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Sweetpea by C. J. Skuse
This was a definite step away from my usual genres, but quite a quick enjoyable (though quite dark) read - it suited my mood at the moment though.
It is narrated by Rhiannon, a pretty ordinary girl with an average life, a boyfriend who is cheating on her, friends she goes out with but doesn't really like, and a job she hates. We learn early on that she has survived an horrific event in her childhood, which we have to assume is some kind of reason for her dysfunctional approach to life (and death) now. Her hobby is murdering people who have pissed her off, either in passing, or long-held grudges from her childhood.
It is very graphic and quite shocking in places but written in a very matter of fact, and is quite darkly funny.
It was the right book for the mood I am in at the moment, and I rattled through it pretty quickly.
- All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque
A very well-known book which I am slightly embarrassed to say I have only just got around to reading.
Set during the First World War , it is the story of a group of young German men, who join up to go to the front on leaving school after being encouraged by their schoolmaster. The story follows what happens to them as the war progresses, the descriptions of life in the trenches, how they feel alienated from their homes and families on the occasional periods of leave, and life in the hospitals when they are wounded.
It is a deeply personal and human book. Many of the previous books I have read about both World Wars, have been from the British or American points of view. This one being from the German point of view seems hardly different. The boys themselves barely understand the reasons for the war or why they are fighting. There is little narrative of the politics of the war, or the strategies, it is just the story of trying to stay alive and worries about when they will next get something to eat.
The narrator describes themselves as the lost generation - older soldiers can remember what life was like before and they have wives and children to go back to, so they can comprehend life beyond the war, and the generation that will come after them will not have the memory of war, but for them, the war is everything as they have no other adult experiences.
It is a short, bleak book, well written and the characters are drawn well.
Also about 3/4 of the way through Troubled Blood and really enjoying that.