Books · Films · March 2016 · Patreon Reviews

Review: ‘About a Boy’, Nick Hornby

This review  is the first that feels a little like cheating because I had actually seen bits of the film on TV, about 10 years ago. All I could remember before starting the novel is that Hugh Grant’s in the film and so’s that guy who went on to be in Skins (I think?). So my memory didn’t spoil it for me and I won’t spoil it for you.

My copy of About a Boy is courtesy of a university I considered attending long enough that they sent me free things. The parcel contained a letter from Nick Hornby advising that every misstep is not, in retrospect, a misstep (coincidentally I have been clinging to this notion since I decided not to go to university). The book itself follows that concept, predominantly through its two protagonists, Will and Marcus. Will has a life most of us live at the weekends. 30-ish and unattached all but the Countdown schedule, he spends days inside cafes and hours in front of the television, and has a work/life balance of pretty much 0% work and 100% chilling out. Marcus, a 12-year-old boy who’s just moved to London with his mum, has a happiness/life balance of about 30/70.

I can’t tell you how Will and Marcus meet, because it’s one of the funniest parts of the story, and I can’t really tell you too much about the supporting characters, because a lot of them hinge around the plot too. I can tell you that the novel contains a dead duck, Kurt Cobain, Christmas songs and some hilarious one liners that made me miss being 12. (Petition to start allowing adults to say exactly what they think just as much as children.)

Review: 'About a Boy' by Nick Hornby

 

The story takes place in the 1990s, and it would be quite different if it were set today (who are the 2010s equivalent of Nirvana?!). It was nice to read something that didn’t mention Facebook, actually, but my favourite thing about the book is that the two protagonists are about as different as two people could get while having quite a lot in common, and it was the alternating of points of view that turned the book into a very gripping story. There are a lot of ironic moments, and a lot of sad moments, because Will is judging Marcus at exactly the same time as Marcus is judging Will. All the characters are quite normal people you would expect to meet out and about, so of course they are actually all bonkers and more fun to read about than most superheroes. So go read.


 

My previous reviews are here; you can support my work by funding me on Patreon every time I review a book here.

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Books · January 2016 · Patreon Reviews · Tumblr

Review: ‘Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe’, Benjamin Alire Sáenz

This is a spoiler-free review except for the bits you can guess from the title.

Oh look, something else I originally saw on Tumblr, probably courtesy of feistiest. You know how they say you should never judge a book by its cover, but we all do? With this, the cover – by  Chloë Foglia -made me want to get the book. Look at that typography and those colours and those illustrations this is going to be a beautiful novel.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe from Wikipedia.org
I couldn’t find a cover that wasn’t covered in award stickers. This is from Wikipedia. Look at that night sky.

It is a beautiful novel.

Like the best books, the action starts from the very first sentence, so I can’t tell you too much background information without spoiling the story, but the title pretty much implies the premise: a guy called Aristotle meets a guy called Dante and together they discover the secrets of the universe/survive their teenage years. Set in El Paso, Texas, across a couple of years in the 1980s, the novel is a lot like The Perks of Being a Wallflower in that it could have been set last week and will be devoured by teenage readers for decades to come (it was actually published in 2012).

I had never heard of Benjamin Alire Sáenz before I read this – and I am definitely pronouncing his name terribly wrong – but I think he is a writer I would like to read more of, because Aristotle and Dante, and Aristotle and Dante, are wonderfully written. Some topics are quite hard to cover without sounding like a textbook or news story – again, I can’t really tell you what they are without wrecking the plot – but it’s funny, occasionally irreverent and often slightly uncomfortable. The whole book is just like seeing inside someone’s head, which is so hard to achieve as a writer and so satisfying for the reader.

It also won a handful of awards, which is nice because it’s quite rare to find a critically acclaimed novel that’s also fun – I finished it in an evening. If you liked The Perks of Being a Wallflower, if you’re interested in what it was like to live in Texas in the 1980s (I wasn’t but now I am), if you’re interested in Mexican culture, if you like scruffy dogs (it is not a spoiler to tell you there is a scruffy dog), if you like boys with long names and books with pretty covers, go find a copy and curl up for an evening with Ari and Dante and watch them discover the secrets of the universe.

None of them are about the science of life on earth, by the way. I did originally wonder if it was a story about physicists.


My previous reviews are here; you can support my work on Patreon every time I review here.

Books · December 2015 · Patreon Reviews

Review: ‘Persuasion’, Jane Austen

If you are aware of Jane Austen’s work, you may have noticed a trend of intelligent women, social comedy and weddings. I will not be spoiling this particular novel by saying that Persuasion is no exception.

Turns out I have a reading list, and, weirdly, quite a bit of what I’ve read so far is on it. I thought Persuasion was too, but it turns out that it was actually Sense and Sensibility. I’ll do that one too.

Persuasion starts with the lovely if socially-ambitious Elliot family, whose daughter Anne is the main character. Eight years before the novel starts, Anne was persuaded by well-meaning relatives to abandon her engagement with a lowly (read: neither rich nor titled) gentleman named Frederick Wentworth.

When we meet her, Anne is 27 and basically preparing for life as a spinster. Because who would marry a 27-year old god look at those wrinkles. Within a chapter or two, Anne’s family have been forced to move to Bath and rent out the family home to an Admiral, because they have approached their finances with the air of ‘spend for the person you want to be, not the person you are’. Some things never change, huh.

But wait. Who should be acquainted with the Admiral and his family but Frederick, whom Anne has never really stopped loving despite trampling on his socially-inferior heart… What’s more, has Frederick been bumming around these past eight years claiming benefits? No, he joined the navy and rose to the rank of Captain.

I think that is a big deal.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Anne spends the next few hundred pages despairing of her hypochondriac sister, her accident-prone in-laws and her mangy cousin, and tries not to freak out about how hot Frederick still is. Which is hot. Plus he knows how to drive boats across the Atlantic wearing a funny hat. (That’s not a direct quote.)

Do they get married? Does the mangy cousin stop being mangy? Will I have to read the novel again, as I did Pride and Prejudice, to fully absorb Austen’s sharp humour? Should you read this novel if you’re a fan of that Colin Firth Mr Darcy scene which isn’t even in that novel?

Oh, the literary questions.


 

My previous reviews are here; you can support my work on Patreon every time I review here.

Books · Internet · November 2015 · Patreon Reviews

Review: ‘The Raven Boys’, Maggie Stiefvater

Ye olde disclaimer: this review has no spoilers. Tumblr does though.

To be honest, if I’d come across this novel in the library or a shop, I probably would have ignored it because I judge books by their covers and this one screamed ‘boring YA romance between “quirky” teenage girl and dashing, brooding, teenage male’.

Good thing I found it on Tumblr, then, innit. I was intrigued by edits and posts reblogged by Feistiest, whose account I can’t remember deciding to follow. But I’m glad I did because she’s hilarious and The Raven Boys is absolutely brilliant. I was unsure what to expect just from Tumblr; I assumed it was hella queer and full of socially subversive characters or themes because Tumblr is a good testing ground for whether a novel is full of boring (read: straight, white, brooding) photocopy characters. So when I saw the tagline – ‘if you kiss your true love, he will die’ – I thought ‘Christ, this true love is of course a guy and probably a photocopy of all white straight young adult dude characters’. On the back, I saw that the novel has won a Glamour award for ‘Best Book to Curl Up With’. Had Tumblr been hoodwinked by a toilet paper YA masquerading as a hella queer/socially subversive character-rich YA? Or, holy shit, could the novel be both high  in quality and content and incredibly easy to read?

Yes, yes it could. I don’t read enough YA to know if it’s blowing the doors off the genre (thanks for that, Twilight) but it’s the sort of book I wish I’d known when I was 15 or 16. If I had, I might’ve been a bit more interested in boys and/or world history and/or brilliant storytelling. The plot centres around Blue, a girl whose family is psychic, and a group of guys broadly known as raven boys. They have nothing in common until it turns out that psychics, dead(ish) people, Welsh kings and Blue’s guarantee to kill her true love do in fact have things in common.

TRB

I’m only on the first novel of three at time of writing, and it’s too early to tell if the characters grow or if it gradually increases in queerness. At the moment my money’s on massive character development at the very least, and I hope I’m right… Tumblr edits aren’t always that accurate, you know? Maybe I misread the pretty pictures, and I can’t check until I’ve read the rest of the series. Which, by the time you read this, I may well have done.

Update, at time of publishing: I have finished the series with a fervour normally reserved for MCR. Tumblr was right and I am in love. Please do not look up the book online – there are spoilers everywhere – just reserve it from your library ASAP. Please. Oh and follow Maggie Stiefvater online because she is hilarious and eloquent with that really-good-author style that makes me want to take creative writing classes. She also took the piss out of me so in my head we are friends for life.

Oh, you can support my mission to become a writer of decent YA and various other genres on Patreon here.

(All Hail) Creation · Books · History & Old Stuff · October 2015 · Patreon Reviews

Review: ‘When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit’, Judith Kerr

Polite notice/potential spoiler alert: this one might make you sniffle. And, um, it’s about a Jewish family in the 1930s. But not quite like how you’d think.

In 2013 I was lucky enough to go to the Hay Festival and attend an interview – which was more of a conversation – between two of the most prominent writers my childhood, Judith Kerr and Michael Morpurgo. I learnt that Michael Morpurgo failed his 11+, that Prince Philip read Mog and that Judith Kerr is not, as I’d assumed, born-and-bred English. She was born in Berlin, where her father, Alfred Kerr, was a big deal in literary circles. He saw the writing on the wall and spoke out against Hitler before a lot of people did… He was also Jewish, so his name was on the top of a list the Nazi party published stating who they would shoot should they come to power. He moved his family to Switzerland in 1933, just before the Nazis were elected.

I wouldn’t normally add so much background to a fiction novel – and you certainly don’t need to know it to read When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit because the novel is, technically, a children’s book. It’s funny, it’s easy to read and its main character, Anna, is a little bit like every seven-year-old who lives with her brother and their parents. The whole story takes place before 1939 – war isn’t really mentioned – and the plot concentrates on Anna’s experience leaving Berlin for Switzerland. Then her experience leaving Switzerland for Paris, then Paris for London. First and foremost it’s a children’s book, about children and aimed at them. But it’s also an autobiography; Judith Kerr writes in the notes that she wrote it to help her own children learn about her childhood.

Course, reading When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit as an adult, in the same week Syrian children were drowning in the Mediterranean, it was surreal to realise that Anna and her family were some of the first refugees of the Second World War. It also made me want to cry my eyes out, because Anna is almost completely unaware of what’s going on outside of her little world; anti-Semitism, the probability of war and the realities of seeking refuge in a foreign country aren’t such bold themes as they would be in an ‘adult’ novel. That’s what makes it so poignant (and a little bit ironic). Finishing the book made me want to find anyone who opposes helping the current refugee crisis and throw them into a dingy off the coast of Greece. This novel is historical, but it also couldn’t be more current.

WHSPR

I got to meet Judith Kerr at Hay, and at the time I didn’t realise how lucky I was to meet her and to see her interviewed. Mog the Forgetful Cat and The Tiger Who Came to Tea are classic children’s stories, but it’s When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit that you should make your children read as soon as they’re old enough to get through a prose novel. Then you should borrow it off them. (If you buy it, try to get hold of the Essential Modern Classics edition; there are notes from Morpurgo and Kerr plus a bit of historical background.)

I’m off to read the next book in the series. There are two more, obviously… there’s the war to get to yet. I’m just glad I know Anna has a happy ending.

You can support my work every time I review a book using Patreon.

Books · Patreon Reviews · September 2015

Review: ‘Holy Cow’, David Duchovny

Polite notice: I don’t discuss anything in these reviews that isn’t available from blurbs and articles, and they’re more like recommendations than reviews in the same way that Tony Blair is better known as a contributor in the Iraq war than he is as an expert on international relations.

If I were at all spiritual, I would say that the universe is conspiring against me when it comes to reading Frankenstein, but I’m not so I’ll just say that it’s a minor life goal to finish the book. Since it’s been nearly two months since I last did a review, this is mostly here to remind myself that I’m capable of long-term projects (a skill I’m clearly going to need where Frankenstein‘s concerned) than it is to extort money from my patrons… I don’t have any patrons, so I could review twice a week without bankrupting people, but in the spirit of things it is probably smarter to stick to my original plan.

I’ve just finished – as in, this lunchtime – David Duchovny’s debut, Holy Cow. Duchovny’s mostly known for acting, and the novel started as an idea for an animated film screenplay. For what it’s worth I wouldn’t have seen the movie by itself, because it’s about a cow named Elsie who discovers what happens to cows when they reach prime rib status (you’re welcome). Elsie goes on a quest to not get eaten, and makes friends with a pig and a turkey on the way. She tells the whole story as a memoir, and she has a human agent through which she is sharing her adventures with the human world.

https://www.instagram.com/p/7KPIXZgBc2/?taken-by=francescagotconceited

It’s completely bananas and doesn’t even pretend to be plausible (if it wasn’t for meat farm references and swearing pigs it would make a brilliant children’s animal adventure film), but there are a lot of nuggets of wisdom here and there – for example the entire Israel/Palestine conflict is explained in a paragraph. If you’re interested in vegetarianism, talking animals and philosophy that’s woven into farce, go for it… but maybe not when you’re in the middle of a beef sandwhich.

You can support my Patreon and recieve postcards, emails etc. from me every time I review here.

Books · July 2015 · Patreon Reviews

Review: ‘The Shock of the Fall’, Nathan Filer

Polite notice: I don’t discuss anything in these reviews that isn’t available from blurbs and articles, and they’re more like recommendations. Going to post this in front of every Patreon post so you can proceed without worry that I’ll spoil it.

Review time! My second book is The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer, which my friend Robyn recommended to me – I think Nathan Filer teaches at her university. Regardless, I made a good choice to reserve it from the library, because I was into it enough that I finished it in about four days and didn’t really need to think about picking it back up.

That being said, it’s not the easiest story to read. I seem to remember hearing that Nathan Filer, who won the Costa Prize for the book, was inspired to tell the story when he was working in the mental health section of a hospital. I expected it to be a book about an insane asylum in the 20th century or something – it’s not. It’s a story about a guy called Matt, who tells us about his life, starting from when he’s about six to the present day, when he’s 19 or so. We meet his parents and, more importantly, his brother Simon, who features heavily despite dying in the first chapter.

'The Shock of the Fall' by Nathan Filer
Excuse the diddy picture. I accidentally deleted the original and had to get this off my own Instagram.

So do I recommend it? Yes. You don’t often read stories about the sort of things Matt experiences that feel like a real person is talking to you. I sometimes feel like the author’s going a bit over-dramatic or one-sided or boring, but The Shock of the Fall is very rounded, and in places ifeels more like a thriller than anything else. It’s one of those books the people who decide NHS budgets should read, as well as anyone who considers metal illness something you choose. I do not, however, recommend you read it in public or to small children as there is both foul language and the possibility it will scare them, rather than educate them.

But somebody should definitely send a copy to Jeremy Hunt. Hey – support my work on Patreon and I’ll use the funds to send him a copy!

Books · June 2015 · Patreon Reviews

Review: ‘The Five People You Meet in Heaven’, Mitch Albom

First ever book review, weird. To be honest, I rarely read other people’s reviews. I don’t want their impression of the book to impact mine before I’ve even started. So I’m thinking of these more as recommendations, and I promise I will try not to contaminate your potential view with my own. (And that’s a definite first for this place.)

The novel I started with was Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven, which I think I was given; I found it in a bag of books I lent Isobel for school When she returned it, she said the book was mine so I think someone in my family must have picked it up somewhere then passed it on – which is quite fitting because the story is about an elderly gentleman named Eddie, who dies on his birthday trying to save a child in an accident. When he gets to heaven he learns that everyone there meets five people you knew in life, all of whom are linked to you and who help explain your life. That’s nothing that’s not on the blurb – don’t worry, I won’t spoil anything.

'The Five People You Meet in Heaven' by Mitch Albom

In a nutshell, I do in fact recommend it. I’d never heard of the author and had no idea what to expect, although with stories about existential crises, death and/or philosophy, you can guess that the content might not always be a barrel of laughs, or align with your personal spiritual (lack of) beliefs. It’s not a particularly sad book though, and nor is it particularly preachy. All in all, if you like stories about normal people, big life questions and/or a few twists and turns, head to your local library or independent bookshop now!

Okay now let me know if this was a terrible review and/or recommendation and/or if you’ll read it! You can pledge to support me on Patreon every time I review a book here.