Review: Jane Eyre: Manga Classics

Jane Eyre: Manga Classics by Charlotte Brontë
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fun take on Bronte's masterpiece. Lot of things have been lost in translation from novel to Manga, so probably best to enjoy this as a story that has a lot of same themes as Jane Eyre but isn't actually Jane Eyre.

I've never read Manga before so this was an interesting experience. Reading from right to left (essentially, the opposite of how Westerners typically read) took some getting used to but I eventually got the hang of it. It certainly helped that there's a bit at the front (which feels like the back...) telling how to read Manga!

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Review: The Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

At first, I thought this wold be a poignant story of the complexities of mother-daughter relationships. In particular, what happens when mother and daughters have different ideas about how the daughter should live her life.

However, I eventually gave up because it became too depressing. There seemed to be a definite case of damned you; damned if you don't. The mothers were miserable because they adhered to traditional Chinese and were submissive and were unhappy when their daughters didn't listen to them. The daughters were unhappy because they couldn't seem to cope with the choices available to them as modern Americans and their mothers never seem to approve of the choices that they did make. Above all, none of the mother/daughter pairs seem to reach any real understanding or learning anything from each other.

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Review: The Silence Diarie

The Silence Diarie by Jennifer Kavanagh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book isn't out until October/November, but 100 copies have been published in time for British Yearly Meeting (an annual Quaker event) and I was lucky enough to be pick up one from the Quaker bookshop in Euston. However while Jennifer is a Quaker and the story will resonate with Quakers, the Silence Diaries aren't actually about Quakerism (overtly at least anyway).

For me, this book is about understanding who you are, recognising that who you are is not the necessarily same as who you tell people you are, and how we can never really know the inner life of someone else. It is also about finding your purpose and accepting that purpose can change or be multiple things.

I always enjoy Jennifer's writing (I've read her first novel, the Emancipation of B, and several of her non-fiction work). They're always the type of books that I'd like to write one day.

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Review: Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am rating this book because although I didn't quite finish it, I got near to the concluding part. I could see what was going to happen and, no, just no. King himself thinks this is his scariest book and that he was "horrified" by what he had written. The only reason it was published is because he owed a book to his publisher and this was the only thing he had.

It's a horrible book with an awful concept but it's well written and compelling. Had King not gone down the road he went down with this, it could have served as a poignant tale of coming to terms with death and grief. But, he did go down that road (which I think he now certainly questions whether that was the right thing to do) and I am so creeped out by this book that I don't want it in my house. It's going to the charity shop at the next available opportunity.

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