seekingflight's 100 in 2012

Happy New Year and happy reading to all for 2012.

I got distracted with study and other commitments in 2011 and fell far short of 100, but still had a fantastic year of reading. I have really enjoyed the way in which my reading tastes have expanded over the last few years through interaction with fellow LTers.

I am hoping this year that I will be able to focus more on reading, reviewing, chatting and enjoying all that Library Thing has to offer, and am aspiring for the 100 mark yet again.

More soon ...

Looking forward to chatting!

Welcome back! And don't worry about the numbers, it's the actual reading that counts, not how fast you do it. :)

*waves*

1. A Rising Thunder by David Weber (6/1/2012)

I read the Advanced Readers Copy of this from Baen - so yes, I'm a fan of the Honor Harrington series (now up to this thirteenth book). I don't like the later books in this series as much as the earlier ones. From my perspective, Weber's canvas has gotten way too big, and these books would be more to my taste if he focused back in on a smaller number of characters but made me care more about them. It's frustrating to me that I cared more about minor characters introduced purely to be killed off in some of the first books than I seem to about the protagonists of the story now. But the scale of the story has changed as well, and perhaps this is an inevitable consequence. I'm still reading the series, because I still want to know what happens next. And although this wasn't the most fantastic read to start the New Year, it was perhaps not the worst installment of this series either. (As an ARC, this did contain some typos and other errors, but they didn't detract significantly from my overall enjoyment.)

2. Weight of the World by N K Smith (14/1/2012)

This is another early reviewers book and is the third book in the ongoing Old Wounds series. I didn't read the first two books in the series, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was interested in the basic premise of the book, which sees Sophie and Elliott, two teenagers with traumatic pasts, developing an interest in each other.

It wasn't essential to have read the first two books of the series before reading this one (although I would be interested in seeking them out).

Although sometimes difficult to read because of the subject matter, this was an interesting portrayal of the impact of childhood abuse, neglect, and tragedies on young adulthood, and the difficult road to 'recovery' (although I'm not sure that's the right word in this context and I really can't think of any alternatives). It was poignant seeing Sophie and Elliott struggle to cope with the wounds of the past, but also to support each other as best they could. Both Sophie and Elliott are receiving support and therapy, and it's interesting seeing the way in which this plays out, the small but heart-warming advances, and the realistically frequent outbursts and setbacks.

There was a lot that I appreciated about this story, which I found unusual and moving. I don't want to describe it as realistic, because I don't feel qualified to judge, but it didn't feel unreal, and I did like the way that it didn't offer any quick or magical fixes.

Although some parts felt a bit repetitive, I thought this was a worthwhile read, and I'm keen to find out what happens next ...

3. Against all Enemies by Tom Clancy and Peter Telep (16/1/2012)

This is not a Jack Ryan book. Instead we are introduced to Maxwell Moore, an ex-Navy SEAL and CIA operative who becomes involved in an operation exploring links between a Muslim terrorist organisation and Mexican drug cartels. Moore was interesting to me because although he is haunted by the demons of his past (as all cliched protagonists), he isn't the precocious golden boy who always seems to be one step ahead of his opponents. I liked this (slight) concession to realism, and although I found it hard to get into the story and engage with the characters, I persevered and enjoyed this somewhat more than some of the Power Plays books I've been very disappointed by recently.

4. Mr Darcy's Daughter by Rebecca Ann Collins (18/1/2012)

I didn't realise this was part of a series of sequels to Pride and Prejudice until I brought it home from the library, and because I just wanted a light read, I thought I'd try this anyway. It's actually number 5 of the Pemberley Chronicles, and I enjoyed this more than I'd expected. The story focuses mostly on Elizabeth and Darcy's daughter Cassandra, and granddaughter Lizzie, and various events in the lives of their extended family and the local inhabitants. Don't read this seeking Austen's art and wit, but I did find myself caring about the characters, and enjoying the way in which their lives quietly unfolded over the course of the novel.

5. Still Alice by Lisa Genova (19/1/2012)

Alice is a high-flying academic at Harvard, who specialises in linguistics and cognitive psychology. This is the compelling story of what happens when she starts experiencing troubling symptoms of disorientation and forgetfulness, which are diagnosed as early-onset Alzheimer's. It is heart-breaking to read about how this plays out in her personal and professional life, to feel her grief and rage at all she is losing, and to see the reactions of her family and colleagues. I like the choice that Genova makes to stay with Alice's point of view throughout the story, to prioritise Alice's perceptions, and to challenge us to remember that despite the devastating changes she is experiencing she is indeed, Still Alice ...

Still Alice has been on my wishlist for a little while. It's just that I've been frightened away from reading anything (fiction) about Alzheimer's since The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. (No, on second thought, I won't litter your thread by making that a touchstone. Horrible, horrible book.) True, it makes no sense, but...there you have it.

I guess what I'm wondering is how good did you think it (Still Alice) was?

Hi allthesepieces. It was a very difficult and frightening book to read - and had me blubbering on the train. I'm wary of recommending it outright because of the heaviness of the subject matter, but I devoured it and thought it definitely one of my best reads of the year so far (and perhaps the last two years).

Partly that's because it really made me think. I was discussing my review with someone last night, and said that perhaps what I should have said is that in some ways Genova really allows the reader to draw their own conclusions. Is Alice still Alice, if she's not able to pursue her career? If she can't remember the names of the people most important to her? Before reading this book, I think I would have definitely said no. Now, by focusing on Alice's point of view, Genova has made me question some of my assumptions, and perhaps err more on the side of conferring rather than denying identity.

I do tend to avoid Alzheimer's in literature as well. Dementia is a ghastly thing, I don't really want to read about it (I read for fun!). i do have "The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox" on the shelves, somewhere...

I couldn't help it - I went and googled The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. Sounds similarly traumatic - and possibly even worse?

This is an interesting question, though, because I would say that I read for fun, too, and yet some of the books that make the biggest impact on me are those that get me emotionally involved. I can't honestly say that I 'enjoy' them, and yet they've drawn me in, and been thoroughly gripping and compelling, and I'm glad that I read them (despite embarrassing public blubbering).

And yet it's so subjective. What works for one person doesn't work for another, and sometimes I even think that if I read these books in a different mood I'd respond differently ...

Oh, yes, I am fond a good ol' cathartic blubbering response to a good book. Always give at least an extra 1/2 star if a book makes me cry (but minus several stars if I feel overly emotionally manipulated). But I draw the line on how far I want to go in my catharsis, and reading about dementia definitely crosses a line for me.

Cancer is also currently a no-go zone, as is death of a child.

I guess it's what I'm really terrified of, losing my marbles/dying young-ish/losing one of the kids. I can read about other terrors, but not these.

And when I read for fun, that (of course) doesn't mean I only read trash. (Trash can be perfectly fun, but after a while I need more substance.) Just that reading is my *me* time, and I want to be entertained and (moderately) challenged. But not be a pathetic sobbing mess.

I didn't realise Esme Lennox was about Alzheimer's when I bought it!

I've definitely added Still Alice to my list now. I have a chronic pain disability and even though that's all physical people treated me as though my personality had suddenly changed, so I know it must be 1000 times worse for people with Alzheimer's.

Wookie, I agree - extra marks for making me cry, but not if it feels contrived. I think we probably all have topics about which we'd prefer not to read - I know I do, too. I've just read a few dark and sad books lately, and I'm trying to puzzle out what it is that I get from the experience.

And mabith, that's exactly why I liked this book so much, because it did make you think about things from a different perspective. If people only knew what it was like standing in other people's shoes, I'd like to think that they could be much more empathic ...

I think part of what upset me about reading Esme Lennox was that it felt like the author just used Alzheimer's as a selling point. I know that might not be the case, but the writing was so weak that I didn't feel anything while I was reading it. That really bothered me, especially considering all the fuss the book was stirring up at the time.

You do make a good point, though. Different moods can affect the outcome of reading any book, as can reading at different periods in life. I might respond differently were I to try the book again now, but it was a reading experience that was sooo bad for me.

I've since read some nonfiction that dealt with Alzheimer's, but I think what's been scaring me away from fiction of that nature is that I don't want to get so angry again. It is a heavy subject, and it should be taken seriously.

Hmm. I think I'll go ahead and give Still Alice a try and hope for a better experience. Good discussion, and thanks for answering my question!

6. Broken Slate by Kelly Jennings (20/1/2012)

Another Early Reviewers book.

This was a dark and incredibly disconcerting novel, but at the same time I also found it completely engrossing and quite thought provoking. Martin is a "contract worker" (a slave), who is currently a secretary to Deja, a Lord Holder who works at the University. His "duties" range from the legitimately secretarial to the bedroom, as everyone correctly assumes.

One of the things that impressed me the most about this novel was its exploration of the ways in which ideas justifying slavery permeated this society, warped the thinking of its members, and prevented slave-owners from having any sort of empathy (among other things, a complete lack of imagination!). I was also interested in the even more insidious impact that these ideas had on Martin (e.g., a sense that he was ‘lucky’ because his current owner was kinder than his former owner ... )

It’s not for everyone because of its subject matter, but I found myself caught up in the characters and their world, and pondering many an issue raised by the book long after I’d finished, exactly what I consider a recipe for a good read.

7. The World Beneath by Cate Kennedy (24/01/2012)

I saw this in Snowprint Bookshop in Jindabyne on a recent holiday - an excellent bookshop, by the way - and was drawn to the premise. It's about Rich and Sandy, once environmental activists who took part in the famous protests to save the Franklin wilderness, in Tasmania. No longer together, they have a teenage daughter, Sophie, who is scathing towards her mother, and has had little or no contact with her father. Rich invites Sophie on a trek in Tasmania, and what unfolds will bring the tensions between the three into sharp relief.

This was a really good read for me for its portrayal of the relationships between Sophie and her parents, and for its exploration of the impact (or lack of impact) of being involved in such a massive protest movement in one's youth. Whatever originally motivated Rich and Sandy to become involved in the protests, it's interesting how they now talk about this as the high point of their lives, and how they now seem to be all about posing as a concerned and ethical consumer (Sandy) and the sort of father Sophie would admire (Rich) ...

Sophie does scathing and vitrolic like the quintessential teenager, and yet you can't help but sympathise with her at some points in the novel.

I wasn't entirely sure about the ending, but it grew on me upon reflection. A good premise, well executed, and another good start to the year ...

8. The Pain Merchants by Janice Hardy (26/01/2012)

An interesting young adult fantasy about a girl named Nya who has a special talent. In the society she lives in, healers are able to shift pain from a person into a stone to heal them, but Nya instead has the ability to transfer pain from one person to another. A lot of people would like to harness these abilities for their own purposes, placing her in danger, and raising a number of ethical dilemmas. Meanwhile, there is a mystery about disappearing healers that she needs to solve. An interesting premise, and reasonably good for its genre.

I read The World Beneath for bookgroup last year (or maybe back in 2010, now). I remembering wanting to slap Rich a lot of the time. ;) Nice review!

Yes, wookie, exactly! Saw your review when adding mine and really liked your characterisations of both Rich and Sandy. I thought the bit where Sandy was contemplating a purchase for the house and wearily running it by a checklist of ethical and environmental criteria was particularly telling ...

9. The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown (29/01/2012)

I wanted to read this book ever since I heard about its premise (probably here on Library Thing).

It's about three sisters, Rose, Bean and Cordy, whose father is a Shakespearean professor. He communicates with his daughters (named after famous Shakespearean women) through cryptic quotes from the Bard's works, and so when their mother becomes ill, he sends them a message quoting 'Come, let us go; and pray to all the gods/For our beloved mother in her pains'.

Rose is the eldest sister, and the responsible one, and has stayed in the town in which she grew up. Upon receiving this news, although perhaps also prompted by troubles in their own lives, Bean and Cordy head for home.

This book suffered a little bit - from my perspective - because of the possibly exaggerated situations of each of the sisters. Each has hit a moment of crisis in their lives. I felt a little like it was a textbook case of eldest child, middle child, youngest child, and I would have enjoyed it more if the situations and characteristics were a little more understated ...

However, that being said, I did quite enjoy this. The unusual narrative voice (the 'we' and 'our' that implies the sisters are talking together) took some getting used to, but I ended up really appreciating it. This is especially interesting when the sisters differ in terms of their individual perspectives, and experience a reasonable amount of conflict between themselves, and yet narrate a story that is perhaps something of a consensus, in which each might - if they were being honest with themselves - recognise themselves and each other.

I liked the Shakespeare references, although I didn't fully understand the relevance of all of them. The way in which each of the sisters show their love of books and reading differently is another little detail I enjoyed.

Overall, I did enjoy the story, and many of the insights it offered about life, families, and the stories that we tell about our lives.

10. Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta (03/02/2012)

I really enjoyed this young adult fantasy novel - a bleak tale of Lumatere, a kingdom whose royal family is murdered, which is taken over by a tyrant; a teenager, Finnikin, who tries with his mentor to help his people as best he can and to chronicle the tragedies that befall them in exile; and the mysterious Evanjalin, who offers hope of a possible return home, but who acts in such a way that Finnikin finds her difficult to trust.

11. The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfeld (08/02/2012)
12. Touching Darkness by Scott Westerfeld (12/02/2012)
13. Blue Noon by Scott Westerfeld (15/02/2012)

Together these make up Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters trilogy. I loved his Uglies series, and had been looking forward to reading these for a while. Unfortunately, like Leviathan, I didn't enjoy these as much.

To be fair, they were probably good solid young adult reads. The premise is one that I imagine a lot of people would be drawn to. The idea of an extra hour that happens every night at midnight, which only a small number of humans in Bixby, Oaklahoma are aware of, was both enticing and creepy. When teenage Jessica moves into the town, she discovers this magical world, the other Midnighters (a group of teenagers who are similarly awake during this midnight hour), and the darklings, the nightmarish creatures who inhabit it.

There are parts of this world that I was very much drawn to - especially the role of mathematics and tridecalogisms in combating the darklings. I found the second book the most interesting and enjoyable of the three. But ultimately the series perhaps just involved too many action scenes, which I found a little tedious in the end, and not enough of the thought provoking ideas I enjoyed so much in Uglies.

14. Beauty and the Werewolf by Mercedes Lackey (18/02/2012)

An interesting retelling of ... Cinderella? Little Red Riding Hood? Beauty and the Beast? All of these? None of these? Bella is reasonably strong-willed, independent, and competent, but is living a relatively mundane life. She manages her stepmother and stepsisters as best as she can. They're occasionally exasperating, but can't really be compared to Cinderella's family. Bella's life is turned upside down, however, when she's attacked by a wolf on her way back from visiting the Granny who lives in the woods.

This is the sixth book in the 500 Kingdoms series, and I was somewhat disappointed by the earlier books in this series. I did love the idea of the Tradition, the force that rules this world of Lackey's, where energy builds up any time someone's life is going in the direction of any of the well-known fairy tales, and they are subtly 'encouraged' to fall into the same patterns in their own life. However, I didn't think the earlier books pulled this off quite as I would have liked. So I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. It's particularly interesting mid way through the book, where Bella is explicitly told about the Tradition, and encouraged to think very carefully when she finds her life mirroring the plot of any of the stories she knows, so as to make sure that she's acting in accordance with her own true preferences, and not simply being pushed and pulled about by the Tradition.

An enjoyable light read. The one down side was that I felt the resolution was so obvious that everyone should have seen it coming.

I really enjoyed Finnikin of the Rock too. And I see there's a sequel out now, Froi of the Exiles. Will have to see if the library has a copy.

And I had to Google 'tridecalogism'...

Hi wookie. Great news that there's already a sequel out - I didn't know that, and googled excitedly to find out that there's also a third book coming out this October. I liked your review of Finnikin, by the way - embarrassed to say, I was so caught up in the story and the alternate world that I literally didn't see the parallels with recent Australian developments. Now I can't not see them, and I think I like the book even more ...

That brings my 'to read' list up to 365 books!! Library Thing has made it easier to keep track of recommendations, and has increased not only the number of books on the list, but also the number of books that I'm likely to enjoy that make it onto the list. But wow, that's a lot of books!

I'll revisit this number in later posts, as I'm interested to see how this evolves over the course of the year.

And yes, no day is entirely wasted if I can learn a cool new word like 'tridecalogism' ... Hope you enjoyed it too!

15. Past the Shallows by Favel Parrett (20/02/2012)

A difficult book to review. It's about a family in remote Tasmania, three brothers and their father, an abalone fisherman, after the death of their mother. Harry is the littlest one, Miles is the middle brother who has been taken out of school to help on his father's abalone boat, and Joe is the eldest and has already left home. The story weaves backwards and forwards in time, filling in the details of past events as the future unfolds. It's tersely and skilfully told, and the bleakness of the landscape/implacability of the sea makes a fitting backdrop for the events of the novel. This wasn't my cup of tea, but I can't fault the execution.

Yes, don't you wish some days that Australian authors would just get over the dysfunctional family trope? (Even though Past the Shallows was excellent.) At least some of them are branching into YA fantasy nowadays, yay for a third Finnikin! :)

Yes, it was good, just too depressing for me. (And given some of the subject I've been reading about lately, it's interesting to hear those words coming out of my mouth!)

16. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson (25/02/2012)

Brandon Sanderson was one of my favourite new fantasy discoveries last year, and this book didn't disappoint. It's even available for download as a free taster on his website. You can download different versions of the story, to see how it evolved over time, and there are even a couple of word documents showing track changes between earlier and later versions. Really interesting if you're interested in the writing (and editing) process.

This is the story of two sisters, princesses from the kingdom of Idris. One is the dutiful eldest daughter, Viviena, who's been promised in marriage to the God-King of the rival kingdom of Hallendren and has been preparing for this for pretty much as long as she can remember. The other is the youngest, more rebellious daughter, Siri, who's sent in Viviena's place by a father who can't bear to let his beloved Viviena go, as tensions build between Idris and Hallendren. Viviena follows her sister in the hopes of rescuing her, as the prospect of war starts seeming more and more likely. In Idris, we meet Lightsong, a God who finds himself questioning his own divinity, and the mysterious God-King Susebron.

I didn't know where this story was going, enjoyed the characters and the ways in which they grew through the events of the story, and found myself completely engrossed.

17. Traitor by Stephen Daisley (12/03/2012)

A great premise, where a NZ soldier (David Monroe) befriends a Turkish prisoner of war in World War I, and finds his supposed loyalty to his country tested by the bonds of friendship. This book spoke eloquently of the horrors of war, and particularly - as highlighted in wookie's review - the difficulties of returning 'home' to decimated rural towns afterwards, and meeting the mothers of boys you'd seen die. I did appreciate these aspects, but the way it was written (the peculiar rhythms of speech and flashes backwards and forwards) didn't work for me, and overall I didn't appreciate the novel as much as I had anticipated.

Nevertheless, it was interesting and evocative. Some parts of this book reminded me of Michael Roper's wonderful non fiction book The Secret Battle: Emotional Survival in the Great War, and its analysis of letters soldiers exchanged with their homes (and particularly their mothers) during the war. I've also just seen jfetting's review of Regeneration, which sounds like another good - but distressing - take on the horrific impact of this war.

18. The Passage by Justin Cronin (18/03/2012)

I've applied a penalty for length to my rating for this book. It starts engagingly, introducing you to a number of characters you come to care for, drawing you in, as you begin to speculate about how these threads connect to the apocalypse you know is coming, and what fate has in store for each of them. I didn't like the flash forwards in time that meant having to re-establish a sense of connection to the story. However, I did really like some of the details of the post-apocalyptic society that emerges, and particularly the way in which things that saddened me were simply taken for granted by the community of survivors as part of the fabric of their lives. (I suppose the jump in time was necessary for this to emerge.) This wasn't a bad book, but I had hoped for something more, and - to be honest - I began to tire of the story a bit before the end. Perhaps had it been shorter, I would actually have appreciated it more ...

19. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (24/03/2012)

I'm really pleased that I was able to start reading this book not knowing anything about it, other than the fact that many reviewers on Library Thing had enjoyed it, commenting in particular on its enchanting, magical atmosphere. I felt similarly, and enjoyed losing myself in its pages. I may agree academically with some of the criticisms I've read about plotting and characterisation, but they didn't really detract much from my overall enjoyment of the story. And I did enjoy it very much. There's a conversation about the nature and importance of stories at one point in the book that I absolutely loved, and I think this theme continued in some of my subsequent reads of March (including The Book of Lost Things and - from a different but equally important and thought-provoking angle - The Postmistress).

>34 seekingflight: - Definitely making a note of The Secret Battle and Regeneration, as I've got a passion for WWI books. There's a really good Gallipoli documentary where they follow different specific soldiers on all sides through their letters home. The letters are almost the most interesting thing for me, because specific people are more interesting than battle plans and all that.

Thanks mabith - I have a fascination with letters too, so I should chase down that Gallipoli documentary. Just found it on Wikipedia and it looks really worthwhile.

It is honestly one of the best war documentaries I've ever seen.

20. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly (25/03/2012)

David is twelve when his mother dies, around the outset of World War II, and when his father starts seeing another woman, he retreats further and further into the world of books he and his mother shared. Soon the lines between the two worlds begin to blur, and David is pulled into a mysterious fairy tale world. I found this instantly charming, engaging, well-told, and extremely moving. I particularly liked the bits where David hears the voices of books – each with their own distinct personalities. I enjoyed the comments on the nature and purpose of stories, and the novel retellings of fairy stories scattered throughout the story. A very good read – bleaker than I was expecting, but perhaps all the more powerful because of this ...

21. Before I Go to Sleep by S J Watson (26/03/2012)

Christine has amnesia. Every morning, she wakes up with no memory of the last 20+ years of her life. She doesn't recognise herself in the mirror, nor does she recall her husband, Ben, who is there every morning patiently explaining things to her. But something seems increasingly off kilter. Is Ben lying to her? Who do you trust when you can't trust your own memory?

This was a good quick read.

22. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller (27/03/2012)

Initially this felt like a series of anecdotes – admittedly clever – strung together in no particular order, and I found it difficult to get into. This wore off by the last third of the book, which I found much easier to read, follow and appreciate. The irrationality, futility and horror of war is well captured, and I kind of wish I’d read this in high school English, so as to appreciate it more fully. I was – however – appalled at the ways women were portrayed in this novel. While Heller wasn’t necessarily condoning the attitudes/behaviour of his characters, and is perhaps justified in his focus on the airmen themselves, a number of scenes left a bad taste in my mouth.

23. The Postmistress by Sarah Blake (31/03/2012)

For me, this book was less about Iris James, the small town postmistress in Cape Cod from whom the book gets its title, and more about Frankie Bard, an American, and pioneering female radio journalist based in Europe during the early years of World War II.

Frankie tries to bring the stories of World War II, the Blitz, and the plight of Europe’s Jewish refugees into American homes before Americans are involved in the war.

While I loved The Night Circus and The Book of Lost Things for the questions they raised about the nature, purpose and power of fictional stories, I loved The Postmistress because of the questions it raised about 'real life' stories.

What can one person do in the face of suffering they are powerless to change? How many times can you tell the same stories, hoping to influence people that sometimes seem determined to shut out anything that they don’t want to hear? How important is it nevertheless to witness and to tell stories about this suffering? How do you retain a journalists sense of ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’, when you witness such horrors, and confront first-hand the world’s apathy to what you've seen? And what sort of a toll does it take, knowing that all you can do is to tell these stories, and that you may never know the end of the stories that you tell?

I found this book very thought-provoking. It reminded me of States of Denial, a non fiction exploration of the reasons why people sometimes can't or don't see - or choose not to see - what's happening right in front of them.

I wasn't entirely happy with the liberties Blake reports taking with history in her note at the end of the novel, but I'm very glad that she does report this, and I appreciate the way in which it helps her flesh out some of these very interesting themes.

24. On Basilisk Station by David Weber (31/03/2012)

One of my old favourites - space opera, Dilbert style. Honor Harrington has finally achieved the Captain's beret she has long coveted. Her first command, Fearless, isn't quite what she was hoping for - she's used as a pawn in her superiors' jostling for position and power, and sent off to what seems like exile in Basilisk Station when her presence reminds them too much of their own incompetence. Her crew aren't too thrilled with this, and their reactions are not entirely unlike those of sulky spoiled teenagers. Honor insists on doing her duty, nevertheless, and does the Star Kingdom of Manticore proud. The first in a favourite feel-good series.

25. The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig (01/04/2012)

It didn't take much brainpower to figure out where this plot was going, and yet I'm a little embarrassed to say I quite enjoyed the journey. Eloise Kelly is a history PhD student who is researching famous English spies of years gone by, The Scarlet Pimpernel, the Purple Gentian and the Pink Carnation. The book is set both in the present, as we read about Eloise's research, and England and France in the 1800s, when we read about the Purple Gentian and the eventual revelation of the identity of the Pink Carnation. A bit of a guilty pleasure ...

26. Gladiatrix by Russell Whitfield (06/04/2012)

I was a little bit interested in the concept of female gladiators, and somewhat intrigued by the idea that Whitfield spun this story based on a marble relief from Halicarnassus dating back almost 2000 years. However, the combination of slavery, violence, sex, a protagonist who I didn't particularly like or empathise with, and the lack of a hook to draw me into this story made this both a disconcerting and a mediocre read.

27. For a dancer: the memoir by Emma J Stephens (07/04/2012)

This was an Early Reviewers book that I've read twice in order to write this review, to try to clarify my feelings. I didn't necessarily find it easy or gripping to read, but it did make me think, and I was overall glad I'd read it. Emma and her sister Sadie are born into a family who struggle with alcoholism. Feeling abandoned by their mother, and forced to be more adult than she should be because of her father's immaturity, Emma gets caught up in and perpetuates a cycle of hurt that has far-reaching consequences. This memoir is presented in vignette format, and this both worked and didn't work for me. In some ways it heightened my perception that had things gone differently at any stage, Emma's life could have also gone so differently, making this quite a thought provoking and poignant story. I felt both admiration for Emma's achievements, and sadness that she wasn't able to get more of the love and support and nurturing she deserved.

Just popping up to say very interesting reading. Enjoying it.

Oops - haven't updated this for a while, have I?

Thanks captainsflat. I have really enjoyed this year's reading so far - and a lot of it has actually been recommended by fellow LTers, to whom I am very grateful.

I said earlier in the year that I'd like to keep an eye on my 'to read' count this year. It's gone up from 320 in early March to 404 now!! Will have to try to work on some more of these over the next few months ...

28. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer (08/04/2012)

A very readable story (interestingly told through exchanges of letters) about the German occupation of Guernsey, and a book club that emerges during that time – first as a pretext for breaking curfew, and then as an increasingly important part of each of its members' lives. It’s interesting reading about the different way that each of the members approached the book club, and the different impact that books and reading had on each of them.

29. Small Wars by Sadie Jones (13/04/2012)

I was a little disappointed by this book. I liked the idea of exploring what happens when Clara accompanies her British soldier husband Hal to Cyprus during the emergency, with their twin daughters, and focusing on the way in which this puts their relationship under pressure. I particularly liked the idea that the story would focus on the ‘small wars’ ‘fought’ on the domestic front. I can’t put my finger on the reason why I didn’t like this as much as I expected I would – the story was solid and the dilemmas faced by Hal and Clara realistic and poignant, with disconcerting contemporary parallels. However, I just felt detached from the characters. I wasn’t drawn me into the story and I couldn’t share their concerns, and so the book had less impact on me than it otherwise could have.

30. The Underside of Joy by Sere Prince Halverson (22/04/2012)

I was really drawn into this story of Ella, who loses her husband, Joe, and shortly afterwards risks losing her step-children, when Joe’s ex-wife Paige comes back onto the scene with a claim for custody. I liked the way the story was told, so that you could come to see the situation from the perspective of the many different characters involved: Ella, Paige, and Joe’s Italian family, who have their own silences about their own history. The contrast between the seemingly self-assured Paige and the grieving Ella – who is desperate to hold it together enough to prove that she would be equally as good for the children as their natural mother – was sympathetically drawn, and I thought there were interesting parallels between the silences in Joe’s family, and the silences between Joe and Paige. Ultimately, I felt sympathy for both Ella and Paige, and sadness at the way the custody case pitted them against each other. I’m not sure that I was entirely happy with the resolution of the story, but I don’t think there would have been a way to end this (for me) that was both realistic and satisfactory …

31. Beyond Grimm: Tales Newly Twisted by Deborah J. Ross (editor), (26/04/2012)

Received and reviewed as part of the Early Reviewers Program.

This collection of fairy tales retold contained a delightful mixture of tales, with a range of different tones: from comical to tragic. These include the comical feminist retelling of Rapunzel with which the collection opens (Hair Raising, by Pati Nagle), an amusing encounter between Prince Charles and a creature from Greek mythology (To Serve A Prince, by Brenda W. Clough), a music lover tempted by sirens on a cruise in Greece (The Rapture of Ancient Danger, by Sherwood Smith), a more contemporary story about beauty, intelligence, wisdom, kindness and magical gifts (Ricky Cowlicky, by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff), a sympathetic twist to the Bluebeard story (Sister Anne, by Sylvia Kelso), another take on the story of Merlin and Nimue (Nimuë’s Tale, by Madeleine E. Robins), and an interesting encounter between Beowulf and Grendel’s mother (Hero/Monster, by Amy Sterling Casil). I enjoyed these stories, and in particular their variety, although I learned the hard way that it would have benefited me to pay attention to the groupings of stories, as I initially found the shift in tone between the first and second parts quite jarring.

32. By Schism Rent Asunder by David Weber (28/04/2012)

I started this second book in the Safehold series with some trepidation. I read the first book in the series (Off Armageddon Reef) over a year ago, and although I loved the thought-provoking premise, I found it perhaps too long and wordy for my taste. I dipped my toe in the waters of this one recently, though, and was immediately hooked. This book sees the continuation of the conflict between the kingdom of Charis and the Church of God Awaiting, exploring a number of interesting questions about the nature and role of religion in society. I would personally prefer less technical detail, although it may be that other readers quite like Weber’s comprehensiveness. This was nevertheless an enjoyable, gripping, thought-provoking read.

33. By Heresies Distressed by David Weber (01/05/2012)

A gripping and thought-provoking continuation of the Safehold series. I'm a huge fan of Weber's work when he pulls off a story on a large canvas well, and this for me was one of those times. What I love is Weber’s characteristic skill at showing multiple perspectives on a conflict, giving you characters to sympathise with on both sides (and sometimes, you find yourselves more sorry for those working alongside the 'villains' of the piece, then for their actual 'enemies'). Again, there's a little too much technical detail for my liking, but I like the thoroughness of Weber's world building, and am prepared to skim these sections while acknowledging others probably quite enjoy these details.

34. A Mighty Fortress by David Weber (04/05/2012)

I'm not sure why, but the fourth book in the series seemed somehow less gripping to me, and a bit long. Nevertheless, I'm still very keen to read the next book in the series ...

35. Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Green (07/05/2012)

A delightfully imaginative story about Budo, who is the imaginary friend of an 8 year old boy named Max. Budo has been alive for 5 years, which is a long time for an imaginary friend. Reading between the lines of what Budo says, Max is probably autistic. Budo has a delightful voice, and is very perceptive in many of his comments about how Max interacts with the people in his world. I liked his observations on what makes a good teacher and what makes a bad teacher, for example. Budo is conscious that his own life span is likely to be limited, as imaginary friends only exist for as long as children believe in them. But he’s the only one who knows that Max is in danger. This was written very accessibly, from Budo’s child-like point of view, and yet was very rich, and didn’t shy away from playing with big ideas about life and death, courage, loyalty and sacrifice.

36. Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan (07/05/2012)

This started slow for me, painting a picture of Ellie’s childhood in Ireland, and her friend John, who later became her husband. They have difficulty making ends meet, and when John is injured in the War of Independence, Ellie follows a friend to the US to earn money for an operation that they hope will allow him to walk again. She intends to be there only for a year, but falls in love with life in America in the 1920s, and asks John to come out to join her. This is when the book became gripping for me. Ellie no longer feels that the life that she would have in Ireland would satisfy her, and yet John can’t bear the thought of leaving the place where his roots are, and the country that he sustained his injury fighting for. I really felt for both of them, and was completely engrossed in the latter half of the book as this story unfolded …

37. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (10/05/2012)

This started for me with great promise, with a protagonist, Mary, living in a post apocalyptic world that discourages her from questioning the way the world is, saying it will only make her unhappy. The mysterious Sisters try to convince her to resign herself to doing what’s necessary to ensure the survival of humanity, which in her case, means being a good wife to the man the Sisters think she should be with, and a mother to his children, although she’s in love with someone else. I was less engaged in the second half of the book, however. I was bored by the all too familiar love triangle motif, and felt that there was too much action that didn’t seem to go anywhere …

38. Everlost by Neil Shusterman (10/05/2012)

Nick and Allie are killed in a traffic accident, and slip into a strange limbo land called ‘Everlost’, which bears some resemblance to our world, but operates by its own very different rules. They’re not yet ready to accept that they’ve left the real world behind, but they become increasingly drawn into engagements with the other inhabitants of Everlost, including Mary, who sees herself as the guardian of these lost souls, and the terrifying McGill. A fairly readable and imaginative young adult story, although in the long run I didn’t find it particularly memorable.

39. What Remains by Denise Leith (12/05/2012)

This is the story of Kate Price, a journalist, who has reported in the last few decades on both Gulf Wars, Bosnia, and Rwanda. It’s also the story of her relationship with Pete McDermitt. The motivations of these journalists, their coping strategies, and the impact that covering such events has on them made this a fascinating read for me, although the litany of global tragedies covered also makes it a disconcerting and depressing read. In particular, the section on Rwanda and Kate’s desperation to get out a story that makes a difference, in the face of the world’s apathy, made a strong impression on me. I saw resonances with the themes of The Postmistress in this aspect of the novel. I think the story of the relationship was also all the more poignant for me, because of this context in which it was told … A good read.

40. Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta (13/05/2012)

The sequel to Finnikin of the Rock, which I also enjoyed very much. As can be seen from the title, this is Froi’s story, the story of a young man, thought to be an exile from Lumatere, trained by the Guard, and sent on a secret mission to Charyn, the kingdom responsible for the brutal occupation of Lumatere, which has only recently come to an end. But it is also the story of the mysterious Princess he finds there, the curse placed on her kingdom, and a number of flawed and wounded individuals, both in Lumatere and Charyn, nevertheless trying to do the best they can for their people. A very good read.

41. Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder (16/05/2012)

A very readable young adult novel about a young woman, Avry, who had only recently begun her training as a healer when a plague broke out. Healers were accused of spreading this disease, and have since been hunted mercilessly. Avry is captured and scheduled for execution, when she is ‘rescued’ by a second group of captors who demand that she heal their prince, who she believes responsible for much of the hounding of her people. Ultimately, she must decide who to trust, and who she is willing to risk using her powers for.

42. Heat Wave by Richard Castle (18/05/2012)

A fun tie-in with the tv series. Good light read.

Completely agree with your review of The Forest of Hands and Teeth. When I was a few pages in I thought I had a great book on my hands but the early promise did not hold. Great atmosphere and setting, but as you say the story really doesn't seem to go anywhere, the love triangle feels trite and the characters seem to get less compelling as it goes along.

Enjoying your reviews!

Thanks judylou. Today I'm very much enjoying the feeling that - for a brief moment - I've caught up on my reviews. A huge pile of books just went back to the library ...

But I've already replaced them with a new pile of at least 7 books I can't wait to sink my teeth into, so I don't imagine I'll stay caught up for long.

iftyzaidi, I'm so glad I wasn't the only one to feel like that (#57). It's so disappointing feeling that a book hasn't lived up to its early promise. I much prefer it when a book surprises me positively in its second half, like Ellis Island.

ahh, that sense of fulfillment when those reviews are finished. But with the next round of books waiting to be read, it seems to be never-ending!

Exactly. Two more:

43. Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington (20/05/2012)

The lesson of the year so far seems to be that books with protagonists named Alice shouldn’t be read on the train unless I’m sure I have sufficient supplies of tissues.

This was a very moving book about Alice Bliss, a teenager whose dad, Matt, is sent to Iraq with the Army Reserve. In some ways, it’s the story of the very ordinary tensions between a mother and her daughter, as her daughter grows and changes. However, all these tensions are compounded when they’re told that Matt is missing in action, and the book is also about how they deal with this. Alice is a strong character, I enjoyed the way in which the story is told from her point of view, I very much liked her narrative voice, and there are a number of telling moments in the book that I very much appreciated. It’s sad but probably realistic to see that the tension between Alice and her mother, Angie, continues even after Matt is reported missing. For all the advice parenting manuals and counseling books give on how to deal with a situation like this, it’s entirely understandable that it’s difficult for parents to be there – as ideal parents – for their children when they're upset and worried themselves, and likewise, Alice’s own reactions to the situation sometimes make things more difficult for her mother. Alice and Angie are both well-intentioned and sympathetic but flawed characters, and that’s another thing that I liked about this book, and that made it even more moving for me.

44. To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal (24/05/2012)

Thanks to judylou's review for inspiring me to read this.

This is the story of Judith, who’s now 44, with a teenage daughter. She made a safe, almost strategic marriage to Malcolm, an up and coming Stanford student, but still thinks occasionally of Willy Blunt, with whom she spent her last summer in Nebraska with when she was 17.

I quite enjoyed Judith’s narrative voice. Her job as a film editor gives her an interesting perspective on life’s ‘ifs’, ‘buts’ and ‘maybes’:

“There were times when Judith wondered if this explained her inclination to edit – how in film, unlike real life, you could always go back, and by deleting this and adding that, you could change the tone, change the outcome, change even the consequences. If such an act could be performed in real life – she had often thought this – how many crimes of passion might go undone, how many marriages might be saved.”
(pp. 83-84)

I’m not sure that the ending was what I expected, or what I wanted it to be, but upon reflection I think it was perhaps what it had to be …

So pleased that you liked it. I was also surprised by the ending, but I think if it had a happy ever after ending, it would have been a real let down.

I just got caught up on your reviews - you're doing a lot of great reading, and now I have a pile of new to-read books on my wishlist.

45. Naked Heat by Richard Castle (29/05/2012)

Although I enjoy this tv series (and its characters) for light and fluffy viewing, and there are some laughs in this book because of this context, overall I found it hard going and sometimes even tedious. I’m not usually a fan of crime fiction, but even if I were, I imagine there would be other books out there with mysteries more engaging, gripping, and to my taste.

46. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (01/06/2012)

I've been enticed by the idea of this variant of Groundhog Day set in a high school ever since I read about its premise, and it didn't disappoint. Sam is 18. She wakes up on a day that seems like any other, and does all the normal things: gets a lift to school, is surprised by a pop quiz, cuts classes, and goes to a party. The night ends with a car accident. The next thing Sam remembers is waking up to relive the exact same day over again. With each repetition, Sam's perspective on many of the things she had unquestioningly accepted about high school changes slightly. Sam is one of the 'popular' kids, and she initially takes this for granted, but it's interesting realising gradually how much she has sacrificed in the interests of maintaining this popularity. A thought provoking take on friendships, high school, life and death, being yourself, and living each day in accordance with your values ...

47. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (09/06/2012)

I’ve been meaning to read this for a while. I’d heard many good things about this story about the family of missionary Nathan Price, who accompany him to the Congo in the 1960s, and find there that things are not as simple as they thought. They are not the heroes of the piece. They’re not wiser or more knowledgeable than the people in the village where they’re living. And in the end, their coming will only mean tragedy for the village and for their own family, a replication on a small scale of the tragic consequences of white colonial arrogance and oppression that have played out throughout Africa. This was a sad, sad, sad book, which has lingered with me for a while, hence this lengthy review (with minor spoilers) …

I’m particularly interested in the role of Orleanna, Nathan’s wife, who sees herself as both oppressor and victim, conqueror and conquered. She confesses that they should never have been in the Congo, and yet, she says was only there because she was unable to stand up to Nathan. In many ways she feels to blame for what unfolds, while in other ways she likens herself to the Congo, suggesting that the tread of the oppressor’s boot can be read on her back also.

I was disappointed initially at how much of a caricature Nathan seemed. I felt that I would have found the story more powerful had I sympathized with him or his motivations to at least a small extent. His behavior to his wife and daughters made him totally unsympathetic to me, and I had expected to feel at least some ambiguity about his role, that would reveal my own prejudices and stereotypes and challenge them more disconcertingly later on.
However, I think my desire for moral ambiguity was satisfied in the end through the roles of Leah and Orleanna – neither of whom are entirely free for blame for what unfolds, but with whom I sympathized more. And the way that Nathan was drawn, and in particular the way he treats Orleanna and his daughters, in some ways made Orleanna a much more interesting character, as I've alluded to above.

Leah’s position in particular is interesting, because it's partly her desire not to be restricted in what she can do because she's a woman that leads her to disturb the ‘natural order’ in the village, which has tragic results. But should she allow herself to be oppressed as a woman, because she doesn’t want to be a cultural imperialist? Rachel's reactions are particularly interesting, as well, because they're so unlike mine and yet seemed a plausible response. I very much liked the way Kingsolver told this story alternately, through the voices of Nathan's wife and each of his four daugthers, so that we could see how each of them reacted to events as they unfolded.

I was interested in Orleanna’s comments at the beginning of the novel about the way in which people turn a blind eye to things that should prick their consciences – denying knowledge, denying responsibility, and assuming – as we all do – that they are the centre of the world. This is one of Anatole’s criticisms of Leah at one stage later on in the book as well, and is an interesting variation on a theme that's come up a lot in my reading this year.

Lots of very illuminative metaphors and telling depictions of contrasting world views colliding - a powerful and thought-provoking read.

48. The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway (17/06/2012)

Thanks are due, I think, to judylou and clfisha for putting this book on my radar.

Put together ninjas and pirates and apocalypses in one book and you’ve got my attention. This particular apocalypse involves a weapon that causes tears in the very fabric of reality, so needless to say the book starts strange and gets stranger. But add a cynical but biting approach to bureaucracies and their capacity for inhumanity, and some great one liners and interesting plot twists, and this book has much to recommend it. It reminded me of Jasper Fforde in some ways. At times I think the length made it a little hard going, but overall it was an original and mostly enjoyable story I’m glad to have read.

49. Incarnate by Jodi Meadows (20/06/2012)

This is a story (I assume the first installment of a series) about Ana, a ‘new soul’ or ‘no soul’. In a world where everybody else has been reincarnated many times, Ana is the only person who has no memory of a previous life. Everybody was expecting her to be Ciana, but Ciana has not been reborn, and people seem to hold that against Ana. What would it mean for us if we could be confident that we could be reborn time and time again? To live multiple lives, and do a range of different things, but benefit each time from over 3000 years of accumulated experience and wisdom? Which bits of our identities would be consistent when reborn in a different body, and which might change? How might we develop over time? Would this gradually cause societies to stagnate, if people felt that they had seen and done it all before, and lacked new and unfamiliar situations to test themselves against? And how would we view someone like Ana, a ‘new soul’ with no prior experience, encountering everything for the first time, learning from these experiences, and growing and maturing? How would Ana understand her situation, and how would she relate to people with such drastically different levels of experience and ways of relating to each other? This was a great premise, but I was disappointed by the execution. While the book did raise interesting questions like these for me, I would have liked a more sophisticated exploration of some of these issues, and/or a plot that pulled me in a little more.

I am glad you enjoyed The Gone-Away World!

Shame Incarnate didn't quite pull it off, sounds an intriguing premise.

Thanks clfisha. Yes - it had so much potential and I just thought she could have done so much more with it ...

50. Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold (27/06/2012)

Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favourite authors, and I particularly like her Vorkosigan books. In Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, she takes a supporting character from this series, Captain Ivan Vorpatril, and gives him his own book. Ivan’s the cousin of ambitious, energetic and highly achieving Miles Vorkosigan. He’s relatively high up on the list of heirs to the Barrayaran imperial throne, and he seems to aspire to a comfortable level of mediocrity as a way of trying to avoid any political games that people might want to drag him into. But he gets dragged into yet another adventure of his own when asked to protect Tej, told nothing more than the fact that she is an attractive young woman who seems to be in danger. This doesn't have the depth of Memory, Mirror Dance, and Komarr in particular, but was still very enjoyable. A cute, charming, and fun read.

51. Zenith by Julie Bertagna (29/06/2012)

I really enjoyed Exodus, the first book in this series about a world where the ice caps have melted, much of the world has been flooded, and refugees seek safety and shelter as best that they can, while the wealthy live in amazing ‘sky cities’. I was more disappointed by this second book in which Mara leads a band of refugees north; Fox stays behind under the sky city, hoping to change the world in which he once lived; and we encounter Tuck, who lives in a flotilla of boats and has rarely if ever set foot on land. Some of the details are interesting, but I wasn’t captivated by the plot to anywhere near the same extent as I was with the first book. I suppose like any trilogy judgment needs to wait until after the third and final book, but I thought it didn't have the depth (or novelty) of the first book and wasn't as gripping plot-wise.

52. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (03/07/2012)

I really enjoyed the first 9/10ths of this book. It begins with Tony’s recollections of the time he, Alex, Colin and Adrian spent together in high school. Even while recounting his memories of school, Tony, our narrator, questions the extent to which they are a true and comprehensive account of what happened, or just the anecdotes that solidified into memories by being told so often. Tony’s memories of some of the conversations in their history class about the nature of history and the reliability of subjective accounts further foreshadow some of the themes of the novel about memory and subjectivity. So far, so good. I’m drawn in, I’m interested in the themes, and I like the narrative voice, and the take we’re offered on British middle class youth in the 1960s. I generally like a book that sparks conversations on the internet about the significance of this or that exchange or gesture, in the light of later revelations. But I wasn’t happy with the ending here – it came too quickly, it felt too flat, and I found it difficult and anti-climactic working out what it had all been about. I might have felt differently about it on a different day, or in a different mood, but today it just didn’t quite work for me. Which was a shame, when I felt so positively about the rest of the book.

53. The People Smuggler by Robin de Crespigny (08/07/2012)

The People Smuggler tells the story of Ali Al Jenabi – notorious in Australia as a ‘people smuggler’, but from another perspective, lauded as a contemporary Oskar Schindler. This book takes the second perspective, telling Ali’s story in his own words. It’s possible there are more shades of grey in this story than are acknowledged in the book, but it’s nevertheless a very powerful account that raises a number of important issues.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to grow up in Saddam’s Iraq, like Ali did, in a country where inadvertently repeating something you’d heard at home at the age of 10 could cause your father to be imprisoned and tortured, and leave you in the role of father to your siblings. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be imprisoned and tortured yourself, and to know – and sometimes even witness – the same thing was happening to friends and family. I can’t imagine worrying every time there was a knock on the door or movement outside your house that it was the secret police come to take you and your family away.

I doubt that I would have had the strength and will power that Ali had, after living through all of that, to join the resistance – knowing the likely outcomes – and then, when his role became known, escape from Iraq, and try to bring as many of his family as he possibly could out to safety.

I very much doubt that I would have maintained the compassion and empathy for other refugees that Ali did, seeing them not as pawns that he could exploit to benefit himself and his family, but people not unlike himself in a desperate situation who he wanted to help as much as possible.

There were several very telling anecdotes and comments in this book:

1. The fact that Ali and his family had applied for refugee status to the Australian embassy in Iran and been refused, despite the obvious risks to their safety had they stayed in Iraq. The government accused Ali and people smuggling of facilitating ‘queue jumping’, but was apparently unable to prove this in court to the satisfaction of the judge who conducted Ali’s trial, and it has always seemed to me like a ridiculous metaphor to use when someone is fleeing for their life.

2. The very sad plight of Intisar, who the Australian government were unable or unwilling to help.

3. Ali’s very sobering comment that the hopelessness and despair he experienced in immigration detention were not unlike the way he felt when imprisoned in Abu Graib.

4. The way in which borders and controls on movement can be perceived – quite rightly – as arbitrary and unjust by those who accident of birth alone has denied the right to move around as freely as those of us lucky enough to be born somewhere like Australia.

5. A very poignant moment when Ali is treated in hospital by a doctor who he helped smuggle out of Iraq, who has now made a new life for himself in Australia.

While the story is uplifting because of the way in which Ali maintains his humanity in a situation where it would be all too easy to look out for his own interests, and achieves a lot for other people, it’s also incredibly depressing because of the way it highlights injustice, oppression, and what I would call monumental governmental failures of empathy and compassion.

54. 11.22.63 by Stephen King (20/07/2012)

I’ve been reading this book for probably over a month. I’d heard mixed reviews before I started, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s pitched as the story of Jake Epping’s attempt to travel back in time to prevent the Kennedy assassination. I’ve always liked a good time travel story, so this caught my attention. But in reality this was something quite different, but still quite enjoyable and engrossing. We get a lot of detail about Jake’s years in the past that touches only peripherally on the Kennedy plot, and I think I found myself simply getting caught up in the story and enjoying the ride. King’s classic sense of foreboding pervades this novel. I knew we were building up to something, I wasn’t quite sure what, and I wanted to know where King was going to go with the Kennedy assassination. (Was Oswald really acting alone? Could Jake stop the assassination? What would happen if he did? How might history have been different?) I liked this part of the novel, but I also liked the way that right through the story King painted examples of both the best and the worst of things that ordinary fallible human beings are capable of doing. Yes, Kennedy’s death was a tragedy, but is a traffic accident that kills a promising young student and leaves another scarred and disfigured any less of a tragedy for the individuals and the community concerned? The fabric of ordinary everyday life is full of injustices and tragedies which we wish to undo. 11.12.63 made me ponder about all of these things. It made me wonder about how much of a ripple effect undoing any one of these incidents might cause, about how apparently unrelated things are connected, and about how tragedies might have positive consequences but are still tragedies. So I enjoyed this book, even though it wasn’t necessarily what I expected. And it left me wanting to revisit Replay, another book which touched peripherally on similar questions about the Kennedy assassination, and a favourite of my teenage years.

55. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (21/07/2012)

I said recently that I didn’t want to read any more books about teenagers with cancer. I was wrong. Although I did cry my way through three quarters of this book, I was really captivated by this story of Hazel and Augustus (Gus), and loved the way they leaped off the pages of this book and into my heart.

Hazel introduces herself to her support group at the beginning as “Hazel. Sixteen. Thyroid originally but with an impressive and long-settled satellite colony in my lungs. And I’m doing okay.” Gus, according to Hazel, shoots “existentially fraught” free throws in basketball, and I think I loved both he and Hazel as characters, and their narrative voices, from this point early on in the book.

She and Gus are conscious of the popular tropes about teenage cancer patients, and their story feels desperately sad, irreverent and authentic. One of the saddest things about the book for me was the isolation Hazel reported experiencing, the way in which her relationships with her friends changed, and how painful it was for her to watch her parents’ reactions to her illness.

In some ways these teenagers reminded me of the characters in John Marsden’s books (Tomorrow When the War Began and its sequels). They’re thoughtful and honest and articulate and thinking about life’s big questions, and that made for gripping reading for me. This isn’t a book that I would recommend to everyone, because of the subject matter, and how hard it hits home, but it’s a book with characters I really enjoyed spending some time with, despite the sadness of their story …

Enjoying your reviews!

I don't know where I've been all year. I'm a big fan of the early Honor Harrrington and Bujold and The Night Circus and The Book of Lost Things has been sitting in my tbr pile for over a year. Also enjoying your reviews.

Thanks judylou and ronincats.

Have been reading a lot but not reviewing over the last few months due to a combination of workload, moving house, and embarking upon further study, but now it's time to start catching up!

56. Made to be Broken by Kelley Armstrong (25/07/2012)

I enjoyed Exit Strategy, the first in this series about Nadia Stafford, a former policewoman turned contract killer, but only so long as the jobs she's paid to do fit within her own principles. I suppose the fun was in the little details, like the professional courtesies between characters who were thrust together, but had a vested interest in their real identities remaining hidden; and the interactions between characters whose safety depends on maintaining a certain degree of professional paranoia.

I didn't enjoy this book nearly as much. It's about Nadia's investigation of the disappearance of a young unwed mother and her baby from her small town community. The lack of concern from locals about the disappearance and ongoing investigation trigger some traumatic memories from Nadia's own past. But I wasn't really a fan of the mystery element to the story.

I almost never complain about characters who vocalise their self-doubts (and indeed, I often quite like them), but Nadia’s constant feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt started to grate on me for some reason, and the relationship arc of the novel felt depressingly bland and predictable. Not as enjoyable as I had hoped.

57. Divergent by Veronica Roth (28/07/2012)

Normally, I read young adult novels because I’m enthralled by their premise, and end up being disappointed by the execution. My experience with Divergent was the opposite.

When I first heard about the book, I thought the premise was overly simplistic and bland. Basically, there has been some sort of apocalypse, and the world has changed in the aftermath, so that instead of people forming groups based on nationality or race or religion, they now form groups based on personality traits. In their 16th year, people choose which group they wish to join – Candor for those who most value honesty; Erudite for those who most value intelligence; Abnegation for those who most value selflessness; Amity for those who most value agreeableness; and Dauntless for those who most value courage. Beatrice doesn’t know if she is selfless enough to join her parents in Abnegation, but doesn’t know if she is courageous enough to break away and join Dauntless. This is her story – the story of the choice she makes, and the experiences she has as she progresses through the initiation process in her chosen faction.

The story itself may be simplistic, but Beatrice felt quite real and interesting to me, and I enjoyed this more than I anticipated.

58. The Void by Brent J Talley (30/07/2012)

An Early Reviewers book, which initially seemed to have potential. Although the premise felt familiar, I quite enjoyed the setup. I’m partial to a story that involves terror that is partly psychological. So I was looking forward to reading a book based on the idea that humanity had attained the ability to travel through space only at the cost of the terrifying dreams associated with such travel, and the idea that these nightmares were different for each individual, manifestations of their underlying fears. Those who seek careers involving space travel are screened for their psychological suitability to tolerate the dreams, but nevertheless, every now and then people succumb to insanity.

The way the story unfolded felt predictable, and I was disappointed in the resolution. But the ideas were interesting - and I would have enjoyed further exploring some of the elements of the set-up and world-building (e.g., the way in which people did or didn’t discuss these dreams, and the way in which people were selected, trained and monitored for positions involving interstellar travel in these circumstances).

59. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (07/08/2012)

I enjoyed this re-read, having forgotten many of the funniest bits. It’s interesting re-reading this so long after its original publication. I would have loved to have heard these in their original format as radio plays, when they first came out, and were new and fresh. Now, I’m still awed by the extent to which this has influenced popular culture, and amused by much of the book, but also wondering if it’s fair to say that it feels perhaps a little dated now?

60. Feed by Mira Grant (09/08/2012)

A zombie novel far better than almost any of the zombie novels I have read so far. I'm not normally a huge fan of zombies, but devoured this offering (first in a trilogy) by Mira Grant, another Library Thing discovery.

Yes, this is about a zombie outbreak but it's not about the outbreak as such. And although they’re an ever present danger, in some ways even the zombie threat is somewhat peripheral to the real story. The actual rising of the dead is treated as yesterday’s news. Instead, the story is set 20 years afterwards, in a world where zombies are simply accepted as a fact of life.

Grant paints an interesting picture of the social changes that could be brought about by such an event, mixing fantasy and realism in a way that I really enjoyed. The story is told through the eyes of Georgia, Shaun, and other young bloggers following a presidential campaign, and it's also about journalism, and politics, and conspiracies. At one point, I found myself describing this as a combination between apocalyptic zombie novel, political thriller, and the West Wing, but there’s more to it than that.

Interesting characters, well narrated, a gripping story, and a surprisingly enjoyable read. This is the first book in a trilogy and I’m eager for the next installment.

61. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (12/08/2012)

This reminded me, in a way, of The Book of Lost Things. It paints a moving picture of 12 year old Conor, whose mother is ill with cancer. One night, a monster comes to Conor's window, offering or threatening to tell him three stories, after which, he says, Conor will tell his own truth. It’s a good, solid, sad book, with an interesting message about life’s ambiguity – and how the things we think can simultaneously be true and yet not true, or at least not the whole truth. And yet it didn’t make as much of an impression as I had been anticipating.

62. Broken Vessels by Lucie Ulrich (14/08/2012)

This early reviewer's novel is about two childhood friends who reconnect after traumatic experiences, and try to resume their friendship, aware that they are each vulnerable, but reluctant to reveal the depths of their pain to each other. Luke has lost his wife and children in an accident caused by a drunk driver, while Emma won't talk about whatever it is that has driven her back to the country, scarred both literally and metaphorically.

I didn't realise from the description on the Early Reviewers page that this was a Christian book. However, I like reading books with a diverse range of characters - and religion is such an important dimension of life that it's nice seeing that reflected in some of the books that I read. I particularly liked the way the author didn’t make things easy for the characters – they did struggle with their faith, and experienced very real doubts, and conflicts in their relationships that good intentions weren’t enough to mend. I enjoyed that a lot, and this was relatively easy to read, but some of the conflicts seemed a little over the top, and aspects of the book's handling of abortion did sit rather uncomfortably with me.

And yet it didn’t make as much of an impression as I had been anticipating.

I agree. The story was good, but it left me a bit unimpressed for some reason.

61/84 Did you get the copy with the artwork? I have seen it sold without and I think that's a real shame as I thought it was lovely.

80 I haven't read it for a while but I imagine it is dated now. I love the radio play more, in fact I own a book of the scripts which I enjoy reading :)

Interesting that you felt the same, Judylou. On paper it was exactly my kind of book, so I was wondering if I just read it on an off day.

And yes, clfisha, I did get the copy with the artwork - after specifically requesting it via my public library, who initially only had the audiobook. I didn't want to miss out on the pictures - which were definitely worth requesting.

63. Black Dog Daze by Andrew Robb (19/08/2012)

Interesting memoir written by an Australian politician who announced in 2009 that he was experiencing depression and was stepping down from the front benches while seeking treatment. A brave book, and interesting to read something from someone I found I could admire although he came from a different end of the political spectrum.

64. Insurgent by Veronica Roth (24/08/2012)

I enjoyed this sequel to Divergent, which continues the story of Beatrice (Tris), who now finds herself in the midst of a conflict between factions. This elaborated on her world in interesting ways, and I now eagerly await the third book in the series.

65. Matched by Ally Condie (25/08/2012)

Cassia lives in a society where meals are planned, prepared and delivered individually based on your nutritional requirements, recreation is highly structured, and algorithms calculate the job and the partner best suited to you. Her life has never looked brighter than it does when she learns at the long awaited matching ceremony that she has been matched to her childhood friend Xander. But then the computer shows her a glimpse of an unfamiliar face instead of Xander's.

Watching Cassia gradually come to question everything she has been taught about her society was an interesting process. I particularly liked her initial reluctance to criticise any aspect of her society, and the way in which this eroded over the course of the novel.

I was preparing to look for a house and flatmates while reading this novel, and I must confess, the idea of an algorithm to calculate all possibilities and determine the optimal outcome without my having to do all the hard slog briefly did appeal to me. Cassia's world never really felt like a utopia to me, but the novel raised interesting questions about choice and decision making, and the needs of the one versus the needs of the many, and painted a picture of really creepy society ...

66. Deadline by Mira Grant (02/09/2012)

It's really difficult to review books that form part of a trilogy and particularly difficult to do so without spoilers. So I'm just going to say that I really enjoyed this second book in the Newsflesh trilogy. Very readable and enjoyable, with characters that I loved, some great twists and turns and some interesting questions (as other reviewers have highlighted) around freedom of information and how much information governments should make available to their citizens ...

67. Blackout by Mira Grant (04/09/2012)

I devoured this trilogy. Again, this book was very readable and enjoyable, with characters that I loved and some great twists and turns. I was a little worn out by all the action by the end of the story and I'm not sure I was entirely satisfied with the resolution. But these are minor quibbles and the ride was very worthwhile ...

68. San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats by Mira Grant (05/09/2012)

A standalone story from the Newsflesh universe that takes place during Comic Con San Diego in 2014, the year of the zombie outbreak. Rumours of some unusual flu have been surfacing sporadically in the media, but there's nothing to warn the Browncoats - Firefly Fans - of what awaits them at this year's Comic Con - a zombie outbreak inside the exhibition hall. It's an okay read, but probably works better if read after the trilogy itself ...

69. Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn (06/09/2012)

I have been wanting to read this ever since I read reviews of its premise on Library Thing, but haven't had any luck at any of the public libraries I've consulted. So I finally gave in and bought the kindle version. And it was well worth waiting for ...

The story is set on a fictitious island, whose most famous citizen is Nevin Nollop, supposedly the creator of the well-known sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", which contains every letter of the alphabet at least once. There's a statue to his memory on the island, where this sentence is proudly inscribed. When tiles from the quote on the memorial start falling, however, the island's government takes this as a message from beyond the grave, and the island's citizens are forbidden to use the relevant letter(s) in either written or spoken language.

The story is not bad as an analogy for might happen with a totalitarian regime, where a ban of the use of the letter z in communication seems foolish and a minor irritation, and then things escalate out of control so quickly that it's impossible to mobilise public opinion until it seems like it's too late.

It's also a celebration of the power of language and communication, and the importance and joy of being able to use the most appropriate word for any given circumstances ...

Very much enjoyed.

70. Remake by Connie Willis (08/09/2012)

A clever short work satirising Hollywood, postulating a future where the only new movies are remakes, digitally manipulated, combining existing footage in different ways. Tom can digitise anything you might possibly request (amusingly, his current project is removing all references to addictive substances from a long sequence of movies). Alis, however, wants to really dance in the movies. A clever premise, but I wasn't quite as drawn into the story as I had expected - and hoped - to be.

Next up, two more books with main characters called Alice that made me cry. That makes four this year. Both were relatively light and easy reads, although they tackled serious subjects.

71. Instructions for Bringing Up Scarlett by Annie Sanders (09/09/2012)
Alice becomes the legal guardian of her best friend's daughter, Scarlett, when the girl's parents are killed in a car crash. It was interesting seeing how she related to the girl and her grandparents, and an ok read at the time, but ultimately this was somewhat predictable and forgettable.

72. Putting Alice Back Together by Carol Marinelli (11/09/2012)
Alice seems from the outside to have it all. But she has a secret, and it's eating away at her. She finds herself in the hospital after an anxiety attack, trying to convince her friends that it's just a nut allergy. But it's more than that. It's interesting seeing how Alice tries to put herself back together in the context of a family and a friendship group where hers isn't the only secret, and it's interesting seeing how people react to the changes she tries to make in her life.

73. Delirium by Lauren Oliver (21/09/2012)

An interesting idea about a world where love is seen as a disease with symptoms varying from mania to depression and suicidal ideation, and a 'cure' is administered around the age of 18, after which emotions never seem to be felt with the same intensity. I quite enjoyed this. Lena's journey paralleled to an extent the journey of Cassia in Matched, who in her teenage years gradually comes to question everything she has been taught about society. I particularly liked the reluctance both of these young women initially displayed to any criticisms of their society, and the way in which this eroded over the course of the novel. Overall, however, I probably had a slight preference for Matched, perhaps because the questions it raised resonated more deeply with me ...

I agree with criticisms of Delirium that question its plausibility, but in some ways that didn't bother me as much as it could have. I suppose I'm happy to accept a given scenario as a starting point, almost like a thought exercise, so long as the setting and/or story are sufficiently interesting ...

74. Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver (24/09/2012)

I loved Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall, and quite enjoyed Delirium, above. However, I did not enjoy its sequel Pandemonium nearly so much. There was perhaps just a bit too much action for my taste, and not enough exploration of what could have been interesting and meaty questions raised by the situations in which Lena finds herself. Ultimately, it ended up feeling a little predictable, and felt somewhat superficial and lacking after the richness and complexity I found in Oliver's other books.

75. The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt (14/10/2012)

This is one of those books that's difficult to review because intellectually I can't help but acknowledge that this was a very clever, rich, dense and amazing story that I admire immensely, and yet emotionally I didn't feel as drawn into the story as I would have wished to be ...

It was not at all what I was expecting. The third person omniscient narrative voice felt somewhat unusual, and gave a strange detachment to the story, and my opinions fluctuated quite a bit as I read ...

The story begins at the V&A Museum in 1895, when it was still the South Kensington Museum. An "authoress of magical tales", Olive Wellwood, is visiting the Special Keeper of Precious Metals at the museum, Prosper Cain, looking for an artifact appropriate to the next story the plans to write.

Gradually, we are introduced to their friends, families, and children and we watch them grow into adulthood as WWI approaches.

The detailed portrayal of the Victorian setting is fascinating, the myth of the 'innocence of childhood' questioned, the impact that parents (and their secrets) can have on their children is explored, and there is a fascinating interplay between the fairy tales a mother writes for (or of) her children and the lives that they lead ...

Ultimately, I'm glad I read this.

This is one of those books that's difficult to review because intellectually I can't help but acknowledge that this was a very clever, rich, dense and amazing story that I admire immensely, and yet emotionally I didn't feel as drawn into the story as I would have wished to be .

Yes, this! Exactly right.

76 A Short History of the World by Christopher Lascelles (25/10/2012)

This (another early reviewers book) is exactly what it claims to be - a short, very readable, history of the world, which I quite enjoyed and can imagine myself continuing to use as a basic reference work for general information. The frequent maps are a much welcome inclusion. I was less enamored with the idea of footnotes in an e-book and would personally have preferred that they were either incorporated into the text or omitted altogether. Obviously, readers looking for more than broad brushstrokes will need to consult other sources. The final chapter asking 'what's next?' was an interesting inclusion, whether you agree or disagree, it's interesting trying to look at the contemporary world through a historical gaze ...

>95 seekingflight: - Agree also! I did love this story and the writing is brilliant, but I couldn't help wishing there was a bit more editing while reading it.

Oh no, I disagree! I did love The Children's Book completely. I thought it was fascinating from start to finish.

Oh well, imagine how boring the world would be if we all liked the same things!

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I want to wish you a glorious celebration of that time of year when we all try to unite around a desire for Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward All. Merry Christmas!

And to you . .