I hate abandoning books half-way through, and, this year, there have only been two that I haven’t finished. The first was Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon (The less said about that the better.), and the other was Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult. My mum is a Picoult fan, and about a year ago […]
In her Afterword to this book, Toni Morrison writes that she wanted The Bluest Eye to be moving rather than touching. In my opinion. she certainly achieved her aim. This is a story which explores some of humanity’s darkest issues: racism and child abuse in its many forms, and Morrison doesn’t pussy-foot around these issues, […]
It took me a long time to settle into this book. It is heavy with narrative (which, I suppose, is one of the characteristics of a memoir), and I always find that hard going. Also, the writing seemed very dispassionate, which struck me as odd given the emotive subject matter, but as I got into […]
The easiest way to describe this book is as Nineteen Eighty-Four for children, but that would be selling it short. Although written for children, this book easily engaged me. Jonas is a likeable character, and I couldn’t help rooting for him. One of the rules of the community in which Jonas lives is that all […]
Bruno is nine years old, and, like most children, he is completely oblivious to anything that doesn’t directly affect him. All he is concerned about is that his father, a Commandant in the German army, is moving him and his family away from their friends, family and comfortable home in Berlin to a run-down house […]
This is an amazing book, both beautifully written and horribly uncomfortable. It roused all sorts of emotion in me: at the start of the book, I found I could muster little sympathy for any of the four main characters; they all came across as fairly unpleasant. But by the end of the book, my heart […]
Set in 1960’s America, The Secret Life of Bees is the story of Lily Owens, a young girl, whose life is haunted by the accidental death of her mother. After her mother’s death, Lily is raised by her abusive father and by a black nanny, Rosaleen. Whilst on her way to register to vote, Rosaleen […]