I'll confess that I read this book pretty much solely because it involves saving a postal service, and I've been reading a few books which involve posI'll confess that I read this book pretty much solely because it involves saving a postal service, and I've been reading a few books which involve post and postal services in order to stock up on reviews for Postcrossing's blog. Long Live the Post Horn! is a drifting, rambling novel in which a woman having a mid-life crisis about everything being fake and meaningless recovers her passion through getting involved in the fight to save the postal service from an EU initiative to introduce competition.
The problem for me is that rambling, wishy-washy quality -- that stream-of-consciousness has never been my style. There are a couple of bits I liked, bits which capture some of the joy of post in particular, and also a scene in which the main character's boyfriend explains he sends letters to himself as a sort of life coach -- something about that felt distinctive and endearing, rather than kind of generic as in the rest of the book.
Not one I enjoyed, but I'm sure there are people who will....more
My Sister, The Serial Killer follows the main character, Korede, as she cleans up after her sister, Ayoola. That’s pretReviewed for the Bibliophibian.
My Sister, The Serial Killer follows the main character, Korede, as she cleans up after her sister, Ayoola. That’s pretty much entirely literal: you see, Ayoola has developed a bad habit of killing the men she dates, and Korede has become sucked into the role of an accomplice. Everything in her life is just so, but then Ayoola storms on in with her problems, and Korede finds herself handling dead bodies and confessing only to a comatose man in the hospital who is expected never to recover. And then, gasp — Ayoola comes to the hospital where Korede works, and sets her eyes on the young doctor Korede has a crush on.
For the most part, I found this kind of pedestrian. Korede gets jealous about Tade (the doctor) and Ayoola; obviously, in trying to call Ayoola out, she just sounds jealous and unhinged. The comatose man to whom she’s been making her confessions wakes up and (of course) remembers the things she said. Ayoola is unfaithful and capricious. And yet, the sisterly bond is still there, and Korede can’t bring herself to break it: she’s meant to look after Ayoola…
I don’t know: for the most part this all just struck me as inevitable and I got a little impatient with it. I did check back in a little for the end of the story, wondering exactly how it would wrap up — and it avoided being completely banal and obvious.
I do enjoy the setting of this book, and the fact that Braithwaite makes no concessions for people who are unfamiliar. She just talks about the local food, local customs, and expects the reader to keep up. (Not that it’s particularly difficult, but I think the temptation is there sometimes for people to cater to the Anglo and American readers a little too much.) The story is shaped by the setting — the Nigerian police force don’t go about the case like an episode of CSI, giving the story about the sisters space to breathe, but there are other pressures on them from the people around them, from the relationship with technology (Snapchat is important in the story, for instance)… In that sense, it works quite well.
I’m afraid I’m still left rather “meh” overall, regardless. It’s easy to read, but it’s also easy to put down (for me, anyway)....more
I wasn’t sure if I’d like this one; contemporaries are often not really my thing, and it did seem a bit long and daunting. But everyone gave it such gI wasn’t sure if I’d like this one; contemporaries are often not really my thing, and it did seem a bit long and daunting. But everyone gave it such good reviews, and it really is topical — a window into a world I don’t really get, being British and honestly fairly sheltered. Sometimes it felt a little unbelievable because of that — so many shootings? Gangs? The danger that seemed to hover around Starr’s life all the time? I mean, I know about it in theory; I’ve followed the trials surrounding the deaths of Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown… But it still seems so far away and weird to me.
Actually, I’d like a British-Muslim version of this book, in the sense of one which explores that community and how it interacts with our police, etc. Not just the ones who went to a private school like me, but less privileged ones. It’d probably be eye-opening.
I liked that this book was fairly even-handed; although the cop who shoots Starr’s friend is obviously not the good guy, there are good cops as well, including Starr’s uncle, who part raised her before her dad got out of prison. I don’t quite get the people complaining this is completely anti-police; it’s not. It’s anti-the-system, the one in which police can get away with things like this — like shooting a brown kid on a traffic stop because he reached into the car slightly and his hairbrush looked like a gun.
I also enjoyed Starr’s family; not always perfect, with her dad having been to prison and her parents arguing — but always there for her. It explores their family dynamics, including Starr’s half-brother and his siblings, in a way which allows for them to be flawed while denying that they’re dysfunctional in the way some people see black families.
I’ve seen people complain, too, about Starr’s sense of drama. Come on, she’s a teenager. And while Hailey is a bit… overdone — you could predict what came out of her mouth because it was all of the stereotypes of people saying ‘I’m not racist, but…’ — she’s still realistic in that, well, I think we all know someone who acts like that. Who leans on stereotypes and then claims she can’t be racist because she has a black friend.
I found The Hate U Give pretty absorbing, and I think it’s a good portrayal of life in the kind of community it portrays — the kind of community Angie Thomas seems to know intimately. It does seem to contain a lot of things other people consider to be stereotypes, but I’m gonna trust that Angie Thomas probably knows better than I do.
Of course I loved Matilda — both the book and the film. I was that kind of child. I probably strained my eyes squinting and trying to do Matilda’s ‘WhOf course I loved Matilda — both the book and the film. I was that kind of child. I probably strained my eyes squinting and trying to do Matilda’s ‘Whammy’ on various objects. (Mostly books I wanted to come closer…) So as an adult, perhaps it’s not surprising that I looked up Mara Wilson and ended up following her twitter, despite her complex relationship with Matilda (covered, for example, in one of the chapters in this book, which is a letter to Matilda).
I did feel that while it was easy to read, it felt a bit scattered: it’s not chronological, so she discusses the death of her mother, then recounts events which happened before that, leaving me briefly confused. I feel like it lacked an overall structure somehow; without chronology, it needed something else unifying. But it was still compelling, especially reading about her fears and anxieties, the development of her OCD. (Our disorders’ acronyms might only share one letter, but GAD has a fair amount in common with OCD, and I definitely have tendencies of the latter too.) Her relationships with the people around her during filming and after were sweet too — her attachment to Danny DeVito, her reaction to Robin Williams’ death, and her mother’s close involvement with the early years of her career.
I read it all in one go, appreciating the frank and honest person I met here. Mara Wilson is fairly clear about portions of her life where she was pretentious, unpleasant, unwontedly angsty, etc. Her tone both accepts it as normal and gently scolds her younger self for that behaviour. I feel like I would quite like to sit down and have a quiet drink and a bun in a bookshop coffee area with her.
Once upon a time, I read The French Lieutenant’s Woman and, to my surprise, rather enjoyed it. It’s not the kind of novel I normally go for, but the wOnce upon a time, I read The French Lieutenant’s Woman and, to my surprise, rather enjoyed it. It’s not the kind of novel I normally go for, but the writing is good, and it had me intrigued despite myself. So I picked up The Magus, only to leave it on the shelf for a couple of years awaiting some mythical ‘round tuit‘. When it came to picking a book for a challenge that I should’ve read in school, I was pretty stuck, because I nearly always did my reading — the only exception being a Robin Hood novel which had Fabio on the cover. So I decided this more or less counted and dug in.
At first, it was good to dig into; the writing is good, evocative, solid. The descriptions of Greece are gorgeously claustrophobic, making me think at once of the violent myths of Ancient Greece and the sunny happily-ever-afters of Mary Stewart’s adventure romances set in that area of the world.
But… there’s something terribly same-y about the ennui of the narrator. It did remind me of a widely touted literary antecedent — Great Expectations — without characters as bold and dark as Miss Havisham. It reminded me too, somehow, of The Great Gatsby. Fowles’ introduction talks about how it’s a profoundly adolescent sort of story, and perhaps that’s why it also conjured up The Catcher in the Rye a little.
What do those three novels have in common? I wasn’t a great fan of any of them…
The Magus remains beautifully written throughout, but the tone drags decidedly and I just really longed for Stewart’s version of Greece, with characters who care and dare and do, rather than halfass around the place. Despite my two degrees in English Lit, I fear I’m proving myself terribly bad at reading literary fiction with appreciation! Alas. (But then again, I did love The French Lieutenant’s Woman…)
I’m so used to reading YA set in the US that I was actually surprised when I realised, oh hey, this is British! They’re doing their A Levels! So if thI’m so used to reading YA set in the US that I was actually surprised when I realised, oh hey, this is British! They’re doing their A Levels! So if that’s something you might be interested in, that’s another draw alongside the fact that it’s an LGBT story. (Well. Mostly just L.)
I originally had this as an ARC, but neglected it for so long that I ended up picking it up in the bookshop. I’m a little disappointed about that, because it turned out not to be for me. It’s pretty simply written, and while I like the issues it engages with, it was too obvious for me. There’s a mystery/thriller aspect, but I called it. And the characters… as I keep saying, teenagers may well act like that, so overblown and ridiculous, but I’m twenty-six and didn’t act like that even when I was a teenager! Much. I think. I hope. It’s just unpleasant to read about, because I just want to shake the characters — like seriously, you’re getting worked up because of what?
Even the adults seemed a little like that; I’m thinking of Megan’s mother. Granted, she was prone to drinking heavily and such, but still… It all felt a bit like a caricature, if that makes sense.
All the same, I’m going to donate this to the local library. Having LGBT stories there is important, and I don’t think this could possibly offend anyone, and it might be more to someone else’s taste.
I was excited to read The Mirror World of Melody Black, given that I found myself enjoying The Universe Versus Alex Woods more than I expected to. ReaI was excited to read The Mirror World of Melody Black, given that I found myself enjoying The Universe Versus Alex Woods more than I expected to. Reading the first 100 pages or so, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to continue. See, the main character is bipolar, and her swings of mania and depression are really well written. I could see what was coming and wasn’t sure if I wanted to be along for the ride.
The thing is, when the main character is in a psychiatric ward, she and another character talk about it being an alternate world, and each person having their own portal to it. Basically, the turn you made that made everything go downhill. The thing that triggered the cycle. Getting better, she talks about seeing those portals and being able to avoid them. That struck a bit close — I have generalised anxiety disorder, and I’m constantly aware of the things I could do which might make me feel a little better, temporarily, but which could start me off on the whole rollercoaster of anxiety (where the only way seems to be down, and down, and down).
And around page 100, with the way Abby was behaving, I was a little worried this book was going to be one of those moments for me. Usually it’s a moment of stress in my life, or confronting a new situation. But really, I think I was just responding to Abby’s foreboding — and Extence’s. See, he finishes the book with a chapter in which he explains his own experience with mania. The chapters that I found uncomfortable were precisely the ones that made him uncomfortable and which embodied his experience the most. So yes, Mr Extence: you wrote something true. It worked.
If you’ve read this and don’t really understand the title, I have to wonder if it’s maybe because you don’t have that experience of those portals. You don’t know that a silly minor thing could constitute a left turn into another reality. The whole book, everything Abby does from the opening pages, it’s not really a story about finding her neighbour dead, being a journalist or dating when bipolar. It’s a story about that moment she takes the wrong turn and enters an alternate world, where logic stops working properly. Melody Black is important not particularly for herself, but because talking to her makes Abby realise these things. The ‘mirror world’ of the title is really Abby’s own head, when her manic phase is triggered, and Melody Black is just a symbol.
Elizabeth is Missing is a very interesting play on the unreliable narrator. Maud isn’t unreliable because she’s lying or because she has anything to hElizabeth is Missing is a very interesting play on the unreliable narrator. Maud isn’t unreliable because she’s lying or because she has anything to hide – or not exactly. She’s unreliable because she can’t hold onto her memories or make coherent sense of the things around her. It might sound a bit like a weird mystery novel: you could imagine it like that, with Maud being really sane but being gaslighted by the people around her into believing she’s crazy, and that’s why none of them will listen to her when she talks about Elizabeth. But it’s more mundane than that, at least for one strand of the plot.
The real mystery is in Maud’s memories of her sister, Sukey, who went missing. There’s a great sense of time and place here, putting it so firmly in post-WWII Britain in the same way as those youthful memories are the most vivid for elderly people. There’s a lot of really great description, too, which is partly facilitated by the fact that Maud doesn’t remember things right. You can make the most mundane things fresh and new if they’re a surprise to the narrator; you can tilt the world slightly off-balance like that. Healey does pretty well with that, and with the narration; to me, she balances a lot of things very well.
For example, it’d be easy to show the impatient daughter who just won’t listen to her senile mother. But it’s not like that in real life for most people; it’s just that people are impatient, and will say a sharp thing or roll their eyes or utter something sotto voce just to help themselves cope with what’s going on. And we see Helen like that; we see her trying to be patient, trying to understand, and sometimes coming up short. If there’s a carer in the world, especially a family member, who doesn’t feel like that, well, get them sainted.
It’d also be easy to really mess up the narration, over-exaggerating the things Maud forgets, making her memory come and go too conveniently for the story, smoothing over the edges of the illness to give us a tidy ending. Healey doesn’t fall to that temptation, either.
I can see why you might find it tedious, too painful to read, too disjointed; I liked the slow unfurling of the mysteries, even when I expected the endings, and I laud Healey for writing an elderly heroine with patience and understanding.
I can’t honestly remember why I first picked this up. It probably wasn’t a recommendation from a friend, who would have known better than to recommendI can’t honestly remember why I first picked this up. It probably wasn’t a recommendation from a friend, who would have known better than to recommend me a book where a main characters dies of brain cancer. It’s kind of a sore spot, and that explains on its own why the ending of this book wrapped a hand around my windpipe and squeezed.
It’s kind of a fun read, for the most part; light tone, easy to read, not too deep, but with a love of books pervading it, the transformative power of them and the ability they have to bring people together. I was surprised, from the light tone at the start, how awful A.J.’s situation is — and the book doesn’t baulk from making that clear, even though the prose doesn’t linger on it and keeps things very simple. There’s a trick of it, very simple sentences, which can offer a sense of profundity. Sometimes it works for this book, sometimes not; all through, the simplicity was wearing on me. Large stretches of time and momentous events are skipped over in a handful of sentences; things that should be difficult (like a guy adopting a random child he’s not related to who was just left in his bookshop) are condensed into a paragraph. It all seems too slick and easy.
Still, Maya and A.J.’s relationship is sweet, and it’s hard not to like a redemption story with a little kid and a grumpy curmudgeon softening their heart (Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, any episode of NCIS featuring Special Agent Gibbs and a child…). I’m not enamoured, I’m afraid, but I can see the potential for making a film out of it or something, and if it keeps that love of books in place when they do, maybe it’ll produce some nostalgia for little persnickety bookshops....more
I hurried up about reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves because my aunt talked about reading it, and since she doesn’t seem to be a big readI hurried up about reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves because my aunt talked about reading it, and since she doesn’t seem to be a big reader, I thought it’d be interesting (and maybe add to dinner table conversation the next time she visits). She told me about the twist in a somewhat oblique way that had me wondering how the facts fit together. When I hit the apparently infamous page 77, though, it does all make sense; if I hadn’t needed to return this to the library for the next patron who reserved it, I’d have reread the first 77 pages and figured out where there’s subtler foreshadowing and so on. I wasn’t looking for it in the right places, so if it was there, it passed me by.
All in all, it’s an interesting story, based on the idea of raising a chimp among humans and seeing how much we can humanise them, which has been done in various experiments. It’s hard to say more about the themes of the book without spoilering people for page 77, because the whole way the plot comes together relies on that reveal, and whether it works for you. For me, it did. I got the book out of the library at 5.30pm and finished it by 11pm; I feel that the voice is engaging, the unchronological way of telling the story works well, and the mystery/twist combined with that narrative voice worked for me, because Rosemary (the narrator) speaks to the reader. It’s like an oral story in some ways — you’re being told a story by someone who finds it difficult, who is feeling their way into telling it.
There are things I didn’t like very much about this book, even so; some of the plotlines/characters didn’t seem to add much. Some of it was all part of the red herrings, of course, to lead the reader astray. But I was unsure about the whole character of Harlow — her later appearances seemed unnecessary, and that first performative scene with her the best and most revealing thing about her character (revealing both herself and Rosemary, I mean). The lost suitcase plot… shrug? The puppet… what?
So needless to say, given how fast I devoured it, I did quite enjoy it. I haven’t a clue what I’ll have to say about it when my aunt visits again, though; I’m still thinking about it all.
(Mum, this book is very anti-animal experimentation, it’d drive you nuts. Squirt, don’t read it, it’ll upset you.)...more
The Thirteenth Tale is certainly an absorbing story in one way -- and I prefer it to Bellman & Black, as people told me I probably would -- but now I'The Thirteenth Tale is certainly an absorbing story in one way -- and I prefer it to Bellman & Black, as people told me I probably would -- but now I'm finished I'm left feeling a little bit cheated. The mysteries shook out more or less as I expected; the creepy gothic air never quite worked for me, because it's very much a homage to books which are rather a lot better; the hints of supernatural stuff and ghosts never convinced me... And so on. I could see what it was trying to do, and if I tried hard enough, I could bury myself in it, but it never quite swept me away.
That said, I read it in more or less two massive chunks, and it certainly keeps the pages turning despite the slow pace to it. The stuff that's obviously meant to appeal to bookworms, that sensation of reading something so bright and fresh and alive as Vida Winter's work is supposed to be, she captures something of that enchantment, I think. I actually smiled a bit at the narrator's stuff surrounding reading -- yep, I've sat up with a book so long it accidentally got round to morning again, without even realising, and was stupid and clumsy the next day with sleepiness; yep, when I've been reading intensely all day, somehow I'm just not hungry, like the words have filled me up.
There's very little more insipid than the narrator's character, though. I've forgotten her name. I remember her twin's name, but not hers. Set against her, maybe Vida Winter's story can't help but be fascinating....more
I have some friends with reservations about Fangirl, and then there's lots of people who think it's the best thing since sliced bread. It took me a whI have some friends with reservations about Fangirl, and then there's lots of people who think it's the best thing since sliced bread. It took me a while to read it because of that, but I think on balance I like it a lot. The primary thing I enjoy is that it involves neuroatypical people; Cath's anxiety, her dad's bipolar, Wren's potential alcoholism. It feels true to life in the way the twins grow apart and come back together, in the way university life works. I've totally been with Cath, eating energy bars instead of finding the cafeteria, talking to people online instead of going out and enjoying the fun.
One thing that does bother me is the characters who try to drag Cath out of herself like it's that easy. Reagan mentions medication once, but after that there's no indication that Cath gets therapy or any kind of substantive help with her issues. She's just kind of friended-and-boyfriended out of it to a large extent, which -- I'm not going to say it's impossible, but when I was in Cath's position, it took medication and therapy as well as the friends.
Also, Levi's "nice guy" thing was just -- ick. I mean, in many ways he seems like a genuinely nice guy, but then he admits he was doing the whole nice guy thing to try and get Cath to date him. And he wouldn't respect her wishes about her name or letting her carry her own damn laundry, so how I'm supposed to believe he respected her about anything else, I'm not entirely sure. You're not such a nice guy if you're trying to be a nice guy to make a girl like you, you know? And that aspect didn't fit with the rest of Levi, who seemed too good to be true in many ways -- the kind of guy who rescues kittens from trees and helps old ladies cross the road.
Anyway, most of the scenes between Levi and Cath are really well done: early awkwardness, the slow evolution of their relationship, even the misunderstandings -- which normally really annoy me in romantic stories. I did feel that their relationship was real, even if Levi himself was a little too good to be true.
I do still really like the way Rowell writes; it's really easy to just settle into, nothing pretentiously getting in the way of reading it, nothing trying to be too flowery. And the excerpts of fanfiction and "Gemma Leslie"'s work made me smile; Rowell does understand fandom, as was also clear when I went to her talk/signing, and she gets the comfort and excitement of that online community just right....more
I have conflicting feelings about Eleanor & Park. I know that various aspects of it really troubled some people, from the treatment of the characters I have conflicting feelings about Eleanor & Park. I know that various aspects of it really troubled some people, from the treatment of the characters of colour to the way it deals with Eleanor's fraught home life. I don't know enough about American culture and history to really comment on that, other than acknowledging that some people find it problematic, e.g. in the exoticisation of Park's looks and the stereotyping with his mother. I think everything Rowell does here is an honest attempt, though; I think there's a conscious effort to bring in more diverse characters, it's just that it brings in a lot of new problems with it.
Still, despite that, I actually really liked the book. I tend to enjoy Rainbow Rowell's style anyway, and in this book I enjoyed the way she portrayed a teenage relationship. It's dramatic life and death stuff, and while I don't think I ever behaved that way, people I know did. Just discovering hormones and making a big mess of themselves over it and each other. It's complicated in this case by Eleanor's relationship with her step-dad, and Park's discomfort about whether he's the kind of son his father would want. I think parental situations had a fair amount to do with the rather desperate coupling up I saw sometimes: if you've got someone to think about while whatever's going on at home kicks off, then it's a bit more bearable. Or you're less alone. Etc.
I think someone else said that to write for teenagers, you have to remember what it's like to be a teenager, and I think Rainbow Rowell evokes that pretty well here.
When it comes to dealing with the difficult themes around Eleanor's family, again, I think it's an honest attempt. She evokes the feeling of threat well when she's in Eleanor's POV; it comes through a lot less when she's writing from Park's point of view, though. In a way, that's realistic: we never know exactly what's going on behind someone else's eyes. But in this case... Park was so shocked when Eleanor spilled everything, and I'm just thinking, hey, there were plenty of warning signs, in neon.
All in all, though, I found Eleanor & Park a really easy read, and I liked Rainbow Rowell's attitude to it that she mentioned at the signing I went to -- she couldn't write some happy ever after for Eleanor and Park, because they're still kids. It's not the end of their story, it's the beginning. I really like that she didn't go for the easy end where everything's alright: she gave us hope, sure, but no more than that....more
I don't think I'd have ended up reading Death and the Penguin without a little challenge I'm doing to read twenty books recommended by friends. (It toI don't think I'd have ended up reading Death and the Penguin without a little challenge I'm doing to read twenty books recommended by friends. (It took me a while to get my twenty, but maybe now I should post them or make a shelf for them or something.) It's interesting, though. I'm not generally very good at politics and satire, particularly when I'm not very aware of the historical context, but this is enjoyable anyway.
You see, the penguin is not metaphorical. Viktor literally has a pet penguin who lives with him. Honestly, that was my main motivation in reading on: I didn't care so much for Viktor, but Misha is really compelling for all that he's the only character who never says a word. The other absurd elements of the plot somehow only work for me because of Misha.
It's simply written, easy to follow despite the absurdities -- the person who recommended it to me said it's a good Russian lit for beginners type book. I'd agree; I mean, I love War and Peace, but I can understand it being rough going for some people, and Anna Karenina and Crime and Punishment took me forever. I do recommend this: the relationship between Misha and Viktor is sweet and somehow melancholy, a mutual loneliness....more
Oh, wow. The Universe Versus Alex Woods starts off seeming like it's gonna be a quirky sort of book: the narration is matter of fact where it possiblyOh, wow. The Universe Versus Alex Woods starts off seeming like it's gonna be a quirky sort of book: the narration is matter of fact where it possibly shouldn't be, and the situation Alex is in on the opening pages is an interesting one. Unfortunately for everyone who picked it up on the basis of that, it's not really the kind of book it turned out to be. I don't know that I'd call it funny -- it's not laugh out loud funny, anyway; more "wry smiles" funny -- and I don't know that I'd call it heartbreaking, either. It made me cry, but the simplicity of the narrative voice kept it from being maudlin, from dwelling too much on any of the important details, which is what for me made them strike all the more forcefully.
It is the story of an unlikely friendship, that's definitely true, and it's a beautiful story from my point of view. It's fairly apparent from the first chapter, to me, what exactly is going on here: what matters is how we get there, and how much less funny/quirky it seems by the end, and how much more sad and true and beautiful. But if you don't want to know, don't read any further in this review.
What was apparent to me from the beginning is that this is a book about an assisted suicide. It didn't even need to be stated clearly: trying to get back into the country at Dover, the urn of ashes, somehow it all just clicked for me. Possibly because this is an issue that I've thought about at great length, forwards and backwards. Because if I were Alex Woods, I'd do exactly the same things, in exactly that order, and I would feel exactly as right about it.
The friendship between the two is the fun and quirky part; the fact that, when Mr. Peterson becomes ill, Alex chooses to take care of him, and then to make sure that he is also allowed to die when he's ready, and the understanding between the two... This is an idealised version of how this might happen, and the fact that Alex narrates means that we don't pull up and see this from another character's point of view -- how they might worry about Alex's reactions, how he might feel -- and that might make some people feel that this is a book somehow advocating for euthanasia. Which I think it is, but only in the sense that it makes it clear that to be allowed a choice about how and when we die makes it a lot easier to die -- and that for some people 'how' and 'when' might be very clearly defined, as they are for Mr. Peterson. But I don't think it advocates euthanasia as the only way. It just emphasises choice, and how very comforting it is to many people to know that they have control over even that last inevitability. It even emphasises choice in smaller matters, like what drugs you take.
If you don't understand why someone would want assisted suicide, this might help. If you don't understand why someone would want to help someone commit suicide, I think this would definitely help. And if you already understand both of those things, then it's still something that articulates all this very clearly, and might just give you words or clarity for yourself in the future.
I am definitely, definitely keeping this book. I will probably lend it to people, and I hope I never need to read it again myself, but I can imagine times when I might want to....more
I didn't expect to like or understand this book much. The concept, the experimental nature, drew me to it, but I know it isn't the kind of thing I enjI didn't expect to like or understand this book much. The concept, the experimental nature, drew me to it, but I know it isn't the kind of thing I enjoy. Find interesting, maybe, but not enjoy. The Atrocity Exhibition is so bizarre to me, so lacking in coherent narrative, that it's doubly hard to read.
This book, the central character (such as he is, with his constantly fluctuating name/identity), is just -- it's a very fine portrayal of someone who is completely disturbed. I find myself wondering if my mother (a psychiatrist) has read it, and what she'd think.
(Knowing our shared taste in literature, I would venture to guess that she doesn't think much of Ballard, but I meant in a psychiatric sense.)
End result: I'm convinced of Ballard's skill, no doubt -- he writes with a cold clear edge -- and glad I tried this book, but I'm not keeping it, and I think Ballard's imagination is a bizarre and unpleasant place (science as pornography?!). One image that will stay with me is his repeated image of the landscape as the contours of anatomy, or vice versa: "these cliff-towers revealed the first spinal landscapes"......more
I don't really know about this book. I hoped to find it light but charming, but it's not really light and only the premise is charming, and the rest oI don't really know about this book. I hoped to find it light but charming, but it's not really light and only the premise is charming, and the rest of it just sort of gets too much. I mean, there's a point where it just gets beyond magic realism and becomes absurd, for me. The idea of tasting emotions in food doesn't seem so strange to me, but there's a point where this story crosses the line.
Some of the writing worked okay for me, but the narration didn't, quite: when is she narrating this? Why? To whom? The lack of speech marks and the sentence fragments didn't bother me too much, it all seemed to be part of the voice Aimee Bender was trying to build up for her character, but... For a story that could be so rich and sensual, it ended up being "hollow in the middle", like the flavour of sadness the protagonist tastes in her mother's cooking and baking....more
I don't think I'm gonna try reading much more by Iain Banks minus the M. It's well written (perhaps a little florid, in this one), but it just doesn'tI don't think I'm gonna try reading much more by Iain Banks minus the M. It's well written (perhaps a little florid, in this one), but it just doesn't appeal to me. There's some crossover, even, but... it's just different. The dark moments in his Culture novels just ring differently to the darkness of these books, for me.
It just didn't feel like a story, to me, just unpleasantness for the sake of it....more
Had this out of the library for a while, dipping into it off and on, hoping I'd maybe get into it. Answer: no. The stories feel totally mundane, non-rHad this out of the library for a while, dipping into it off and on, hoping I'd maybe get into it. Answer: no. The stories feel totally mundane, non-revelatory. They don't have the punchy power that a short story should have (in my opinion and to my taste). And now there's a book I want more in at the library, and I need to make space on my card. 'bye, Emma Donoghue....more
I can't say I liked this book, but I have to give it two stars because Angela Carter's writing is so perfect, every word well chosen and well placed. I can't say I liked this book, but I have to give it two stars because Angela Carter's writing is so perfect, every word well chosen and well placed. The characters are unpleasant and the story mesmerising in its destructive horribleness, which made it brilliant and at the same time deeply unlikeable....more
