DOUBLE REVIEW: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (5*)

~ THE BOOK (5*) ~

Published by Arrow Books, 1997.

"There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads - they couldn't be fair if they tried.  In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins.  They're ugly, but those are the facts of life."

I can honestly say that I don't remember how long ago I acquired this book.  I know I got it for Christmas at around the age of 12 or 13.  I know that my mum and possibly my sister read my copy within a year or two.  I know that in my entire reign as bookseller at our shop I never felt so ashamed of a bookish shortfall as I did when customers happily pointed at our giant TKaM book cover poster and tried to engage me in conversation about one of their favourite books, and I - a lifelong reader, English student and bookshop owner - had to admit that I'd never read it.

Having decided that I must finally pick it up this year, and having recently seen positive reviews from Mercedes and Barry on BookTube, this month I FINALLY plucked it down from my shelves and started reading.  I have to admit, despite its small size I was surprisingly nervous about tackling this one, mostly because I have a track record of loathing big American classics that everyone else loves.  Happily for me, this one completely lived up to the hype, exceeded expectations and won me over completely!

As anyone who was around Twitter when I started reading will know, initially I was a bit sceptical.  The first sixty or seventy pages are slow-going, and I was struggling to see what all the fuss was about.  Young Scout Finch, little sister to Jem and daughter of the iconic Atticus, is recounting anecdotes about her neighbours, about her experiences at school, about her summers spent playing with Jem and their friend Dill, and about the mystery surrounding the Radley house next door.  One of the few things I already knew about the book was that there was an important character called Boo Radley, and that he was somehow meant to be sympathetic, so I was definitely getting a bit impatient when the children's interaction with the house seemed to mainly involve running past the gate at high speed and poking at the windows with a fishing pole. 

HOWEVER.  I now fully appreciate that what Harper Lee did so beautifully in these early chapters was to build up such a rich picture of the neighbourhood, of the characters that live there, of the dynamics within the Finch family, of the attitudes and proclivities of the local women in particular, that from that point on she's pretty much free to weave her story uninterrupted.  Because we already understand the people, their politics, their idiosyncracies, and the way each of them relates to Scout and her family, the author doesn't need to hold up the increasingly riveting plot twists explaining other people's motivations.

I don't want to say too much about the actual plot, because as someone who had never seen the movie and knew only the bare basics going into the book - Atticus Finch, Scout, Boo Radley, a rape charge, racial tension in a southern town, a compelling court case - I was gripped anew by each twist and turn of the local politics, each moment of violence, each terrible incident of wilful prejudice.  Seeing everything through the eyes of young Scout made everything that much richer, as she understands certain things very differently to her well-heeled neighbours (Tom Robinson's innocence, for example), yet fails to understand the significance of other events, so we have to read between the lines and see what she can't.  I also liked the fact that her tomboyish nature and hatred of all things girlie introduced feisty discussion of gender politics into the mix alongside the expected questions about race discrimination and racial equality.

I don't really know what else to talk about, because it's To Kill a Mockingbird, what is there to say?  It tackles huge themes like race, class, feminism, family, sexual abuse and the loss of innocence, and does so perfectly.  I just loved this book, and I urge everyone who's been inexplicably putting it off (like me!) to just read it already.  There are so many memorable moments and images in this book (and yes, Atticus is just as heroic and perfect as I wanted him to be; his closing statement to the jury made me want to stand up and applaud), and the characters felt so real to me as I was reading, so complex and rounded, that I felt almost bereaved when the book was over.  There were twists I didn't expect and horrors I sadly did, and I read the last quarter of the book through a thin veil of tears that shifted from happy to sad to horrified and back again as the story of one man's heroism and the fall-out in a traditional southern neighbourhood reached its close.  It's beautifully written, very accessible, thought-provoking, compelling, heartbreaking, and frequently - thanks to young Scout and her wonderful way with words ("Talking to Francis gave me the sensation of settling slowly to the bottom of the ocean.  He was the most boring child I ever met.") - very funny.  READ IT!

Two Questions

1.  Did Bob Ewell rape his daughter?  That's what I read somewhere afterwards, but I didn't interpret it like that at all.  I read it as Ewell beating his daughter when he caught her 'tempting' a black man, whether sex was involved or not - but I saw no hint that he'd raped Mayella.  According to the court case no doctor was called to examine her, so how do we know there was any sex involved at all?  That Ewell didn't just catch Mayella making advances on Tom, beat her for it, then accuse Tom of rape in order to bring down 'justice' on his head in revenge?

2.  Why is Jem not a more famous character?  I didn't even know Scout HAD a brother - you hear about Scout and Atticus every time someone discusses the book, but I've never heard anyone talk about Jem!  Which is a shame, because he's basically a mini-Atticus.  He's brave, and thoughtful, and understands things that Scout doesn't yet; he was the character that inspired most hope in me, the one who seemed to represent the dream of a less prejudiced and more equality-driven future generation.

Notable Quotables:

• "... sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of - oh, of your father... if Atticus Finch drank until he was drunk he wouldn't be as hard as some men are at their best.  There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one."
• "The things that happen to people we never really know.  What happens in houses behind closed doors, what secrets..."
• "Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire.  I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches: when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to be doing things that required pants.  Aunt Alexandra's vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father's lonely life.  I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine in pants just as well..."
• "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

Source: I've had this book on my shelves for over a decade; I think I got it for Christmas one year?

~ THE MOVIE (4.5*) ~

Starring Gregory Peck and Mary Badham. Directed by Robert Mulligan, 1962.

 

Okay, the first thing to say about this movie is READ THE BOOK FIRST.  It's wonderful in its own right, but I think I got more out of certain pivotal scenes thanks to the background knowledge and additional detail I'd gleaned from the book.  The second thing to say is that this segment of the post will be a bit spoilery, because I HAD FEELS AND I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEM.

 

So, I was very, very impressed with this film.  I thought that it was very faithful to the book; there were significant exclusions that maybe wouldn't have translated to the screen, or would have dragged the whole thing down (like a lot of the neighbourhood gossip and drama), and the time period between Tom's trial and the aftermath was tightened, but there were no major changes.  Considering the fact that the movie was never going to be inside Scout's mind in the same way, I thought the atmosphere and tone of the film stayed remarkably consistent with the book.  There was a warmth about the Finch family, about their little unit of Atticus, Jem, Scout and Calpurnia, which translated beautifully, and worked to offset the violent moments and the spooky intrigue of the Radley house next door.

 

The thing that really makes this movie, of course, is the acting.  Gregory Peck is wonderful as Atticus, and his dry reactions to his childrens' quirks made me chuckle a few times, just as they did in the book.  I thought his closing statement to the jury, which, as I said above, made me want to give him a standing ovation in the book, was a bit overblown and filled with dramatic huffing and puffing, but everything else was spot on for me.  You know how even if you're not a kid person, occasionally you will see someone, whether in real life or a fictional character, and get this overwhelming feeling that you could have children with that person?  That was how I felt about Atticus Finch.  He was perfect.  Props also go to Brock Peters, whose testimony as Tom Robinson nearly broke my heart, it was so powerfully and quietly played.

 

The children's acting was also excellent, very natural and full of fun.  Mary Badham's Scout is so mischievous and determined to be just as good as her brother, and she made me laugh a few times with her quick retorts and absolute horror at having to wear a dress for school.    Phillip Alford, playing Jem, was the perfect big brother, defending Scout one moment and soundly chastising her the next.  You could see Atticus in him, just like in the book.  I read somewhere that Mary and Phillip were actually very much like brother and sister on the set, constantly bickering and playing off each other, so maybe that's why they have such good sibling chemistry on-screen!  Likewise their family chemistry with Gregory Peck was fantastic.  It was like watching a real family, no sense of awkwardness at all, just affection.  In fact, as Mary Badham wrote later, she and Peck stayed in touch and called each other Atticus and Scout until the day he died.

 

So, shall we talk about the feels now?  As I gushed on Twitter last night, this movie made me SOB.  Just like the book.  At least one tear-worthy moment didn't appear in the film, but there were several here-come-the-tears moments, and two serious-crying stop-the-film-until-you-can-see-again parts.  This was the first:

 

 

It's just as perfect a moment as it is in the book, that show of respect for the one man in town who dared to defend an innocent man despite the fact that he was black.  When I mentioned how hard I'd cried on Twitter, Liz immediately tweeted back the Reverend's immortal line ("Miss Jean Louise, stand up... your father's passing"), and I knew I wasn't alone.  And then there was the real tear-jerker...

 

 

This was the moment that finished me off completely, in both the book AND the film.  This was where I really benefited from having read the book first, I think, because there was more background between Boo and the Finches in the novel (during the fire, for example, which doesn't appear in the film), and also Scout's insight at the end into how much Boo could see from his house: how he'd been watching over 'his' children for a long time, finding solace from his lonely existence in these two good and vibrant young people.  I thought Robert Duvall played this moment beautifully.  He never has to say a word, but he is PERFECT.  His fear, followed by that moment of relief and happiness as Scout recognises and accepts him... ALL THE FEELS.  At the moment Atticus says, "I believe he already knows you..." and the gorgeous Elmer Bernstein score swells, I absolutely fell apart.  I'm welling up just thinking about it, and I think that moment from the score will probably make me cry forever more.

Okay, I'm going to stop rambling now, because I'm never going to be able to do either the book OR the film justice.  Just, please... if you've been putting off this book because of the overwhelming hype, or if you've just not been sure it's for you, and if you haven't seen the film yet... PLEASE GO AND DO IT.  RIGHT NOW.  You won't regret it.  This is what books and movies are supposed to be, you guys.  This is the real deal.  Go!  Read!  Watch!  Cry!

 

REVIEW: Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs - The Left Bank World of Shakespeare and Co, by Jeremy Mercer (5*)

Alternative title - Time was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare and Co.
by Jeremy Mercer (Phoenix, 2006)

"Two months before I'd had a high-profile job with an enviable salary, a sleek black German sedan on lease, an apartment in a fashionable downtown neighbourhood, and a collection of not-so-inexpensive shirts and jackets hanging in the closet.  Now, there were a few hundred dollars in my pocket, no job or prospect thereof, some clothes jammed into an old handbag, and a bed in a tattered bookstore to call home.  All things considered, I couldn't have been happier."

As most of my regular readers will know (because I've mentioned it so many times!), this book and I have been good friends for many years now.  I bought it from the bookshop on my university campus and this month has marked my third reading.  The first time I read it, I fell in love.  The second time, I looked for inspiration.  The third time, I found both.  This is, I suppose, the story of our friendship!

My first reading...

I was still at university (I think) and fell utterly in love with Mercer's world of bohemians and books.  My review on LibraryThing went like this:

"On the run from an unfortunate mistake in his Canadian life as a crime journalist, Jeremy Mercer heads to Paris to escape for a while.  Caught in a rainstorm near Notre-Dame one afternoon, he spots a welcoming light across the river and thus stumbles inadvertently on the Shakespeare and Company bookshop.  Invited upstairs for tea by the beautiful woman behind the desk, wandering the labyrinth of books and beds, he soon realises that this is no ordinary bookshop and, as a poor writer, is invited to join the ranks of lost souls inhabiting the book-lined rooms.

So begins his whimsical and quintessentially bohemian stay, under the watchful eye of eccentric owner George Whitman (surely the star of the book, with his fascinating life and Communist ideals), who renamed his unique store after the original literary oasis, run by his good friend Sylvia Beach, which was forced to close down during the Second World War.  Here all are welcome to browse and lose themselves in their reading; tea is offered on a Sunday; eclectic readings take place in the library; literary and political opinions are argued out – and those in need of a bed will find one amongst the books in return for a few hours helping around the shop and in the kitchen.

Mercer deliciously evokes days trawling the scattered tomes, nights spent storytelling by the Seine, tourists attracted by the store’s reputation, wanderers attracted by Whitman’s generosity, showering in the public washhouses, scrounging leftover food to get by: in short, a poor life, without good facilities or scope for wastage of any kind, but a happy, lively life nonetheless.  The characters moving through Whitman’s utopia are many and varied, yet he remains, a kind of rock in the tides of time and tourism, as the chaos of youthful dreams and books and wine whirls around him. 

Of course, eventually reality bites for Mercer and it’s time to move on – but his journey is magical and the lessons of the bookstore honest.  Now I have Sylvia Beach’s own book 'Shakespeare and Company’ to read, and I recommend the documentary ‘Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man’, made towards the end of Mercer’s time in Paris and readily available online.  Still not sure whether to read it?  Try searching online for photos of the store in all its glory – if that doesn’t persuade you, nothing will!"


My second reading...

The second time I read the book, two years later, I was on the cusp of opening my bookshop.  Since then I'd seen the documentary I mentioned at least twice - it became one of my go-to methods for getting out of a reading slump or inspiring me to read more each day - and seen lots of pictures and amateur YouTube footage of the shop, and I felt like I was going into the book with a more rounded feel for the world George Whitman had created for himself, his writers and the daily flood of visitors.

This time around, I wasn't just looking for a bookish good read - I was also looking for bookshop inspiration.  Thanks to George and to Mercer's book, I understood that books are, ironically, only a small part of running a bookshop.  While we wouldn't have the space and the right kind of customers to create anything like George's vision, I tried to adapt some of the elements of the atmosphere I'd fallen in love with through Mercer's account into workable parts of our own shop.  We tried to pour ourselves into our surroundings and make our shop a friendly and idiosyncratic place to be.

We didn't have a mirror covered in letters and cards - but we had a humble pinboard with pictures, interesting things we found tucked in books, recommendations and bestseller lists.  We didn't have a shop cat - but we did have a tiny mouse that liked to sit in our bird feeder, much to the bemusement of the tourists.  We didn't have beds amongst the bookshelves - but we had comfortable chairs where regulars would sit chatting about books and their lives (or sleeping, in one case).  Because it was OUR shop, and we had the flexibility of mostly selling second-hand books, I wasn't afraid to sometimes make personal decisions instead of business ones, waiving a few pennies for a kid whose pocket money wouldn't quite stretch to a book they wanted, slipping in a freebie for a teenager who was eagerly collecting Star Trek novels, or helping out a practically-homeless woman who would 'buy' a book for a fraction of the marked price on the understanding that she'd bring it back when she was finished with it.  In the back of my mind, there was always the question, "What would George do?"  I still hadn't visited Shakespeare and Company, thanks in part to the agoraphobia that crippled me right at the time when a Paris trip would have been ideal - after uni, before work - but it was always in my mind, thanks to Jeremy Mercer and his magical book.


My third reading...

And so we come to 2014.  After four and a half years of trading as a mother-daughter business, in a bookshop that had become our second home, we sold up and moved on around the New Year.  Neither of us have been back to see what it looks like now - it would be like going back to your old house to see what the new owners have done with it - and it already feels like a distant memory, thanks in part to the crippling depression that's driven such a huge wedge between me and the rest of the world of late.

As far as rereading this book goes, it means I've finally read it as a whole, in a lot of ways.  The first time, I was reading it as a magical vision of bookish possibility; the second time, I was reading it and feeling inspired in my own business; the third time, I've been able to just read it for itself, feeling greater familiarity with the world Mercer was immersed in and a greater appreciation for the negative aspects of life at the bookshop - the thieves, the poverty - as well as the amazing ones.  I can also now place the timeline of the book compared to the documentary, which was made after Mercer left the shop but while he was still in Paris, the summer that George's teenage daughter Sylvia returned from England to live with him for a few months; some of Mercer's friends at the bookstore appear in the film, and so does he, briefly!  I can now appreciate how close George and Jeremy became over the years, and the role he played in bringing Sylvia back to Paris.  At the time he stayed in the store, George could only dream that one day Sylvia might come home and carry on the family business in his place, so it warmed my heart to know that his dream came true.  Without her permanent return to the shop, where she quickly took over as manageress, the bookshop might have been lost when George died just before Christmas 2011.  I only wish that I'd made it to Paris while he was alive... 

If you'd like to watch the documentary that I've been going on about with such reverence, it's not available as a whole on Google video any more, but it keeps cropping up around the internet, sometimes in sections, sometimes in its entirety.  It's just under an hour long in total, and gives you such a flavour of life at Shakespeare and Company in the early Noughties, its history, its eccentric late owner, and the 'tumbleweeds', the ever-changing collection of young writers who continue to live and work there to this day.  I love it, and (when it's available!) I watch it every so often when I'm in a reading slump or feel generally uninspired.  I hope you enjoy it too!

Notable Quotables:

• "I woke up straight.  The instant my eyes opened, everything felt sharp and clear, as if I'd finished a wind sprint or stepped from a frothing sea.  I'd always been one to play with snooze buttons, lolling in bed and rationalising being ten, twenty, thirty minutes late for work or school.  But that first morning at the bookstore, there were no slow degrees of consciousness or seductive fingers of sleep.  I was alive."
• "In a place like Paris, the air is so thick with dreams they clog the streets and take all the good tables at the cafés.  Poets and writers, models and designers, painters and sculptors, actors and directors, lovers and escapists, they flock to the City of Lights.  That night at Polly's, the table spilled over with the rapture of pilgrims who have found their temple.  That night, among new friends and safe at Shakespeare and Company, I felt it too.  Hope is a beautiful drug."
• "He washed his clothes by hand, ate the most basic of meals, and shunned the cinemas or restaurants.  With this regime, not only was he able to survive on the bookstore's paltry receipts but he also managed to provide communal meals and tuck away enough money to keep expanding the bookstore... George had discovered money to be the greatest slave master, and by reducing your dependence on it, he believed, you could loosen the grip of a suffocating world."
• "I had been at the bookstore more than a month, but it felt like time had barely passed.  Without the normal barometer of a workday or a fixed schedule, life had become fluid.  It was hard to keep track of the hours and days in the bookstore, everything came and went in pleasurable waves of evenings and mornings and afternoons.  In the criminal world there is a term, hard time, which refers to difficult prison sentences in maximum-security facilities... Time at Shakespeare and Company was as soft as anything I'd ever felt."
• ""You know, that's what I've always wanted this place to be," he said.  "I look across at Notre Dame and I sometimes think the bookstore is an annexe of the church.  A place for the people who don't quite fit in over there."  I understood.  We sipped our beer until the sun set and then sat awhile longer."
• "Living with George at Shakespeare and Company has changed me, made me wonder about the life I left and the life I want to live.  For now, I sit, I type, I try to be a better man.  Life is a work in progress."

Source: I bought this book from the little branch of Blackwell's, above Market Square, at the University of York.

DOUBLE REVIEW: Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson (5*)

~ THE BOOK ~

Published by Hodder Children's Books, 2008.

As I mentioned in my March reading wrap-up, this was actually a reread for me.  I first read this book at the age of perhaps 11 or 12, and really didn't understand what all the fuss was about.  Why?  Well, I'd only been at secondary school for about ten minutes, had no knowledge of sexual violence, and thus didn't really appreciate the level of 'reading between the lines' that is required in order to catapult this book up to greatness.

This time around I absolutely loved it!  On the surface it is the story of Melinda Sordino, a thirteen year-old girl starting high school for the first time.  Unfortunately, Melinda has recently alienated her entire group of best friends - amongst others - by calling the police from a party over the summer.  What her ex-friends don't know is why she called the police: she was raped at the party by the hottest boy in school.  Which brings us to what's going on under the surface - because this isn't just some flighty Mean Girls novel about an unpopular girl in high school.  It's really about a young woman slowly healing after a terrible experience, finding her voice, discovering her own strength, and finally being able to speak out about what happened to her.  And what a beautifully evoked journey it is...

Not only is the writing deceptively simple and frequently gorgeous, but what really surprised me was how much humour runs through this book!  I didn't remember that at all from my first reading, so I was delighted to discover that Anderson has a marvellous knack of combining sparkling wit with troubling themes to offer a reading experience that has it all - it's funny but truthful, sarcastic but airy, tongue-in-cheek but very moving.

One thing I absolutely loved was the idea of art as therapy.  Early in the book, Melinda's unconventional and completely awesome art teacher allocates each student an object that will form the basis of their work that year, across as many media and styles as they care to try.  Melinda's object is 'tree'.  Not only does this offer a metaphor for Melinda's personal growth, strength and return to life as the novel goes on, but her artistic efforts, and Mr Freeman's enthusiastic mentoring, become the means for her to learn self-expression and explore her feelings in new ways.  She keeps her work in a deserted janitor's closet (like a mini staffroom), which she cleans, personalises and adapts into her own little sanctuary.

I think these elements of the novel particularly struck a chord with me because I, albeit for different reasons, found similar refuge within my school environment as a teenager.  Like Mr Freeman's art room, ours was light, bustling, relaxed, and always open to students during breaks and lunchtimes.  I'd tag along with friends who were taking art and spend time doing homework, eating lunch, singing along to the radio, and ogling my crush, a shy boy from the year above who was also a proficient artist and could usually be found hiding away in the art room with his best friend.  My 'janitor's closet' was an upstairs classroom, my Mr Freeman a history teacher who would quietly unlock the door for me and unceremoniously throw out any rowdier groups who dared to invade by pretending I was in detention!  Like Melinda, I found that having somewhere peaceful to go made school more bearable.

In conclusion, this is a truly fantastic novel.  Despite being published fifteen years ago (so around the time I first read it, rather scarily), it still has a wonderful blend of humour and truth, a school setting that is still relatable now, and a strong and inspiring message about sexual violence, self-expression, and having the confidence to speak UP and speak OUT against people who have hurt us and experiences no one should have to endure alone.  This is definitely a story that will stick with me this time around - I may even buy my own copy to keep - and I can't wait to read Wintergirls, which is already installed on my TBR shelves!

Notable Quotables:

• "Art without emotion is like chocolate cake without sugar.  It makes you gag...  The next time you work on your trees, don't think about trees.  Think about love, or hate, or joy, or rage - whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat or your toes curl.  Focus on that feeling."
• "I try to read while eating alone, but the noise gets between my eyes and the page I can't see through it."
• "People say that winter lasts forever, but it's because they obsess over the thermometer.  North in the mountains, the maple syrup is trickling.  Brave geese punch through the thin ice left on the lake.  Underground, pale seeds roll over in their sleep.  Starting to get restless.  Starting to dream green."
• "I crouch by the trunk, my fingers stroking the bark, seeking a Braille code, a clue, a message on how to come back to life after my long undersnow dormancy.  I have survived.  I am here.  Confused, screwed up, but here.  So, how can I find my way?...  I dig my fingers into the dirt and squeeze.  A small, clean part of me waits to warm and burst through the surface.  Some quiet Melindagirl I haven't seen in months.  That is the seed I will care for."

Source: I borrowed this book from my local library. 

~ THE MOVIE (4.5*) ~

Starring Kristen Stewart and Steve Zahn. Directed by Jessica Sharzer, 2004.

I wanted to give a quick shout-out to the excellent TV movie, which I watched the day I finished the book.  It stars Kristen Stewart as Melinda and (sorry Stewart-bashers) she's really great!  It's a pretty faithful adaptation - a couple of detail tweaks, a little less friendship-drama and a slightly altered ending to her year as Mr Freeman's art student aside, it's spot on.  Everything is beautifully played, from the giddiness of the party to the horror of rape, from the trauma of Melinda having to be around her attacker in the school environment to the slow process of self-expression in her art class.

 

I think my absolute favourite scene is between Melinda and Mr Freeman (played by Steve 'This place is a tomb... I'm going to The Nut Shop where it's fun!' Zahn, aka George from You've Got Mail) at the end of the school year.  Unlike in the book, Mr Freeman leaves at the end of the movie, just not suited to following the no-radio no-freedom no-fun rules of the school board.  To show him what a difference he's really made, Melinda takes him into her janitor's closet, which is now FULL of her art.  All kinds of trees, studies of leaves, paintings, a sculpture and the most beautiful Picasso-esque chalk drawing.  It's basically Melinda's entire emotional journey, and he can only look around in wonder, tears in his eyes, while she watches shyly.  It's a beautiful moment, perfect and simple, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I had tears running down my face by the end.

 

 

Anyway, if you like the book, watch it.  It's hard to find on DVD here in the UK, but you can watch it on YouTube or elsewhere online quite easily.  Highly recommended - I might even cough up for the DVD now! 

March: What I Read, What I'm Reading

Another month down, and happily, over the last week or so, I've finally been feeling like I'm getting my reading mojo back!  My general outlook hasn't really improved, not by much anyway, but my passion for books has returned at full throttle so hopefully I'll get plenty of reading done in the coming weeks.  Not only that, but I'm making a real effort to write some proper reviews as well so the blog should be a bit more active again.  It's still daunting to be staring at a blank Blogger post, so instead I've been writing one paragraph at a time in a notebook, in between reading chapters of my book or doing something else.  The whole process feels much easier once I've got a draft down like that!  In the meantime, here's my overall reading wrap-up for the month and what I'm getting stuck into as we careen into April!

 

 

~ What I Read ~

 

 Kiss Me First
by Lottie Moggach
A semi-thriller about online life, obsession, death and ethics, this one piqued my interest way back before the hardcover was released.  I picked up the paperback last month and dived straight in!  Basically it's about a young woman, Leila, who is chosen by a cultish website founder to help a friend of his, Tess, who wants to end her life.  To save Tess's family and friends from heartbreak, Leila will spend time learning everything there is to know about Tess before taking over her social media presence for several months after 'check-out', slowly decreasing the frequency of her communication until she's just... gone.  There are some pretty big themes in this book: it's about the naivety of young people who've spent more time online than in the real world; it's about the ethics of suicide and an individual's rights over his or her own body; it's about how easy it is to become enmeshed in an online world, a life, even a romance that isn't real in any way.  The middle section was a bit slower, and the story arc didn't really play out in the way I expected, but the beginning was fascinating and the ending quite fitting and even a little startling, so I still enjoyed it and found much to think about within its pages.  I gave it 4 stars.


Speak
by Laurie Halse Anderson
I first read this many years ago, when I was only around 11 or 12, and honestly, I didn't get what all the fuss was about.  This is definitely one of those YA books that requires you to actually be - or have been - a young adult to really appreciate it.  Although it's simply written, getting to the heart of the novel and reading between the lines of Melinda's story needs a little more maturity and understanding of the world, I think.  This time around I absolutely loved the book, which in case you've been living under a rock, is Anderson's very famous novel about a girl who is raped at a party and spends the next year at her new school slowly working towards finding her voice, expressing herself, and speaking out at last.  It's a very easy read, and very funny, but it also packs a real emotional punch and captures the teenage experience beautifully despite the book now being fifteen years old.  I'll be reviewing this one properly this week, along with the excellent TV movie - 5 stars, highly recommended!


Screen Burn
by Charlie Brooker
I've been hopping in and out of this book since last year, so I was quite glad to have had a little flurry of reading and actually finished it this month.  It's a book of Charlie Brooker's TV columns from The Guardian, dating way back to the early Noughties.  You'd think that they'd be a bit boring to read now, so many years later, but actually Brooker is much like Caitlin Moran in that even if you've never seen the programme he's discussing, you can still enjoy the ride and get a few giggles along the way.  He particularly delights in reviewing bad telly, bringing out his blisteringly acerbic humour at full throttle, which is always fun!  It was a bit of a nostalgia trip too, reminding me of programmes I enjoyed waaaaaay back when I was a teenager - and it made me feel suddenly old, with references to review copies of upcoming shows making the transition from VHS to DVD, and early mentions of brand new series like Scrubs and Smallville.  Wow...  Great for idle moments, 4 stars.


Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian
by Scott Douglas
THIS!  THIS was what I wanted when I picked up Don Borchert's Library Confidential back in 2010.  As a young librarian in Anaheim, California, Douglas provides all the funny stories and strange characters that Borchert does, only he does it with a genuine feeling of affection and respect, and more importantly, a real understanding of libraries and their place in a community.  Whereas Borchert seemed to be trying to shock the reader with scandalous tales of library shenanigans, Douglas's anecdotes are friendlier and he seems to learn from every experience, adjusting his picture of library life and his role within it.  He definitely has a touch of the Bernard Black about him, but always rounds off his gripes with a warm acceptance of the experience and (mostly) generosity towards whoever (or whatever) is on the receiving end.  Oh, and I also loved the funny, self-deprecating and frequently very interesting footnotes and info inserts.  I gave it 4 stars.


The Shock of the Fall
by Nathan Filer
I only bought this book last month, but I was stalking Hanna on LibraryThing and noticed she'd given it 5 stars, and then she urged to me read it via Twitter, and that was that.  Happily I wound up completely agreeing with her: this is a beautifully written, effortlessly smooth and utterly compelling debut novel.  Written by a registered mental health nurse, it's about a little boy called Matt whose brother Simon dies while they're on holiday; writing his story down ten years later, Matt chronicles his family's grief and recovery, and his own quiet descent into schizophrenia.  It sounds really heavy when you put it like that, but it's not at all.  The prose is gorgeous but easy to read, and as he slowly unfurls Matt's history, Filer drops the pieces into place with precise and perfect timing.  I breezed through it in two or three days, thoroughly enjoyed every page, chuckled a few times, and had a little weep or two along the way as well.  It's perfect.  5 stars!

 

 

~ What I'm Reading ~

Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs: The Left Bank World of Shakespeare and Co. 
by Jeremy Mercer

I've spent a little time this week starting to go through my book boxes again, sorting out a few more to go the charity shop.  At the same time I've been pulling out books I've already read and loved to put up on my bookshelf - and this is one of my absolute top all-time favourites.  This is my third read, and I've fallen in love with it all over again!  Basically 20-something Jeremy Mercer left Canada in a rush after receiving death threats linked to his job as a crime journalist; broke and disillusioned, he ended up in Paris and discovered Shakespeare and Company one rainy day.  Known for its eccentricity, warmth, literary credentials - and for providing food and lodgings for drifters and writers, with beds nestled in amongst the bookshelves - the rest is history.  Mercer spent over a year living there under the watchful eye of the late George Whitman, immersing himself in bookshop life, new friendships, a little romance - and LOTS of books.  This travel memoir is the result, and it's been one of my biggest inspirations and most beloved books ever since!
 

Aaaaand that was March! 

REVIEW: A Note of Madness, by Tabitha Suzuma (4.5*)

(The Bodley Head, 2006)

"He was humming along to the radio, making coffee, kicking Harry's washing out of the way.  Everything seemed so normal - he seemed so normal.  If anyone came in right now they wouldn't suspect anything was wrong.  Yet his mind seemed to be fragmenting, like a mirror spiderwebbing with cracks.  He felt as if he were at some kind of junction; what he did now could have huge repercussions - should he try to hold on or just let himself fall apart?"

Having been blown away by Tabitha Suzuma's sensitively-handled novel Forbidden - about a brother and sister who fall in love - I did what any self-respecting book fiend would do: I hopped straight on the internet to find out what else she'd written.  Imagine my delight when I stumbled across A Note of Madness and its sequel, A Voice in the Distance, about a promising young pianist and his battle with bipolar disorder.  Not only is mental health one of my pet subjects, for obvious reasons, but the premise also reminded me of K.M. Peyton's Pennington novels, about a young rebel who happens to be a superb pianist, which I fell in love with in my early teens.

So, nostalgia aside, back to this novel.  Flynn Laukonen and his friends Harry and Jennah have grown up together and are now all students at the Royal College of Music in London.  As one of only two brilliant pianists at the College, it is Flynn who is really admired as one of its rising stars.  Unfortunately, the pressure on him to perform, coupled with his ongoing rivalry with fellow pianist Andre, triggers a break in his mental health, and as he cycles between manic periods of high creativity, boundless energy and deep understanding of music, and crashing lows when he barely gets out of bed except to go to the bathroom, Harry takes the brave step of calling in Flynn's doctor brother Rami to help.

I thought this was a very truthful novel in terms of the experience of bipolar disorder; in fact, great swathes could have come straight from my own life.  The overzealous good humour, compulsive drive to create and the appreciation of sensory pleasures, the reckless disregard for property and societal expectations, the crushing periods of existential despair and seething hate, the sudden disappearance of cognitive ability and the loss of concentration (which is why things go so quiet around the blog when I'm in a bad way) - I've been there, and it felt so... not reassuring, exactly... maybe comforting?... to have someone write about these feelings and crises so beautifully.  It's always interesting to read mental health-themed novels, especially by people outside of that sphere of experience (I assume), to see if they've done it justice, as it were.  Tabitha Suzuma gets plenty of author brownie points from me for getting it right.  She also gets bonus points for not taking the novel quite where I expected it to go; she sidesteps the more tense but also highly melodramatic climax I'd been anticipating, which was simultaneously slightly disappointing but also more realistic, so I was happy on balance.

Admittedly, her story doesn't touch on many of the more mundane aspects of life with a mental disorder, particularly with regards to treatment.  By writing Flynn's brother as a doctor, Suzuma keeps her plot tight and opens the door for an examination of the different aspects of their relationship as Flynn's mental health deteriorates, but she also gives herself a convenient escape from some of the more traumatic consequences of a diagnosis like bipolar.  For example, Flynn's late-teen age group gives his friends the maturity to give him support instead of ridicule, something I found at university but not at school; a younger character might not have been so lucky.  Likewise, Rami's occupation and his ability to pull strings at the local hospital means no presenting to A and E when things get dire, no lengthy waits for appointments, no trekking painfully slowly from GP to Pathfinder nurse to consultant and back again in the quest for help.  When things get out of hand Rami's always there, so Harry, Jennah and even Flynn's parents never really have to deal with him in crisis.  Still, this would have made for a rather dull novel, and what's more important is how skilfully Suzuma portrays these characters and this illness for a young adult audience as part of a compelling story.  For me, she did a brilliant job, which definitely gets her off the hook for overlooking a few of the more boring details.

Bottom line: This is an excellent read for anyone with an interest in mental health, for teens looking for an accurate depiction of bipolar symptoms and its effects on mood, college work and general living, and for readers who fancy an unusual British contemporary YA to fly through this summer.  There's some music talk, a dose of humour, strong friendships, a little romance and a pinch of family drama, something for everyone really.  I'm looking forward to reading the sequel very soon!

Notable Quotables:

• "Each note was more poignant than the last, more exquisite, until you didn't feel as if another could surpass it and then one did and it was utterly overwhelming, so much so that your chest ached and your eyes stung and your whole body felt as if it would burst."
• "The weather had been glorious all day and the golden light outside promised a magical sunset.  He thought of the couples and families strolling in the park, enjoying the late-afternoon sunshine, and was filled with an inexplicable sadness.  The light would be shimmering on the Serpentine, the raised voices of children echoing from a distance.  The leaves on the trees would be stirring in the breeze, the sunlight flooding the grass with golden confetti, the sky a deep, painful blue.  The thought of going to the park was inconceivable - the sight of such aching beauty would infuse his soul with pain."
• "Flynn felt himself begin to shake...  It clung to him, an invisible cloak of agitation and self-destruction that sent acid fury shooting through his veins... There was fire burning through him, creating an overpowering urge to scream, kick, yell...  He couldn't talk without wanting to shout.  Couldn't move without lashing out."
• "I can't.  The two words seemed permanently lodged inside his head.  I can't play tomorrow... I can't go to the rehearsal, I can't tidy the flat, I can't go for a run and I sure as hell can't practise."
• "Flynn pressed his hands against his face and felt hot tears trickle between his fingers.  He wanted everything to go away.  He wanted everything to stop.  As long as he lived, he would never escape himself.  How much more could he endure?  Another fifty years, another sixty?  How could he endure the weeks, the months, the years, when he couldn't even get through the hours?  It was only a matter of time.  Only a matter of time before he reached the end of his tether and found himself incapable of carrying on for another day.  He would not make it through a lifetime.  Not like this..."

Source: I bought this book from... Amazon Marketplace?  I think.  It's been a while!

REVIEW: The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham (4*)

(Penguin, 2008)

"... if it were a choice for survival between a triffid and a blind man, I know which I'd put my money on."

This was my second John Wyndham novel (my first being The Chrysalids - read my review here) and once again I found myself in the grip of an absorbing, well-plotted, complex and all-round interesting story.  It didn't scare me stupid - not after the first chapter, at least - like it did some people, but it did make me think and I thought the triffids were fascinating.

Let me also just say that the plot wasn't at all what I was expecting.  I thought there was some kind of alien conspiracy at work, and that the triffids were something akin to the tripod thingies in The War of the Worlds.  In actual fact, they are bio-engineered carnivorous plants with long stings that lash out at their victims, delivering a deadly welt to the face or hands.  They can also, bizarrely, raise themselves out of the soil and 'walk', lurching across the ground, and even seem to communicate.  Probably the biggest surprise for me as I started reading was the fact that the triffids are already a huge presence on earth before the book begins.  In some areas they're a menace; in others, large nurseries exploit their potential for scientific and medicinal use, and in affluent countries, properly tethered and with their stings regularly docked, they're a popular garden novelty. The events of the novel don't in themselves create a triffid rampage - they just send them to the top of the food chain...

The novel opens with protagonist Bill waking up in a London hospital the night after a brilliant green meteor shower.  Not only has he not been able to watch the freak cosmic firework display that the rest of the world's been raving about, thanks to having treatment after a near miss in his job working as a triffid researcher, but the entire hospital seems to have shut down since he fell asleep.  It quickly becomes apparent that something's very wrong, and when he plucks up the courage to remove his own eye bandages he realises he's the only person who can still see.  All around him, other patients are waking up blind, and chaos ensues as panicking people stumble through the streets.  Within hours order has broken down and Bill has already witnessed several suicides by people who have understood the futility of their situation.  These early chapters are perhaps the most harrowing of them all, as despair sinks in and people realise that there's no one to help them survive and that at best they're probably going to starve to death in their homes.

Aaaand then the triffids begin to arrive, lurching in from the surrounding countryside, breaking out of their nurseries and homing in on their suddenly vulnerable sustenance of choice.  For Bill and the companions he acquires, still sighted, well aware of the dangers triffids pose at the best of times, a little care is all that's required.  For the blind, there is no such chance of survival.  Actually, the triffids are probably less scary than I expected them to be.  The stings are instantly lethal, so they're actually quite merciful as far as horror-novel monsters go.  For people who are helpless and waiting to die, death by triffid - especially a death that can't be seen coming, can't be anticipated and feared - is almost a better way to go, I'd have said.  There are still some horrendous attacks, some really heartbreaking and heartpounding moments, but I should have known better than to think Wyndham would resort to cheap thrills and relentless carnage...

Mostly the dystopian element of the novel comes from the blindness, the disintegration of society and the attempt at rebuilding something from the remnants of life as we know it.  The triffids are a menace, but they're almost a side-plot a lot of the time, and in some ways that's probably what makes Wyndham's novels more subtle and less scary than some of his sci-fi-horror peers.  As in The Chrysalids, the writing is fantastic, the plot is thoughtful, the characters (and their reactions to the crisis) are complex and varied, and the story feels surprisingly modern given that it was first published in 1951; it has that timeless era-vague quality that makes all the best books so enduring.  I'm not sure which of these books I've preferred so far, but I still have The Kraken Wakes and The Midwich Cuckoos on my shelves and there are more at the library, so I'm definitely not done with Wyndham yet!

For a more coherent review I recommend checking out Ellie's thoughts over at Lit Nerd!

Notable Quotables:

• "It's humiliating to be dependent... but it's a still poorer pass to have no one to depend on."
• "Absurd it undoubtedly was, but I had a very strong sense that the moment I stove-in one of those sheets of plate-glass I should leave the old order behind me for ever: I should become a looter, a sacker, a low scavenger upon the dead body of the system that had nourished me.  Such a foolish niceness of sensibility in a stricken world!"
• "The corpses of other great cities are lying buried in deserts, and obliterated by the jungles of Asia.  Some of them fell so long ago that even their names have gone with them.  But to those who lived there their dissolution can have seemed no more probable or possible than the necrosis of a great modern city seemed to me...  It must be, I thought, one of the race's most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that 'it can't happen here' - that one's own little time and place is beyond cataclysms.  And now it was happening here.  Unless there should be some miracle I was looking on the beginning of the end of London."
• "Until then I had always thought of loneliness as something negative - an absence of company, and, of course, something temporary....  That day I had learned that it was much more.  It was something that could press and oppress, could distort the ordinary, and play tricks with the mind.  Something which lurked inimically all around, stretching the nerves and twanging them with alarms, never letting one forget that there was no one to help, no one to care... it waited all the time its chance to frighten and frighten horribly..."
• "Growing things seemed, indeed, to press out everywhere, rooting in the crevices between the paving stones, springing from cracks in concrete, finding lodgements even in the seats of the abandoned cars.  On all sides they were encroaching to repossess themselves of the arid spaces that man had created.  And curiously, as the living things took charge increasingly, the effect of the place became less oppressive."

Source:  I bought this book in an epic pre-birthday buying spree in 2011.

January: What I Read, What I'm Reading

One of the things I've really been enjoying about my recent headfirst dive into the world of BookTube is the way vloggers can just chat about what they've been reading recently without having to necessarily delve into everything at length.  I like the way they can share their TBR piles gleefully and describe what books they've been buying and reading, and their monthly wrap-ups in which they share their books for the month all in one go.  Given that I'm definitely not feeling like reviewing much at the moment, and box sets are taking up more space in my life than books, I thought I'd follow the BookTube lead and do a January round-up of what I read and what I bought.  I hope you like it!

 

 

~ What I Read ~

 

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

by Holly Black

This was my first Holly Black novel, and I really enjoyed it.  It takes every vampire novel you've ever read, old and new, scrambles everything up and lays it out with a fresh new twist.  The writing's excellent, the characters are interesting, the setting is very intriguing, and the romance between Tana and Gavriel is just the right balance between old-school seduction and modern flirtation.  I gave it 4 stars, and you can read my review here.

 

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

by Jeff Lindsay

The first book in the Dexter series, which is maybe better known for its TV incarnation starring Michael C. Hall.  I didn't really expect that much from this, especially after a couple of people mentioned they didn't rate it much.  So I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I loved it - I loved the unique premise, I loved Dexter's voice and the pitch black humour, I loved the insight into a sociopathic mind... it was fascinating.  I gave it 4.5 stars and you can read my review here.

 

Casino Royale

by Ian Fleming

Another first-in-series, this time the first of the iconic 007 James Bond novels.  I've read a couple of the others already, but I didn't rate this one much.  I knew the outline of the plot already, thanks to the movie - but the movie was better.  The characters are so flat in the novels, and setting aside the 'but CONTEXT!' argument, Bond is a stone-cold bastard.  There's no humour in him, no spark to offset his arrogance.  I gave it 2.5 stars.

 

Opium: Reality's Dark Dream
by Thomas Dormandy
I'd been reading this one way before the New Year, but I finally cracked on in January and finished it during Bout of Books.  It's not the lightest of history books, but it made up for it by being absolutely fascinating.  It's incredible to think how one humble substance from one humble flower has literally shaped our entire history, from medicine to literature, and continues to have an enormous effect on world economics, politics and health.  The modern chapters were perhaps the most jaw-dropping (about heroin, obviously), because I had NO IDEA of the sheer scale of the heroin trade.  I gave this book 4 stars.

 

The Day of the Triffids
by John Wyndham
This is another one of those books where I thought I knew the general deal, but I didn't really.  I already knew that most of the world is blinded by some sort of freak meteor shower; the big surprise was that triffids are already a big presence on the planet before the dystopian element begins, and that they're bio-engineered plants, not aliens.  Despite the havoc they wreak, they're really just one more problem for the few who can still see.  It's the blindness that's the main focal point, and the way both sighted and sightless have to find their own ways to survive in this new landscape.  Beautifully written and an intriguing premise - I gave it 4 stars and you can read my review here.
 

Anna and the French Kiss
by Stephanie Perkins
Yup, I finally read Anna!  It's about time I read it, because I won my copy so long ago.  It's a signed American hardcover, and as I was reading more stuff kept falling out of it - a signed bookmark and a bunch of leaflets from the event.  Very cool.  It's a lovely, funny YA contemporary novel about a girl whose father ships her off to an American boarding school in Paris, where she gets to know the city, makes new friends and falls head over heels for a seriously crushworthy young man who seems to be taking a shine to her too.  Shame he's taken...  BUT FOR HOW LONG?  Sweet, funny, evocative, romantic, a bit Rainbow Rowell-esque... I gave it 4 stars!
 

 

~ What I'm Reading ~

 

Right now I'm reading Lightning Rods by Helen deWitt, a bizarre American satire about a salesman who decides that an amazing way to increase office productivity and reduce sexual harassment lawsuits would be... to install anonymous sex playthings in every office.  That is, people who work in the office doing regular office stuff, but also play an added role as outlets for sexual tension.  I'm not entirely sure yet how this is meant to be completely anonymous for both parties, but the rather odd protagonist is determined that this is a product that will make his fortune.  The hints at his future fame suggest that this will, in fact, be the case, so I'll be interested to find out where the hell this strange premise is going...


Aaaand that was January!

REVIEW: Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay (4.5*)

(Orion Books, 2005)

"If I am ever careless enough to be caught, they will say I am a sociopathic monster, a sick and twisted demon who is not even human, and they will probably send me to die in Old Sparky with a smug self-righteous glow."

Dexter Morgan is a nice guy.  He has a sweet girlfriend whose kids adore him, he gets on well with his foster sister Deborah, and he's fantastic at his job, working in forensics as a blood spatter analyst.  Those spookily accurate hunches he gets during homicide investigations... well, they just make him even more of an asset to the police department, right?  No, actually.  Dexter's 'hunches' stem from personal experience.  Because Dexter Morgan is a sociopath and a serial killer.  Thanks to a hefty amount of teenage guidance from his late foster father, wise cop Harry, he channels his need to kill into a vigilante-style hunt for bad guys who've escaped the law, and with his finely honed and careful methods, he's never been caught.  Except now there's a new serial killer in town.  And with his rapidly increasing body count and sly personal 'messages' that no one else understands, it seems that maybe Dexter finally has a playmate...

I'd obviously heard about Dexter, the TV series, a long time ago, and the premise really appealed.  When I realised it was based - at least the first series, anyway - on a book, I knew I had to get hold of a copy.  So I waited, and looked, and waited some more, and finally this first book in the series arrived at the bookshop and IT WAS MINE.  It came home with me the same day.  I bought the next three in a '3 for £5' remainder deal last year, and thank heavens I did, because I LOVED THIS BOOK SO HARD.  I wasn't expecting that much because both Hanna and Sarah had already mentioned that they didn't rate it, but WOW this was a good reminder that sometimes good old-fashioned gut instinct is a better guide to what you'll enjoy than what other bloggers think.  Y'know, like how we used to pick our books BEFORE the blogosphere took over.  Good times...

What made the novel for me was definitely Dexter Morgan himself.  Like R in Warm Bodies, his compelling narrative voice is a means of rendering a rather dark and macabre subject matter (and a potentially frightening character) more readable, more enjoyable, more absorbing and yes, more amusing.  I loved how playful his narrative was at times, twisting words into alliterative flights of description, often making me chuckle at the bone-dry, midnight black humour and well-placed jabs of sarcasm.  At the same time, as you might imagine, the 'Dark Passenger' (as Dexter calls his inner killer) is a threatening and ever-shifting presence in the background, and Lindsay never lets us forget - via little glimpses of this instinct, and via Dexter's constant awareness of his sociopathy and the need to appear 'human' - that our friendly forensics geek is actually a deadly menace whose benevolence in his choice of victims can only be maintained with absolutely rigid self-control.

This, perhaps, for someone with a keen interest in social sciences, psychology and mental health, was what made the novel as a whole so fascinating.  Dexter is fascinating.  The way he so closely emulates human emotion while understanding so little of it is fascinating.  The way he sees himself as a monster, as an outsider, yet works so hard to fit in is fascinating.  The way he lives so rigorously by 'the code of Harry', the way he respects his foster father's memory despite not being able to love him, is fascinating.  The way he will gleefully enjoy killing a serial rapist or a murdering paedophile, but his girlfriend Rita's kids absolutely adore him, is fascinating.  I guess this is probably what draws people to the TV show too - this is a unique character, and watching his constant struggle to appear 'normal' makes him a hugely interesting and even sympathetic protagonist.

Of course, Dexter isn't the only character worth mentioning.  His cop sister Deb is a lot of fun - feisty, foul-mouthed yet strangely vulnerable - and her political manoeuvring against inept Detective Maria LaGuerta is quite a compelling subplot, particularly as each time LaGuerta gets something wrong it has further implications for Dexter's own interest in the new serial killer.  The dialogue was occasionally a tad clunky, but it improved if I read it sort-of aloud, like maybe it had more to do with the fact that I was silently reading it in my own accent, which didn't work very well.  Does that make sense?  The other key characters - like Angel, Doakes and even Dex's girlfriend Rita - don't play a huge part in this book, but I'm assuming they'll maybe get more page time in the next few novels.  I also really enjoyed the Cuban influences in the book.  I had no idea that Miami had such strong Cuban culture (ssssshhh, Brit girl here), so that was a kind of fun bonus for me.  Maybe more so in the TV series, where a lot of the (fantastic) soundtrack has a distinctly Cuban flavour.

To sum up... well, did I mentioned that I loved this book?  I think me and Dexter are going to get on just fine for the rest of the book series as well as all eight seasons of the show (which I just bought after enjoying the first half of my sister's season 1 box set).  If I knew where the hell I'd put those next three books I'd probably have read on by now - but since I don't, I'm going to finish season 1 of the TV series and go from there!

Notable Quotables:

• "In spite of feeling so very moved by the thing, I didn't have any immediate theories about what it meant.  Sometimes great art is like that.  It affects you and you can't say why."
• "I began to feel unsettled, dizzy, confused, hyperactive and lethargic at the same time.  I walked to the window and looked out.  It was dark now and far away over the water a light rose up into the sky and at the sight of it a small and evil voice rose up to meet it from somewhere deep inside."
• "I felt the Dark Passenger become the new driver for the first time.  Dexter became understated, almost invisible, the light-coloured stripes on a sharp and transparent tiger.  I blended in, almost impossible to see, but I was there and I was stalking, circling in the wind to find my prey.  In that tremendous flash of freedom, on my way to do the Thing for the first time, sanctioned by almighty Harry, I receded, faded back into the scenery of my own dark self, while the other me crouched and growled.  I would do It at last, do what I had been created to do.  And I did."
• "Weren't we all crazy in our sleep?  What was sleep, after all, but the process by which we dumped our insanity into a dark subconscious pit and came out on the other side ready to eat cereal instead of the neighbour's children?"

Source:  I nicked this book from our shop as soon as it came in, because I knew it was the first in the series and I wanted to give it a try!

REVIEW: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, by Holly Black (4*)

(Indigo, 2013)

"Vampires were fairy tales and magic.  They were the wolf in the forest that ran ahead to grandmother's house, the video game big boss who could be hunted without guilt, the monster that tempted you into its bed, the powerful eternal beast one might become.  The beautiful dead, la belle mort."

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a new take on vampire lore by the author of the highly-acclaimed Curse Workers series.  I've never read them, but Charlotte and Hanna have both told me how good they are, so I was definitely hoping to enjoy Holly Black's new top-end YA novel.

What's great about this new addition to the vast pool of vampire fiction is the fact that it blends old-school elements of vampire mythology with a whole new twist on their existence.  The central thing to get to grips with is the idea of 'going Cold'.  When a vampire bites a human in Black's world, their body temperature quickly drops and within two days they develop a fierce and irresistible craving for human blood.  With their first taste, they will die and rise again as a vampire.  Their only hope of living on 'normally' is to quarantine themselves for eighty-eight days until the infection has left their body.  Understandably, very few people manage to withstand this torture.  Protagonist Tana's infected mother attacked her, still a small child, in a frenzy of blood lust, and had to be killed by her father.  Their family has never really recovered.

So, that's where we begin.  Tana is now in her late teens, and has woken up at a 'sundown party' to find herself surrounded by the corpses of her friends and schoolmates.  Someone has made the fatal mistake of leaving a window ajar, allowing vampires to enter.  So far, so I Am Legend.  Wandering through the house in shock, she stumbles across her ex-boyfriend Aiden, tied to a bed and obviously bitten, and a rather attractive young vampire, Gavriel, mysteriously chained up on the floor.  As the undead perpetrators of the carnage creep closer, Tana makes the snap decision to save Aiden AND the vampire, narrowly escaping out the window, bundling them into her car and heading for Coldtown, a walled party prison-city for vampires, infected humans and all the gothic hangers-on who hope to one day win favour and be made immortal.  Of course, with a Cold ex and a half-crazy vampire for company, nothing's going to be simple, on either side of the Coldtown wall.  This is the story of Tana's self-discovery, of Aiden's transformation, of Tana and Gavriel's mutual attraction, of Gavriel's past and of Coldtown's secrets.  It's complex and intriguing and exciting, and I loved it.

Part of what makes it so good is the mixture of brilliant influences and interesting reference points.  I thought Gavriel was pure Anne Rice, an old-fashioned seductive, black-haired, slightly mad vampire who holds a delicious attraction for Tana.  Lucien, the bad boy of the piece, was a bit like Caius from The Twilight Saga in my head - young, blonde, arrogant - with more than a touch of Lestat in him too.  The hangers-on and rather pathetic wannabe-immortals reminded me of the fang bangers in the True Blood series, the ones who just wanted to be around vampires because OMG IMMORTAL.  The city itself was a tad Warm Bodies-in-reverse, a prison to keep vampires out of the way, a lawless place where parties go on all night and every debauched whim is catered for.  And each chapter is garnished with a literary quote relating to death or immortality.  It's very elegantly done.

The constant social media theme was also quite interesting, bringing the novel right up to date.  Live feeds coming from inside Coldtown - Lucien's famous party feed is one of the most popular - are eagerly followed by schoolgirls on the outside (including Tana's sister Pearl).  People have posters of their favourite personalities from television, whether vampire or bounty hunter.  People blog and vlog from inside the walls, and there are huge communities of wannabes whose sole aim is to get into Coldtown, meet up with friends inside, and transform into their 'true selves'.  Tana, Aiden and Gavriel fall in with two of these - siblings Midnight and Winter - near the walls of Coldtown, and their obsession with documenting everything via social media is a bit sickening.  The 'too much information' thing at work, even in the most inappropriate of situations...

Soooo, yes!  I really enjoyed the book.  It was beautifully written and very immersive, so that after a while I think I even dreamed about Coldtown once or twice!  Always the sign of a good book.  The attraction between Byronic Gavriel and Katniss-esque Tana was the right balance of seductive and pithy, dangerous and tender, as the best vampire romances always are, and there were a couple of twists that I didn't see coming until they hit, which again, is always a good sign for me.  I'll definitely be checking out more from Holly Black at some point, and highly recommend this one for anyone who likes their vampire novels well written and with a clever dose of fresh lore to... um... sink their teeth into.

Notable Quotables:

• "Vampires were always more beautiful than the living.  Their skin was without blemish, marble smooth, and poreless.  The older they got, the more their unnatural red eyes grew bright as poppies and their hair became as lustrous as silk.  It was as if whatever demon possessed them, whatever force kept their corpse from the grave, had refined them in the blaze of its power, burning away their humanity to reveal something finer.  They looked absurdly gorgeous, glowing from the television like fallen angels.  Even from the beginning, that was a problem.  People liked pretty things.  People even liked pretty things that wanted to kill and eat them."
• "Gavriel sat stock-still.  Inside him roiled such turmoil that he feared that should he move, he would smash every piece of furniture in the room, crack every pane of every window, until there was nothing but shining splinters where the parlour had been."
• "You play with fire because you want to be burned."
• "Tana thought about how much fun it must have been, once upon a time, to be a vampire and have forever stretching out in front of you - an endless carnival of nights.  They must have felt as almighty as angels, looking down on the world from their windows, choosing to spare each passerby."
• "... the third option, the possibility that there's something monstrous inside of us that can be unleashed, is the most disturbing of all.  Maybe it's just us, us with a raging hunger, us with a couple of accidental murders under our belt.  Humanity, with the training wheels off the bike, careening down a steep hill.  Humanity, freed from the constraints of consequence and gifted with power.  Humanity, grown away from all things human."

Source: I got this book out of my local library.