Three Reviews

I have a new laptop and internet connection! Yay! I can now keep up with blogging, bloggers and all the other stuff that we rely on on the web.
Now a quick confession - I won't be able to finish the November Novella challenge on time, I have a couple more books to read, but won't have time to finish them this week as I have a bookgroup read that I have to finish as its the first book we're reading in a new group. However I hope to be finished the novellas by next week.

Now, I've finished three books in the last week so I'm going to do a quick round up of all three here then I'll be up-to-date with my blogging.

The Return of the Water Spirit by Pepetela

This teeny book (100 pages) from the African Writers series is rich in political, social and spiritual comment.Carmina and Jaoa live a spiritless life, shunned by his parents for their lack of religion she strives for power and money in the world of politics and trading. While he stays home playing Civilization on his computer. Around them the world is falling down, buildings collapse one-by-one, despite housing so many people the buildings drift to the ground, the people in them unharmed. A local girl, living close to a lagoon which has formed in the area, hears a deep music which gains in happiness and momentum as more buildings fall.
A good little read, although the symbols and infered meaning are very obvious and not skillfully placed.


A Man Without a Country - Kurt Vonnegut
For the 11 in 11 challenge over at library thing one of my sections to select books from is about reading more of authors that you have enjoyed previously and need to rediscover. I saw this memoir in the library and grabbed it as my first read from this section, I will probably read another Vonnegut fiction in the next year, but it was good to read something from the author.
Written in 2004 Vonnegut gives us his views on the world around him in a series of short commentaries. He writes about eveything from the First and Second World Wars to modern technology to George W Bush. He mangagrs to make many good, serious points whilst still keeping a light and readable tone.
My favourite part was when he explained why life should be enjoyed by 'farting about', taking long trips to buy a single envelope and then a single stamp for the pleasure of the trip and the conversations around you.


The Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud
Inspired by Vivienne's post I grabbed this from the library, and then wallowed in it all of last Sunday, when I curled up with it and a blanket.
Charlie at 15 caused the death of his brother Sam, in his final moments he promised his brother that he wouldn't leave him and never has. Meeting every evening, the pair play catch and live in the moment before their lives were taken away.
Everything changes when one day the beautiful Tess arrives in the graveyard and Charlie has to decide between living in the past or moving on.
Yes, it's corny. Yes, you've read books like it before. And, yes you can guess the ending just from what I've written above. But it's like a blanket, something to snuggle up with on a lazy, grey Sunday afternoon.
This also counts as an 11 in 11 challenge book as one of my categories is reads inspied by others.

My Thoughts: Morvern Callar by Alan Warner

I'm going to start this with an apology, this post will be a shambles as I have no idea how to review this book!
Morvern Callar is a 21 year old, stuck in a dead end job, in a dead end town, with a dead boyfriend on her hands. After discovering the suicide of her boyfriend rather than reporting the incident to the police Morvern parties the nights away. Eventually hiding her boyfriends body in the attic she sneaks into his bank account using his cash for a 18-30s holiday for her and a friend and then also gets his novel published in her name.
It doesn't sound great and certainly didn't sound like my type of book but I loved it. Morvern was a strange creature, but alluring all the same. You somehow seep into her world, while wanting to be as distant from its bleakness as you possibly can be.

All I can say is read it! Thats my 10th 1001 book so far this year - probably about the only reading challenge I'm managing to keep up with!

My Thoughts: Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

I first discovered Margaret Atwood when I was 17. I had to read A Handmaid's Tale for my A Levels along with 4 other pieces of protest literature (The Colour Purple, 1984, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest), it was this course which changed my degree choice from Law (I wanted to be a Legal Secretary specialising in family law) to English Literature, I can't imagine how my like would have turned out! As soon as read The Handmaid's Tale I went out and brought a stack of Margaret Atwood books which I've gradually read over the (12 -ouch!) years, I still have The Robber Bride to go.

Alias Grace is a fictionalised novel based on a real murderess Grace Marks, she was widely famous in Canada in the early 19th century being charged with 2 counts of murder at just 16. Alias Grace is a mismatch of narratives and writing regarding this women and those she came into contact with. The main proportion of the story are Grace's story to her Doctor, Dr Jordan. Claiming to be unable to recount the murders she details her life from him, from the journey from Canada to England, the methods of bleaching clothes and the details of her acquintances downfalls - she is certainly an unreliable narrator. Being shown her wondering what to tell Dr Jordan and how to phrase her story allows us to feel, but also know, that we are in the same position as he is, we are being fed a story - which elements are true or not we shall not discover.

The novel is also interspersed with Dr Jordan's complicated life, his desires for every woman he see's, his correspondence with his pushy mother, his friends and work collegues. As well as newspaper cuttings, quotations from Grace Marks' biographer, pshycoanalysists and poets who wrote about her.

Threaded throughout the story are refernced to patchwork quilts and their various patterns, especially those ones which turned one way show one image but looked at from a different viewpoint show a whole new picture. That is what this story is like, as a reader we sometimes feel she is guilty as sin, sometimes we believe her spiritual version of the murders and at other points her coyness leads us to believe she is just an innocent caught up in a crime. Well worth a read.

The Sunday Salon

Today I'm supposed to be marking, coursework deadlines are very close so I have teenagers (some nervous some indifferent) shoving pieces of coursework at me from every angle, expecting it to be marked in no time at all so they can edit it. Its sunny and gorgeous outside, and every inch of me wants to wander, but I'm forcing myself to stay in. And after this post is written I'll be forcing myself to mark :C

So just a quick note on my readings.
Earlier in the week I finished Magpie by Jill Dawson and somehow forgot to talk about it. After finishing the momouth A Suitable Boy I decided something quick and easy was needed and a friend wanted to borrow this so I rushed through it, and it was better than I expected.
The novel centres around a young single mother and her son, they are trying to start new life after a fire at their old house and the 'loss' of the father. Moving to a rough estate in London, miles from the quaint Yorkshire of their past, they have a lot to get used to. Money struggles, hearing their neighbors getting up to all sorts, being one of the few white families around and the sons sudden bad behaviour.
The novel was a quick and easy read, although I guessed the revelation at the end of the book very early on. If you're tempted to try this author, this book is worth a read, but I would recommend her novel Wild Boy first.

Then this morning I finished the short story Amok by Stefsn Zweig. Zweig is the year long author over at a librarything group which I belong to, I hadn't really heard of him before and was reluctant to start so I grabbed Amok and Other Stories as my first foray into the author.
Amok is one of those stories where the narrator recalls a conversation with another person as a means of telling the story. In this case the narrator meets a man at midnight on the voyage home from India to Germany. The man, a doctor, is a mystery as he is never to be seen during the day and he has asked the narrator not to reveal that he is on the ship. His story centres around his guilt and obssession over a female patient. I can't reveal more than that without giving away to much.
The confession is fast paced and the man's distress and need to confess spill out across the page at a pace which matches his sense of urgency. I'd recommend lovers of short stories to give this a read. I can't wait to read the other stories in the collection now.

My Thoughts: Ruins by Achy Obejas

After reading After the Dance by Danticat Edwidge I thought I'd try and complete the Caribbean section of the Olympic challenge (I have a long way to go). When Ruins arrived from the library I realised I already read a book for Cuba (The Aguero Sisters) but the premise was good and the book short so I gave it a go.
Ruins is set in Havana in 1994, in the years when many Cubans were evacuating the place in anything which they could find. Usnavy, a man loyal and law abiding watches as his friends either leave or break the law to earn dollars illegally.
The place is dirt poor, houses are falling to pieces in the rain, women are selling spice and gravy soaked pieces of blanket disguised as steak to earn a few pounds and they wash in a communal area using bottles of boiled water.
Usnavy is determined that he and his family will live above the law, until he discovers ways to make money wih the discovery of a Tiffany lamp. At first he abstains from temptation, but as his wife and daughter slowly desert him he is forced to see that his beliefs are destroying his home life.
I really enjoyed this look at Cuba, we forget just how impoverished places in the Western world really are. Obejas shows the way that immigration has affected the Cubans lives, they can see what their relatives have in America and so live always wanting more, reaching in places that they wouldn't normally as a means of achieving it.

Do you have a suggestions for a Caribbean read?

My Thoughts: Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai

Having sat on mount tbr for a good six months this ovel had to come top of the pile for my reads for the GLBT challenge.
Set in Sri Lanka this coming of age novel tells Anjie's story. At seven he loves playing with the girls, always the lead role in Bride-Bride their fantasy game. He loves dressing up in Saris and being made much of, until the da that he is revealed to the adults in all his glory. His father quickly blames his mother and declares if he turns out a 'funny boy' it will be all her doing.

We then follow Anjie through his childhood, much of which is dominated by the Tamil/Sinhalese conflicts. He watches family friends torn from lovers, beaten for their race, and the riots spill out. He also faces being Tamil, in school and at home, but only speaking Sinhalese as his parents desperately try to give their children a chance to make something of themselves in this country of seperation.
The politics and his identity, both sexual and social and mingled side by side in the novel which deals with serious issues but is a great read. As Anjie grows older the tone of the novel becomes more serious as he begins to understand the world around him.
I'll certainly be checking out more of Selvadurai's novels in the future.

Challenges:
GLBT: The Challenge the Dare Not Speak its Name
Twenty Ten (Who are you, again?)

Other reviews:
Book Nook

My Thoughts: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Another rain swept day here in old Blighty, so I decided to stay in and curl up with a book, blanket and lots of cups of tea. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane was the perfect book for this type of lazy Sunday afternoon. Its what I would call a comfort book, not much thought or effort needed.

Connie starts the book with her Oral exam in preparation to become a Proffessor of American Colonial history at Harvard. She agress to spend her summer cleaning out an old misused house just a town away from Salem.
Inside the old house she stumbles upon a key and a slip of paper with the words Deliverance Dane written on it. Eager to find out what this means she starts researching the name, and finds that it is that of a woman hung as a witch during the Salem Witch Trials.
This knowledge then leads her to continue her reseacrh to make it part of her dissertation, but the research soon becomes personal and she is on the hunt for a book to prove that some of the women hung in the Salem Trials were actual witches.
Its full of huge coincidences, links to her past, a fit lover and she misses massive clues which you can see spread out before you. Despite that it was a good read if your looking for something easy to curl up with during the holidays.

One thing it has done is make me want to find out more about Witches throughout history. I was thinking that I might do this and link it to the Women Unbound Challenge.
Has any book you've read lead you to read up more about the subject?

Sunday Salon - City of Glass by Paul Auster and Stuff

I'll start with the 'stuff' first. I'm still in a major reading slump, I'm barely finishing a book a week at the moment and keep gving up on books all over the place. Not sure why this is, but its not just affecting reading, also going to the gym, marking school books, crafting and studying have gone down hill.
Despite the slump I'm looking forward to the readathon next week, I'm going to pop to the library tomorrow and pick up my holds and a few grafic novels and picture books so my eyes get a break. As that weekend is the start of the autumn half term I'm going to attempt to stay up all night and cheerlead as well as read. I still haven't thought about what to read, I have tons of books out of the library, bookrings and other stuff I want to read laying around so will just have to see what I fancy on the day. Before then I have to finish Uglies by Scott Westerfeld as its due back to the library Saturday.
Have you ever had a big slump in concentration? How did you get through it?

City of Glass by Paul Auster.
This is the first Paul Auster I have ever read, and I shall certainly be reading some more in the near future. City of Glass is a novella of about 125 pages. The main character Daniel Quinn is a novellist who hides behind his writer's name not even meeting his publishers. One day he recieves a call from a mystery person looking for Paul Auster the detective. At first he passes this off as a wrong number, but when they call again he decides to pretend he is this detective.
Quinn sets off to meet his clients, finding a man in his twenties whose speech and mind are impaired as a result of his father locking him up and never speaking to him for a large portion of his childhood as a scientific experiment. The father is due to be released from prison and Quinn is hired to follow the father and report if he seems that he could become a threat to his son.
Quinn spends months followig this old eccentric man on his walks around New York and becomes more and more embedded in the case, distancing himself from his real life.


I'm off now to mark some coursework, make doughnut muffins to take into work tomorrow and attempt to get some crafting and reading done. Have a good Sunday.

Audiobook: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

A super quick review.
My love of Neil Gaiman just gets deeper and deeper. And this book has made me think perhaps I should take another look at Terry Pratchett.
Good Omens is a novel about the end of the world. A small boy, Adam is born who is prophesied to be the reason for the worlds end. The devils and angels have all been waiting for this point, for this final fatal battle to decide who really is superior while Adam just whistfully wiles away his summer with his friends.
The book is full of comical moments, as well as religious conundrums - just why would God place an apple on a tree and tell everyone not to eat it unless he meant it to be ate etc.
Stephen Briggs reading brings the whole thing to life and a joy to listen to. Read it!

My Thoughts: Creating Chaos by Claire Dowie

As you can probably tell from my lack of posts I've been in a reading funk for a while now, this has been going on since August and doesn't seem to be sorting itself out. I keep browsing the internet, watching DVDs or just going to bed early. Reading and crafting are both not grabbing my attention as easily as they normally do.
This week from last Thurs till this Thursday I'm taking part in a 24 hour reading challenge through Bookcrossing. Unlike the Dewie 24 hour read-a-thon (which I'm planning on doing in Oct.) you have to read for 24 hours over the space of a week(normally an easy challenge for me).So far I've only managed an hour and a half, but I'm going to grab a Chinese soon and sit down to digest The Piano Teacher.

This afternoon I finished Creating Chaos, this is a bookring, which should be finished and sent on in the space of a month, but it has been lurking around the house since August 5th! When it arrived it just didn't look like my type of thing, I guiltily picked this up on Wednesday and read 3 hours worth and spent the evening finshing it off.
The book starts off with a group of mismatched disengaged university students, Jonathan's rich (very rich) father dies leaving him Tadley Hall, a mansion surrounded by acres and acres of land. Jonathan hates how money had affected his parents lives so allows his friends into gradually turning the place into a commune. The gang 'marry' each other in an unofficial ceremony and there lives are intwined in many ways. Sarah, willing to sleep with anyone, ends up marrying a gay man, the only male in the family who can't possibly be the father to her first child Chaos.
The book comes to centre on Ewan and Sarah, there relationship is one of jealousy and spite, she sleeps with everyone whilst loving him. As the commune grows she has more kids and other children and families come to live together.
Life in Tadley Hall isn't ever smooth, yet manages to be successful and nearly crashes when they start producing goods for the outside world.
Chaos grows up with 7 fathers and 4 mothers, he struggles to always understand all that is happening in the house but understands the central politics of the place.
At 15 he finally adventures off of their land and into the real world, not even knowing how to cross the road. Life leads him to form a band, and with his mothers pushiness become the unacting figure-head of an underground anarchist group called Fragspawn.
Writing this down isn't making it sound an attractive read, but it is remarkably good.

My Thoughts: Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde

I've been in a real reading slump since the weekend, I've picked up books but not had the concentration to read more than a few pages at a time. I was about 80 pages into Lost in a Good Book so today I decided I had to make myself read it. I managed it, but did get distracted any numeber of times so it took me longer than it normally would. Hopefully now I'll go back to reading like a normal person!

Lost in a Good Book is the second book in the series, I read The Jane Eyre Affair bout a year ago and loved it, but its taken me ages to get around to this next book. The series is set in a parallel universe to our own. Thursday Next is a literary detective in SpecOps, she previously rescued the story of Jane Eyre from the evil Archon Hayes but in doing so changed the ending (to the one that we have). She also trapped an evil, terrorist inside Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Raven'.
Now that she is back she is something of a celebrity and also the subject of a muderous plot. Thursday had to deal with her new husband being erased from life, her timetravelling father, tv appearances and a series of coincidences which leave her in the path of death. She also learns how to escape into books, discoevers Shakespeare's missing play and has a dodo as a pet.
The books are funny, and far more silly than anything I would normally read, but they do assume that you know something about the major classics as their characters turn up all over the place.
A great read, even if I did struggle.
Challenges:
The Genre Challenge - detective
999 - Fantasy

My Thoughts: The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards

This was one of those must read books of last year which I just never got around to at the time. As I was visiting my Mum over the weekend, I knew I needed something light and easy so I picked up this, not remembering that it would be sad.

The story is about 2 families with a shared secret connection. One family have twins, when the father delivers the baby one of the babies has Downs Syndrome, this is 1964 and he thinks the best thing for her is to go to a home. He sends her off with a nurse, telling his wife, the babies mother that the baby had died. The nurse feels unable to abandon the baby in the home and takes her home raising her as his own.

The lies and secrets go on for years, the marriage has a huge crack in it created by the lost daughter. In the other family their is the struggle for education and for security.

As with all secrets, you spend the whole time waiting for the truth to come out.

This was a good read, and had me weeping all Sunday afternoon.

Also reviewed by:

FRESHINK BOOKS

My Thoughts: The Gathering by Anne Enright

Lots of reviews of this book say it is too depressing, too miserable. This is a book about a suicide, its hardly likely to be full of happiness and joy.

The book is narrated by a middle aged, middle class woman, with a seemingly perfect life - she's at home looking after the kids, whilst her husbands business is going so well she can buy anything she wants. But she isn't happy.

When her brother commits suicide she starts mulling over events in the past, her past and her families past, as well as the present, her lifeless, loveless marriage. Veronica is from a large family, one where the kids all drag up each other. The mother has too many kids to care about each child individually, and she also has some type of problem, so the family is constantly trying to protect her from the live going on around her. Veronica seems to hate, and yet love her mother, and also blames her father for having to grow up in this overly large family.

After her brother's suicide, Veronica explores a past she would have never known, the meeting of her grandparents, and how that meeting led to the event that she says it the root cause of her brother's death.

This novel is firmly based in the thoughts of the narrator, no great event happens, and you guess early on what childhood event will be revealed. I felt I never knew whether to trust this narrator, at some points she even told you that she couldn't clearly remember events. I also didn't really like her, or any of her family, they all seemed fairly self absorbed, no one really seemed to love anyone else, they all just existed side-by-side.

Saying that I thought it was well written, and a good read.

This was the last book I had to read for the 2008 Man Booker Challenge, this year I read:

1. The Gathering (winner)
2. The Famished Road (winner)
3. Sour Sweet (Short listed 1982)
4. Moon Tiger (winner 1986)
5. Mister Pip (Short listed 2007)
6. The Orchard on Fire (Short listed 1996)

By far my favorite was Mr Pip. In the next year I shall be reading all the of the 2008 shortlist, as well as some previous winners and runners up

The Sunday Salon: A Review - Two Tractors by Marina Lewycka

I woke up this morning to yet another cold day, not only cold but a day full of rain and dreary skies, I quickly rolled over wrapped in the duvet and missed the swimming session I was going to do. When I crawled out of bed I allowed myself to read the last 50pages of Two Caravans. Since then I've done a bit of studying, which I'm supposed to be continuing now with research into Polari a gay slang language, but I thought I'd type up this review first. Once thats down I have 30 homework pieces to mark, then I will either start Coraline or The Hours - both need reading this week.

Two Caravans is the second novel by Marina Lewycka, her first A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was a massive hit with most people, but I personally wasn't overly impressed, and certainly not gripped. However, I thought I'd give this next book a go, and I wasn't disappointed.

Two Caravans is about a goup of illegal immigrants trying to survive in England. They are initially brought over to pick strawberries, existing on minimum wage, food not even worthy for a cat and living in two tiny caravand between 9 people the workers are disinterested but stuck in this world of exploitation. The job at the strawberry farm soon disintegrates when the farmer is caught having an affair, and run over by his wife, and the immigrants split up.

From this point onwards there are many strands to the story, but the main one follows Irina and Andriy, both from the Ukraine but seperated by politics and class. As a young and attractive virgin, Irina is seen as a key commodity and is pursued by a man with a desire in proffiting from her body. Andriy is quickly falling from her, and out to protect her every step of the way. They have jobs in restaurants and a chicken farm (it will put you off eating chicken for life), and gradually make their way through London and up north.

I have to say England is portrayed as a pretty nasty place, there are 2 shootings, lots of expoitation and the few English people in the novel and mean and cruel to the outsiders. They also manage to make their money go a lot further than it possibly could.

But, this novel is funny, witty and sharp. Give it to a lot of the narrowminded people who exist and they would take it as gospel, as this England seems to be populated only by immigrants something that the Tabloid press would have us all believing.

Has anyone else read this? How did you think it faired to Tractors...?

Challenges:

Fall into Reading Book 3/24

2nds Challenge Book 2/4

Other Reviews:

Heatseeker

Omnireader

Have you reviewed this book? If so add your link and I'll add you to this list.

My Thoughts: The Stolen Child by Keith Donoghue

The Stolen Child tells the story, in alternate chapters, of two 'boys'; one a changeling who has stolen the other boys life. A group of changelings live in a forest in North East America, they were all once children who were stolen, and now live amongst the forest, scrabbling for food and warmth, whilst waiting their turn in line to become children once again.

In the 1940s they steal Henry Day, a quiet child, who is easy prey as he is feeling left out after the birth of his twin sisters. The changelings study his life and personality until an opportunity arises to steal him away. Once stolen he is wrenched from his body, and the changeling takes his place.

The changeling replacing Henry, was in a previous life an excellent musician, and when he swaps into Henry's life he is unable to hide this great talent and quickly the new Henry's life becomes filled with music lessons and practice, pretty much cutting him off from his contemporaries. This love of music also creates tension in his relationship with his father, who can never quite accept that this boy, who went from being tone deaf to pitch perfect is really his son. As a changeling imitating a child he has to remember to change his body as he grows up, and try to forget the past, something which both he and the real Henry Day struggle to do.

Through the real Henry Day, now named Aniday we see the changelings fight to survive, for food, to avoid detection and the desire to return to their previous life. One of the female changelings takes Aniday into her care, and slips him into the library each night, snuggled up amongst the books they discover friendship as well as reading a vast array of books, reminding them of human life.

Challenges:

Fall into Reading Book 2/24

Other Reviews:

The Octogon

Eclectic Closet

On My Bookshelf

My Thoughts: A Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende

A Portrait is Sepia has made me want to devour the rest of Isabel Allende's work. The novel tells the tale of a young girl's life through to adulthood. Aurora is born an orphan, her father had disowned her whilst she was still in the womb and her mother died within hours of her birth. But Aurora will never be alone, she spends the first five years of her life in the constant care of her grandfather Tao. Not for one second can a girl child be left alone in Chinatown, there is too greater risk of a kidnapping and a life in training as a prostitute. For five years Tao is her world.

When he dies she is taken by her grandmother and left with her paternal grandmother; a woman she has no recollection of meeting, a business woman in a world where women stay at home, a women with a huge ornate golden bed. Aurora's grandmother, Paulina, is one of the richest women in San Francisco, a vast number of business deals have left her with a mansion, a cheating husband and lazy, unloving sons. She is not used to caring for anyone, when suddenly this small and emotionally demading child enters her house, a child wracked with shyness and nightmares.

As time passes Aurora becomes used to her new grandmother, and used to the lavish lifestyle that she grows accustomed too. The family move back to Chile, surrounding Aurora with a whole host of relatives, many of whom are ahead of their times: Nivea, who learnt sexual seduction from novels and uses it to bring her husband from the brink of death, and the politcally led men and women who live within her grandmother's house.

Still suffering with her shyness, Aurora develops a passion for photography, which she uses to see the truth about life, a passion which in later life reveals the reason why her husband is so unloving towards her. When she marries she moves away and starts a new life, yet the marriage is short lived she is soon back in Chile, living the life of a seperated woman, with a secret lover in tow.

Allende fills this novel with strong powerful women, women who defy the demands of society and fulfill their needs and wishes. This maybe a feminist comment yet Allende's women are only capable of loving one person, sometimes to the detriment of their love for their own children. The men on the otherhand vary between the saintly, who worship the women they are with to those less desirable types who are too self absorbed. It was like Allende reversed societies judgements, normally powerful man are praised but powerful women are not trusted, but not in this novel.

A Portrait in Sepia contains characters, and descendents of characters from some of Allende's other novels, as I'm fairly new to Allende I had only read one of these novels, but even if I hadn't read any this would still be a fantastic book, because the history of what has gone before to influence their lives is explained in the novel.

Challenge:
The Olympic Challenge: London 2012

Others responses:

I Me My

If you've reviewed this novel please leave a link in the comments and I'll add it in here.

My Thoughts: Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree by Santa Montefiore

This was one of those bargains in the library sale, that I would never have picked up otherwise. I need to read a few Latin American book for a Bookcrossing book box, and this fit in nicely as a complete contrast to the other books from this area I'm going to read.

A Quick Synopsis: Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree is whopping 550 pages about the love of Sofia Solanas. Sofia starts the novel as a precocious teenager with a crush on her cousin Santi, she is rebellious, demanding and a troublemaker. They embark on an affair, amid the Argentine pampas, which leaves her pregnant and sent away to Europe in disgrace. She spends the next 20 odd years in England with her new family, before having to return to Argentina due to a family tragedy and to discover whether her love still survives.

This was a good read, with much more to it than I've expressed above, lots of family relationships at work and things lurking in the past. It certainly wasn't the best written novel or the most original by any means, but it was a typical summer read.

Challenges:

Unread Authors Book 7 of 6

My Thoughts: Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

'What if God was one of us?' A famous line from a pop song, but it looks like Marie Phillips took this idea that Gods could live among us and transfered if into a funny, light-hearted novel. In Gods Behaving Badly, Greek gods are forced to live in London, in a cumbling terrace house, and forced to have jobs as well as perform their powers to keep Earth working. Aphrodite is a sex line worker, Artemis and dog walker, Appollo a T.V presenter and Dionysis runs a nightclub. The Gods power is fading, they are bored with their lives and live in a continual motion of repeating things they have already done again and again and again.

Then enter into their lives Alice, the timid cleaner and Neil, the equally timid engineer. The pair seem to belong to some quaint English soap opera, they are bright but lack much of a life. But once they have entered the lives of the Gods they are quickly thrown into a variety of strange situations, including death, conversations with Hades and a mass gathering on the streets of London.

The book is funny, very adult, and full of swearing. Its the type of book I can imagine many people won't like, especially really religious people, but its also a fun read.

Challenge:

Unread Authors Challenge 4 of 6

Other Reviews:

Becky's Book Reviews

Raidergirl3

Eclectic Closet

If you have reviewed this please leave a link here and I'll add it into this page.

My Thoughts: Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey

Peter Carey seems to be one of those authors I just never have got into, I read Oscar and Lucinda for a reading group and I thought it was great in parts but struggled to get through it. I have a few of his other novels, and once even started one but then something happened it got put to one side and never went back to. I got Theft: A Love Story as a bookring, and it still took me a few weeks to pick it up.

The book is set in the art world (something I know only a tine little bit about), on of the main characters is an modern artist, Micheal 'Butcher' Boone. Once Australia's top artist, things got a bit shakey with his career and his personal life. He moves to a small town to live with his brother, Hugh 'Slow Bones' Boone. Hugh has emotional and social difficulties, which require him to recieve constant care from his brother.

The novel tells the story of Butcher's struggle to deal with life out of the limelight, estranged from his wife and son and struggling to look after his brother. One flooded evening a gorgeous American turns up, an art dealer and relation of the artist whose work had inspired Butcher as a teenager. This woman turns his life upside down, getting his work presented in Japan and involving him in the murkier side of the arts world.

The novel is constructed through the voices of the brothers, in alternating chapters. Butcher is fully in love with the American, and fails to see and judge the things happening around him. Meanwhile, Hugh, has far more insight into people and the situations around him.

Carey plays with language and creates an individual voice for each of the brothers. Hugh's chapters are littered with words and phrases which are all capilatilised, I'm not sure if it's just my eyes but I find it harder to read capitalised words, especially when they just randomly appear, they slow me down slightly.

Have you reviewed this book? If so leave a link in the comments and I'll add them into the review

My Thoughts: Tomaree by Debbie Robson

I got sent this novel as a bookring, like so many book I seem to be reading at the moment it isn't the type of book I normally read but I thought it was fairly good.
The story is told in a series of flashbacks. Peggy has returned to Australia after her mother's death and the recent breakdown of her marriage. She has gone back for the funeral and to sort out the house she has been left, with the view to possibly living there again, after 30 years living in the U.S. Whilst back at the house she unearths some family secrets, discovering why her mother has always been so distant over the years.
She also recalls her early romance with her estranged husband, this romance is told through flashbacks, there love existing amongst the war and her mother's disapproval. As with all books like this a happy ending is guaranteed.

It wasn't original, I could see the ending coming a mile away, but it was an easy way to pass a grey morning.

Challenge:
July Book Blowout Book 14