By Amanda Hocking

Part 1 of the Trylle Trilogy

***~~ (3/5)

Switched By Amanda Hocking

Click here to buy the book Switched by Amanda Hocking form The Book Depository (with free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Wendy Everly knew that there was something different about herself when her mother had tried to kill her on her sixth birthday. She accused her of being a monster that had been switched at birth with her real baby.

Wendy doesn’t feel like a monster, but she can’t help but feel that she doesn’t quite fit in. She is bored and frustrated with life in her small town, and to top it off, she’s the new girl in school. There is also a secret that she has discovered about herself that she can’t tell anyone…. Wendy has the mysterious ability to influence people’s decisions just by willing it to happen.

The one night, Wendy’s world is turned upside down and inside out when she finds Finn, the strange and intense boy from school, who also happens to be darkly handsome, right outside her bedroom window. All Wendy’s questions may finally be answered…

Book Review:

I quite enjoyed reading this book by first time author Amanda Hocking. Hocking is 26 from Minnesota, and has apparently become a self-published ebook phenomenon, having sold one million books to date. The Trylle Trilogy is now being published in hard copy form by St Martin’s Press New York.

I have to qualify: if you are one of those people who wouldn’t touch Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight with a barge pole, please stay away from this book as it is very similar in genre and I’d have to say not as gripping in plot. But if you are a fan of Twilight, you may enjoy reading Switched too.

One more note on Switched’s similarity to Twilight –it seems that every boy Wendy comes across is GORGEOUS and a potential mate. The main character goes on and on about how attractive he is. There’s even a line in the book where she says she is thinking of setting up a life with the boy – she’s just met him! This may be a teenage thing, but there seem to be superflouous amounts of fluttering over how good looking a boy is and how unsure she is are of if they like her or not. Ok…fine… thinking back to my teenage hood, this was often pretty much the case, so maybe this is a true reflection of teenage hormones combined with lack of experience in such matters.

The book is funny at times and a very easy read. I kept reading because I wanted to know more about the changeling world, which was quite interestingly set up.

I questioned some of Wendy’s motivations – why wasn’t she thinking more of her family? As a reader, I was frustrated along with Wendy about how little she was being told, which is a good sign that I’m on her side.

I hope do first time writer Hocking will develop into a more sophisticated writer. Maybe we might even see this develop in the next two books of the Trylle Trilogy, just as we saw with Stephenie Meyer’s books. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to reading the following two books Torn and Ascend.

x

Julie

Online Bookstore and Book Review Site

-Reading Like Rabbits-

by Colm Toibin

***~~ (3/5)

Fiction

Click to buy Brooklyn by Colm Toibin with free delivery

Book Synopsis:

Work in 1950s Ireland is hard to find. Eilis Lacey does what she thinks is best and makes the long and arduous journey across the Atlantic to Brooklyn, America. For the first time, Eilis is on her own, in a strange city, living in a boarding house filled with other working girls and a scrutinizing landlady. Eilis is isolated and far away from home.

Gradually, however, as Eilis gets used to her new life, her job working in a department store, taking evening classes in book keeping, Friday night dances in the church hall, and maybe an American man… Eilis starts to realize, she’s found a kind of happiness.

But where does Eilis belong? In Ireland with her family or in her new found home, Brooklyn?

My Book Review:

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin was recommended in the Straits Times News Paper (Singapore’s national newspaper) as one of the Best Novels of 2009. (Also recommended was The Housekeeper and The Professor by Yoko Ogawa)

Upon reading Brooklyn, I was surprised that it received such a high recommendation in The Straits Times. Colm Toibin’s story is indeed interesting, and at times very absorbing. His protagonist, Eilis, was identifiable in her loneliness. However, I wouldn’t put it on my best book recommendation list.

Towards the beginning, I thought uh oh… this is going to be a depressing book. You know there are some books that start depressing and remain down in the dumps with no light at the end of the tunnel? Those books bug me, as they have a strange effect on my mood and make me think dreary thoughts, just like the characters. I sometimes have to stop reading those books. Stories should have light, dark and moments of shade. Luckily with Brooklyn, it did not stay in a rut for too long and elements of light and love came to the fore. Thank God!

I enjoyed the way Toibin writes, but I found it strange yet interesting that he seemed to skip over important moments in the story. For example, Eilis’s farewell to her mother is skipped in the chronology of her journey. I would have thought this would have been one of the most important moments. Yet, I understood why this was skirted over – so it could be left to the imagination, as a reader, you know what it’ll be like, so the writer felt he didn’t have to spell it out. I found this approach interesting for me, a wannabe writer, to take note of. Skip the boring bits. Having said that, Toibin’s penchant for little, almost disjointed, anecdotes about Eilis’s settling in period was frustrating, interrupting what could have been a nice flow. I don’t know, I’m not a writer (yet), but this was my opinion as a lay-reader.

In the synopsis, I have left out the last paragraph that gives away the ending. So if you hate spoilers as I do, don’t read ahead:

Mini Spoiler Alert!

I’m still going to be a bit vague and broad about the actual contents of the story. I am a person who will not be excited about reading a book, or watching a movie if I already know the ending. I know some people who are completely different, who can’t stand the suspense and have to read the last page or chapter of a book first in order to decide of they are going to read it at all. (Absurd in my opinion!)

Anyway, back to Brooklyn.

There is a devastating event that occurs towards the end of the book and causes Eilis to be put in a situation where she has to choose between two worlds. I think the clever and trapping aspect of this book is that both choices are right, and yet both choices are wrong. Whatever decision she makes, she is going to hurt someone.

As a reader, I made my choice of who she should choose, but then at the end of the book when she did choose, I was not left with the satisfaction that she chose ‘right’, but with the sense that all of it was wrong. Whatever decision she made, it would leave her empty and incomplete.

Having said this, I was distinctly unmoved by the ending. I think this goes back to the author skipping over bits of the story,  skirting over the character’s emotions and reactions that the readers want to know, and probably should know. For example, (Again, vague. I’m sorry, I cant help it! I just don’t want to spoil the ending for you!) when Eilis betrays someone, we see her actions, but we don’t hear her reaction to what she is doing. I think my involvement at the end would have been fuller, if I had been given this insight. To hear more of her thoughts would have helped me be more empathetic.

I did enjoy reading Brooklyn, I liked the character of Eilis and the journey she went on, but I certainly wouldn’t call it my best book of the year.

x Julie

Online Bookstore and Book Review Site

- Reading Like Rabbits -

by Chetan Bhagat

***~~ (3/5)

Fiction / Light Reading

Click to buy Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat with free delivery

Book Synopsis:

3 friends, Hari, Alok and Ryan, are students at IIT, India’s most prestigious technological university. Instead of mugging their lives away like the rest of the cohort, they decide to have the time of their lives.

All the things not to do at university and more: mess up your grades, drink vodka on the faculty rooftop, date a professor’s daughter…

A funny and dark story of friendship and trying to survive IIT with a five-point something GPA. Will they make it?

My Book Review:

I picked up this book at a bookshop in Mysore, India, when I was attending a wedding there last week. I thought, I’ve experienced this country, so I should experience more of its contemporary fiction. Chetan Bhagat is apparently a lauded writer in India having written 4 novels to date:

Five Point Someone – What not to do at IIT

One Night @ the Call Center

The Three Mistakes of My Life

and

2 States – The Story Of My Marriage

He is among the ‘trio of modern Indian writers that have re-written Indian publishing rules and brought a new scale to the Indian publishing landscape with previously unheard of book sales’ (courtesy of Wikipedia).

So I thought… Promising…

Chetan Bhagat is a humourous, down to earth writer, with a flair for writing identifiable characters – as I read, I kept thinking that parts of one of the characters reminded me distinctly of my boyfriend.

Set at India’s premier engineering school IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) in Delhi, 3 students decide that they want to actually experience life whilst in college and not just mug 4 years away (Apparently unheard of in IIT culture). There’s the ring leader Ryan with crazy his schemes, Alok the responsible cry baby and Hari, whose point of view this novel is written from, a bumbling yet extremely likable guy.

I find I value stories about friendship and loyalty. In stories, despite the huge mistake a person is about to make, if the decision is based on loyalty, it makes it all okay. It’s like they’re making the right decision, even though they are making the wrong decision.

Halfway through reading Five Point Someone, I described it as Lad-Lit, Chick-Lit for Men. It got deeper as it went along, and although it’s not great literature it’s definitely a quick, fun read with heart. I enjoyed it.

I have 2 more of Chetan Bhagat books on my shelf, so I will be reading and reviewing them in the near future.

x Julie

Online Bookstore and Book Reviews

Reading Like Rabbits

Reading Like Rabbits Book Review’s Meet the Author with S.M. De Silva Part 1

Reading Like Rabbits Book Review’s Meet the Author with S.M. De Silva Part 2

x Julie

Book Reviews and Online Bookstore

Reading Like Rabbits

Here are the best of my fiction book list reviews:

For Fiction  Storybook Readers looking for the best story book, I recommend:

The Help by Kathryn Stockett ***** (5/5)

This was my first audio book purchase and I absolutely loved it. The Help was not only Audible.com’s the highest-rated audiobook of 2009, but it is also its highest-rated audiobook of all time. It’s also been on the New York Times bestseller list for 51 weeks and is presently at No.1. So I started with quality….click here to read the full book review.

The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson ***** (5/5)

This is why I started this site – to find and share books just like this one. I walked into a used book shop and bought this novel for $2. It did say ‘International Bestseller’, but I had never heard of it before. What a find!….click here to read the full book review.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham ***** (5/5)

Immediately upon finishing this book, I was so moved that I made the firm decision that I needed to visit my elderly grandparents in England – and I’m so glad I did. I guess it’s because the novel deals with death, making me want to seize the moment, carpe diem and all that. It’s not all about death though….click here to read the full book review.

Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz ***** (5/5)

It’s been a long time since I’ve been so hooked on a novel, and I’m pretty sure this is the fastest I’ve ever read a book….click here to read the full book review.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini ***** (5/5)

Over five years on the New York Times bestseller list, and published in 42 different languages. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable, beautifully told story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul….Click here to read the full book review.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini ***** (5/5)

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul….click here to read the full book review.

The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani ****~ (4/5)

I really enjoyed reading The Blood of Flowers, which brought me deep into 17th Century Persia, and into the difficult lives of two women struggling to make their way with no real male protector. Through the eyes and experience of the ambititous young female protagonist.…click here to read the full book review.

Extremely Loud and Incredible Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

****~ (4/5)

I had heard wonderful things about Extremely Loud and Incredible Close. Friends of mine had said it was one of their top 10 books of the year, so I was really looking forward to reading it….click here to read the full book review.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid ****~ (4/5)

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is an extremely readable novel. It is also surprisingly gentle. The political and religious seem to take a backseat to the life story of the Pakistani protagonist….click here to read the full book review.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold ***½~ (3.5/5)

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer…Click here to read the full book review

Inspirational Storybook Reading:

Jonathan Livingston Seagull – a story. By Richard Bach ***** (5/5)

Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a beautiful and inspiring story. After reading it, I feel like I can do anything. IF I choose to. It’s so easy to get stuck in a rut in your mind, but when you read Jonathan’s story you want to join the race to learn and to shed all your limitations. Bach writes, ‘Break the chains of your thought and you break the chains of your body too’.…Click here to read the full book review.

Fiction Short Stories:

The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri ****~ (4/5)

Won the reading awards : The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2000, the Hemmingway Foundation / PEN Award 2000

Jhumpa Lahiri’s elegant stories tell the lives of Indians in exile, of people navigating between the strict traditions they’ve inherited, and the baffling new world they must encounter everyday.…Click here to read the full book review.

Funny Reading and Fun Light Reading:

Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding ***** (5/5)

I rarely read books twice over, but I have read Bridget Jones at least three times. I read it when I want to feel better and have laugh. I do love Bridget...Click here to read the full book review.

Click here to browse for books with free worldwide delivery

For the best book reviews recommendations in the Fiction Prose Genre, I recommend:

For Recommended Mystery Books / Crime Books / Thrillers:

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin ****~ (4/5)

Winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award

England, 1171 and a child is in danger…In Cambridge a child has been hideously murdered and other children have disappeared. The Jews, who provide a large part of King Henry’s revenue, are being accused of the crimes by angry townspeople, therefore the king wants the real killer found, and quickly.…Click here to read the full book review.

Blood On The Moon – The Daywalker Chronicles: Volume One

by S.M. De Silva ***½~ (3.5/5)

Singaporean novelist S.M. De Silva has joined the Vampire novel craze! In her world, Vampires and Weres have come out of the closet, and are living openly in our world. I thoroughly enjoyed Volume One and can’t wait for her 1st book to be a roaring success, so I can read Volumes Two and Three!…Click here to read the full book review.

[Note: There is only free delivery for the book Blood on the Moon in Singapore. Go to The Daywalker Chronicles website to find out more.]

The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larrson : ***** (5/5)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

An absolutely fantastic trilogy. Full of action, suspense, with likable, unpredictable and fully formed characters. I bought this from an [audio book shop], and listened to it one after the other. Get the [audio book with the narrator Saul Reichlin], he’s amazing. The books would also be gripping reads. Great series!

Click here to browse for books  (with free delivery worldwide)

by Daniel Keyes

***~~ (3/5)

Fiction / Science Fiction

Click here to buy the book Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (free delivery worldwide)

Book Synopsis:

With an IQ of 68, Charlie Gordon works as a sweeper in a bakery. He thinks has friends, but little does he know he is the butt of their jokes, an amusing plaything.

Charlie’s life changes radically when he undergoes an experimental operation that to enhance his intelligence. Charlie becomes a genius.

However, Algernon, the mouse who had been successfully enhanced before Charlie, dies. Charlie has to live with the knowledge that his new life and his insights into the world are only temporary.

My Book Review:

This book, Flowers for Algernon is interesting on many levels. Firstly because of the fantastic ‘What if?’ question that it poses. What if there was an operation that could enhance a man’s intelligence? We could make all the mentally disabled people like us, they could integrate into society, they could live ‘normal lives’, they would no longer be a burden.

But this book goes deeper, as it charts the changes in Charlie, who undergoes this operation. As he becomes a genius, his eyes are also opened to the ugliness of the world and he realises that the people whom he thought were his friends, were actually making fun of him the whole time. So, despite gaining superior intelligence, he has lost what made him happy, friends who enjoyed his company, who laughed with him. As a reader we feel the cringe of Charlie’s lack of knowledge before the operation, that his colleagues are actually laughing at him. But in Charlie’s mind, he has great friends, and he is happy. Which begs the question: is Charlie better off in his lack of knowledge, or in knowing the truth of his situation?

Flowers for Algernon covers many areas, from the disparity in the intellectual and emotional growth in Charlie, to flashbacks to the past and the way his family treated him, to love . Charlie was severely taught that he was to keep away from women. This inculcated a fear of getting close to women, which stayed with him, even as he became intelligent and integrated into society. The love story with his former teacher, Miss Kinnian, shows the push and pull of these emotions. Will the old Charlie let the new Charlie be free of this fear?

The main arc of the novel is the lack of knowledge of whether this experiment will last, and then the knowledge through Algernon’s behaviour and subsequent death, that Charlie would end up back at square one.

The book is written in the form of Charlie’s journals, or Progress Reports for the scientific experiment. Charlie’s writing starts off simplistic with bad spelling. Then immediately after the operation, when he is told how to spell the word ‘progress report’ correctly, he remembers it, and continues spelling it correctly. That is the first sign of Charlie’s change, even if Charlie himself doesn’t recognise it. But then, he suddenly becomes super intelligent, learning new languages, going through pages of books at one glance. I missed the leap. So when the men at the bakery became afraid of him, and both the bakery workers and Miss Kinnian suddenly felt inferior to him, I missed the connection. I didn’t get the full impact of this intellectual shift, the wideness of the subverted gap, as I didn’t realise it had happened. I guess the author doesn’t have to spell the shift out, but I think my understanding and the impact of their reaction would have been clearer and more powerful if he had established this beforehand, as opposed to after. As a reader I knew that Charlie would become intelligent, but I didn’t realise that he’d become a genius.

The questions that were raised when I read the book were:

Would Charlie have been better off if he had never had the operation?

Is Charlie a better person before or after the operation?

Why do people make fun of disabled people? What in them makes them do this?

Reading about how Charlie’s family treated him, made me realise that we don’t truly treat the mentally disabled like human beings. Directly or indirectly, consciously or sub-consciously, we have an aversion to such people, a dread or sheer thankfulness that we are not like them. We see them as deprived of a real life, a burden. But we don’t know what’s really going on inside. Could they be happier than we the ‘normal people’?

I’m beginning to realise that what makes us happy is not what we think makes us happy. The external societal push towards this concept of ‘happiness’ doesn’t always equate to us actually being happy. Money, material things, education, career, marriage, children. The ‘normal things’, that everyone is striving for, may not be what will truly make us happier in our own skin. What we are striving for is the path that society has said is the correct and ‘normal’ one, or we end up searching for surface happiness, instant gratification that will soon fade away.

But then the question is: What DOES make us happy?

I don’t know yet.

x Julie

Reading Like Rabbits

Bookstore and Book Review Site

by Kazuo Ishiguro

**½~~ (2.5/5)

Fiction

Click here to buy The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (free delivery)

Book Cover Synopsis:

The aging butler of Darlington Hall, Stevens, begins on a rare holiday through the English countryside and deep into his past.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s contemporary classic is haunting and beautiful. A tale of life between the two world wars in a grand English house, of the way we choose to live our lives, and the love we may have lost because of our choices.

My Book Review:

I feel I have to justify giving a Booker Prize winner: **½~~ (2.5/5). These book reviews are according to my taste, and sometimes ‘great literature’ and prize winners are just not to everyone’s liking. I appreciated this novel for what it is, but personally, I prefer a bit more movement and action to my novels. The content of coming to the end of ones career and looking back at what might have been, or different choices one could or should have made definitely has its place, and maybe I’m just not at that stage in my life to really appreciate that. But it has got me thinking.

This book was not what I expected. I’m not sure what I expected but I guess my expectation was formed when the author Andrea Levy called it something to the effect of ‘a close to perfect novel’. Indeed, the perspective of an ageing butler of a once important household, who has devoted his entire adult life to serving,  now given the opportunity to reflect on his life, is interesting. The character of Stevens is well formed, flawed, and set in his ways. The ‘stiff upper lip’ butler has led his life, with the personal so enmeshed with his career, with dignity, decorum and pride in his duty.

The voice of Stevens that Ishiguro creates is extremely authentic. Written in the first person, Steven’s thoughts and desires are suggested, but almost never spelt out, in keeping with his character. I enjoyed the romanticism of seeing a large Lord’s household, with back passages, servants quarters and dining halls.

What I found particularly interesting was the historical implications of Steven’s flashbacks to before World War II. Steven’s employer, Lord Darlington, is trying to orchestrate better ties between Britain and Germany, ties with a certain Herr Hitler. Stevens is warned of the danger and potential mistake that Lord Darlington is making, but Steven’s code is not to interfere. Stevens maintains a lack of curiosity and personal opinion on his employer’s dealings. Yet, Stevens feels a great sense of pride in belonging to a house where important decisions are made and enjoys the feeling that he has indirectly influenced great matters of international importance. An amusing instance was when he felt a great sense of achievement upon changing a valued guest’s foul mood before a big meeting because of the shininess of the silver. This part of the plot got me thinking that its human nature to want to be part of important matters, no matter now thin the connection or sometimes how dubious the circumstances.

The Remains of the Day is quiet, reflective and at times amusing. We, the readers, see Stevens inner life and flaws . Flaws that he himself may not recognise. I wanted him to break out of his shell, to say and do what he truly feels, but I also realised there is a certain charm and lesson to be learnt from Steven’s idea of ‘dignity’.

Although I didn’t completely appreciate this novel, I finished it, which I never do with books that don’t hold my attention. So there’s something to be said for that. I am an impatient being, and prefer more drama and suspense in my reading. I think Kazuo Ishiguro is a really good writer and I really enjoyed his 2005 novel Never Let Me Go. You should read that book.

x Julie

Book Reviews – Reading Like Rabbits

I’ve just up loaded my latest review Nanny Returns by Nicola Kraus & Emma Mclaughlin.

And coming up in the next couple of days, my reviews of The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson.

Sneak Preview: I spent 2 hours a day traveling to and from the TV station in Myamnar listening to the audiobooks of The Millennium Trilogy. They made boring journey’s exciting. The story is compelling, complicated and gripping. The narrator Saul Reichlin is amazing. I loved all three books.

x Julie

Book Reviews – Reading Like Rabbits

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Nanny Returns

Nicola Kraus & Emma Mclaughlin

(Sequel to The Nanny Diaries)

***~~ (3/5)

Click here to buy Nanny Returns by Nicola Kraus & Emma Mclaughlin (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Nan from the Nanny Diaries is back in New York twelve years after the ill-fated nanny-cam night, the night Nan was fired. She is now married to HH (Harvard Hottie) who how has a name, Ryan. Nan is finally settling down and renovating her new (falling apart) home, and is trying to get her consulting business up and running. But is surprised at Ryan’s sudden desire start a family. What startles her the most is her resistance to the idea.

Then, Nan gets a drunken visit in the middle of the night from Grayer X, now 16 years old. He has found the nanny-cam tape…

Because of Nan’s guilt and soft heartedness, she ends up helping Grayer and his younger brother Stilton though Mr and Mrs X’s malicious divorce. Nan finds herself yet again caught up in the vortex of the venomous Upper East Side world of power, money and dysfunction.

My book review:

I absolutely loved The Nanny Diaries. It was absorbing in its humorous yet cringe-worthy portrayal of the rich and the spoiled mothers (a more accurate description would be: a woman who once gave birth, handed her miniature-self to a nanny, then recuperated at a spa for the net 18 years) of Upper East Side New York. Nanny’s experiences in The Nanny Diaries, plus the love story going on with Harvard Hottie, induced both wide-eyed shock and butterflies in the tummy.

Nanny Returns, set 12 years after the disastrous end of The Nanny Diaries, doesn’t contain the warmth of new love, but the commitment of a 12 year old relationship, in which Ryan (HH) and Nan are working through the idea of whether to have children, as well as trying to renovate their brand new dilapidated house. I think the idea of family-planning is a natural and obvious-yet-interesting path for the writers to take Nan on after her experiences with her ex-employers The X’s. And Nan is freaked out– what if she doesn’t make a good mother? What if she screws up her children? However, the readers know she’d make a wonderful mother, she just needs to realise it.

I didn’t enjoy Nanny Returns as much as I loved The Nanny Diaries. But it does make for a fun light read. The reader (at least I did) still gets the feeling of incredulity at what the rich and powerful feel they can get away with, and I loved the character of Grayer’s younger brother, Stilton, who is charming, delicate and quirky. It’s interesting to see what Grayer has grown to up be, as the last time we saw him, he was four years old. Nan seems to be surrounded by screwed up people with their head in the clouds, and it’s a breath of fresh air when she encounters the few down to earth people in the book.

Nanny Returns is quite funny, and if you enjoyed The Nanny Diaries, you may have fun reading Nanny Returns to see how things turn out for Nan, Grayer and the daunting Mrs X.

x Julie

Book Reviews – Reading Like Rabbits

P.S. I was listening to the’ B&N Meet the Writers’ podcast from iTunes and found out how Nicola Kraus and Emma Mclaughlin write their books together.

They share every idea and talk though the story a lot, especially in the beginning. They said they share every idea because sharing every other idea in such a collaboration just didn’t work, they’re not mind readers!

Then they divvy up the scenes within chapters and write them individually. They said they were lucky that their writing styles and voices matched really well. They also used their strengths, one would be better at writing Mrs X, while the other had Grayer down pat. They also said they do A LOT of editing.

by Kathryn Stockett

***** (5/5)

Fiction

Click to buy the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Click to buy the audiobook The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Book Synopsis:

1962 in Jackson, Mississippi, three women, as different as can be, Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny come together for an underground project, which if exposed, would put them all at risk.

Skeeter is a 22-year-old white woman who has just returned home after graduating from university. But in 1962, mothers care more about their daughter’s marriage prospects than their career hopes.

Aibileen is an astute black maid who is bringing up her seventeenth white child. When Aibileen’s own son died, as his employers looked the other way, something changed inside her. She is dedicated and caring towards the little girl she is raising, but she knows that they will have to part ways someday.

Then there is the sassy Minny, also a black maid, who can cook up a storm, but has a sharp tongue that always gets her fired. Minny gets lucky and finds a new job, working for someone so new to Jackson that she doesn’t yet know her reputation. But her new employer has her own secret to hide.

Through various circumstances, these women meet and begin in their own clandestine way to push the boundaries, and cross the entrenched but invisible line that defines their town and their times.

My Audio Book Review:

This was my first audio book purchase and I absolutely loved it. The Help was not only Audible.com’s the highest-rated audiobook of 2009, but it is also its highest-rated audiobook of all time. It’s also been on the New York Times bestseller list for 51 weeks and is presently at No.1. So I started with quality.

This audio book is wonderful to listen to. The actors were flawless and the images conjured by their voices had me laughing and even tearing up in public as I was listening to the novel on my i pod.

This story is narrated in the first person by three women Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer. [When writing the novel, Katheryn Stockett said she based some of Minny's sassy-ness on her interactions with actress friend Octavia Spencer who ended up playing Minny in the audiobook.]

I have been overwhelmed by black vs white novels in the past few weeks. Performing in To Kill A Mockingbird as Scout, reading Small Island by Andrea Levy and listening to The Help. You’d think it would be too much, too infuriating, heavy, but although The Help deals with hard issues, the women in the story are full of soul, warmth and chutzpa.

Even the villain of the piece, Miss Hilly Holbrook, is fascinating in her unabashed racist behaviour. Miss Hilly, respected in her white ladies community, is intent on delivering her public service message, ‘The Home Help Sanitation Initiative’ – advising white families to install outdoor toilets for their help to prevent the spread of their diseases. I spent the whole novel wishing she got her just deserts.

Skeeter is the lone white woman who actually sees the injustice. At first, she doesn’t say anything. Then elements fall into place for her and she secretly makes her stand. The stakes are high, what they are doing is dangerous. Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny could get in a lot of trouble if found out.

The Help was extremely enjoyable listening. Listening to an audio book made me more productive and even enthusiastic about doing manual tasks – I cleaned the house and even sewed while listening! Aside from great travel listening while walking or on the train, this audio book was great to listen to when I was too tired to read but too awake to sleep. I’d just play it as I lay in bed with my eyes closed.

I’ve found a new form of entertainment!

My next audio book is The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Click here to buy the book The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Click here for more information on audio books.

x Julie

Audio Book Reviews

Reading Like Rabbits

I’ve been listening to podcasts like the New York Times Book Review and B&N Meet The Writers which I have enjoyed very much, but I’m now ready for more. I get motion sickness if I read while traveling, so I get really bored and frustrated not to be able to be engaged in a book while I’m getting from one place to another.

So, I decided to sign up for an audio book membership with Audible.com to listen to audio books on my i phone/i pod/ MP3 player. I used to think of audio books as being expensive, but I’ve realised, they can be cheaper than buying an actual book!

Here’s the plan I’m getting:

Audible Listener Discount Gold Membership

• Price: Monthly: USD$7.49 for the first three months and USD$14.95 thereafter and Annually: USD$149.95

• Benefits: 12 membership credits; 30% discount on future purchases; complimentary subscription to The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times
  

• Click here to Download an audiobook for $7.49 and save 50% for your first 3 months. Choose from over 75,000 titles.

or try:

Audible Listener Platinum Free Trial Membership

You can also sign up for a 14 day free trial – but you must remember to cancel it before 14 days are up in order for it to remain free.

• Price: Monthly: $22.95 and Annually: $229.95

• Benefits: 14 day risk free trial; 24 membership credits; 30% discount on future purchases; complimentary subscription to The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times.
• Click here to Try Audible Now and Get A Free Audiobook Download with a 14 Day Trial. Choose from over 60,000 Titles.

Personally, I think the Gold Membership is better if you only want one book a month. But if you plan to listen to more than one audio book a month, Platinum would be a good choice.

All plans allow cancellation at any time.

Audible Fact: The average reader gets through 5 books a year, the average AudibleListener member completes 16 books a year.

Click here to buy the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett (free delivery)

The first Audio Book that I’m going to get is The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I’ve heard so much about it. It’s been on the New York Times bestseller list for 50 weeks and is still at number 2. It’s about a young white woman and two black maids in 1960s ­Mississippi.

Click here to read my review of The Help by Kathryn Stockett

You can listen to samples of all the books to get an idea of the story and what the voice you will be listening to will sound like. I’ve found the quality of the voice actors very high. (there are even audio awards!)

IMPORTANT NOTE:

When I tried signing up on audible.com the first time, I was furious to find out I couldn’t get the book I ordered because I live in Singapore. However, audible.com kindly wrote back to tell me that I can usually get the audio books I want, but owned by a different publisher (it’s an area rights and copyright issue). Once I sign up and they have details of where I’m from, as long as I’m logged in, they will show my only what I CAN buy.

Look out for my audio book reviews coming out soon!

x Julie

Audio Book Reviews

Reading Like Rabbits

The author of The Long Song and the award winning Small Island

Click here to buy The Long Song by Andrea Levy

Click here to buy Small Island by Andrea Levy (free delivery)

Meet author Andrea Levy on at the following bookstores:

When: 27th March 2010 (Saturday)

Where: Kinokuniya (Singapore Main Store), Orchard Road,  #03-09/10/15 Ngee Ann City

Time: 3.30pm

OR

When: 27th March 2010 (Saturday)

Where: Borders, Wheelock Place, Orchard Road

Time: 6.30pm

Join award-winning author Andrea Levy as she makes an appearance for her newest book The Long Song, at Kinokuniya Singapore Main Store on 27th March 2010, Saturday at 3.30pm and at Borders (Wheelock) at 6.30pm!

Be sure to catch the winner of these prestigious awards – the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award (2004), as she shares on her books and writing experience, as well as autograph your copy of her book at this event.

The Long Song tells of an extraordinarily powerful story of slavery, revolution, freedom and love, set in Jamaica, and told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July. With some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, the book traces the life of Miss July, the child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation, who experienced war and slavery through to its chaotic end.

Andrea Levy is also the author of Small Island, Fruit of the Lemon, Never Far from Nowhere and Every Light in The House Burnin’.

I’ll be going!

x Julie

Book Recommendations

Reading Like Rabbits

The Daywalker Chronicles: Volume One

by S.M. De Silva

***½~ (3.5/5)

Fiction / Vampires

Click here to buy the book Blood On The Moon by S.M. De Silva (with Free delivery)

Singaporean buyers can click here to order their copy (free delivery and gift wrapped!)

Click here to visit The Daywalker Chronicles official site

Book Synopsis:

Sleet City: decadent and alluring, but infinitely dangerous. A city where crime, cruelty and glamor reign supreme. Vampires and were-creatures have come out of the closet and now mix openly in human society. Vampires are the new breed of celebrities, the glamor gods of Sleet City.
Alegria, a Singaporean supernatural species consultant, receives a package. A package that contains a ring. A ring attached to a severed finger. A severed finger belonging to Alegria’s sister.

And from here the relentless action begins. Alegria is on a mission to save her sister from Sleet City.

My Book Review:

I was really excited when I was asked by S.M. De Silva to review of her debut novel: Blood On The Moon. The Daywalker Chronicles: Volume One. [My first advanced review! Reading Like Rabbits is taking off!] But I was also nervous. What if her book was rubbish, badly written, or worse, boring?

It was none of these things. I thoroughly enjoyed Volume One and can’t wait for her 1st book to be a roaring success, so I can read Volumes Two and Three!

De Silva has joined the Vampire novel craze! In her world, Vampires and Weres have come out of the closet, and are living openly in our world. It’s not surprising that most of the celebrities on the red carpets have turned out to be vampires, with their immaculate figures and dazzling good looks. [This makes perfect sense to me. I've always suspected Nicole Kidman of being a Vampire] And humans have gone mad for them, vampires are all the rage.

Blood on the Moon contains action, dark pasts, sexual tension, and most importantly an endearing protagonist: Alegria – a Eurasian woman from Singapore who is a supernatural species consultant, with some natural gifts of her own.

The action begins right from the first chapter when Alegria receives a horrifying gift. A diamond ring, attached to a severed finger. Her sister’s finger. This takes her to Sleet City, to the mansion of Joao, Prince of the City… I wont give anymore of the plot away, you’ll just have to read it to find out more.

The story flows easily with exciting turns and revelations. There were only a couple of moments where the logic did not quite fit for me and it took a little while for my suspension of disbelief to kick in. But these were only minor. I’m also not used to reading about a Singaporean character, so when Alegria mentions a pair of tigers in her back yard, I immediately thought “There aren’t any tigers in Singapore anymore!” but then I had to remind myself, there aren’t any Vampires either… or are there…?

I particularly enjoyed De Silva’s humorous footnotes, which provided interesting facts and details pertaining to Were and Vampire culture, among other digressions. There’s also a mouthwatering section where Alegria teaches a werepanther to make debal curry. Yum!

De Silva has created a full, detailed and imaginative world of Sleet City and Vampire culture. Blood On The Moon is rather cinematic in its construction and pace and I can easily see it being made into a movie. [I'll be first in line to audition for the role of Alegria. She'd be a fun and challenging role to play. Though I'm not sure I'm the right type of Eurasian]

S.M. De Silva is a promising new writer. I know she’ll just get better and better!

I want to read the next 2 installments in the trilogy so click here to pre-order Blood On The Moon: The Daywalker Chronicles Volume 1 from Amazon now!

x Julie

Book Reviews

Reading Like Rabbits

The Daywalker Chronicles: Volume One

by S.M. De Silva

Fiction / Vampires

Click here to visit The Daywalker Chronicles official site

Book Synopsis:

Sleet City: decadent and alluring, but infinitely dangerous. A city where crime, cruelty and glamor reign supreme. Vampires and were-creatures have come out of the closet and now mix openly in human society. Vampires are the new breed of celebrities, the glamor gods of Sleet City.
Alegria, a Singaporean supernatural species consultant, receives a package. A package that contains a ring. A ring attached to a severed finger. A severed finger belonging to Alegria’s sister.

And from here the relentless action begins. Alegria is on a mission to save her sister from Sleet City.

Watch out for the review coming soon!

My friend has written a vampire novel! I’ve just received an advanced reader copy, and what I’ve read so far looks really promising!

S.M. De Silva’s debut novel is out in stores and on Amazon on 31st May 2010. You can visit the official Daywalker Chronicles site to pre-order your copy, as well as read the first couple of chapters of her book.

x Julie

[Note: There is only free delivery for the book Blood on the Moon in Singapore. Go to The Daywalker Chronicles website to find out more.]

Book Reviews

Reading Like Rabbits

by Cally Taylor

***~~ (3/5)

Click here to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Lucy Brown is about to marry a wonderful man. Dan is handsome, caring and funny. Lucy has never been happier, she is about to get everything she has ever wanted.

But, on the eve of her wedding, Lucy dies in an accident.

Lucy has a choice to make: she can go to heaven and be separated from her soul mate, or she could be with Dan forever…as a ghost.

Lucy will not leave Dan, and she makes her choice. But things are not quite so easy for Lucy. She has a task to complete before she can become a ghost. First, she has to find true love for a total stranger.

My Book Review:

I was really excited about reading this book after seeing that it received 10/10 reviews on chick lit websites, beating Bridget Jones’s 9/10. (I love Bridget!) However, although I enjoyed Heaven Can Wait, I didn’t love it like others did. To me, Briget Jones still leads the pack by miles.

I enjoyed the fantasy of the story: Cally Taylor’s vision of heaven, limbo, tasks and ghosts. I particularly liked Lucy’s housemates from ‘The House of Wannabe Ghosts’. Brian, the endearing smelly train-lover and Claire the petulant young goth.

You know when you read a synopsis or watch a movie trailer and it basically tells you the whole story? I wish I hadn’t read so much about this book before I actually read it. I removed the last sentence from the synopsis above, so that there will be a bit more surprise in the story for you. I think my biggest issue with this book is that that last quarter of the story is rather predictable. Its a case of the reader being a step ahead of the character.

I’m still waiting for another book to overtake my esteem for Bridget Jones but until then, if you enjoy this genre or need a fun, perk-me-up read, definitely give Heaven Can Wait a chance.

x Julie

Book Reviews

Reading Like Rabbits

p.s. I know I’m constantly raving about it, but if you haven’t read Briget Jones’s Diary, you’re missing out. She’s a menace to herself but she’s lovely.

Click here to read my review of Bridget Jones’s Diary.

by Alice Sebold

***½~ (3.5/5)

Fiction

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Pennsylvania, 1973, fourteen year old Susie Salmon is brutally raped then killed. Susie tells her story as she watches her family from heaven. Susie’s killer was her neighbor, and still lives next door. Susie’s family is desperately trying to cope with their loss. But with no body found and her killer still on the loose, they cannot rest. They become isolated from each other, each member dealing with their grief in their own way.

As the years pass, Susie’s siblings and friends grow up, fall in love and experience things that Susie never got to experience herself. However, Susie is not quite finished with life yet…

My Book Review:

It’s taken me a while to add another book review because I started and gave up on 3 different books. I lost interest in 2 of them halfway through – which is extremely frustrating, having devoted so much time to reading them, then getting bored. The Lovely Bones was what I needed to get me back on track: being absorbed in a good story.

I loved the progression of this novel. It began with this creepy and disturbing event that made tingle and slightly freaked out. Then it became a story of observation and longing, about understandable human reactions. Susie’s family’s grief and search for her killer come to the fore. But then the story becomes about their lives in the years after her murder, seen through Susie’s eyes up in heaven as she follows them, she herself unable to let go of the people she loved and the woman she would never grow up to be.

This is not a typical, predictable story. I say this not to make you think that there will be major unexpected twists but to try and describe the subtlety and flow that Sebold infuses into the direction of her novel. It’s not a typical thriller about catching the killer. We definitely want to catch Susie’s killer – but do we always get what we want?

Thinking back on the feeling I got from this story, what I experienced was a fully formed impression of this family. Despite the loss and grief, we see healing and joy. I grew to appreciate the characters of the feisty alcoholic grandmother, the sensitive son and a mother who just cant seem to be.

It was only towards the very end that I lost my grasp on my suspension of disbelief for a while. And only for a while – until I accepted it and allowed myself as a reader to follow the path that was set (I am being cryptic so as not to spoil the story for you).

What is really interesting about this book is its take on ‘heaven’. Sebold’s heaven in this novel is different for everyone in it. Each person creates their own heaven. Susie was fourteen when she died, so her heaven included school buildings, a gazebo and playful dogs. But she was still lonely, inextricably connected to her life on earth, constantly watching. Susie would only be able to enter a freer, wider heaven when she let go of her own past and allowed her family to let go of her.

It’s strange that this novel is written from the perspective of a dead girl because the next novel which I am about to read is also from this perspective: Heaven Can Wait by Cally Tayor. It came highly recommended by chick lit clubs (10/10!), so I’m looking forward to reading it!

x Julie

Book Reviews

Reading Like Rabbits

by Jonathan Safran Foer

****~ (4/5)

Adult Fiction

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Oskar Schell is nine years old, and had begun a vital and secret mission that will lead him through New York’s five boroughs. Oskar has found a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died on September 11th in the World Trade Centre. In his search for the lock that fits his key somewhere in New York, a task that seems like looking for a needle in a haystack, Oskar meets survivors of all kinds. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a moving, funny and healing journey.

My Book Review:

I had heard wonderful things about Extremely Loud and Incredible Close. Friends of mine had said it was one of their top 10 books of the year, so I was really looking forward to reading it.

This book suprised me. Jonathan Safran Foer is a really interesting writer. The characters he creates are out of the ordinary, and the way he reveals their story and their inner workings is delicate and intriguing.

His child character, Oskar, is hilarious and so endearing. Foer deftly balances the child’s innocence and naivety with his intelligence and acute understanding. There is one incident in the book, when Oskar is at his psychologists office, that had me laughing out loud (several times) whilst reading in public. Embarrassing, but I couldn’t help it. It was just too funny to keep inside.

Oskar’s grandfather, after the trauma of losing everything during the war, also loses his speech and is only able to communicate through writing notes in notebooks. He tattoos ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ on each palm to make communication easier for him. His journey spans many decades, and readers follow him from his youth in Dresden to the present day. His relationship with his wife is bizarre but when you learn what they have been through, understandable.

I love the layout of Extremely Loud and Incredible Close – there are photos, words circled in red pen and pages with only one sentence printed on them, scattered throughout the book.

If I compare this book to a movie, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close would be a great independent movie. It’s unique, unpredictable and poignant.

x Julie

Reading Like Rabbits

Book Shop

Part 1 of the Inheritance Cycle

by Christopher Paolini

Click here to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

A poor farm boy counts himself lucky when he stumbles upon a shiny blue stone. But little does Eragon realize that his find is actually a rare dragon’s egg. He has chanced upon a legacy as old as the Empire.

Eragon’s simple life is turned upside down as he is plunged into an unknown world of dragons, magic, destiny and power. Eragon has to leave all that is familiar and find his way through the Empire ruled by the evil king.

With the future of the empire resting in their hands, Eragon and his young dragon must step up to the challenge and the live up to the legend of the Dragon Riders.

My Book Review:

I was amazed to find out that Christopher Paolini began writing Eragon when he was 15 years old.

Paolini’s clear use of language and his precise descriptions of the landscape, fight sequences and emotions are simple yet (without insulting the capabilities of teenagers) sophisticated for the writing of a 15 year old. What an ambitious and exciting task for Paolini to have embarked on!

I enjoyed reading Eragon whilst on holiday in Bali. It’s perfect for pool-side and bedtime reading. Eragon is the first part of the Inheritance Cycle trilogy and I have yet to read Eldest or Brisingr.

It’s strange how fictitious beings like elves and dwarves have come to be so formed in our minds, from books like Tolkein’s The Lord of The Rings and Raymond E. Feist’s Magician: Apprentice, that once the word ‘elf’ is mentioned we know exactly what it entails: pointy ears, magical powers, ethereal, mysterious…And dwarves are obviously short and carry hammers. In this sense, Alagaësia, the world in which Eragon is set, is familiar. When I was reading Eragon, I felt like I had visited his world before. However, I did find the dragons and the politics of the land new and fresh (especially the telepathic communication between dragon and rider).

Although this is a fun fantasy book with much adventure – dragons, magic, and a hidden legacy, traveling across vast deserts and fighting cruel enemies – oddly, it seemed like not much actually happened. I know this is totally untrue, but the feeling I got while reading was that the true events hadn’t started yet. This was just the set up. I think what contributed to this feeling of occasional monotony in the book was that Eragon got into so many scrapes during the course of their long journey that, for me, they eventually started melding a little into each other.

I guess this is my frustration with some trilogies. You get to the end of the first two parts but you don’t feel the satisfaction of an ending, because you are only in the middle of the adventure. Trilogies are like one really really long book. I get so hungry to find out what happens next that I can’t read fast enough!

So, my conclusion is, I can’t complete this book review, nor do the series any justice, without finishing both Eldest and Brisingr. Till then…

x Julie

Book Reviews

Reading Like Rabbits

by Eoin Colfer

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Artemis Fowl, a genius criminal mastermind has succeeded in establishing the existence of fairies, and is determined to catch one. After staking out over 100 fairy locations, Artemis succeeds in kidnapping LEPrecon Captain Holly Short.

But these aren’t the toadstool-dancing creatures of fairy tales, these are trained law enforcement fairies, and they are ready to fight back. Just when Artemis Fowl thinks he has them cornered, the fairies stop playing by the rules.

FYI: Artemis Fowl is a twelve-year-old.

My Book Review:

I flew through this book.

Artemis Fowl is just like a hostage-situation action movie. The only difference being, the bad guy is 12-years-old and those under siege are tech savvy fairies who live near the earth’s core. In fact, Eoin Colfer has described it as “Die Hard with faries”.

The characters in Artemis Fowl include Artemis, a villainous scheming child (who reminds me of Stewy in Family Guy) who may have a prickling of a conscience (unlike Stewy), a centaur (very much like Q in James Bond), a huge hunk of a bodyguard, a fuming LEP-recon commander, and history’s first female LEP-recon officer.

I should explain. We humans don’t know this but “the word ‘leprechaun’ actually originated from LEPrecon, an elite branch of the Lower Elements Police”. No bucked shoes and knickerbockers in this book! (That was their old uniform).

Eoin Colfer creates a vivid fairy culture, dispelling our pre-conceived ideas of the fairy world.

This is a fast paced, funny story packed with action and other-worldly intrigue. This is the first of 6 in the series so far and I’m definitely going to read the rest of the series!

These books also come as BBC Audio Books which you can buy as a gift for kids for bedtime story listening or to keep the peace on long car journeys.

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

-Reading Like Rabbits-

by Andy Riley

Adult Picture Book / Gift

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Little fluffy rabbits who just don’t want to live any more. This adult picture book, and its sequel, Return of the Bunny Suicides, contains endless ways for a bunny to kill itself. From smoking out of every hole in its body, to flushing itself down an aeroplane toilet, to kicking an alien in the balls, this ridiculously funny book is a fountain of knowledge on rabbit self-killing.

Book Review:

This is the sort of picture book I can pick up again and again (with a little time to forget in between) and marvel at the creativity of the bunnies (and the author – sick sick man) in designing their own deaths. These books which can come combined as A Box of Bunny Suicides would be a great present for a male or female friend with a sense of humour (a bit of advice: do not give this to a depressed friend with no sense of humour). My favourite bunny suicide is a bunny about to turn on the switch of hand mixer. The blades are placed inside its mouth. The idea of what the next moment may look like is gruesome yet oddly thrilling…oh dear…

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

-Reading Like Rabbits-

by Elisabeth Robinson

***** (5/5) Fiction

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

This novel is told in the form of letters from Olivia Hunt to her sister with cancer, Michael her ex-boyfriend, her parents and her best friend. Along the way we find out about the progress or non-progress of Olivia’s feature film that she’s trying to get off the ground in Hollywood.

Through Olivia’s letters we track the progress of her year, and are privy to her thoughts, the varied way she communicates with people, her highs and lows and also just the plain usual things that happens day to day that find themselves into her letters. Simply yet powerfully told, this novel simultaneously funny and sad, tragic and heart warming.

My Book Review:

This is why I started this site – to find and share books just like this one. I walked into a used book shop and bought this novel for $2. It did say ‘International Bestseller’, but I had never heard of it before. What a find! The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters is a simply written yet extremely engaging, funny and moving novel. It’s written in the form of letters by one of the sisters, Olivia Hunt. She writes to her friend, her sister, her ex-lover, and as she is a down and out Hollywood Producer, we also follow her correspondence in trying to get the movie Don Quixote made.

This book begins when Olivia finds out her sister, Maddie, has been diagnosed with leukemia. Through the letters Olivia writes, the reader gets to know the intricate workings of her family, Maddie’s weakening yet buoyant spirit and Olivia’s inner world – writing to her ex-lover possibly her soul mate, Michael, who won’t write back, as well as her Hollywood movie making exploits.

Finishing an amazing book is like having said good bye to an old friend. Bitter sweet. You miss their presence, you want them around again, but you know they’re gone and you just have the memories to savour. This is how I feel now about this book. Olivia’s voice is personal and rings true. If she were a real person I’d like to be her friend.

The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters has sad content but is surprisingly uplifting throughout. Even while I was crying, with tears that were blocking my ability to continue reading, I was laughing.

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

- Reading Like Rabbits-

by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

**~~~ (2/5)

Fiction / Chick Lit / Light Reading

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

How would you get your revenge if your ex-boyfriend vanished on the night before your prom, then reappeared with a song detailing your first sexual experience (which by the way topped the Billboard charts), then proceeded to write chart-topping personal songs about you for the rest of his career?

Kate finally has the opportunity to confront Jake. But how is she going to confront the man who has messed up her life? The man who constantly chased by millions of adoring fans? She has a plan. But things don’t always go according to plan, do they?

My Book Review:

I loved The Nanny Diaries by the same authors. I thought it was right on the mark. Dedication, however, sorely disappointed me. It’s a story about Kate, 30, who wants to make her high school boyfriend who is presently an insanely successful rock star ‘regret his entire existence’ – for walking out on her and his band without a goodbye, for claiming the boys music as his own and for recording album after album worth of Kate and his most intimate and tragic moments together.

The novel shifts between the present Kate, to flashbacks of Katie in 8th grade to her university days. I liked the present day chapters, there was movement and an urgency in the story. But the first half of the flashbacks took ages to set up the back story with a lot of extraneous 80s references and school politics that didn’t really connect to the main arc of the story.

I was born in the mid 80s, and therefore didn’t have the pleasure of experiencing the bad-hair do’s and huge shoulder pads. So the majority of the references passed me by and I didn’t feel the nostalgia that I may have felt if I could connect to that decade. I am sure if you remember the 80s, (and understand some other American references, which also flew over my head) you’d enjoy the flashbacks much more.

Aside from the slow pace, leading to a draggy set up of the back story, I found the premise itself while on the one hand understandable (love of your life, leaving you without a goodbye, publicly crooning about your sexual exploits and airing your parents dirty laundry, hard to get over and you’re angry – fair enough), on the other hand, I though it was rather… blah. I get disappointed reading stories like this because it neither entertains me, nor makes me think. I love Bridget Jones’s diary because I empathise with her and laugh uproariously at her. Maybe the intention of this book was something entirely different, but I do know that this book gave me little warmth and no intellectual stimulation. I just felt blah after reading it.

This woman is 30 and she still hasn’t gotten over it. Reading about weak women is not fun. She’s angry and wants revenge, but why wait till he lands in town 11 years later for closure? And all artists write personal material, and hardly anyone’s going to know it’s you he’s singing about – she moved state because of the ‘shame’. I understand he is the love of her life, and there are a couple of much appreciated and satisfying passionate moments in the book, but she’s an adult. 11 years have passed. Get over it. And this is what this book’s about getting over a man. But the thing is, I’m not sure if I like him, or hate him. I want want to like him. I guess I’m supposed to want them to get together or to strongly want her to make him ‘regret his entire existence’. Maybe both. It wavers and I guess this is where this novel toys with the reader. – reader hates him, reader loves him, reader hates him again.

I did like the moments of vulnerability that Jake Sharp has and I have to say the ending was clever and befitting. And maybe I should simply take this as it is – chick lit filled with young love, rock stars and revenge.

I have noticed that my negative book reviews are much longer than my positive ones. I guess I feel I have to justify why I’m trashing a book (coming from the point of view of a performer, I know it’s not nice to read a bad review about your hard work).

But when I love a book, I all I want to say is ‘Read It’. I adored the Nanny Diaries by the same authors, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, so read The Nanny Diaries!

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

-Reading Like Rabbits-

by Mohsin Hamid

****~ (4/5)

Fiction

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Seated at a cafe in Lahore, a mysterious stranger tells you his story. He invited you to join him, and though the evening, you come to know what led the stranger to approach you. Well educated, well traveled, he seems to know more about the ways of the West than you do. He embraced the Western ideal and a western woman, and was let down by both. However, you soon find out the real reason for this meeting…

My Book Review

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is an extremely readable novel. It is also surprisingly gentle. The political and religious seem to take a backseat to the life story of the Pakistani protagonist, Changez. This book is really one long monologue with the reader only getting to see one side of a conversation, dominated by Changez, with an American, whom we suspect to be a very reluctant listener.

In general, I find genre classification misleading, as it leads to stock expectations. Philip Pullman (the author of His Dark Materials, a writer for whom I have great respect) is quoted on the cover of my copy of The Reluctant Fundamentalist saying: “Beautifully written…more exciting than any thriller I’ve read for a long time.”

So I read this book expecting a thriller. But it’s not a typical thriller. If I had to classify it, I would call it a love and falling-out-of-love story, with the overarching genre being a subtle thriller – for you know from the title, time period and what Changez says early on, that there is something larger than just a casual conversation between an American and a Pakistani.

I guess the key word here is subtle. This one sided conversation shifts between the present, the American and the Pakistani sitting in a cafe watching Lahore go by, and the life story of Changez – from his studies at Princeton right up to him now, sitting at this very cafe. This book provides a glimpse of understanding as to what a Muslim Pakistani might feel caught up in an American world before and after 9/11. Just remember my key word of this book -subtle- even at the end, which I think is the best part about it.

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

-Reading Like Rabbits-

by Ariana Franklin

****~ (4/5)

Fiction / Murder Mystery / Thriller

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Cambridge, England, 1171.

A gruesome murder has taken place. The victim is a child and other children have disappeared. King Henry wants the killer found, as it is the Jews, who supply the King with much of his revenue, who have been accused by enraged townspeople for the child murders.

Simon of Naples a well-known investigator has been recruited, along with a young woman and an Arab. The young woman, Adelia Aguilar, is one of the rare female doctors of the 12^th Century. She specializes in the examination of dead bodies. As a mistress in the art of death, she must keep her skill a secret for fear of being charged as witch.

The inquiry takes Adelia from castle to convent, and into the heart of medieval Cambridge. She makes friends and even chances upon love. However, her investigation attracts the attention of a killer who is willing to strike again.

My Book Review:

I enjoyed reading this murder mystery. The plot is made more interesting because it is set in the 12th Century and because it won a historical award, I trusted its accuracy. The author does note however that she was somewhat anachronistic in her writing to make it more accessible for readers. For example, she used the present name Cambridge, though it was called Grantebridge until the 14th Century.

So if you’re worried about this novel set way back in the 12th Century being archaic and difficult to read, you’ll be in for a neat surprise. Ariana Franklin has done a marvelous job in making this book extremely accessible to modern readers, whilst still keeping the time period vivid.

In this novel we follow our ‘mistress of death’, Adelia (a very down to earth and intelligent lady), to uncover a brutal and elusive killer of children. The plot is a tad slow for a short while in the middle, but once you get past that, much happens that is both exciting and frightening. .

Adelia’s job is to root out the killer, but she is hindered by being female, even worse, she is a foreign female doctor. She has to tread carefully, because the killer could be anyone – the prior, the prioress, the tax collector, the crusader, the merchant, the hunter, the list goes on….

Whodunnit?

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

-Reading Like Rabbits-

by Michael Cunningham

***** (5/5)

Fiction

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Three women.

1920s London. Virginia Woolf attempts to begin her new novel, but she is struggling to settle her unruly mind.

1940s Los Angeles. In the stifling heat, Laura Brown, a young mother and wife aches to abandon her domestic life to escape to the solitude of reading Mrs Dalloway.

1990s New York. Clarissa Vaughan hosts a party for a dying friend.

Michael Cunningham uses the life and works of Virginia Woolf as inspiration for a moving reflection on love, failure, despair and artistic behaviour.

Why I love this book:

Immediately upon finishing this book, I was so moved that I made the firm decision that I needed to visit my elderly grandparents in England – and I’m so glad I did. I guess it’s because the novel deals with death, making me want to seize the moment, carpe diem and all that.

It’s not all about death though, it’s about the lives of three distinct women – their daily lives, their thoughts, their relationships with the people around them, and more importantly their own internal relationship with themselves.

The Hours is beautifully yet simply written, and is one of my tip-top favourite books. My mother says that Beloved by Toni Morrison changed her life, and for me it’s The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Maybe I wouldn’t say it ‘changed’ my life, but it certainly had a significant impact and helped me make a positive decision, one that I had been storing away and ignoring.

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

-Reading Like Rabbits-

by Wendy Holden

On the grand scheme of good books: **~~~ (2/5)

On a fun light-reading  level: ***½~ (3.5/5)

Fiction / Light Reading

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Jane is an ordinary journalist. She has love-life stress, stress from work and she just can’t seem to shed those extra pounds. Then, the gorgeous celebrity-for-celebrity’s-sake social butterfly Champagne D’Vyne is thrown into her life. Champagne is as different from Jane as could be. As their worlds become strangely entangled, Jane discovers that this busty blond goddess will do everything to get what she wants. She lets nothing get in her way. Including Jane.

My Book Review:

I think this is a book you will either love or hate. It’s very very fluffy, and centers on a most foul and fabulous celebrity-for-celebrity’s sake character Champagne D’Vyne . She is truly horrid, and frustratingly beautiful. She is a piss take on all the ridiculous celebrities like Posh Spice, Paris Hilton and Jordan – multipiled by about 5000.

However, there are also characters you empathise with, Jane – the Bridget Jones-esq, muddled protagonist who does her best to keep her life ordered amidst the whirl-wind of Champagne. And the young dowdy aristocrat Tally who is doing her best to save her crumbling family estate.

So, if you hate the glorified over-privileged (untalented) celebrity, and want a bit of fluffy weekend reading, and to have a bit of a laugh, this chick lit is for you. I have to say, it didn’t enhance my life in the slightest, but it did give me a giggle.

This is definitely a chick’s book, but surprisingly, my friend who lent Simply Divine to me said that her brother found it in the bathroom, started reading it, and got hooked, thoroughly enjoying it!

x Julie

Light Reading Chicklit Book Review

- Reading Like Rabbits-

by Anita Amirrezvani

****~ (4/5)

Fiction

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

In 17th Century Persia, a father dies suddenly, leaving a fourteen year old girl and her mother to fend for themselves. With no male protector and no dowry with which to marry, they have to make the long journey to Isfahan, to live with the girl’s uncle, a rug designer to the King.

The girls imagination and interest is aroused by the carpets and she hungrily learns the craft, becoming a talented rug maker. But as time goes by, her chances to marry diminish and she is given no choice but to marry a rich man in secret. Will she stay in this unhappy marriage, or does she have the strength and courage to weave a new life for herself?

Why I like this book:

I really enjoyed reading The Blood of Flowers, which brought me deep into 17th Century Persia, and into the difficult lives of two women struggling to make their way with no real male protector. Through the eyes and experience of the ambitious young female protagonist, we learn about the world of Persian carpet making, which involves great care, skill and practice from the design and knotting, right down to the choice of colours.

We learn much about the place of a woman in this society. I found the particular arrangement of her marriage shocking, but I have come to find out that in Islamic tradition, the kind of marriage you will read about in The Blood of Flowers is both accepted and lawful. (I have been purposefully vague in my description of the marriage, as I myself don’t appreciate knowing too much about a story before I actually get to read it)

The book, The Blood of Flowers, is a fascinating look into the life of a young Persian girl becoming a woman in an Islamic world in the 17th century.

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

- Reading Like Rabbits-

By Richard Bach

Photographs by Russell Munson

***** (5/5)

Fiction / Inspirational

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Seagulls fly to find to food. Seagulls eat. Seagulls survive. This is seagull law. But Jonathan Livingston Seagull has discovered the sheer joy and pleasure of flying and swooping and diving. Because of this, Jonathan is banished by the seagull elders. But Jonathan still continues to fly, expanding his horizons and searching for his higher purpose.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a fable about seizing life by the horns, and following your dreams, even if it means going against the norms of the flock.

A story that will inspire you to follow your dreams, so that you can soar too.

My Book Review:

Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a beautiful and inspiring story. After reading it, I feel like I can do anything. IF I choose to. It’s so easy to get stuck in a rut in your mind, but when you read Jonathan’s story you want to join the race to learn and to shed all your limitations. Bach writes, ‘Break the chains of your thought and you break the chains of your body too’.

This book is wise and accessible, told simply from the point of view of a frustrated seagull with dreams and aspirations higher than what his fellow seagulls could ever comprehend. Russell Munson’s photographs which are scattered throughout the book, of seagulls in flight, cement the idea of flying and freedom. There are so many quotes I want to extract from this book, but you really have to read it to understand.

I have read Jonathan Livingston Seagull twice now, and have decided I should read it periodically, to remind myself that ‘whatever stands against freedom must be set aside’ and that nothing can be achieved without practice. Give this inspirational book as present to yourself or to others.

I also recommend another Richard Bach story Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah.

x Julie

Book Show and Book Reviews

-Reading Like Rabbits-

by Jhumpa Lahiri

****~ (4/5) Fiction / Short Stories

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

9 short stories that reveal the lives of Indians living at home, or abroad, but nevertheless isolated, steering their way through the murky path between tradition and the new world that has evolved around them. These stories which are eloquently and subtlety told by Indian-American writer Jhumpa Lahiri, will speak to anyone who has experienced the longings of exile, or the isolated confusion of an outsider.

My Book Review:

I generally don’t read short story collections, they never really appealed to me. I like to travel along the long arc of stories with the characters and really immerse myself in a book. Short stories always seemed to cheat me of that depth. I did enjoy reading the book The Interpreter of Maladies. Though short story collections are still not my cup of tea, and I did end up wanting more of an investment in each story, I understand why it won the Pulitzer Prize.

Each story was a world of its own, entering the lives of real people and their displaced lives. As the book synopsis says, Jhumpa Lahiri’s stories are ‘understated’. They are quiet and domestic, but also therefore identifiable and honest in their portrayal. All 9 stories are unique and independent of each other in very satisfying ways, jumping across continents and content. I appreciated all the stories, but the two short stories that stood out the most for me are ‘This Blessed House’ and ‘The Third and Final Continent’.

Jhumpa Lahiri also wrote The Namesake, and though I haven’t yet read the book, it makes a great movie.

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

-Reading Like Rabbits-