- dystopian YA novels?
- cashin 50 shades erotica?
- scandi crime?
*disclaimer*
I'm certainly partial to bit of scandi crime - I do like Jo Nesbo and have a soft spot for Jussi Adler-Olson - and the same for YAY dystopian fiction (take a bow, Lauren Oliver and Patrick Ness). But I think I'm ready for something different...roll on 2013!
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
