This was my bookgroup read for January, and I probably wouldn’t have read it otherwise. I found the first part of the book, about the second wife of the lord of the manor and the children growing up to be a bit tedious (I did like the story of the romance with the first wife). I found the characters very posh and quite annoying.
My interest picked up though later in the book during war time with people working undercover in France as well as the sister who stayed home and worked the land. Not my favourite of the book group books and we didn’t really chat that much about it.
I was disappointed by this novel. I like a cosy mystery, and I enjoy learning about words and their origins as well as solving puzzles, so I was excited to read this, and while it has all these things, I just felt it was lacking something. I didn’t warm to the characters and the story didn’t really engage me. I was quite bored actually. Ah well.
*SPOILERS* – don’t read if you don’t want spoilers.
Hmmm – I don’t know what to make of this book. Certainly it has a lot going for it – interesting characters with stories spanning decades and continents. Friendships, racism, classism, misogyny, climate issues, AI – so many topics examined. I enjoyed the backstories of the characters – growing up, finding themselves and each other, finding their place in the world, but the twist at the end, where all the characters come together on the beautiful remote island, voting on whether to allow development of off shore floating cities which would perhaps aid mankind but destroy the old world charm of their community – just when I thought I was getting my head around who was who and how their stories fitted together they hit us with the bombshell!!
The final part of the story is not real – it’s an AI simulation! I hate that!! I don’t like when books break the believable universe within the book to say ‘this bit is real’ but ‘this bit is made up’ I don’t like it. It forces you to confront the fact that actually it’s all made up, and the real emotion I have invested in these characters and their stories is cheapened. I feel cheated. It might be ‘clever’ and ‘meta’ but it sucks and it makes me want to spit or cry or generally have a hissy fit. Waah!
Flesh and Blood (Before and After Book 2) – Andrew Shanahan – 08.01.25
I was surprised by how much I loved these two post apocalyptic novels! Before and After begins with Ben Stone, a morbidly obese man living alone (with his dog) in an upstairs flat in London. He needs his leg amputated due to diabetes complications, and to get him to hospital involves removing the wall of his apartment and hoisting him out very securely strapped to a stretcher made for this purpose. In the middle of all this, just as he is strapped immobile something happens – first alerts coming into the radios of the people helping him, causing most of them to leave, then the remaining two men becoming enraged like berserkers and basically fighting each other to the death. Ben is trapped, listening to the world fall apart around him with the immediate problem of being strapped up with no food or water and a rotten leg to contend with.
I guess it’s a zombie novel, but so much more – I thought the writing was very engaging and intelligent and I loved the character of Ben and his dog and how they worked through the myriad of problems besetting them.
The second novel introduces a new (or nearly new since she was mentioned in the first book) character that adds interest and cleverness to what was already an interesting and clever set up. I loved the ending – very moving. Most enjoyable couple of books I’ve read in a while – highly recommended if you like this kind of thing!
This novel by Adam Roberts (actually a YA novel) is about something that caused all the adults in the world (17 and over) to fall asleep and stay asleep. For some, obviously this had immediate devastating consequences – think airline pilots, or anyone driving a high speed vehicle, or performing surgery, or anything vital like that, but the slower repercussions were just as terrible – sleeping bodies become dehydrated, emaciated, etc and the young adults left behind had to take responsibility for the younger children as well as trying to keep their sleeping adult family members alive.
Some groups revelled in the removal of constraints – raiding off-licence shops and partying/looting/joyriding etc, others tried to organise rationing of resources, learning how to fix generators and grow food, ie, survival skills, as well as trying to figure out what had happened and what they could do about it, especially as anyone turning 17 would join the ranks of the sleeping (or mostly dead after not too long).
I mostly really enjoyed the novel – the main character was likeable and the situation was intelligently explored. I however, found the ending to be rushed and unsatisfactory – maybe a sequel is planned, or just the writer didn’t like pat endings that tied things up too neatly?
I do enjoy Ben Aaronovitch’s stories, and this is a fun insight into Nightingale’s back story set in 1920s New York with prohibition, Jazz clubs and of course, magic.
This was a very clever and (mostly) enjoyable book to listen to. It is one of these meta book within a book type things and my head felt messed with over what was real (ie. made up by the author) and what was made up (ie. made up by the characters who have been make up by the original author). I don’t really like this because it feels to me like it breaks the ‘fourth wall’ or breaks a contract or breaks something – I feel like I want to be invested in a story so much that is feels as real to me as it does to the characters while I’m reading, and then to find out that some of it was ‘made-up’ within the world of the book kind of belittles this for me and I feel like, what’s the point of investing myself in these made-up characters – I know this is irrational since they’re all made-up, but still it upsets me!
Anyway, that aside, the plot and mystery and characters and stuff was good, and the narrators were good, so mixed feelings from me over this one.
Hmm, not sure what I made of this audiobook. The American narrator was a bit winey and annoying, as was the main character (maybe well cast narrator !?). The premise was that a small number of people throughout history have figured out that reality as we know it is just a matrix like computer programme and have attempted to manipulate the programme to their own ends. Our hero (!?) I forget his name now, tried putting lots of money into his own bank account which instantly alerted the evil authorities to his discovery. He escaped by travelling into medieval England (as you do) and seemingly as many before him did do, because there is a thriving community of wizards (people who have discovered the matrix and can manipulate it so it seems like they can do magic) in medieval Europe. Stuff happened, it ended, turned out it is the first in a series. I really don’t think I could be bothered continuing the series (although I didn’t hate it enough to give up halfway through). Gets good reviews, so lots of people seemingly did like it a lot (or maybe the author altered the matrix so it seems that way, lol). Not for me though.
I was talking to the partner of one of my book group friends and it turns out that we share a love of Jasper Fforde books, also I learned that there is a new Thursday Next book coming out later this/next year, and both of these things prompted me to re-read books 1-7 in this series.
I really enjoyed refreshing my memory in the world of Thursday Next where some people are able to travel into fictional (or non-fictional) pieces of writing, and in some cases, fictional (or fictionalised versions of) people can come out of books into the real world. There is so much going for this series: humour, yes, Jasper Fforde while occasionally looming into too much silliness for my taste, is certainly funny; lots of nods to classic fictional characters and books and writers many of which I got and some which I didn’t but a real bookworm’s smorgasbord of tasty titbits (!); historical detail – aside from the fact that the books were written over quite a long time period, so the contemporary details read like a history of modern times, but also travelling into historical works gave a feel of time travel (the whole series reminds me very much of the equally enjoyable books by Jodi Taylor); great characters who go on real journeys, who I feel bonded with enough to really care about what happens to them. Good wicked baddies too, and conflicted characters – if you like quirky surreal type books then I definitely recommend this series and I’m very excited for the next instalment (the Thursday Next instalment – lol!)
This is a ‘cosy mystery’ type story about a young man who illegally lives in rich people’s fancy houses when he knows they are going to be away for a while. Even though it is illegal, he doesn’t steal anything or hurt anybody, so feels it’s actually redressing a moral balance. Unfortunately he gets caught up in a murder mystery and has to join with some other ‘unofficial house-sitters’ to solve the crime and clear his name.
I liked it to begin with, but then I must say I got a bit bored – a lot of young people being awkward and finding their way – very sweet and all, but I’m like, I’m too old to be bothered with all this. I almost gave up on it, but I stuck it out and it did actually pick up again towards the end so I didn’t hate it completely.
Sarah Wray Writer 