Book Review | A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Series: N/A
Published: September 2012
Publisher: Walker
Format: Hardback
Pages: 237
Rating: ★★★★★

At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting — he’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It’s ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth. 

This is one of the most creative books about illness I’ve ever read about; it’s told from the point of view of Conor who is dealing with the idea of his mother suffering with a terminal cancer. It’s about his fears, grief and sufferings primarily – the family suffer as much as the diagnosed in a sense.

It is written like a children’s book in a simplistic, fairytale manner, but the content I would say is aimed for an older audience. The themes in the book are quite hard hitting and complex at times, and this creates an odd lull to the book as you’re not entirely sure how it’s supposed to be perceived. This creates for an easy read, and I got through this book in a day, not just because of the simplistic manner that this book was written, but also due to the fact that it was such an enthralling read with something new always around the corner.

The writing is laced with emotion, and from the very beginning you sympathise with this young boys imminent loss – he goes into himself, he acts out and he lets his emotions get the better of him sometimes, but this comes with the roller-coaster of a journey he’s having to go through at the moment. Although only 13, Conor is very relatable to anyone at any age going through the same thing – we all feel small and vulnerable in times of need, and we all need someone to hang on to.

Being a “fairytale” as such, it comes with a moral, and a strong one at that. This is the kind of book that leaves you hanging, not for the story, but for yourself – it makes you think about life and how precious it is even with the ups and downs that we so dearly despise. A wonderful read, and I can’t say more than that without ruining the magic of a first time read.

Book Review | Fahrenheit 451

Series: N/A
Published: 1953
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Format: Paperback
Pages: 227
Rating: ★★★★★

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.

This is a classic dystopian novel, and because it was written in the 1950s it is relevant today, and a lot of the issues that are raised in the story are ones we are going through in this day and age; consequently, this creates a scary atmosphere from the offset, as Bradbury in a way has predicted what was going to happen in the future. It paints a harsh but realistic reality on what’s happening as well as what could happen if we don’t change and the fact that it is so relevant makes it really creepy to read and relate.

The writing is absolutely stunning, the fluidity of the prose was almost poetic in its description, and flowed extremely well off the tongue upon reading aloud, which I admit is a guilty pleasure of mine. I don’t normally take too much notice of description if there’s a lot of it, and normally I don’t like a lot of it either, but this book is so full of wonderful metaphors that were so beautifully put together that I couldn’t help but take notice. The descriptions definitely didn’t detract from the story, and if anything, they enforced you to imagine the world in a clearer light.

In this story, books were forbidden because they gave people freedom of speech, imagination and something to think about – the government wanted anything but that; they wanted people to just live and not think about things that mean anything. The world was rounded up in Montag’s wife Mildred, she was epitome of ignorance – she created a bubble around herself and blocked herself away from the world by using different contraptions that had been invented to do just this. Instead of creating a full cast of characters in this manner, Bradbury created one, and this I believe was enough to create the idea that everyone else was the same in this almost robotic state.

I can proudly say that this book, Fahrenheit 451, is the first non YA book that I have absolutely loved. Ever. It was so powerful and relevant that it just gave me shivers reading it. It is one of those books that will stay with you forever and makes you think about the world around you and everything that is going on. Amazing.

Book Review | The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

Series: Nursery Crime #1
Published: 2006
Publisher: Hodder
Format: Paperback
Pages: 398
Rating: ★★★★

It’s Easter in Reading – a bad time for eggs – and the shattered, tuxedo-clad corpse of local businessman Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III has been found lying beneath a wall in a shabby part of town. Humpty was one of life’s good guys – so who would want him knocked off? And is it a coincidence that his ex-wife has just met with a sticky end down at the local biscuit factory? A hardened cop on the mean streets of the Thames Valley’s most dangerous precinct, DI Jack Spratt has seen it all, and something tells him this is going to be a tough case to crack…

Punny funny murder mystery; if I had to describe this book, those four words sum it up to a tee. Fforde is known for his funny and ingenuitive concepts, and his even funnier writing style, he combines fun children’s characters with puns-a-plenty with the seriousness of a murder case – an oxymoron of a book if ever there was one. 

The characters were based around nursery rhyme characters for the most part, and all but one of them I found, extracted a personality very well from their very own piece of poetry or prose. There were little things spotted around the story which related to the supposed nursery rhymes; the forgetting of Rumpelstiltzkin’s name or Jack trading in a painting of a cow for some magical beans being a couple of examples. This wasn’t a hilarious book as such, but one that made you inwardly laugh at the irony of it all, which made it very subtly clever. There were definitive ‘good’ and ‘bad’ characters in this book and this was primarily obvious from the start, we loved the good guys and despised the bad guys and this flowed quite nicely with the nursery theme. 

The crunch of the book was the crime solving element, and although it had funny quips surrounding the main action it was still a serious affair and this came across in the writing. There was a genuine crime to be solved, it didn’t just end after a couple of people being questioned, it was a full on police investigation with clues, red herrings and the odd lie or few. I was certainly intrigued to finish the book and see who had committed the crime, as I can honestly say  that I had no clue and was going along with the investigations and felt as though I was figuring it out for myself with Jack Spratt and Mary Mary by my side which is a wonderful element I love in books. It wasn’t predictable in the slightest and it didn’t even get boring, as when it started to slow, something would come in and throw everything up in the air again and they would have to pick up the pieces.

This is the second Jasper Fforde book that I have read, I loved ‘Shades of Grey’ and I can most certainly say that that wasn’t a fluke as this one was fabulous and I will most definitely be reading an array of his books in the future.

Book Review | About A Boy By Nick Hornby

Series: N/A
Published: 1998
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd.
Format: Kindle eBook
Pages: 307
Rating: ★★★★

*May contain spoilers*

Will is thirty-six, comfortable and child-free. And he’s discovered a brilliant new way of meeting women – through single-parent groups. Marcus is twelve and a little bit nerdish: he’s got the kind of mother who made him listen to Joni Mitchell rather than Nirvana. Perhaps they can help each other out a little bit, and both can start to act their age.

This book is a story of a coming of age for both the older and newer generations alike; although the results may end up being a little different along the way, it shows a lovely progression of character development up to the point of finding oneself.

Marcus; a shy, weird, pre teen boy, is faced with a life of bullying and torment while his mother is completely oblivious to everything – she makes him interested in kitsch and slightly obscure things which a “normal” boy of his age would not be interested in. His mother is a wreck, and through the book, Marcus has a lot of things to deal with on top of family problems. His progression through these ordeals is extraordinary, and the amount that one character can change so much, without it being sudden, right before your eyes is an outstanding feat.

Will, on the other hand, is a shallow layabout that doesn’t really do much with his day other than read, watch neighbours and try to chat up random women at single parent conventions. Will matures throughout the book and this comes across in his spoken words as well as his thoughts and actions – he becomes a lot more selfless and just starts to take the barriers down when it comes to feeling any kind of emotion other than vanity.

Marcus and Will as a duo throughout the book were a pleasure to read, their bats of conversation were so straight to the point and they just seemed to bounce off of each other as well as help each other progress as people. In fact they each had a hand in the others development as characters as they each had something to give to the other.

This book is pretty much a character and feelings based book, and this point is proven solely by the lack of any particular plot or storyline. There were times when I didn’t actually think that the book was going anywhere, and it just seemed to be stuck in a rut – things were being overly described unnecessarily, and I was just getting bored. Thinking about it afterwards, there is no particular storyline as it is just a book about finding yourself. I thought that made it slightly lacking to a degree as every single other box was ticked in my “good book checklist” bar the story. Don’t get me wrong, the depths behind this book were stunning, and I found myself highlighting a lot of the quotes on my kindle as I went as little bits of advice for myself even, but  I just would have liked to have had some structure.

Thoroughly enjoyed this read, Hornby’s definitely plucked my character involvement strings with this book, and I’d gladly pick up another of his in the future.

Book Review | Legend by Marie Lu

Series: Legend #1
Published: November 2011
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Format: Kindle eBook
Pages: 320
Rating: ★★★★★

What was once the Western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbours. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic’s wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic’s highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country’s most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem. From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths—until the day June’s brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family’s survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias’s death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.

The story was told in alternating chapters in the view of Day and June respectively and this made the book very balanced. June was of a more privileged background to Day, and seeing the story from two different perspectives made it quite an unbiassed read as you weren’t just seeing it from the poorer perspective as is usually the case. Admittedly the book did tend to favour the poorer communities in a rich vs poor stereotypical battle a little bit more, but you do tend to get a lot of that in young adult books – this levelled out at the end when a lot of things got revealed, but for the most part it was pretty equal.

Legend was a very fast paced book and everything seemed to happen in such a short amount of time, this suited the story very well as it is technically a tale of cat and mouse. You never spent too much time on one thing, and different things happened and were revealed at exactly the right times. The revelations in this book were brilliant, and  I can honestly say that I was not expecting any single one of them – I’m usually reading a book like this and predicting everything that you would expect to happen, but in this book I was so shocked at the truths and the twists that the story had to give. Maybe it was predictable, maybe I was reading it feeling as though I was there in the characters shoes and totally missed the obvious, but that in itself is amazing, as to be so absorbed in the characters means that something is obviously going right.

I fell in love with each and every character individually – even the “bad” ones – they were very relatable and felt so real. I felt as though I was there with them going along with every hardship and good time that they went through and when I connect with characters in that way I know I’m onto a good book as characters are everything to me.

June in particular was wonderful to read about, she was so meticulous in her thoughts and calculations that it was just great to read. This was technically a “murder mystery” of sorts, and having a character that thinks about evidence in the way that June did I find to be most interesting – in these types of books I like to wonder, I like to think about what might have happened and what everything adds up to, and with June’s thorough thought processes I thought this was highlighted brilliantly.

I picked this book up due to the high praise it was being given at the time due to the imminent release of the sequel “Prodigy” (which is now out), and I thought this book would perhaps be a little too overrated and wouldn’t exceed the expectations of the hype. I was wrong. It was amazing.