Han, in London

 I decided a while ago that I would start putting up short reviews of all the books I read, partly so I could actually remember them. I decided to start from the beginning of 2015 and have been piling books up on the sofa for the last six weeks, well done me. 

So, in no particular order:

Gentlemen of the Road - Michael Chabon I really liked this book about two Jewish adventurers who get involved in a rebellion - it was written in a very engaging style, it was funny and I like the adventuring of the main characters. It was pretty short, which was a shame - I could happily have spent more time with the characters. Very Musketeers-y (shut up, that is totally a word). 

Dream London - Tony Ballantyne I made it a grand total of one chapter into this book. It was London-based urban fantasy, which is basically my very favourite genre, but it was so bad. The main character referred to himself in the third person, loads of women want to shag him and men want to be like him, everyone spoke in a weird pseudo-Victorian style for no reason I could see, apart from the main character's ex women were mentioned as whores. Somehow I carried on after that (shouldn't have done) and then a really weird gay character turned up who was an incredibly camp cliche who for some reason kept speaking in alliteration.  Oh and he wanted to shag the main character, of course. 

I have no idea what the London part of the plot was, save that London is changing in some mysterious way. It wasn't well set up and I couldn't dredge up any interest in ploughing on through the stereotypes and the Gary Stu. 

Alex + Ada Volume 1 - Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn This was a graphic novel I really liked. Alex is lonely in the future and his grandmother buys him an android, and the story develops from there. I read the Luna Brothers' Girls years ago and really liked the art style, and this is the same kind of thing. I loved the atmosphere and world building of this and definitely want to keep going with the series.

Room - Emma Donoughue This is our latest book club choice, and it was the one book on the list I didn't want to read, but the popular vote decided it, so I got it out of the library and DAMN it is readable. I mean, DAMN. The main character lives with her son in one room, where they're being kept by the man who kidnapped her seven years ago. It's pretty upsetting - not least because there are multiple cases of this situation in the real world - but the mother character is really strong. I think I got through the book in about two hours. And I could tell I was being emotionally manipulated but I almost didn't care (almost). I don't know, I really liked this book, heartwrenching as it is. Looking forward to the book club!

A Child's Book Of True Crime - Chloe Hooper I have forgotten how this book - about a teacher having an affair with one of her pupils' fathers - ends. I seem to remember losing sympathy for pretty much everyone involved over the course of the book, including minor characters. There was a device of a book within a book, a reimagining of a local murder told for children that didn't quite work (even within book world it wasn't a real book, and this is getting confusing), and I just don't think anyone was as interesting as the author thought they were. 

The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood This book is a brick and I do most of my reading in the bath these days so this took me an absolute age to get through. I enjoyed the story of the Chase sisters but I'm not sure my interest stayed consistent all the way through. It was very well done, and I loved the newspaper articles and the way that the perception of the girls' lives were shown versus the reality. 

So we have a book club at work, which has had some *cough* variable results (anti-rec: The Husband's Secret, AVOID) and the last meeting was to discuss Ben Okri's The Famished Road, which I found dense and monotone and which I could not finish (ditto most of the group).

By contrast, I read the latest book - Slated by Teri Terry - in about two hours flat. I was going to make a list of the things I like versus the things I didn't, but really I basically loved all of it. So here's a very positive review, hurrah!

( Cut for plot spoilers )

Hello, all. Hope you are doing okay.

I have been sucked down a hole of Olympics excitement. Suddenly I am bothered about sports, pretending I know wtf is going, and enjoying the Gymnastics particularly . I also have Paralympics tickets, so woo hoo!

I am writing and working on a few of the wips, and I hope to finish and post at least 5 fics before the end of August (I am going away week after next so intending to police the almost-complete ones then).

My digital camera has finally died (it could have been fixed but it was too expensive). I have been trying to remember when I got it, and suspect it may have been around the time Dad & Lesley got married, which would make it 7 - 9 years old. Whatever the actual figure is, it served me well and was very well behaved. It was a Sony, and believe me when I say I am actually quite upset I can’t get a new Sony. Still, I am going to (hopefully) buy my new one this afternoon.

I apologise in advance for the photo spam that will appear.

Recently I have read the following books:

Dead to Me by Cath Staincliffe – Scott and Bailey prequel
This is essentially a rehash of my Luther: The Calling non-spoilery review, but OH MY GOD, if you are a Scott and Bailey fan, read this book. It is everything you could ever want from Scott and Bailey fic: perfect voices, interesting plot, and so much backstory omg.

Seriously. Read it.

Zone One by Colson Whitehead
The tagline for this was ‘a zombie novel with brains’, which initially made me expect a book where the zombies were intelligent and organised. That’s not really what it’s about, and tbh if you’re going to use that as your tagline then you should make sure there are some brains in it one way or the other. And this is a pointless tiny niggle because that’s not why I picked it up. ANYWAY.

The Zone One in this is in New York City, and it takes place after the zombie invasion and in the clearout. There’s some interesting themes running through the book, identity and how people recover from trauma etc. One of the things I found interesting was how people seemed to pick nicknames up as real names, but didn’t really take advantage of having a clean slate to just go off and do whatever they wanted etc. There’s also some intriguing stuff about branding and sponsorship in the new era.
I don’t know if the author’s planned more books in the series (other cities and camps are mentioned) but I’d be interested in reading them.

Britten and Brülightly by Hannah Berry
This is an odd one. It’s a graphic novel with an interesting art style, and the main character – Britten – is a detective.

His sidekick – Brülightly – is a teabag.

To be honest, I found this tricky to get past. Britten only spoke to Brülightly once in the presence of other people, so I couldn’t work out if Britten had had some psychotic break in the past and really thought he was talking to a teabag, or if this was the type of world where teabags can talk.

Still, it’s a pretty interesting art style and a little noir mystery, and it was the author’s first graphic novel, so I will probably look out for their other stuff.

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
I have been waiting to read this for aaaaaaages. I have read extracts and the first chapter on Kindle, but I hadn’t got the whole thing.
It is mostly excellent. Funny, clever, honest, chatty. I was annoyed at the parts where Moran says that women just haven’t made the contributions to the world that men have (massively paraphrasing). I understand the point she is getting at, but the problem is not that women weren’t involved in things in the past, it’s that by and large their contributions were ignored at the time and have continued to be ignored. You can find intelligent, amazing, inspirational women throughout history. You just have to look.

Still, that aside, it’s a really good read.