Last post for October...

It’s late afternoon (well, really it’s early evening) and it’s been a busy, productive, tiring weekend.  I wish I had more time to discuss the book I read last week, because it was amazing, but alas, I’m tired and hungry so this will be another quick post. 

Last week I flew through The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, which was, you got it, a sequel to her previous bestselling literary thriller, The Plot.  Here’s what I posted when I first read The Plot:   

“I also read a page-turner last week, The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz.  Jacob (Jake) Finch Bonner is a middle-aged writer with one successful novel to his name.  After failing to produce anything else of worth, he’s been reduced to teaching a Creative Writing workshop in a low-residency MFA program in the less-than-noteworthy Ripley College.  Trudging through his third year of this workshop he meets Evan Parker/Parker Evan, an arrogant, over-confident student who is convinced he needs nothing from this program because he is going to write a bestselling novel with the kind of plot that will make him famous:  everyone will be reading it; Oprah will want to interview him; book clubs will discuss it; it will be optioned for a film with an A-list director.  He is very private about his writing, but one day during a one-on-one session, he reveals his plot to Jake, who is shocked into finally believing that Parker may indeed have the makings of a bestseller.  The workshop ends, and three years later, Jake is working at a hotel that has been repurposed as a writers’ retreat, still with no new work worthy of publication.  He is reminded of Parker one day by a brash, cocky resident, and he goes online to find out if this amazing book was ever written.  What he finds instead is that Parker died shortly after his time at Ripley.  Jake ponders this new information, and wonders (briefly) what to do now that he alone is in possession of this amazing plot.  Well, write the book, of course!  After all, as any writer knows, stories are meant to be told, even if they belong to someone else.  Fast-forward another three years, and Crib is published to great acclaim.  Everyone is reading it, it is optioned for a film being directed by someone who could certainly be classified as “A-list”, he’s met a wonderful woman, and life is good… until he receives that first message accusing him of being a thief, and his life begins to spiral out of control.  I would love to tell you more, but that would spoil the fun.  I wish I knew someone else who has read this book, as the plot was so complex and detailed, with so many twists and turns, that it would make for a really interesting discussion.  Alas, I will settle for telling you that it was a roller-coaster read that kept me wishing for more free time.  According to the “Kirkus” review, this isn’t even Korelitz’ best book, so I will definitely seek out her other books.  I will agree with most reviews that it was easy to guess in which direction the novel was going well before it was revealed, but I was still shocked by the "BIG" reveal.  It began as a study of the writing process and the struggles writers go through to put together a new book, a great example of metafiction, but from the point where he receives his first threatening message, it becomes a mystery-thriller that, while very compelling, somehow felt a bit flat.  Having said that, it was totally worth the time spent to read it, if only because it has introduced me to a writer I'd never read before, which is much like opening a door I’d never realized was there!”  

I don’t want to give anything away in case you haven’t read The Plot, so I’ll just say that The Sequel takes up where the previous book left off, and answers all the questions I felt were left unanswered at the end of the first novel.  But it’s the way that this book answered these questions, the narrative taking us on a twisting turning road through the recent and not-so-recent past of the characters to reveal even more family secrets, hidden agendas and nefarious deeds (I just wanted to use that word!) of these characters, that makes it  one helluva roller-coaster ride that brought this reader to a most satisfying-I was hooked to the very last page.  And I mean the actual last page, which held a surprise of its own.  I now want to read Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley!  If you haven’t read either of these novels, I would encourage you to place a library hold on The Plot asap, and when you’re finished, request a copy of The Sequel (which was every bit as wickedly good as the first book!). 

That's all for today.  Happy Hallowe’en!!

Bye for now... Julie

Short post on a lovely fall afternoon...

It’s late afternoon, and the light is golden as it shines through the leaves, leaving shimmering dappled shadows on the carpet.  It’s been so mild and sunny this past week, perfect weather for late summer/early fall. 

I have two books to tell you about today, but if it turns out to be brief summaries of each, just blame it on the lovely weather!  I finished reading Ruth Ware’s novel, One Perfect Couple, about five couples who are chosen to participate in a new reality tv show, “One Perfect Couple”, set on a remote desert island.  Each couple has one partner who is participating in the hopes that this will launch their acting/modelling career or provide their 15 minutes of fame.  But all is not what it seems, and when they are stranded on the island after a severe storm with few supplies and no way off, things start to unravel quickly.  It was much like William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, with one participant taking control and the others trying to alternately stand up to them and just survive.  It was pretty good, quite a page-turner, but I really resented Ware’s blatant plug for one of her earlier novels right in the midst of this one, which I found kind of shameful.  But it was an interesting ending, and I was intrigued enough to wade through all the excess (there was plenty of padding in this book) to get to the end and find out the truth.  It’s not her best book, in my opinion, but it’s certainly not her worst, and I’m being pretty objective, since I don’t even like reality shows! 

Then I read a YA book that one of my former students, now helping out at the school and in my library to get his volunteering hours, is reading for one of his English classes.  The Things She’s Seen by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina is told mainly from the point of view of Beth Teller, a teen who died in a car accident but still hangs out with her father, a police detective, who can see and hear her.  He’s not been able to get over her death, and with her mother dead for many years already, he seems to have no one to go to with his grief.  When he is recruited to help investigate a routine inquiry into a fire at a children’s home in a small town, he undertakes this task with little enthusiasm.  But all is not what it seems, and when he goes to interview a witness, a girl who supposedly ran away from rehab, things become more complicated and dire, and Beth’s father must do everything he can to uncover the truth about the home and the children living there, as well as the adults who ran it, before there are more deaths and coverups.  This was a quick but intense read, dealing with the horrors of colonization in Australia and the generational harm suffered by the Aboriginal people at the hands of the violent, power whites.  I would never have read this on my own, but it was an excellent book by this brother-sister writing team.  

That’s all for today.  There’s still time to get outside and enjoy the lovely evening!  Take care and keep reading!

Bye for now... Julie

No post today...

I'm not posting today as I'm not finished reading Ruth Ware's latest thriller, One Perfect Couple, about five couples who are chosen to be contestants on a new Reality TV show on a desert island, where all is not what it seems and unfortunately, not everyone will leave the island alive.

More info next week...

Bye for now...
Julie

October evening post...

It’s late afternoon/early evening on this first Sunday of October, and it was a beautiful, warm-ish sunny day that is turning into a twilight filled with golden sunlight and the rippling shadows of the leaves in the breeze.  We’ve been so fortunate with our weather here in Waterloo Region so far, particularly if you consider other areas in Canada, the US and around the world.  But I feel like this weekend most likely marks the end of the real “summer-like” weather we’ve had, what I consider “shorts and t-shirts” weather.  That’s fine, as I’ve been ready for fall for a few weeks now and can’t wait for the cooler days and chilly evenings. 

My Volunteer book club met yesterday to discuss Robertson Davies’ classic, Fifth Business, the first book in “The Deptford Trilogy”, and it was a huge success!  We’ve actually read it in this book club before, in June 2014, but since most of my members joined post-2014, it was new for nearly everyone, at least as a book club selection.  Several people have read it before on their own, and one member was with me in 2014, but it was still an excellent book to discuss.  This book begins on a snowy evening in 1908 in the small fictional town of Deptford, when our narrator, nearly-twelve-year old Dunstable Ramsay, is engaging in a snowball fight with his friend/enemy Percy Boyd Staunton.  While he is racing home for dinner, in order to dodge the last snowball thrown by Percy, Dunstable darts in front of the figure of the heavily pregnant wife of the Baptist parson, Mary Dempster, who is hit, falls to the ground and is helped home by her husband, only to later go into premature labour and give birth the their son Paul, who is in need of special care round-the-clock to keep him alive.  Mrs Ramsay, a firm Scots woman, steps in and takes charge of the little one and helps Mary recover as well, although she never really does recover fully and is considered “simple” by the ladies in the town from this point forward.  Dunstable feels tremendous guilt for this, because, although he didn’t actually throw the snowball, if he hadn’t stepped in front of Mrs Dempster, she would never have been hit.  He thus takes it upon himself to care for her throughout his life inasmuch as he is able, while Percy and Paul remove themselves from Deptford altogether.  All three, Dunstable, Paul and Percy, are “twice born” (you’ll have to read the book to find out what that means), and their lives crisscross and intersect at sometimes interesting, sometimes highly unusual moments, until the final satisfying conclusion to this wondrous, psychological, mythical, spiritual, saintly, literary mystery… except that there’s more to explore in the other two books in the trilogy, The Manticore and World of Wonders.  Everyone loved it.  They loved the language and the characters, and they loved following these characters in their individual development as well and their ever-changing relationships with one another throughout the story.  Even the secondary characters, such as Leola and Ignacios Blazon and Diana, were fascinating, and we could have discussed for a whole afternoon and still not finished with everything there is to be said and discussed about this book.  We loved the deviousness and manipulative nature of the characters, and talked about the ways in which they recreated their histories to suit their purposes.  One member who listened to this as an audiobook said that at first she thought, "oh no, it's such a slow story", but ended up deciding that, while it was in fact a slow story, it was a good story. Several members said they wanted to read the other books in the trilogy, and I recommended that they do so.  In fact, I would highly recommend any of the books in “The Salterton Trilogy”, “The Deptford Trilogy” and maybe even “The Cornish Trilogy”, although my recollection of that one is not as strong as the other two.  If you have never read anything by this Canadian literary icon, you should run, not walk, to your nearest library to check out a copy of Fifth Business today! 

That’s all for now.  Take care and read on!

Bye for now... Julie