been slightly analogous. Equally, a stable in 1^st century Palestine without some form of livestock would be a complete waste of space. So from that viewpoint, it’s naïve to suggest there wouldn’t be animals present.

 But perhaps it’s simpler than that. Maybe somebody looked at the story and wondered what would make it all more interesting. Not that the Son of God in a cattle-stall isn’t pretty engaging in itself, of course, but, let’s be honest here: if the nativity was being recreated today the three wise men would transform into a sparkly vampire, a wizard and a time-travelling alien. You’ve got to try and appeal to new audiences after all, and so perhaps whoever began adding in our four-legged friends simply intended to make the scene a bit more varied and visually appealing. There is, after all, a limit to the number of humans you can have crowding upon a scene before it become a bit tedious.

There are therefore 2 Farmyard Fridays facts to celebrate Christmas.

Farmyard Fridays Fact #12: There are no animals mentioned in the nativity scene described in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Farmyard Fridays Fact #13: Animals make everything way more interesting.

 

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.74: Annerton Pit by Peter Dickinson

I try to be really fair in these reviews, and rational, and reasonable, and generally quite erudite. I've managed to find good points in most of my reads this year, even if it's that they were over quickly and I could move onto something better. I try not to have knee-jerk reactions to things.

But this was stupid. It was so ridiculously stupid that it sort of insulted me and I only skim-read the last fifty pages or so because I was so bored stiff. It was the sort of stupid which made you wish the writer had let someone else do it, because somebody else might have made it less stupid.

It wasn't all stupid. The opening pages of this were clever. It took a while to realise the narrator was blind and it really showed what could be done with clever descriptions and building up an almost tangible sense of surroundings. Throughout, Dickinson did well with this and I felt like I was wherever the narrator took us, purely through the descriptions of the four senses open to him. Kudos for that.

But the plot. Oh God, the plot. It was so stupid, and I shan't apologise for repeating that word because anything more would be crediting it too much. The plot relied on so many coincidences and unlikely events to make it work. Dickinson needed help with this.

And the book covers (whichever edition you read - just Google them) are horrendous. They make the narrator look like something out of The Exorcist.

Plus the copy I read was really grubby which made me feel a bit ill.

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.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.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.

About Time

Richard Curtis has a bad rep. It's true that none of his films really have the hallmarks of a cinematic genius and in some manner resemble a feature-length TV drama. The storylines tend to be quite schmaltzy and in some ways entirely predictable: Hugh Grant (or someone much like him) will always get the girl.

About Time is, he claims, the last film he's going to direct/write. His previous films, particularly Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually have become quite seminal rom-coms. Where these are also much like a who's who of British cinema, About Time falls down. There are famous actors involved, most notably Bill Nighy, but for the most part it seems to be younger up-and-coming actors - i.e. the Hugh Grants of the future. However, in so many ways, it completely slams the Curtis' other offerings. I'll explain why.

Firstly, the lead characters and actors are very charming. There was no character in this that I wanted to get off the screen, whereas Andie McDowell and Julia Roberts need to do one in their respective films. Rachel MacAdams is one of my favourite underrated actresses: I have loved her since The Notebook and Mean Girls, yet she's never really come good on the fact that she is a really versatile performer. She's also kookily stunning. Domhnall Gleeson was also utterly delightful as Tim, the main character, even if he does sound identical to Hugh Grant. Billy Nighy was a wonderful dad. They all fit their parts really well.

The plot itself is pretty ridiculous: Tim finds out that the men in his family have always had the ability to time travel back through their own timelines. The science of this was massively glossed over and there were a wealth of paradoxes, so in this respect it was less well-plotted than The Time Traveler's Wife (loved the book, disliked the film, despite Rachel MacAdams - she is better in this). For much of the film, it lacked some conflict as the relationship between Tim and Mary, after a shaky start where he almost missed ever meeting her, trotted along nicely. The sub-plot of Tim's disaster-zone of a sister was a little too underplayed for much of the film and I think potentially she could have been either given more to do or removed entirely. However, I see nothing wrong with sometimes watching a film which is just nice; I really enjoyed watching Tim and Mary together for their relationship alone. In fact, I could have watched an entire film which was just that ordinary and lovely.

However, the lack of conflict for a large chunk of the film means than when the thunderbolt hits, it hits hard. I haven't cried in the cinema for a long time. Tears were rolling down my cheeks during the last twenty minutes of this film. I shan't spoil it for anybody who wishes to see it, but it's enough to say that the ordinariness of everything set against the bonkers world of time travel really works here, much as it does in my long-time love Doctor Who. Indeed, this film shares many of the themes of Curtis' episode from 2010, Vincent and the Doctor which talked a lot about ordinary life being utterly extraordinary if looked at the right way. The pain of life is something addressed by both film and episode, and leads into one of my favourite quotations from the TV show:

About Time is essentially a love story, between a man and a woman, and a son and his father. It talked of an ordinary life and how each day can be wonderful if we let it. If it was saccharine and schmaltzy, I don't care. It may not be the world's greatest film, but it has heart and soul and truisms and was frankly lovely. There are not enough lovely things in the world in my opinion. I adored it.

Farmyard Fridays #11: One Sheep Five Ways

I've mentioned before in Farmyard Fridays that grown sheep can tend to seem a little boring in comparison to their offspring. They definitely don't have the charm and personality that, for instance, goats or donkeys have, at least on the surface. However, I feel I've been maligning the species for a while now, and it's unfair. They may not have the same quirks and foibles of their caprine cousins, but they do have the edge over them in one way: they are super super useful.

Okay, so pigs are notoriously a useful farmyard feature. You can, so I have been informed, use every part of a pig in cooking. This is a pretty hideous thing to consider and I try not to most of the time. Sheep, however, are equally if not more useful, for the following reasons. I give you One Sheep Five Ways - how you can maximise the use of your sheep.

1. Obviously, there is one thing staring you in the face about sheep, at least for half of the year. They have a seriously epic fleece which has been farmed for perhaps as long as 8000 years. Being able to make clothes out of an animal and still retain the animal does set them apart from pretty much every other farmyard creature; skinning a cow for leather does tend to render the cow null and void. What's more, the fleece will grow back and you can do the same again the next year. This may seem obvious but it is pretty incredible when you think about it. Sheep can go from this:

to this:

in sheer (!) seconds in the right hand. And from that can come so many useful things which we use without thinking about them: jumpers and socks and blankets and sheepskin rugs and this oh so useful and decorative set of figures.

(It's a knitted Archbishop of Canterbury! Like, how useful is that? God bless sheep.)

It doesn't stop with clothes though. Oh no. There's more that woolly fleece of goodness can offer up yet.

2. Lanolin. There's a word you'll have seen hundreds of times in your life, but I for couldn't say where I've seen it until recently. There are so many uses for this grease that it's hard to know where to start. Here's possibly the most common household lanolin product:

However, this waxy substance is also used in a variety of cosmetics, as lubricant for some musical instruments and to break in baseball mitts. It's pretty multi-purpose, and whilst some people are allergic to it, it's an extremely common ingredient in many products.

Lanolin is a grease found in the sebaceous glands of wool-bearing animals. Basically, it's the grease in a sheep's fleece. It can be squeezed out before the fleece is used for other purposes as we've already looked at above. So you can not only clothe yourself using your sheep, you can moisturise and generally prettify yourself too.

Your sheep isn't finished yet though. With a bit of training you can absolutely

3. Race your sheep. I think this pretty much speaks for itself. It's not the Grand National or the Derby but look!

It's sheep freaking racing! And jumping!

If this is not starting to make you want a sheep, I don't know if we'd ever be friends.

Of course, all of this requires some effort on your part. Shearing sheep is a skill and I imagine training a sheep to bounce over barrels isn't really a walk in the park. All of this is bound to make you hungry. So why not try

4. Milking your sheep. I know, it sounds disgusting, but sheep produce milk as any mammal does, and whilst goats' milk has been the increasingly popular alternative to cows' milk in recent years, sheep's milk is used in products such as feta, Roquefort and ricotta. It is significantly higher in fats, proteins and minerals than cows' milk, making it more calorific but perfect for cheese making. You can therefore have a munch on your homemade produce whilst wrestling your sheep around a racetrack. It will definitely give you energy.

And then, alas, the end comes to us all. When you've had enough of shearing and training and milking and generally tending to your sheep, you can always

5. Eat your sheep. Dependent upon the age of your sheep, you can produce lamb, hogget or mutton, and the organs are also popularly eaten as offal. Admittedly, it's not the most healthy meat around, with a nutritional profile to beef, but it is pretty tasty. It's very hard to look at this and not feel a tad peckish

And besides, if you want to raise up your next sheep friend, you'll need some fuel for the task ahead.

Farmyard Fridays Fact #11: Sheep are super super useful.

A sixth use for your sheep has come to light in the last week. Sandwiched nicely in between uses 4 and 5, comes this ingenious use for your sheep:

Shakhter Karagandy threatened with disciplinary proceedings over sheep sacrifice ritual before games

It may have worked for them; they did, after all, beat Celtic 2-0, so never rule this sixth use for your sheep out. It is, however, possibly a step too far for some of us, meaning that this particularly hypothetical sheep will be saved from this ritual.

This week's Farmyard Friday is absolutely inspired by a visit to West Lodge Rural Centre in Northamptonshire a couple of weeks ago which was frankly amazing and well worth a visit for anyone with or without children.

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...

 

 

(The Return of) Farmyard Fridays #10: Devil-Cat

Before I begin, a little musical number to celebrate.

Farmyard Fridays is back, perhaps not regularly, but at least for this week and at some stage in the future. It has been almost four months since the last Farmyard Friday, and it would therefore obviously seem appropriate to pick up where we left off in April: cats.

Cats are very topical given that one paid a nocturnal visit to my room last week, entirely uninvited and unwelcome at 1.30am. Since then I have slowly boiled in my bedroom at night because I'm now too terrified to open the windows any further than a crack. This is probably now Cats 4 Humans 0, only this time I'm almost irritated by this.

Being afraid of cats is a reasonably common occurrence, or at least a dislike of felines is something I come across quite regularly. People don't like their attitude, their eyes, their general demeanour. It has to be said, they can be very huffy. Gatecrasher Cat, for instance, after falling out my bedroom window sort of huffed around and acted like I was the one being unreasonable. As I covered in April, a perception of cats as being evil can be traced back to Pope Innocent VIII. This view has been developed over the ages to encompass all sorts of things.

This is a Farmyard Friday Fact, but is perhaps rather more tied up in myth and legend than biological fact. However, I think exploring some of the myths around animals is equally as interesting as knowing why goats have rectangular pupils so I am going to plough on because, after all, The Only Way is Bullen.

One myth surrounding cats (and one that did flash through my mind last week when I was inches from Gatecrasher Cat's face) is that they will lie on top of sleeping babies and smother them. It's unclear whether this is actually true or not; I've never read of anybody this has happened to. There have been some scientific(ish) explanations given, such as cats smelling milk or liking the warmth of the baby. However, perhaps a more sociological explanation is possible. To understand it fully, let's go via The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (well it's about a cat, sort of...) where we learn of the background to the White Witch:

"But she's no Daughter of Eve. She comes of your father Adam's...first wife, her they called Lilith. And she was one of the Jinn."

Mr Beaver, Chapter 8.

 

Yes, Adam's first  wife, Lilith. No, don't reach for your Old Testament; you won't find her (believe me, I've tried). Lilith is a figure who first appears in a different religious text, the Babylonian Talmud, a female demon. She sort of ducks in and out of myth and legend until she reappears in Jewish folklore in about the 700s AD as Adam's first wife created out of the earth. From there many myths grow up about Lilith, such as how she mated with an archangel and refused to return to Adam and the Garden of Eden. Suffice to say, the divorce proceedings were edited out of Genesis.

 

In Spain, Jewish folklore developed to see Lilith become a black vampire cat who sucked the blood from sleeping babies. By any standards, she was a busy woman, especially one made primarily out of mud or sand. Also, infinitely more exciting sounding than Eve, but that's by the by. The important thing here, though, to bring us back to the reason we're all here, is that idea of a black cat being somehow connected to demons and the Devil. Here, perhaps, is the reason why people believe cats may smother babies in their sleep. It does sound fairly unlikely, but then so does people burning cats on the say so of the Pope, so never doubt the power of religion in changing  our perception of cats (or indeed any animal - I say again, wait for the Farmyard Fridays Christmas Special).

 

Anyway. Farmyard Friday Fact #10: The suspicions of cats smothering babies in their sleep can probably be traced back to the myth of Lilith in Spanish-Jewish folklore.

 

But, you know, what he says...

 

 

Gratuitous cute cat pic:

 

 





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.59: The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs by Christina Hopkinson

It's more chick-lit. But, I like to think, chick-lit beyond the romance and dating and stuff. Here, the story picks up about nine years after the ending of a traditional chick-lit (boy and girl waltz off into the sunset together) and finds boy and girl as dad and mum of two under-fives and struggling. As Mary's irritation with Joel's apparent ineptitude at being a responsible husband and father increases, she decides to keep a list of everything he does that annoys her and use it to help decide whether to divorce him.

Okay, so it's pretty bonkers as a concept: I would imagine few divorces are quite so calculated and methodical in their origin. Also, Mary and Joel are two very un-chick-lit-esque names, perhaps deliberately. And also, it's completely put me off getting married or having children as it just seems so much effort. I spent two hours faffing with my hair today and I'm far too selfish to give that up.

But aside from my own complete self-absorption...

The bonkers concept does translate itself into several other bonkers instances throughout the novel, not least Mary and Joel witnessing their friends in a weird sexual encounter. It goes off at tangents as well, with Mary's lesbian best friend debating whether to have children or not, but ultimately this was a book I actually quite enjoyed, as it was quite witty, warm-hearted and, despite the bonkersness, was rooted in some reality. Mary and Joel weren't perfect and life was quite mundane for them. And why can't we have some average people in a novel for once?

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.

The World's End

I pretty much knew before this film was even released that it wasn't going to knock me over sideways and make me want to see it again. I'm not sure why I knew this: I really liked Shaun of the Dead and enjoyed Hot Fuzz (although contrary to many people's views, I preferred the former which I might be able to explain in more detail below). There's nothing I particularly hold against those films but somehow, the premise of The World's End didn't grab me. I wouldn't have gone at all if I didn't happen to be free the night my friends went and there was zip on TV (I was also hoping for air-con at the cinema but that was knackered - standard).

The general premise is that a bunch of middle-aged guys get back together on the demands of one of them to finish a pub crawl they started twenty years previously. It becomes quite clear that the main character, Gary King, has never moved on from this pub crawl, and that everybody else thinks he's an idiot. They get to pub three before they lose patience with him and say they're going home.

And then they realise everybody else is a robot.

Shaun of the Dead was clever because it really looked carefully at the zombie movie genre and played upon it, with Shaun, a completely useless specimen of man, suddenly charged with tackling these zombies. The fight scenes are amusing because they're exactly what would happen when idiots have to protect the world. Hot Fuzz did a similar thing with cop films, although that began to blend with horror films a little more; a definite The Wicker Man vibe going on, which is probably why I prefer Shaun, as it's 'purer'.

In The World's End, the general genre is something I can't quite put my finger on. It's obviously supposed to sci-fi, but there were slightly too many other things mashed together to make it work brilliantly for me. If I'm honest, I was more interested in the pub crawl than defeating the robots, and the fact that there was no indication of it being more sci-fi-esque from the film itself until the first fight scene meant that it jarred a little. Shaun worked because the zombie-thing was foreshadowed quite early on.

The performances are all very good in the film, and Simon Pegg pulls off a very different character from in the previous two films, as does Nick Frost. It was nice to see a bit of a role reversal between these two, where Pegg played the childish idiot and Frost played the more together role. The other actors did a good job as well.

The film was a lot shorter than I expected, but I didn't actually realise this until I got home and saw the time. I think my perception was distorted as the second half of the film lagged a little. I especially wasn't bothered by the very ending of the film, where Frost's character narrated what happened next. It was, I suppose, very in-keeping with the sci-fi genre, but just felt a bit tagged on to me.

It was funny in places, although more of a smile than a guffaw I found. There was a lot to commend about the film in terms of its dialogue which was quite good and the characterisation. Overall, though, it doesn't stand up against its predecessors for me and I'm glad it was an EE Wednesday.

Then again, I'm a misery when it comes to films lately. There is nothing I'm excited about coming out for months, which makes me quite weird when held up against the general population, it seems.

Ah well.

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.