Jen reads... The Proof of Love by Catherine Hall

 By the time the summer holidays begin, Spencer Little is keen to put the events of the past term at Cambridge behind him and a remote village in the Lake District seems to offer the perfect escape. But it's not so easy to remain anonymous in a small community and, after striking up a friendship with ten year old Alice, Spencer also finds himself being drawn into other people's lives. As the summer heatwave intensifies and a web of complicity tightens around him, Spencer realizes that he will eventually be forced to choose between loyalty and truth, between logic and passion.

I have had this book on my kindle for a while, and I'm pretty sure that I bought it because it won the Green Carnation prize (for writers who are in the LGBT community), and... I probably heard somebody gushing about it on one of the book podcasts I listen to? Not sure. Anyway, it had sat on my kindle for a while, and the only reason that I ended up reading it is that I asked my husband to randomly pick something off my TBR list for me to read next. It turned out to be an excellent choice!

I loved the setting of the book. I read it just after reading The City and the City by China Miéville (which I really enjoyed!), which is set in... well, it's difficult to describe, but it's two cities that are superimposed on each other, and it took me quite a while to wrap my head around the setting, so it was a bit of a relief to get back to the English countryside, a setting that I am more familiar with. Although having said that, I've never read any books set in the lake district, so that was quite interesting! To be honest, even though I have met people from that area, it doesn't exist in my head as a place where actual people live (if you know what I mean). The countryside is beautifully drawn in the book, and the relationships between the people in the local area all felt completely real.

I really enjoyed seeing Spencer slowly find his place in this community, while also struggling with the demons he has been trying to escape from. Although I wasn't entirely sure what to make of him at first, as we find out more of his back story I came to really like him as a character, and as someone who is more often than not the newcomer who doesn't quite fit in I really sympathised with him. I love his relationships with everybody else in the book, and the way that he slowly comes to be more accepted by the community.

And then... I can't really talk about the other things that I loved, because they would be massive spoilers! But overall although this book is definitely a slow burner, it completely won me over by the time I was a couple of chapters into it, and by the time I had finished it I was so overwhelmed with feelings that I ended up feeling weirdly empty, like it was too much for me to actually be able to express anything. It was really beautiful and heartbreaking, and I really recommend it! I'm definitely going to go and track down her other books now.

May reading round-up

I am actually posting this only 4 days into June! I AM SO PROUD OF MYSELF!

The books that I read in May:

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

I saw the film a few years ago and enjoyed it, and I have liked everything else by Gaiman I have read so I was pretty sure I would like the book. It turned out that I had forgotten almost everything about the film so I can't really compare the two, but I really liked it! I was under the impression though that it was aimed at children (not entirely sure why), but one of the characters gets it on in a field towards the beginning so... I guess not! Anyway, Neil Gaiman is quickly turning into one of my favourite reliably good authors! Any advice on which book I should read next?



Under the Skin by Michel Faber

The book is about a woman who drives around picking up hitchhikers in Scotland, for what are initially mysterious reasons. Some of them she drugs and takes away with her, and some of them she actually takes wherever it is that they were heading. She starts off as a complete mystery, although actually I knew some major spoilers before reading the book (thanks to reviews of the film that came out a while ago), but the book made me want to find out what I knew again, if that makes any sense! It was well done, is basically what I'm trying to say. If you are interested in reading it I suggest maybe not finding out too much about it beforehand.
I thought it was a really interesting book. It kept on surprising me, and I pretty much couldn't put it down while I was reading it.

Seconds by Brian Lee O' Malley

I have not read Scott Pilgrim, although I did see and really like the film, so this is my first graphic novel of his. Katie, the main character, discovers that she can travel back in time to undo past mistakes, and then takes that idea to extremes. I really liked her as a character, and even though there are a lot of takes on this kind of idea, I thought it was done really well and am looking forward to reading it again at some point! I am also definitely going to get to Scott Pilgrim one day as well now (although I believe the general consensus is that this is better?)



Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

The hosts of the Bookrageous podcast talk about how much they love A. S. King's YA fiction a lot, and I've always meant to try it at some point. Then they had her as a guest on a recent (might not be so recent, I tend to store up lots of podcasts and binge on them) podcast, and a lot of what she was saying struck a chord with me so I immediately decided to buy one of her books. I'm glad I did, because I really liked it! This is definitely more of an issue based YA book, where the main character is struggling with how the other people in her life will deal with her sexuality. The book also contains a slightly fantastical element, as the main character, Astrid, sends up love, questions and thoughts to the passengers on planes that fly overhead, and then we see how this affects the passengers. Sometimes I thought this fantastic part didn't quite work as well as it could have, but for the most part I loved it! I already have another A.S. King book lined up to read, and I am looking forward to getting to it!

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

This is the second discworld book, and it also follows the adventures of Rincewind and Twoflower immediately following the events of the last book, and with an impending apocalypse hanging over them. This is definitely much more of an actual novel than The Colour of Magic which is more like a series of set pieces put together, and I think it is the better for it. I still think that the Rincewind books are a bit weaker than some of the others in general, but overall it was very enjoyable!





A Girl is a Half Formed Thing by Eimear McBride

Oh I do not know what to say about this one. On the one hand, the book is written so it is kind of like a stream of consciousness, which I found immensely irritating and pretentious at first. But once I got into the flow of it I started to get into the story more, although to be honest the story was pretty bleak and nasty, so.... hmm. Overall I think I did like it, but this is definitely not an easy read, and I found myself getting really annoyed at the main character and some of the decisions that she was making, while also sort of understanding why she was doing it at the same time. To be honest, my reaction to the main character's behaviour made me question quite a few of my in-built prejudices, which I think is always a good thing! I think it will stick with me for quite a long time, although I'm not sure how widely I would recommend it. If you are not afraid of a slightly more challenging book that requires quite a bit of concentration to read, then why not!


The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman

Loved it. Proper review (mainly of the whole Magicians series rather than this one) coming shortly!









Attack on Titan volumes 6 and 7 by Hajime Isayama (read in Japanese)

So I picked this back up again after my husband pointed out that I was rubbish at finishing things that I start and used this manga as an example, and I did actually enjoy these volumes. I have already picked up the next few volumes for the Tadoku thing I'm doing now, yay. My one major nitpick with the books is that quite a few of the characters look pretty similar and I have problems telling them apart. This may be because I actually am pretty bad at reading manga though, especially manga with lots of action like this one.



Saga volume 4 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Excellent. If you haven't started reading Saga yet, what are you doing?! This and Ms. Marvel are seriously making me consider starting to read individual comic issues.

February, March and April reading round-up

Well my plan to do a monthly post about what I have read hasn't really worked, has it?! Oh well...

Luckily (???), a lot of my reading time in February to April was taken up with War and Peace, so I don't have too many books to talk about!

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Go back on the blog for my posts on War and Peace (which are full of spoilers, by the way. So maybe don't do that!). There are a lot of them! The readalong ended a while ago now, and I kind of miss it, while also being happy that I have my reading freedom back. One thing that I realised is that at the moment I really don't want to be reading more than one fiction book at a time, so I ended up giving up on trying to read other things for the most part, which wasn't great. Oh well!




In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

I enjoyed reading this, and it has made me want to read more Capote. I knew though that although this is non-fiction that there have been parts of it that have been proven not to be true, so I had that thought in the back of my mind the whole time I was reading it which was slightly annoying.






The Martian by Andy Weir

I really liked it. I would recommend it if sciencey stuff doesn't put you off! I really don't have anything else to say about it that hasn't already been said by pretty much everyone I have heard talking about the book.








Attack on Titan volumes 3, 4 and 5 by Hajime Isayama

I started reading this at the end of last year because I realised I was consuming absolutely nothing in Japanese at all, and I like it so far, although it is a bit gruesome. I'm not absolutely enamoured with it though, which is why I haven't got further than volume 5, in spite of having the next few volumes of manga just sitting over there *points* waiting to be read.





Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

This was pretty gripping, and I liked the fact that the whole apocalypse part of the story didn't play out at all like I thought it would. For a book that is about the world being attacked by giant insects, there is (if you haven't heard anything about the book before) a surprising amount of focus placed on the main character and his extremely complicated relationships with his best friend who is in love with the main character, and his girlfriend. I'm not sure I've read anything else that has portrayed teenager's relationships in quite the same way, and I thought that aspect of it was really interesting.



The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

I meant to do a separate post about Pratchett but I was finding it difficult to write so I ended up abandoning it. Sorry! I read this as part of Terry Pratchett Reading Week over on Bex's blog, and I am really happy that I did. I don't think that it is the strongest discworld book, but it is imbued with Pratchett's sense of humour and it kept on making me chuckle. I am planning on getting through all of the discworld books either again or for the first time, and I'm going to try and read at least 1 or 2 every couple of months. I am looking forward to getting to the Death books, as they were my favourites when I read Discworld as a teenager.



Saints by Gene Luen Yang

I read Boxers last year (I don't think I wrote about it on here), and really loved it so I was really excited to finally get a chance to read Saints. I think overall I prefer Boxers, but I do like both of them, and I definitely want to re-read them together at some point, in which case I will try to remember to do a post here covering them properly. I really really enjoyed them.






Ms Marvel Volume 2: Generation Why written by G. Willow Wilson, Illustrated by Jacob Wyatt and Adrian Alphona

I am really really enjoying Ms. Marvel so far and it's making me actually want to read individual issues rather than the collected volumes... but I probably won't (don't have a tablet to read the digital version on and I think my phone would be too small, and I have no idea where I would even be able to get my hands on the actual comics in Japan). Still, I recommend this to everyone! YAY Ms. Marvel!!




And that's it! I use the word "enjoy" too much, don't I? (Not that I actually think anybody will read all of this, so maybe it's okay!)

Also I am posting this at 3 in the morning (ish) because I can't sleep, so I expect it might be a bit mistake-ridden. Apologies!

I really need to do these at the end of each month, I will definitely do on for May!!!

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

I sort of forgot that I was going to post about this separately, and now it has been a little bit too long since I initially read it to write anything coherent about it (and as I have said before, I don't really take notes), but I do think that it deserves more than what I wrote in my January round up, so... here goes!

In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever.

Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily.

Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town's most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept "separate but equal."

Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another.




Although it has been a while since I read this, I still have very strong memories of the contents of the book, even if it isn't enough to talk about it in detail. The main impact that this book had on me was through its portrayal of how difficult it was for the black students in the book including Sarah to integrate into this all-white school. One of the earliest scenes in the book is of the students going to school for the first time, and just seeing the abuse that they put up with for it made me feel so sad. And disgusted. It was one of those things where I know the history (although not in a great amount of detail - I am British, after all) but I had never really imagined what it would actually be like to experience it. This is one of my favourite things about books, because I think you can learn about the history all you want, but you'll never get close to how you feel when reading a book that actually puts you in the shoes of the protagonists.

(This isn't really related to this book, but I had a similar experience going to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum recently. I know quite a lot about the history to do with it, have heard personal accounts as my husband's grandma was actually a victim of the bombing (although luckily she escaped with superficial wounds and no other side-effects that we know of) and have actually been to the museum before and could remember how it made me felt, but actually going through the exhibits and seeing pictures of some of the victims after the attacks and seeing objects that were left behind really brought home to me how horrific it was. If you are ever in Hiroshima you should definitely go, but be prepared to feel very very very very very sad.)

I also think the book does a good job of exploring Linda's point of view. She could easily just become the object of hate in a book like this, but I completely understood why she thought the way that she did (while completely disagreeing with her thoughts!), and I think she definitely has the biggest journey in the book and it is fascinating to see how Sarah influences her thinking about pretty much everything she thought was set in stone.

Sarah and Linda's feelings towards each other are a big part of this book, and thinking about it, although I have read plenty of books with male characters questioning their sexuality, this may be one of the first with female characters doing it (which shocked me quite a bit when I realised!). So that was interesting for me (and is also making me think that I really need to read more LGBTQ fiction), and I think that it was done pretty well. One of the things that can annoy me about historical fiction is where female characters act the same way that modern women, who are lucky enough to be able to take for granted a lot of the freedoms that women didn't have in the past, would in the same situation. And thankfully this wasn't an issue here, the whole book seemed to me to be a realistic portrayal of how that situation actually would have played out at the time.

The book was very easy to read although the subject matter was difficult at times, and if you are even slightly interested in the premise I wholeheartedly recommend it!

Tampa by Alissa Nutting

First a warning: I will be talking about the ending of this book in the review, but at the end behind a clear spoiler marking, so spoilers should be easy to avoid if you are spoilerphobic like I am. Also I realise that I am posting this stupidly late, but... yeah. I am not a good blogger!

Onto the book!

Celeste Price is an eighth-grade English teacher in suburban Tampa. She is attractive. She drives a red Corvette. Her husband, Ford, is rich, square-jawed and devoted to her. But Celeste has a secret. She has a singular sexual obsession - fourteen-year-old boys. It is a craving she pursues with sociopathic meticulousness and forethought.

Within weeks of her first term at a new school, Celeste has lured the charmingly modest Jack Patrick into her web - car rides after dark, rendezvous at Jack's house while his single father works the late shift, and body-slamming encounters in Celeste's empty classroom between periods. It is bliss.
Celeste must constantly confront the forces threatening their affair - the perpetual risk of exposure, Jack's father's own attraction to her, and the ticking clock as Jack leaves innocent boyhood behind. But the insatiable Celeste is remorseless. She deceives everyone, is close to no one and cares little for anything but her pleasure.

I am definitely drawn to books that are labelled as controversial, so I knew that I would read this at some point. I found it fairly repulsive, which, to be honest, was quite reassuring! I haven't read Lolita, or The End of Alice, or anything else which has a paedophile as the main character, and after this I'm not sure if I want to (although I have heard good things about both of those books so I might at some point, who can say?).

I think that the whole subject of female paedophiles is something that maybe isn't talked about very often. In pop culture, men are quite often portrayed as being slaves to their sex drives and unable to control themselves (which is obviously a load of rubbish and very problematic for everyone!) so it was fascinating seeing a woman who was characterized like this. Because Celeste, the main character, is under no illusions that she is in love with her victims, she just feels like she needs them and has a right to use them to fulfil her sexual desires. I felt no sympathy for her at all during the novel, and I think that this sort of lets the novel down a little bit. It would have been much more complex and interesting if she had been sympathetic in some way, if there was any attempt made to sort of humanize her, instead of portraying her as a psychopathic monster from the start.

I did enjoy it though, as far as you can enjoy a book like this. The plot moved pretty quickly, and there was a part of me that was waiting to see what insane thing she would do next. I think in the end the book went too far for me, and I would have preferred it to stay more... realistic? Is that the right word? But if the idea of reading about a paedophile doesn't make you run away screaming, and if you are not bothered by pretty explicit (although not erotic in any way, thank goodness) language and descriptions, then I think it might be worth reading.

Not an extraordinary book, but an interesting one.



And now, I want to talk about the end of the book so... spoilers ahead! Be warned!















So, I think that one of the things that is actually good about this novel is the way that it ends. Not actually in that I enjoyed the ending, because to be honest it is disturbing and not at all cathartic. I have read some things which said that this was stupid because she deserved to be locked up, which of course she did, but I think that this is a more realistic depiction of what could potentially happen in the real world. There's an idea that her victims were lucky because she's so attractive, and that being seduced by a hot teacher is a fantasy for a lot of teenage boys. She basically manages to worm her way out of going to prison by being too beautiful to go there (sorry, what?! Apparently this is actually a real defence that was used!) and then is free to carry on being super creepy.

Although I think that a better book could be written dealing with these issues, I do think that Tampa says a lot about how women are depicted and how men are depicted, and it made me think about how much society would benefit if men weren't supposed to be hyper-masculine and have an uncontrollable sex drive, and if women's attractiveness didn't alter how society treats them so much.

January reading round-up and ramblings

I reviewed no books at all in January! Go me! I did read 8 books though, so yay for January!

I don't have that much to say about most of the books though, so mini reviews it is! Although at some point I will be writing a review of Tampa, so you can look forward (?) to that.



Be Awesome: Modern Life for Modern Ladies by Hadley Freeman

Hadley Freeman writes for the Guardian, and I have been reading occasionally reading her columns for years. I especially enjoy Ask Hadley, which is supposedly a fashion advice column, but is in general quite amusing. My dad likes it, and I don't think he cares at all about fashion, so it's entertaining even if you don't care about the subject. I am sort of weirdly interested in fashion. You would not know this to see how I dress. Haha.

Anyway, I picked up this guide to being a woman (it's basically a collection of little essays about feminism and.. other stuff) because I know I like the way she writes, and it was fine. Nothing particularly mind blowing though. There were some amusing bits, but maybe not as many as I would have liked. If you know you like her, you'll probably enjoy it. Otherwise, I'm not sure I would recommend it necessarily, but you should definitely Ask Hadley a go!



Bird Box by Josh Malerman

The story takes place in a world where there is some kind of creature that makes people go mad and kill themselves and maybe other people when they see it. This means that everyone blindfolds themselves when they go outside to avoid glimpsing it. The book has two different strands, one set in the present day where the main character, Malorie, has two very small children to protect, and has worked up the courage after years of not seeing anyone else to leave her house and try to reach a safe haven that she heard about. The other strand is about the events that led her to this situation, from when strange things started happening up to the present day. I found the book hard to put down while I was reading it, and raced through it. From what I had heard about it though I was expecting it to be terrifying, but I wasn't really scared at any point. This is probably a good thing, because me being scared by things = not sleeping well for a month or so. It was extremely creepy though.

In spite of the lack of scares, I did enjoy it! I'm not sure it'll make my list of best books for this year, but I don't really have anything negative to say about it. If the concept sounds interesting to you then I think it'll be an enjoyable read.



The Cuckoo's Calling by "Robert Galbraith"

Mystery/crime novels are not really my favourite genre, but I had to read this because J K Rowling! As always, I loved the characters, and I think the book had some interesting things to say about fame and its consequences. I am definitely going to be reading the next one (and any others that are released) at some point. Yay! I still don't really get the whole Robert Galbraith thing though. I understand why she started using a pseudonym, and I understand why she would carry on using it, but I don't understand why she is still half pretending that he is a completely different person! Maybe she just enjoys it?



Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

Okay I tried writing a mini review for this one but it got too long so I'm going to expand it into a proper post. Next!









Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

It was Mary Roach. As always, she is very entertaining, and not at all afraid to jump in to whatever she's writing about. If you have read and enjoyed other books by her, or want to read some non-fiction about sex and the science behind it, then I think you'll probably enjoy it.

My favourite Mary Roach is still Stiff though. I think maybe part of me is still too British to enjoy this one as much as I could have, if that makes sense.



Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

I feel like I should have read this years ago. I read a LOT of discworld books when I was in my teens, and I have recently tried and liked Neil Gaiman, so I was pretty sure that I would like this, and I was right! I'm sure anybody who is interested in either of them knows what the book is about by now (and has probably read it already), but if you don't... go read a synopsis somewhere, because I can't think of a good way to summarise it.

If you like Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman and haven't read this then you really should. It was very entertaining, silly and made me want to read more Neil Gaiman and go back and revisit all of the discworld books.



Tampa by Alissa Nutting

I am writing a separate post about this. Overall, I liked it (not sure liked is the right word), but also ewww.









The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1) by Rick Riordan

I have been meaning to try the Percy Jackson books for a while (because sometimes you just want something quick, easy, entertaining, and sort of childish and innocent at the same time - or is that just me?), and I quite enjoyed the first one. I definitely needed to read something that was very light after reading Tampa, and it worked really well. It was a bit predictable, and there were some things that didn't make THAT much sense in it, but all in all it was good. I got a set with all of the books in, so I am probably going to read them when I need a break from War and Peace!

---------

Bye January! I mostly enjoyed you, although I could have done with having a few more work-free days (it's been almost a month now since I actually had a day when I didn't do any work at all. I'm REALLY HOPING that I'll be able to get enough done this week to take this weekend off. I know that some people work that much anyway, but I am definitely someone who needs to have regular time off otherwise I start to lose all motivation and go a bit crazy).

I think that the next few months will be revolving around War and Peace, which I am quite excited about as I am really enjoying it so far! Yay!

Comics I read in November

Okay, so I'm not a huge comic/graphic novel reader (although I have read a sizeable amount of manga), but I do buy them occasionally and would love to read more! If I ever get some kind of tablet device then I would really like to look into exploring comixology or maybe signing up for marvel unlimited... but for the time being, printed comics, yay!

Hawkeye Volume 3: LA Woman written by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Annie Wu and Javier Pulido

I talked about the first volume in Matt Fraction's Hawkeye run (ah, I feel like whenever I talk about comics I'm getting all of the terminology wrong, help!), here, and I also read the second one, which I didn't blog about (because I am a bad blogger) but did enjoy. This volume is much more straightforward than the first two volumes, which tended to have non-linear stories. It follows Kate Bishop, the other Hawkeye as she goes to L.A. Obviously this means almost no Clint Barton (boo!) but I like Kate, so yay! I guess the next volume released will cover what Clint was up to while Kate was in L.A., so I'm looking forward to that.

The first bit of it is taken not from the normal Hawkeye comics but from Hawkeye Annual #1 (I guess? Comics confuse me), and it's slightly jarring after the other things because it has a completely different colouring style, although it's apparently the same colour artist. Normally these Hawkeye comics have a very limited colour palette (which I like), but the first one uses more standard colours (I guess?). I didn't dislike it at all, but it felt like I was reading something else. It's weird how much having different colouring changes the feel of the comic! And I so wouldn't have been able to put my finger on what felt so different had it not been for the additional stuff at the back of the second volume where the person who does the colouring talks about how he purposefully uses a limited palette.

Anyway, if you are at all interested in Hawkeye I really recommend this (but do start at the beginning of this run, not at volume 3!)

Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal written by G. Willow Wilson and illustrated by Adrian Alphona

This is definitely a much more straightforward comic than Hawkeye. There has been a lot of buzz around this, mainly focused on the fact that the main character, Kamala Khan, is a Muslim Pakistani girl, which is pretty unusual for a superhero. I think the comic does a really good job of making Kamala's life seem completely normal for her (if that makes sense? I think sometimes things can go too much in the direction of WOW LOOK HOW DIVERSE WE'RE BEING! rather than actually seeming real), and I really liked her as a character. 

The story itself is pretty straightforward, Kamala ends up getting the power to alter her body so she can change her body at will, and one of the joys of this is that she could use it in the way that most teenage girls would and make her ideal body or something (...okay, maybe not just teenage girls because that is exactly what I would do if I had that power before even considering doing anything else, if I'm honest), and at the beginning she does struggle with that a bit, but then she just uses her ability to be awesome and try to fight crime, which is a wonderfully positive message.

I say this as a complete comics newbie, but so far it seems like this would be a good comic to jump in with, as so far there has been nothing that relies on you having a massive amount of comic knowledge to understand. I managed with my knowledge which is mostly just based on marvel films, hehe.

Honestly, it's pretty rare when I read something that I don't have some small complaints or criticisms about (my husband said that my constant criticism of everything is a sign that I'm turning Japanese, but I think that I've always been like that, and most of my Japanese friends are about a million times less nitpicky than I am), but I really couldn't find anything wrong with Ms. Marvel. I want the next volume to come out now!

Mini reviews of end of October/beginning of November reads

Let's face it, I am never going to find the time/inclination to write proper reviews for everything that I have read. So my new plan is to give everything that I have read a mini review at least, and then do individual posts for books that I actually have a decent amount to say about.

And I did actually write this in early November, but then forgot to post it, haha. Oh well.

On with the reviews!


Geek Girl by Holly Smale

If you are looking for a light-hearted, easy to read book that doesn't take itself too seriously, this might be one for you. The story follows Harriet, a girl who is a self-professed geek who hates fashion, but is then scouted at a fashion event that she only attended to support her best friend Nat who actually wants to be a model. Awkward. It is completely ridiculous, and I am pretty sure that the fashion industry does not work at all in the way that it is depicted in the book (although I could be wrong I guess, according to the author biography it seems to have been based on personal experience!), but it was thoroughly entertaining, and I really loved Harriet as a character. I only bought this because it was really cheap, but I think I will definitely read the rest of the series the next time I need something that I know will be very entertaining.

My only complaint isn't anything to do with the book really, but there were "handwritten" sections that ended up being really tiny and difficult to read on my e-reader. I couldn't figure out a way to make the pictures bigger, so ended up having to squint at them. Probably just me being stupid, but I feel like that should be accounted for when it's made into an e-book!


The Dinner by Herman Koch

I'm sure that those of you who haven't read this have at least heard of it. I don't really want to say much about the story as I think it's the kind of thing that works best if you know as little about it as possible beforehand, but it is about a man who goes out for a meal with his wife, his brother and his sister in law, and throughout the dinner it is revealed that all is not as it seems.

I have heard some people say that they couldn't relate to the characters at all, but I didn't find that to be a problem. I enjoyed the book and the revelations weren't at all what I thought they might be. It was quite a tense reading experience, and on the whole I enjoyed it. I did find it slightly annoying that it kept on purposefully not telling you the names of things, like "at a hospital, but I won't tell you which one because..." when there didn't seem to be any need for it to be written that way.

I also went into the book thinking that everything would be revealed through the dinner, but there was a lot of remembering things that had happened, and I think conceptually it would have been much more interesting if it had just been the meal. I'm not entirely sure why I thought that it would just be the meal, I must have misunderstood something that I read about it! (I tend not to read reviews/blurbs too closely if I know I actually want to read something, so sometimes completely get the wrong end of the stick)


Dare Me by Megan Abbott

Creepy cheerleaders? I'm there! This was a pretty creepy sinister book, and although I'm not sure I would count it amongst the best books that I have ever read, it was very well written, atmospheric and above all, enjoyable.

The book opens on some horrible event that has happened involving the narrator, Addy, and then the book goes on to cover the events that led up to it and... well to say any more would involve spoilers.

I enjoyed this, although I found some of the dialogue pushed the lines of plausibility (especially some of the things that Beth, Addy's best friend said). But overall, it was a very enjoyable read.


The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu

This was an interesting one for me, as the book is set in Harare (the capital city of Zimbabwe, obviously, I so knew that before I started reading the book), and most of the books that I read that are set in countries that are not the UK or America tends to be more serious literary fiction (like the two books that I read this year that are at least party set in Zimbabwe and Nigeria, We Need New Names and Americanah - neither of which I blogged about, apparently! Bad Jenny. They were both excellent!), and this was definitely not.

The story is about a hairdresser, Vimbai, who is the star hairdresser in her salon until a man, Dumisani, shows up and takes a job as a new hairdresser. The story follows Vimbai and Dumi as their relationship evolves from rivals to something else, as we find out more about Dumi's mysterious past.

I liked reading a book set in a country which has a lot of political and economic issues, where those issues were not the main focus of the book, but to be honest, if it wasn't for the setting I'm not sure how far I would have got into the book. I spent a lot of the time that I was reading it saying "ARGH Vimbai stop being an idiot!" in my head, as she was infuriatingly naive about a lot of things, and I didn't find the plot particularly interesting, although it didn't outright bore me at any point. What I did find fascinating were the insights into daily life in Zimbabwe and being exposed to a completely different culture. If this book had been set in... I don't know, Birmingham or somewhere I probably would have read a couple of pages, shrugged and decided that I didn't care.

Also, every chapter seemed to end with a sentence like this: "Little did I know that this small twist of fate would cost me my crown.", which I think is okay occasionally, but gets irritating when it is repeated ad infinitum!

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

A warning before I start talking about the book - I actually lent the book to a friend so I don't have it on hand, and as I never take notes this may not be the most detailed review ever. Ah well!

This is my second proper Neil Gaiman book, and it made me feel that in time, he may well become one of my favourite authors.

The Graveyard Book tells the story of a toddler who manages to escape from his crib and make his way to the local graveyard on the same night that a man comes to his house to murder his family. Naturally, the ghost residents of the graveyard agree to take him in, with the help of a mysterious friend of the graveyard called Silas. So the toddler is adopted by the ghosts of Mr and Mrs Owen, and they decide to call him Nobody Owens, or Bod for short. The book follows Bod as he grows up and gets up to all sorts of mischief.

Now looking at that summary of the story, that is a pretty depressing way to start a book, but as it is a children's book we are spared the horrible details. The book has a sort of loose ongoing plot to do with the initial murders weaved through it, but it is mostly a collection of short stories featuring the same characters, that involve Bod going on some kind of adventure, learning something, and growing. In other hands this could be very boring, or far too childish for an adult to read and enjoy, but Gaiman seems to be the perfect person to tell this kind of story. All of Bod's adventures are very entertaining and a bit dark, which is the ideal combination for me.

I really loved all of the characters in the book, from the adventurous, curious Bod to the mysterious Silas, and could happily have read several more volumes detailing Bod's adventures. Alas, the book did not last forever.

My one complaint about the book (because I can never just like anything, apparently) doesn't really have anything to do with the writing. I don't know if all copies of the book have pictures, but mine did, and although I didn't dislike them, they showed Bod wearing normal clothes and then on the next page there were descriptions of him just being wrapped in a grey sheet, and that kind of thing drives me slightly crazy when reading books! But that is literally the only thing that I disliked about the book.

If you are looking for a charming, easy to read novel that you could easily read in chunks and then put aside for a while (although why you would want to, I have no idea), then I definitely recommend this.

I definitely need to try more Gaiman, I think I might read more of his children's books first before anything else, because I'm a bit scared of not liking some of his adult stuff. I know that when I read Smoke and Mirrors, a few of the stories weren't quite my cup of tea, which is fine for a short story but would make me sad it if was a whole novel.

I actually finished this in October (even though I am actively trying to update my blog more often, I am wayyyyy behind in writing stuff about things that I have been reading), so for once I read a spooky book in the run up to Halloween. Yay me!

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

 I don't think that anything that I say here is going to actually fully express how much I liked this book. But honestly, I loved it from the moment that I started reading it till I finished.

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.

This is the twelfth expedition.

Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything.

This book made me change the way that I normally read, which is quite an achievement - Normally when I really get into a book I start trying to read as fast as I possibly can (and thus miss bits and get confused later, haha), but with this book I actually slowed down. It's not a particularly long novel, and I didn't really want to leave the world that VanderMeer created, it was so creepy, atmospheric, and above all, fascinating.

One thing that I really liked about the book was the way that it captured the narrator's voice. The narrator, the biologist (she isn't named in the novel) obviously has a scientific background, and her narrative style reflects that really well. It was sort of detached at times, as if she was stepping back and observing what was happening, which perfectly fit her character. There was a distinct lack of flowery language (always a good thing in my book!), and I thought that the biologist, and the other characters in the book were all drawn really well, and seemed like real humans who are reacting in very human ways to what happens to them. I think this is an excellent example of how to write a strong female character (for men, women generally don't have issues with this!). The character doesn't have to be some kind of warrior, you just need to give them a personality that isn't purely defined by the fact that they are female, and give them agency.

This has nothing to do with the content of the books, but I really like both the UK and US cover art for the whole of the trilogy. They both do an excellent job of conveying the mood of the book. In fact, although I have got all of the novels digitally, I am quite tempted to buy physical copies as well. (Plus, I got Annihilation for free (presumably to entice people to spend money on the rest of the trilogy? It worked for me!), and I feel that this is wayyyy too low a price for a book that I enjoyed this much!

I'm really curious as to where the series will go next. There's still a lot left open and unknown at the end of the first book, and I know that the second one focuses on a completely different thread of the story and completely different characters. I already bought it, so I'm excited about reading it! Although I am also a bit wary that it might let me down. With a book where half the fun is reading about all of the mysterious happenings and trying to figure out what exactly is going on, I think it would be very easy for the explanations (if they do come by the end of the book) to be slightly disappointing. I hope not though.

On a random tangent, the weird creatures in this book reminded me that I still need to read Maddadam. In fact, it's been too long since I read any Atwood at all. Hmm...

Mini reviews of October reads

I seem to have read a lot of books this month that I don't really have that much to say about.. so mini review time it is!


Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling

Obviously this was amazing (and a re-read). My husband has slowly been reading his way through the entire series, and I knew that if I started re-reading them as he was reading them I would end up irritating him, so I was waiting for him to finish to indulge in some proper comfort reading.

The last time I read Harry Potter (in English - I have read the first one at least in German and Japanese since then!!) was years ago, so I had forgotten how many little jokes and things there are scattered through the books that make me smile. I ended up reading this when I was in the middle of trying to read Five Days at Memorial, because my slightly cold-addled brain couldn't comprehend it any more, and it was just what I needed!

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death by M. C. Beaton

This is another book that I read whilst trying to get through Five Days at Memorial, and again it was just what I needed! I'm sure British people will have heard of the Agatha Raisin series, but if you haven't, it's based around a woman who has retired and moves to the Cotswolds to a village where lots of murders seem to happen (I assume). This is the first book in the series, and is about her moving there, and trying to fit into the village by entering a quiche competition which ends in murder.

It's a bit daft, but the actual character of Agatha Raisin is unusual in that she's actually quite unlikeable, but pretty fun to read about. All in all, it's quite silly, but lots of fun and oh so very British, and seeing as Britain is so very far away, it's nice to read something like that once in a while. (Harry Potter is kind of similar in its Britishness... maybe being sick makes me slightly homesick?) I will definitely have to remember to keep the other Agatha Raisin books in mind when I want something light and entertaining. I only wish that there were charity shops near here where I had a chance of finding the books for cheap!

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

This is my second Asimov book. I read The Gods Themselves ages ago and really loved the middle section (and thought the beginning and end section were okay), and I was hoping that Foundation would have at least a section on the same level as the middle section of The Gods Themselves... and it didn't really. But seeing as I have since read reviews of The Gods Themselves saying that it might be the best thing that Asimov wrote, my expectations were almost definitely too high.

The book is about a group of people who travel to the far reaches of the universe to work on an encyclopedia... which is a pretty interesting idea! I was fascinated by the encyclopedia idea, but the story quickly changed into lots of important people having important conversations with each other and outfoxing each other. Which was fun, but towards the end I realised that in the whole book, which covers over a century of this new society being established there were TWO female characters (that I noticed!). One is a servant girl who gets excited by some pretty jewellery, and another is the nagging wife of one of the male characters. Not great. I get that this was probably a consequence of the time when it was written, but.. hmm. It doesn't particularly encourage me to read more!

I sort of want to read the next book, as this one was more a collection of short stories about the foundation (see what I did there?) of this new society, but... I'm not convinced that this will ever happen! It's not a bad book by any means (apart from the lack of female characters - because half of the population of the new society isn't worth mentioning?), but it just wasn't my thing.

Oh and in the book they say "Space!" and "Galaxy!" instead of swearing. Which is fun, and something I might try to incorporate into my everyday speech!

The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

Fascinating look into slightly insane techniques that have been tried out in the American military. I found this when I read the psychopath test a few years ago too, but I always feel like I should like Jon Ronson books WAY more than I do. I'm not sure what it is about the books, but although I find the subject matter interesting, there's something that stops me from finding the whole book as enjoyable as I feel I should. Maybe I just don't like his writing style? I'm not entirely sure...

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

My parents LOVE Jo Nesbo, and as almost all of the e-book versions were really cheap a while ago I thought I would give him a try. This is actually the third Harry Hole book, but it was the first published in the UK which is why I got it. I would have preferred to try the first book, but never mind. This is why I should do more research before I buy things!

There were certain parts of the book where I found it hard to put down (even when I really should have done as it was already late and I had work the next day). In general I thought that the story was good, and I learned a load of stuff that I didn't know about Norway and its role in World War II, but I don't think that I'll be reading any of the others. Yet again, I have reminded myself that I'm just not a massive fan of crime as a genre (when it comes to books, anyway). I told this to my parents when I skyped them earlier and they recommended me a different crime series that they thought I might like, so maybe I'll give that a try at some point! I do like the idea of having a series of books that I know I'll enjoy!

Screen Burn by Charlie Brooker

I have actually been reading this really slowly over the course of the last 5 or 6 months, reading one or two columns before sleeping. I have loved Charlie Brooker's columns for years now, and this is a collection of them. They're from between 2000 to 2004, and mostly diatribes about how rubbish TV is (with the occasional thing that he actually liked). He gets a bit obsessed by 24 which made me feel really nostalgic! He also talks about loads of programmes that I had completely forgotten about, and the early episodes of talent based TV competitions which are somehow still going. If you like the way he writes, enjoy his rage, and want to enjoy a nostalgic look back at TV from over 10 years ago, you will enjoy it!

Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

Oh Five Days at Memorial... I wanted so much to love you like I thought I would, but... well, we'll get into that.

Before we start, you should probably know that I'm fascinated by medicine in general, I like (hypothetically!) thinking about ethical dilemmas, and find seeing how humans react to natural disasters fascinating (although living in Japan puts me in a bit too much danger of actually being a victim of a natural disaster for my liking!). So given that this book is about possible euthanasia performed at a hospital in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina, you would think it would have been right up my alley.

And it was, for the first half at least. The book starts in the middle of the disaster, and then goes back to the beginning, to the preparations (or lack thereof) made for it, to previous hurricane damage in New Orleans and the aftermath, and what people should have learned from it, and then goes into what happened during the hurricane itself. I really enjoyed (although that is not quite the right word) all of the first half of the book, up until everyone had either been rescued or was dead. I even stayed up late reading it on a weeknight, which I don't do very often.

My problems with the book really started in the second half when it was talking about what legal action was taken, who said what about whom, and what was going on in general. My main issue was that there was far too much information for me. There were a lot of people who were working in the hospital during the hurricane in the first place (and although I was much more interested in that part, I did feel a bit overwhelmed by it), and then introducing all of their lawyers, the prosecution, people doing other investigations into the case just became too much. I couldn't keep up with who everyone was, and the narrative seemed to jump around all over the place. I think it was trying to keep everything in chronological order, but I just found it confusing. I also would have been quite happy to just read a really pared down version of what happened afterwards, and the issues that it had raised, rather than a whole run-down of exactly who said what and when. I just found it a bit tedious.

For example, when talking about the main surgeon who was accused of performing euthanasia, Anna Pou, it talks about how she was treating one of her long-term patients, and spends a fair amount of time talking about him.. and he wasn't actually involved in the hurricane in any way. I understand that this was to highlight the good sides of her character, her devotion to her patients and the fact that she ended up not being able to treat him any more after being arrested, but it could have been easily shortened or just mentioned as an aside.

The book does raise some important ethical questions on whether euthanasia was an acceptable choice here (if that is actually what happened, that is), whether it is ever acceptable, what medical professionals should actually do in the face of disaster and so on... and I'm sure that if I was reading it as part of a class on that kind of issue or something, it would have been perfect. I just think it was a little too dry to be read for pleasure, which is why I read.

As a disclaimer... I read the second half of the book while feeling a bit under the weather, which probably affected the amount of patience I had. I did actually realise this and switch to a different book for a while, but when I came back to it feeling a bit better, I still had the same issues.

If you're interested in the book, I wouldn't tell you not to bother reading it, but I sort of wish that I'd just read the original article that the book was based on. Basically, I wanted just the five days at memorial of the title, not the years of case building and litigation that followed.

Jen reads... Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Unaccustomed Earth is a selection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri. It's the first thing that I've ever read by her, but if this is anything to go by, I'm going to love her other books!

All of the stories focus on Indian American characters, but although the stories share some themes about what it is like to be a first, second or even third generation Indian American, they are all different enough that this is in no way an issue (although I have seen some people bring it up as one). The first half of the book is made up of unconnected short stories, but the second half follows two characters, Hema and Kaushik at different stages in their intersecting lives.

There weren't any stories that I disliked or found boring in any way, which is pretty rare for a collection of short stories! Although my experience of being British and living in Japan is obviously quite different to the experience of Indian families living in America, there were a lot of things about the immigrant experience that Lahiri touches on that I have experienced to some extent, which I enjoyed. There were also a lot of culturally specific issues that I have no experience of, but which I found really fascinating to read about - The role of women in the home, traditional family roles versus modern ones, having relationships with people outside of your own culture, and so on... but the book isn't solely concerned with these issues. It also tackles much more universal problems such as how to cope with the alcholism of a family member, how things appear on the outside may not completely different to how they actually are, what happens to solid relationships when you add children into the mix, unrequited feelings and many other things.

Lahiri writes in one of my favourite styles - her writing is easy to read and not at all pretentious, but still extremely moving and beautiful. I don't normally comment that much on writing style (because it feels too much like I'm still in English lit. at school), but I really found myself appreciating it as I was reading.

The stories in this book are at both fascinating and quietly devastating, and they made me want to read a lot more of Jhumpa Lahiri's work. Highly recommended!

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

I recently decided that if I'm going to write book reviews on here, I should actually try to take notes or at least highlight passages in books so that I can look back at them and remember what I wanted to talk about... so of course, the first book that I choose to do that with to be one where to talk about the main topic of the book would immediately involve diving into spoiler territory. I won't, but I would love to talk about the book to somebody who has actually read it!

If you have heard anything (other than the booker nomination) about We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, then you probably know that there is a massive twist in the story about 70 pages in. I already had the book, which I had bought without knowing much about (other than that it was cheap and nominated for the booker), and was convinced to read it when I heard Simon on The Readers podcast* talk about how amazing the twist is. I hate being spoiled, so I knew that I needed to read it before I heard anything else about the book.

But setting the twist aside for the moment, as soon as I got a few pages into the book I knew I was going to love it. The book does a really good job of setting up this family where something is not quite right, but nobody is willing to talk about it for fear of upsetting the status quo, in an early part of the book where Rosemary goes home from college for thanksgiving. There are also several places where it is hinted that the narrator, Rosemary, is not entirely normal, exemplified by a scene in the college cafeteria, where she gets embroiled in an argument between a couple, where she ends up acting not entirely like a normal person would. This all made me really want to read on and figure out what was actually going on.

Another thing that I really liked is that Rosemary is a really self-conscious narrator. By that I mean that she is extremely aware that she is telling a story, and often makes asides to the reader, saying things like "Such a sweetheart. But don’t get attached to him; he’s not really part of this story". I think this could have been done really really badly, but it is handled really well, and makes Rosemary much more likeable, even when her behaviour is initially inexplicable.

The story starts in the middle, and then moves all over the place before finally reaching the end, but this is done in a way that feels natural and not at all jarring. This is a technique that I really love when it's done well.

 So now we come to the twist... and what a twist it is! I honestly did not see it coming in any way. It wasn't even in the genre of twist that I thought it would be. It turns what I thought was another well-written story about a dysfunctional family into something quite different. To be honest, it completely flummoxed me until I had read on a few pages when it all started to make sense. I think the thing that I like the most about the twist is that it isn't the whole book. I think you could quite happily know what the twist is before reading it and it wouldn't ruin your enjoyment of the book at all. I don't mean to say that because the writing is excellent (though it is), or that the characters are well rounded and interesting (though they are), you are going to enjoy the rest of the book even if you know what happens. What I mean is that the twist reveals the main point of the book, the fact that there is a twist isn't the point.

I would still recommend not knowing what the twist it is before you read it though.

I would be very happy if this wins the booker, and the fact that I enjoyed this so much is making me wonder if I should try to read the rest of the shortlist (I went off the booker prize a few years ago when I tried to read The Finkler Question which I HATED and did not finish, which is pretty rare for me)... I probably won't though, haha.

Quotes I enjoyed:

"When there is an invisible elephant in the room, one is from time to time bound to trip over a trunk."

"“Pass the turkey, Mother,” my uncle Bob said, sliding smoothly into his traditional rant about the way turkeys are being bred for more white meat and less dark. “The poor birds can hardly walk. Miserable freaks.” This, too, was intended as a dig at my father, the enterprise being another of science’s excesses, like cloning or whisking up a bunch of genes to make your own animal. Antagonism in my family comes wrapped in layers of code, sideways feints, full deniability."

"Language does this to our memories—simplifies, solidifies, codifies, mummifies. An oft-told story is like a photograph in a family album; eventually, it replaces the moment it was meant to capture."

"At dinner, I adopted my usual strategy of saying nothing. The spoken word converts individual knowledge into mutual knowledge, and there is no way back once you’ve gone over that cliff. Saying nothing was more amendable, and over time I’d come to see that it was usually your best course of action. I’d come to silence hard, but at fifteen I was a true believer."

* If you like book podcasts and haven't tried that one, you should! I only recently discovered it and have really enjoyed the back episodes that I've listened to so far.

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Warning - this review (and this book!) are probably not for the squeamish!

I have always been fascinated by medicine (I wonder if it's inevitable when you have a parent in the medical profession who leaves medical journals lying around the house all of the time? Must ask my sister!), and have wanted to read this book for a long time, but let's be honest, reading a fairly large book about cancer isn't exactly the most appealing prospect!

What finally got me to actually buy and read this is some translation that came in to my company which was to do with some new treatments for cancer that are in development. While struggling with the translation (medical stuff is hard when you have no kind of medical background!), I realised that I barely knew anything about cancer, and that maybe this would be a good thing to read to help me to learn.. and I was right!

The Emperor of all Maladies is a really fascinating look at the history of cancer, from the first time that it was recorded, to what the causes were once believed to be, early treatments, up to the modern day (or close - it was published in 2010).

It goes without saying that cancer is a really hideous disease, but some of the methods that used to be used to treat it are similarly hideous. There is a lot of talk in the book about radical mastectomies, which is horrific surgery that involved cutting away large swathes of muscle around the breasts, and cutting things out of the neck as well - basically cutting as much as was humanly possible without killing the patient, leaving many women horrifically disfigured, without actually curing the cancer in many cases.

Although at times the book was quite depressing - unsurprisingly, considering the subject matter - it did really make me appreciate how far medicine has come, as a lot of cancers that would have almost certainly been fatal before can now be cured, or at least sent into remission for long periods, and although it is probably unlikely that anything will ever completely cure cancer, I don't think it is too preposterous that one day cancer will be mostly treatable. I really hope that is the case!

I think that anybody who is interested in this kind of thing and isn't too squeamish would enjoy this book, but I suspect that a lot of the book may hit a little too close to home for anybody who knows anybody currently being treated for cancer, or anybody who is being treated themselves...


Other things of note:

• The book also talks a fair bit about AIDS, which I found really interesting after reading Tell the Wolves I'm Home.
• While reading about some of the more disgusting/horrifying descriptions of early treatments on the train, I kept on making involuntary weird faces which caused people around me to look at me strangely, hehe. 

Jen reads... Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

One of the reasons that I haven't updated in a while is that I have read a lot of books about which I'm having difficulty finding coherent things to say, and this book is definitely one of them. So if this post makes little sense, this is why!

As such, this review may be a bit spoilery, because I honestly have no idea how to talk about it in a spoiler free way.

Tell the Wolves I'm home is the story of June, whose uncle and best friend, Finn, dies from AIDS. It's mostly about the unlikely relationship that she develops with Finn's secret boyfriend, Toby, and her relationship with her sister, Greta.

I'm sure that I have said before that I have a weakness for stories about sisters, and this one captured a certain kind of sister dynamic perfectly. Greta and June were once really close, but have drifted apart, and find coping with Finn's death is half making them drift even further apart, and half bringing them back together. They both seem to be coping with his death in completely different (but completely understandable) ways, and I really enjoyed (if that is the right word, which it isn't) seeing the way they interacted with each other.

One of the other huge elements of the book is June's relationship with Toby (arguably much bigger than the sister stuff, but I have sister based fiction priorities, dammit!), which I also thought was portrayed completely realistically. They both react to each other and their situation in ways that made complete sense, and it is enjoyable seeing them forge new ties in the wake of Finn's death.

The book is set in 1987, and everybody is still pretty ignorant about AIDS (although not as ignorant as they would have been a few years before then), so you also see how June and her family cope with how the rest of the community that they live in reacts, and how June's parents reacted before and after Finn's death. It's really depressing in a lot of ways, and it made me wonder how much has actually changed... Obviously, we now know a lot more about AIDS and treatment is available now that wasn't then, but I can't help but think that a lot of families might still react exactly the same way as June's does.

This book is definitely a tearjerker... although I generally don't see that as a bad thing! I didn't feel like I was being manipulated into crying as I have done with other books *cough* fault in our stars *cough*. I really REALLY liked it, the whole thing was skillfully done, it was never too sentimental, and it was realistic without being ridiculously gritty and hard to digest.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home appears to be Carol Rifka Brunt's first book, and if her first one is this good then I have high hopes for her future work!