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Ruth - 2013


Ruth

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January

1. The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey - 2.5/5
2. Ape House, by Sara Gruen - 5/5

February

3. Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde - 2.25/5
4. Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen, by Fay Weldon - 4/5
5. The Madonna of the Almonds, by Marina Fiorato - 3/5
6. The Lost Years, by Mary Higgins Clark - 1.5/5

March

7. My Judy Garland Life, by Susie Boyt - 0.5/5
8. Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn - 4/5

April

9. The Hypnotist, by Lars Kepler - 3.5/5
10. Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell - 2.5/5
11. Death at Wentwater Court, by Carola Dunn - 4/5
12. Driving Over Lemons, by Chris Stewart - 3.75/5

May

13. Annabel, by Kathleen Winter - 4.5/5
14. The Dinner, by Herman Koch - 4.5/5
15. Schindler's Ark, by Thomas Keneally - 5/5

June

16. State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett - 4.5/5
17. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce - 4/5
18. What Would Audrey Do? by Pamela Clarke Keogh - 2.75/5

July

19. Roses, by Leila Meacham - 4.5/5
20. The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot - 5/5
21. Mr Midshipman Hornblower, by C.S. Forester - 3/5
22. Two Pints, by Roddy Doyle - 4/5

 

August

 

23. Cry Freedom, by John Briley - 4/5

24. The Dating Detox, by Gemma Burgess - 4/5

25. The Empress of Ice Cream, by Anthony Capella - 3.5/6

 

September 

 

26. The Norm Chronicles, by Michael Blastland & David Spiegelhalter - 4.5/5

27. Stories I Only Tell My Friends, by Rob Lowe - 4/5

 

October

 

28. A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving - 3.5/5

29. Golden Boy - The Untold Story of William Holden, by Bob Thomas - 4/5

30. Kommandant's Girl, by Pam Jenoff - 4/5

 

November

 

31. The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters - 4/5

32. Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen - 3.75/5

33. The Battle for America 2008, by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson - 4/5

 

December 

 

34. The Jane Austen Book Club, by Karen Joy Fowler - 3.75/5

35. The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro - 5/5

36. The Christmas Mystery, by Jostein Gaarder - 2/5

37. On Beauty, by Zadie Smith - 5/5

Edited by Ruth
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Hi Ruth, i've heard only good things about The Snow Child so look forward to reading your review

 

Happy Reading in 2013 i look forward to dropping by & reading your bookish thoughts :friends3:

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Thanks for your comments everyone :) (And Frankie, I shall be stealing plenty of book ideas from your reviews too!)

 

I feel a bit bad about posting this review of The Snow Child, because while I could certainly appreciate the writing, I didn't enjoy this book, certainly not as much as I hoped. BUT I hope that won't put anyone off reading it. Having read other reviews, I can see that I am most definitely in the minority, and this book has obviously moved a lot of readers. (In fact, three different booksellers in Waterstones told me how much they loved this book, and how they had had such positive feedback about it from their customers. Maybe I'm just weird!)

 

Anyway, here goes...

 

The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey

 

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Set in Alaska in the 1920s, this story (based on an old Russian fairy tale) is about Jack and Mabel, a couple who move to live in a farm in a remote part of Alaska, to escape their pain at not being able to have children. One night they create the figure of a small girl out of snow, and the next morning the snow child has disappeared, but soon a young girl who looks remarkably like their creation appears in the area where they live and befriends them, so that they become almost like parents to her.

 

I wanted to like this book. I really did. People recommended it to me, and I read reviews of it prior to reading it, all of which praised the book highly. So maybe it’s me, but…it just didn’t grab me. The writing was really quite lovely in places, but the whole thing had an air of detachment and isolation to it – I never really felt engaged in the story. The detachment and isolation perhaps reflects the isolated location where the story takes place (and certainly the author’s descriptions of the snowy, remote and lonely place where Jack and Mabel are evocative and atmospheric), but for me it also had the unfortunate effect of me not really caring about any of the characters one way or the other.

 

I did prefer the parts with Faina, the young girl who may or may not be real. However, there was a large part in the middle of the story where she is not present, and I found that that portion dragged. As descriptive as the passages of Jack and Mabel’s work at their farm were, it seemed all quite repetitive. The story picked up pace in the last 100 pages or so however, and I liked that part more.

 

Certainly I can see the value of this story, and the eloquence in the writing, and it is understandable that so many readers seem genuinely touched by it. But unfortunately, it just wasn’t for this reader.

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That was an interesting review Ruth.

Do you have any idea which fairytale its based on?

I had this book of Russian fairy-tales as a child - and the story seems vaguely familiar!

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Thanks Bree :) Apparently it is based on on a fairy tale called Snegurochka, although I don't know who wrote it originally. I think it also alludes to the short story Little Daughter of the Snow, by Arthur Ransome. (In fact, my copy of The Snow Child also had this Arthur Ransome story in it, although I haven't read it yet.)

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Will be watching to see how you liked Ape House . Did you read Water for Elephants ?

Loved that book,so was wondering how Ape House compared .

Personally, I thought Water for Elephants was excellent (5/6). Didn't rate Ape House as highly - found it a bit more predictable and not as strong on all the elements; skim read the last third, whilst was enthralled with Water for Elephans right up to the last page. I suspect that this was as much the subject matter, and the historical versus modern day element.

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Ruth

Will be watching to see how you liked Ape House . Did you read Water for Elephants ?

Loved that book,so was wondering how Ape House compared .

Hi Julie :)

 

Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed Water For Elephants. So far - I'm about a third of the way through - I'm really enjoying Ape House. Despite a similarity in the theme (treatment of animals), I'm finding the two books quite different.

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Ape House, by Sara Gruen

 

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Isabel Duncan is a scientist working with the Bobobo apes at the Great Ape Language Lab in Kansas. When the lab is blown up in a deliberate explosion, Isabel is injured and the apes are ‘liberated’….right into the hands of a ruthless programme maker who is determined that the apes shall be the stars of a new reality tv show. Reporter John Thigpen was originally supposed to be writing a piece about the work at the lab, but after the explosion the story turns into something else entirely…

 

I read Sara Gruen’s debut novel, Water for Elephants, almost three years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so in fact that I thought her follow-up was almost certainly going to be a let-down, but I am happy to say that I was wrong. I was hooked on this book from page one. The main characters – Isabel, her friend and co-worker Celia, John, and his wife Amanda were all skilfully drawn and well developed, and I felt as though I really knew these people. More than that, the apes themselves were such distinctive characters too.

 

The writing flowed well, and moved the story along. I was eager throughout to find out what was going to happen next. I cannot comment on the accuracy of the description of the Bonobos and their ability to communicate with humans and each other; however Gruen has clearly done her homework in this regard (indeed, most of the conversations with the apes in this story are based on the real conversations of Bonobos.

 

Overall, this was a lovely book – part satire, part love story to the beauty of great apes, with plenty of comedic moments, and lots of drama. Highly recommended.

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Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde

 

Hundreds of years into the future, the world is a very different place, where your path in life, and your position in ‘the collective’ (as the human race is now known) is determined by what colour you see, and how well you are able to see it. Eddie Russet is a Red, which places him quite high in what is effectively a caste system. When he and his father visit East Carmine, he meets Jane, a Grey – which is the lowest class. For Eddie it is love at first sight, but Jane most certainly does not return his feelings. However, strange happenings are afoot in East Carmine (and outside of it), and as Eddie investigates them, he discovers that everything is not as it seems in the collective, and the powers that be might just be hiding a huge secret…

 

I’ve read Jasper Fforde before, and generally find his books to be very enjoyable. Moreover, this one was a dystopian novel (albeit a humorous one), and dystopia is a favourite genre of mine. So I was looking forward to reading this book, confident that I would at least like it, if not love it. And…unfortunately I was wrong. I found that I just couldn’t get along with this book at all. The dystopian world depicted was interesting enough, but I felt that the author was just piling wordplay upon wordplay, to make his point about what a crazy mixed up future this is, and it all got a bit laborious. Even worse, there is very little actual plot, and I didn’t feel that any of the characters were particularly well drawn.

 

I have read other reviews of this book, and for the most part they are extremely favourable, so I am certainly in the minority with my opinion on this one. I should say that I can see why other readers might love this book. It wasn’t dreadful – and indeed some moments did make me laugh, as Fforde can be amusingly inventive in his writing, but – I realised about halfway through that I didn’t like these characters, and I didn’t dislike them either. I just didn’t really care.

 

Perhaps I felt let down by it, because I had such high hopes for the book, but either way, I’m afraid this just wasn’t one for me.

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Ape House, by Sara Gruen

 

I read Sara Gruen’s debut novel, Water for Elephants, almost three years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so in fact that I thought her follow-up was almost certainly going to be a let-down, but I am happy to say that I was wrong. I was hooked on this book from page one.

 

The writing flowed well, and moved the story along. I was eager throughout to find out what was going to happen next.

 

Overall, this was a lovely book – part satire, part love story to the beauty of great apes, with plenty of comedic moments, and lots of drama. Highly recommended.

 

I'm so glad I read this review of yours Ruth.  Like you I loved Water For Elephants but was actually put off by the synopsis of this book. But it sounds great and I'll add it to my TBR's  :)

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I'm so glad I read this review of yours Ruth.  Like you I loved Water For Elephants but was actually put off by the synopsis of this book. But it sounds great and I'll add it to my TBR's  :)

I hope you really enjoy it :)  My first 5* novel of the year!

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