50 Book Challenge 2017 Part Four

Honestly, if you don't want to read anything harrowing, DO NOT read A Little Life. Seriously. At one point, as I was reading it, my hands started to hurt. I was reading it in the car waiting for my daughter at school, and I had to put gloves on. This is not a spoiler - there is nothing about sore hands in the book (!) - but what I was reading was so awful, my hands hurt and I couldn't bear to turn the pages with bare fingers.

I'm still very glad I read it but I can totally understand why people would choose not to!

I quite fancy that one, InvisibleKitten.

I share the ambivalence about A Little Life. I've seen in it the library and contemplated it, but I don't really want to be harrowed by fiction. I'll sometimes read non-fiction with a harrowing element (as in politics or history rather than misery lit), but it's not something I seek out in fiction, with a few rare exceptions.

Speaking of history, currently reading The strangest family : the private lives of George III, Queen Charlotte and the Hanoverians by Janice Hadlow An excellent family saga - you see how parents start of with such good intentions and end up repeating the same mistakes in each generation.

I heard such mixed things - people who thought it was astonishing and people who thought it was dire. It never really sounded like my sort of thing though.

I read 'A little life' last year and remain undecided whether I liked it or not or whether I thought it was actually a good book (or not). It is definitely a great readin terms of it being readablebut the author goes very heavy in the main idea: bad things happening to the protagonist, and then more bad things, and more and more and more until you as a reader begs for mercy. It's relentless!

I've got A Little Life sitting on my bookshelf unread. I'm not sure I want to read something harrowing to be honest. I do want to read it and I don't.

I picked up The Tidal Zone today too. I must stop buying Kindle books. I have tons on my Kindle unread. I am completely addicted.

I have managed to read 28. Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain by Barney Norris. A big thumbs down from me. Set in Salisbury and following the lives of five people that witness or are involved in a car accident. I found this to be poorly executed. None of the five characters were realistically drawn. I didn't believe in them at all and found the whole book to be dull and unrealistic. One to avoid.

I'm reading so slowly at the moment. I need to buck up and cut along.

I'm looking at A Little Life now. It's been on my bedside table for nearly a year. It's never quite the right time to start it; I always settle for something more cheering, which covers, I think, just about everything.

17. The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley The atmospheric suspense horror of the 'something in the woodshed' variety was laid on so thick it was almost a parody, yet this didn't work for me at all. The characters were not strongly developed, and were mainly caricatures, with the main narrator having virtually no personality or presence. The book didn't seem to have any particular message or moral to convey; its main purpose just seemed to be to tell a creepy tale, and as I didn't find it creepy, I was just left thinking 'so what?'.

Thanks for the recommendation PoeticLE, I just looked The Siege up on Goodreads and it sounds good so I've reserved it at the library. I'm looking forward to it, and pleased I've discovered another author whose writing I really like!

Murine I read The Lie last year and agree with your review. There are many books that describe the horror of war, but this book was about the horror that is marked on the survivors - the "lucky ones".
May I recommend another of Helen Dunmore's books - The Seige about the seige of St Petersburg in ww2.

Regarding A Little Life , I feel such ambivalence in starting it. Almost like I know I'll feel cheated, but so many friends have recommended it strongly that I feel obliged to give it a go aaaargh

Just finished
18 The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware - a mystery/thriller of the type. Would recommend, it's good for it's type!

Laura Blacklock is a travel journalist who is invited on maiden voyage of a 'boutique cruise'. Couple of nights before leaving, she's the victim of a break-in at home that's left her sleep deprived and shaky, so we're not sure if she's reliable as a witness. Amongst the things stolen from her flat was her handbag containing her mascara, which she only realises when getting ready for the first dinner on ship, so knocks at the next cabin (no. 10), borrows one from the lady in there and thinks nothing of it. She then gets hammered at the dinner (making her an even more unreliable witness), but wakes in the early hours and is sure she saw someone thrown from balcony of no. 10. However, there was no guest in cabin 10, there's noone onboard that matches the discription of the woman who gave her the mascara, there is noone missing from the crew/guests and noone believes her. Added to this, the wifi on the ship is down, so she can't contact anyone and is trapped on a boat with a murderer.

It's quite well written and nice and tense. I did get annoyed with the main character now and then for not clear thinking, but overall no too annoying and enough clues to help puzzle out, although I didn't get it completely, I was sort of on the right track !

Do you know what? I am just going to google the dashed plot of A Little Life. I won't share but I have an image in my head and need it confirmed/denied

I recently bought A Little Life from a charity shop, I'm unsure whether I want to read it yet but it was only 99p.

I finished my no. 29 a few days ago, The Lie by Helen Dunmore, I thought this was excellent. Set in 1920s Cornwall, a young soldier returns to his village, homeless and penniless, with horrifying memories of his time in the WWI trenches in France.
Very well written and evocative of both the quiet Cornish coast in spring time and the terrifying experiences Daniel has lived through in the war, it's also a love story, although not in the way you would expect.

21. Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Set in the future, in a world run according to The Rulebook and where your position in society is determined by your perception of colour. Eddie Russett is a Red, sent to the Outer Fringes to officially learn humilty. He meets Jane, a Grey who loathes everyone and repearedly threatens to kill him. As he settles into his new temporary home, Eddie starts to discover that the world is not quite as black and white as it seems and those who question it are seen as a threat.

Still plenty of puns, although not quite as silly as some of his other novels. Quite enjoyed it and I understand there were meant to be two more but I don't think they have appeared yet.

Book 29
A Companion Guide to Berlin by Brian Ladd
I really enjoyed this. Ladd wrote ‘The Ghosts of Berlin’ about the architecture of Berlin and how it’s changed/been forced to change and some of that love of/interest in the city and its buildings comes out in this, a more conventional visitors’ guide. Here Ladd takes us on various walks through different sections of the city, walking us through history as well as geography. And it’s all v interesting. The biggest problem with it is that Berlin is constantly evolving and reinventing itself, so some of the information was out of date, probably even between the writing and the publishing.

I thought A Little Life was quite good, but not excellent. Harrowing, yes, definitely. Some parts are really hard to read.

I am sure I saw A Little Life mentioned on a MN thread about books which should never have been written.

It is still on my wish list but I don't think I will ever read it. Unless someone buys it for me

Thanks for the goodreads tip, it only happened on a couple of mine, but far less annoying now.

A Little Life sounds like a miss every time I see a review of it - stomach-churning is not what I'm after!

Passme and Lady Thank you !

EmGee my friend has been insisting that I read A Little Life for a while now. I get put off by the sheer size of it. Your (cryptic? ) review has prompted me to give it a go next

Haven't checked in for a while as was busy reading A Little Life by Yana Hanagihara. Oh my goodness - what a read. Not for the light-hearted though. It's a wonderful book (kind of similar to The Goldfinch) but it is harrowing. It's been a long time since I read a book and had to put it down, go away and do something to distract myself for a bit before I could pick it up again. My stomach literally churned reading some of the chapters.

It's about the lives of four men who meet at university as teens and it follows them through their lives up to their fifties. One of the four, Jude, is the central character and it's really his story that dominates. No time to write more but it's a book I will definitely keep even if I remain unsure as to whether I will be able to bring myself to read it again....

11. Slade House by David Mitchell. I bow down low before the genius that is David Mitchell. The man can write four astonishing sentences in one paragraph that other authors can't achieve in a whole novel. He is without a doubt my very most favourite author, so it goes without saying that I loved this creepy little ghost story. If you've read and liked Bone Clocks then you will most probably love this too, but if you hated Bone Clocks then you should probably give this one a swerve.

Welcome still!

Passme got there first, but just to reiterate that on Goodreads you have to put the date you finished in, it's under the review box (which you don't have to fill in).

I have a note on my phone which I add to. I use it to cope and paste into this thread

Worked it out!

When you say you have read a book you have to click of write a review and say the date the book was finished on. I have just gone and done that for all mine so far this year. Feels tidier

Satsuki and Passme mine does add them to the read list but never seems to acknowledge them in my reading challenge. I tend to make a note of what I have read on my phone too. And it confirms I did read those 4 books!! Certainly not going to reread them if they do little impression first time around !

drafting not draughting! Why does my phone think it knows what I want to say better than me