Nickelini's Orange Reading

ConversazioniOrange January/July

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Nickelini's Orange Reading

1Nickelini
Modificato: Mar 27, 2023, 10:54 pm

It feels rather silly to start a new thread here just because it's a new year, so I'm leaving the date off this time. Here was last year's thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/128445

Updated TBR Orange list (January 2022):

The Blue Flower (1996)
The Enchantment of Lily Dahl (1997)
The Giant O'Brien (1999)
Amy and Isabelle (2000)
White Teeth (2000)
Ahab's Wife (2001)
Fingersmith (2002) (April 2014)
The Siege (2002)
Brick Lane (2004)
The Falls (2005)
Old Filth (2005)
Beyond Black (2006) (July/August 2015)
Night Watch (2006)
Frangipani (2006) (April 2014)
Clothes on Their Backs (2008)
The Outcast (2008)
The Room of Lost Things (2008)
Home (2009) - winner
The Lost Dog (2009)
Love Marriage (2009)
Wolf Hall (2010)
The Little Stranger (2010) (February 2018)
Jamrach's Menagerie (2011)
A Visit from the Goon Squad (2011)
There But For The (2012)

Bring up the Bodies (2013)
Life After Life (2013) (May 2014)
NW (2013) (July 2016)
Reasons She Goes to the Woods (2014) (March 2017)
MaddAddam (2014)
The Table of Less Valued Knights (2015)
Outline (2015) (June 2017)
Station Eleven (2015)
Glorious Heresies (2016) - winner
Gorsky (2016) (April 2018)
At Hawthorne Time (2016) (June 2018)

Gustav Sonata(2017) (January 2022)
Essex Serpent (2017) (January 2021)
Lonely Hearts Hotel (2017)
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (2018) (October 2019)
Ghost wall (2019) (October 2020)
My Sister the Serial Killer (2019) (August 2020)
Hamnet (2020)
Summer (2021) (August 2022)
Consent (2021)
Piranesi (2021) (December 2022)
Unsettled Ground (2021) (October 2021)
The Vanishing Half (2021) (March 2021)
Sorrow and Bliss (2022)

2Nickelini
Modificato: Mar 24, 2017, 12:55 am

nothing to see here, folks . . .

3Yells
Gen 3, 2013, 12:31 pm

I am just about finished Purple Hibiscus and it's really good.

4Nickelini
Gen 3, 2013, 1:15 pm

#3 - Have you read Half a Yellow Sun? Most people loved that book and I thought it was only okay, so I'm not in a hurry to pick up anything else by her. Yet, I own Purple Hibiscus, so I plan to get to it one day.

5raidergirl3
Gen 3, 2013, 2:19 pm

I thought Half a Yellow Sun was much better than Purple Hibiscus. So maybe you'll prefer Purple Hibiscus?

6Yells
Gen 3, 2013, 9:57 pm

I've now read both and prefer Purple Hibiscus. It reminds me a lot of Poisonwood Bible.

7vancouverdeb
Gen 3, 2013, 10:36 pm

I read Half a Yellow Sun and then read Purple Hibiscus right after it. Personally I preferred Purple Hibiscus, but on the other hand, I felt I learned more about Nigeria vai Half a Yellow Sun . I kind of though HaYS was a tad too long than was needed.

Great graphic, Joyce!

8rainpebble
Gen 5, 2013, 7:07 pm

Though I read both 'Sun' & 'Hibiscus', the latter came closer to my heart even though I loved them both. You have a very interesting list and I will be curious to see what you have to say about your reads.
Regarding Tremain ie The Colour, I had the same issue as you but with The Road Home. However I will keep attempting it until I have read it. I think it is just where my head is when I try to read it. IDK.
Good reads Joyce.

9Nickelini
Gen 5, 2013, 8:46 pm

#8 - It's definitely working for me this time. In the past, I haven't been able to get past the first paragraph, but now I'm on p 159. I think the writing is lovely and the story is interesting.

10rainpebble
Modificato: Gen 6, 2013, 12:12 am

Oh good on you Joyce. That means there is hope for me. Glad you are enjoying it. I am reading Tides of War and it is slow going for me thus far. I have to keep going back pages to figure out who 'this' character is and what their life is about. Hope I get it soon and it begins to smooth out for me.

11Nickelini
Modificato: Gen 8, 2013, 12:51 pm

The Colour, Rose Tremain, 2003


Oh, groan. Another headless woman in historical dress. Must be some tepid historical fiction that's making the book club rounds. Well, . . . no. This cover undersells the book. And it did have a really lovely indigo blue spine.

Comments: In the mid-1860s, Joseph Blackstone arrives in New Zealand from England with his recently widowed mother and his new bride, Harriet. They earnestly begin to homestead on the harsh South Island, but after Joseph discovers a small quantity of gold in his creek, he trades in his dream of a simple farm for the grander dream of gold wealth. As we see gold fever changing his behavior, Joseph's past (despicable) behaviour is also revealed. The parallel story is Harriet’s rise to the challenges of finding herself on the other side of the world with a worthless husband and few resources. After twelve years as a governess raising other people’s children in smothering drawing rooms, Harriet looks at her new life in New Zealand as one great adventure.

There is more going on her than you find in a typical historical novel, which is why it was nominated for the Orange prize and also included in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I really enjoyed Tremain’s writing style, and will definitely look for more of her novels. I’ve never read anything about the colonial period in New Zealand, so I enjoyed exploring a new time and place. I also liked how she wove together threads about the Maoris and both English and Chinese immigrants.

Why I Read This Now: It’s Orange January, and this is the oldest Orange book on my TBR pile. It’s the third time I’ve tried this novel—twice before I couldn’t get past the first paragraph. But this time I was hooked right away.

Recommended for: readers who like their historical fiction on the more literary side, readers who are interested in the time period or NZ setting.

Rating 4 stars.

12rainpebble
Gen 18, 2013, 2:29 am

Wow Joyce. I am glad to hear that someone else has trouble getting into a Tremain book. I have tried twice to read her The Road Home
and have had to set it aside each time. But I am going to try again this year. Nice to know that after two failed attempts, you were taken enough to give it 4 stars. I hope I do as well with 'Road'.
Nice review.

13souloftherose
Gen 20, 2013, 11:50 am

#11 "Oh, groan. Another headless woman in historical dress. Must be some tepid historical fiction that's making the book club rounds. Well, . . . no. This cover undersells the book. And it did have a really lovely indigo blue spine." *Giggles* I still haven't read anything by Rose Tremain but I have a copy of The Road Home which I'm hoping to read this year.

14Nickelini
Gen 20, 2013, 1:25 pm

Since reading The Colour, I have become interested in The Road Home so expect that one day I will eventually read it. I own her novel Restoration, which I will read first. It's not an Orange book, but was nominated for the Booker so I'm sure it will be good.

15rainpebble
Modificato: Gen 20, 2013, 2:57 pm

Joyce, perhaps that is my problem. I do have The Colour, Music & Silence and Restoration on my shelves but Tremain's only book that I have attempted is The Road Home (twice). Perhaps I should read the others first.

Touchstones WILL continue to go back to the incorrect Music & Silence each time I attempt to correct it. Grrrr!~!

16cushlareads
Gen 21, 2013, 12:58 pm

I *still* haven't read any of Rose Tremain's novels. It it sounds like I should be looking for tbis one. I've read very few books set in colonial NZ - can only think of As the Earth Turns Silver by Alison Wong, which I quite liked.

17gennyt
Gen 21, 2013, 6:10 pm

I have loved every Tremain that I've read: Music and Silence, The Colour and The Road Home so far. All very different. Time I read another...

18Nickelini
Modificato: Gen 25, 2013, 10:59 am

I have time to squeeze in one more this month, I think. It will be In the Forest, by Edna O'Brien. Although I own several of her books, I've never read her work.

19Nickelini
Modificato: Gen 30, 2013, 12:28 pm

In the Forest, Edna O’Brien, 2002



I like this cover—the brooding dark green, the sweeping typeface—and the figure: why is she lying there? Is she enchanted? Sleeping? Dead? It makes me want to read the book and find out what happened to her In the Forest.

Comments: In Ireland, Michen O’Kane suffers through a sad childhood of abuse. Returning to County Clare on the west coast after a stint in prison, he is now a psychopath, and begins to menace and terrorize the residents of the area. Even the police are afraid of him. He stalks Ely, a young free spirited mother of four-year-old Maddie, who have taken up residence in a ramshackle remote cottage. When they go missing, Ely’s friends immediately suspect O’Kane (aka “the Kinderschreck,” or “children scarer”) but the authorities are slow to react.

The story is told through the eyes of many characters who witnessed the events. This is the books strength, but also its weakness, as in the beginning it was difficult to figure out what is happening and how it relates to the story. For example, when Ely and Maddie are introduced, I have no idea what gender Ely is, and that Maddie is her son. But after a while everything clicked and then the technique worked well. (I wish authors would do a better job of giving readers some markers, and not be so damn cryptically clever.). Apart from that criticism though, I enjoyed this novel. O’Brien doesn’t spend much time with flowery descriptions or melodrama—for such a dark, creepy story, it’s rather understated.

In the Forest is based on a similar story that actually happened in Ireland in the 1990s, and apparently many in the country were outraged by this novel, as they saw this ex-pat writer as simply cashing in on their local tragedy.The Guardian calls In the Forest one of those “state of the nation” books, and so this book is not just a retelling of horrific murders, but a story about modern Irish society as well. I’m sure that made some people there uncomfortable.

Why I Read This Now: it was my second Orange January read, and the book was also on the 2006 Must Read.... list. And lately I’ve been interested in reading about forests. And lastly, I’m trying to read more Irish literature.

Rating: 4 stars

Recommended for: not sure—I liked it, and it garnered some good reviews, so if it sounds interesting, give it a try.

County Clare looks so bucolic and idyllic--surely nothing bad has happened there? (wrong)


20rainpebble
Feb 1, 2013, 2:59 pm

Sounds dark, but also sounds like my kind of book Joyce. I will be looking for this one.
Congrats on a very successful Orange January. Well done, good job. See you for Orange July if not before. :-)

21Nickelini
Giu 11, 2013, 1:36 pm

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, Maria Semple, 2012


An energetic and fun cover that suits the book perfectly. I wonder if it leads the potential reader to think this is chicklit though, which would be too bad because I don't think this book is really chicklit.

Comments This is an interesting twist on the epistolary novel, because to tell this story, in addition to letters and e-mails, Semple also uses FBI documents, police reports, school mailings, TED talk transcripts, psychiatric reports, and so on. The story is compiled by Bee, the likeable young teenage daughter of unusual parents. Her father is a Microsoft genius, and her mother--Bernadette--is a former architecture star who has struggled with her unfulfilled life since the family moved to Seattle many years earlier. The first half of the novel is packed with Bernadette's humorous observations about life in Seattle. The second half of the book involves a trip to Antarctica that made me add another place to my "must see" list.

Why I Read This Now: Two reasons. First, my book club voted on this novel last September (before it was nominated for the Orange Prize) and decided to read it this June because it looked light and fun, and most of us are crazy-busy in June. It was a good choice in that regard.

Second, well, since I had to read it this month anyway, there was no better time than this past weekend, which I spent in Seattle. I like to read books set in places I'm visiting, and this one was perfect. For example, it was fun to read about a restaurant and then drive past it an hour later. And Bernadette spent a lot of time complaining about the traffic and five-way intersections--Seattle traffic is a bear! It was like I was living in the book.

Recommended for: This is a very readable, fun book. Lots of great reviews and reader comments. Personally, I didn't find it laugh out loud funny as many did, but it was highly amusing. Give it a try.

Rating: I think it's a 4 star book, although reading it while in Seattle definitely pushes it toward 4.5 for me.

Half-way though I realized it just had to be written to be filmed--considering the author had a career writing for television and its snappy pacing. I see it's in development. Should be a good movie, and I'm trying to think about the casting. Right from beginning, I had an actress pegged for Bernadette's nemisis-neighbour, Audrey: Missi Pyle (Mrs Beauregarde from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, along with many other roles)


I think she's the perfect Audrey. Not sure who I'd cast for the other parts. Playing casting director for books I've read is a fun game. So, for you who have read Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, what do you think?

22rainpebble
Giu 29, 2013, 1:52 pm

Bad me! I've yet to review this one but I enjoyed the read. I definitely didn't find it prize worthy but for a get-out-of-the-moment and into a good book, it fit that bill. I liked it. Think I rated it 3 1/2* which isn't too shabby.

By the way, just wondering what you are planning to read in Orange July? It's almost upon us.

23Nickelini
Giu 29, 2013, 8:56 pm

I haven't decided yet--although I'm currently reading The Inheritance of Loss and probably won't finish it before July, so that one for sure.

Otherwise, I still don't know where we're going on holidays in July (!), so the books I pick will depend on that. We're leaning toward Cuba, but I don't have any Cuban Orange books, so who knows.

24rainpebble
Lug 2, 2013, 6:06 pm

One is good Joyce. And enjoy your holiday. Would love to go to Cuba one day. That's exciting stuff.
Cheers,

25Nickelini
Lug 3, 2013, 2:32 am

Finally booked out summer vacation, and it's not Cuba after all. Because we'll be away over my 50th b-day, I got first choice as long as I could stretch things to fit our budget, and so we're going to London for two weeks at the end of July and the beginning of August. Two years ago I spent my birthday in San Fransisco and last year it was New York, so I had to better that for my 50th!

No problems finding books on my shelves set in London!

26raidergirl3
Lug 3, 2013, 9:20 am

What a wonderful vacation! Two weeks in London? Can I tuck in your suitcase?

27rainpebble
Lug 4, 2013, 8:23 pm

If raider gets to go I do too !~! ;-)
You are going to have such an awesome birthday. I am a bit green here. lol!~!

28Nickelini
Lug 4, 2013, 9:08 pm

The trick is to have your birthday in the middle of summer, and also to have it happen when your husband needs to take holidays! Last year my birthday dinner was at the Boathouse in Central Park, NYC, and the year before that it was in San Fransisco. Sounds like I have a glamorous life, huh! Yeah, the other 50 weeks of the year I'm driving a 12 year old car around in the rain doing errands. But yes, I'm still sort of stunned that it's happening (and even more stunned that I'm getting my husband to Europe without going to Italy, where he has close family and friends. That was a feat, let me tell you.)

29rainpebble
Lug 10, 2013, 9:58 am

I can well imagine the difficulty of keeping him out of Italy while across the pond. And yes, your life sounds lovely. I'm sure the both of you will enjoy this trip tremendously. Don't forget to write. lol!~!

30Nickelini
Modificato: Lug 10, 2013, 2:09 pm

The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai, 2006


What a terrible cover! I asked my husband what he thought the book was about based on it, and he said "sex," to which I said, "not three people in northern India trying to survive the Nepalese insurgency while a fourth character is struggling to get a foothold in NYC?" There's a faint little Mendhi sort of design at the bottom, but otherwise there is nothing remotely Indian about this. Probably the worst cover I've come across this year.

Comments: It is 1986 and in the foothills of the Himalayas lives a retired Judge, his granddaughter, and his cook. The cook's only son is trying to scratch out a better life in NYC. They get caught up in the unrest as the Nepalese in the area attempt to break away from India.

Desai's writing is absolutely gorgeous. She crafts her story in vignettes, and I found each of these interesting, although together they added up to a somewhat plotless novel. As with every story of India, there is disturbing unfairness and sad events; however, The Inheritance of Loss was not as distressing as some other Indian books I've read. She paints a rather enchanting picture of this corner of the country--full of exotic butterflies, colourful flowers, and oriental spices. Overall I found this a romanticized view of India.



Recommended for: readers who like books set in India have to read this one for sure.

Rating: No doubt this is a quality novel, so I'm giving it 4 stars. I have to admit though that I was never really in the mood to read it and had to make myself pick it up--this, however, is because my mind is elsewhere, and not a fault of the book itself.

Why I Read This Now: It won the Booker, was nominated for the Orange, is on the 1001 Books list, and was loaned to me in 2010.

31Nickelini
Modificato: Dic 30, 2013, 12:43 pm

32raidergirl3
Lug 12, 2013, 2:22 pm

What a great pile of books!
My favorites were Case Histories and The Light Between the Oceans, but I haven't read a lot of them.

33Nickelini
Lug 12, 2013, 2:48 pm

I'm thinking of Case Histories, and might suggest Light Between Oceans when my bookclub picks books in September.

34raidergirl3
Lug 12, 2013, 3:21 pm

I think a book club would enjoy The Light Between the Oceans - lots of decisions are made, lots of moral questions. As well, it's very emotional and readable, neat historical look at early 1900s Australia.

35Nickelini
Lug 12, 2013, 11:48 pm

thanks- I'll say that when I suggest it.

36rainpebble
Lug 16, 2013, 10:43 am

Great list Joyce. I should update my own Orange TBRs as well. I have read 7 off yours. My faves were The Light Between Oceans, The Little Stranger & The Siege. I enjoyed Dunmore's The Betrayal (not an Orange) & A Spell of Winter even more. In fact I think that A Spell of Winter is probably my favorite Orange of all those that I have read.
I must say that I agree with raider that The Light Between Oceans would give your book club a lot of topics for lively discussion.
And I've not yet read the Jackson Brodie series but I love Kate Atkinson and am going to attempt to get to them this Winter.
Enjoy your next one. :-)

37Nickelini
Ago 15, 2013, 5:38 pm

Case Histories, Kate Atkinson, 2004


Cover comments: Boring! My book also has six pages of reviewer blurbs on the inside and back covers and no description of the novel--hype and no substance (for any publishers out there, those blurbs make my eyes glaze over and do not convince me to read any book).

Rating: 4 stars for the book + .5 star for extra enjoyment factor = four and a half stars

Comments: The book opens with three detailed and unrelated stories: two crimes that have gone cold (a missing 3 year old child and a the slaying of a young woman by a stranger) and a seemingly straightforward murder. These make up the "Case Histories" along with some later introduced crimes. The link between them becomes the ex-cop PI Jackson Brodie.

Case Histories grabbed me right from the first page, and I flew through it in a little over a day. I loved the different stories, and Atkinson's great skill at showing the humanity, tragedy, and comedy of her characters. I also loved how she captured bits of culture in her story telling. But her strong point is definitely in creating interesting, unique characters. I especially appreciated her courage to depict several unhappy mothers--my heart especially ached for Rosemary (the mother of the Land girls). No homage to the cult of motherhood here, thank you very much.

Case Histories is a popular novel here at LT; however, it has also earned a number of negative 2-star reviews. Most of the readers who don't like it point out three different things. First, it's billed as a mystery but doesn't follow the traditional structure of a mystery story (there's not that much detective work for the reader to do), second, it's too disjointed, and three, the characters are unlikeable or uninteresting. These to me were all strong areas of the novel--not much of a mystery reader myself, and I loved the disjointed structure, and I thought the characters were fascinating--warts and all. Some readers complained that the ending was too coincidental, but I see Atkinson creating a story here--not trying to recreate life. In the end I thought this was a smart, terrific read.


My daughter shot this yesterday when I couldn't put Case Histories down but also had to go water my dry garden.

Recommended for: unless you are a traditionalist when it comes to mystery stories, or you're someone who doesn't like multiple storylines and nonlinear stories, I think you should give this a try.

Why I Read This Now: It had been in my TBR pile since 2008.

38Nickelini
Dic 30, 2013, 12:43 pm

The Light Between the Oceans, ML Stedman, 2012


Nice cover. Who doesn't like lighthouses? And the dark blue sky with stars is lovely.

Comments: Tom returns to southwestern Australia after WWI, takes a job as a lighthouse keeper on a remote island, and even finds a wife (Isabel). After distressing miscarriages and a still birth, a boat washes ashore carrying a dead man and a baby. Isabel believes it is a gift from God. But a few years later, they learn that the birth mother is alive and looking for her child . . . Many heartbreaking scenes and moral dilemmas follow.

Note: It was nominated for whatever they're calling the Orange Prize these days.

Rating: 3 stars. There are 190 reviews of this novel at LT, most of them glowing, raving, and praising. The writing was fine, and I think my biggest problem with it was that I just wasn't in the mood to read this sort of book. In another mood, I too might be extolling its virtues. To be honest though, and this is the key sentence in this short, bland review: the Light Between the Oceans made me feel manipulated.

My favourite thing about the book was the lighthouse setting, and the general setting of a remote corner of Australia.

Why I Read This Now: book club. I expect that we will have some interesting discussion, as I see in the comments different people like and dislike different things about the book.

Recommended for: most readers really love this book, so if it sounds interesting, you probably will too.

39Nickelini
Gen 13, 2014, 7:55 pm

I read something for Orange January!

The Forgotten Waltz, Anne Enright, 2011


Cover comments: I like this cover because I find it pleasing; however, it's also not very original. Yet another "back of a woman," or "woman facing away." So a bit of a mixed bag there, which fits the novel perfectly.

Comments: Gina narrates her story about living in a very modern Ireland, and cheating on her husband with a married man. And that's the novel in a sentence.

What I Liked: I haven't read much Irish literature, but I really like what I've read so far. There is a world view or a voice or something that I find unusual, but not foreign--sort of like an off-kilter version of the world I know. The Forgotten Waltz fits in with what I know about Irish lit in that case. I liked how the booming, and then busting, Ireland of the early 21st century is almost a character in this novel. But what was strongest for me was the narrator's voice--she spoke deeply about very common things, yet had an outlook that is so different from my own, or anyone I've ever known, that I was intrigued by what would come out of her mouth next. This was aided by the audiobook reader who had a charming Irish accent--this is a world where people "tink about tings" ("think about things").

What I Didn't Like: I didn't quite get the point. It was interesting to listen to this Irish person ramble on about the mess she makes of her life, but it didn't go anywhere. I also didn't see much development or growth in any of the characters. And what does the title mean? I guess the back and forth structure and the back and forth relationships are a bit of a waltz, but where is the forgotten aspect? Is it that I will forget this book a week after I finish it?

Rating; Waffling between 3.5 and 4 stars.

Recommended for: There is some strong writing and mastery of voice here, so if that's your thing (I mean "ting"), then try it. If you need to like your characters, or find them having a degree of integrity, or if you need a strong plot, then skip this one.

Why I Read This Now: An available audio download from my library and it was nominated for the Prize Formerly Known as the Orange.

40rainpebble
Gen 13, 2014, 10:53 pm

Oh Joyce, you liked this one much more than I did. I only gave it 2 stars. But The Light Between Oceans I absolutely loved & rated at 4 1/2 stars. If fact I was hoping it would score much higher on the lists than it did.
Looks as if there are only going to be a very few of us here this year. I sure miss the comments of Jill, Darryl, Laura & others.
Good luck with your challenge this year.

41Nickelini
Gen 13, 2014, 11:58 pm

I can see people not liking The Forgotten Waltz because it just sort of meanders, and also because no one in the book is very nice. As for Light Between Oceans, my whole bookclub was pretty "meh" about it. I found it manipulative and they all found it too predictable. I'll be interested to see what that author does next though.

Good luck with your challenge this month.

42raidergirl3
Gen 14, 2014, 2:22 pm

I'm so weird - I loved both of those books. Even though the characters were selfish gits in The Forgotten Waltz, Enright's writing 'matched' my head. I really liked it, as I liked her previous The Gathering. I like the Irish sensibility? I went back and read my Enright reviews on my blog, and still remember how I liked both books.

And I loved The Light Between the Oceans last year. I passed it around all my colleagues. I love a book that makes me cry. I understand the manipulative criticism, but I'd put this nowhere near queen of manipulation, Jodi Picoult.

43rainpebble
Modificato: Gen 16, 2014, 8:18 pm

You know, I hear so much about how Jodi Picoult's books are all the same & she is so predictable, blah, blah, blah...... But sometimes I am just in the mood for a book like hers, Anita Shreve's, Anna Quindlan's Kristin Hannah's or one of that sort. It just all depends where my head is. So manipulative or not sometimes they just suit, ya know?

44Nickelini
Gen 17, 2014, 2:35 am

Comfort reads! Yay to comfort reads. Or vacation reads. Yay to those too.

45rainpebble
Feb 3, 2014, 2:46 am

Indeed Joyce, indeed!

46Nickelini
Modificato: Gen 2, 2015, 1:45 pm

Just updating my Orange TBR list. Don't have any reading planned at the moment, although I do have to read Life After Life for my book club in a month or so.

The Blue Flower (1996)
The Enchantment of Lily Dahl (1997)
The Giant O'Brien (1999)
Amy and Isabelle (2000)
Ahab's Wife (2001)
The Siege (2002)
Brick Lane (2004)
The Falls (2005)
Beyond Black (2006)
Night Watch (2006)
Frangipani (2006) (April 2014)
Clothes on Their Backs (2008)
Home (2009)
The Lost Dog (2009)
Love Marriage (2009)
Wolf Hall (2010)
The Little Stranger (2010)
Jamrach's Menagerie (2011)
A Visit from the Goon Squad (2011)
Lyrics Alley (2011)
There But For The (2012)
NW (2013)
Life After Life (2013) (May 2014)
Fingersmith (2002) (April 2014)
Bring up the Bodies (2012)
Purple Hibiscus (?)

47rainpebble
Feb 12, 2014, 4:18 pm

My take on your Orange TBRs:
Perfection or very nearly: Life After Life, The Little Stranger, Home, Night Watch, The Siege.
The other 4 that I have read didn't fair nearly so well with me. But that's just me. You have a lot on your list that I do need to get to.
I really hope that you like Life After Life when you read it with your book club. There ought to be some interesting points for discussion.
hugs,

48Nickelini
Feb 12, 2014, 5:31 pm

I will be absolutely shocked if I don't love Life After Life! All the other ones you mention are high on my TBR pile, and I hope to get to them soon, except Home, which I have no interest in whatsoever. The only reason I have it is because I got a free copy. I'm not sure why I feel that way since I thought Gilead was really well done.

49rainpebble
Feb 13, 2014, 5:11 am

I will grant you it is no Gilead but I liked it. Sometimes we think we want to read a particular book, or think we do but just can't seem to get around to or even want to. I probably have a hundred on my shelves that I feel that way about. Life is simply too shore, Joyce, to not read What you want When you want.
I will be shocked too if you don't really like Life After Life.
Cheers,

50Nickelini
Apr 11, 2014, 9:02 pm

Fingersmith, Sarah Waters, 2002, audiobook read by Juanita McMann


Cover comments: no real opinion, but this doesn't do anything for me.

Comments: Sue Trinder grew up in the mean streets of Victorian London under the guidance of mother-figure and baby farmer Mrs Sucksby and her informal group of petty thieves. A conman who she calls Gentleman enlists Sue to help him defraud a young heiress named Maude Lilly, and off Sue goes to pose as a lady's maid at a country house. But Maude Lilly is not who she seems, and her relationship with Sue is not what anyone expects. The story makes several sharp twists, and slowly winds through an estate, a madhouse, south London, and then a satisfying conclusion. Fingersmith was nominated for the Orange Prize and was on the original 1001 Books list.

In places, Fingersmith pays homage to Oliver Twist, and apparently also The Woman in White (although I haven't read the later).

Overall, I enjoyed Fingersmith very much. None of the characters were completely likeable, but I did care to find out what happened to them. I found the novel interesting and well written, but I also thought it was too long.

The reader Juanita McMann was one of the best audiobook narrators I've ever heard--she did a vast number of distinct voices for the huge cast of characters, and they were all perfect for the character. I hope I come across other books narrated by her.

Note: please excuse any names I've misspelled--I only ever heard them.

Why I Read This Now: always need an audiobook.

Recommended for: Well, there is a lesbian aspect to it, so anyone who is interested in lesbian characters will want to read this. Anyone interested in the Orange prize or 1001 list, anyone who likes the Victorian setting, anyone who likes a book to get lost in . . . lots of readers will like this.

51raidergirl3
Apr 13, 2014, 10:37 pm

Fingersmith was a great ride, especially once the first big twist happens and you realize that not all is as it seems. I'd never be able to spell names when only hearing them, like you. I'm very visual, and actually find audiobooks a bit of a challenge, but I have been listening to more and more. I am now at the point where I always like one to be going too. It also makes me cook more if I am particularly engrossed in the book!

52Nickelini
Apr 14, 2014, 12:03 am

Ha ha, yes, I like to cook to audiobooks too. It's a nice combination. Unless I have to stop and read a recipe or instructions--that totally doesn't work. I also find mindless cleaning, painting, and gardening works well with audiobooks. Sometimes walking too, although today as I was trotting through the glorious spring sunshine and blossoms, I was a bit distracted by my surroundings.

53rainpebble
Apr 14, 2014, 2:53 am

Nice to hear your take on Fingersmith Joyce, as I believe it is on my reading list for Orange July. It sounds very interesting to me and I don't need to like my characters to appreciate a book so I don't find that off-putting at all. Thank you.

And thank you as well raider.

54Nickelini
Modificato: Apr 28, 2014, 12:18 pm

My 2nd Orange book this month

Frangipani, Celestine Hitiura Vaite, 2004


Cover comments: Painting by Shelagh Armstrong. I adore this cover--the colours are gorgeous and the style really says "Polynesia". I also love the title, as frangipani (aka plumeria) are my favourite tropical flowers



Comments: Frangipani follows the life of a Tahitian woman, Materena, from her days as a young mother through to the years when her three children leave home, although the focus is on the tumultuous time when her daughter Leilani is a teenager. The novel often looks at Materena's fairly traditional Tahitian approach to life versus Leilani's modern and progressive outlook. Frangipani also highlights the strong bonds of the vast network of aunties, cousins, and grandmothers that Leilani and Materena can rely on for support.

There is little plot to this novel--it's told in vignettes that hop forward in chronological order. The third person narrator has a robust voice full of traditional Tahitian folk wisdom and island patois (both Tahitian and French), and this gave Frangipani a unique charm. I enjoyed spending time with these characters and getting a glimpse of Tahitian culture.

Frangipani was nominated for the Orange Prize.

Rating: 4.5 stars. I liked this better than other LTers, although I do find more positive comments out there in the greater Internet. I will definitely track down her other books.

Why I Read This Now: I bought this a few years ago and tucked it away for any potential tropical vacations in my future. When a trip to Maui suddenly came up, this was the first thing I packed. It was the perfect book to read on a Hawaiian vacation.

Recommended for: There aren't a lot of Tahitian authors around, so if you're interested in reading globally, here's your chance.

55Nickelini
Mag 5, 2014, 2:40 pm

Life After Life, Kate Atkinson, 2013


Cover comments: I like this cover but am not excited about it.

Comments: Here is a synopsis: "The novel has an unusual structure, repeatedly looping back in time to describe alternative possible lives for its central character, Ursula Todd, who is born on 11 February 1910 to an upper middle class British family. In the first version, she is strangled by her umbilical cord and stillborn. Later iterations of her life take her into World War Two, where she works in London for the War Office and repeatedly witnesses the results of the Blitz including a direct hit on a bomb shelter in Argyll Road in November 1940. Todd eventually comes to realize, through a particularly strong sense of deja vu, that she has lived before, and decides to try to prevent the war by killing Adolf Hitler in late 1930." Hore, Rachel (9 March 2013). "Life After Life, By Kate Atkinson (review)". The Independent (UK).

My Comments: Kate Atkinson is a reliably enjoyable writer. There were so many aspects of this that I loved--her use of language, the details, her humour, the concept. I can't wait to see what she writes next.

Rating: Life After Life was almost a 5 star read for me, but even without the full five stars, I'd say this is the best book I've read this year so far. The only thing that held back my full love for the novel was that I got bogged down in the third-quarter--the parts set in WWII, both in Germany and in London. These parts are the heart and meaning of the novel (Atkinson has said that she set off to write a novel about the Blitz), and by the end I saw why they were crucial. Unfortunately, I think I'm just over-saturated with WWII stories.

Recommended for: Everyone-- at least give it a try. Except the reader who can't follow stories that jump around in time.

Why I Read This Now: book club.

56Nickelini
Mag 26, 2014, 3:42 pm

Voyage of the Narwhal, Andrea Barrett, 1998, audiobook


Cover comments: LT doesn't have my cover, so I just picked this one because it's pleasing and also fits the book.

Comments: The voyage of the title is a major fictitious Arctic trek in search of the Franklin expedition, set in the mid-1800s. Erasmus is a 40 year old naturalist, who tries to aid the ship's commander (and his future brother-in-law), Zeke. Things go wrong, and then get worse, and instead of using his brains, Zeke's megalomania takes over and he steers them down a dangerous path, fuelled by his delusions of grandeur. Eventually, some of the crew return home to their families, but that doesn't solve the problems that began on the ship.

The Voyage of the Narwhal has gathered many rave reviews here at LT, so I was disappointed I didn't like this one. If I could only write a one-word review, I would say "boring." I never felt compelled to listen to this audiobook, and in fact I often looked at my iPhone and asked "how much longer?" There is nothing technically wrong with the story or writing--I just found it very flat and uninteresting. How one makes Arctic exploration uninteresting, I don't know. The Voyage of the Narwhal was nominated for the Orange prize, so I was expecting something more literary.

Recommended for: Most people seem to like this one. If you like straightforward historical fiction, or are fascinated by Arctic voyages, give it a try.

Why I Read This Now: audiobook from my wish list.

57Nickelini
Giu 30, 2014, 11:06 am

The Flying Troutmans, Miriam Toews, 2008, audiobook


Cover comments: the cover of my audiobook isn't an option on LT, so I picked this one because it fits.

Comments: When her mentally ill sister Minn has yet another breakdown, 28 yr old Hattie returns home to Winnipeg from her life in Paris to take care of Minn's children. Things weren't working out so well in Paris anyway. And things weren't work out so well for her 11 yr old chatterbox niece Thebes or her 15 yr old rebellious nephew Logan either. Pretty much clueless on how to solve this crisis, Hattie packs the kids into a van and sets off on a road trip across the western US in search of the kids' father, who Minn had chased away. Most of the novel takes place in the van as they meander southward through the states.

Toews has a fabulous gift for witty dialogue, and her portrayal of a family dealing with mental illness is sharp. The characters, especially Thebes and Logan, are colourful and fully developed. The novel has definite faults, but most of them are just nit-picky details. I listened to this in audiobook, and after a while the "she said" "he said" and "I said" started to grate on my nerves; however, on the page the eye would just float past them.

I adored A Complicated Kindness, which I read when it was first published, but when the Flying Troutmans--her next novel--was released, the story line didn't interest me so I didn't pursue this book. But when I saw the audiobook I thought I'd give it a try. It was definitely interesting and fun to listen to, although I can confirm that this story really isn't my thing. I look forward to other books by Toews (which is a good thing, since I have several in my TBR pile).

Recommended for: readers who like books with quirky, larger-than-life characters.

Why I Read This Now: audiobook that was available.

58Nickelini
Lug 18, 2014, 12:09 pm

The London Train, Tessa Hadley, 2011


Cover comments: As with many of the audio books I get from OneClick, my cover isn't available on LT. That's okay, it was dull.

Comments: The London Train is a quiet, slow book about not very nice people and their relationships living in today's United Kingdom. The first part is about Paul, an Englishman living in Wales, who leaves his family (temporarily?) when his adult daughter from a previous marriage disappears and then turns up pregnant and living with some much older Polish guy in London. The story abruptly begins again with a library worker who has left her much better paying job and older husband. Eventually, the two stories tied together. I'm not sure, but I imagine this switching of stories would have been handled in a smoother fashion in paper.

The London Train was nominated for the Orange prize (or whatever it's called).

Rating: At first I found it a bit boring and didn't really care, but something in the story drew me in and I ended up really enjoying listening to this one. There was certainly some lovely writing, and I enjoyed the observations on life in Britain today. I will look for more by this author. I'm quite confident giving this 4 stars.

Recommended for: I'll tell you who shouldn't read this: people who are uncomfortable reading about adultery, those who need to cheer on or at least like the characters, and anyone who likes lots of action.

Why I Read This Now: Audiobook.

59Nickelini
Giu 30, 2015, 2:44 pm

Anyone reading Orange Bailey July? I just started Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel and realized it was an Orange book.

60Yells
Giu 30, 2015, 7:58 pm

I have one or two that I planned to read.

61LizzieD
Lug 6, 2015, 7:39 pm

I'm here! I'm here! I've started both How To Be Both and Black Water Rising.

62Nickelini
Ago 9, 2015, 12:19 am

Didn't finish in July, due to other books rudely pushing in front.

Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel, 2005


Cover comments: well, isn't this just a great picture. The cover itself is okay.

Why I Read This Now: I have 7 Hilary Mantel novels in my TBR and I'm not mentally ready for Wolf Hall. This one was nominated for the Booker, the Orange Prize, and is on the Guardian 1000 list. Also, I started this last month, so "Orange July at LT".

Comments: Well, this was much better than I expected.

Alison is a medium who really can talk to the dead. She works the circuit outside of London, performing to crowds. She meets the prickly Colette, who becomes her personal assistant and room mate. But Alison is haunted herself by a childhood that would horrify Charles Dickens. Seriously, I don't know if I've ever read a more disturbing childhood. At least since I read Push--although to this book's advantage, Alison doesn't remember much, and doesn't understand a lot of what she sees.

I've only read one other Mantel, An Experiment in Love, which was good but not particularly notable. I have to say that the premise of Beyond Black actually turned me off -- I don't find mediums very interesting due to the fact that I think they are all, 100% of them, frauds. Just not into that whole "woo" thing. Because of all of that, I approached Beyond Black with some trepidation. Right from the start though, the writing grabbed me, and the whole "woo" thing wasn't an issue at all--after all, I told myself, I enjoyed the movie "Ghost" without believing any of it. It's fiction, and anything can happen. Relax, enjoy.

I read this with a pencil because there were so many great snippets of fabulous writing, both on a sentence level, as well as on the level of the entire novel. I particularly loved how Mantel painted such a bleak picture of England--the grey modern suburbs, the bland food, the banal people (that said, my personal experience of England has been much rosier. I've seen interesting cities, towns, and villages, and gorgeous countryside, eaten fabulous food regularly, and met so many "lovely" people. I say "lovely" because people I meet in England seem to use that word more than we do in Canada. Still, I could appreciate this satirical look at England circa 1997-2002).

Now the downside. Too long, too repetitive. My edition was 450-odd pages, should have been no more than 350, maybe a bit less.

Rating: waffling between 4 & 4.5 stars. Had it been 300 pages it would have been a 5 star read.

Recommended for: readers who love dark humour and sharp writing.

63janeajones
Ago 9, 2015, 11:53 am

Intriguing review -- I've only read Mantel's Wolf Hall novels, none of the more contemporary ones -- maybe this is a good place to start, though it does sound long.

64Nickelini
Ago 9, 2015, 12:33 pm

>63 janeajones: yes, well I do prefer 200 page novels if given a choice. I found this quite smooth and another reader might not find it too long.

65Nickelini
Lug 19, 2016, 12:39 pm

NW, Zadie Smith, 2012


Cover comments: great cover for this novel, although I'm not crazy about the colour combinations.

Comments: The story of two thirty-something women, Leah and Natalie (formerly Keisha) who grew up in the NW6 area of London. This novel is very disjointed, requires concentration by the reader, and has little plot, but I loved it. Great voice, highly original, paints a vivid picture of this section of London life.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Recommended for: readers who like good writing and don't need a plot.

Why I Read This Now: I've been trying to get to it for years.

66raidergirl3
Lug 19, 2016, 1:02 pm

This novel is very disjointed, requires concentration by the reader, and has little plot, but I loved it.

I love when I find a book like that. It makes no sense that I will like it, but I think it has something to do with how your brain thinks and finding an author that matches your brain.

67Nickelini
Modificato: Mar 24, 2017, 11:44 pm

8. Reasons She Goes to the Woods, Deborah Kay Davies, 2014


Cover comments: When I got this book I thought this was a good cover, although I'd have liked more "woods" to fit the title. Having read the book now, I think it's pretty perfect.

Rating: oh, so close to 5 stars. The second half wasn't as good as the first, but if this hitches well in my memory I might upgrade it to full on 5 stars. Definitely the best book I've read in yonks.

Comments I could say lots, but I'll stick to the highlights, which are the lyrical writing, the dark content, and the unique structure. This 249 page novel has a short (usually one word) title on the left page, and then a one page (never more, never less) vignette involving a girl named Pearl. These snapshots start when she's very young--I'd say two or three-- and proceeds until she's about 18 yrs old. Pearl lives with the father she adores, the mother she . . . doesn't, and the younger brother who she calls The Blob but eventually bonds with. Slowly it's revealed that her mother struggles with mental illness, and certainly a child like Pearl doesn't help things. Not to mention that Pearl has an Electra complex that she doesn't grow out of, and which can make for some creepy reading. Pearl's escape, which both grounds her and feeds her wild child, is to go to the woods behind her house -- and is where I found some of the most poignant and evocative writing. Although I have to say, there is poignant and evocative writing in the other bits of the book too, especially in capturing the moments of childhood that we as adults have either erased or ignore. Jim on GoodReads said: "Children are creepy. They exist in a dimension we once lurked in but it’s been so long it’s hard to imagine it. We grew out of it. Most of us do. Reality forces its way into our lives and that’s that. " Anyone who has read about child development knows this--and this book made some dark memories of my childhood bubble up. Kids do some weird things. Most of us wipe it out of our memory, but clearly Deborah Kay Davies didn't. Unlike most of us though, Davie's character Pearl didn't grow out of it. And she's a bully and a sociopath. But sympathetic, and so interesting to read about.

Recommended for: Highly recommended when you're in the mood for dark with gorgeous writing. People who need young children to be angelic should stay away. I'm not sure I've ever steered anyone to GoodReads, but there are many glowing interesting reviews there, so if you want more convincing go look them up.

Why I Read This Now: Been at the top of Mnt TBR since I bought it in 2014 when the Bailey's Orange Prize came out and it was the only book that interested me (other than the Margaret Atwood).

68janeajones
Mar 24, 2017, 7:20 pm

Intriguing. On the wish list.

69Yells
Mar 24, 2017, 8:42 pm

Ah man, don't rave about it AND tell me it's an Orange book.... you are killing me here....

70Nickelini
Mar 24, 2017, 11:45 pm

>69 Yells: Read it and tell me what you think!

71Nickelini
Giu 27, 2017, 9:55 pm

Outline, Rachel Cusk, 2014


Cover comments: I'm undecided about this. It fits the novel, so that's good, I guess.

Comments: An English woman travels to Athens one summer to teach writing. She meets a bunch of people and has conversations, and people tell vignettes about their life. In between we get a lot of psychological and philosophical musings about what these little stories mean to the lives of the characters. I found most of the vignettes interesting and fun, and in places, Cusk's writing and skill of observation and description amazed me. I was bored with the philosophy and psychology -- always am in novels that do this because I just can't make myself care.

Outline made the shortlists for:
Goldsmiths Prize
Folio Prize
Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction
Scotiabank Giller Prize
Governor General's Literary Award
and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year

Rating: People seem to either love or hate this one. I'm in the middle. Three stars.

Recommended for: Readers who like rambling novels that go places but don't get anywhere.

Why I Read This Now: It fits my "Bailey's" category and my "CanLit" category (although I think it's a bit of stretch to call it Canadian -- obvs I'm wrong there since the Giller & GG honoured the book.)

72Nickelini
Feb 24, 2018, 7:58 pm

The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters, 2009


Cover comments: love, love, love this cover. The colour is similar to my favourite red pencil crayon: Faber Castell Polychromos Pale Geranium Lake, with same colour edges. It's an odd choice, however, because I think it makes this look like a girly book, and it most definitely is not a girly book. This edition is one of the Books Are Beautiful series published by Vintage Anchor Emblem Canada especially for Chapters & Indigo bookstores:



It also has a pleasing texture and opens nicely, unlike the visually similar Vintage series that came out of a Britain a few years ago-- their colours weren't as nice, the covers had an oily texture, and the tight binding made the books stiff to open. I like how this publisher took Vintage's idea and improved all aspects of it.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Comments: I finished this a few days ago and have struggled with what to say other than "I really liked this."

Set in 1947 Warwickshire, the narrator Dr Faraday tells of attending to a house call at Hundreds Hall estate -- a place where his mother had once worked as a servant, and where he had visited on Empire Day as a child. This is a nuanced and clever novel of his deep attraction to the house, and it's crumbling demise, and the demise of the genteel family and their class in post-war Britain. Also, there's a poltergeist. Or is there?

Many people describe this book as super creepy, but I'm not easy to creep, so I'd describe it more as "atmospheric."

I found the book long, and a bit slow -- although I was always happy to pick it up and read it -- I just sometimes thought "nothing is really happening here." But it was a purposeful slow build, and the last third was excellent. The last paragraph of the book explains the "who" of the mystery, but now I feel I have to go back and reread it to learn the "how."

Recommended for: a reader looking for an intelligent state-of-the-nation type story set in a decaying spooky mansion. The writing is also lovely.

Why I Read This Now: I've been meaning to get to this Booker and Orange prize nominated book for ages. I also love novels set in country houses.

73Nickelini
Giu 4, 2018, 2:36 am

I've only read 12 books this year, but three have been Orange-Bailey's Women's (I missed posting one here that I will add next)

12. At Hawthorn Time, Melissa Harrison, 2012


Cover comments: one of those covers that I like the more I look at it.

Rating: a solid 4.5 star read. I expect this will make my list of best books of 2018.

Comments: Jack walks the back roads of England, picking up day jobs on farms when he can. He has spent most of his life outdoors and although completely harmless, his unconventional life is seen by a threat by most people. Having recently done a spell in prison for apparent trespassing, he's determined never to be confined again. Jaimie is a young man who still lives with his parents in the small village of Lodeshill, where he works indoors in windowless warehouses. He appreciates his deep roots to the land and the people of the area, but is aware of the changes going on around him. Kitty and Howard have recently retired-- their two adult children are off on their own and so they left their life in suburban London to follow Kitty's dream of living in an English village. She develops as a painter and makes friends in the village, while Howard makes a half-hearted effort to satisfied -- they don't agree on much. The novel opens with a car crash and then goes back over the month of May leading up to the accident, jumping between the characters and their backstories.

I liked this a lot. It had a familiarity to it that was comfortable, but was also strongly different from anything I'd read before. The main difference from other books is how the author brought in nature elements to everyday scenes. I loved these. She also brought in historical elements and how people living in Europe today are treading paths historical and ancient. I live in a corner of the world where the oldest buildings are maybe 130 yrs old, so I delight in this aspect when I visit Europe, and I like how Harrison gave nods to the ever-changing uses for the land. There's a lot going on here, and I'd like to read it again because I'm sure I missed some interesting connections.

At Hawthorn Time was nominated for the Orange/Bailey's/Women's prize and the Costa award. This is yet another excellent recommendation from Simon at Savidge Reads.

Why I Read This Now: Because it was hawthorn time (May, here in Vancouver and in England in the story).

Recommened for: people who like books with strong nature elements will love this, but there's a lot going on if that's not your thing. If you need a straight forward linear storyline, this won't be for you.

74Nickelini
Giu 4, 2018, 2:37 am

Gorsky, Vesna Gopldsworthy, 2015


Cover comments: Hmmmm. Fine, although it doesn't really describe the book. Looks like ChickLit, which it isn't at all. I do like the turquoise thread that is in the shape of the River Thames where it winds through London. A nice gesture.

Rating AND Why I Read This Now: 4 stars. This is exactly what I needed -- I was reading a novel and a non-fiction book, and enjoying both, but at the same time struggling with them and feeling like I was in a boat with a weak motor trying to go against a strong current. I just needed a break with a readable, interesting book. This fit the bill.

Comments: On a one level, and it's a big one, Gorsky is a retelling of The Great Gatsby. This time, the story is moved to recent-day London, and Gatsby has become Gorsky, a Jewish-Russian oligarch. The narrator is Nikola "Nick" Kimovic, a Serbian intellectual who moved to England in the early 1990s rather than be pulled into the civil war. He finds a job working for a floundering bookshop hidden in the side streets of Chelsea, where he meets Gorsky, and the Daisy-inspired Natalia, a beautiful Russian woman from Gorsky's past who is now married to the very English Tom Summerscale, who is also a cad. So many Great Gatsby parallels, but other stuff too. London is also a character itself here, and Goldsworthy has some fabulous bits about the city, especially its weather, especially the Novembery bits (which appear to be identical where I live in Vancouver).

Gorsky was nominated for that women's prize -- the one that was called The Bailey and before that the Orange, and who knows what it will be next.

Vesna Goldsworthy immigrated from Yugoslavia to England, via France. She wrote this novel in English, her third language.

I'm pretty sure I learned about his book from Simon at Savage Reads. His recommendations are pretty good.

Recommended for: I recommend this widely, because I really enjoyed it and it was a breezy read while still having some good writing and not being too light. Readers who give it poor reviews seem to be big Gatsby fans, which I definitely am not. I read "it doesn't inform the earlier novel," and I get that, but because I'm not a Gatsby fan, I don't care. The other caveat I have is for people who don't like to read about the useless indulgent uber-wealthy. They can be a bit exasperating. I'm sure the narrator, Nick, would agree.

75Nickelini
Ago 5, 2020, 11:48 pm

. My Sister, the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite, 2018


cover comments: I've seen many online comments that people loved this cover. I'm not sure I do, but I think my problem is more with the book's title than the actual cover. I see on the meta page that an earlier version of this had been published in Nigeria with the title "Thicker Than Water," which I think is a MUCH stronger title. Why did they change it? Anyway, I guess in the end I like the woman's face, but maybe not the bright green blocky text against the dark background. Overall I like it more than I dislike it. I see that the hardcover takes the image to the back page and she's holding a bottle of spray cleaner. That's clever. My trade paperback doesn't show that.

Why I Read This Now: I remember when there was a lot of chatter about this here at LT, probably around it's Booker nomination. I was fairly interested in reading it, but then I forgot about it. Recently I listened to my favourite book podcast while watering my garden ("Overdue Podcast" with Craig & Andrew) and they got me interested. Lucky me, two days later I went to Munro Books in Victoria and picked up a copy. Also, they said it took them 1.9 hours to read, so that sounded good (love a quick book). (It took me more like 4 hours.)

Comments: Korede gets yet another phone call from her sister saying that OOPS! she knifed her boyfriend to death. Help me clean it up. Cleaner-extraordinaire and enabler older sister drops everything to assist her sister, Ayoola. It's an uncomfortable but tenable way of life until Ayoola drops by the hospital where Korede is a nurse, and catches the eye of perfect Dr. Tade Otumu, the same doctor that Korede has been crushing on. Like every other man, the doctor is immediately smitten with Ayoola. Now where do Korede's loyalties lie? This is not a "crime novel" or a thriller, but a kinda crazy look at family and abuse.

I loved the quick pace, the amusing writing (unlike other readers, I can't quite call this "funny"), I love the Nigerian setting, and mostly I liked how this was a unique story, unlike anything else I've read.

Recommended for: overall, reader reviews of this are high. It's a quick read, so not much risk. I hear the audiobook is superb.

Rating: 4.5 stars

76Nickelini
Ott 4, 2020, 11:44 pm

Ghost Wall, Sarah Moss, 2018


cover comments: I was puzzled by this cover when I compared it to the title and what I knew of the story, but once I started reading, I got it. And I like it. Don't love it, but I like it.

Rating: This came so close to being a 5 star read for me, but in the end, I'll give it 4.5 to 4.75

Comments: Silvie, a working class teen from northern England, goes along with her parents to an archaeological re-enactment of life in iron age Britain. Her bus driver father has a passion for pre-Roman life. They join an experimental archaeological professor and his three students for two weeks of trying to live as early Britons. Her father imagines himself a pure descendant. They wear rustic tunics, forage for their food, and attempt to imagine what prehistoric people thought. Silvie is controlled by mental and physical abuse by her tyrannical father, as is her mom, and they follow the iron age life strictly. Silvie is fascinated by the students, who sneak off to to town to grab snacks and visit the pub, and realizes she has choices. Things go bad, and then very bad. Many readers have noted Lord of the Flies.

There were many reasons Ghost Wall was just my thing. I found the writing to be beautifully concise-- so much said with so few words! And also often beautiful to read. Also, 15 years ago or so, I was very much into reenactment reality shows where a group of people tried to live authentic historical lives. My favourite, and the one I best remember, was a group of people trying to recreate iron age Britain. I think they were in Wales, and their goal was to actually make iron. Anyway, I too am fascinated by ancient Britain and I regret I didn't get to study it when I was at university. What keeps this from being a 5 star read for me was that the oppressive father was drawn as all-bad, all-the-time. Although I found his abuse completely realistic, in reality, a man who is abusive to his family is better at hiding it from those outside his abuse circle. There needed to be scenes where he was viewed as having some sort of community or intellectual value, and where others thought well of him.

Overall, this was a terrific read.

Recommended for: if it sounds interesting to you, try it. It's short. When I really like a book, I sometimes learn more when I read negative reader reviews. In this case most of them just make me raise my eyebrow in puzzlement. I guess different strokes? Some readers complain about the absence of quotation marks around dialogue, and that's something that has irritated me in other books, but I didn't even notice it here. This may be because I've been reading a lot of translated European fiction, where it is the norm.

Why I Read This Now: I've wanted to read it since I heard about it, but initially it wasn't that easy to find. And now it is, and it's my book club read for October

77Nickelini
Gen 15, 2021, 3:08 am

The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry, 2016


cover comments: Gorgeous perfection How can you go wrong with using William Morris elements for a late Victorian era novel? There were a few copies at the used bookstore and I found the most pristine. And then got home to find that I'd spilled half a bottle of Perrier on it in the bag, and so my copy is rather wibbly and not in any condition to ever display on a shelf.

Comments: An intricate historical novel set in the late Victorian period. (Sorry, I had a death in my family today and I'm just not up to giving a book report on this. Maybe I'll come back later and add one).

Rating 4 stars. Excellent structure, excellent writing, great exploration of themes. But the story was not really what I'm personally interested in at the moment, and so overly long for me.

Why I Read This Now: I recently noticed that the book started on New Year's Eve, and I needed a book to start on December 31st.

Recommended for: people who want to read well-written historical fiction set in the late Victorian period. It reminded me of Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. It also reminded me of Once Upon a River, which I slogged through last January, but the Essex Serpent is a much better book.

78raidergirl3
Gen 15, 2021, 12:58 pm

>77 Nickelini: sorry to hear about the loss in your family. Death is never easy but it is made particularly worse in Covid times. I hope your family gets to get together

I’ve had this on my radar since it was in the long list a few years ago. The cover is gorgeous and relating it to Remarkable Creatures bumps it into my more noticeable list. thanks for the overview.

79Nickelini
Gen 15, 2021, 10:58 pm

>78 raidergirl3:

Thanks! Yes, it's weird and terrible and all. My brother was in a bad place for too many years, so we're all glad he's not suffering anymore. He lived here in Vancouver, and our other brother lives an hour east, but another brother lives in Calgary and our oldest brother lives in Southern California (I have 4 brothers). His birthday would have been February 6th, so we've decided to have a Zoom get together that night (this is not a thing we've done yet so it will be interesting). When we can all travel together we will meet and scatter his ashes somewhere here over the waters of the Pacific.

80Nickelini
Feb 25, 2021, 1:42 am

Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2004


cover comments: I love this cover. My edition is part of the limited Perennial Collection that Harper Perennial published in 2008. I own two others from the set of 15. The magenta colour of the flower and the text is foil, and the spine is the same magenta foil. Since I acquired this in 2012, I've taken up adult colouring books, and I'm very tempted to pull out my Faber-Castel collection and get to work on the black and white line drawing-- it would be fun to colour

Comments: Fifteen year old Kambili is the sheltered daughter of a wealthy Nigerian factory owner. She lives, along with her brother Jaja and her mother, under the tyrannical control of his fanatical Catholic ideology-- this man is desperately trying to out-pious any pope. Eugene is beloved by the community for his generosity and integrity, but at home he punishes the slightest infraction of his rules. This is set against the political turmoil of mid-80s Nigeria. Kambili catches a break and goes to stay with her much poorer aunt and cousins, and their home, filled with love, chatter and laughter open Kambili and Jaja's eyes. And then there's the cute young priest she meets there . . .

Note: I appreciate her nod to Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart with her opening words: "Things started to fall apart at home when my brother Jaja did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the room . . . " I do love intertextuality in novels.

Why I Read This Now: I've owned this book for 9 years, but although I wanted to read it some day, that day never seemed to show up. Then last summer, a friend at work told me how he took a mandatory English class as part of his math degree, and read Purple Hibiscus, and did so poorly on his essay that he had to meet with the professor. She accused him of not reading the book, but he pulled out a ream of notes to show he had. The problem was that my friend, who I suspect is somewhere on the autism spectrum, did not understand what was going on in the novel. He thought it was about a nice family in Nigeria, but his professor questioned him about all this abuse that he didn't notice. There's a scene where the father punishes Kambili for "walking into sin" by pouring boiling water on her feet. My friend thought it was an accident until his professor told him otherwise. When I told him I owned Purple Hibiscus he asked me to read it and see what I thought. I popped on to LT and quickly found my LT friend VivienneR's 1-star review, and sent him a screen shot: "Adichie describes a religious fanatic of the worst kind. Although her prose is lovely and she evokes the characters quite well, this simple story has not much more to it than a man who savagely assaults his wife and children if they fail to obey his own twisted version of godliness. It was difficult to endure the book. I cannot recommend it to anyone."

He really is a nice young man, and clearly brilliant with things about numbers and airlines, and he is never malicious. I wonder about the value of forcing a math geek to take an English lit course.

Rating: 3 stars. I get why VivienneR gave this 1 star. I get why people liked this more than I did.

I read Half a Yellow Sun in 2008 and gave it 3.5 stars then, and thought it was over-rated. Maybe Adichie isn't the novelist for me.

Recommended for: people exploring African literature.

81Nickelini
Modificato: Mar 20, 2021, 12:57 pm

The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett 2020


cover comments: this cover tells you at a glance that it's a current novel about a POC. I guess the colours represent the different characters. At a glance I think it's ugly. The actual images of the faces merging is lovely and hint to storylines, but the colours repulse me. I borrowed my copy from a friend and removed the dust jacket, and underneath was just the nice strong blue colour. Much better.

Why I Read This Now: book club.

Rating: somewhere between 3 stars. It started off slowly and not hitting any keys for me, but then it got better . . . and better . . . and even better. It did make me ask a lot of questions, which is a good thing.

Note: the last few books I've read felt like they deserved film adaptations. This one too, and yes, it was bought in a bidding war. No casting yet, but expected to move quickly. So look out for this one on your screen in 2022 or 2023

Comments: So much has been written about this already. Identical twins who go off to lead vastly different lives. I can see the influence of Passing, which I just read, but not a lot. I was expecting more focus on the twins, but the secondary characters where maybe more sympathetic. There were a few "wow" parts of this book, but it was uneven.

Recommended for: One of the top hot books at the moment. I think everyone who might read this has read it.

82Nickelini
Ott 21, 2021, 1:41 am

Unsettled Ground, Claire Fuller, 2021


cover comments: well how gorgeous is this?

Rating: 4.5 stars. Unsettled Ground was short listed for this year's Women's Prize. I know this is a new book, but I'm surprised there are only 186 LT members with this book. This author is on my radar for sure!

Comments: My subtitle for Unsettled Ground is "Thomas Hardy Meets Brexit" (or Thomas Hardy in modern Britain).

Unsettled Ground opens with the final minutes of 70 year old Dot in her cottage in Wiltshire. She leaves behind her 51 year old twin children, Jeannie and Julius, who have always lived with her. Due to a serious childhood illness, Jeannie has always stayed close by her mother, and is functionally illiterate, but can handle money and is talented with tending chickens, growing a vegetable garden, and basic sustenance home life. Julius can read, and has a pay-as-you-go mobile phone, but is unable to travel in any motorized vehicle, so gets around by foot and bike. He also has an entrepreneurial spirit, but no follow through (or ability to follow through). This has limited his career to casual labour near their little patch of farm. After their mother's death, J & J discover they have even less money than they thought and things go seriously downhill. If you can roll lower than treading water at sea level, that is (does that metaphor work? Probably not, but I'll carry on. . . ). Things go from proverbial bad to proverbial worse, but the ending has some threads of hope. Anyway, it's a satisfying and interesting read. There are family secrets that are revealed, but the reader becomes one of the townspeople who can figure out most of the secrets, and it's Jeannie and Julius who are in the dark. It's sad, but not make-you-cry sad, and sometimes it's beautiful.

Also: I know it's 50 min long, but I really like this conversation that Eric Karl Anderson had with the author, Claire Fuller about this book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV4URc6FtBU

One of the lovely threads in the book was how Jeannie and Julius loved to play music. Illiterate, and without TV, they played instruments and sang. In the interview (above), the author talks about how her folk musician son helped her with all the musical bits.

She also talks about how she had to figure out how to navigate the world being functionally illiterate. How do you get a job in 2018 if you have never touched a computer? How do you shop for groceries with 5 pounds 35, cover the necessities, make a meal and also feed the dog? (I can relate to that . . . my first grocery shopping trip on my own when I was 18, I came home with two bags full of stuff and realized I'd bought . . . milk, chocolate milk, orange juice, pop, and soup. Basically, I'd put myself on a liquid diet. Jeannie was MUCH smarter than I was!).

Maybe the most interesting thing she talks about is what inspired her to write this: her son took her to this abandoned, wrecked caravan in the middle of the English countryside. There was no drive going up to the caravan, it was stuck in some bushy area, and someone had obviously made it a home for a while, and it had since been wrecked by vandals. She wondered what would have to happen in someone's life for them to end up living in such a trailer. In Unsettled Ground, she describes this trailer to perfection-- at a visceral level-- and I was IN that trailer. I mentioned this at book club last night and got a mixture of responses . . . one friend turned to me and asked if I had some past trauma to share, and at the moment I couldn't say where I'd been in that same trailer before, but now I remember, that when I was a child and spent summers in the far, far north of British Columbia and the Yukon, these trailers were common on the outskirts of the little settlement I was at. Nothing bad ever happened to me in them, but they were pretty sad and sometimes a bit creepy, and mostly disgusting. And that was in the 1970s, and not 2018 when this book is firmly set (Clair Fuller says this is set pre-Covid).

The last interesting thing I remember from this interview is that Clair Fuller says that she couldn't find any books about rural poverty in England set in current times. She says there is a wealth of rural poverty set in the US, but not the Uk. (If you know of any, she wants you to contact her). So "rural English poverty" is a theme.

Why I Read This Now: I suggested Unsettled Ground for my book club this year, which runs October - June. Having read and loved the author's Bitter Orange this summer, I thought this sounded like a good selection. I didn't expect to be reading another Claire Fuller book so soon, but everyone wanted to read this, and they wanted to read it now.

Anyway, we had a great discussion (I think some of that was fueled by the excitement actually meeting in person), and of the 8 book club members, 6 of us finished the book. One member got confused and read a random book that we aren't even reading, and the woman who is the de facto leader of our book discussions read the November book by mistake. Much hilarity was had at their expense, and then our discussion centred around the six of us telling them about the book. It was a different format, but turned out to be quite fun. The de facto leader took someone's copy home because she still wanted to read it even though we told her pretty much everything.

It's not a bad format -- my favourite book podcast, Overdue, is two guys discussing a book. One reads the book, the other does some background research and then the reader explains the book to the other. They swap back and forth and have a discussion. They read widely, so if I'm not familiar with their selection, I don't listen, but when they read books I know it's always a lot of fun. Sometimes they team up with various female readers (I somehow discovered them via their Are You There God, It's Me Margaret episode.) Anyway, they're two geeky white straight American 30-something guys, so I sometimes yell at them, but they mean well. And that was a big tangent that had nothing to do with Unsettled Ground.

Recommended for: it's a bit sad for some readers, but the writing is gorgeous and the story is interesting. If that sounds like the kind of thing you like, this may be the book for you.

83raidergirl3
Ott 21, 2021, 7:09 am

The poverty, and that trailer, was what stuck with me. Yours is the first review I’ve seen that mentions it.

84Nickelini
Ott 22, 2021, 12:06 am

>83 raidergirl3: Yes, it's odd isn't it. I found it interesting that the trailer was the spark that inspired the whole book

85raidergirl3
Ott 22, 2021, 6:18 am

>84 Nickelini: it makes sense that the trailer inspired the book because it was my overriding take away from the book. All I could think about was the poverty and how people live like that. The illiteracy showed how difficult it was ever going to be to get out of their situation. Like when she got the job but couldn’t cash the cheques?
I’m going to look for that Overdue podcast - looks interesting!

86Nickelini
Gen 5, 2022, 7:58 pm

The Gustav Sonata, Rose Tremain, 2016


cover comments: the photograph is great (and fitting), but the composition is meh

Comments: I whipped through this book in a couple of days. Rose Tremain's writing appears simple and effortless but is actually built on layers and echos, if that makes any sense.

In part one we meet Gustav, who is in kindergarten. He lives on the edge of poverty with his widowed mother in post WWII Switzerland, in a small town north of the Alps. He befriends the new boy, Anton, who comes from a rich family, and who is Jewish. Many interesting, disturbing and sad things happen. In part two we read about Gustav's parents just before the war and in the 1940s, and how his father helped Jewish refugees, and how this eventually led to where we find Gustav in part one. Part three skips forward to Gustav and Anton in middle age and the demise of all the WWII adults.

The novel ended up where I thought it was going. But it really meandered it's way there, with many side stories, which is more like real life than most novels, I guess.

I think what I liked about this the most was how Tremain uses the famous (notorious?) trait of Swiss neutrality as a theme that reflected in Gustav's choices. He, and others, tried to be neutral in situations, and further, he was taught that to be Swiss was to "master yourself." These choices had consequences. This novel couldn't be set anywhere other than in Switzerland and the country was a character in itself. Written by a Brit, however.

The Swiss I know would probably laugh at this, much the same way that we Canadians know the myths about us aren't entirely true either.

Note: The Gustav Sonata was nominated for a bunch of prizes including the Women's Prize (Baily's at the time) and Costa

Why I Read This Now: I've enjoyed this author in the past, and I was looking through my books with snowy covers. I usually avoid WWII fiction, but I'm glad I gave this a chance

Rating: 4 stars. This might go up or down as I think about it

Recommended for: readers of popular literary books, people who like a different view of WWII fiction

Where I Discovered This: everyone was talking about it 5 years ago or so

87Nickelini
Gen 5, 2022, 8:27 pm

I know this group is pretty much finished, but I still like to update things here now and again. I just updated my master list at the top, which I hadn't done since August 2016. But in the mean time, I've read Women's Prize books anyway. I'm surprised how many I've read for my book club -- even though I'm sure no one in my book club has ever heard of the prize.

88raidergirl3
Gen 5, 2022, 10:27 pm

I still like this group. I don’t participate in any other groups of challenges except for TIOLI at 75 Books, but that group is just so huge. So I consider this my ‘home base’. One year I tried to keep a thread going, but I kept forgetting to post, lol.

89Nickelini
Modificato: Gen 5, 2022, 11:26 pm

>88 raidergirl3:
Come over to ClubRead 2022. We are having a nice time this year, and a bunch of the 75 group has shown up and settled in

I actually thought you were already a ClubRead person -- it's a natural fit for you I think

90raidergirl3
Gen 6, 2022, 9:52 am

>89 Nickelini: thanks for the suggestion Joyce. I just may join up over there.

91Nickelini
Gen 2, 2023, 8:18 pm

Wow, it's lonely over here! Anyway, I read the 2021 winner:

Piranesi, Susanna Clarke, 2020


cover comments: another gorgeous cover. I'm puzzled by the figure though . . . for a good chunk of the book I was wondering if this was Piranesi. Even though Piranesi was called "human", he was clearly such an unreliable narrator that I didn't trust him. More likely it's one of the million statues in the book, but not one I remember being mentioned. And it's on most of the other editions of the book too. Hmmm. Oh well, I think it's lovely so I'm all for it.

Also, is this a faun, or a satyr? Twenty seconds with google says the difference between the two is that one is Greek and the other Roman, or another definition says one has a goat bottom and the other a deer bottom.

Rating: 3.5 stars. The first third was 2 stars but then it picked up. This was a book that I easily could have abandoned but I'm glad I didn't, because it did get interesting and fun. It just took a long time to get there. I bought this at Armchair Books in Whistler, British Columbia -- a small bookstore where they really know their stuff. They had it shelved in the Fantasy section. That should have been my first clue. I expect I would have loved this in my 20s when I enjoyed fantasy.

Comments: Piranesi lives in a vast "house" that is made up of infinite corridors and staircases that he seems to have spent a lifetime mapping. The upper floors are often in the clouds, and the lower levels are often filled with tides, which he also charts. These halls and stairwells are lined with hundreds of thousands of classical statues. Piranesi is a naive character living a primitive life, where twice a week he meets for an hour with the only other living person he knows exists, and whom he calls the Other. That's the first boring 1/3 of the story. Then a few more people are introduced, and Piranesi begins to realize there is more to his situation that he had imagined.

I actually tried to read this last year, in December 2021, when I was in Switzerland. I had heard raves about the whimsy and magic within and thought it sounded like a good match for the magic of Christmas in Switzerland. But it was so very weird, and I just couldn't pull myself out my trip and into the book. I finished the first section (page 17). This time, even though my brain had more room for weirdness, that first section was just as much of a dud as the first time.

Why I Read This Now: I thought I'd give it another try over Christmas. This book sounded interesting and there are so many rave reviews. It was a pretty fun read, overall. It's been compared to The Magician's Nephew, which is a lifelong favourite. I don't find it all that much like The Magician's Nephew, but I also heard it compared to Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, which is a strange comparison, but I see it and see the connections. I strongly disliked that book and Piranesi is better.

How I Discovered This: I think this one another one I heard of first from Jen Campbell, but then Piranesi was nominated for the Women's Prize and got a lot of hype before it won the award in 2021.

92Nickelini
Mar 1, 2023, 12:58 am

Lonely Hearts Hotel, Heather O'Neill, 2017


cover comments: Perfect for this book. Also, who doesn't love a blue cover?

Rating: 4.5 stars

Why I Read This Now: O'Neill is one of my top favourite authors, and I've loved every book of hers that I've read. Yet I kept putting off this 2017 novel because it was set mostly in the 1930s (all her other books have been more contemporary), and it involved circus elements, and (cringe), clowns! It just didn't sound like my jam. I really dislike clowns.

I like Heather O'Neill's clowns.

Anyway, back to why I read this now. I was looking for something in my past reading journals, and came across my notes from Heather O'Neill's The Girl Who Was Saturday Night from this time in 2019. I'd copied eight and a half pages of quotations from that novel and really enjoyed reading them again. And I remembered what an unusually cold February we had that year, and how that novel set in Montreal was perfect for my mood, and since now four years later we are having unusually cold weather (maybe not so unusual anymore?), I thought I'd try Lonely Hearts Hotel.

Comments: Rose and Pierrot are born in 1914 to young teen mothers, and end up in an orphanage in Montreal. They stand out from all the other waifs in this oppressive environment and form an inseparable bond. Both are witty and charismatic. Rose dances and improvises make believe scenarios. Pierrot is nimble in general, erudite in speech (although he often doesn't understand what he's just said), and gifted at the piano. They end up performing for wealthy people in Montreal, with the payment going to the wicked nuns at the orphanage, until they hit their mid-teens. Then they are sent off as servants, or companions, in wealthy homes, until they fall into the squalor of drug addiction and prostitution. Eventually Rose and Pierrot reconnect as adults in the Great Depression and are able to actually make their childhood fantasy of the "The Snowflake Icicle Extravaganza" a reality. With underworld ties, however. And that's the first half of the novel.

It's whimsical, tragic, sad, magical, funny, depressing, and I loved every minute.

Look, I can't do this novel justice. The whole circus and clown thing had me avoiding reading this for years. But it turned out that I found the clown parts completely amusing (maybe it's a Montreal Cirque du Soleil thing vs. a USA Barnum Bailey thing. Probably), and I thought, as I was reading the humorous clown interview chapters, "Montreal is lousy with clowns!", but then I saw that I'd written that down from the Girl Who Was Saturday Night. I should have trusted that O'Niell would transcend the circus theme. But I was wary. For years one of my book club friends tried to get us to read Water For Elephants and I was pretty sure I'd hate it. I gave it a chance and hated it. Maybe when it comes to circuses, just go with the francophone version.

BTW, Lonely Hearts Hotel is a weak name for the novel, and I think "The Snowflake Icicle Extravaganza" captures more of the book, but perhaps wouldn't appeal to adult readers. Hmmm. "Pierrot and Rose" would have been better, but I'm not a book marketing guru.

Recommended for: If you've read this far, maybe you. I get that O'Neill is not for everyone but I just love looking at raunchy, seedy life through her rose coloured lenses

People who don't like this complain that it was compared to a more famous book (that it's not like), that it's too crude, that the author uses too many similes, that there are too many horrible events, that the author tries too hard to be clever. Probably they're right. But I love it.

How I Discovered This: long time Heather O'Neill fan, so when this came out I knew I'd read it eventually even if it had a circus theme to it

93Nickelini
Mar 27, 2023, 10:53 pm

Station Eleven, Emily St John Mandel, 2014


cover comments: I like the deer, but the rest of it does nothing for me. I don't hate it, but it's not good either

Comments: Post-apocalyptic novel set before, during and 20 years after a pandemic quickly kills 99% of the people on the planet. Has been made into a TV series on AppleTV.

Why I Read This Now: It's a contender for this year's CBC Canada Reads. I've actually tried to read it twice in the past and never got very far. My husband bought this on a whim (something he does once a decade) and said it was "okay," and then my book club picked it and I was fine with the choice because I already owned the book. But I didn't get very far, as I put it down and just never got back to it. Another time I tried it on audiobook because it was available, but again, I listened once and then didn't bother again. Over the years, I've put this in the donate box a few times but it always came out because someone would say something super positive about it, or intriguing. This was the book's last chance.

Rating: 3 stars. I actually rather enjoyed Mandel's writing, but I strongly dislike post-Apocalyptic stories. I look forward to reading other books by her as long as they aren't on this subject.

Recommended for: people who enjoy post-apocalyptic novels? As a rule, I don't read books about the Holocaust or slavery, and now I've added this subject/genre to the list. My husband says that "everything" is post-apocalyptic, but that's just his algorithm, because it's not my experience.

How I Discovered This: best seller