The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha ChristieMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Saturday 21 November 2020
Saturday 14 November 2020
Sunday 1 November 2020
Saturday 17 October 2020
Sunday 11 October 2020
Tuesday 6 October 2020
Friday 25 September 2020
Sunday 30 August 2020
Thursday 20 August 2020
Review: This Is How It Always Is
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie FrankelMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this story of Claude and his family coming to terms with the fact that Claude may really be Poppy. I think Frankel, although edges towards sentimentality at times, does a fair job of weighing up the difficulties of raising a transgender child. How, regardless of how loving and accepting you are as parents, the transition from one gender to another is complicated - that the transition may not be linear. The book is another reminder that, given all that Claude/Poppy has to deal with, no one in their right mind would choose to be transgender. This is something you are and have to find your way as best you can.
Importantly, Frankel herself has a transgender daughter. I don't think this type of story should be told unless you have direct experience. Though this book is very much a parent's perspective not that of a transgender child - and Frankel, in her author's note, makes clear that this is not her daughter's story.
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Friday 7 August 2020
Wednesday 5 August 2020
Review: Tower of Thorns
Tower of Thorns by Juliet MarillierMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I very much enjoyed this second outing of Blackthorn and Grim - both are compelling characters - but the book was just too long. For a while, I felt the book was a holding pattern: Blackthorn was keeping a secret from Grim; Grim was keeping a secret from Blackthron, and Lady Geileis had a secret of her own as well. As the reader, you know what the secrets were or at least knew that there were secrets and had to "listen" to all three go on about their respective secrets when really you'd wish they'd say what the secret was and tell someone else!
So while the beginning and ending were compelling, the middle bit dragged and could have done with editing down.
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Thursday 16 July 2020
Monday 13 July 2020
Sunday 28 June 2020
Monday 22 June 2020
Review: Don't Touch My Hair
Don't Touch My Hair by Emma DabiriMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This could so easily have been a facts dump - Dabiri has obviously done a lot of painstaking research. But, she skilfully reviews the history of black hair in the context of Western European supremacy without either overburdening you with information or dumbing things down. Also, while obviously very passionate about the subject (fair enough given the crap she's had to put up with over the years), she never comes across as preachy.
I was never one of those idiots who thought touching a black woman's hair was OK, but I was completely clueless about the cultural significance of "bad hair" vs "good hair" (so that's what Beyonce meant by "Becky with the good hair"). And, that proves once again how important it is for white people to read books about black experiences. You can't be anti-racist if you're oblivious to what what is going on.
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Tuesday 16 June 2020
Friday 12 June 2020
Saturday 30 May 2020
Review: Quartet in Autumn
Quartet in Autumn by Barbara PymMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Pym could have so easily made the Quartet's members - Edwin, Norma, Marcia, and Letty - pathetic figures of fun. But while she does makes jokes at their expense, she doesn't belittle them. You end up for having sympathy for all of them, even Marcia who really is the definitive of an "odd bod".
So often in books, the lonely singleton is a socially inept fool who has to be "rescued" in someway - a person taking pity or a new romance etc. Quartet in Autumn, however, is much more realistic. That lonely people accept their loneliness as they don't really have a clue about what to do about it; but that they would rather be lonely than be "rescued". If fact, Pym makes even more fun out of the Marcia's would-be rescuer (a social worker called Janice) than she does of Marcia.
I suspect when writing this book, Pym was writing from experience (she was single with no children and spent several years being forgotten before being rediscovered). Therefore, I feel this is a valid take on loneliness. Certainly more valid than those "Mandy is doing completely dandy" type books that seem to have been written by people who have never truly experienced being socially isolated.
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Saturday 23 May 2020
Saturday 16 May 2020
Sunday 10 May 2020
Sunday 3 May 2020
Saturday 25 April 2020
Thursday 16 April 2020
Review: A Gentleman in Moscow
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor TowlesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A book about a man living life to the full while under house arrest feels like pretty much essential reading in these times. Mind you, he does have the run of a posh hotel - so has a lot more space to kick about in than most of us at the moment.
Not too sure how tolerant I would be of the underlying message that friends and family that make our life rich rather than worldly experiences if I wasn't living in a lockdown situation. Not that it is a bad, or untrue, message, it is just that I suspect I would find it a bit simplistic if wasn't preoccupied by a pandemic. Do now feel the need to read something a bit more cynical.
But if you need a feel-good book to get you through not being able to leave the house, you could do worse than pick this up.
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Sunday 22 March 2020
Saturday 18 January 2020
Review: Girl, Woman, Other
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine EvaristoMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
Each of Evaristo's 12 characters are well drawn, from the (on the surface) uptight Shirley to the non-binary Morgan. They are all believably flawed yet sympathetic individuals in their own ways. Some of the male characters come across as a bit one dimensional but that actually makes for a refreshing change to the gazillion of books out there that have one-dimensional female characters.
Not going to say anything about the book's examination of what it means to be a black woman in Britain because, well, I'm not black. Therefore, I don't really have the right to say anything other than I probably need to listen more.
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