Monthly Recap - May 2012

Here are the books I reviewed this past month:

• 3rd: A Waste of Good Paper by Sean Taylor
• 4th: My Monster Burrufu by Alberto Corral
• 10th: Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace
• 14th: Noughties by Ben Masters
• 22nd: Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Green
• 29th: Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan

And here is my to read list:

Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan

Apocalypse Cow is a book about a viral epidemic in Britain that first infects cows, then other animals and then humans. It makes them turn into zombie-like creatures and it falls upon three individuals – hemp-allergy sufferer Geldof, abattoir worker Terry and failed journalist Lesley – to help the world put an end to it. Together they attempt to escape the hordes of infected animals, the efforts of the army to put them into camps and the pursuit of one crazed man who is trying to conceal the truth whilst Britain is shut off from the rest of the world.

This is a very visual novel with vivid images coming into the head from the descriptions on the page. The characters are very OTT, as are the situations, which makes for a lot of the humour. In fact the book is all about the humour although there is a strong story also running through it.

It’s nicely set up at the end for a sequel so if/when that comes out I'll check it out.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Green

This book is about an imaginary friend called Budo. You might think therefore that this is a book for children but you'd be wrong; it is definitely aimed at adults.

The author expertly builds a world where imaginary friends are not imaginary at all. In fact they are real but can be seen only by those that imagined them, and other imaginary friends who they can interact with. However the life-span of an imaginary friend is not long because once they are forgotten about by their creator they simply cease to exist, which is sad.

Therefore Budo, at 5-years-old, is old. And the reason for that is because his human, 8-year-old Max, has a disability of some sort, possibly Asperger Syndrome (although never diagnosed). That's pretty sad too.

There are other tear-jerking moments in the book as well - like an imaginary friend forming for a girl who lies in hospital without her parents after a car crash, her only friend left in the world, or another imaginary friend ceasing to exist. And the ending is probably the most tear-jerking moment of all.

So maybe not for kids as they may cry (although adults will too).

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Noughties by Ben Masters

This book is about Eliot Lamb who is out with his Uni mates as they celebrate their last night at Oxford University. They go to a pub, a bar and then a club. In between Eliot reminisces about his three-years there, which means he reminisces mainly about girl trouble. 

If I were to mark it as if it were a thesis I would mark it thus:

Good points:

There is some good stuff in this book. I like the author’s way of describing things. Straight from the off there are good descriptions, e.g. “Scott with his question-mark nose, Jack with his inverted-comma eyebrows, Sanjay with his square-bracket ears…” 

I like the humour in the repartee between characters.

Bad points:

There is a lot of swearing and smut in the book, a bit too much for my liking.

It gets a bit confusing in places. Are the ideas conveyed too clever for me?

The bits with literary references went over my head in a lot of places.

Ella’s ending is unfinished.

Overall:

Frustrating – with more work this could have been better as there are snippets of story here that work well and which had me wanting to read on, but then as a whole it wasn’t as coherent. 

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace

I have read Danny Wallace's Yes Man and have also read lots of the columns that he writes for the Shortlist magazine, some of which have been published, but this was his first novel and I was wondering whether he could carry across his humour etc. from non-fiction into fiction. Well the answer is yes.

This book has a sense of fun running right through it. It follows Jason Priestley who is going through a bad time in his life. He inadvertently ends up with a disposable camera from a girl he fancies (with the moment happening on Charlotte Street, as do a few other moments in the book). He develops the film and uses it to try and track down the girl, but will he do it? And should stalking be encouraged anyway?

It was interesting the way Jason Priestley got into a few embarrassing scrapes along the way. This is where Danny Wallace's humour comes across best and I could just imagine him from Yes Man ending up in similar scraps. It was like he'd put himself into the shoes of Jason.

Anyway essentially this is a novel about "Making it happen", hence the attempt to track down the girl. So why don't you make it happen today and buy this book for a read which will put a big smile on your face.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

My Monster Burrufu by Alberto Corral

This book is about a girl of seven, Olivia, who moves to a new house, a house that has a secret which she stumbles across one day – the secret being a resident monster, Burrufu. She and he then becomes friends, and what seven-year-old girl doesn’t want a big, friendly, furry monster to cuddle?

I liked Olivia’s wide-eyed enthusiasm and inquisitive nature so typical of a little girl, and which I think would appeal to your typical child reader. I loved the illustrations which were really cute. I loved the inventiveness in how the text changed size to indicate different volumes and I liked the name of the monster, Burrufu, which just sounded a really thought out name.

On the negative maybe the vocabulary was a bit simple, although this is a book for children so you'd want it to do that, and the book is short taking an hour to read, and maybe there could have been more pictures, the ones that were in there were so great you wanted more, and perhaps the pictures could have been in colour instead of black and white but these are all minor points and shouldn’t detract from what is a great story that children and parents should love, a story of friendship, and also friendship in adversity.

(A copy of this book was given to me in exchange for an honest review. It is listed on Amazon here.)

A Waste of Good Paper by Sean Taylor

Jason has behavioural difficulties and so has to go to a special school. There he is given a private journal to write in which he quickly dismisses as "a waste of good paper" because thinks he has nothing to say. As it turns out it doesn't prove to be a waste of good paper and he does have a story to tell, a good one.

His story has some light and some heavy stuff going on in it. Mainly the time when he's in school is the light stuff with a lot of banter going on between the kids. Then there is the heavy stuff which takes place at home where Jason witnesses drug taking and suffers from violence, quite graphic violence involving burns which you may not normally expect to see in a children's book. With all this going on it's no surprise he has behavioural difficulties. It is quite a gritty storyline so it is a relief to have the light entwined with the heavy to hopefully take some of the edge off.

The typeface is made to look like handwriting and it is done on lined paper to add to the journal. And I don't know that the title is the best title of a book in the world; it might put preconceptions in your head.

Overall this is not a waste of good paper and is a thoroughly good book. 

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed on Amazon here.)

Monthly Recap - April 2012

Here are the books I reviewed this past month:

3rd: Easy Money

4th: The Flying Man

5th: The Comic Café

6th: Chomp

9th: The Definitive Luton Town F.C.

10th: Luton Town: An Illustrated History

12th: Eagle in the Sky (re-issue)

13th: Goblins

20th: Asterix the Gaul

23rd: The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder

26th: Birdsong: 150 British and Irish birds and theiramazing sounds

27th: Again!

And here is my to read list: