Category: 2000 – 2007

Categories
2000 - 2007 Recommended books

The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas

‘The End of Mr Y’ is a very hard book to describe. It has all the adventure, intelligence and religious theology of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, mixed with the suspense and spookiness of Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, and the bizarreness of a Haruki Murakami novel. I loved it!

 

It is a real page turner. You are quickly drawn into the world of Ariel, as she finds a copy of a rare, cursed book in a second hand bookshop. Everyone else who has ever read this book has died. Ariel discovers the secret of the cursed book, and sets out on a mission to rescue her University tutor, travelling through the ‘troposphere’ via both time and thoughts.

 

The writing is very vivid. At one point you get a mouse’s perspective of the world, and I think this is one of the best sections of writing I have read this year. I now know exactly what mice are thinking, and have a strange desire to look after them all now!

 

It does get a bit technical in places, and I think that those who do not have a scientific background may struggle to understand some sections. I have a degree in chemistry, but still didn’t manage to follow all the finer details of some of the ‘thought experiments’

 

Overall I found it to be a thought provoking book, with great characters and an intelligent plot.

 

Recommended to anyone who likes a bit of science in their fiction!

 

Categories
2000 - 2007 Booker Prize

Bitter Fruit – Achmat Dangor

‘Bitter Fruit’ is set in post-apartheid South Africa, and explores the harsh realities of a mixed race family living in this transitional period. The central character is Mikey, and the book follows him as he discovers that his mother was raped by a white police officer.

It started off well, and there were many similarities between this book and ‘Purple Hibiscus’, both in writing style and content. Unfortunately, I began to lose interest about half way through the book. The characters failed to come alive for me. The surroundings were only described very briefly, so the sights and sounds of Africa did not come across, as they did in ‘Purple Hibiscus’ or ‘The Famished Road’. I felt like I was being told about these events, rather than feeling as though I was a part of them, as you are with a really good novel.

The reactions the characters had to the difficulties they faced didn’t seem very realistic, and the incest especially, seemed to have been thrown in for shock value, rather than any genuine reason.

Overall it was fairly average, with a reasonable plot, but characters that failed to engage me.

Categories
2000 - 2007 Booker Prize Chunkster

The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood

 

‘The Blind Assassin’ won the Booker prize in 2000. It tells the tale of two sisters and the secrets that lead to one of them committing suicide.

 

This is the first book by Margaret Atwood that I have read. Reviews of her books always seem to be very positive, so I was expecting a good book. Unfortunately I was very disappointed. The plot was predictable and uninspiring. The characters had no special qualities, and came across as boring people. The writing was OK, but not particularly atmospheric. I was expecting much more, from a prize winning book by a critically acclaimed author.

 

 

Many reviews state that this is a hard book to get into, and confusing, as it skips around so much. I didn’t find this to be a problem, as there was a good read before the book skipped time frames (although perhaps I’m just comparing it to ‘Beloved’, which I read recently, and is very complicated) I also found it quite easy to get into. The book flowed along well throughout it’s 600+ pages, but at the end I felt let down. I’ll have forgotten about this book in a few days, as there was nothing special about it.

 

Very average.

 

Also reviewed by Belle of the Books, Care’s Online Book Club