Tag Archives: review

Jane Smiley’s ‘Some Luck’

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some luckSome Luck follows the lives of Walter and Rosanna Langdon, year by year from 1920 to 1953. From a young couple starting their lives on a farm in Iowa, the book follows their family as it grows and expands, following them across the country and beyond as they find love, go to war, discover new things about themselves and have children of their own.

All of this is set against the backdrop of wider global issues taking place at the time, placing this one fictional family firmly in the middle of some of the most important events of America’s twentieth century – from the Great Depression to the prohibition to the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War.

Walter and Rosanna are a typical Midwest rural farming couple, and they raise a family in the hope that their children will go out into the world and choose their own paths. They sacrifice everything they have to keep their family going – enduring drought, falling prices and poverty to make sure that there’s food on their table and that their children never go without an education. Continue reading →

Iona Grey’s ‘Letters to the Lost’

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Letters to the lostIn wartime Britain, American airman Dan Rosinski falls in love with the newly – but unhappily – married Stella Thorne. Against their better judgement, they embark on a passionate affair. But the odds are stacked against them. Dan risks his life every day and Stella is trapped under the weight of social conventions, and their relationship is soon tested to its limits.

Many years later, a young girl is hiding out in an abandoned house on the run from an abusive partner – ill, broke and with no plans for the future. But when Jess opens a letter addressed to an ‘S. Thorne’, she’s immediately drawn into a love story that spans over half a century.

Now ninety years old and living in the USA, Dan is determined to find the girl that he fell in love with all those years ago. As Jess reads through a box of old letters she finds in the house, she becomes determined to help him to find an ending to his story. Continue reading →

‘The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August’ by Claire North

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first 15livesofharryaugustIn the First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, author Claire North plays with our concept of time. In her vision, time runs over and over on a constant loop. Some people have the ability to retain their consciousness from one life to the next, and are born again and again – always in the same time, in the same place and to the same parents, but with the knowledge of the lives lived before.

Here, being reborn isn’t reincarnation, it’s more like doing endless laps around a track. People like Harry cross paths with the same acquaintances every life, and develop relationships that span more lifetimes than they can remember. Major events and landmarks pass by again and again, and even with their extensive knowledge, there’s nothing they can do to stop or change them.

For Harry and those like him, life is both a constant experiment and a bit of a bore. Childhood is a chore to get through. Death isn’t final and is sometimes, in extreme cases, welcomed. But then news of a disaster starts to filter through from the future. The end of the world is coming, and it’s getting closer with every generation. Someone is disrupting the balance, inventing technology far before its time with devastating consequences. When people start disappearing, murdered in the womb before they can be born and breaking the cycle for good, it becomes obvious that this threat is very real. Continue reading →

James Hannah’s ‘The A-Z of You and Me’

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A-ZIvo, aged just forty, is dying of kidney failure in a care home when nurse Sheila tasks him with making his way through the alphabet, thinking of a story for each part of the body. Each letter inspires a kaleidoscope of different memories, as each body part takes him back to a different moment, feeling or person. As he works his way through the body, starting at Adam’s Apple, we gradually build up a picture of how his life has played out and how he’s ended up in the hospice.

For the most part, Ivo’s memories are dominated by two people – his ex-girlfriend Mia and his best friend Mal. Friends since they were at school, Mal has always been the reckless, outspoken leader of the group. As they get older, Mal and the rest of Ivo’s friends draw him into destructive cycle of drugs and alcohol. When he meets Mia, he gets a taste of what life could be like if he followed a different path. As his memories unfold, we’re thrown right into the middle of the key defining moments of his life to witness as Ivo makes choices that could affect the course of his future forever.

I didn’t find Ivo to be the most sympathetic of characters – and this may be down to the matter of fact and brutally honest writing style of author James Hannah, which exposes his characters’ every flaw. His life is filled with regrets and things that he should have done differently. He deliberately neglects his health, wilfully ignoring the seriousness of his diabetes diagnosis. Mal is undoubtedly a bad influence, but Ivo shows very little restraint, is easily led and refuses to take responsibility for his actions. Even though he loves his Mia, his choices keep pulling him away from her at every turn. In the end, his devil-may-care attitude has devastating and irreversible consequences. Continue reading →

Reviewing ‘Angelfall’ by Susan Ee

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In Susan Ee’s ‘Angelfall’, the world has come to an end. Violent armies of angels have taken over the earth, destroying anyone who stands in their way. On the ground, street gangs run the cities. Food and other supplies are scare and people are resorting to the most extreme measures to stay alive. Angel parts are valuable currency and secret resistances are building.

As well as wreaking havoc on earth, the angels are also stealing young children away from their families. No-one knows where they go, but they are never seen again. Following a chance encounter with a group of angels, Penryn’s younger sister is taken. Determined to find her, no matter what the cost, all that Penryn has to go on is a fallen angel left behind after the conflict, Raffe.

It was quite refreshing to have a lead character in this dystopian/YA genre that is just a normal person. Penryn isn’t ‘special’, she’s not ‘the Chosen One’ and she doesn’t develop special powers. She’s just a girl that has to adapt to extreme circumstances. There is, of course, a romantic element to the story, but for a lot of the book she relies on her own strengths and wits to stay alive and to get out of trouble. She’s not overly mollycoddled and she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty.

Although the enemy here are angels, there isn’t a strong religious element. God isn’t present, he ‘talks’ through one representative. However, many of the angels seem to be agnostic and doubt whether God exists at all. They are very much a warrior tribe, and they should be seen as one.

I did have a few minor issues with this book. I understand that world that Penryn and her family are living in is supposed to be a war zone. Still, I find it hard to believe that in just a few short weeks people would have resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Penryn makes her way into the woods, which are still full of animals, relatively quickly from where she is. She also finds a stash of food in an office building at one point, suggesting that there is food to be found still. So the repeated mentions of cannibals felt like they were added in more for dramatic effect than anything else.

Some of the language and descriptions were a bit overdone for my liking. At some points the dialogue didn’t seem to flow as it should, and it felt like the author was trying a little bit too hard to be witty. Plus, as with pretty much all YA books, there is the typical instant and overwhelming physical attraction to the romantic lead. That said though, it’s a pretty good effort, and I’ll probably be reading the rest of the series.

‘Fallen’ by Lauren Kate

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FallenAfter a horrific accident that destroyed Luce’s life, she lands at a reform school, which is predictably full of oddballs, misery and strict rules.

But the second Luce sees fellow student Daniel, she can’t shake the feeling that she’s met him before. She’s haunted by a sense of déjà vu, and she can’t seem to stay away from him. He, on the other hand, seems to want nothing to do with her.

Soon though, circumstances conspire to throw them together, and it becomes clear that the two of them have a past that goes back far longer than Luce can remember. As Luce searches for answers, the stakes continue to get higher and more dangerous at every turn.

While the idea was good, there were a few inconsistencies in ‘Fallen’ that I couldn’t really get my head around. Daniel and Luce have known each other before, time and time again, that’s clear from the opening pages. But while Luce is ignorant of their past each time they meet, Daniel has the full knowledge of what’s come before. It’s no surprise then when they meet again at reform school. But Daniel is there first. And if he’s lived so many amazing lives in the past, I couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing in somewhere so miserable.

The same goes for all of the other supernatural beings – and there are many! Why immortal creatures would choose to spend their time going to one of the dreariest sounding schools around, when they clearly have other, more interesting options, is beyond me.

The setting itself is very atmospheric – with a school with an onsite graveyard, a gym in a converted church, a huge gothic library, permanent mist and lingering smell – but it felt a little clichéd. Continue reading →

‘Written in the Blood’ by Stephen Lloyd Jones

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Written in the Blood‘Written in the Blood’ is the sequel to Stephen Lloyd Jones ‘The String Diaries’. If you want to catch up on the plot, you can find my review here.

Set fifteen years after the first novel in the series, the main protagonist in ‘Written in the Blood’ is Hannah Wilde’s daughter, Leah. Last seen as a nine year old girl on the run with her mother from the dangerous Jakab, she is now 24 and on a mission to help save the future of her race – the Hosszu Eletek.

Fertility among the remaining Hosszu Eletek is failing, and Leah is one of the youngest in a declining society. Together with her mother, Leah is helping to run a highly controversial fertility programme to give women the chance to have a child. But the upper echelons of the Hosszu Eletek society aren’t keen on diluting their race with the human blood that runs through Hannah and Leah’s veins. And when they decide that it’s necessary to reach out to the banished Kirekesztett, their fertility programme is soon seen as something that needs to be stopped at any cost. Continue reading →

Karen Joy Fowler’s ‘We are All Completely Beside Ourselves’

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WeAreAllCompletelyKaren Joy Fowler’s novel ‘We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves’ focuses on a family that has been ripped apart by the loss of a daughter and a sister.

Rosemary was only five years old when Fern disappeared from her life. Years later, her brother leaves home without a backward glance. From a family of five, they are suddenly just three. The family home, once thriving and full of life, is now dominated by the things that they don’t talk about.

Even though she’s never mentioned, Fern has affected every moment of Rosemary’s life, past and present. They grew up together, experienced everything together and even had their own language. Many years later at college, Rosemary is doing everything she can to fade into the background. But sooner or later, she has to face the truth of what really happened to Fern.

To say any more about the plot would ruin it for future readers, but there’s a massive plot twist about half way through that I didn’t see coming – probably because I’d managed to avoid reading any revealing reviews beforehand! Continue reading →

Andy Weir’s ‘The Martian’

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the martianFollowing an aborted Mars mission, NASA astronaut Mark Watney is left behind. His team think he’s dead. He has no way of communicating with them or with Earth The next mission to Mars is over 4 years away. Its proposed landing site is thousands of kilometres away. But all of that pales in significance beside the more immediate problem – Mark will run out of food long before the next mission arrives and will starve to death.

He has a limited amount of supplies and has to figure out how he can use them in a way that will sustain his life, taking each day as it comes and hoping that a solution to what seems like a completely impossible, hopeless task. He seems doomed to fail and die alone on Mars. But the ways that he finds to survive in such a bleak and inhospitable environment are ingenious. He continues to defy expectations and relies pretty much entirely on his own logic and common sense to carry on.

Be warned, there is a lot of technical detail about the systems for life support in Mark’s makeshift home, and a lot of maths and scientific detail as he attempts to work out how he can survive! I didn’t understand a fair few of the finer points, but it didn’t take anything away from the reading – as long as Mark understood it, that’s all that matters! Continue reading →

‘Ghost Moth’ by Michele Forbes

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ghost mothSet in Belfast, Ghost Moth follows the lives of Katherine and George against a backdrop of considerable social unrest and religious tension.

In 1949, Katherine is young, vivacious and discovering all of the new opportunities that life has to offer. She’s also torn between two men – George, her fiancé, who is steady, loyal and dependable, and Tom, who offers fire, passion and unpredictability. As months go by, Katherine has to make a choice that will have far-reaching consequences, indelibly marking all involved.

In 1969, Katherine and George are married with four young children. Her life is dominated by looking after others and she’s still scarred by events that happened twenty years earlier. Her relationship with her husband is strained, and hides long suppressed feelings on anger, guilt and desire that threaten to destroy their marriage and the carefully constructed life they’ve built together. Continue reading →