Boop's Bookshelf: The Outsiders by S E Hinton

The Outsiders checks of 'A book by a female author' in my 2015 reading challenge.

The Author

S E Hinton was born in Oklahoma, and had always had a love of reading. However the reading material was not to her liking, so she wrote young adult stories that did reflect what she thought they should be. The Outsiders was her first novel, and a great writing career followed it. 

Synopsis

The outsiders tells the story of two rival gangs - the Greasers, and the Socials (Socs for short). The story is told from the perspective of Ponyboy Curtis - one of the Greasers. A gang rivalry goes too far, and Ponyboy finds himself on the run with his friend, contemplating what differences there really are between the two groups; and the importance of family. Despite the similar unhappy situations of both groups, nothing changes and the rivalry continues between the two groups throughout the book. Some huge scale events transpire, and we follow Ponyboy through these, and into his reconciliation with his brothers.

My Thoughts

I like this story. Once I became familiar with the dialect of Ponyboy and the way things were described, I found it to be a quick and enjoyable read. Things escalate very quickly at the beginning of the book, which took me by surprise, and the rest of the story is generally dealing with the fallout from the beginning of the book. I found myself drawn into the world depicted in the novel, and wanted to find out what happened next. Needless to say, because of this I flew through the book. I was a bit disappointed with the story ending. More or less everything about the characters situation stayed the same, except for some changes in the way the brothers relate to each other and look after each other. I left the novel feeling a little dissatisfied with the ending, but otherwise I enjoyed it. 

My Rating...

3 stars
Enjoyable but unsatisfactory

Boop's Bookshelf: Sex and Bacon by Sarah Katherine Lewis

Sex and Bacon checks off 'A nonfiction book' in my 2015 Reading Challenge. 

The Author

Sarah Katherine Lewis is a previous sex worker, who turned to writing about her experiences, and writes for a sex advice column. She has written two novels - Indecent: how I Make it and Fake it as a Girl for Hire and Sex and Bacon: Why I Love Things That are Very, Very Bad for Me. In both she writes about her experiences in the sex industry, feminism, and body confidence - interspersed with battles with her demons and favourite recipes.

Synopsis

Similar to a memoir or biography, this book is written by the author looking back on their life. Lewis reminisces about a time when she was working in the sex industry, and moving on from that into writing. There are interwoven themes through the book, most notably body image, depression, and sex.

My Thoughts

When I first started reading this book, I loved it. It was scandalous, candid, and funny. I enjoyed reading about the author's experiences and found her views on the beauty industry really interesting. However, The more of it I read, the more contradictions I noticed...One moment Lewis would say one thing, the next she would say the opposite. Which was irritating after it happened a few times. The writing style is short and choppy - almost like it was thrown together as she thought of things, or it was several short articles put together to form a book. Having said that, I still read it cover to cover and enjoyed it regardless!

My rating....

3 Stars

Entertaining, but a little inconsistent!

Boop's Bookshelf: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

The Luminaries check off 'A book by someone under 30' in my 2015 reading challenge.

The Author

Eleanor Catton is a Canadian-born New Zealand author. Her second novel The Luminaries won the Man Booker Prize in 2013, crowning her the youngest person to have won the award. Other than The Luminaries, Catton has also released the novel The Rehearsal, and some short stories published in various works.

The Synopsis

The Luminaries is essentially a mystery novel. Set in 1866 at the goldmines in Hokitika. We enter into the story with Walter Moody, who is new to the town and the strange affairs that have been occurring. He happens across a secret meeting of 12 men, and is pulled into piecing together events as each man recants his tale. What follows is an erratic story told from several different points of view, giving an overview of the crimes that transpired and who is actually responsible for them. The crimes in question, all revolve around the disappearance of a young, rich gold digger, a prostitutes multiple collapses, and the murder of a poor man. Everything points towards a ship's captain, or at least seems to.

My Thoughts

I really liked how the reader is brought into the story with another character. It's a good technique used to pull the reader in, and it worked with this novel - without this it would have been extremely difficult to get involved with the story. As each man in the meeting tells his tale, we see several different events that transpire around the same period of time. however, this was not in chronological order. there was a lot of back-and-forward and filling in gaps other character's stories had left. I found it difficult to keep track of this at first, but after spending a lot of time reading - I recommend dedicating an hour or more to it when you first start! - I finally got an overview of how each character's story fits into this mystery up to the moment we entered the story. And there was still a huge amount of the story left to go...

The zodiac signs and other heavenly bodies play a large part in this tale. Each main character represents a zodiac sign, and other essential characters represent the heavenly bodies. each section in the book (there are 12) start off with an image showing what stage all of the zodiacs are in. This probably had relevance to what happened to the characters in the story, but I didn't read too much into that and read the story instead. This novel had in interesting little quirk - each section was half as long as the preceding one. The beginning felt like a mammoth to read, then the further along I got the quicker I flew through the story - some of the chapters were only a few lines at the end!

I found this novel hard to read at the beginning, then the more I read, the more I enjoyed it, and the mystery of the story. My only main niggle with it is the unaddressed question of how two of the characters were inexplicably linked in the way that they were. I wont go into more detail - as it would give away some of the story - but it felt unresolved because there wasn't a satisfactory explanation.

My Rating...

3.5 stars

Not something I am likely to reread, but enjoyable and interesting regardless.

Boop's Bookshelf: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie checks off 'A book set in high school' in my 2015 reading challenge

The Author

Muriel Spark was a award winning Scottish novelist. She wrote several short stories, plays, poems, novels and biographies. She had several titles and honors awarded to her through her lifetime. She has written pieces for the BBC, and lived in several countries through her life. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is the best known of Spark's works.

Synopsis

This short story centers around a Miss Jean Brodie and her exclusively selected group of students at the school she teaches at. The relationship between her and her students is a special one - though that may not be a good thing. Miss Brodie is in the prime of her life and she shares her experiences with her students, while subtly shaping them into miniature versions of herself. Brodie's teaching methods are looked down on by the school's headmistress, who invariably tries to intervene with Brodies' 'set' and gain a reason to dismiss Miss Brodie. Through a love triangle and increasingly manipulative behaviour, one of the girls eventually betrays Brodie to the headmistress, handing her the tools to bring her down. However, Miss Brodie never finds out who that was.

My Thoughts

While reading this, it was difficult to keep track of which girl was which. This was exacerbated by the chapters jumping around in time through the time that the girls knew Miss Brodie. At the beginning I felt that Miss Brodie was a forward-thinking, liberal teacher who is being stifled by the traditionalist headmistress. However, as the story progressed and the power Brodie holds over the girls is abused, I felt that she was much more ominous and her views more dangerous. I mean...I hate to lay down a spoiler, but at one point she says that she was in Germany and she thinks Hitler's regime is a good thing...

She was more than a little obsessed with fascism and she pushed that onto her 'set'. She more or less turns these girls into her very own fascist group, and they hung from her every word. She specifically chose the girls in her set because their parents were disinterested or too naive to intervene in her relationship with them. All a bit ominous and it made me feel a little uncomfortable.

On the positive side of that, my reaction to the manipulative Miss Brodie is the result of good writing. I felt genuine emotion towards Miss Brodie, even if the feelings weren't all positive. It is a well written novel, however I didn't particularly enjoy the story. Then again that could just be because there was a lot about fascism that I didn't understand...

My Rating:

3 stars

Good writing, didn't like the story quite so much...

Boop's Bookshelf: The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Angel's Game checks off 'A book that was originally written in a different language' in my 2015 reading challenge

The Author

Carlos Ruiz Zafon is a Spanish novelist. He has written both young adult and adult novels, most notably the 4 book series nicknamed The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. This is the series containing Shadow of the Wind, The Angel's Game and The Prisoner of Heaven thus far. This series was translated to English by Lucia Graves, who is both a writer and a translator. She is the daughter of poet Robert Graves. 

Synopsis

The Angels Game is the second book in the series - however it's a prequel to Shadow of the Wind, so I didn't feel too bad suggesting it for my book club!! The story is set in Barcelona, Spain. The story follows the life of David Martin - a writer at a newspaper, with a tragic back story and a talent for writing that needs to be explored. It is a dark tale following David's descent into writing and pouring his soul into his work. He also uncovers a mystery that parallels his own life, which he feels he needs to uncover the answers to. We as the reader, follow him in uncovering the mystery.

My Thoughts

I enjoyed reading this novel. I was pulled into the story from the start, and I wanted to know what was happening, and why the mystery resembled David Martin so much. I am not sure how much I actually liked the main character. I felt like I was on his side, but then there were situations or moments when I didn't like him. The story was all from his point of view, which towards the end made me suspect there was some tunnel vision going on.I found one of the secondary characters really interesting - Isabella - and wished there was more of her thoughts and opinions incorporated into the story line. I would have been interested to see David Martin and some of the various situations in the book through other perspectives. I liked the parallels within the story to that of other stories where a character has effectively sold their soul to the devil. The Angel pin that Corelli always wears made me think of heaven and hell, temptations and succumbing to it.

Bookclub Notes

At our discussion, one person in bookclub mentioned a review he had seen that suggested you read it thinking that the main character has schizophrenia. When I thought back through the book and the events that occurred - including the nickname Martin earned from Isabella 'Jekyll and Hyde' - it does explain some events and how some things happen in the story telling. Very intriguing - I'm glads this was mentioned because it opened my mind to a whole new side of the story!

Overall it is an involved and unusual story, and I really enjoyed reading it. However, there are a lot of points that either don't make sense, or are left wide open to interpretation - which I do find a bit frustrating. I really want to re-read Shadow of the Wind, and the newest installment - The Prisoner of Heaven. SO many books to read! 

My rating:

4 stars

I found it very difficult to rate this one - I was torn between 4 and 4.5 stars! I enjoyed reading The Angel's Game, however the unanswered questions I have are just that little bit too niggly to ignore...

2015 Reading Challenge

You heard it here first, folks. I'm attempting to complete Popsugar's 2015 reading challenge. 

I started this in January, however I haven't posted about it! Big oops. Well, to be fair I have been busy with setting up a bookclub at work...Yay me! My first book club!!!

I'm currently three books in, and I'll be posting about them at some point - I can't promise when that will be however...

The work book club are also following this challenge, we split the categories that don't require a personal book choice up between us, and came back with our selections for those categories - they are all listed below so have a look! This way we are all reading things that we may not have thought of or read before. We have some really interesting suggestions so far, I'll list a few for you!

A book with more than 500 pages: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas

A book with nonhuman characters: Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

A book with a colour in the title: Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

A book more than 100 years old: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A book that was originally written in a different language: The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

And many, many more! I'm really looking forward to reading all of these great books, and all of the ones that I am choosing for myself!