Tiny Library

There's nothing like settling down to revisit an old favourite, is there? When I pick up Inkheart, I'm taken back to when I was at university, still living at home with my Mum and Dad. One Christmas, I received all three books that make up the Inkheart trilogy in my stocking and I devoured them all within a week. I literally did nothing apart from lay on the sofa and eat leftover Christmas treats with my nose stuck in these books until I had finished all three. Even though I'm now twenty-six, married and definitely not living with my parents anymore, picking up these books brings back all the magic of the first time I read them.Twelve-year-old Meggie lives with her bookbinder father Mo after the disappearance of her mother in mysterious circumstances when she was only three. They are visiting a relative, book collector Eleanor when a strange man called Dustfinger arrives, claiming that Mo read him out of a book called Inkheart. What follows is a good old-fashioned adventure as Meggie and Mo race to stop the villain of Inkheart, Capricon, from destroying all the remaining copies and wreaking a terrible vengeance on his enemies. Along the way, they are assisted by Eleanor, the author of Inkheart, Fenoglio, and Farid, a young boy read out of the pages of A Thousand and One Nights. Here's the thing: I know Inkheart isn't exactly the finest literature and I know that the plot is a little silly at times (the Shadow being a case in point), but none of that stops me from loving the book so much that even thinking about it makes me smile. Who hasn't read a book and wanted the characters to come out of the book? I know I have and I love that the entire story revolves around the love of books and in particular, the love of all the classics I loved so much as a child (Peter Pan, Arabian Nights etc). In fact, the thing I enjoy most about Inkheart is the tone; it feels like the old-fashioned books I devoured when I was young. There's a good dose of adventure, a straightforward good vs evil plot and a hint of magic. Picking it up feels like picking up an Enid Blyton novel,Treasure Island or Peter Pan. Although Meggie is in for a lot of suffering, it's due to the danger she faces and the world of the book is like a lovely bubble I like to sink into every now and again.This isn't really a proper review as I'm not going to be critical. I understand this book isn't for everyone but I absolutely love it and I'm already looking forward to making time for a reread of Inkspell and Inkdeath over the next few weeks. For me, Inkheart is escapist adventure at its best.

As a certified nosy person, I'm a sucker for employment memoirs; I will happily sit and read about life as a doctor, nurse, vet, explorer, retail assistant - in fact I will read about anything that is different from what I do myself. So I was excited to request Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality from Netgalley. In it, Tomsky details his rise through the hotel industry from valet parking through to front desk manager. Having worked many jobs within the industry, Tomsky is in the perfect position to detail what life as a hotel worker is really like and to give insider information for potential guests keen on upgrades and other perks.Heads in Beds was very good light relief and I enjoyed reading it. I'm not a frequent hotel user, but I've checked into enough hotels to recognise lots of the situations detailed in the book. As always, I was shocked by how inconsiderate and rude members of the public can be towards service staff. Tomsky does come across as a bit angry in places, but having worked in retail myself (thankfully, many years ago now!), I'm sure that this anger was justified. There's only so long you can take being treated like the dirt on someone's shoe before you want to snap! There are mentions of polite customers and good experiences but these become less frequent as the book goes on and Tomsky becomes more disillusioned with his job. It's safe to say I won't be applying to be a front desk operator any time soon!One thing I found very interesting was the comparison between the two main hotels Tomsky worked in, luxury hotels in New Orleans and New York. In New Orleans, the staff were valued and trusted and consequently often went above and beyond in order to provide good service to their guests. In New York, they were constantly monitored for any slip up, treated as if they were slackers and initiative was punished rather than rewarded. This led to resentment and poor service, with no one willing to go the extra mile. Even though Tomsky is writing specifically about the hotel industry in Heads in Beds, I've seen this kind of thing in every single working environment I have been in. When will managers learn that staff work better if you trust them, value them and simply leave them to it?Heads in Beds was on the whole clearly written with lots of humour. It didn't set my world alight, but I found it interesting and enjoyable. I think it could have benefited from being edited down slightly as it dragged in the later sections, with too much page time being devoted to Tomsky's time as a front desk operator. I'm sure that fellow nosy readers will enjoy this book as much as I did!

I went into this book expecting to enjoy it because of all the hype around it and the positive reviews I have seen, but I didn't expect to enjoy the Western element as much as I did. I've never read a Western before and I'm not American so I was surprised at how natural the reading experience was. I loved the grimy, cockroach infested hotels the brothers stayed in with prostitutes at the ready and men having shoot-outs in the dust. I loved the idea of burying gold dust and busting mafia-style crime rings. I have some adventure in my spirit and anyone who does will enjoy the Western elements of The Sisters Brothers. DeWitt balanced all of this rip-roaring, swash-buckling adventure by also showing the harshness of life on the frontier in 1851, not shying away from the nastier elements and this gave the novel some much-needed grit and realism.I remember there was a lot of fuss about this book being included on the Booker short-list in 2011, with critics complaining that it's not literary enough. But I disagree; The Sisters Brothers is genre fiction, but it also transcends the genre and has a lot to say about human existence. Whereas Charlie is more of a straight-forward villain, Eli is a sympathetic character who has drifted into the killing business under the influence his big brother. He may be a contract killer, but he doesn't think much of money and dreams of giving it all up to open his own shop (Charlie wants to be the kind of gangster who gets to run a whole town). He's a romantic who falls in love easily and who won't abandon his horse when it is injured. Eli is the heart of the novel and through him DeWitt manages to make the book both funny, adventurous and sad. As the reader can see that Eli is essentially a good guy, all the way through the book you are rooting for him to be able to have the courage to leave Charlie and do something just for himself. He has some big disappointments towards the end of the novel and I was genuinely sad for him. I wasn't expecting Eli to be the character he was and it made the book so much more powerful and, dare I say it, literary.The Sisters Brothers was one of those books I bought because it was on a short-list and because plenty of people seemed to enjoy reading it. I'm glad I did, because it's something I would never have picked out for myself and I thoroughly enjoyed every page of it. Recommended even for Western newbies like me.

Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman is the third and final book in the Peirene Press series entitled Female Voices. It's an unusually structured book that takes the reader into the mind of Margarethe, a twenty-one year old German woman living in Rome in 1943, who is walking from the boarding house where she lives to a Bach concert being held at the church on Via Sicilia. Having followed her husband to Rome only to see him shipped off to Africa to help the war effort, Margarethe is alone and eight months pregnant. She speaks little Italian and is both mystified by and scared of Rome, the city of their Italian allies. As we follow Margarethe on her walk, we get an insight into her thought processes and get to see World War Two through a new lens.I liked this book. I found the structure difficult at first; the book is basically one long sentence with no full stops or page breaks and this was challenging for me. I didn't know when to put the book down and the lack of punctuation made the novella feel longer than it was. The pace was also fairly slow towards the beginning and these two factors combined made reading heavy going initially. But as soon as I settled into the book and saw it for what it was, a character driven novel, I started to enjoy it. The pace is slow but this allows the character to get really under your skin and this is how Portrait of the Mother is effective.I had mixed feelings about the main character, Margarethe. She was expertly written and I'm in awe at how the male author managed to get so into the mind of a young, pregnant woman. On the one hand I couldn't help but empathise with her situation, alone and unsure in a foreign city, struggling to keep her composure. I admired how she constantly battled to remain positive, to appreciate all she had rather than give in to fear, because I don't know if I could do the same. You can't help but feel sorry for her when you read about her wishing that her husband's leg wound would worsen so he could have treatment at a Roman hospital and they could be reunited. But at the same time, I found her very naive. To protect herself she has drawn a shell around herself and tries not to think of politics and the war. Although she never articulates it fully, her views from her time in the Hitler Youth contradict with her religious views and she has severe doubts about the directions Hitler is taking. But she does nothing, she has completely detached herself;"Even in Germany she had not read the papers, it was better not to know too much, not to say too much, not to ask too much, as one always heard bad news soon enough."There must have been many people like Margarethe but this side of her made me have very mixed feelings towards her. I suspect this is what Delius intended and that this is part of what makes the book so effective, but it challenges you as a reader. To empathise and not at the same time. After finishing this book, I'm still not quite sure what I think about the main character.Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman is the Peirene book that I've found the hardest going so far, mainly because of the structure. It's without a doubt beautifully written and thought-provoking but I don't know if I would describe reading it as an enjoyable experience.

Mermaid is a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, The Little Mermaid. Lenia is the youngest sister of five mermaid princesses who are granted just one day to travel to the surface and observe what the world is like for humans. On her eighteenth birthday, she takes her opportunity but gets caught up in a ferocious storm and can't resist rescuing the Prince of the Southern Kingdom. Taking him to the beach, she leaves him in the care of Princess Margrethe, daughter of the war-hungry King of the Northern Kingdom. Unable to put him from her mind and drawn to ideas of a human soul, Lenia sacrifices her tail and tongue in order to become a human, enduring agonising pain. But is her sacrifice worth it?Mermaid is on the whole a faithful retelling of the original fairy tale, so consequently much darker than the Disney version! The main difference is that the role of the 'other woman', Princess Margrethe, is greatly expanded, to the extent that the chapters alternate between Margrethe and Lenia's points of view. However, Margarethe feels much more like a modern invention than Lenia, which can be a bit jarring. Despite these differences, Turgeon is successful at capturing the gothic, slightly creepy, slightly magical atmosphere of the original. The world she creates is one where it seems natural that mermaids exist and souls float to the heavens. There's a dark undercurrent of pain and suffering throughout the whole story which fits with Andersen too. As this is a fairy tale, it's acceptable that the characters do things that you would never do in real life. There's a lot of love at first sight and much sacrifice for someone who doesn't seem worth it (I'm looking at you, Prince!). If this was a normal story, I'd have a big problem with Lenia's actions and how easily she gave up everything she had ever known, but I didn't mind it in the context of the original story. In fact, the only thing I really had an issue with was the ending; I felt as though it was too happy. The last sections seem to build up to a dark, depressing end but then there's a last minute reprieve and it felt like a cop-out. Andersen never shied away from unhappy endings, so it's a shame that Turgeon felt the need to.On the whole, Mermaid was a fun read which broke up my usual reading pattern. It's not going to win any prizes and it's not going to set your world on fire, but it's a lovely way to pass a Sunday afternoon. Fans of fairy tales or fairy tale re-tellings will especially appreciate this book.

It's 1921 and the transatlantic liner Paris is sailing to New York from France and England. Three passengers from three different classes and generations are onboard; Vera, Constance and Julie. Vera Sinclair is an ex-pat American who has spent years in Paris and is now returning home after receiving the news that she hasn't got long to live. Constance Stone is returning from an unsuccessful mission to bring her younger sister Faith home from Paris to help their mentally ill mother. And Julie Vernet is working in steerage class on her first ocean crossing. The three women are very different but all will be changed in some way by the voyage.I enjoyed Crossing on the Paris a lot more than I expected to. I thought it would be shallow and possibly a bit cheesy, but it wasn't at all. The atmosphere of the 1920s and the glamour and squalor of ocean liners was captured well by Gynther and this made a great back-drop to the story. The three women were vividly written and easily distinguishable from each other. I liked the technique of splitting the book up in to chapters, with each one relating to a different day of the five-day crossing.Of the three women, I found it easiest to relate to Julie. Having lost all of her brothers in the First World War, she's desperate for a chance to get away from the grief and poverty of her home in France and jumps at the opportunity to work on the boat. But she is assigned to serve in steerage class (3rd class) and the liner isn't as glamorous as she had hoped. Suffering with low self-esteem, she's overjoyed when a handsome engineer takes an interest in her and is swept away in what she thinks is a romantic fairy tale only to learn a very hard lesson about life. I really felt for Julie as I was reading her story and it's here that Gynther makes the plot more heavy going than I had anticipated it would be. This book definitely isn't as sweet as the cover makes it look.I also enjoyed Constance's story. She's married to a man that she doesn't really love and gets a taste of freedom on board the Paris. With no one to answer to but herself, she fools people into thinking she isn't married and is tempted to have an affair with another passenger. Jealous of her sister's freedoms, Constance has to choose whether to live in the moment or remember all of her responsibilities I think this is something we all face in life, not necessarily with adultery, but we all have moments where we have to choose between what we want to do and what is the right thing to do. I didn't enjoy Vera's story as much as those of the other two women, but her voice was still engaging enough to make reading the book pleasant.All in all, I enjoyed the time I spent with Crossing on the Paris. It's a lovely escapist read with more depth than I had anticipated. Fans of historical fiction would enjoy this title.

Stone in a Landslide is the second book in the Peirene Press series 'Female Voices' and is set in Spain before and during the Civil War. Conxa is only thirteen when she is sent to a neighbouring mountain village to work for her aunt and uncle. Life is hard in the way it has been for generations; men and women work long hours in the fields for little reward, the chores are endless and it's a struggle to get by. Conxa's days of work are brightened when she meets Jaume and they marry young. But Jaume is an idealist captivated by democratic ideas and becomes a prominent local voice in the revolution. When this fledgling revolution is brutally crushed, Conxa has to face the inevitable consequences and the devastating effect on her life.I enjoyed Stone in a Landslide mainly for the wonderful narrative voice of Conxa. She's born into a hard life where being pragmatic and hard-working are skills prized above all, but she has a dreamy, romantic soul that can't be squashed. She finds old dresses in the attic and puts them on, dreaming of a brighter future. She loves pretty things. She dawdles in the fields watching the sky. She loves Jaume because he "puts new colours into her mundane world". She really values happiness and is always seeking it for herself and her loved ones, prioritising feelings over politics at every turn. It's hard not to like a character like this and even though Conxa is extremely naive about what is happening around her, I adored her.I didn't know much about the Spanish Civil War before reading this book and it only filled in a few of my gaps. Although it's set in a particular time and place (Spain in the early twentieth century), the story is more about the effects of war and political suppression on individual families; so in a sense, which war it is doesn't matter. The feelings and consequences described are universal. I was expecting the book to be more hard-hitting than it was in the final sections - I felt for Conxa but she became so detached that it was hard to really understand what it would have been like to be in her shoes. I thought the effects of war could have been portrayed more powerfully than they were. I wanted the book to upset me but it didn't.Whilst I liked this book, I felt like I was reading it at a distance, never emotionally engaged with the story. I could see Conxa was devastated, but I wasn't devastated with her, which prevented the book from having a strong impact. It was expertly written, sensitively translated and taught me about a different period of history, but ultimately I needed more emotional engagement to properly enjoy it.

Caren is the manager at Belle Vie, a sprawling plantation house deep in Louisiana One morning whilst making her inspection of the grounds, she comes across a young Mexican woman, brutally murdered and discarded. With the police investigation inadequate, Caren investigates and the more she finds out, the more she starts to suspect a cover up. The white owner of the property is desperate to sell, the woman's employer has a history of violence and she might have uncovered something she shouldn't have just before her death. The investigation even leads back to Caren's ancestor Joseph, a slave on the plantation that disappeared soon after gaining freedom. An ambitious book, The Cutting Season covers race relations, history and politics as well as a criminal investigation.Crime is not a genre I read very often but I had heard good things about Attica Locke. In fact, I own her previous novel, Black Water Rising, although typically I haven't got around to reading it yet. I'd seen some positive reviews of Cutting Season on other blogs and the setting of the book really appealed. On our American honeymoon last summer, my husband and I spent a few weeks in Louisiana and we visited lots of those old plantation homes and there is something about the history and atmosphere of such places that I thought would make for a great crime story. And that atmosphere was conveyed excellently in the book by Locke, it had an almost gothic, sinister feel which helped build suspense throughout.On the whole, I enjoyed Cutting Season. It's expertly written and ambitious in coverage. The topics of race and slavery are handled sensitively and the book is thought provoking - who should really own the plantation houses? Should they be preserved for history or should we wipe the slate clean and start again? Does history belong to all of us or just a select few? Should history affect modern day decisions? Although I'm not a big fan of crime fiction, I could see that the mystery of who had killed Ines was well structured with enough red herrings to keep me guessing. I didn't work out who it was before the big reveal.Despite everything I enjoyed about the book, it just seemed to be missing that special something. I don't know if it was purely because I don't love crime, but the middle section lagged and I never felt fully engaged with the story. In some ways, I think Locke was too ambitious and couldn't do everything she wanted to do within the confines of a crime/mystery novel; the genre was too restrictive for all the themes she wanted to cover. Locke was experimental by adding so much more to the genre but too confined by the conventions of the genre. I would have liked to see more of a gothic literary style novel rather than a traditional whodunit. I'm sure crime fans will love this book as it's a good mystery and the writing is excellent. I wasn't the biggest fan of this one but I don't think I was the right reader for it.

Latha is a servant girl, bought up alongside the daughter of a rich Sri Lankan family. Exposed daily to the luxuries that wealth can bring, she resents her status as a servant and disobeys in small ways - stealing a bar of rose-scented soap for her own use or making extra lime juice to drink. As she grows up, the differences between her and Thara become more apparent but their lives are so entwined that Latha has no option to break free. Caught in a complex mix of love and hate and against the back drop of a violent civil war, her small acts of disobedience gradually grow larger, with consequences for everyone. Told alongside Latha's story is that of Biso, a women fleeing an abusive husband with three small children in tow. She hopes to make it to the hills to be taken in by an Aunt, but the war is escalating and her journey is rife with danger.I really enjoyed A Disobedient Girl, mainly because of Latha herself. I've seen reviews complaining that Latha is an unlikable main character as she's not the most moral of people. And whilst that is true, I think this would have been a weaker book if Latha was simply written as a martyr. I liked that she was stubborn, proud and determined not to take her situation lying down; she wouldn't roll over and accept things the way they were. Throughout the book, Latha fought with whatever weapons she had available to her, even if that led to her doing questionable things, for example using sex to get back at her mistress early in the novel. I loved her spirit and resourcefulness and her constant hope that she could make a better life for herself. Even though she was in an impossible situation due to prejudice, she rarely gave in to bitterness. Freeman is also a political journalist and this is very apparent in the way she writes about the situation Latha faced;"There is was again: a proper servant. That was all they had expected of her. Despite her education, regardless of it, and her looks, she was supposed to be no more, no less. Servant. The thing that had concealed her intentions, her desires, her womanliness, her very soul."I also enjoyed the dual narrative aspect of the book. Chapters are alternated between Latha and Biso, and whilst it took me some time to get to grips with the fact that Latha's story unfolds over decades and Biso's only over a few days, the break in perspectives worked well. I was happy with the link between the two characters when it was revealed and also felt the ending was in keeping with plot. I also liked that the civil war stayed in the background of the story; too often it feels like authors from countries that have experienced war or political upheaval feel pressure to make this the center of their novels, like this is the only way people in the West will want to read their work. The war in A Disobedient Girl is there, but only ever as a backdrop to the story of Latha and Biso. I liked reading about other aspects of Sri Lankan life. In the same way, I liked that Freeman didn't feel the need to explain every new thing to the reader, she just immersed us in Sri Lankan culture and let us find our own way.The only criticism I would make of this book is that it was a bit over-long and slow at the start. It seemed to be a long while before events started to happen and the middle section could have been edited down. Other than that, it was a great read and I'll be keeping an eye out for any more books written by Freeman in the future.

Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow is book two in Juliet Grey's Marie Antoinette series. I read book one, Becoming Marie Antoinette, last year (my review) and very much enjoyed it, so I was pleased to be offered the chance to review the sequel. Covering the period from Marie's ascension to the throne of France to the beginnings of the revolution, Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow plants the seeds of the hardships to come. Young, childless and kept away from the business of state, Marie Antoinette busies herself with parties, gambling and fashion, alienating a population struggling through economic difficulties. Her attempts at gaining privacy offend the noble classes and although her heart is often in the right place, she lacks the common sense a good leader requires. Her joy at finally giving birth to an heir is tempered by gossip and the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, which signals that the population of France is getting ready to challenge the monarchy. I was very familiar with the history of Marie Antoinette before reading this or its predecessor as I have read and loved Antonia Fraser's biography of her in the past, so I was pleased to see how much Grey stuck to historical fact. As with Becoming Marie Antoinette, the amount of research that had gone into Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow, was admirable. I love all of the little details in historical fiction and Grey includes enough of them to make the time period completely and utterly believable. There are never any jarring anachronisms and I enjoyed all the little details about court etiquette and trends. I also enjoyed the letters between Marie and her family members as they broke up the narrative nicely.The character of Marie Antoinette was drawn well. Grey manages a good balance between making you just sympathetic enough to like her but also showing why France didn't embrace her. Marie comes across as exactly what she was, a young girl out of her depth with black and white morals that didn't translate well to being the Queen of France. She is too easily led and thinks that simplistic gestures like donating a bit of money to charity can cover up her massive expenditure. Grey shows how good intentions aren't always enough and Marie's lack of common sense about her friends and choices ends up starting her ruin. Despite these strengths, I had some issues with the pacing of the book. It covers many years of Marie Antoinette's life and while the first half had a sedate pace, everything seemed rushed through nearer the end and this imbalance bothered me a bit. There was too much detail about some events and not enough about others. The whole Affair of the Diamond Necklace wasn't explained properly by Grey, which made the sections about it drag a bit. Plus, I wasn't a fan of how suddenly other character's perspectives were included when the rest of the book had been written from Marie Antoinette's point of view. Middle books can always feel a bit slow in places and there was a lot of build up in this novel which I'm sure will pay off in the final volume of the trilogy but which made this volume a bit long and clunky to read.Overall an enjoyable book, but not quite as good as the first volume, Becoming Marie Antoinette. I'm looking forward to reading the final volume when it's released.

Black sisters' street refers to Zwartezusterstraat, a street in the red light district of Brussels famous for its African prostitutes. Unigwe's story starts with three young women learning the news that the fourth woman they share a house with, Sisi, has been brutally murdered. Although they have kept their distance from each other in the past, this news brings the three women together and they start to share their stories. Efe had an affair with a married man as she thought this would lead to money and opportunity. Abandoned after the birth of her son, she agrees to meet Dele, who offers her a new opportunity in Europe, a chance to provide for her son. Ama is repeatedly raped by her step-father and seeking escape at any cost. And Joyce is a Sudanese woman caught up in the war who thinks she has found happiness with a Nigerian man, only to have it snatched away by his prejudiced family. All three are stateless and at the mercy of the madam and their debt to Dele, the man who arranged their transport to Belgium. They dream of a life free again, but as Sisi learned, dreaming can come at a high price.On Black Sisters' Street is a heavy-hitting book. The stories of all four women contain suffering in lots of different forms and happiness is something only rarely snatched at between periods of hardship. Although the women come across as smart and resourceful, circumstance has made them desperate enough to make a choice that hopefully most of us will never have to face - the choice to become an illegal sex worker. And for three of the women it is exactly that - a choice. Joyce is the only one who arrives in Belgium not knowing what is expected of her. I really respected Unigwe for showing that prostitution can be something gone into with eyes wide open, rather than telling the 'easier' story of women smuggled to Europe ignorant of what their fate would be. It made for a far more nuanced and subtle book.Despite the sections dealing with life in Europe, On Black Sisters' Street is mainly a condemnation of the corruption and problems facing Nigeria. Money, or the lack of it, is a powerful motivator for all the women, especially Sisi, who has a good degree but can't get a job as she doesn't know anyone who can pull the levers of power for her. Facing a life of living without, she decides prostitution is a better bet than poverty. Efe and Ama decide the same. And in some ways, it does turn out to be a good bet - some of the women manage to repay their debts to Dele and go on to live a life that would have been impossible without prostitution. Again, the inclusion of this by Unigwe makes for a more complicated book. I'm glad she showed the shades of grey in the issues covered in the story.Although there is much suffering in the story, Unigwe's writing keeps On Black Sisters' Street from being too depressing overall. The characters are realists and there's always an undercurrent of hope that life will get better. It must have been a hard balance to achieve and I'm impressed with Unigwe for managing it. Overall, On Black Sisters' Street is a well written and sensitive examination of heavy issues and I would highly recommend it

A Suitable Boy is the inter-connected tale of four families in post-independence India. Although the central story is Mrs Rupa Mehra's quest to find a suitable husband for her daughter Lata, Seth's novel is more than that and is best described as a panoramic of Indian society. From racial tension to religious festivals to adultery, ambition and politics, A Suitable Boy is an epic in every sense of the word. The many individual stories are told alongside each other in nineteen parts and cover the human condition in all its forms. I enjoyed reading about Savita's journey into motherhood, Pran's struggle to become an academic, the Nawab Sahib's bewilderment as the world he knew disappeared and the eccentric Chatterji family, who were more liberal and liked to speak in couplets.If you have the time to invest in it, A Suitable Boy is a very rewarding book. For me, it's up there with Gone with the Wind and Anna Karenina as a book that I will always remember. Lata and the cast of characters feel like members of my friends and family; two days after putting this book down for good, I'm missing them. Towards the end of the book when things start to happen and events get resolved, I was emotionally invested in the outcome each character would have. Seth made me connect with each one (even if I didn't like them all) and I have a clear visualisation of what each character is about, which is not easy to pull off. It felt almost like the book got into my soul.As the scope of Suitable Boy is so broad, there's guaranteed to be something in it for each reader. I'm a fan of multiple perspective books anyway and the rapid shifting between points of view stopped this long book from becoming tedious to read. I'm in utter awe at the way Seth managed to wind all of his characters and events together without losing the impact of the story. There are some plot points not resolved by the end and everything doesn't tie up nicely, but then it's not the kind of book where everything would. A Suitable Boy does require an investment of time and effort but most definitely repays anything you put into it.

In the 1940s, four women recently arrived in San Francisco from China start a joy luck club, a chance to get together over dim sum and mah jong and discuss their lives. As they raise their children the gap between Chinese and American culture becomes more apparent and there are many mother daughter clashes. The mothers demand the obedience and ambition of Chinese culture but the daughters tend to want the freedom of the American. Fourty years later, Jing-Mei Woo takes up her mother's place at the mah jong table following her death. Only by listening to the stories of the older women does she discover that there was much more to her mother than she ever realised. In her rush to flee the Japanese invaders, her mother was forced to abandon her two young daughters, sisters that Jing-Mei never knew she had. Her journey to China to meet them sets her on a path to reconcile her Chinese and American backgrounds.The Joy Luck Club is an excellent rendering of the immigrant experience. By choosing to focus on four mothers and four daughters, Tan covers in detail what it is like to be a first or second generation immigrant to America and how difficult it can be to pass on your culture in a different country. As a reader you feel for both the mothers and the daughters;"They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they bought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation."Although the daughters were easier for me as a Westerner to relate to, the stories of their mothers were more interesting. The fourth part of the book, Queen Mother of the Western Skies, is all about their lives in China before immigrating to America and this was the most fascinating part. I was expecting the book to feel a little dated given that it was initially published in the 1980s but this wasn't the case at all. The actual experiences of the women might have been time-linked but The Joy Luck Club is about more than just that, it's about mother-daughter relationships too and that theme was universal enough to make the book stand the test of time.The only problem I had with the book was linked to one of its strengths. I liked that many stories were included as this covered the immigrant experience so well but at times The Joy Luck Club felt more like a collection of short stories rather than a novel. There's a list of mothers and daughters provided at the beginning but I did find it hard to keep all of the characters straight and especially to remember who was related to who. I had to keep flipping through the book to find out which mother experience matched with this daughter experience and that was frustrating at times. Organising the book by generation was a good choice in many ways but the consequence was that at times it was hard to link the characters.Overall, I'm glad that I finally picked up The Joy Luck Club. It's deservedly a classic amongst books about immigration to the West and all of the stories in it were engaging and well written.

I'm not the biggest fan of chick-lit but every now and again, when life is stressful, I crave something light and fluffy to read and chick lit is usually what I turn to. In this offering by Jenny Colgan, Issy is a thirty something working in admin for a real-estate agency who loves to bake the recipes passed on by her baker grandfather. When she is made redundant from her job, Issy decides to take the plunge and use her redundancy pay-out to open up a cupcake cafe in Stoke Newington. But running a business isn't easy and Issy has long working hours, a lack of customers and red tape to deal with, alongside working out what to do about her cut-throat property developer boyfriend Graeme.I'm not an expert on chick lit by any means, but this book was far from the best in the genre. The basic plot was an interesting one, and I loved how the recipes Issy used were included at the start of each chapter but overall, Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe was missing a hefty dose of realism. I'm not saying I expect chick-lit to deal with heavy issues all the time, there's nothing wrong with a bit of escapism, but this was ridiculous. Issy straight away finds a location for her shop, magically has just the right amount of money, is able to open in a matter of weeks despite everything needing a re-fit, gets the first bank loan she applies for, meets the perfect employee by chance and has no issues with health and safety regulations, licencing etc. If opening a business was really that easy, everyone would do it. It was also astounding how quickly Issy was able to go from struggling to make ends meet to turning a generous profit. There was no real sense of the worry involved in starting up a business.The characterisation was lazy too. Issy was relatable but almost everyone else was a stereotype from the bad boy boyfriend to the responsible 'other man' looking after his baby brother, to the snobby yummy mummies with designer prams, to the resentful council estate Mum who over-feeds her baby boy with junk, to the builders only wanting bacon sandwiches and commenting on 'posh birds'. Colgan was clearly trying to say something about class issues but it came across as very clumsy and simplistic. Colgan does attempt to give these characters some depth by the end of the novel but doesn't quite succeed. Even the romance part of the novel was lacking as it relied on Issy being completely ignorant about how uncaring Graeme was, which was so obvious in the text that it made Issy look a bit stupid.My review so far of this book has been very harsh. It wasn't all bad - Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe was easy to read and certainly provided some escapism. But I just don't see why books should be allowed to be so uninspiring just because they are chick lit. Next time I crave something from this genre, I think I'll stick to Marian Keyes.

Hannah Payne lives in a dystopian version of America where conservative Christians are in control and criminals serve their sentences out in public, melachromed for easy identification. Hannah has commited the crime of having an abortion (classified as murder) and for that, every inch of her skin has been dyed bright red. Having spend some time on the Chrome Ward as part of a sinister reality TV programme, Hannah must now try to adapt to life as an outcast, subject to prejudice and abuse. Her every movement can be tracked and she soon becomes a target for the Fist, a radical group that hunts out and punishes chromes. With her family turning away from her, can Hannah adjust to her new life?When She Woke is a modern retelling of the classic The Scarlett Letter. Unfortunately, I've not read the latter so I can't judge how faithful to the original it was. Hannah does refuse to name the father of her unborn child but this isn't as integral to the plot as I had imagined it to be. When She Woke is more about the dystopia of Jordan's imagined American society than anything else.It's hard to make a judgement of this book as the first and second halves are remarkably different. The first half is about the society Hannah lives in and the reactions of her friends and family to her having the abortion, whilst the second is more action packed as Hannah struggles to escape the Fist. I liked the first half but found the second implausible and a bit silly. I was most interested in the psychological impact on Hannah - what would it be like to be branded forever as a criminal? The passages where Hannah is free and trying to interact with members of the public were fascinating.I think some of the impact of this book was dulled by me not being American. I'm British and whilst some people here may feel strongly about abortion, it's not a large issue and definitely not a political one. No one finds out whether our politicians are 'pro-choice' or 'pro-life' and it's rare to see a discussion or debate around abortion. Had I been in America, where I know abortion is more highly charged, abortion equaling murder would have been more powerful. Consequently I wanted to know more about Chromes that were different to Hannah - the blues, yellows and greens. Were they treated differently than she was?As I mentioned above, the second half of the book was a bit of a let down. Hannah is targeted by a radical group and starts on an action packed journey to escape. I think Jordan is trying to portray Hannah's character growth as she starts to care less what others think of her but this comes across as rushed and unbelievable. There's even the inclusion of a lesbian scene that seems completely out of character for Hannah,given that only a few months earlier she was regurgitating all her evangelical parents' beliefs as facts. I truly hope the author wasn't associating feminism with lesbianism i.e because Hannah becomes a feminist, she must find other women sexually attractive. Hannah would have changed, but not as fast as Jordan made her.On the whole, the premise of When She Woke was stronger than the execution. I'm still thinking about Chromes almost a week after finishing the book but the plot didn't measure up. A thought provoking read.

No God But God is a non-fiction book about Islam. It covers the life of the prophet Muhammad, the birth and development of the religion and also contemporary issues like the wearing of the veil, jihad and the evolution of what we in the West call fundamentalist Islam. Aslan explains the roots of different Muslim groups and how the split between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims first occured.Despite not being a believer, I've always been fascinated with religion. I grew up in inner London so have been surrounded by people of different faiths from an early age and this has made me curious about them all. No God But God is simply the best book on Islam that I've ever read. It covers the development of the religion well and includes lots of discussion but more importantly, it's beautifully written in an almost narrative style that makes it easy to keep turning the pages. Aslan shows a lot of respect for his faith but at the same time is keen to separate historical fact from myth.I think most readers could learn a lot from this book. Although I was already familiar with the history of Islam and the Sunni-Shi'a split (went to an amazing Karen Armstrong lecture at the British Museum once), there was much in this book I didn't know. I found the chapter on Sufi Islam fascinating, they are an almost mystical group that believe in destroying your ego in order to achieve 'oneness' with Allah. They practise many rituals to distract them from the sense of self, from breathing patterns through to dance, fasting and intense spiritual training. Interestingly, they believe that there are many paths to God and the path you choose is irrelevant as long as you are making the journey.Aslan's main argument in this book is about what some call the 'clash of civilisations' following 9/11. It's certainly true that Muslims have been tarred with a fundamentalist/terrorist brush and that some in the West think we are the prime target of groups such as Al-Qaeda. However, Aslan argues that the West is simply caught up in what is an internal conflict between Muslims, a sort of Islamic Reformation where different groups are vying for the heart and soul of Muslims. He traces the development of Al-Qaeda through Saudi Wahhabism (and it's funding from the West) and contrasts it with nations and schools of thought that want Islamic democracy - to live in a state where Islam is important but to still have civil rights. If nothing else, Aslan's reminder that not all Muslims are the same is timely and one that certain groups in the West should learn.I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and was struck by how religion as an institution is certainly different from faith. After Muhammad's death his followers couldn't agree on how best to interpret his message and how to pronounce on matters that were not covered in the Quran. Although the arguments of the different theological schools were hard to follow at times it was fascinating to see how things changed over time (much like Christianity) and how different issues became relevant at different times through history.My only complaints about the book are that I would have liked to read more about the Ottomans (but then I love anything to do with the Ottomans) and that I think Aslan missed a trick by not mentioning the scientific developments in Islamic countries whilst European countries were still in the Middle Ages. If you're interested in religion, this is definitely a book to read and it's also one to recommend to anyone who needs their perceptions about Muslims challenged.