Because I am off home to Belfast for the holidays the husband and I did our Christmas present opening today. And here are my lovely books (all requested of course!) 2 problems: don't know which to read first and can't take any on the plane as they are too heavy. Kindle Christmas it is - for me and many others i suspect.

Happy Christmas blog readers if you are readong - onwards and upwards next year!

so much pretty by Cara Hoffman: intriguingly different

I have to admit, I found this an unusual read. A crime novel - yes. A study of adolescence - also yes. An examination of small town politics, environmentalism and radicalism - also yes.

So Much Pretty, to me, was the story of Alice Piper. In Haeden,  New York State, local girl Wendy goes missing and isn't found for months. When she is found, it's clear she's been dead for a matter of hours and, horrifyingly, has been kept alive for unspecified purposes.

Cara Hoffman, in her debut novel, skilfully manages the unraveling of Wendy's story with that of local precocious teen Alice Piper. Whilst Wendy is a small town everygirl, Alice is a proto-genius in training, with an intensely close relationship with fellow local outsider Theo. Alice's parents moved from Manhattan to Haeden many years prior to Wendy's disappearance: it is testament to Hoffman's skill that she cleverly manages the many threads and  perspectives on the story of Wendy's disappearance.

As the novel progresses the character of Alice becomes clearer and clearer to the reader,  as do those of her idealistic parents. We see through the layers of Haeden society to penetrate to the dark core of this seemingly idyllic small town.

It may be that this unusual novel of a disrupted New England community seems even more pertinent in the light of Sandy Hook - and if you've read it you'll notice a sad connection between the two stories, one fictional, one all too real. It's certainly the case that this unusual crime novel will stay with you long after you've read it.

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Dare Me by Megan Abbott: lean mean teen queens

I was lucky enough to receive a copy of this fab novel as a member of the Pan Macmillan reading group. Unfortunately due to ill health I couldn't make the meet up and discussion, which I was very disappointed about particularly as I loved the last meet up. So I thought I'd write a blog piece and share my views on it.

I have to admit I had actually already downloaded the novel onto my kindle prior to the lovely Jodie sending me my copy. I loved Megan Abbott's last novel "The End of Everything" for its evocative picture of teenage girls' friendships in a small town in a sleepy summer (with shades of "The Virgin Suicides" - another favourite). So I was really looking forward to this novel.

I felt like "Dare Me" took Megan Abbott into a different league. The story of hyper competitive cheerleaders and their warped relationship with their coach also has elements of a crime novel. It's a pageturner with a cracking plot, based both on a horrible crime and on the relationship between Addy, our narrator, Beth, her frenemy and Coach, who plays all the girls against each other both in cheerleading and for her affections.

Megan Abbott is so sharp on what makes girls tick. The cheer squad hate Beth and want to be her, all long limbs and insouciant control; Addy is jealous of Coach and longs for her approval. Coach pulls the girls close to compensate for the shallowness in her own life and keeps them at arm's length to preserve her mystique. No one really likes anyone else but they can't stop thinking about them.

The girls are forever on their phones tapping out messages of love and hate. They're always connected and can never escape attention. So although the girls can be loathsome, you pity them and (for adult readers) breathe a sigh of relief that you're too old for all that. I'm not actually sure teenage girls would like this novel: it may be too sharp and probing. Could they share the adult reader's pity for Beth?

A classy and chilling crime novel; a dark and compelling psychological thriller; an empathetic and ultimately sympathetic portrait of teenage girls. Definitely comes highly recommended.

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The Reading Pile...what next?!

The Cutting Season by Attica Locke
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman
Mudwoman by Joyce Carol Oates
The Distance Between Us by Maggie O'Farrell

Any suggestions as to which to tackle next welcome!

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Gone Girl: worthy of the plaudits

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is pre-approved. Lauded and recommended highly by virtually everyone whose bookish opinion I respect (including Alexandra Heminsley/@Hemmo who I think must be my book twin as her taste is identical to mine), it would be tough for any book to live up to the expectations I had for this novel.

I'm pleased to say I loved it. Otherwise my book-faith might have been seriously dented. But there's another problem. How to review a book that's had acres of coverage, and a thriller at that - one with a fiendishly well worked-out plot that I would hate to spoil for any reader?

As I'm sure you know, Gone Girl follows the characters of Nick and Amy Dunne. One day, Nick awakes to find his perfect wife...gone. As the novel progresses, we learnt that both Nick and Amy are not what we first took them for.

Gone Girl is truly original. I can't even begin to imagine how Gillian Flynn was able to create this perfect riddle of a book. It's so well worked out that thinking about it too much might make your head swim. It's also marvelously quirky, both in style (Flynn creates absolutely authentic and very different voices for her two characters) and in subject matter. There are so many layers of detail that build up to create a compelling portrait of a very strange marriage.

Suffice to say you should read it, if you've not already succumbed to the hype. In this case, it's truly justified.

You'll like this if you enjoy: anything by Laura Lippman
What to read next: Sharp Objects also by Gillian Flynn, Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

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Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel: an all-consuming trip into the past.

Wow, it's hard to blog in term time. Must Do Better, I think...so to start with, some thoughts on this year's Booker winner. Not the most original of reviews to write - I'm sure a quick Google would turn up thousands - but as the last book I read it's as good a place to rebegin as any. 

I'd had the (beautiful) hardback since the summer but had been saving it for half-term, remembering from my experience of reading Wolf Hall in the summer holidays how engrossing Mantel's world is, and how, frankly, challenging her work can be. The present tense and choice to use "he" so frequently to refer to Cromwell make for a novel which demands concentration.
And the reader's concentration is certainly repaid. Mantel once again recreates an early modern world for us through deftly chosen detail. Her research is both apparent and unobtrusive; a magical scene wherein Cromwell's household make a snowman of the Pope lingers in the memory - so much so that I wasn't surprised to learn that this incident was one which Mantel adapted from a contemporary letter she'd read as research. For me, the authenticity with which she creates Cromwell's world is the hallmark of the novel.

I have to admit, though, that I found this novel less gripping than the last. My familiarity with the story of Anne Boleyn's fall led me to be uninterested in the buildup to it in the narrative. The fall itself was arresting and made startlingly new through Cromwell's perspective - but the back-room negotiations prior to it seemed prolonged.

Mantel's depiction of Jane Seymour was possibly the most original and  compelling aspect of Bring Up The Bodies. I loved the portrait of a watchful, purposely bland and blank woman, waiting for her chance to be Anne's opposite.

Hilary Mantel certainly doesn't need my humble blog's comments or for me to reaffirm her work as Booker winner. I'll simply close by saying I've already tried (and failed) to find out the publication date of the final part of the Cromwell trilogy, The Mirror and the Light. Can't hardly wait.

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The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller: truly beautiful writing

This was my second holiday read after The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood and it couldn't have been more different. I'd actually been saving up Madeline Miller's recreation of the Trojan War for aaaages (since before it won the Orange Prize so I claim retroactive smugness) as I suspected I'd love it and would want to enjoy it without distraction.

And I was right. This is a gorgeous book: rich yet modern, moving and lyrical. Miller has chosen to retell part of the story of the Trojan War from the perspective of Patroclus, whom she casts as Achilles' lover. I have to admit I had to do a little googling to remember the bare bones of the Achilles / Patroclus story; I vaguely remembered from my GCSE Latin my teacher telling us about Achilles grieving over Patroclus and my thinking "oh, they must have been such good friends". Well, while the Iliad itself doesn't do much more apparently than allude to a romantic relationship between the two, Miller foregrounds the love affair between these two very different men and in doing so refreshes the story of the Trojan War, possibly even opening it up to a wider audience. Whilst I can't see that many women readers warming to the story of a siege, The Song of Achilles is the story of a love affair in wartime.

Chunks of the story itself were familiar to me: the abduction of Helen (I could never remember whether it was Menelaus or Agamemnon who she was married to, but I certainly won't forget after Miller's vivid portrait of Agamemnon as a jealous, bitter rival to Achilles); Hector being dragged around the ramparts; Priam pleading for his son's body. Achilles and his role I was less sure of - a hero, a helmet and a heel was about as far as my memory went.

Miller begins the story with Patroclus' childhood. Initially an unappealing young boy, Patroclus commits an accidental murder and is banished to Pthion, of which the demi-god Achilles is prince. While Achilles at first seems to disdain Patroclus, over time they grow to be friends and, eventually, lovers. However, destiny hangs over Achilles. His sea-nymph mother Thetis - who hates Patroclus with a grim passion - warns him that to fulfil his destiny as a famous warrior he must die at Troy. Patroclus and Achilles unwillingly set out for Troy and their fate...

To say that Miller breathes life into the Iliad would be to do a disservice to both her and the original text. The rich and ambiguous source material has inspired her to create a new, modern love story. Patroclus' voice is a triumph: as the narrator of the story, he paints for us a picture of Achilles as supremely human and supremely inhuman, at the same time as conveying his own flaws. But Patroclus turns out to be the real hero of the story - the best of the Greeks - and Miller's skill as an author is in creating a fully real human being in Patroclus with whom we admire, pity and empathise.

I must mention the chilling portrait of the sea-nymph Thetis. A modern reader might be tempted to see ancient gods almost as cartoon characters, but Miller paints Thetis as a terrifying presence. The description of her is so powerfully chilling that I nearly felt the rough waves of the sea coming off the page when she appears. Yet so rich is this novel that, by the end, we can pity even her.

The conclusion of the story must have posed a problem for Miller. Patroclus is our first person narrator, but we know (if we've remembered our GCSE Latin) that his death comes before Achilles'. Miller's means of overcoming this narrative obstacle is perfectly in keeping with the genre of her novel, and, after some initial scepticism, I was thoroughly convinced.

The language and style employed by Miller is both unique and utterly appropriate for this classical tale. Again, my memory is a little blurred, but I remember a lot about Homeric epithets: figurative language such as "the wine-dark sea" repeated in the Iliad for both vividness and for aid of recall of the original storyteller. Miller updates these in creating rich, figurative and sensual prose which is a feast for the reader. The description of Thetis' voice is a case in point: compared to rocks grinding in the sea, we hear the harsh, loud and rasping tones plainly and vividly as she speaks.

I can't really do this fabulous novel justice in a blogpost; suffice to say it was a more than worthy, and possibly a brave choice for the Orange prize. It deserves a huge readership and I really hope it gets one. A perfect choice for a book group, it would also be enjoyed by older teenagers. Or just about anybody. Read it at all costs!

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