Category: Recommended books

The Gargoyle – Andrew Davidson

Post author By Jackie
Post date January 20, 2009
11 Comments on The Gargoyle – Andrew Davidson

I had heard lots of good things about The Gargoyle, and seen it on several people’s “Best of 2008” list, so was expecting great things. Perhaps I built my expectations up too much, as I was slightly disappointed.

The book follows the nameless narrator, as he recovers from severe burns after a car crash. His life is enriched when Marianne Engel, a mysterious sculptress of gargoyles, begins to visit him in the burns unit. Marianne claims to be a 700-year-old Medieval scribe, and she slowly reveals some of the events that she has witnessed over her long life.

I really enjoyed all the modern sections of the book. The thoughts of the burns victim were incredibly vivid, but were described in an almost comic way, so I was not disgusted by them:

Even when the skin did take, the absence of oil glands in the transplanted tissue resulted in extreme dryness. “Ants beneath the skin” is not only too cliched a description of how it felt, but also not graphic enough. Lumberjack termites brandishing little chainsaws, maybe; or a legion of fiddler crabs wearing hairshirts and fiberglass shoes; or a legion of baby rats dragging tiny barbed-wire plows. Tap-dancing, subepidermal cockroaches wearing soccer cleats and cowbuy spurs? Perhaps.

The book was very well researched, and I learnt a lot about the treatment of burns, schizophrenia and Medieval Germany. I also found Marianne’s character very interesting. I loved trying to work out whether or not she was schizophrenic, but I found that many of her tales seemed to drag on a bit. Although I realise their purpose in the story, I think that many of them could have been reduced in length, or removed completely. They interfered with the flow of the book, and made it overly long.

I enjoyed the ending of the book, it brought everything together, and rounded it all off nicely. Andrew Davidson is clearly a very skilled writer, and this is a great debut novel, but I think he tried to fit too many things into this book. I look forward to reading future books by him, as his imagination is wonderful!

Recommended for the vivid descriptions of life as a burns victim, and for re-enforcing the message that a person’s real beauty is underneath the skin, but be aware that fifty percent of the book is fairly average.

Also reviewed by Fresh Ink Books

Tags Richard & Judy

Orange Prize Recommended books Richard and Judy Book Club

We Need to Talk about Kevin – Lionel Shriver

Post author By Jackie
Post date January 14, 2009
24 Comments on We Need to Talk about Kevin – Lionel Shriver

We Need to Talk about Kevin won the Orange Prize for fiction in 2005.

It is an incredibly powerful book in which the narrator, Eva, describes the events in her life leading up to the day her son went on a killing spree at his high school.

The book deals with one of the few remaining taboos in our society: a mother, who doesn’t like her own child. She feels invaded by pregnancy, and before her son is even born she is scared of him:

….any woman who passes a clump of testosterone-drunk punks without picking up the pace, without avoiding eye contact that might connote challenge or invitation, without sighing inwardly with relief by the following block, is a zoological fool. A boy is a dangerous animal.

Once her son, Kevin, is born he is a difficult baby. He cries constantly and Eva becomes more and more alienated by him. He grows into a difficult toddler and Eva slowly loses control of him.

Having done much research on ‘spirited’ children, I did, however, feel that some of Kevin’s behaviour was unrealistic. A single child would not have displayed the strange mixture of reactions that Kevin did.

Eva is also supposed to be a powerful, high flying business woman, who must be of reasonable intelligence, so I find it hard to believe that she would accept things the way they were, and make no attempt to find solutions to her problem. She is rich enough to be able to employ any number of psychologists, or even just read a few books on the subject. I don’t really understand why she failed to do this.

Despite these minor flaws, this book was a great read. It was very thought provoking, and would be perfect for a reading group, as there are so many discussions that arise from it. Are all children sweet, innocent things, or are some born evil?

I couldn’t see how anyone could claim to love children in the generic anymore than any one could credibly claim to love people in a sufficiently sweeping sense as to embrace Pol Pot, Don Rickles, and an upstairs neighbour who does 2,000 jumping jacks at three in the morning.

And how much of a child’s actions can the parent be held accountable for?

When you’re the parent, no matter what the accident, no matter how far away you were at the time and how seemingly powerless to avert it, a child’s misfortune feels like your fault.

This a very important book, especially for new parents. It will remain with me for a long time, and I will be encouraging all my friends to read it – just so I can talk about it!

Highly recommended. Especially for reading groups.

Edit June 2011: Rating increased to after realising this is one of my all-time favourite books.

Mudbound – Hillary Jordan

Post author By Jackie
Post date January 8, 2009
10 Comments on Mudbound – Hillary Jordan

Mudbound won the Bellwether Prize in 2008, for addressing issues of social injustice, and was the first book selected for Richard and Judy’s New Writers Book Club.

Hillary Joran makes writing a novel seem really easy. Everything is written simply, but beautifully. She shows amazing writing skill by taking a relatively simple story, then structuring it in such a way that makes it into a real page turner.

The story begins in the Deep South of America, just after the end of World War II, with a family struggling to bury their father in thick mud, during a storm. The story then progresses through the eyes of several characters, until we finally find the cause of his death. I loved the way that small hints as to what was to come were dropped into each chapter. Seeing everything from each character’s perspective meant that you develop an empathy for them all, and begin to understand the reasons for their actions.

The book is very well researched, with the segragation and racism of post-slavery America coming across very vividly.

My only critism is that the book was a little short for me. I wish that some of the sections, which were skimmed over, could have been filled in. Adding a bit more meat to the bones of this story would have made it into an iconic book, instead of just a great read.

Despite this tiny flaw, it was very well written, and I’m sure that Hillary Jordan will win many more prizes for her writing in future.

Highly recommended.

Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

Post author By Jackie
Post date December 28, 2008
5 Comments on Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

Books Before Blogging Review

I finished reading this book about 8 months ago, and I remember it as an interesting, insightful book about life as a hermaphrodite.

The book spans eight decades, and three generations of a Greek family who migrate to America in the 1920s. The main plot is told by 41-year-old Cal, who was born with an indeterminate gender. Raised as a girl, Cal realises that this was the wrong decision, and reverts to being male at the age of 18.

The first half of this book was pretty average – the relationship between the grandparents didn’t seem very plausible. The second half of the book, however, was one of the best pieces of writing I have ever read. It was touching, clever and I couldn’t put it down. Highly recommended – especially for reading groups.

2000 - 2007 Recommended books Richard and Judy Book Club

A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

Post author By Jackie
Post date December 23, 2008
11 Comments on A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

Books Before Blogging Review

It has been almost a year since I read this moving story about the lives of two women in Afghanistan. I was completely gripped from beginning to end. The two women, Mariam and Laila, were great characters – I was totally drawn into their world. The emotions in this book were very powerful, and as a result this became the most harrowing book I have ever read. I found it much more distressing to read than The Kite Runner, and some of the scenes will stay with me forever.

Highly recommended, but keep a box of tissues handy!

Tags Afghanistan