Book Review: Perfect People by Peter James

Perfect People: What it is about

The publisher says: “John and Naomi Klaesson are grieving the death of their four-year-old son from a rare genetic disorder. They desperately want another child, but when they find out they are both carriers of a rogue gene, they realize the odds of their next child contracting the disease are high.

Then they hear about geneticist Doctor Leo Dettore. He has methods that can spare them the heartache of ever losing another child to any disease – even if his methods cost more than they can afford.

His clinic is where their nightmare begins.

They should have realized that something was wrong when they saw the list. Choices of eye colour, hair, sporting abilities. They can literally design their child. Now it’s too late to turn back. Naomi is pregnant, and already something is badly wrong . . .“

Perfect People: What I thought

This is a creepy story about parents who want to avoid having another child with a genetic disease (their first son died of it). They get into contact wit Professor Dettori who can do much more than take out just one faulty gene. But is that what they want?

At some point, they are targeted by a religious group opposing the use of genetic selection. The book becomes a kind of thriller.

For a long time, it’s unclear what Dettori’s reasons are for the business he set up. Is there a secret agenda? When other couples, clients of Dettori, are targeted by the religious group, it’s only a matter of time before the parents, John and Naomi, will be traced and assaulted.

And the result of the genetic manipulation isn’t quite what the parents expected.

A lot of mysterious things are going on in this book. I read it on holiday and kept wondering how the story would continue, tried to think of answers where the book didn’t give them yet.

I loved loved reading this book.

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (good to very good)

Number of pages: 400

First published: 2011

I got this: free download (Dutch ebook edition)

Genre: science fiction

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

“It’s Monday! What are you reading?” is a weekly event hosted by Sheila at Bookjourney to share with others what we’ve read the past week and are planning to read next.

*****

The week

After a week on holiday in the sun, I’ve spend last week at home, in the sun, rain, cold and heat. The weather is going all over the place. It’s going to be warm but wet this week. Well, we’ll see.

I had a bookish evening out to The Hague, where the UK writer Nathan Filer was interviewed by a Dutch writer, Auke Hulst. I managed to finish Filer’s book, The Shock of the Fall, in the train on my way to the event. It was good fun to hear him talk about the book and the writing process.

On Saturday it was my oldest son’s 16 birthday and I defected to a personal development course. I don’t think he missed me and in the evening we had  a nice Saturday Evening In, watching The Voice UK, eating potato chips, drinking cola, and all the rest.

I’ve decided to re-start my goal of walking some distance every day – I did this a while ago but I somehow got out of the habit. So, come rain or shine, Leeswammes will be out there!

*****

Books I finished in the last week: 4 and a DNF

Star ratings: 4.5 stars, 5 stars, 4.5 stars, 5 stars, not rated.

Books I’m reading & planning to read

Reviews

Big Brother by Lionel Shriver. A woman invites her middle-aged brother to her home and discovers he has become extremely fat in the time they haven’t seen each other. 4.5 stars

The Apple Orchard by Susan Wiggs. A city woman discovers she has family in a rural area who want her to get to know them. 4 stars

Een tijdelijke vertelling [A Tale for the Time Being] by Ruth Ozeki. A Japanese-American woman finds the diary of a Japanese teenage girl and is intrigued. 4.5 stars

Het laatste land [The Last Land] by Threes Anna. An island is disconnected from the mainland and tries to survive as best as possible. 5 stars

*****

And further…

The Literary Giveaway Blog Hop will start next weekend!!! Are you participating? Sign up here if you want to give away a book via your blog and join up with other blogs. More than 40 people have signed up so far.

Check out my new books.

*****

That’s it!

What are you reading this week?

Book Review: Big Brother by Lionel Shriver

Big Brother: What it is about

The publishers say: “For Pandora, cooking is a form of love. Alas, her husband, Fletcher, a self-employed high-end cabinetmaker, now spurns the “toxic” dishes that he’d savored through their courtship, and spends hours each day to manic cycling.

Then, when Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at the airport, she doesn’t recognize him. In the years since they’ve seen one another, the once slim, hip New York jazz pianist has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened? After Edison has more than overstayed his welcome, Fletcher delivers his wife an ultimatum: It’s him or me.

Rich with Shriver’s distinctive wit and ferocious energy, Big Brother is about fat: an issue both social and excruciatingly personal. It asks just how much sacrifice we’ll make to save single members of our families, and whether it’s ever possible to save loved ones from themselves.“

Big Brother: What I thought

A book about family ties (loyalty of sister/brother), about food and hunger, about regret. Pandora feels loyal to her oversized brother but her husband Fletcher finds him a fat layabout who is abusing his sister’s generosity.

It took me a while to get into Shriver’s writing style, as there is a lot of looking back in the beginning of the book, which interrupted the main story a little too often. But once the story was well under way, it was a well thought-out and fluid rendition of Pandora’s attempts to help her brother with his weight (and other) issues.

There is quite a lot of reflection by Pandora on food and dieting, and at one point it seemed I was reading an essay rather than a novel.

The story zooms in on particular moments, then pans over several weeks (or more). I liked the way this was done. It didn’t become too tedious to read but still the reader could pick up how tedious some of Pandora’s experiences.

The ending was… odd, but Pandora explains in (too much?) detail why she did what she did. It took me by surprise but I did eventually see how it made sense.

An unusual novel that I enjoyed very much.

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Number of pages: 384

First published: 2013

I got this: from Harper for review (advance copy)

Genre: contemporary fiction

Book Review: The Apple Orchard by Susan Wiggs

The Apple Orchard: What it is about

From the publishers: “Tess Delaney makes a living restoring stolen treasures to their rightful owners. People like Annelise Winther, who refuses to sell her long-gone mother’s beloved necklace—despite Tess’s advice. To Annelise, the jewel’s value is in its memories.

But Tess’s own history is filled with gaps: a father she never met, a mother who spent more time traveling than with her daughter. So Tess is shocked when she discovers the grandfather she never knew is in a coma. And that she has been named in his will to inherit half of Bella Vista, a hundred-acre apple orchard in the magical Sonoma town called Archangel.

The rest is willed to Isabel Johansen. A half sister she’s never heard of.

Against the rich landscape of Bella Vista, Tess begins to discover a world filled with the simple pleasures of food and family, of the warm earth beneath her bare feet. A world where family comes first and the roots of history run deep. A place where falling in love is not only possible, but inevitable.

And in a season filled with new experiences, Tess begins to see the truth in something Annelise once told her: if you don’t believe memories are worth more than money, then perhaps you’ve not made the right kind of memories.“

The Apple Orchard: What I thought

Tess, a woman without a family, discovers that she has more family than she thought. And before she knows it, she starts to care about them. And about the boy-next-door, who happens to be very handsome.

This was a nice story in which Tess’ new world with her new family and their apple orchard connects up with her old world and her work at the auction house. Why the love interest had to be so terribly handsome, I really don’t know, though. A nice-looking guy with a twinkle in his eye would be just as good, if you ask me. Anyway, other than that this was fun to read.

The story had a few plot twists and I never was sure where the story would go next, which I liked. The story wasn’t so much a romance story as a family story. Parts of the book took part in the past, in war-torn Denmark. This was very believable and gave the book a more serious atmosphere. It was interesting to see how this connected up with the modern time.

I loved all the cooking that was being done, and each chapter begins with one or two recipes. This is the first book in a series, but it was definitely also a stand-alone book.

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Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Number of pages: 434

First published: 2013

I got this: for review from Harlquin MIRA via Netgalley (ebook)

Genre: contemporary fiction, romance

New Arrivals!

Oh, I forgot to tell you all about these new books I got. It was before I went on holiday. I read two of them while I was away.

Books I got for review

Perfect by Rachel Joyce (ebook)

I read this one while on holiday and it was very good. It’s very different from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry so I can’t promise you’ll like this one if you liked that. But it’s another good read. From Netgalley (Random House UK) (ARC). It’s out in July.

The publishers say: “In 1972, two seconds were added to time. It was in order to balance clock time with the movement of the earth. Byron Hemming knew this because James Lowe had told him and James was the cleverest boy at school. But how could time change? The steady movement of hands around a clock was as certain as their golden futures.

Then Byron’s mother, late for the school run, makes a devastating mistake. Byron’s perfect world is shattered. Were those two extra seconds to blame? Can what follows ever be set right?”

***

If You Were Here by Alafair Burke

From Harper for review (ARC). This sounds like a good mystery. 

The publishers say: “Manhattan journalist McKenna Jordan is chasing the story of an unidentified woman who heroically pulled a teenaged boy from the subway tracks. When she locates a video that captures part of the incident, she thinks she has an edge on the competition scrambling to identify the mystery heroine, but is shocked to discover that the woman in the video bears a strong resemblance to Susan Hauptmann, a close friend who disappeared without a trace a decade earlier.

What would have been a short-lived metro story sends McKenna on a dangerous search for the missing woman—a search that will force her to unearth long-buried truths much closer to home…”

***

Big Brother by Lionel Shriver

From Harper for review (ARC). I read this one on holiday too and I thought it was very good. My first book by this writer and I will put the others on my wishlist!

The publishers say: “For Pandora, cooking is a form of love. Alas, her husband, Fletcher, a self-employed high-end cabinetmaker, now spurns the “toxic” dishes that he’d savored through their courtship, and spends hours each day to manic cycling. Then, when Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at the airport, she doesn’t recognize him. In the years since they’ve seen one another, the once slim, hip New York jazz pianist has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened? After Edison has more than overstayed his welcome, Fletcher delivers his wife an ultimatum: It’s him or me.

Rich with Shriver’s distinctive wit and ferocious energy, Big Brother is about fat: an issue both social and excruciatingly personal. It asks just how much sacrifice we’ll make to save single members of our families, and whether it’s ever possible to save loved ones from themselves.”

***

Borrowed from a friend

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

I borrowed this book from Ciska of Ciska’s Book Chest. She’s the newest member of my real-life book group and brought this book along to her first meeting with us. I have read several other books by Atkinson and this one in particular sounds very intriguing.

From Dutch online bookstore bol.com: “During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, she finds warmth even in life’s bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here is Kate Atkinson at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.”

***

A book I bought

Shift by Hugh Howey

I bought this at the English (UK) bookshop Waterstone’s of which we have a store in Amsterdam. It seemed to be part of a trilogy and the shop assistant looked to see is there was a certain order to them. Well, he said, this is a prequel to Wool. I’d heard of Wool but got a bit confused: a prequel is something you read before the main story, right? But if the prequel is written after the main story, what then? Anyway, I liked this cover better and went for it. If it’s a prequel it should at the least be possible to read this independently of the other book(s). We’ll see!

Amazon.com says: “In 2007, the Center for Automation in Nanobiotech (CAN) outlined the hardware and software platform that would one day allow robots smaller than human cells to make medical diagnoses, conduct repairs, and even self-propagate. In the same year, the CBS network re-aired a program about the effects of propranolol on sufferers of extreme trauma.

A simple pill, it had been discovered, could wipe out the memory of any traumatic event. At almost the same moment in humanity’s broad history, mankind had discovered the means for bringing about its utter downfall. And the ability to forget it ever happened. This is the sequel to the New York Times bestselling WOOL series. Contains First Shift, Second Shift, and Third Shift.”

***

Have you read any of these books? Which of these would appeal to you?

Weekly Reading Roundup

*****

The week

A late “Monday” post this week, as I arrived from my holiday in Tenerife early this morning. I read a decent amount, but wasted a bit of time reading half of The Twelve by Justin Cronin, before abandoning it. Actually, I did sort-of liked the beginning, but after 350 pages I was getting rather bored.

I read a lot at the pool side, under a parasol on a lounger. The good life! I also did the Spanish lessons offered by the hotel (very low-key, but fun) and aquafit in the pool. Other things I did – going shopping (bottled water in particular), going on walks, spending a few hours at the hotel spa, and I did two organised tours. One around the island of Tenerife, and one to the centre of the island, to visit a volcano. Both were really good tours.

Now, I know people love to see pictures, especially with a blogger in them, so, OK, here’s the sea side near my hotel, the volcano, and myself near a large cactus plant.

 

*****

Books I finished in the last week: 3 and a DNF

These books were 4.5 stars, 4.5 stars, 5 stars and DNF, respectively.

Books I’m reading & planning to read

Reviews

My Soul To Take by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir. Thriller from Iceland. 5 stars

The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend. A fun read with serious undertones. 5 stars

Digitale verleiding [Digital Seduction] by Maurits Kaptein. Non-fiction about how online consumers are lured into buying things. 5 stars

IV by Arjen Lubach. A mystery in the Netherlands. 5 stars

*****

And further…

It’s almost time for the Literary Giveaway Blog Hop again!!! Are you participating? Sign up here if you want to give away a book via your blog and join up with other blog. Almost 40 people have signed up so far.

Check out my May overview HERE.

*****

That’s it!

What are you reading this week?

Book Review: The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend

Some title, isn’t it? This looks and is a fun novel, about a woman who went to bed, and yes, stayed there for a year. It’s my first Sue Townsend novel, she of Adrian Mole fame. It seemed really good fun and indeed it was. A quick and entertaining read.

The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year: What it is about

From the back of the book: “The day her twins leave home, Eva climbs into bed and stays there. For seventeen years she’s wanted to yell at the world, ‘Stop! I want to get off’. Finally, this is her chance.

Her husband Brian, an astronomer having an unsatisfactory affair, is upset. Who will cook his dinner? Eva, he complains, is attention-seeking. But word of Eva’s defiance spreads.

Legions of fans, believing she is protesting, gather in the street, while her new friend Alexander, the white-van man brings tea, toast and an unexpected sympathy. And from this odd but comforting place, Eva begins to see both herself and the world very, very differently.”

The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year: What I thought

Eva never enjoyed looking after her twins, and now that they’re leaving for university, she finally has the chance to do what she’s wanted to do for the last seventeen years: have a quiet time in bed. People come and help Brian with the housework and to keep Eva company. Brian discovers it’s hard work, running a household. And when he asks about Christmas preparations, he gets a long monologue (taking up several pages in the book) after which he realises how much work Eva has been carrying out without him knowing it. Eva exclaims that she’ll never do Christmas again. Many British women claim this every year, but with Eva you know she speaks the truth.

The book is very funny, has some laugh-out-loud moments. It was never over the top, except for the one occasion where Brian’s sex life is discussed during a meeting at work, in detail. This seemed very unlikely. Not that the rest of the story was all that likely, but it was within a sort of acceptable boundary of likeliness.

Eva runs into some practical problems (toilet, food). The author doesn’t shrink back in making this difficult for Eva, she’s not getting an easy time of it. And before you think this book is all fun and games: no, it’s not. But over all, it’s quirky and funny.

It’s also a fast read. It reminded me a bit of The Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce), because of the group of people that start to worship Eva. The Woman Who Went to Bed… is less serious, though. I loved it!

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Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Number of pages: 438

First published: 2012

I got this: borrowed from the library

Genre: contemporary fiction, humor