Difference between revisions of "Newest General Fiction Reviews"
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| + | |author=Kirsten Tranter | ||
| + | |title=A Common Loss | ||
| + | |rating=4 | ||
| + | |genre=General Fiction | ||
| + | |summary=There were five friends - Dylan, Brian, Tallis, Cameron and Elliot - but then Dylan was killed in a road accident and the remaining four had to come to terms with how the dynamics of the group had changed. Dylan had always been the fixer, the solver and the mediator. He'd been the one the other four had gone to when they had problems because he'd always come up with something and it was usually an ingenious solution. It wasn't until after Dylan's death that the four friends realised that Dylan knew their dirtiest secrets - and that someone else had access to all the information. | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857382756</amazonuk> | ||
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{{newreview | {{newreview | ||
|author=Paul Broderick | |author=Paul Broderick | ||
Revision as of 13:34, 27 March 2012
General fiction
A Common Loss by Kirsten Tranter
There were five friends - Dylan, Brian, Tallis, Cameron and Elliot - but then Dylan was killed in a road accident and the remaining four had to come to terms with how the dynamics of the group had changed. Dylan had always been the fixer, the solver and the mediator. He'd been the one the other four had gone to when they had problems because he'd always come up with something and it was usually an ingenious solution. It wasn't until after Dylan's death that the four friends realised that Dylan knew their dirtiest secrets - and that someone else had access to all the information. Full review...
The Bankruptcy Diaries by Paul Broderick
In 2000, Paul Livingson graduated from university and got his first proper grown up job. By 2007 he had filed for bankruptcy. With no failed businesses, unfortunate property depreciation or poor stock market investments in between you might be at a loss to see how he ended up there, until you read his diary of those years and it all becomes crystal clear. Full review...
The Last Day of Term by Francis Gilbert
It's the last day of term at the Gilda Ball Academy, and English teacher Martin can't wait for the holiday to start. Shaken by the death of his friend Jack in a riot at the school, he's failed to notice his marriage falling to pieces and his relationship with his son deteriorating. Just when he thinks things can't get any worse, an anonymous pupil accuses him of inappropriate sexual conduct. Full review...
Never Coming Home by Evonne Wareham
Kaz Elmore has almost come to terms with her daughter's death. She died while on holiday in America with her father (Kaz's ex husband) and her ashes have been scattered on the river. As tragic as it is, Kaz has no alternative but to accept that her daughter is never coming back. However, one day she receives a visit from a man called Devlin, who witnessed the accident and was holding Jamie when she died. His sole intention is to provide some comfort for Kaz by telling her that her daughter was not alone but when he spots photographs of Jamie, he realises that she is not the child who died in his arms. Full review...
The Cry of the Go-Away Bird by Andrea Eames
'The Cry of the Go-Away Bird' is the debut novel from Andrea Eames. It revolves around Elise, a white Zimbabwean girl living through her teens on the eve of the Mugabe-sponsored farm invasions at the beginning of this century. The author herself grew up in Zimbabwe before moving to New Zealand with her family at the age of seventeen and there is a strong sense of memoir and personal experience in the novel, which has both positive and negative effects on the narrative. Full review...
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith makes it look so easy, churning out book after delightful book that continue to delight and amuse his loyal readers. His writing seems effortless, and in this story, once again, the characters remain the wonderful friends we have always known and expected them to be, as if they really are alive and living these stories somewhere and AMS is simply transcribing them for our pleasure. Full review...
A Small Fortune by Rosie Dastgir
Harris Anwar is truly a man who is split between two worlds. He's a British Pakistani, proud of his Eastern roots, but when he came to the UK he changed his name from Haaris - with a long, flat vowel - to the more acceptable Harris and his clothing was that favoured by an English gentleman. He's proud and he would say many reasons to be proud. Some of the things of which he's proud are relatively small - the vacuum cleaner which he's had for twenty years might not work particularly well, but he's proud that he's hung on to it. He's proud of his car, the central heating which he installed himself and most of all he's proud of his daughter. Full review...
One Day by David Nicholls
I knew within the first ten pages that I was going to love One Day. It is the only book that has kept me up at night, distracted me throughout the day and woken me up early in the morning. I couldn't put it down, and didn't want to either. I have always found it difficult to settle on a favourite type of story, or even a specific genre that I like, but this novel made me realise that what I want in a book is realism. As Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley enjoyed their late night conversation in the opening moments of the book, Nicholls pulled me into his world. Full review...
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Having been diagnosed at age 12 with stage 4 thyroid cancer, Hazel was prepared to die. Then at age 14, a miracle treatment shrunk the tumours in her lungs...for the time being. Hazel could live for years, or she could die at any time, but her days are spent tethered to an oxygen tank and under constant surveillance and treatment to keep the cancer at bay. Hazel is now 16. With her life in a constant holding pattern, Hazel meets Augustus Waters at a cancer support group. Augustus is gorgeous, sharp-witted, in remission and completely attracted to Hazel. As their relationship blossoms and grows, Hazel finds she has to re-examine her attitude about life and death, illness and wellness and love. Their brief journey together leaves a lasting legacy behind that will change everything. Full review...
Intrusion by Ken MacLeod
Pregnant Hope doesn't want to take the Fix, a genetic cure-all pill that corrects the DNA of an unborn child and protects it from all sorts of diseases. Hope's husband Hugh doesn't really understand her objections to the Fix - in fact, Hope never really articulates them at all - but supports her right to choose. Full review...
Suddenly, a Knock on the Door by Etgar Keret
In the opening, titular story, Keret is forced by several people to create, and alter, a short short story. It's a plain metaphor for the history of Israel, but it proves that this modern Scheherazade is not too far removed geographically from the original. And what follows are probably the sort of short, tantalising, open-ended, rough-round-the-edges and surreal results of being compelled to carry on telling tall tales on a nightly basis. Full review...
The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler
Aaron's wife, Dorothy, was killed in an accident. An oak tree fell on their home, demolishing the sun porch where Dorothy happened to be at the time. He worried that if he had done things differently (a matter of some biscuits and a television set) Dorothy might not have been where she was and might still be alive and for a while he camped out in the wrecked house until further damage forced him to move in with his sister. It was then that he realised that Dorothy wasn't really dead - well, not dead as we understand it - as she materialised in odd places, wearing the clothes she used to wear and eventually staying with Aaron for longer periods of time. And gradually they began to bicker, just like a long-married couple... Full review...
Revenge of the Tide by Elizabeth Haynes
Genevieve worked as a sales executive by day and a pole dancer by night but her dream was to buy and renovate a boat where she could live. That was why she persisted in the pressured, chauvinistic world of software sales and the increasingly sleazy world of the private gentleman's club where she could earn a four figure sum each evening as well as getting a good workout. It was nip-and-tuck as to whether or not she made it but after a few months on the boat at a marina on the Medway she was feeling good enough about her life to hold a boat-warming party. It was planned as a mixture of the people she'd met at the marina and some of her sales colleagues from London. But on the night of the party a body washed up at the side of her boat and Genevieve knew the victim. Full review...
The House on Paradise Street by Sofka Zinovieff
Maud Perifanis wasn't unduly worried when her husband didn't return home one evening as he often stayed in his office when he was working and the news that he had been killed in a car accident, well out of Athens on the Saronic Gulf, was a shock to everyone in the house on Paradise Street where the extended family lived. Nikitas had been brought up by his aunt Alexandra and her husband and she now lived in one apartment, Orestes (his son from his second marriage) in the studio and he, Maud and their daughter Tig lived in a third apartment. There was someone missing though. Antigone was Alexandra's sister - and Nikitas' mother - but she'd left Greece for Russia when he was three and he hadn't seen her since. She was over eighty when she heard the news and she came back for the funeral. Full review...
Hector Finds Time (Hector's Journeys) by Francois Lelord
Meet, if you haven't already, Hector the psychiatrist. He's like a champagne cork, and when something prays on his mind a lot POP he's off on a global trip to set things right. And, like a champagne cork let off in a posh place, he'll likely crash through a chandelier of scintillating, interesting little points, scattering them left, right and centre, and creating a pretty, if random, pattern on the book page. This time it is, er, time. From patients worried they've none left, to those who want to grow up faster, and those putting anti-ageing cream on crows'-feet. What is the best approach to spending, passing and perhaps not worrying about, time? Full review...
The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Book 13 by Alexander McCall Smith
Those of you who are frequent visitors to The Bookbag will know that I am a big fan of Alexander McCall Smith's writing. I am supremely happy that he continues to write so regularly and reliably, providing me with much looked forward to reading matter several times through the year. This time it's the turn of Mma Ramotswe to slip back into my mind as we read of her detecting adventures in this, the thirteenth book in the series. Full review...
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach
When Ravi and his cousin Sonny decide to open the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in Bangalore as a retirement home, they don't know whether they will get any takers. However, by advertising it as a newly restored palatial hotel that will provide a life of leisure, good weather and mango gin, they soon get a great deal of interest and are welcoming their new residents. Evelyn, Madge, Dorothy, Norman and all of the others who decide to move to the hotel have their own reasons for leaving Britain but they are all excited by the new opportunity and the lease of new life that it could provide. Full review...
The Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy
Set in a remote hill top town in the Himalayas where the earth has folded to create the majestic scenery, a young woman, Maya, recently widowed arrives to be closer to the scene of her husband's climbing accident. There, she encounters a rich variety of characters who seem to leap of the page, foremost of which two at opposite ends both of society and life's journey - Charu, a young peasant girl whose emerging relationship with a young cook is touching and sweet, and Maya's eccentric landlord, a relict of the Raj who may or may not be in possession of some intriguing personal letters that pertain to India's history and the departing British. Full review...
The Case of the Missing Boyfriend by Nick Alexander
You could be forgiven for thinking that CC had it all. At thirty nine she was near the top of the advertising business, owned her own flat in north London and had a group of close, party-going friends. That's what you saw from the outside, looking in. What CC saw was a life that lacked that one essential which she seemed unable to acquire. She was desperate to find the man of her dreams and preferably one who would whisk her off to a farm house in Devon where she'd live The Good Life. In the meantime she was stuck with the memories of too many heartbreaks, a mother whose current lifestyle brought a very unfortunate word to mind and being on the periphery of her friends' dramas - and as they were all gay she didn't have a lot of chance of meeting that elusive man. Full review...
Rocks in the Belly by Jon Bauer
Jon Bauer's first novel, Rocks in the Belly, is an emotional journey. The narrator is a man in his late 20s who has returned from Canada to visit his mother who has cancer of the brain. The narrator himself is emotionally damaged from the relationship that he had with his mother from childhood when she and her husband fostered children and, interspersed with the narrative, is the voice of narrator at eight years old and in particular telling the experience of one foster boy, Robert, who we know from early on in the book suffered a significant tragedy while in their care. What that event was will be revealed in due course, but it is clear that the young boy suffered hugely from jealousy of his mother's love for these foster children. Full review...
On The Floor by Aifric Campbell
Geri Molloy, the central character in Aifric Campbell's On The Floor, may be earning a six figure salary working at a London investment bank just prior to the outbreak of the 1991 invasion of Kuwait, but she's seriously messed up. Drinking heavily, sleeping lightly and mourning the end of a relationship, she may be a mathematical genius with a direct line to a mysterious Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager with whom she trades, but her life is increasingly being controlled by other people. Full review...
Red Army Faction Blues by Ada Wilson
Ada Wilson admits that his fascination with the period is what drove his work on this novel, and it is the wealth of detail and background that strikes one when reading his account of Peter Urbach, the undercover agent whose role was to act as an agent provocateur to the Red Brigade. Urbach is revealed from the outset as a plant, an undercover operative who needs to keep all events of the group 'noted and filed' for his masters. And throughout the first half of the novel we see Urbach recording the changes and developments, the complex web of political ideology, naivety and the pure egocentricity of youth which created the happening of the Baader-Meinhof gang. Full review...
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Green
Max is 8 years old. He likes Lego and Star Wars and playing with toy soldiers. He can tell you 102 words that rhyme with tree. He scarfs down grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken and rice. He does not like physical contact. He lives with his mum and dad who argue about what is best for him and why he’s not normal like other boys and girls. Full review...
The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life by William Nicholson
William Nicholson's The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life is an ensemble story focussing predominantly on middle class and mainly middle age people living in a Sussex village. The cover of the book suggests that it is little more than a superior chic-lit style story of how Laura reacts when an ex-lover from her past appears from out of the blue to disrupt her marriage and two children, but while this is a central issue that runs throughout the book, this is only a small part of the story. It's far better than that might suggest. Full review...
The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen
Grace McCleen's debut novel, The Land of Decoration paints an original, unsettling, sometimes dark and generally rather wonderful picture. Narrated by ten year old Judith, raised by her father who is a fundamental religious follower of the end of the world is nigh variety, it looks at bullying, both at school and in more general society, faith and the possible rejection thereof and the strength of childhood imagination. Full review...
