Normal people by Sally Rooney
I’d watched the series before I read the book and yet the series didn’t put me off reading it. I suffered through it, just as I suffered through this book about Marianne and Connell. Two kids who go to the same school, and then later on to the same university, their lives entwined. We witness their strange dance as they struggle to communicate plainly with each other and fail again and again. Marianne is a broken person. Connell is sort of wonderful, but at the same time like a rabbit caught in the headlights, constantly at a loss for what to say or do. I wrote that I suffered through the book, but it was a good book. The depictions of its main characters were excellent and really came to life. I felt for both of them, which is what made the book so painful to get through. Especially Marianne, a little bird of a person, fragile despite her apparent strength, was someone that I wanted to reach out to and give a big hug. So this was definitely a page turner, but at the same time it did feel like rubbernecking at the scene of an accident (see even: The Pull of the Stars below). ****
Conversations with friends by Sally Rooney
Had I read this book first, before Normal People, I may have skipped Normal People. The tone and language was way too similar, and even the characters seemed like distant echoes of the ones in Normal People. In Conversations with friends, we follow Frances as she navigates her early twenties and her relationships with her ex-girlfriend Bobbi and her new friends. Unlike Normal People, this book contained no people I liked or sympathised with. They all seemed selfish and immature, pretending to be adults. Of course, the characters of a book don’t need to be likeable for it to be good, but in this case I don’t think the purpose of the writer was to create unsympathetic characters. The plot failed to engage me: it was just as miserable an experience as Normal People but not in a good way. A lot of people have commented on Rooney’s style when it comes to dialogues, that she doesn’t use punctuation to make it clear that it is a dialogue that you are reading, and while it didn’t bother me in Normal People, in Conversations with friends I did find it distracting and a little confusing. **
The amateur marriage by Anne Tyler
I read this book for my book club and it was not a book I would have picked up otherwise. The story follows a couple, Pauline and Michael, through the decades of their marriage, their ups and -mainly- downs. Their relationship is described vividly and from both their points of views, allowing us to see both sides of the story. The book starts strong in a USA that’s about to go to war (WWII). Tyler captures the atmosphere of the era beautifully. Unfortunately, after this strong start, the book gets weaker and weaker for me as the decades pass and there are jumps in the story. The characters, so vivid at first, fade gradually and by the end I couldn’t really find it in me to care about them. Some seemingly major plot elements are handled superficially or swept under the carpet, while others that seem trivial are given a lot more space. This story, too, was about the relationships that people seem to get trapped in and which make them miserable. Not a great read, but it did make for good book club discussions about the institution of marriage then and now. ***
The pull of the stars by Emma Donoghue
I love everything I’ve read by Emma Donoghue so far. The language in her books is beautiful, a little sad. In The pull of the stars we are told about a three day period in the life of Julia, a nurse for pregnant women at a hospital in Dublin during WWI and the Spanish flu. These three days are intense as the hospital is understaffed due to the pandemic, but Julia is joined by a volunteer, Bridie, with whom she quickly forms a friendship. The pregnant women at their care have the flu, and Donoghue takes us through every horrifying detail of what it was like to be poor, pregnant and seriously ill. I couldn’t put the book down, even though it was sickening to read all the gory details. Perhaps because at the heart of it was hope despite everything. Julia was a strong female character, very competent at her job. Some other historical events are hinted at and they made me want to read more about that time period, not least because of the similarities between the Spanish flu and the current pandemic (Donoghue had started on the book before the pandemic hit). Strongly recommended if you can stomach the gore. ****
Middle England by Jonathan Coe
This book came highly recommended by several friends and acquaintances as it was supposed to paint a very accurate picture of the events surrounding Brexit (it did). At the centre of the story is a family, the Trotters, and people around them. We follow some of them, for example the writer Benjamin and his niece Sophie, as they live their lives in different ways, trying to make sense of the political climate based on their own particular sensibilities. At times very funny, at other times very sad, this book made me think that the author himself was confused about how the UK got to where it was – not that he didn’t understand what events put everything into motion, but how it could go so wrong. Like he didn’t recognise his own country. He doesn’t take a clear stance on the issue through his characters, but there is a certain sadness about the whole affair that persists throughout the book. Having mixed feelings for the UK myself, having lived there for a few years, I understood this sadness at things lost. But I think that the book would have benefited from taking a clearer stance. ***
Holes by Louis Sachar
14 year old Stanley Yelnats has inadvertently gotten himself into trouble and he gets sent away for a crime he did not commit. Instead of being sent to prison, he gets sent to a camp where he has to dig holes in a dried-up lake in the hot sun all day to atone for his sins. He’s not told why he and the other kids at the camp have to dig these holes. Only that they need to report any interesting findings. I liked this book a lot although I wish that I had read it when I was younger. It was fun and funny at times with a good backstory. The fact that it is a children’s book does in no way make it any less enjoyable. The characters are well developed and the plot flows at a good pace. The setting, in a desert-like environment in the scorching sand, was quite original and I felt for those kids having to dig in the heat. This was a very original story and it tied everything up together nicely at the end. ****
The princess bride by William Goldman
Surely everyone has read this book by now! I saw the movie a few years ago and immediately understood what all the hype was about. I’m happy to say -in case there is someone out there who hasn’t read the book yet- that the book is as good as the movie. I was a little confused at first about which parts were actually true and which were made up, because the author makes it sound like this was truly a story his father read to him when he was a child, but once I got it I was good to go. The princess bride is about the love between a farmer’s daughter and the boy that helps around the farm. The farmer’s daughter catches the Prince’s eye (because she is the most beautiful woman, natch) and, when she’s led to believe that the boy she loves is dead, she agrees to marry the Prince. The princess bride is fun, very funny and exciting, full of adventure and magic. ****
The legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
This was a very short read. It is the story of Ichabod Crane, a teacher in Sleepy Hollow, who tries to win the Dutch heiress Katrina Van Tassel over. Unfortunately he is not the only one, and his rival is cunning. But Sleepy Hollow is haunted…or is it? The setting of the story came alive thanks to the descriptions of Irving. The characters were perhaps not fleshed out so much, with the exception of Crane, but maybe that’s not so strange in a story this short. It wasn’t a particularly scary story, or even creepy (it is listed as Horror on Goodreads) but there is a scene that almost gave me goosebumps. Overall though, despite its lack of thrills, the story was solid and well-rounded, something you’d retell when you’re sitting with your friends by a campfire. And as such it succeeds very well at what it does. The ending is ambiguous but very fitting nonetheless. ***
The great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
This beloved classic is about the titular Jay Gatsby and his life as described by his friend, the narrator Nick Carraway. Gatsby is seemingly a rich man, shrouded in mystery and followed by gossip wherever he goes. As he and Carraway strike a friendship, we start learning more about his life and what drives him. I loved the language in this book, the wonderful descriptions of people and places, the atmosphere of New York/Long Island in the 1920s. Overall though I didn’t find the plot compelling or liked the characters very much (with the exception of Carraway, who was…ok). It certainly seems like an accurate depiction of the mores of the 1920s (the audiobook was narrated wonderfully by Jake Gyllenhaal, who brought it to life with his acting skills – I could see what was desribed in the book in black and white, like I was watching a movie from that era). I guess maybe the lives of the rich and the famous don’t really interest me that much. **
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Piranesi lives in a vast, empty house. Empty but for himself, the statues, the Other, and the birds and the fishes. He documents, he keeps a journal, he lives a simple life. He is contented to be surrounded by nothing but ocean, the only danger the occasional tides that flood the house. Until something happens that makes him question everything. This is one of the books that I would hesitate to recommend to others. I enjoyed it because of the beautiful world Clarke created and described, but I was definitely not in the right mood for it. Piranesi is a sympathetic character, at times innocent like a child and full of curiosity, marveling at the wonders around him. Clarke touches on many, many interesting ideas about the nature of reality, what constitutes reality and how we perceive it and more. I will definitely be thinking more about those ideas. Because it is a strange book, not only because of the format it’s written in (as a journal) but also because of its subject matter, it did take a while to get into. So for me the book got better and better the more I read and learned about this world. I would recommend this book if you liked eg The starless sea by Erin Morgenstern or for your book club, as it can spark very interesting discussions. ***