1984 - George Orwell
"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past."
The year might be 1984 but Winston can't be sure - facts have lost all meaning now that Big Brother controls the past, present, and future. This is the dystopian world of Airstrip One (formerly Great Britain) in the super-nation of Oceania, where the Thought Police can as-good-as read your mind, and Big Brother watches your every move. Winston is in grave danger because he secretly hates Big Brother, and wants to destroy him/it/them - if they don't catch him thinking such thoughts first.
I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed this book. I’ve obviously heard so much about it, and I had the impression it would be a boring, politically heavy book that I was going to be struggling through. That wasn’t the case.
I didn’t find the political nature of the book difficult to navigate, and instead found myself fascinated by what I was reading. Maybe it’s the Psychology student in me but I sat for a long time after I read this book, just thinking over everything I had read.
The idea of 2 + 2 = 5 intrigues me. I’ve always struggled with the concept of maths (as in, does maths actually exist? What is it? How do you know 2 + 2 = 4?) and while I know the answers are out there somewhere, I loved how this idea came up throughout the book.
I am SO glad I finally got round the reading it!
7/10
*
Girl, Interrupted - Mannon Tellier
Well, I thought when I downloaded this book, I was downloading the book that the film with Angelina Jolie in was based on. One page in and I realised this was not that book. That book was written by Suzanne, and followd the story of something. This book was an extremely badly translated book that is full of testimonies from people who have survived child abuse.
This is a lesson in looking up authors as well as book titles. Oops.
N/A
*
Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell
"The me that's me right now is yours."
It's not easy being 16 and in love, especially in high school, and especially when you're a mis-fit in high school. But when Eleanor and Park bond over comic books and 80’s music on the bus to school, they create a love story they have to live out, no matter what tries to get in their way.
Oooooh I liked this because it was such an easy read and how can you not love Park, but I didn’t love it as much as I was hoping to. I just liked it a lot and that kind of bummed me out. Everyone else raves about this book!
Saying that mind, liking it instead of loving it isn’t such a bad thing. I was engrossed in the story and I definitely want to read more of her work. I just wish I’d read this book when I was a bit younger. The romantic 14 year old me would have been aaaaall over this!
6/10
*
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
"Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for."
This book uses a "distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration[1]" which basically means it is confusing as hell 98% of the time. It's told from the perspectives of a variety of different characters, but it isn't told in chronological order, so really you have no idea what goes where in the sequence of events. At the heart of the story is a bombardier called Yossarian; convinced that everyone is trying to kill him, he desperately tries to have himself sent home. Yet he's caught by the bureaucratic rule of Catch-22: to willingly fly more dangerous combat missions makes you insane, yet to put in a formal request to be excused and sent home proved you had a rational concern for your safety....and therefore makes you sane enough to fly.
I was not expecting to enjoy this book as much as I actually did. I didn’t read it quickly but I enjoyed every moment spent with it. I have never read a book told like this - the idea of chronological order was kind of thrown out of the window!
I didn’t particularly like Yossarian but the other characters were so real and present it didn’t really matter too much. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book with such a vibrant background of characters before, the entire thing felt alive.
8/10
*
Spark - Rachel Craw
Evie was a seemingly normal 17 year old girl, living with her Aunty while she mourns her mother's death. And then she discovers she is a Shield. Her DNA has been altered by a decades-old genetic experiment that leaves her with heightened physical abilities and binds her to protect her best friend from an unknown killer. Throw in irresistible but forbidden Jamie, and Evie’s life becomes anything but ordinary.
One of my friends in the hostel I worked in in New Zealand lent me his copy of this book. He hadn’t enjoyed it that much so I didn’t really have many expectations of it. I think the only thing I thought beforehand was that it was cool to be able to read a Kiwi author while in the country!
Oh MAN was I unprepared for that book. I read it in one day, curled up on the sofa and only sometimes talking to myself out loud at the exciting parts. It was suspenseful, it made me laugh out loud, it was chock full of action, and there was an actual real-sounding girl as the protagonist. And as if that wasn’t enough, I thought it had a really interesting science-fiction plot.
I really hope I can find the two books here in the UK because I am not done with this story yet.
7/10
*
Love Letters to the Dead - Ava Dellaira
“You think a lot about that, don’t you? How it’s supposed to be.”
Laurel's English teacher tells the class to write a letter to a dead person, and to hand it in on Friday. Laurel soon ends up with a notebook full of letters to dead celebrities. She starts with Kurt Cobain, the singer her sister May loved before she passed away earlier that year. Laurel writes about navigating a new high school, new friendships, and a first love. Yet underneath it all, she is still dealing with the guilt she feels over her sisters death. It isn't until she can write the truth about it, that she can begin to figure the truth about herself.
One of the only notes I made while I was reading this book was the above quote, followed by “inspiration?” It felt like this book was written the way the author thought it should be written, rather than in a way that actually worked for the story.
Take Laurel. She swung between sounding like a naive young child to an aged philosopher. The intelligence of her insights or opinions went against the childlike quality of most of the book and it pulled you right out of the story whenever it happened. Almost as if the author wanted to put her two cents in, even if it didn’t quite fit with everything else.
I don’t know, I had such high hopes about this book. Grief is such a vast, diverse topic and this is a really unique way of exploring it. It’s just, the grief seems to be like a forced topic the author didn’t really want to talk about - like in school when you’re teacher sets you a topic and you write what you were always going to write, with a brief nod towards the task to keep it relevant. There was no exploration of the emotion. It was just letter after letter that was 60% wikipedia facts, and 40% annoying high school irrelevance.
3/10
*
Two Boys Kissing - David Levithan
"If you play your cards right, the next generation will have so much more than you did."
A chorus of men who died in the AIDS epidemic of the 80s narrate this story of two boys about to attempt a marathon 32-hour kiss. But the kiss isn't just for them and as the story shows, it becomes a focal point in the lives of other teenage boys dealing with exactly what their kiss is going to represent: dealing with teenage relationships, coming out to your family, and understanding what it means to be gay.
I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this book. I wasn’t a fan of ‘Boy Meets Boy’ and I didn’t have high hopes for this one either. Then to start reading and find it’s written in such an unusual way… I thought I was going to struggle to finish.
Surprisingly though, once I got use to the narration style (the chorus of deceased men) I actually started to enjoy the stories. I found myself angry then sad then happy then tense and any book that can rollercoaster you like that is at least half decent. Plus I actually really liked the way the story was told. The narrators meant that there was a tangible link between the present and past, and it gave the story a really interesting feel to it. I can definitely see why some readers might find it distracting though.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this book as a ‘great read’ but, as an introduction into LGBT+ literature, I think it’s worth it. It can be read in a day as well.
5/10
*
The Bone People - Keri Hulme
“You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they’ve been read…”
Kerewin Holmes lives in an isolated tower by the sea. Part Maori, part European, she is a painter who no longer paints, and a woman estranged from her family. She lives alone and that’s the way she likes it. Until one night, a silent young boy interrupts her solitude. Simon is unable to talk - he vomits if he tries - and he is volatile to say the least. Yet he draws Kerewin into his life and she slowly falls under the charms of him and his Maori foster father, Joe. This story explores the point at which Maori and European New Zealand meet, clash, and sometimes merge. There’s abuse, heartache, laughter, and love.
Oh oh oh this book. I don’t know what to say about it really. I was lucky enough to be in New Zealand when I read it, and I think it will always have a special edge to it because of that.
My overall impression was that I loved this story. I didn’t like Kerewin but I liked Simon and I really believed the three of them could make a family. I felt myself living through this story as well: the characters were alive in my mind, against the backdrop of the country I had been travelling around.
But, oh but. I tried really hard to appreciate the way it was written. I did. I’m not so much of a fun of fancy styles or “out there” writing. I like books because they let me live in other people’s heads and other people’s worlds - I like to be lost in stories. And while this story swirled around my head, the writing still managed to alienate me from it more often than not.
I don’t know if it’s because the writing incorporated Maori storytelling and that’s a different thinking style to mine? If the writing was just bad and was being passed off as “unique” or “different”? I don’t know. Either way, it was a big obstacle for me and one I had to keep fighting to the end.
And speaking of the end, the ending felt like a bit of a let down as well. Not so much rushed, just more… forced? Not explored enough? It felt like the characters had been left behind in favour of a plot that the author wasn’t willing to change once the characters no longer fit. I was hoping for so much more from it.
In spite of that though, I really did like this book. I would recommend it but with the caveat that the writing style will definitely not be for everyone.
ALSO if you wanted to read another review that says what I would have liked to say but in a much more elegant way, click here: [spoiler alert]
7/10
*
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
“But she did look back, and I lover her for that, because it was so human.”
Slaughterhouse-Five introduces the reader to Billy Pilgrim, a man who has become unstuck in time after being abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. The story follows Pilgrim simultaneously through all the stages of his life - he travels through time with no control over where in his life he will end up. At the heart of it all is World War Two, and Billy’s (and Vonnegut’s) experience of the horror of the Dresden firebombing.
This book though.
Argh, I am not a good enough writer to even begin to do this book justice. It continues to blow my mind. It’s been two months since I read it and I still spent ten minutes raving about it to someone last week.
On Tralfamadore, Billy was introduced to the concept of time being ‘all at once’. Things happen exactly as they do, they will always act that way, and they will never change. Time is layered, and the Tralfamadorians can look at it all at once or focus on one specific moment to watch. They say to focus on life’s pleasant moments - moments that will always be happening because they always have happened.
I don’t need to tell you that this blew my mind. The possibilities of this way of thinking. I love anything that says time is not linear, and this was just. There is always a me somewhere reading a book for the first time. Tasting ice cream for the first time. Meeting Tom for the first time. I lost myself in thinking like this for such a long time after my first reading.
But the book wasn’t about that. Always tugging slightly at your side was Dresden. The horror that was bestowed on the city, and the POWs that survived it. Vonnegut shows you exactly what he thinks of war, of the inevitability of it, the questions we should ask about it.
For me as well, it felt like this book was an exploration of the effects war has on people. Vonnegut struggled to write the book in a neatly structured way, because the war wasn’t that. It was circular and confusing and didn’t make sense. There are no solid characters in this book, something Vonnegut explained by saying “One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.” It strips you of yourself.
The main exploration for me though, was Billy. Do I think this was a science fiction book? Do I think Billy really was abducted?
No. I think this was a man that saw the very worst of human beings and his mind couldn’t bear to let him live with that forever. I think this was a coping strategy, and I think Vonnegut used this to show how devastating war can be, in all and any of its forms.
ALSO I wanted to read more analysis of this book, so I hit up SparkNotes (my first port of call for anything book analysis related because I am a novice) and got to reading. I was still riding my high of the whole ‘moments are eternal’ thing when I came across this page analysing the end of the book/the book as a whole. Needless to say, not a week has gone by that I haven’t thought about that last paragraph: [spoilers]
9/10
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