Feb 23
The High Mountains of Portugal was released this month. It also happens to be one of the books on our march madness brackets. If you haven’t had a chance to vote in our march book madness survey, help us out and vote here. Here’s what I thought of the book. Read more
Feb 10
Yuki Chan in Brontë Country by Mick Jackson
Published in: January 2016
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★
Find it here: Yuki Chan in Brontë Country
This ARC was provided by Faber & Faber Ltd (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis from Goodreads: “They both stop and stare for a moment. Yuki feels she’s spent about half her adult life thinking about snow, but when it starts, even now, it always arresting, bewildering. Each snowflake skating along some invisible plane. Always circuitous, as if looking for the best place to land . . .”
Yukiko tragically lost her mother ten years ago. After visiting her sister in London, she goes on the run, and heads for Haworth, West Yorkshire, the last place her mother visited before her death. Against a cold, winter, Yorkshire landscape, Yuki has to tackle the mystery of her mother’s death, her burgeoning friendship with a local girl, the allure of the Brontës and her own sister’s wrath. Both a pilgrimage and an investigation into family secrets, Yuki’s journey is the one she always knew she’d have to make, and one of the most charming and haunting in recent fiction.
Book Worm’s Thoughts: Yuki is a young Japanese woman who has come to England to try and reconnect with her late mother by following in her footsteps. All Yuki has to guide her is a set of photographs showing various views in Haworth (Bronte country). Yuki believes her mother visited Haworth because of her enjoyment of the Bronte’s works, however when she meets people who remember her mother’s visit, it turns out her reason being in Haworth is very different and may even provide a clue to her tragic death.
As a character I liked Yuki, she is a young woman struggling to find her place and come to terms with the loss of her mother. You might expect this to make her serious and dull but Yuki is entertaining and funny. I really enjoyed her irreverent descriptions of the Bronte tour and the kind of people on the tour with her as well as her wry observations about the British tourist industry.
There is a serious side to Yuki and this is shown by her need to explore things scientifically. There is a detailed section on snow and the varieties of snow flakes and how they may be produced in controlled conditions. Despite her in-depth knowledge about Snow Yuki is still young at heart enough to appreciate the magic of falling snow (so am I) and this allowed me as a reader to connect with her.
The ending is ambiguous and usually I would hate that (I like things all tied up neatly preferably with a big red bow and a reassuring “The End”), however in this case the ambiguity didn’t bother me because it allowed Yuki and the reader to draw their own conclusions and to choose from two versions of events.
Favourite quotes;
This one refers to an English hotel with shared bathroom facilities “The woman smiles and Yuki smiles right back, nodding madly. Perfect! Now I can brush my teeth while sitting on the lavatory”
“Your mother and I could see who you were right from the very beginning. You were right there, the moment we set eyes on you.”
Who would like this book? If you are looking for a book that revolves round the Brontes, this is not it (in this instance the title is misleading). However, if you like a story that involves an unconventional heroine, discovering family secrets, forming new friendships, and coming to terms with the past, then I think you will enjoy this.
Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: Yuki Chan in Brontë Country
We want to hear from you! Have you read this book? What did you think? Do you plan on reading it?
Feb 9
Jen and I have been making our way through our scavenger hunt challenge and we are working on a few new challenges for a little later in the year. You can read about our scavenger hunt challenge here. For those of you participating in the challenge, we’ve decided to move back the end of the challenge to March 31 to give you all a little extra time to read books. Some prizes will be handed out at that point but others will be handed out at the end of the year to someone who has completed all 31 items. We highly recommend that you try completing “hidden” prize items by the March 31st deadline since those will be awarded at that time. It’s not too difficult to figure out which items those might be if you read the clues.
And now on to my challenge progress… Read more
Feb 2
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye was my favorite read of January and my first 5-star read of 2016. Find out why and let us know what you thought of the book. Read more
Jan 26
Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom
Published in: 2015
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★
Find it here: Not If I See You First
This ARC was provided by Harper Collins UK (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis from Goodreads:
The Rules: Don’t deceive me. Ever. Especially using my blindness. Especially in public.
Don’t help me unless I ask. Otherwise you’re just getting in my way or bothering me.
Don’t be weird. Seriously, other than having my eyes closed all the time, I’m just like you only smarter.
Parker Grant doesn’t need 20/20 vision to see right through you. That’s why she created the Rules: Don’t treat her any differently just because she’s blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances. Just ask Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart.
When Scott suddenly reappears in her life after being gone for years, Parker knows there’s only one way to react—shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough on her mind already, like trying out for the track team (that’s right, her eyes don’t work but her legs still do), doling out tough-love advice to her painfully naive classmates, and giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn’t cried since her dad’s death three months ago. But avoiding her past quickly proves impossible, and the more Parker learns about what really happened—both with Scott, and her dad—the more she starts to question if things are always as they seem. Maybe, just maybe, some Rules are meant to be broken.
Combining a fiercely engaging voice with true heart, debut author Erid Lindstrom’s Not If I See You First illuminates those blind spots that we all have in life, whether visually impaired or not.
Book Worm’s Thoughts: I have given this book a solid 3 stars. It is a good read, but for me it lacked that extra something that makes a good read great.
Parker, the narrator, is blind and she makes it into her trademark rather than letting it hold her back. Being blind is both good and bad for Parker. On the one hand she can speak her mind without having to worry about what people think because she can’t see how they react. However the lack of visual information also puts a barrier between herself and others and allows her to live in an enclosed world. As Parker is not aware of the subtle visual clues that we all take for granted. She decides how to interpret everything she cannot see and sometimes her interpretation is entirely wrong — something she is just beginning to realize.
I enjoyed the dynamic between Parker and her friends and I liked seeing how things would work for her at school, especially how the school buddy system allowed her to maintain her independence. I really liked the section where she starts running track and the solutions for how to allow this to happen, and her method of shopping to avoid being ripped off. I also appreciated the fact that Parker could be and often was a bitch.
This is probably my favourite moment in the whole book as I could just visualize it and it would be hilarious;
“The show begins. For the next eleven hours it’s the Lord of the Rings trilogy with Descriptive Audio turned on. It’s hilarious. Listening to the narrator quickly and dispassionately give deadpan descriptions of Frodo’s weepy expressions, arrows penetrating eye sockets, Arwen’s soulful looks of immortal love and the decapitations of countless orcs have us roaring with laughter one moment and shushing each other the next”
So who would enjoy this book? This is a young adult book and I think the target audience will really enjoy it. Among those of us who left school several years ago it will appeal to readers who like a good tear jerker. It doesn’t meet the weepy standard set by The Fault in Our Stars but there were a few moments when I felt myself tearing up. It will also appeal to those who like strong female characters, friendships-focused books and romantics who love a happy ending.
Added Bonus – This fulfills my scavenger hunt item #21: a book with no images on the cover.
Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: Not If I See You First
We want to hear from you! Do you think this book is for you and do you plan to read it? Why or why not?
Jan 21
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Published: January 2016
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: 4 Stars
Find it here: My Name Is Lucy Barton
This ARC was provided by Penguin Books UK (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis from Goodreads; A new book by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout is cause for celebration. Her bestselling novels, including Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys, have illuminated our most tender relationships. Now, in My Name Is Lucy Barton, this extraordinary writer shows how a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all—the one between mother and daughter.
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.
Book Worm’s Review: This is a book about family relationships and how even when estranged for many years, family will be there when needed.
While in the hospital, Lucy is visited by her estranged mother, while Lucy wants definitive answers about her childhood, her mother is only prepared to reveal details about their life through stories about other people.
Lucy is a complicated character. She is trying to get her head around the idea that despite her childhood poverty she is lovable. While she questions if she can be loved, she has no problem with loving others. In fact, she loves most people she meets, including her doctor. She loves in all the different ways that love can be shown, and yes sometimes her declarations of “I love him” can get annoying.
Although Lucy is only in hospital for 9 weeks, those weeks have a profound impact on how she sees her past and ultimately how her future turns out. While these weeks bring her closer to her mother, her own relationship with her children suffers through her absence.
This is a first person narrative so its really important that you like the narrator and I had no problem liking Lucy. She is human. She bettered herself at the cost of her family relationships, but she still did it and succeeded. She is self-conscious. She has questions about her life, about what she thinks she remembers, and about her present and why things turn out the way they do.
Lucy is the reason I enjoyed this book. In some ways she reminded me of a Steinbeck character. Even when describing her impoverished childhood, Lucy doesn’t ask the reader to sympathize. She just tells you how it was.
I would recommend this to those who enjoy slow moving, subtle, character driven books.
Some of my favourite quotes;
“She was as beautiful as her face, I thought, and I loved New York for this gift of endless encounters.”
“But once in a while I see a child crying with the deepest of desperation, and I think it is one of the truest sounds a child can make. I feel almost, then, that I can hear within me the sound of my own heart breaking, the way you could hear outside in the open air- when the conditions were exactly right- the corn growing in the fields of my youth”
“I fell silently, absolutely, immediately in love with this man. I have no idea where he is, if he is still alive, but I still love this man”
“I stopped listening. It was the sound of my mother’s voice I most wanted; what she said didn’t matter”
“Both my parents loathed the act of crying, and it’s difficult for a child who is crying to stop, knowing if she doesn’t stop everything will be made worse. This is not an easy position for any child. And my mother-that night in the hospital room-was the mother I had all my life, no matter how different she seemed with her urgent quiet voice, her softer face. What I mean is I tried not to cry. In the dark I felt she was awake”
“Sarah Payne, the day she told us to go to the page without judgement, reminded us that we never knew, and never would know, what it would be like to understand another person fully”
“This is not the story of my marriage. I cannot tell that story: I cannot take hold of, or lay out for anyone, the many swamps and grasses and pockets of fresh air and dank air that have gone over us”
“But this is my story. This one. And my name is Lucy Barton”
As an added bonus this counts towards my scavenger hunt. It fits clue #31: read a book published during our challenge months.
Want to try it for yourself? You can purchase your copy here: My Name Is Lucy Barton
We want to hear from you! Have you read this book? Do you plan on reading it? What do you think of Elizabeth Strout’s books?
Dec 30
So we have done our top 10 best books of 2015 and I (Book Worm) felt it was then only fair to share our worst books of 2015. See which books made our list of worst books we read in 2015. Read more
Dec 29
This winter we are hosting a scavenger hunt reading challenge. You can read more about the challenge here. There is still plenty of time to join the fun! All you need to do is check out the clues on our winter challenge page, pick a book, and start reading. We will be awarding cool prizes for those of you who accomplish certain goals. Most prizes will be awarded Mid-march but additional prizes will be given to those who complete all items by end of year.
Having seen the other participants running away with their reading I thought it was time for me to get in the game. Luckily I was able to combine some of the clues with my current challenges. So here is my progress so far: Read more
Dec 23
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
First published in: 1850
Reviewed by: Book Worm & Jen
Find it/buy it here (free on kindle): The Scarlet Letter (Dover Thrift Editions)
Synopsis from Goodreads: Set in the harsh Puritan community of seventeenth-century Boston, this tale of an adulterous entanglement that results in an illegitimate birth reveals Nathaniel Hawthorne’s concerns with the tension between the public and the private selves. Publicly disgraced and ostracized, Hester Prynne draws on her inner strength and certainty of spirit to emerge as the first true heroine of American fiction. Arthur Dimmesdale, trapped by the rules of society, stands as a classic study of a self divided.
Book Worm’s Review:
★★★★
Set in a Puritan New England town in the 1640’s, this is the story of Hester Prynne, a woman who has committed adultery and bears a child. As punishment she is forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her clothing. While she lives with her punishment and her sin, she refuses to name the child’s father — something that she will eventually come to regret for his sake.
What I enjoyed about this book was the portrayal of how a religious community treats a sinner. By accepting her sin and punishment, Hester becomes separate but accepted by the people she lives with. I liked the way Hawthorne portrayed the different ways of living with guilt and these ways can affect the health of a person. The father is easy to guess, but his discovery is not the book’s primary concern. Instead, it is to show how father and mother dealt with their sin seperately and what it cost them both individually and as part of a close knit community.
A good read!
Jen’s Review:
★★★
I first read the Scarlet Letter in middle school and remember liking it quite a bit. When I looked at my Goodreads rating I had given it 4 stars. This year I listened to it rather than read it. Perhaps this was a mistake because I found it very dry and my mind was constantly wandering. The archaic language further reduced my engagement.
There’s no question that it was an influential book that highlighted the problems inherent in Puritan morality. Hawthorne wrote about the nature of evil, sin, morality, and personal growth and identity. His books were psychologically complex and his portrayal of women was ahead of his times. Hester Prynne is perhaps one of the best-known female protagonists and is considered by many to be the first heroine of American fiction. You can find an interesting article about some of the history behind the Scarlett Letter and Hawthorne’s America here.
It’s probably unfair of me to rate it 3 stars based on the audio version and maybe I should just let my 4-star rating from my first read be one that counts. It is on several lists of best books including the 1001 list and The Guardian‘s 100 best novels. I am guessing that almost everyone has read this novel since it’s on many school curriculums in the U.S. It’s a very short story so if by some miracle you haven’t read it, you should try it out of your self. You can find it for free on Amazon (or a number of other places including project Gutenberg): The Scarlet Letter (Dover Thrift Editions)
Dec 14
This month it was my (Book Worm) turn to choose our featured author. I thought long and hard and decided that because it is the holiday season, and I live in England, there is no other author who better captures the spirit of the season in quite the same way as does Charles Dickens. Read our fun facts about Dickens, our favorite Charles Dickens books, and see my photos from the Charles Dickens festival. Read more
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