The Green Road - Anne Enright

The Costa Book Awards are a prestigious British book award that will be held in January. This month, I'll be reading the Novel shortlist consisting of four books, this week is The Green Road by Anne Enright.

The third book of the shortlist convinced me of one thing; the Costa judges sure love a novel that jumps between time and people. Just like the previous two books I've read, A God in Ruins and A Place Called Winter, The Green Road spans over fifty years. Not only that, we also follow different characters at different points in time.

As mentioned before, I'm not overly fond of multiple narrative points of view in a story. I generally like to connect to one character and really grow attached to them so I'm invested in their journey. The Green Road is one of those books that could have benefited from having less characters. We follow Rosaleen and her four children, Dan, Emmet, Constance and Hannah, throughout most of their lives. While the family is originally from Ireland, we see how Dan moves to New York and eventually Canada and how Emmett travels the world to do charity work. In my opinion, the story was just too broad; too many characters in too many different locations with very different time periods just left me feeling lukewarm about each of them. I didn't attach or care too much about any character.

Anne Enright's writing is beautiful, she writes with an amazing balance between detail and action, but the plotting didn't quite do it for me. Everyone in the book was unhappy and going through something. While this could be realistic, I'd like to think that in a family of five, one of them must be kind of happy at some point, but maybe that is wishful thinking on my part.

My favourite character is Dan, who makes the must unexpected and original journey out of all the children. While first introduced as the son who wants to become a priest, the reader sees that course change drastically and follows him through some major life events. I really think I could have fully connected with Dan if I was able to spend more time with him. He, like the other children, gets one chapter by himself, before everyone is thrown together in one storyline. It just didn't give me enough information about Dan.

Overall, this book left me unaffected, especially considering the two amazing previous novels on the shortlist. The writing was beautiful and enjoyable, but the structure of the novel just didn't work for me. If you love multiple points of views and skipping from one character to another, this book is perfect for you. If you like to linger with characters longer, like I do, this is probably not the right match.

A Place Called Winter - Patrick Gale

The Costa Book Awards are a prestigious British book award that will be held in January. This month, I'll be reading the Novel shortlist consisting of four books, this week is A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale.

Wow.

As I've said before, it's so hard to write reviews for certain books and A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale is one of them. I had absolutely no expectations when I started reading it and I was completely blown away by everything about this book.

The story is set in Victorian England where we see Harry and his younger brother Jack grow up without any real parents. They have to fend for themselves, with Harry becoming the quiet, responsible one and Jack being the social and spontaneous brother. The main character is Harry and we see his day to day life and how this eventually changes when he gets married and has a child. However, Harry then discovers some new feelings that he had never known about before.
At the same, we also gets scenes from a mental hospital where Harry is apparently years later. The details are vague, but we see horrendous treatments being performed on him to cure his "condition."

Just like A God In Ruins, A Place Called Winter is a plot you have to puzzle together yourself. We get glimpses of different times in Harry's life and the different places he has lived; England, Canada and an outdoor retreat for people with mental issues. As a reader, we're constantly piecing together how Harry got to these places and what will happen next, which is a process I thoroughly enjoyed thanks to Patrick Gale's amazing writing. Though Harry evolves as a character, he is recognisable and relatable in every scenario and I felt very connected to him throughout the book.

Spoilers! From here on, I'll discuss a major plot element (though many, many reviewers do too so it's not extremely spoiler-ish). If you want to stay completely spoiler-free, then don't read below this picture:

Though I mostly avoid spoilers, I feel like I can't discuss this book without discussing one major plot element: Harry's homosexual feelings and the response of society to these feelings. As discussed before, Harry gets married but after a few years, he meets a man and starts a sexual relationship with him. Once those feelings get revealed, we really get an insight into Victorian England's attitude towards homosexuality and the often awful treatment people received because of it. I loved how Patrick Gale was able to contrast the feeling of helplessness Harry has about his homosexuality and the brashness and coldness of even the people closest to him. It was extremely heartbreaking and made me tear up at several times. This element of the story did not only make it a more emotional story, but it also made it a historical lesson into the way people were treated and the realities of Victorian England.

---

I really enjoyed this book. If I have to compare it to A God In Ruins by Kate Atkinson I honestly don't know which one is better. Both books have amazing main characters, a complex and intriguing plot and some of the best writing I've ever read. A Place Called Winter, however, was definitely easier to get into and really gripped me from the first moment. It might be a tad more predictable, especially the ending, but it was both heartbreaking and heartwarming and an amazing reading experience.

A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson

The Costa Book Awards are a prestigious British book award that will be held in January. This month, I'll be reading the Novel shortlist consisting of four books, starting with A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson.

A God In Ruins is a companion novel to Life After Life, which means that you don't have to read them both, but doing so will help your understanding. Mostly, there seems to be an overlap of characters between the two books and, though I haven't read Life After Life, understanding the characters is easier when reading the first novel first.

Maybe that's the reason why I found the beginning particularly slow; not a whole lot happens and we're introduced to a range of characters over a large range of time that don't really feel all that connected. Teddy, very early on clearly the main character, is the focus of each chapter, no matter what time it takes place, but the other characters felt dislocated and odd.

However, this feeling only lasts the first fifty pages and by then any reader completely falls in love with Teddy. He's courageous, righteous (without trying to force it on other people), and constantly tries to keep everyone happy in his own way. He's by far one of the most enjoyable characters I've encountered and it made it so easy to follow him on his journey.

The most special thing about that journey is the structure that it is told in. Instead of linearly following Teddy from his country childhood through World War II to him settling down and picking up his life after the war, Kate Atkinson gives the reader insight in different time periods with each chapter. This means we go from Teddy as a child, to him after the war, to him in the war and then back again; each chapter is a different time period with a different event. Thanks to Kate Atkinson amazing eye for detail and writing style, this works perfectly. There are constantly little hints dropped in the earlier chapters about what's to happen later and in the chapters where Teddy is older, things are explained about his earlier life. It's a beautiful balance between knowing and wanting to know more that keeps you reading until you finish the book.

Without spoiling anything, I must say the ending of this book is the best ending I've ever read and it has stuck with me for over a week now. At random moments during the day, I remember it and wonder about how it could be applied to my life and the decisions I make. It has made this one of the books that has impacted my life in the most profound way.

Clearly, this book was amazing and even though the beginning was slow in my opinion, the story picked up really fast and the characters really grown on the reader until you can't help feeling everything they feel. This is a five star rated book and I can't stop recommending this to every single person I met.

A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara

RATING: ★★★★★

Though I mostly review YA and classic novels on my blog, already an odd combination at best, I want to throw something new into the mix - a book I think can appeal to readers of both Young Adult books and the more classic novels: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

Even if you know nothing about this book, you probably know that it was expected to win the Man Booker Prize this year, and then didn't. But book prizes, nominations or wins, don't always reflect on the quality of a book; sometimes books win because they're so experimental or special, but does that mean it's a good book? A Little Life truly is a good book with an amazingly strong plot and characters that you can't let go, even after reading over 700 pages about them.

A Little Life is the story of four recent college graduates: Willem, Jude, JB and Malcolm. They roomed together while attending a small New England college and have recently moved to New York at the beginning of the story. The first hundred pages of the book are devoted to explaining who each guy is and how they have become the way they are: Willem comes from Midwest America and doesn't understand his parents at all. He moves to NYC to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. Malcolm comes from a rich family and wants to be an architect while JB is struggling to find ways to express his artistic creativity. And then there is Jude. Jude doesn't talk about his childhood and seems to have come out of nowhere with absolutely no one. He's a lawyer, but also a prodigy at maths. Very early on, the reader realises Jude is the wildcard of the bunch - you just don't realise how much until you're already deep into the story.

And that's the biggest strength of Hanya Yanagihara; she unveils layers of plot seamlessly and unexpectedly throughout the book. One of the characters mentions or sees something that appears trivial, but suddenly there is a whole new world opened within the book. Jude's secrets aren't thrown out there for the readers, they are carefully distributed throughout the book and slowly makes the reader understand more and more why Jude is the way he is.

From here on, the review will include some spoilers, so if you don't want to read them, I suggest you stop reading here.

What I loved about this book is that it beautifully combine horrendous actions with a hopeless sort of hope. I didn't know hopeless hope existed, but Hanya Yanagihara introduced it to my life with this book. Jude has gone through the worst of things; he was kidnapped and sexually, physically and mentally abused as a child. He has no parents and every single person he ever trusted has betrayed him. He has an intense self-hatred that seems to be unescapable. At some point in the book, you think Jude will get better and actually find his happy ending, only to be reminded that this is not a fairytale and the worst possible thing happens to Jude, just like it has his whole life.

And though Jude doesn't fight in a typical sense, he does hold on to life for as long as he can and I thought that was beautiful. Jude can't be a super strong character, because strength is build and he never got that chance, but he is strong in his own way and even the ending, which no one would call a happy ending, is somewhat beautiful. Jude finds his own way and his own hope and as a reader, you feel at peace with the story. Jude finds his resolution, the only one possible in his mind, and though it is not hopeful, as a reader you do feel kind of happy that he is finally at peace.

The other three characters, Willem, JB and Malcolm, are less focused on, but still well-rounded in their own right. They interact with Jude, who really claims the story early on in the book, but are never there just to push Jude's story arc forward. The book naturally develops from a focus on all four characters, to a focus on Jude, to a focus on Jude and Willem. You don't even realise it's happening until you're deep in the story.

So no surprise, I adored this book. The writing was beautiful, subtle in its plot developments and extremely raw in emotional scenes. This is not a book for the faint of heart and it might make you question what happiness is and if anyone can ever help you achieve it, but that's the beauty of this story. I've read it in small bits over the course of two weeks and even now, almost two weeks after I finished, I still want to pick it up and return to this world.

Everybody Rise - Stephanie Clifford

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Plot

It’s 2006 in the Manhattan of the young and privileged, and a new generation of heirs and strivers are jockeying for social power and discovering that class, especially on the Upper East Side, still holds sway.

At 26, Evelyn Beegan is the product of new money, propelled by her social-climbing mother through an elite prep school, a posh college, and into Manhattan. Evelyn has always managed to stay just on the periphery of this world her mother so desperately wants her to become a part of. But when she takes a job at a new social networking site aimed at her very elite peers, she’s forced to leverage her few connections to work her way to the front of the pack. With the help of her prep school friends, Evelyn goes from lush "camps" in the Adirondacks and "cottages" in Newport, to Southampton weekends and clubs thick with socialites and Wall Street types, eventually befriending target #1, Camilla Rutherford—a young woman who is a regular on the front page of every society blog.

In order to be accepted by this rarefied set, Evelyn must be seen as someone with established old money. Her lies start small, but quickly grow, and as she relentlessly elbows her way up the social ladder, the ground underneath her begins to give way.

Review

I requested Everybody Rise because I miss Gossip Girl. Obsessively. Constantly. So I wanted to return to that world and doesn't the summary of Everybody Rise sounds like it can help me do just that? New York rich kids, here I come!

Unfortunately, Everybody Rise didn't quite work for me. The main thing that bothered me was the fact that the pacing of this book was completely off. There were chapters where there was just description after description after description. Yes, it was beautifully written, but unless there is some action in there, I can't focus on just description. Connected to that was the fact that I received way too much irrelevant information as a reader. I do like to know the history of my main characters, but only the relevant bits to the story and I don't need to know everyone's complete life story. There are main characters and side characters, and the side characters don't need whole chapters in my opinion; especially if they're irrelevant to the main plot. 

On the other hand, I quite liked the voice of Evelyn. Though her motives throughout the book are quite unclear to me (even after all the information I got), I did enjoy reading her. She's really struggling to find her place in the world and it was nice to have a character of 26 (instead of 16) going through that journey. You don't always figure out your life at 18 and this book shows that it's okay if you take a little bit longer.

However, I overall just wasn't impressed. The pacing was off, the plot was stretched at times (I can't go into more detail about that without massive spoilers) and the motivation of the main character just wasn't there. If this book was about 100 pages shorter, I think it would have worked really well, but for now it just kind of left me lukewarm.  

The Glass Kitchen - Linda Francis Lee

I’m Mrs. Take-away. I don’t see the point in cooking and I honestly think that modern day’s obsession with cooking and food is absurd and freaky.

However, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m also the girl that picks books purely on their cover and thus I ended up reading the book The Glass Kitchen (really Emma, you missed the word Kitchen in the title?) by Linda Francis Lee. I requested this book via Netgalley, because I loved the cover so much.

The Glass Kitchen is the story of Portia and Ariel – a story that intertwines at several points during the plot.

Portia is a newly divorced Texan woman who moves to New York City to find herself again. She lives in the townhouse her great aunt used to own – she lives on the garden floor while her sisters, Olivia and Cordelia, used to own the other two floors. However, the sisters sold their part of the house, so Portia unwantedly becomes a neighbor of Gabriel, a handsome, but very cold, businessman.

Gabriel is a widower with two daughters – Ariel and Miranda. The story of the family focuses on 12-year-old Ariel, who is struggling with the move to New York (the family used to live in New Jersey) and the teenage escapades of her sister (who is 16). And mostly with the fact that she was in the car crash that killed her mother.

As if that’s not enough plot, there’s an interesting twist to the story. Portia has “the knowing”, which is a family trait that allows her to see the food people will need before they actually need it. For example, Miranda runs into the house needing 20 cupcakes for a bake sale and Portia already made them, though she didn’t know why. Olivia’s grandmother used to have the trait, which is why her restaurant The Glass Kitchen in Texas was so successful. Imagine walking into a place and them always having the food you love? As a Mrs Take-away – I’ll sign up for that.

That’s where the story starts and slowly the characters develop and have to figure out how to survive, both financially and emotionally after the traumatic event of an unexpected divorce or the death of a mother, in the case of Ariel.

What I liked about this book is that Portia is not your typical Texan narrator – yes, she likes to cook and yes she wears sparkly clothes every now and then, but she’s feisty and actually doesn’t want to hook up with her neighbor for a very long time. Same goes for Ariel, who is not the typical 12 year old narrator. She’s smarter than most girls her age, which saves the book from not falling in between the young adult and adult category – it’s definitely adult, even when Ariel narrates. “The knowing” brings in an original element to the book, which differentiates it from most chick lit like books. It also causes for quite a few surprising turns and twists in the book, which is always a plus in my eyes.

What bothered me about this book is the development of Miranda. Miranda is 16, the older sister of Ariel, and is very clearly struggling with the death of her mother. However, the author portrays her as an annoying brat who is acting out in every way possible. But WHY? Nobody knows and at times, I even wondered if the author really knows why Miranda is acting the way she does.

She hangs out with bad friends, smokes weed and throws parties even though she’s not allowed to do that. As a reader, we hear repeatedly how good she was back in New Jersey and how the move made her upset. Really? The move? I think the death of the mother could have come back in here and I really missed this part of the story.

Besides that though, it is a good read. I feel like the lack of Miranda character development really left a gaping hole in the plot, but for any cooking lovers, this will be a fun and enjoyable read. And even if you don’t enjoy cooking, like me, you can still enjoy this book and maybe even get motivated to do some cooking of your own – with the recipes in the back of the book!

The Library of Unrequited Love - Sophie Divry

There are some books that I instantly love - some books that I instantly hate (I never really finish those, bad habit alert) and then there are books like The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry. Is it a bad book? Not really. Is it a good book? Not really.

It’s short and easy to read and “meh”.

The story is just a monologue from a female librarian talking to an unknown man who spend the night in the library. I think it’s always impressive when someone creates a whole book (fine, 80 pages, but it’s still a book!) with just a monologue. No real action, no movement, just someone’s inner thoughts.

But I have to wonder - why is the female librarian, who’s biggest fault is that she’s slightly socially awkward, chosen as the main character when there is a man/boy/guy/whatever who spend the night in a closed library?

What was he doing there? Is he homeless? Or did he just fall asleep? Usually I write long reviews, but this book is so short that I don’t really have much to say. There are a lot of good quotes in the book, which is a good thing, but also became kind of annoying. Who talks in perfect quotes when you are just rambling?

Do you want an insight into a French librarian with failed dreams? Then buy this book. Do you want a quick read to finish your Goodreads challenge? Then buy this book. Do you want a great writing prompt for the male character? DEFINITELY buy this book then. Otherwise, don’t bother.