karen.d

Thanks! It was so frustrating, because the writing itself was so good. The plot structure really let it down for me.

Yes it is a shame, I was expecting a lot from this book. I think it would have been better if this was separated into two books,as I think it would develop the ideas & characters better. Thanks for reading my review!

'White Teeth' by Zadie Smith This novel has had quite a lot of attention in the past few years, particularly on BookTube. So when I saw it in my local charity shop, I decided to give it a go. I have to admit that upon starting it, I had very high expectations of it, so I was quite disappointed by the end. First, the positives. This is had some very good writing within it.. The way in which Zadie Smith writes, is funny and the characters were very believable. But the plot itself, was the main problem I had with this book. At the beginning, certain characters had a lot of attention and their stories seemed to be developing nicely and some of what happened to them, was really intense. But then suddenly, all of the focus of this story was completely shifted, onto another character and those who initially seemed important, became secondary characters, who were hardly mentioned in the rest of the book. Then more and more characters were added, without fully focusing on any one person. This meant that, by the end of the book, even though they believeable, I really didn't feel like I knew any of them Partly due to this, and the fact that every chapter felt like an individual short story, this made the flow of the plot stop and start all of the time, and, although some chapters were really enjoyable, for me they didn't link together well. Randomly also, there were almost essay-like chapters, which talked about the ideas of identity and race within a multicultural society and, even though these were really interesting and thought provoking, they didn't seem to belong within the story itself. So for me, the organization of the plot was really weak. The most disappointing thing for me, was the end. The different strands of story did kind of come together towards the end. It was all building up to something that I thought, would make a powerful ending. However, it felt like Zadie Smith had run out of energy by the end and couldn't be bothered to gives us reader a plausible and realistic conclusion. For some characters, they didn't really have any resolution at all. This made me feel frustrated about investing time on this book. I think this had some interesting ideas and the style of writing was really good, but the plot was terrible. This is shame, because this could have been brilliant.. My Rating ***

I'm going to put a review on my book log shortly, but basically, even though this was well written, the plot was all over the place!

Feather

Polish

Blinds

It's disturbing, but really good! I look forward to hearing what you think of it.

I finished 'White Teeth' by Zadie Smith this morning and I was really disappointed Now, I'm about to start 'Testimony' by Anita Shreve.

Thank you! Yes I think now they will be selling the TV tie in covers because of the programme. I got my version from a charity shop, so the cover is different. I hope you enjoy reading it!

Yes I'm not keen on her qork, for more or less the same reason!

'The Passage' by Justin Cronin I initially read this book in about 2000, so when I decided to re-read it, I couldn't remember much about it. I'm glad I had left it for so long before I read it again, as I was surprised how good this was. The writing is very good, it reminded me very much of 'The Stand' by Stephen King, because of the dark writing, the way in which it builds up in suspense and also plot subject. However, I wouldn't say that this was a copy of 'The Stand', it has it's own identity too. The characters are very believable and complex. I also really liked the fact that the characters weren't simply 'Bad' or 'Good'. All of the characters had different sides to them, which made them all the more believable. One criticism I would make, would be that I did find that the more central characters were better developed than the secondary ones. Actually, in the second section of the novel, I felt that there were too many characters to keep track of. However, as the novel progressed, it became clear which characters I should be paying more attention to. I was also happy that The pace of the the novel was generally good. I found the first section of the book to be gripping. In fact, I found it very difficult to put the book down. During the second section of the book however, it kind of ground to a halt and I didn't enjoy reading that part as much as the others. However on reflection, I think that the slow build in tension, to the next exciting bit was very clever, because I don't think I would have been able to cope with a fast paced book of 900 plus pages! Being 900 pages I thought that by the time I was getting to the end,I would be desperate to finish and start something new.. However with this book, I was actually sad when I had finished it. Even though this is a long book, I didn't notice how chunky this book was and I was able to really get into the world that Justin Cronin had created. I really liked this book and I'm looking forward to reading the next installment! My Rating **** 1/2

Hi! I thought I would do some reviews of what I have read recently: 'Master and Commander' by Patrick O'Brien This book was recommended to me by a friend who has read all of the books in the series and this, is the first. I thought because I had watched the film version of this novel, that I knew what the story was going to be about, but the book is very different from the adaptation. At first, I found this extremely difficult to get into. After about 100 pages I actually put this book down, because I found the maritime vocabulary, impossible to follow. However, after discussing the book on this board, I decided to pick it back up again and actually, when the character Stephen Maturin, the ship's doctor, comes into the story, I found that, because he was a novice with ships, he was asking questions about the different mechanisms etc of the ship and that helped me to feel that I had some idea of what it was all about. I also found some of the battle scene a little bit static and difficult to visualize. Even though this was a challenging book, I really like the relationship between Stephen and Jack Aubrey, the ship's captain. The writing was very humorous at times and I also liked how some of this book featured places in the Mediterranean that I'm really familiar with. Being the first in the series, I'm sure as the novels progress, I might find this easier to get into. I won't be rushing out to read any more at the moment, I think you need to be in the right mood to read them. However, I may read more of this series in the future. My Rating ***

I've never really been keen on Jane Austen. Have you read many Jane Austen novels?

In the sense of the situation they were faced with, no, I don't think it's setting gender stereotypes. However, some of the references the men used for the women and the assumptions about them, were archaic. Then again, this book was written in a different time.

Yes, I'm already looking forward to the next read-a-thon!

It doesn't matter how much you read, just as long as you enjoyed what you read!

Here's my total for this month's read-a-thon: Friday: 'The Passage' by Justin Cronin:37 pages Saturday: 'The Passage' by Justin Cronin: 149 Pages Sunday:'The Passage' by Justin Cronin: 80 pages (Finish) 'White Teeth' by Zadie Smith 80 pages Total Pages Read: 346 pages I think this is the most amount of pages I've managed to read during a read-a-thon! I'm actually quite sad that I've finished 'The Passage' by Justin Cronin, as it was such a good book. I'm now trying to get hold of the second book in the series.

I may still read this in the future. I've just finished re-reading 'The Passage' by Justin Cronin and I had forgotten just how brilliant it is. Whilst I try to find a copy of the second installment of this series, I've started 'White Teeth' by Zadie Smith and it's really good so far.

I don't generally re-read, but this year I have challenged myself to re-read more of my favourite books. So far, I've really enjoyed it. I've just finished reading 'The Passage' by Justin Cronin and on the second read, it's even better than I remember it being.

For the last week, the weather has been extremely windy. So much so, that we have had an orange alert and been advised to not go out if we don't have to. At least it's sunny!

I've been thinking about reading this novel, I'd be interested in hearing what you think of this.

I used to love this book but on my second read recently, I felt exactly the same as you about it being too saccharine. I also didn't like some of the archiac stereotyping of gender in this too. Then again, it was written in a different time. Great review!

Yes definitely! I don't know how much I will be able to read tomorrow, but I will definitely try and finish 'The Passage' by Justin Cronin during the read-a-thon.