what I've read this month (June)

Halfway through the year now, and I don't think I've made much headway on my new year reading resolutions. Oops. On the plus side, here's what I have read this month:

Click to see the my review.

1. Wesley Chu The lives of Tao
2. Kate Manning The Notorious Life of Madame X
3. Joanne Harris, The Gospel of Loki 
4. Holly Black, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown 
5. Ryu Murakami, From the Fatherland, with Love 
6. Dubravka Ugresic, Baba Yaga Laid an Egg
7. Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters
8. Octavia E. Butler, Kindred  
9. Glyn Iliffe, Adventures of Odysseus: King of Ithaca 
10. Patrick Ness, Siobhan Dowd, illustrated Jim Kay, A Monster Calls 
11. Patricia Ferguson, The Midwife's Daughter

It's difficult to decide what my favourite book is this month, I've read some really good ones. It's a close call between My Notorious Life by Madame X and Kindred, but I think Octavia E. Butler just scrapes the win with Kindred. It's a novel that I know is going to stay with me, as it is just so emotionally raw. If you're looking for some historical fiction, either of these books would suit you. Both deal with harrowing topics, backstreet abortion and slavery receptively. 

If you're interested more in mythology, I'd have no hesitation recommending The Gospel of Loki and Baba Yaga Laid an Egg. The first is a fantastic, chatty introduction to Norse legends and the second is inspired by Slavic folktales.    

Patrick Ness, Siobhan Dowd & Jim Kay, A Monster Calls

Whilst picking up The Chaos Walking Trilogy from the library (see my review here) I spotted A Monster Calls on the shelf.

The Plot: Conor's mum is dying. One night a monster comes to call, he will tell three stories and in return expects Conor to tell the final tale.

Rating: ««««¶ (4/5)

Siobhan Dowd dies of cancer before completing this story, so the novel was completed by Patrick Ness. This gives the novel added poignancy, and the narrative is sad enough as it is. I'm not ashamed to admit I had a little cry.

More pictures under the jump:-

skilful openers

These aren't necessarily the best first lines in books ever to be written, but I still think they're pretty accomplished and make you want to read more:

1.

"5^th, I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going." 
Toni Morrison, Jazz 

2. 

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

-          Gabriel García Márquez, A Hundred Years of Solitude   

3.

"Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw’, that shadowy dark crack running down the middle of life, exist outside of literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs."

-          Donna Tartt, The Secret History 

4.

 "When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. The shape of it, to begin with. The first time I saw her it was the back of her head I saw, and there was something lovely about it, the angles of it. Like a shiny, hard corn kernel or a riverbed fossil. She had what the Victorians would call a finely shaped head. You could imagine the skull quite easily."

-Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl 

What do you think of my choices? Do you have a favourite opening line? 

Octavia E. Butler, Kindred

After reading Wild Seed in April I've been on the hunt for some more Octivia Butler. My local library is sadly lacking the patternister series, but they did have Kindred. 

The Plot: Dana has just moved to a new house with her husband, whilst unpacking boxes she begins to feel nauseous and dizzy, her home disappears and she finds herself by the edge of a river. She has been transported to nineteenth century Maryland, an extremely dangerous place for a black woman. Luckily, just as she is threatened with a gun, she returns to her apartment, but this sorjourn is the start of a terrifying pattern where she is thrown between the two time periods, and endangered in both.

ISBN: 9781472214812

Rating: ««««« (5/5)

Full review after the jump:

Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

I went through a stage of reading lots of Chuck Palahniuk novels back to back, until I got burnt out and forgot about him. Last month, when I was feeling mainly underwhelmed about my reading selection I thought it was about time I gave him another go, so promptly ordered Invisible Monsters from the library. Of course it took a little while to arrive.

The Plot: Successful model Shannon has been disfigured and left unable to speak after been shot in the face. Whilst in recovery Shannon is befriend by Brandy Alexander, who is one operation away from completing her gender reassignment surgery. Together with malleable Seth Thomas, the three go on a cross country road trip, funded by stealing prescription medicine from high-end estates. Unable to talk, Shannon recollects on her upbringing, seething on her parents preferential treatment towards her brother, and plotting revenge on fellow model and frenemy Evie.

Rating: «««¶¶ (3/5)

Dubravka Ugresic, Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

I picked up Baba Yaga Laid an Egg as I have gradually been making my way through the canongate myth series. Canongate have commissioned popular and critically acclaimed authors to retell myths from all over the world.  

Baba Yaga. picture source 

My knowledge of Slavic folktales is pretty limited, though I am familiar with the folk villain/heroine Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga is an elderly female witch who lives in a hut that stands on chicken's legs. She flies through the air using a mortar and pestle. Baba Yaga is usually the malefactor of the story and often attempts to eat the hero/heroine, but occasionally she helps the hero/heroine on their quest.


The Plot: Baba Yaga Laid an Egg is divided into three sections ( the number three been a common motif in  fairytales). The first tells the story of the relationship between the author and her mother. The mother is suffering from aphasia and dementia, and has become difficult. The author has her own troubles, a clingy fan and a dissatisfying trip to Bulgaria. The second, and longest story, concerns a trio of octogenarians who are on the holiday of a lifetime at a spa. Kukla, thrice widowed has given up on men, Beba is incredibly financially lucky but estranged from her son and Pupa a cantankerous woman, who once fought as a partisan and now spends her time with her legs in a giant fur boot,  waiting to die. The third segment is a faux-academic and feminist tirade examining how the previous stories relate to the cannon of Baba Yaga myths.

 
Rating: ««««¶ (4/5)

Full review under the jump:-

alphabetised list of all my book reviews

Wimpole library 

I've just created a new tab with an alphabetised list of all my book reviews.

Click under the blog banner 'alphabetised list of book reviews' or see here

Hopefully this will make books easier to find and make my achieve more accessible. There are currently 56 reviews listed, colour coded by genre. Please take the time to explore, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Wrest Park library 

Whilst your at it, why not check out some of my other tags? Trips  includes all my visits to historical properties throughout the UK and as more pictures of the places in these pictures. Or maybe have a quick look through Home Baking, all my recipes are vegetarian, and most are gluten-free.  

Ryu Murakami, From the Fatherland, With Love

I think I stumbled upon From the Fatherland, With Love during a search for speculative fiction. It instantly appealed as it is set in Japan and North Korea and the initial premise sounded both promising and believable.

The Plot: Japan's economy is devastated, there is mass unemployment and people are living in makeshift camps in public parks. Young men who have been in either the perpetrators or victims of violent crimes congregate in abandoned warehouses in Kyushu. They posses a unique set of skills, some are expert bomb makers, one can decapitate animals with custom built boomerangs, another boy breeds poisonous insects and frogs. Japan teeters on the edge of complete lawlessness, and North Korea seeks to take advantage. A small team of North Korean forces invades the city of Fukuoka, if they are successful  a further 120,000 troops will follow.

Rating: ««¶¶¶ (2.5/5)

For my review see under the jump:-

Baba Yaga

"Baba Yaga lives in a forest [...] in a cramped little hut that stands on hen's legs and turns around on the spot. She has one skeleton-leg [...] dangling breasts that she dumps on the stove or hangs over a pole, a long sharp nose that knock against the celling [...] and she flies around in a mortar, rowing her self through the air with a pestle, wiping away her traces with a broom."  

- Dubravka Ugresic, Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

Holly Black, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

I ordered The Coldest Girl in Coldtown after reading a kindle sample last month, and it lived up to my exceptions. Trash is the best way, a proper guilty pleasure read.


The Plot: Vampirism is regarded as an infectious disease, those who are bitten are quarantined in Coldtowns, and have the choice of either drinking human blood and completing the transition, or resisting the urge for eighty-eight days and remaining human. Either way, they're trapped in the Coldtown. When Tana wakes up after a party surrounded by her dead friend, she knows vampires were the cause. After rescuing her infected ex-boyfriend Aidan and a crazed, chained up vampire called Gavriel, the three make their way to the nearest Coldtown. Tana, Aidan and Gavriel enter the town each with their own agenda and a shaky alliance.  

This will no doubt be popular with the Twilight crowd, but in my opinion it's a better book. Tana is a better heroine by far than vapid Bella. Though of course, there is the now obligatory love triangle between Tana, Aidan and Gavriel, it's not the main event of the story, the danger of Coldtown and the desire for vengeance gives the plot the twist and turns.