Month: February 2012

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Post author By Jackie
Post date February 6, 2012
3 Comments on The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Five words from the blurb: Alaskan, wilderness, snow, girl, magical

The Snow Child is a magical little book. It manages to balance on the fine line between magical realism and reality, ensuring the reader is kept guessing as to which side of that fence this book lies.

The story is set in the Canadian wilderness, where one couple relocate in an effort to forget the pain of being childless. One day they build a snowman in their garden and are surprised to wake up the next morning to discover that it has gone. They see a girl running through the woods and are sure their snowman has come to life, but is the child real or a figment of their over-active imagination?

Mabel was no longer sure of the child’s age. She seemed both newly born and as old as the mountains, her eyes animated with unspoken thoughts, her face impassive. Here with a child in the trees, all things seemed possible and true.

This book was quick and easy to read, but packed with an oppressive snowy atmosphere. The basic story is heavily influenced by a Russian fairytale and although this book did have a childlike feel it was tinged with the grief of being unable to produce a child. I often have difficulties with adult fairy-tales, but this book was so grounded in reality that I didn’t have this problem.

The characters weren’t that well rounded, but there was something about their simplicity that added to that magical feel. I connected to them straight away and felt their roller-coaster of emotions throughout.

It isn’t a particularly heavy read, but it is an entertaining one. It will make you smile and keep you guessing.

Recommended to anyone looking for a bit of escapism.

The thoughts of other bloggers

It hooked me from page one and did not let me go until I closed the final pages… The Book Whisperer

I wasn’t completely sure what was going on ….. but ultimately the charm and the strengths of this fairytale re-imagined won out over minor confusions and quibbles. Linus’s Blanket

Everything about it felt utterly authentic and completely effortless… Book Monkey

Tags Canada

2011

Do No Harm by Carol Topolski

Post author By Jackie
Post date February 3, 2012
9 Comments on Do No Harm by Carol Topolski

Five words from the blurb: gynaecologist, family, alone, bad, dark

Last year I read Carol Topolski’s debut novel, Monster Love, and was impressed by the powerful insight into the mind of a child abuser. Her second novel, Do No Harm, is much more accomplished in terms of structure, but its subltly means I am less likely to remember it than its deeply flawed predecessor.

Do No Harm centres on Virginia, a highly respected gynaecologist, who has secret violent tendencies. The book does an outstanding job of getting inside the head of an individual who appears perfectly normal on the surface, but is in fact thinking terrible things.

Carol Topolski does an amazing job of creating an entire cast of realistic characters. Even those who only appear for a brief time are fully formed and believable. I know very few writers who are capable of creating such a diverse range characters and I think this can be put down to her career as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. She really understands what makes people tick and it is a joy to be transported into the minds of so many different people.

The book can be quite confusing as it flips forwards and backwards in time. Events are seen through the eyes of numerous different people, including Virginia’s parents, friends and work colleagues, and it sometimes takes a while to work out who is narrating each section. I’m sure this was deliberate and it did lead to some interesting mistakes on my part – I particularly liked the section early in the book where I assumed she was viciously murdering someone, when in fact she was just preparing a roast dinner!

I’d describe this as a compelling character study rather than a crime novel. The truth about Virginia is slowly revealed over the course of the book, but as so many little hints are left along the way it was never surprising to learn them.

I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in the mindset of those who commit crimes and I look forward to following the rest of Carol Topolski’s writing career.

Other

December and January Summary + Plans for February

Post author By Jackie
Post date February 1, 2012
31 Comments on December and January Summary + Plans for February

I had a lovely break from blogging over the Christmas/New Year holiday and so am including my December reading in this post. My blogging break means that I read far more books in December than I reviewed. This has enabled me to get a bit ahead of myself and I’m loving the extra buffer this has given me. It means that I’ve been able to read some books that aren’t published for months and indulge in chunksters without impacting the number of posts I can write.

For some reason I lost my harsh abandonment policy at the beginning of December and let several disappointing reads creep into the schedule. I’m having a big crackdown at the moment and I’m pleased to say that my January reading has been outstanding. I read three 4.5 star books and one 5 star one (review for The Death of Grass coming shortly). I just hope I can keep this up!