Bookgeeks Books for 2010

[BookGeek20]

Well so far i am very much behind on my new year reading what with university life, studying and what not but i do have plenty of new books to be reading this year.

2010:

Purple: Read

Red: Currently Reading

Green: TBR

 

 

The Almost Moon- Alice Sebold.

Love Lies- Adele Parks

The Time Travelers Wife- Audrey Niffenegger

Rogue- Danielle Steel

The Sisterhood- Emily Barr

The Memory Keepers Daughter- Kim Edwards (Read this last year, but want to reread it.)

The Believers- Zoe Heller

Burning Bright- Tracey Chevalier

Growing Up Again- Catriona McCloud

Not What You Think- Melissa Hill

The Jewel Box- Anna Davis

The Bostonians- Henry James (Got to have a classic!)

Where or When-Anita Shreve

The Remedy- Michelle Lovric

No Time for Goodbye- Linwood Barclay

Taft- Ann Patchett

Touching Distance- Rebecca Adams

The Infidelity Chain- Tess Stimson

 

Hopefully all of these will be read this year!

Edited February 16, 2010 by BookGeek20

[BookGeek20]

Jan: Started reading The Almost Moon.

Feb: Finished The Almost Moon. Started Reading No Time for Goodbye. Finished No Time For Goodbye. Started Reading Where or When.

Mar:

Apr:

May:

Jun:

Jul:

Aug:

Sept:

Oct:

Nov:

Dec:

Edited February 16, 2010 by BookGeek20

[Stephanie2008]

I've read the Time Traveler's Wife, which is one of my favourite books, and Growing Up Again which I was really surprised at, it's quite a sweet story Happy reading

[BookGeek20]

Hey Thanks, I kind of read half of the time travelers wife lost my place and then never got back into it. And I am looking forward to reading growing up again!

Edited February 12, 2010 by Maureen

[vinay87]

Please give Time Traveller's wife a complete read!! It's definitely more than worth it!

 

 

And hello.

[Stephanie2008]

I struggled with it at first, I couldn't work out which bit was where. But then it clicked and I really enjoyed it

[BookGeek20]

Thank you guys for support, i think i shall read it next after the almost moon, nearly finished it, just keep running out of time what with uni work, social life, sleep etc :/

[vinay87]

Ah sleep.

It's like a husband-beating wife who also cooks well. Can't live with her, can't find the strength to read without her.

[BookGeek20]

Hmm indeed how very insightful Vinay, i am so close to finishing my book atm :/ I think this forum will definitely encourage me to read more

[BookGeek20]

I just finished reading this book and in my opinion it was an enjoyable albeit a little strange to get into read. It was interesting to look into the characters pasts, what happened, how a strange childhood impacted upon the central characters life and so on and so forth. I found it a very dysfunctional novel as the theme of death and sadness ran throughout. The main character Helen was cold, unfeeling and unsympathetic towards her family and the plot at the end was in my opinion unresolved. It is a strange book and in my opinion should be read only if you are a fan of Alice Sebold's work.

 

On about.com the book review is:

 

"In The Almost Moon, Alice Sebold has created a memorable but wholly unlikable character. Helen Knightly is emotionally cold and distant, even from her best friend. Divorced, she is physically and emotionally estranged from her daughters. That she is mentally ill is readily apparent.

 

Helen is coming to grips with a parable shared by her father when she was a girl. "I like to think your mother is almost whole," he said. "So much in life is about almost, not quites." "Like the moon," Helen had responded.

 

The whole moon is always there in front of us, although we cannot always see it in its entirety. Except on those nights when it is full, we can do no more than almost see it. So it is with Life. Our life and the lives of those around us are always there in front of us; however, we seldom see the fullness of Life. We almost see it, then it is gone.

In this dark and unsatisfying novel, no one seems to be whole. Death permeates everything. "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily," reads the first sentence. "When I was a teenager, I thought every kid spent sweaty summer afternoons in their bedrooms, daydreaming of cutting their mother up into little pieces and mailing them to parts unknown." As the next twenty-four hours unfold, we see into the murky depths of her relationship with her mother, her father, her ex-husband, and her daughters. There is nothing there to make the reader connect and care about a single one of them, and we never fully understand what drove any of them.

 

Her "mother's core was rotten like the brackish water at the bottom of a weeks-old vase of flowers." Her mother was severely agoraphobic. Her father, who went away for 90 days "to visit family," was warm and caring, but came home one evening and put a bullet through his head. At that point, Helen assumed the burden of caring for her mother. And, we quickly learn, it was a burden.

A major theme of the novel explores in a superficial manner the choices we make as individuals and as members of a family. As the pressure to care for a contemptible mother grew, Helen had choices to make; the choice which led to the murder of her mother is never made clear. The interior monologues simply do not ring true, and the plot remains unresolved.

 

Never has one novel had more dysfunctional characters. No one is whole, barely "almost whole." Everyone in Helen's family has issues; her mother's neighbors have issues. Her father used to say, when Helen's mother was off to a bad start in the morning, "It's a hard day." Helen, who likes hiding in "my own darkness" is having a hard day from which there seems to be no release.

Sebold's first, highly acclaimed novel, The Lovely Bones, is a cheerful walk in the park in comparison. It provided a protagonist for whom we felt great sympathy, as did Lucky, a memoir of her rape, published in 1999. In an interview with David Weich of Powells.com in July of 2002, Sebold said, "When people say, "I enjoyed Lucky," and hesitate, my response is, 'Yes, thank you.' It's a book. It's meant to be read. Even if it's about something horrible, it should be written in such a way that you enjoy it as a reading experience." The Almost Moon does not rise to the criterion of being an enjoyable read.

 

In the acknowledgments to his most recent novel, John Hart writes, "I have often said that family dysfunction makes for rich literary soil, ... the perfect place to cultivate secrets and misdeeds, grow them into explosive stories." Even in fertile soil, one has to plant good seed stock and tend it appropriately. Sebold's novel simply does not succeed on this level."

 

I agree with this point of view in the fact that after finishing the book it left me unsatisfied and didnt really meet my expectations whereas i have read The Lovely Bones before and enjoyed it. Anyway, lets hope that No Time For Goodbye will be a better read!

 

My rating: 5/10

Edited February 16, 2010 by BookGeek20

[BookGeek20]

Synopsis by Waterstones.com:

 

"On the morning she will never forget, suburban teenager Cynthia Archer awakes with a nasty hangover and a feeling she is going to have an even nastier confrontation with her mom and dad. But when she leaves her bedroom, she discovers the house is empty, with no sign of her parents or younger brother Todd. In the blink of an eye, without any explanation, her family has simply disappeared. Twenty-five years later Cynthia is still haunted by unanswered questions. Were her family murdered? If so, why was she spared? And if they're alive, why did they abandon her in such a cruel way? Now married with a daughter of her own, Cynthia fears that her new family will be taken from her just as her first one was. And so she agrees to take part in a TV documentary revisiting the case, in the hope that somebody somewhere will remember something - or even that her father, mother or brother might finally reach out to her...Then a letter arrives which makes no sense and yet chills Cynthia to the core. And soon she begins to realise that stirring up the past could be the worst mistake she has ever made..."

 

This book was a cracking good read! It was a real page turner from page one and i enjoyed reading it immensely! It was addictive from page one and totally exceeded my expectations! I thought something different all the way through and the ending was not what i had expected! Awesome book i would give it 9/10.

[Lilywhite]

I read this one a while ago and agree that whilst I was guessing all through the book, I didn't expect the ending