Lies Sleeping, book review (Ben Aaronovitch)

The 'Little Crocodiles' was a group of unlicensed practitioners of magic formed by the now deceased and not much missed Geoffrey Wheatcroft when he was at Oxford in the 1950s, and as some of those members have proved rather deadly in the past, tracking down those who may or may not have been involved and finding out what they did or didn't learn, seems as good a place to start as any if Peter Grant is ever going to find the elusive Chorley, and so, the hunt is on.
Lesley May is back - big time - assisting the faceless man, A.K.A Martin Chorley, who has made a bell that he thinks will summons Merlin, as long as he can fuel it with enough magic that is, which means sacrificing a god. So, as Lesley has a serious issue with Mr. Punch after he removed her face in book one, and Mr. Punch was given god-like status about 1500 years earlier, they can kill two birds with one stone, well, they could if it wasn't for Peter Grant, Nightingale and the ever-growing band of staff at the Folly - The Met police's HQ for all things squiffy - trying to thwart them.
Inquiries are made, plans are drawn, pubs explode, DI Stephanopoulos is shot - by Lesley no less - the goddess of the Walbrook is kidnapped - as is Peter - captured fae are freed and as is so often the case in Aaronovitch's River of London books, everything goes to bollocks!
As we race down London's streets and across its famous rivers, Aaronovitch speeds us through the books four hundred pages with deft skill and pace enough to keep you reading well into the night, and there's much to like, too. Characters that we've known and loved (some revered) since the very beginning, pop in and out with a healthy splattering of newer faces making welcome returns and becoming more entrenched in the narrative to good effect.
Peter Grant's pursuit of Chorley in an old Mk1 Ford Transit van is both riveting and hilarious - he's on a pushbike for starters - his temporary incarceration slows the narrative but still manages to move it along, which is clever, whilst foiling Chorley's plans, seizing and destroying his bells, time and again, before we reach the climax - and it's a good one, mark my words it is – where the tempo gets ramped to the max.
So, another thoroughly entertaining read from Aaronovitch then and one of my favourites so far. Four stars.
Oh (spoiler alert) Beverly is pregnant! Yeah.

Before Her Eyes, book review. (Jack Jordan)

There's a quote on the cover of this book that reads, 'I couldn't turn the pages fast enough,' which I agree with, but not in the way you might think.

A lot of people have read this book if Goodreads is to be believed, (There were 167 reviews when I last looked, with 46% being 5 stars and 30% being 4), but I have to ask - WHAT WERE THEY READING?

The idea that a blind woman could do the things Naomi (the main character) does, being a waitress, for example, is far-fetched, (to add context, I did think her having mapped out in her head the town she's lived in all her life, believable), but believing that she could escape a killer who had just slashed another woman's throat close enough for her to feel the blood splatter across her face, wasn't.

To make matters worse the police arrest Niomi on suspicion of murder, (there have been two and one attempted), and believe that she also tried to kill her own guide dog.

Then there are the coincidences: Naomi walks down an unfamiliar alleyway where the murderer happens to be slicing up victim number two. Later in the book she walks down the same road at the same time on the same day as the funeral procession of one of her alleged victims - this happens after she's been arrested and bailed so everyone thinks she's involved - and then things get even worse.

When a book is fast-paced you whizz through it and don't always see the end coming, (I admit, I got the murderer wrong), and you let a few things slide, but I couldn't with this one, the writing was just so bad, to the point where I wondered if it had been edited - I was reading the Kindle edition which doesn't always help.

It was repetitive too: a police officer finds blood on the carpet and a few paragraphs later we're told the same again. Naomi is confronted in the street by one of the victim's fathers who asks her 'why her being alive is fair' and then asks the same thing again a few sentences later. Then, my pet hate: hearts pounding against ribs and breaths wheezing in and out of lungs as if they can pound and wheeze somewhere else. URG!!!!
At one point Naomi had, 'Tubes slithered in and out of her', whatever that’s supposed to mean and is locked in a prison cell, in a police station?

I could go on but I think I've said enough. I rarely write about books that I don't like because I prefer to be positive, but sometimes the reader needs to know what they're letting themselves in for.
Only one star for Before Her Eyes then. Sadly disappointing.

After the Fire, book review. (Will Hill)

This book came to me by chance, a link from Goodreads I think, probably on the back of another book I'd read which an algorithm thought was similar: it was not. Although this book is told in the first person by a teenage girl (Hunger Games, Divergent, We Were Liars) the premise is quite different, which is refreshing.

The book follows Moonbeam's life (bear with me here) through a series of flashbacks and interviews conducted by Dr. Hernandez and Agent Carlyle. As the book progresses we get to hear more about what happened in the compound of 'The Lord's Legion' a religious cult that had isolated itself from the outside world until, well, until now, their perceived apocalypse.
Moonbeam and the surviving young members of the cult are in a hospital/gaol, exactly where Father John said they would be if they didn't sacrifice themselves for his god, so when they all meet in the rec room there are clashes: there is love, hate, fear and retribution which all adds to the realism of the narrative.
The book alternates between 'before' and 'after' chapters, which keeps the pages turning, and Moonbeam is both tough and vulnerable, never really believing the rhetoric of Father John but at the same time, doubting herself - wondering whether she should have died for his god.
I liked her internal battles: whether Dr Hernandez and Agent Carlyle could be trusted, whether her surviving would send her to hell, or gaol, or both, and as the novel moves on, we learn more about the changes that happened in the compound, the hardening of Father John's rhetoric, the increase in work and punishment that ended in Moonbeam’s mother leaving. Her sense of abandonment that follows, which inexorably leads to the grand finale, the battle between good and evil, is well executed, being fast furious and somewhat frightening, whilst retaining a good sense of reality.
So the characters are good, the story is different, has pace, so why only three and a half stars? It's silly things like Moonbeam's heart pounding in her chest all the time as if it might pound somewhere else, and when fire ignites everything the author adds, 'it came into contact with', which is totally unnecessary. If fire ignites everything, it ignites everything, you can leave it at that.

There were numerous examples of this throughout the book and suffice to say it took the edge off of things. Sometimes, less really is more.
After the Fire isn't amazing then but it does have something worth exploring and as it's neither apocalyptic nor mystical/sci-fi, it differentiates itself from other Y/A books, which is good.

The Girls, book review. (Emma Cline)

I've seen this book widely publicised in the press and in bookshops since its release and lots of Bookstagrammers seem to like it so I thought it was about time I dipped my toe in the water.

The writing style is right up my street with plenty of detail (sometimes a little too much) but the loss in momentum when the descriptions go off point is easily forgiven as you become increasingly immersed in the Californian summer of 1969.

You feel the sweat ooze from Evie Boyd's pores, the smell of garbage on Suzanne's clothes, the heat of the campfire as Russell strums his guitar but most of all you feel Evie's uneasiness as she gradually succumbs to her new surroundings.

The other girls are all older than Evie but she wants to be them, be liked by them, especially Suzanne, and so she goes to the ranch where Russell promises sex, drugs and a surreal, almost naturist lifestyle where rules are in short supply.

There's a record deal on the horizon, freedoms that fourteen-year-old Evie wouldn't have dreamt of in her previous life - where she hung out with the plump girl and did things that 'normal' fourteen-year-olds did.

At the ranch people just come and go; they steal food from dumpsters and borrow cars that aren't theirs. Their clothes are pooled and so, before the week is out Evie finds herself transformed. The drinks flow, drugs are shared and she is farmed out for sex, accompanying the indomitable Suzanne to Mitch's house - Mitch being the man promising the record deal.

For the most part, I found this book quite good, but what I do take umbrage with is the use of a fourteen-year-old protagonist.

The other girls are mostly eighteen so I saw no reason for Evie to be so young, other than for shock value, and the events in the book are shocking enough.
The other let down for me was (spoiler alert, spoiler alert) that the main event, the mass murder that is alluded to throughout the book, doesn't even involve Evie. What the hell!!

I wanted her to be in the thick of it, growing a conscience and trying to stop it or relishing in the slaughter, for Suzanne to save her maybe or take the hit because Evie was so young, what I didn't want was a flashback of the trial transcripts and a bit of hearsay.

So, The Girls is beautifully written and memorable but lets you down at the end.

Three stars.

Don't forget to search my blog for your favourite authors and books and if I haven't read them, message me with your recommendations.

The Colour Purple, book review. (Alice Walker)

A recommended read from my wife this one, and now it is a recommended read from me too, but a word of warning - this book plays with your emotions. It is not an easy read.
The pain of what Celie goes through in the book, the trials of a life with a father who rapes her, a husband who beats her, loves another woman, can only be described as a hard, wretched life, but forsaking all of this, Celie pulls through. She has her God and there is joy in friendship, love from family and music in her soul.

Born poor, black, and down south, Celie has little going for her, even her sister manages to escape her fate by having a good head on her shoulders and the ability to learn quickly, something Celie finds hard, and so, barely a teenager, Celie gives birth to her first child, fathered by her dad, and it doesn't stop there.
Told in a series of letters written by Celie, firstly to her God and then to her sister, Nettie and eventually from her sister back to her, The Colour Purple is a fiercely compelling book that has you at times on the edge of your seat. The letters from Nettie come from Africa where she has ventured as a missionary, and these were some of the highlights for me.
Not knowing whether Nettie would succumb to infection or disease whilst in Africa, whether Celie would ever see her sister's letters - her father intercepts them for many years - or whether Nettie would ever find out what Celie has had to endure in life, keeps the narrative flowing and the pages turning fast.
By reading this book you open yourself up to a roller-coaster of emotion: there will be tears, you will feel fear, hatred and anger, but as the book comes to a close you will feel a deep, deep respect for the main character and the author, for this is a journey that feels so real it could be autobiographical.
Praise be then for The Colour Purple. Four stars.

Elizabeth is Missing, book review. (Emma Healey)

Confused.

That's how this book made me feel, confused. Let me explain.

The style is easy but the subject matter, dementia, is tough but handled well.
Our main character, Maud, is slowly losing her way in the world, wondering how one grows marrows and where her friend Elizabeth is. She is both warm and lovable, as well as damned right annoying, like your own Nan/Mum, maybe, and you feel for her.
She gets on the bus but can't remember why, goes to the shop to buy food she already has, driving her daughter Helen, mad, and she has a fixation on her friend Elizabeth, being missing. There are subtleties and quirks to her character that are very believable and you quickly warm to her, worrying that she might get lost or worse, injure herself.

I like the back story too - Maud's sister goes missing when she is a teenager - and the decisions she makes when she was still a child felt plausible and realistic, and I thought the narrative when she is older and confused, forgetting things that have just been explained to her, is well written and convincing, but for me the book jumps from the past to the present too much. I would have preferred the book to have been in parts rather than chapters. Let me explain.

Every chapter is split between the past and the present, and there are a lot of chapters in what is a relatively short book, and it is here that I think it would have worked better if there had been a run of chapters focusing on the past, and then the same for the present, so one could get more involved with the characters of that time, and what was happening to them, before hopping back and forth; other than that, the book was an enjoyable read.
Three stars then for Elizabeth is Missing.

Heart of Darkness, book review. (Joseph Conrad)

Sitting on a cruising yawl (a sailing boat to you and I), in the Thames estuary, waiting for a flood to subside and the tide to turn, Marlow - a seaman of some repute - recants the epic journey he once took into the heart of the African rain forests; to the heart of darkness.

Just getting a commission was hard enough, until a wealthy benefactor stepped in, and his passage from England to Europe and then on to the African continent, took weeks, all before he had to battle his way through the dense jungle of the Congo to discover 'his' steamer a wreck.

A month or two pass whilst he repairs his charge, making her seaworthy again, and then finally, he is able to press on, up the Congo River in search of the legendary explorer and ivory thief, Mr Kurtz.

With every mile travelled, the forest encroaches, the air thickens and the natives get bolder. As a reader you feel the tension build, the exhaustion and the sweat running down their backs, you hear the call of the birds, feel the humidity, as if you are right there in the jungle, and you get nervous when you see, through dense undergrowth, eyes staring back at you.

Heart of Darkness is a short book but the writing is as fierce as the mosquito filled heat soaked African rain forest, and as every meander in the river is traversed, the intensity rises and the tension builds, leaving you somewhat exhausted by the end but wanting more.

Three and a half stars for this one then, as it is good, builds tension well and has you on edge for a fair chunk of the book, but I did feel a bit lost sometimes, which might be me, but there you go.

Dolores Claiborne, book review. (Stephen King)

Dolores has a story to tell, her story, but don't think she's about to admit to killin' that bitch Vera, 'cause she ain't, she din't; she did however kill her husband, but everyone's known that for years, haven't they?

Told in one long continuous monologue, with no chapter breaks, breaks in the text, and with no interruptions from the policemen and woman who are present at her confession, this novel is a masterpiece.
Dolores is a normal, run of the mill, wife, mother, carer and all around nice person, but when Vera Donovan dies and she . . . better not give the story away here . . . the locals start to talk, point the finger at her. After all, Delores was the last person to see Vera alive, the person that spent the last few decades looking after Vera, listening to all her vile diatribe, and the person whose husband mysteriously fell down a well some years earlier.
As Dolores recants her story we fall under her spell, and so sincere is her confession that you don't think to question what might be true or false, whether her husband really was that bad, whether he really did hit on her, do the things she says he did to . . . well, we just have no way of knowing, we just trust the narrator and go with it, believing all that we are told.
It wasn't until later, whilst making notes for this blog post, that I realised this, that not once whilst I was reading the book did I question what Dolores was saying, that it might not be true, and here in is the cleverness of the author, making me question it, think about the story, the characters, days and weeks after I thought I'd finished.

Of course that question is still there, did she or didn’t she do it, and every now and then I will turn it over in my mind and wonder.

Four well deserved stars then and another King favourite.

Mark Haddon. (Author focus)

For my third author focus, I have chosen Mark Haddon, author of, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: the all-time classic, multi-million selling book, translated into untold languages and made into a West End play, but his first book is not all that he's good for, he's not just a one-trick pony.

     I first read, The Dog in the Night-time, some years ago now and then, when some of his other books came my way, I felt the need to delve deeper, explore a little more and I'd encourage you to do the same, because, A Spot of Bother is both funny, scary and sad all at the same time, and his exploration into family life, how they interact, clash, fight, envy, love, is spelled out in his third novel, The Red House, which again, is well worth a read.

     Then, his latest book, the collection of short stories that is, A Pier Falls, (not my normal fodder), was quirky, inviting, strange and damned right weird, but still had a certain something about it.

      Haddon has a very unusual writing style, which at first may seem strange, for there is a distinct lack of commas, semi-colons and other punctuation, but his characters, his settings, his prose, soon encapsulates you, pushing you through the stories, and I think it is his grasp of the mundane, the quirks of human beings, the simple every day, that make his books so readable, so down to earth and memorable.

     If you want a more in-depth review on the horrors of, A Spot of Bother, see my 25/04/17 post, family life in, The Red House can be found at 05/12/16 and if you've got the energy for more, The Pier Falls was reviewed on 30/08/16, so whatever you do, don't just leave it at, The Dog in the Night-time, a book that I will have to reread before giving you fine folk an honest an up to date review.

Enjoy.

Ready Player One, book review. (Ernest Cline)

Is sci-fi your thing? No.

How about something apocalyptic, geeky '80's retro? Four hundred pages about gaming?
No! Still not on board?
Well, you’re gonna miss out on one hell of a good book then because, Ready Player One is fantastic.
It is 2044, we’ve used all the oil, there's widespread famine and poverty, but hidden in the OASIS, (a computer generated universe consisting of thousands of worlds), there's hundreds of billions of dollars waiting to be won. All you have to do is solve the riddles set out by its deceased creator, Halliday, find the keys to the three gates and it’s yours. Some seek the fortune for good, to prosper, not only themselves but others, but the IOI Corporation wants it for itself and will stop at nothing it seems to get it, including murder.
Living at the top of a twenty story stack of mobile homes with limited aspirations, other than to win the fortune, Wade Watts, aka, Parzival spends all his spare time logged into Oasis, trying to solve the riddles.
When he stumbles upon the first of the three gate keys, he becomes instantly famous, a target, once he's made it through the first gate, he's on borrowed time. His aunt and the trailer where they lived, are blown to pieces, there's coercion, a feigned suicide, proposed kidnappings and more.

As riddles get solved, an epic game of Pacman is played, tempers fray and trust issues arise, you forget you’re in a fictional world within a fictional world and get pulled along for the ride, and all the while the characters in the book are, for the most part, avatars in a computer game.
Parzival is super geeky, but he's educated himself through the OASIS school system, his fellow gunters, (people who spend their time in OASIS looking to solve Halliday's riddles, but who haven't sold out to the corporation of IOI), all bring something different to the narrative, some more than others, of which we find out at the end of the book!
The author’s love of the 1980's was right up my street and some of the games, the computers, and most of the films he makes reference to - Parzival flies around in a DeLorean for goodness sake's - had me reminiscing, and there's always a sense that something's not quite right, that one of the gunters might not be telling the whole truth. With that in mind, the sixers (derogatory name for those who spend their days trying to crack the riddles in OASIS for IOI), gradually close in on Parzival and his friends but, can they beat them to Halliday's Egg and win the prize - Ownership of the entire virtual word, the Oasis?.

There is a huge amount of info-dump throughout this book, which gets a bit annoying but with the epic battle at the end, the tense week that preceded it, the journey through the various challenges, great characters and (for me anyway), the books effortless mix of nostalgia with a possible future and superb researching and originality, it easily earns four stars.

I just hope the film doesn’t let it down.

Don't forget to search my blog for your favourite authors and books and if I haven't read them, message me with your recommendations

The Hate U Give, book review. (Angie Thomas)

There is a lot of love out there for this book, on Instagram, Goodreads and the likes but I only found some of it; let me explain.
Going to parties is not Starr's thing, and we soon find out why. Shots are fired, a teenager is killed, and in the mayhem that follows, she and a friend, Khalil, manage to escape, only to be pulled over by a cop a few streets away.
The premise of this story is that when Khalil leans back into his car to ask Starr if she is alright, (the cop having given no reason for stopping them), whether the cop felt he was a conceivable threat, or just shot him because he was black.
The shooting, the emotions that follow, the characters in general and Garden Heights, where Starr and her family live, are all very believable, but there’s other aspects of this book that are even better, more realistic.
When Starr's friends' find out she’s dating Chris, who’s white, there are all sorts of accusations, and when her father finds out - something she and her mother have deliberately kept from the dad - the shit hits the fan, albeit temporarily, and this I thought was very clever, because as we all know, the reality is that there is a fear in any ethnic group of outsiders, strangers, and although that fear can sometimes be overcome by being civil and wanting to learn, it quite often boil over into the hate that this book draws its name from, racism.
The protests, the verbal and physical threats that follow Starr through the book, are both edgy and believable, but the scene that created the most tension for me, that was genius in its simplicity, was when Starr's father is made to lie on the pavement by two cops in broad daylight, in front of his children and neighbours, for nothing more than a perceived argument. Again, as is so often the case, less is more.
So the author handles riots well, convinces us of the injustices of law enforcement, uses a subtlety around emotions, and has believable characters, so, why not five stars?
Two reasons: Firstly, this book has the story the characters and the trials and tribulations of a Y/A novel, but it's littered with far too much profanity. Call me old if you like but, The Hunger Games dealt with death, torture, maiming and worse, but never felt the need to use the F-word once, let alone the many times you see it here. Secondly, the 'N' word. We're told not to use it, that it is racist, defamatory, ugly, all sentiments I agree with, so why is it here? For an adult book, fine, go for it, knock yourself out, but for Y/A, I say no.
So, four stars then, for this tightly written rollercoaster book of emotion, fear, racism and understanding.
I hope the film is half as good.

The Trial, book review. (Franz Kafka)

Errr! Lost in translation, or, maybe not!

Okay then, Kafka's, The Trial, was exactly that to read, a trial; of my patience, my sanity and my time.

If this was dystopian or Sci-Fi, it might make more sense, but as far as I could tell, the book was set at the time it was written and in Europe, not some skewed alternate universe, which was how the book read.

Josef K is arrested at his home but not told by the guards why. Nor is he told by their supervisor or anybody else for that matter, so he goes through the entire book not knowing who has accused him of what and with no idea of how to defend himself.

He meets random people in lofts (court chambers that double as people’s bedrooms), an advocate who's been working on another man's case for five years with no resolution, a priest who seems to know him and his case, but not enough to actually tell him anything useful, and several women who are all attractive, and become instantly attracted to him!!!

On top of this, you get paragraphs that extend to over a page where two or more people are talking about multiple topics, and I had to wonder, if anyone else wrote something as disjointed as this book, whether they would they ever get it published? (That’s a No by the way).

I know that some of you might take umbrage at my views, that some of you are far more intelligent than me, (or smoked the right drugs), and will say that I just didn’t get it, but I would question, what is there to get? To me the whole thing was just one big confusion, where no-one seemed to know what the hell was going on, and another thing, everyone seemed to be poor, even Josef K, a successful banker, lived in a small rented room in a tenement building, as did the advocate, which again, made me wonder whether this book should be dystopian.

Anyway, in conclusion: don’t bother with Kafka’s, The Trial, read something else.

Ian McEwan. (Author focus)

With, The Children Act, hitting the cinema this week, I thought it apt to do my next author focus.

So, for this post, Ian McEwan, author of the aforementioned, and such books that you may recognise from previous visits to the cinema as, Enduring Love, with Daniel Craig and Rhys Ifans, On Chesil Beach with Saoirse Ronan and of course, Atonement with Vanessa Redgrave and Keira Knightley, and, let’s not forget last year's excellent BBC adaptation of, The Child in Time, with Benedict Cumberbatch.

So, it's fair to say that at some time or another, most of you would have come across something written by this author, but, how many of you have actually read one of his books?

I confess that the extent of my reading is what you see in the picture on the left, so, no Atonement then, and I've yet to read his latest novel, but most of what I have read, I have enjoyed - some more than others of course.

Solar, was one that I didn’t really get on with, along with, The Daydreamer, but Sweet Tooth was excellent, capturing the dim, smoke filled offices and soot covered buildings of the 1970's very convincingly and along with Saturday, which takes us through one particular Saturday in the life of an eminent neurosurgeon, from a mundane traffic collision, through an epic squash match, to a climax that had me reading at double speed, they rank as my favourite McEwan books to date.

His novels aren't long, (so no excuses), with most not even making three hundred pages, and they can lack a bit for their brevity, but what you do get is an intense ride, intense characters and in some cases - Enduring Love being the one that really stands out for me - something that sticks with you. (The appendix in Enduring Love is worth buying the book for alone).

So, whether you like books narrated by a foetus, a child who time travels, young married couples who fear intimacy, or raving madmen who become infatuated, there seems to be something for everyone here, and hopefully, as long as McEwan keeps writing, we’ll get some excellent viewing pleasure too.

So, the film: Emma Thompson in the lead role, Ian McEwan as the writer, set in my old home town of London, what more could I want? (Maybe I'll let you know once I've seen it).

Where do you edit? Confessions of a serial editor!!

Editing.

Oh editing!

I could write a lot about editing: how it sometimes makes sense, where other times it doesn't, how it gives and takes, highlighting your mistakes one minute, underlining the quality of your work the next, but where would we be without it?

When I reread some of the things I've written in the past, they make me laugh, some even have me squirming; some make me wonder what illegal substance I must have consumed when writing them, because from a literary point of view, they make such little sense, but, getting your work down, scribbling those notes whilst on the train in the morning, during your lunch hour, adding a memo on your phone, or taking a photograph that will jog your memory later, are all so, so important, because a novel, a poem, the short story or novella that you are nursing, isn't going to write itself.

So, where should you edit?
For me, it's in the backroom, the lounge, kitchen or bedroom, the car, the common, or in a field. It's at work, on holiday or in the dead of night and because we all lead such busy lives, (some more so than others), I find those little moments wherever I can, so when people ask me how I find the time to write, (after all, ninety thousand words don't just fall onto the page), I can tell them.
I confess that I don't watch the television much, that I'm able to spend most of my lunchtimes undisturbed, and if you add in a few hours here and there, on a Sunday or a day off, it all adds up.
It's not as much as I would like, (will it ever?) but I take what I can get, and I'd encourage you all to do the same, 'cause once it's on the page, set down for you to see, you can start the real writing . . . the editing.
Good Luck.

Turtles All the Way Down, book review. (John Green)

Sorry I've been absent for a while, but I've been writing a lot recently and the books I've been reading are like doorsteps, and as I read at a snail’s pace, it takes me a while to get through them. Anyway, with that little update over, let's move on to John Green's, Turtles All the Way Down, (one of the smaller books I've consumed in the last few months).

You'll know John Green from, The Fault in Our Stars, of course, which is a fine book, but, Turtles All the Way Down, is just as good, if not better, (my favourite so far is, Looking for Alaska). Turtles All the Way Down, follows Aza, who, along with her best friend, Daisy, go in search of a one hundred thousand dollar reward, that's being offered in connection with the disappearance of her old classmate's father.

Within a handful of pages, you're sucked in to Aza's world and can't get out (don't want to get out) and it's like we become her friend, the third person in the room, the fly on the wall, and before you know it, you've turned the last page and cursed the author for not having a more extensive back catalogue.

But Aza has issues, (what teenager doesn't? I hear you ask, and this is teen fiction after all), but here, I think John Green handles these issues with conviction, and you find yourself mooching along in the poor girl's head, feeling hot when she's hot, scared when she's scared and just a little freaked out when she goes a bit nuts.

Aza and Daisy have a massive row, there are boys, a possible romance brewing, mental illness, jealously, the fear of success, of moving away when school finishes, doctors, mums and a missing billionaire to find, and John Green just makes it all so believable. He has a knack of making his characters and the world they inhabit so relatable, that the book just runs away with you, and then, when it’s done, (Note to author: your books are too short), you hanker for more. The author is so good in fact, at writing teenagers, that I have to question whether he's still one himself!

A solid four stars then for, Turtles All the Way Down and a good read however old you are. Next up from John Green, Paper Town; yeah!!!

The Road, book review. (Cormac McCarthy)

Okay, so this is an interesting book, it's interesting because it breaks the rule; it's also frustrating for that very same reason.

The book is about a man and a young boy making their way south, along, The Road. There isn't much to see and very little to do, other than hide from any would-be criminals and scavenge for food and water.

The book paints a very bleak future of a world that has been ravaged by . . .? Well, we don't know, it's just ravaged, and our two main characters, er! lets just call them, the man and the boy, because that's what they're called in the book, have their entire life in a shopping cart.
As they move ever closer to the sea, they have to hide, fight, run, lose all their possessions, get them back again and more.

The sense of isolation here, of hopelessness, is akin to John Wyndham's, The Day of the Triffids, and really punches through. The suspense: when they see or hear other humans, enter what they hope are unoccupied buildings, descend into cellars, where the man finds fresh clean drinking water, all have you biting your nails in anticipation, but, and this is where I feel the book lets itself down, it's all a bit too bland.

The world is grey, covered in ash, the sun never penetrates and the nights are cold, very cold, (it's because of the cold that the man and boy are heading south), but it's bland to the point of annoyance.

Back to my opening statement: this book breaks too many rules, well, it does in my opinion.

Books are supposed to have a beginning middle and an end, this one only has an end; the whole thing feels like the last few hundred pages of a much longer manuscript.

Not naming the characters, okay, fine, but without that, they lose some of their humanity, their identity, and you sort of stop routing for them, and my biggest gripe? No speech marks! Why? Why, why, why, do authors and/or publishers think this is okay? It's not clever, it's just bloody annoying.

So, in summary, it's a book about a world we don't know, with people we don't know, or get to know, travelling south to a place we don't know, with no speech marks.

For the sense of isolation and the tension created when the man goes into the cellar and confronts a would be attacker, and the fact that it is short and doesn't take long to read, I’ll give this one three stars.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, book review. (Ken Kesey)

I'm not going to lie to you; I found the first half of this book hard going. (Hence the Whisky!) I don't know what it is about classic American literature, but I always seem to struggle with it, be it F Scott Fitzgerald, Steinbeck or Salinger, there just seems to be a disconnect.

Many of you will have seen the film with Jack Nicholson, and therefore know the basic story - McMurphy is a wise cracking, gambler, who has avoided gaol (jail) for what he thinks is going to be a few easy months in a mental hospital, and he brings turmoil and discord to what was once a peaceful, psychiatric ward.

From what I remember, the film was really quite good, but I saw it too long ago to make any meaningful connection with the book; which I felt dragged, to the point where I had to put it to one side and read something else, before coming back to it.

I suppose, being told in the first person by an American Indian, who pretends to be deaf and dumb, is regularly drugged and resides in a mental institute, may have had something to do with that, but it's not until a fishing trip, (about half way through the book) that I felt it really started to get interesting.

There are flashes of greatness here, some of the group therapy sessions are tense and leave you guessing. McMurphy's ability to talk everyone around to his way of thinking, are intriguing but soon grow tiresome; the Chief's flashbacks of home are convincing and come with a hint of sadness, but his visions of a hidden world, a world where everything is controlled by the Combine, are lacklustre.

I think perseverance is the key with this book. I'm glad I stuck with it, and in the end I can see why some of you might like it, but for me, I can't recommend it.

Just scrapes three stars for those flashes of excellence then, the fishing trip being the one true highlight, but without that scene, it really don't think it would have been worth my while.

Cell, book review. (Stephen King)

Big, bold, blood thirsty apocalyptic fantasy fiction, all rolled into one neat little package by the best in the business?

Well, almost.

Some Stephen King books have as much in common with the horror genre as Bridget Jones's Diary, but Cell certainly isn't one of them.

The book starts like a punch to the face, smack, and you're in; you're in the middle of Boston to be precise, and the world is going mad, losing its head; people are starting to go crazy, committing mass suicide, attacking each other with gut retching, blood thirsty ferocity. (The incident is later referred to as the Pulse).

A proper Horror then? You bet; don't read this if you’re squeamish.

Our main character, Clayton Riddell - he's just managed to sell some artwork and has a spring in his step when the shit hits the fan - links up with the somewhat bookish Tom McCourt and rather excellent Alice Maxwell, (who quickly became my favourite character), her mixture of vulnerability and teenage verve being reminiscent of Beverly Marsh from 'It'.

The story centres round Clayton and his small posse, escaping the ever apocalyptic Boston, to begin the journey that will result (we hope) in Clayton finding his son.

They hole up in Tom McCourt's house for a night before pressing on, they find a school headmaster and a single pupil, (Jordan), who they try to convince to join their quest, and commit mass murder on the way.

Bloody, thoughtful, slightly SCI-FI, horrific and touching in equal measure, this book is Stephen King doing what everybody thinks he is doing, in all of his books, but rarely does, (most of his books are nowhere near as bloodthirsty as this one) and coming up trumps. 

It did feel like something was missing thought, and I won't spoil it by telling you the end, but it stopped very abruptly, and unlike a lot of his books, there was very little backstory to most of the characters.

It wouldn't surprise me it there's an unabridged version of this book somewhere in the SK vault; one with a bit more of a beginning, more character development, (like what happened at Jordan's school) and maybe even, what happened after Clayton finds . . .

Almost spoilt it!

Three and a half stars then, but if you're a King fan, I'm sure you'll read it anyway.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, book review. (J.K. Rowling)

This might lose me a few followers or anger a few Potter fans, but I'm going to say it anyway, this book is just too long. 

There are moments of pure genius, the whole Ministry of Magic escapade towards the end is really good, and the way Professor Umbridge gets under your skin and frustrates the reader as much as she does the characters in the book, is great, but other bits are just too long winded. 

Take Hagrid's brother Grawp as an example, I know he has to be there, so as to affect the ending, but it could have been done quicker and more effectively, as could the whole of the beginning. 

The time it take for Harry to be attacked by dementors, summonsed to the Ministry of Magic for trial, found innocent, explore his Godfather's house and get to Hogwarts, is frustratingly slow. 

Again, I realise that some of what happens, happens for a reason and adds to the overall story, but cleaning the curtains in one of Sirius Blacks reception rooms is totally unnecessary.  

Unlike the film, Dobby turns up, Hermione goes on about SPEW again, which is also unnecessary, and we get an insight into how much Sirius and Snape hate each other; all the while, Voldemort is gets stronger, Harry is falling in love and The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts - the aforementioned Umbridge - is implementing evermore draconian punishments.

I like the conflicting emotions that Harry has over Cho and Ginny, the isolation when Dumbledore ignores him and he's banned from quidditch, and the solace he finds in Dumbledore's Army. I like Christmas at St Mungo's (wizard hospital) and the introduction of Luna Lovegood, but it takes over seven hundred pages before the world accepts that Voldemort is back, and it could have been done quicker. 

In conclusion then, if you want to know the whole story, it's a book you have to read, but compared to The Goblet of Fire, and the two books that follow, this one is a bit of chore. 

Four stars then, because in spite of the negatives, hidden within those many pages are moments of pure pleasure.