Wednesday 28 October 2015

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Book review: “Fates and Furies” in many ways is two books in one. The first "book", entitled Fate, tells the story of Lotto and Mathilde. You meet them at age 22. They are on a beach enjoying each others company having just eloped, their young love shining through the pages in this breezy intro.

However as their marriage goes through its course it isn’t always so breezy. “Nothing like having a wife who works herself to death to stifle the mood for love. Nothing like dying dreams, and disappointment.”

However always at the core of their story is a love of each other. But the marriage does end in tragic circumstances and thus “Fate” ends, back where it began on the beach, Lotto and Mathilde as they once were.

Then the second part of the book is “Furies”. Whereas the first part was from Lotto’s perspective, now you get to see things from Mathilde’s point of view, as she picks things up from where they were left off, with a lot of anger. She also fills the gaps in to the backstory because, as the blurb says, “every story has two sides”.

Altogether I enjoyed this book and the writing style, with unique style, like its use of square brackets for asides, and the bit-part characters with names like Freckles and Miniskirt. And, as I said, it is like two books in one so you get double the value. All-in-all then a good read.

Publication date: 17 Sep 2015

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Saturday 10 October 2015

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming


Book review: "The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning." And so begins the career of probably the world's most famous secret agent for those are the opening words of Casino Royale, the book that Ian Fleming wrote introducing Bond, James Bond to the world.

The plot seems simple enough and is well known. Bond is sent on a mission to bring down Le Chiffre whose investments have left him needing to make a lot of money. "Le Chiffre will endeavour to make a profit at baccarat of fifty million francs on a working capital of twenty-five million (and, incidentally, save his life)." That's because Le Chiffre is an agent of the USSR, and they know of his bad investments which he foolishly used "Leningrad Section III" monies for. Now they want it back and SMERSH, an organisation specialising in death to spies, are after him. Bond is to out-gamble Le Chiffre so that he can't repay his money. And it is HM Treasury who put up the money for him to do this. I can't imagine George Osborne doing that these days but this story wasn't written in these days.

Then the other part of the plot involves Bond meeting Vesper Lynd who is also assigned to the job, and trying to rescue her after getting herself kidnapped but instead getting caught and tortured.

The way the book is written is fantastic. Fleming is a great writer. You meet Bond already in the heart of the action at the glamorous casino. Then he introduces the mission and Le Chiffre via a dossier, an excellent tool to introduce the villain and his back-story, before returning to Royale, France. He also inserts the rules of baccarat into the novel seamlessly to allow non-casino goers like me understand what is going on (something I didn't understand from the films where it was assumed people would know, and I don't think Bond uses the Evelyn Tremble method in the book either, although he does explain his method in detail).

Bond the character is of his time. He smokes 70-a-day, loves his drinks, although a "vodka Martini, shaken not stirred", is not one of them, and is terribly sexist. "These blithering women who thought they could do a man's work. Why the hell couldn't they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men's work to the men." He is also very meticulous, which is probably what makes him such a good spy.

There are other bits in here too that are classic James Bond like the car chase, the narrow escapes and Felix Leiter.

But once the main thrilling part of the novel finished the story seemed to meander off course a bit with Bond recovering in a hospital bed, discussing "the nature of evil" with Mathis, before falling in love with Vesper rather too easily it seemed to me.

Still thanks to this book we have James Bond and we can all be grateful (or not as the case may be) for that.

Originally published: 13 April 1953

Friday 2 October 2015

Paper Aeroplanes by Dawn O'Porter

Book review: Set in Guernsey in 1994 "Paper Aeroplanes" is about a friendship between two 15-year-old girls, Renée and Flo, united by their "loneliness and their dysfunctional families".

They're not friends at the beginning though. They're not yet throwing paper aeroplanes with messages written in them to each other during lessons at school. Instead they have different friends. Renée has Carla and Gem, but is their "tag along", and Flo has the mean and bossy Sally. But Renée and Flo find each other and become friends, although it isn't always smooth.

The book is in part inspired by the author's teenage diaries, and I think this works well as you can definitely feel that the two voices that the story is told through, those of Renée and Flo, are those of two 15-year-olds. But other parts are quite deep as the characters explore their inner thoughts, and those bits do feel like you are reading bits pulled directly from someone's diary rather than bits of a story.

The blurb says this is an edgy book which is presumably because of some of the language and the things that go on, the sort of things 15-year-olds do for the first time. And the story is a bit girly in places, boyfriends, clothes, period pains, but that's probably to be expected. The story is gripping, and moving, and you do root for the two main characters. It is well worth a read.
 
Published on 3 May 2013.
 
Available on AMAZON