Genre

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Life’s a Beach: What it is About

From amazon.com: “Life’s a bit of a beach these days for Ginger Walsh, who’s single at forty-one and living back home in the family FROG (Finished Room Over Garage). She’s hoping for a more fulfilling life as a sea glass artist, but instead is babysitting her sister’s kids and sharing overnights with Noah, her sexy artist boyfriend with commitment issues and a dog Ginger’s cat isn’t too crazy about.

Geri, her BlackBerry-obsessed sister, is also nearly over the deep end about her pending fiftieth birthday (and might just drag Ginger with her). Toss in a dumpster-picking father, a Kama Sutra T-shirt-wearing mother, a movie crew come to town with a very cute gaffer, an on-again-off-again glassblower boyfriend, plus a couple of Red Hat realtors, and hilarity ensues. The perfect summer read, Life’s a Beach is a warm, witty, and wise look at what it takes to move forward at any stage in life.”

Life’s a Beach: What I thought

3.5 stars (out of 5) 

This is a light read, more or less chick-lit, except the protagonist is more or less middle-aged. Ginger has been having boyfriends but has never had a more serious relationship. Her sister Geri is soon turning 50 and she has been with her child-hood sweetheart for years and they have 3 children. The sisters live quite different lives.

Ginger is living in the room above her parent’s garage and isn’t doing much with her life. She has a sort-of boyfriend, Noah, a glass blower, that no one in her family approves of.

When Geri’s son Riley is chosen to be “Boy 4″ in a movie, Ginger goes with him to the movie location (Geri has a steady job and can’t take the time off), where she meets a nice man, Tim Kelly, who is rather persistently following her around. Will he be a better choice than Noah?

I was a bit ambivalent about this book. The beginning wasn’t very interesting but when Ginger and Riley get onto the movie set it becomes more exciting. It was an OK book to read. The relationship parts weren’t that great, Ginger didn’t seem particularly bothered about either men. It was strange how she didn’t know which man she preferred and she left it almost to fate.

The way the sisters deal with each other was convincing, however. I’m sure many people will recognise the sister conflicts.

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

*****

Have you been waiting for it? It’s time for another Literary Giveaway Blog Hop! It will run from February 18-22. Do you want to give away a book to your readers? 

Join up so you are linked to all the other blogs that are participating.

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I read 3 books in the last week

The Collector by John Fowles. A Room-type story, but this time in the 1960s with a friendly abductor. 4 stars.

Spin by Catherine McKenzie. A woman goes undercover to a rehab clinic to follow a famous actress. But maybe she could do with some treatment herself. 4.5 stars

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. A porn-star is badly burned in an accident and will never be beautiful again. He meets a woman who claims they have been lovers for the last 700 years. Is she mad? 4 stars

Currently Reading

Other news

Click on the orange links to go to the blog post.

Adam the Roof Beam Reader is organising a Magical March Challenge in which participants read a number of magical, SF and fantasy novels. I’m taking part!

Reviews: 

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. A janitor with a good taste in books and music pretends to be a working class woman with no such interests. But two of the people in her apartment building befriend her, and discover the real her. 3.5 stars

The End of Alice by A. M. Homes. The story of a pedophile in prison who writes with a young woman, who herself likes younger boys. Very disturbing. Very good. 4 stars

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. A girl is released from care and has to try and set up a life for herself. But events from the past make it very hard for her to think about a future. 4.5 stars

The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey. A Jane Eyre story taking place in the 1950s in Scotland. A great read for Jane Eyre lovers (and those who care slightly less). 4.5 stars

*****

That’s it! What are YOU reading this week?

Genre

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The End of Alice: What it is About

This is a fictional account of a man in prison. He’s been there for 23 years now, a paedophile that likes young girls. He’s utterly unreliable as a narrator, and it’s clear that many of his writings are fantasies.

He tells about his life in prison, where he’s frequently raped (although he doesn’t struggle, he thinks he deserves it). He also tells about his youth and this, if true, is an explanation for his deviant sexual feelings.

He corresponds by letter with a young woman. She’s 19, which is too old for his liking, but she has an interesting secret: she likes boys a lot younger than herself. She writes to him about her conquest Matthew, who is only 12, and the writer fantasises what exactly they do together.

In the end we find out why he is in prison and I actually felt (a little) sorry for him that he ended up in the situation that brought him to commit his crime.

The End of Alice: What I thought

4 stars (out of 5) This book is awful. It’s good. It’s a story to run away from. Hide the book and don’t let your kids read it. It’s sexually explicit, and sexually deviant. Still, I was intrigued.

The only reason I wanted to read this book, is that A. M. Homes is one of my favorite writers. I have read most of her books, and This Book Will Save Your Life is one of my all-time favorite books. The End of Alice was written just as beautifully as her other books. Only the beginning was rather heavily literary, and hard to follow for me. It took me a few pages to get into the book.

The book is a very good example of a story by an unreliable narrator. Several times during the book, I was wondering whether what he was telling the reader was correct. Did the girl, Alice, actually exist, and did she do what he thinks she did? How much did he make up himself?

There were some unpleasant moments in the book, with some explicit scenes, but once I got through the first of them, I didn’t get used to it, but I realised it was (just) manageable for me. So I kept reading to find out more about the paedophile and about Alice.

Very disturbing and explicit. Not one for everyone.

Genre: contemporary fiction
First Published: 2007
I read this in: Dutch, the original language is French (L’élégance du hérisson)
Number of pages: 320
Rating: 3.5/5

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The Elegance of the Hedgehog: What it is About

Renée is a widow and janitor of an apartment complex for rich people. She is interested in topics such as philosophy, classic books, classical music, but she thinks it doesn’t look good for a janitor to be associated with things like that so she pretends to be a simple woman with the interests of her own class.

Paloma is the 12-year old daughter of a rich family who live in the apartment building and she is very intelligent. She strikes up a friendship with Renée, as does a new (and rich) apartment owner. Slowly but surely Renée drops her working class behaviour and shows her real self.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog: What I thought

3.5 stars (out of 5). I enjoyed the story of Renée and the man who recently moved into the apartment building. He is an outsider, too. While he is popular with the rich ladies in his building, he is more interested in Renée, who is not rich but is more of a soulmate to him than his shallow rich neighbours.

But there was way too much philosophy in the book. Both Paloma and Renée think deeply about the world around them and philosophise a lot. The book is told by them and there are large portions of philosophical considerations, which were sometimes quite clever, but often I was not interested.

I really enjoyed the interactions between the different characters in the book, though. The first part of the book was heavy on philosophy and had it not been for a challenge/competition on Shelfari, I would not have finished the book. Luckily, the second half was much better.

Rating: 4.5/5
I got this book: from the library
I read this in: Dutch (De verborgen taal van bloemen), the original language is English
Number of pages: 384
First published: 2011
Genre: contemporary fiction

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This was a nice and quick read about a quite unpleasant girl although I did warm to a little after a while. Victoria Jones turns 18 when the book starts and is placed in a half-way house for teenagers like her, after having spent most of her life in an orphanage.

We soon find out that she hasn’t always been in an orphanage: she has been placed with numerous foster families when she was young, but always behaved badly, usually because she was treated outrageously bad herself. At the age of nine she’s placed with Elizabeth, a single lady who runs a vineyard. At Elizabeth’s, she finally feels at home and happy. But something happens and she has to leave again.

Elizabeth has taught her the Victorian language of flowers and this is the only real knowledge she has and that she’s interested in (obsessed with, even). This means that each flower has a particular meaning, for instance, red rose is love, basil is hate.

As she is an awkward, non-conformist type of girl she’s struggling to build up even the barest of existences. When she gets confronted with elements from her old, happy, life with Elizabeth, she has to choose between running away or facing her past, and her future.

As I said, Victoria isn’t a nice person. She refuses any help and makes life hard for herself with her behaviour. It is nice to see how her knowledge of flowers helps her build a new life working in a flower shop, but in the background is still the old awkward Victoria who wants to take care of everything herself until that isn’t possible any more and she breaks down.

It is frustrating how Victoria doesn’t let others love her and help her, but it’s also understandable. I was not expecting things to go well for her (neither was she) but I was hoping they would (she didn’t seem to care).

A well-written, interesting story about the issues children have to face when released out of foster care at 18.

Adam the Roof Beam Reader is organising a Magical March challenge: To read and review works of Fantasy, Science-Fiction, or Magical Realism during the month of March.*

*Adam says: “Any Fantasy, Science Fiction, or Magical Realism books will qualify.  This means you can read Young Adult, Dystopian, Steampunk, or Alternative Histories.”

There are 4 levels of participation, ranging from reading 1-2 books to a 8+ category. I’m joining at the lowest level, as I have (quite) a few other reading commitments in March – the Magician’s Class.

I’ll be choosing to read 2 books from the books below, which are all on my shelf:

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (dystopian)
Blameless by Gail Carriger (steampunk)
The River King by Alice Hoffman (magical realism)
The Pearl Savage by Tamara Rose Blodgett (dystopian, steampunk)

Will you be reading Magic in March?

As I’m not a Jane Eyre die-hard, I was firstly quite tolerant about the variations that were made to the original story, and secondly, not always aware of what the next step in the story should be so I could read it without too many pre-conceptions.

The cover suggests YA but this is definitely a book for adults too. It’s for anyone who likes or loves the story of Jane Eyre.

The Flight of Gemma Hardy: What it is about

It’s the 1950s in Scotland. Gemma Hardy grows up with her uncle’s family, after her parents (Scottish mother and Icelandic father) die when she’s still very young. But when her uncle dies her aunt sends her to boarding school at the age of ten. She’s there as a ‘working girl’, which means she has to do household chores before and after (and sometimes during) school hours.

She has very few friends at the school and generally has an awful time there. When she’s 18, she applies to become an au pair for a family on the Orkney Islands, in the far north of Scotland, and so, this is where she goes.

If you know the Jane Eyre story, you can guess the sort of events that will happen. If not, then I’ve almost given you too much information already, so I’ll let you enjoy the book for yourself.

The Flight of Gemma Hardy: What I thought

4.5 out of 5 stars I had to look up the Jane Eyre story to see how Gemma Hardy compares with it. The general storyline is very similar, but the ending is different. I didn’t remember Jane Eyre well enough to predict how the story would continue, which was actually quite nice: something would happen and I would think: ‘Oh, that’s right’; there were moments of recognition. But because I didn’t remember the original story too well, I didn’t actively look for certain things to happen. I wonder how other readers, with a better memory of Jane Eyre will feel about the story.

The story taking place in the 1950s and 1960s was interesting, but it often didn’t feel as if the story was taking place in the 20th Century. Some of the situations, especially the boarding school, were decidedly Dickensian. The novel wasn’t strongly set in the mid-20th Century. The beginning of the book, before Gemma’s flight, could generally have taken place 200 years earlier too. Only later, when there are buses and aeroplanes, the sense of being in a recent century becomes stronger.

I liked the connection with Iceland, a country that I always find fascinating to read about. And Gemma spends some time on the Orkneys islands above Scotland, which appeals too: it’s rough, cold, small-townish, and scenic.

Strangely enough (but not after I checked the Jane Eyre story) there are a few supernatural moments in this novel. I found them too few to call this a supernatural novel, but I would have liked the author to be a bit more firm on this matter: either there are supernatural events and then they are used in equal amounts throughout the book, or there aren’t. But just one or two here and there, it didn’t make sense. Maybe it does in the context of the Jane Eyre book, where there was also just a little bit of the supernatural. But there it didn’t bother me, whereas in Gemma Hardy, it seemed a little odd.

Another weaker point in the book is that the events after Gemma’s flight where much shorter in time than the rest of the book, which felt a bit rushed. She went several places in quick succession (in terms of pages in the book) and the pace was so much faster than the earlier parts of the book, that it didn’t seem the same book almost.

But, notwithstanding these comments, I had a great time reading this book. I liked Gemma’s dire situation, and how she fought for a better life, and I also liked discovering parallels to Jane Eyre. If you’re a Jane Eyre fan, you may find this book too similar, maybe. Let me know!

Rating: 4.5/5

I got this book: ARC from the publishers, Harper, for review

I read this in: English, the original language

Number of pages: 464

First published: 2012 (January)

Genre: contemporary fiction, coming of age

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

*****

I read 5 books in the last week (and one other I didn’t finish)

As I’m doing a reading competition on Shelfari, where we read random books from our shelves and wishlists, I have been reading more than normal. I pretend I’m not taking extra time reading, but I’m competitive, so I do! Oh well, as soon as someone wins, the game is over… so I better read some more and make sure it’s me.

11/22/64 by Stephen King. A man goes back in time to try and prevent the Kennedy assassination. I’m reading this as a judge for the Indie Lit Awards

Life’s a Beach by Claire Cook. A fun, easy read about a woman who is at a cross-roads in her life. 3.5 stars

The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen. This turned out to be historical fiction combined with some modern fiction. Enjoyable. 4 stars.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. A janitor with a good taste in books and music pretends to be a working class woman with no such interests. But two of the people in her apartment building befriend her, and discover the real her. 3.5 stars

Away By Amy Bloom. 1924, a Russian Jewish woman loses all her family in a terrible killing. She moves to America where she hopes to have a better future. Then she hears her daughter is still alive in Russia and wants to go back to find her. An adventurous book. 4.5 stars

Vals licht by Joost Zwagerman (DNF). A Dutch book that I just didn’t enjoy enough to finish. In fact, I read it for this competition that I told you about (above), so it actually set me back, as I had read 130 pages of this book, then decided I’d take a different book altogether. I could not face reading any more.

Currently Reading

Other news

Click on the orange links to go to the blog post.

Have you been waiting for it? It’s time for another Literary Giveaway Blog Hop! It will run from February 18-22. Do you want to give away a book to your readers? Join up so you are linked to all the other blogs that are participating.

New Arrivals! Check out what books entered my house.

Reviews: 

First You Try Everything by Jane McCafferty. The account of a divorce. The woman can’t accept it and takes dramatic measures. 4 stars

The Look of Love by Mary Jane Clark. A fun mystery about a luxury spa where a murder takes place. 4 stars

The Trout Opera by Matthew Condon. A 100-year old man is asked to open the Olympic games in Australia. He’s kidnapped by the Olympic committee to make sure he’ll attend. 4 stars

Room by Emma Donoghue. A boy and his Mum have been held captive in a room for more than 5 years. The boy tells about his daily life. 5 stars

*****

That’s it! What are YOU reading this week?

Genre

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Room: What it is About

I’m using the description of amazon.com here: “To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough…not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.”

Room: What I thought

5 stars (out of 5) I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a book on this subject and then, it being told by a five-year old didn’t appeal either. But this turned out the great book that everyone said it was. It’s not brilliantly brilliant, just a very good book.

Five-year old Jack was an innocent narrator who faithfully told all that happened around him, but interpreted everything with the understanding of a 5-year old. Therefore, some events might have been somewhat disturbing for the reader, but for Jack it was just as it was. This was very well done.

It was interesting to see how Jack was generally contented in his limited world. His mother hadn’t even told him that there was a world “out there”, so he wasn’t missing anything. Whatever he saw on television was not real. Only what happened in the room was real. I found this a very interesting idea. It suggested however, that Ma thought they would never be able to get out. So when they did, Jack was very unprepared for the outside world.

More than that, it seemed that Ma wasn’t prepared, either. She more or less held it all together inside Room, but once out, she couldn’t cope. This was one of the strong points of the book: it didn’t stop at the ‘good ending’, where Ma and Jack were free again, but it explored how free they really were and how they would cope outside. The idea that Jack was keen to go back to Room was very likely; it was an easier life and it felt like home for him.

A great read with lots to think about. Very convincing, too.

Isn’t giving better than receiving? Most giveaway blog hops seem to be directed towards young adult and romance audiences. Those hops are not so ideal if you want to give away more literary books (but if you’re interested, I Am A Reader Not A Writer runs frequent blog hops).

The third Literary Giveaway Blog Hop in October was a great success. So, it’s time for a fourth one and I hope you’ll join in.

More details:

This event is an opportunity to give away prizes and get more traffic to your blog. You will run your own giveaway, but it will be linked up to all other participants via a links list (which I will give you just before the event). That way, not just your readers, but also the readers from the other participating blogs will stop by your blog.

You can offer one or more books, a gift voucher (for instance, to amazon or bookdepository), or anything else related to books and reading. There is no minimum or maximum value that your prize should have.

The only restriction is that if you’re giving away a book, that it should have some literary merit. It does not have to be the most difficult classic ever, but please no romance, urban fiction or YA. Thrillers, poetry and non-fiction are fine, as are contemporary fiction, literary fiction and any other genres not in the categories above.

Further information on the prizes: a book can be new or “gently read”. Your giveaway can be just for your country, for your continent, or word-wide. Offering a book via bookdepository.com is a good way to make your giveaway world-wide (although not all countries are available) as it offers free postage.

Last day for signing up is February 15th. Only sign up if you intend to have a giveaway post up on your blog on February 18th.

Copy the image to put the button on your blog (e.g., in your sidebar and/or in a blog post), so you can advertise the Blog Hop and attract more participants to make this a big event and/or tell your readers about the event coming up.

——> Fill out this form <——

I”ll add your blog to the list with links below once I’ve seen that you’ve filled out the form. You cannot add yourself to the linky list. 

Last signup day: February 15th!!

Linky List:

If you have questions, just ask in the comments, or email me at jh303015 at gmail dot com.