Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron

This book first came to my attention when it won the 2010 Bellweather Prize for addressing issues of social injustice. The book is set in Rwanda and follows the lives of one family as tension in the country builds in the run up to the genocide of 1994.

The book was very easy to read. The story flowed quickly, but I failed to engage with it. I can’t quite put my finger on what was wrong, but several factors combined to produce an unconvincing read.

• The book was packed with African details, but they didn’t gel to form an African atmosphere.
• The characters acted in a Western manner and I became increasingly annoyed by the light treatment of the violence.
• I felt as though everything had been toned down for a younger audience instead of revealing the true horrors of the genocide.

I abandoned the book after 100 pages, but skim read to the end. This book is a good way to introduce Rwandan history to a younger audience, but it was too gentle for me.

DNF

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

This book has been receiving rave reviews and has recently been shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott prize, but I’m afraid it didn’t live up to the hype for me. It is a simple story about one man who decides to walk across England to visit an old friend who is dying from cancer.

It was engaging and I zipped through it in a couple of sittings, but I found it overly sentimental. I’m not a fan of charming books and this oozed charm. I know that lots of people will love the readability and the many emotional topics raised along the way, but I found it all a bit contrived.

Recommended to anyone looking for a light, charming read.

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Translated from the German by Katharina Bielenberg and Jamie Bulloch

Love Virtually by Daniel Glattauer

I love the German sense of humor and picked this one up in the hope of some light relief from the darker books I’ve been reading recently. It did provide me with a few laughs, but overall this was just an averagely entertaining read.

The entire book is written as a series of emails between two people who have never met, but form a relationship online. It was fast paced and engaged me throughout, but lacked that magical spark I was looking for.

If you enjoy modern romance novels then this will provide you with a few enjoyable hours, but I recommend you try Bad Karma first. 

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Have you read any of these books?

Did you enjoy them more than I did?

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

Five words from the blurb: autistic, violence, tragic, religion, family

A Land More Kind Than Home is set in North Carolina and follows the family of Christopher, an autistic boy who is murdered during a church service. The book is based on real events and reveals the shocking way in which some people use religion to justify their horrific actions.

“Then you should know Matthew 9:33.” he said. “If you know your Bible, then you should know it says that ‘when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke.’ And I reckon you should probably know Matthew 17 too, about the man who brought his son to Jesus because he was sick with a disease brought on by a demon and the disciples didn’t have the faith enough to heal him.”
“I know both of them stories,” I said. “I’ve read them both many, many times.”
“They ain’t no stories,” he said. “You can believe me when I tell you that.” This book was captivating throughout.

The pace was perfect and it was packed with atmosphere, allowing the reader to become immersed in southern American life.

The characters were well drawn and I felt a deep empathy for the entire family. My only criticism is that the book focused on the grieving family. Their reaction to the murder of Christopher was sensitively portrayed and moving, but I longed to hear from the other members of the congregation. I wanted to know how they felt about the murder of a child and why they allowed it to happen in front of their eyes. Hearing things from the point-of-view of the murderer would also have added another dimension to the story.

The story was engaging, but its simplicity meant that I ended the book feeling a little disappointed. I’m afraid I like my books to be a little more complex.

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Signs of Life by Anna Raverat

Five words from the blurb: affair, memory, incomplete, control, truth

Signs of Life is narrated by Rachel. Ten years ago she had an affair that went terribly wrong. The book reveals what happened all those years ago in a narrative so gripping it was impossible to put down.

The plot was fast paced, with hints as to what happened sprinkled through the text. The narrative jumped forwards and backwards in time, but the story was easy to follow and although it was sometimes deliberately misleading, I was never confused as to what was happening.

The writing was simple and direct, but there were a few deeper thoughts to keep literary fiction fans happy.

“I don’t know where the line is between passion and obsession but I think obsession is passion that gets stuck.
Perhaps boundaries are like horizons; not fixed, they move as you move, like the end of the rainbow. It’s like trying to see when water turns to steam – you can never find that precise moment.

Unfortunately everything went downhill at the end. The build-up was fantastic, but the final few pages left me asking “Is that it?” I was expecting something something much more complex/clever.

If you loved Before I Go to Sleep then I suspect you’ll enjoy this, but I’m afraid I was a little disappointed.

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