Category: Genre

Categories
2000 - 2007 Science Fiction YA

Uglies – Scott Westerfeld

I have a love-hate relationship with YA novels, so approached this one with extreme caution. I was prepared for a thought provoking plot, but I was pleased to discover that it was also a gripping, page turner that I’d happily recommend to everyone.

The book is set approximately 300 years in the future, in a world where everyone is ugly until their 16th birthday when they are transformed in adults of uniform beauty. The central character, Tally, is fast approaching her 16th birthday and is preparing to be re-united with her childhood friend, Peris, who has already undergone the operation. Everything changes when Tally meets Shay, a fellow Ugly, who wants to avoid the change, but Shay runs away, leaving Tally to make some difficult decisions….

The book started off quite slowly and after the first few chapters I was beginning to wonder why so many people rave about this book, but then I slowly became immersed in the story and it wasn’t long before I couldn’t put it down. I love dystopian fiction and this world came across very realistically. The book mocked our society in which tall people have an advantage at job interviews, or fights break out over the colour of someone’s skin and their observations of skinny models on our magazine covers were fantastic! I can easily imagine someone deciding to give us all a uniformly pretty appearance in a few hundred years time and it was these thought provoking issues that made the book special for me.

I loved all the characters in the book, the plot was fast-paced without losing any atmosphere and I thought that the twists were great and often unexpected.

This is what YA writing should be like – a fantastic, light read which can be appreciated by all age groups. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Recommended.

 stars4

Have you read Uglies?

Will I enjoy the rest of the series?

Categories
1990s Books in Translation Chunkster

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami

Translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin

I have enjoyed many Murakami books in the past, but for some reason I’d avoiding reading this, often described as his most famous book. I felt as though I was saving it as a special treat and built up my expectations accordingly. Unfortunately it was nothing like I expected it to be, and in the end I was quite disappointed by it.

The first half of the book was fantastic. I think the word ‘mesmorised’ is the only way I can describe it. I was glued to every word, unable to read quickly, savouring the simple story of a man struggling to find satisfaction in his life. The central character, Toru, has quit his job and so is spending much of his time alone. He starts to receive strange phone calls, his cat disappears and he is then visited by a series of fabulous characters. The stories told by each of these visitors were fantastic. I was particularly gripped by the story of the soldier and his journey into enemy territory. The story of his capture and torture was a bit gruesome in places, but it was so powerful that I think I’ll always remember it.

In the second half of the book it started to go weird, but (and this might sound strange) it wasn’t weird enough for me. It was teetering on the fine line between reality and the bizarre, but didn’t cross it. I felt that the surreal twist in the story was unnecessary and that the book would have benefited from being grounded in reality. The perfectly constructed stories of the first half were ruined by the ambiguous and unrealistic occurrences at the end. The characters introduced later in the book (Cinnamon, Nutmeg etc) failed to engage me and I don’t think I really understood their presence in the novel.

The ending was even more disappointing. The book just seemed to peter out, leaving almost all the ends untied. I was left feeling frustrated and confused, with more questions than answers. The last third of the book really dragged as there was no forward momentum and I felt as though I was wading through random, meaningless paragraphs.

Overall I’m afraid that there were too many negatives for me to be able to recommend this book. If you’re after a fantastic Murakami then I suggest you try Kafka on the Shore.

stars3h

Did you enjoy The Wind-up Bird Chronicle?

What did you think of the ending?

Have you thought about sitting in the bottom of a well?!

Why did Murakami write this book? Can you see a point to it?

Categories
2010 Booker Prize Books in Translation

The Boat to Redemption – Su Tong

 Winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize 2009

Translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt

The Boat to Redemption focuses on the boat people of a Chinese River. The central character is Dongliang, who was once the revered grandson of a revolutionary martyr, but when his ancestry is questioned his life quickly deteriorates.

The main theme of the book is the relationship between Dongliang and his father. It is essentially a coming of age story showing how hard it is to adjust to adulthood, but although it is a very Chinese novel, similar in style to Brothers, the themes of love, heartache and fear are universal.

The book was interesting at the beginning, but the pace was quite slow. It picked up at is progressed and by the half way stage I was captivated – the characters were fascinating and so different from those in Western novels as their superstitions and respect for authority add a different dimension to their problems.

I don’t have a big knowledge of Chinese culture and so I felt that some things went over my head – there were several points where there appeared to be a wise saying, but it didn’t translate well into English. This wasn’t because of a translation problem (I think Howard Goldblatt did a great job) but because there wasn’t an equivalent phrase in English.

‘If your mother finds you, then you’ll be a drowned ghost too, with moss growing all over your body.’

As with many other Chinese novels there was an obsession with genitalia in this book. I found that some of the scenes put me off my food for a few hours, but there was no explicit sex or extreme violence, so most people will cringe rather than be offended.

I’m sure that this book would be even more impressive if read in the Chinese, but even with a limited knowledge of the culture there is still a lot to enjoy.

Recommended to fans of Chinese literature.

stars41

Categories
2000 - 2007 YA

Twilight – Stephenie Meyer (Book and Film)

I had been wanting to read Twilight for a long time, as I hate not knowing what everyone else is talking about. I suspected that I wouldn’t enjoy it, but tried to approach it with a fairly open mind.

Unfortunately I quickly realised that it wasn’t for me – the writing style grated, the characters lacked depth and there was no atmosphere. After trudging through 50 pages of this drivel I gave up and decided to watch the film.

I immediately liked watching it a lot more – the characters, who had been so dull on paper came to life! The film was beautifully shot and was packed with colour, action and even emotion at times. After 20 minutes I paused the film and picked the book up again, wondering if I’d been wrong about it, but after struggling through another ten pages I realised that my initial reaction was still holding up. The dialogue was so cheesy and as the book consists of almost nothing but talking it was impossible to avoid!

I finished the rest of the film and found that I really enjoyed it. I’m not normally a fan of vampire films, but I found that Twilight was different to many of the others due to the lack of excessive violence. The plot concentrated more on the love story than the vampires chasing each other round and killing one another. I even found the love story almost believable on screen – there were several touching scenes.

Once I had  finished watching the film I skim read the rest of the book, reading only the important scenes. I noticed a few differences between the two, but generally the film seemed to follow the book very closely. I’m afraid that the writing quality remained quite low for the rest of the book and I was never tempted to finish it properly. I’m sure that I would have loved Twilight when I was 14, but as an adult I was thoroughly bored with it.

I won’t be reading any more of the books, but will ensure I watch the DVDs as they are released.

Book: stars1 (DNF)

DVD:  stars41

Did you enjoy Twilight?

Did you prefer the book or the film?

Categories
2009 2010 Science Fiction Uncategorized

The Infinities – John Banville

The Infinities is one of those rare books that I enjoyed despite the lack of any real plot.  It is a gentle, reflective book observing a household for one day, as the father lies dying in his bed. You’ve probably read lots of books that sound similar to that, but what makes this one special is that it is narrated by a playful God.

But what attention we lavished on the making of this poor place! The lengths we went to, the pains we took, that it should be plausible in every detail – planting in the rocks the fossils of outlandish creatures that never existed, distributing fake dark matter throughout the universe, even setting up in the cosmos the faintest of faint hums to mimic the reverberations of the initiating shot that is supposed to have set the whole shooting-match going.

This book questions many of our beliefs, so probably isn’t for those with a strong religious background, but anyone who is tolerant of religious satire will find a lot to enjoy. The above quote is a good example of the gentle humour in the book, so if you were offended by that, avoid it.

Nothing can be taken at face value in this book. At first it seems like a typical household, but it is soon revealed that it isn’t in our world, but in a similar, parallel universe in which there are subtle differences:

….the greater part of the world’s energy nowadays is converted from brine.

It is easy to miss these little oddities and I often found myself re-reading to check that I had read it correctly. There were several things that didn’t quite ring true, but I wasn’t entirely sure. I’m not going to admit what I looked up on wikipedia, but it is a very clever book that makes you question things you know to be true – so much that you are forced to look them up.

The main thing that let this book down was the lack of plot, but I also felt that many of the characters were not developed properly – they were more like objects in a bizarre world; there to serve a purpose in the weird narrative, rather than people to love and bond with. These were minor issues though, and I feel this is a much more accomplished work than The Sea (which won the Booker prize in 2005).

Recommended.

stars41

 

Have you read any of John Banville’s books?

Which is your favourite?

Categories
2009 Recommended books Science Fiction

Generation A – Douglas Coupland

I knew that Steph loved Generation A, but I was completely unprepared for how much I’d enjoy it. I’ve had to prioritise this review so that it can appear on my best reads of 2009 list tomorrow – it is going to come surprisingly near the top!

Generation A is set in the near future, when bees have become extinct. People fondly remember honey, flowers and how much more beautiful the planet was back then, so everyone is surprised when five people across the globe are suddenly stung by bees. The victims are whisked away, quarantined and interrogated to try to determine why they have been stung. The answers are cleverer and more shockingly possible than I could ever imagine. This book shares a scary glimpse of the future which is closer to the truth than we dare to admit.

Douglas Coupland has achieved something which no author has managed before – to engage me in short stories. I have always found them disappointing in the past, but this book contained a series of short stories in the final chapters and each of them had me captivated. I have always heard that writing a good short story is the sign of a talented author, and this book has me convinced that this is true. Each one was impressive in its own right and some were so good that I made family members read them too. My favourite was the one in which beings from another planet eat humans:

One day the lieutenant made the observation that human beings who read large numbers of books tended to taste better than humans who didn’t. This intrigued the commander: “I’m listening, Lieutenant.” “Sir, when the humans read books, it gives them a sense of individuality, a sense of being unique – a sense that something about their existence is special or, as they like to say, ‘magical.’ Reading seems to generate microproteins in their bloodstreams, and those eons give them that extra juicy flavour.”

I was totally gripped by this book, unable to put it down once the setting had been established. The writing was impressive, managing to make me laugh out loud as often as I found myself thinking deeply about our society.

Highly recommended.

stars51

 

This is the first Douglas Coupland book that I’ve read, but I am going to ensure I get hold of some more of his books soon.

Have you read any of his books?

Which one is your favourite?