50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Five

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fifth thread of the 50 Books Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2023, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, it’s not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here, the third one here here and the fourth one here.

What are you reading?

The Vanishing of Class 3B by Jackie Kabler

A minibus of 10 children and 4 members of staff goes missing after a school trip. I liked the premise of this. The book wasn’t quite as good as the premise suggests - the way the police were written didn’t ring true, and it’s another book where everyone has a secret - but I still enjoyed it.

Mantel Pieces by Hilary Mantel

A collection of her writings from the London Review of Books. Really enjoyed some, was less interested in others.

13- Rizzio- Denise Mina

A recommendation picked up from here yet again- thank you whoever recommended it! The language is modern and at first I thought that was going to be irritating, but it works well and is very sharply written.

Eine I'm sorry you didn't enjoy Free. I found the descriptions of Albania fascinating and loved LY's dry humour and sense (understanding) of the absurd.

57 A Spell of Good Things by Ayobámi Adébáyò

This novel reminds me of why I love reading – it was immersive, moving and thoughtful. I saw it in the library a while ago and picked it up - it's due back tomorrow and so I thought I should give it a go. I'm so glad I did - it was completely absorbing and I stayed up far too late to finish it last night. Once the storylines come together, and it’s clear bad things are unfolding, there was no way I was going to stop.

It’s set in an unnamed city in Nigeria, against the backdrop of a political campaign that ensnares the two main characters in different ways. Eniolá’s father has lost his job and the family’s future is precarious – they struggle to pay the rent and the school fees for their children, and as a result Eniola seeks money from other sources. Wúràolá’s is her family’s golden girl, training to be a doctor and in a relationship with Kunle whose father has political aspirations. Her family want her to marry and are willing to ignore signs that the relationship is not what it should be, even as Wúràolá tries to rationalise Kunle’s behaviour towards her because she loves him and doesn't want to disappoint their families.

Education, poverty and gender equality (or inequality) recur as themes repeatedly throughout the novel, which shows the ease with which fortunes can be reversed and disaster can strike. There’s violence – both domestic and political – and a sharp light shone repeatedly on the income disparities in Nigeria that create tensions. And although the setting felt a long way from the reality of my life, the storylines around parental expectations, aspiration and ambition, what it means to let people down and feel that you've failed in relationships all felt entirely real and relevant.

I’ll seek out her first novel, Stay With Me, with real interest.

@PepeLePew

As you may remember I loved Stay With Me

A Spell Of Good Things is high on my TBR I'm excited for it now.

@Boiledeggandtoast

I just didn't click with it I don't know why

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit - I will seek out your review. I hope you think as highly of A Spell of Good Things. I thought it was outstanding - I don't often get to the end of a book and contemplate re-reading but in this case, I did. I won't because I have a huge TBR pile and can't really justify it (plus it needs to go back to the library!) but I would really like to give it the attention that only a second re-read can deliver.

23 Journey to the River Sea - Eva Ibbotson

Recommended on here and as it was available on BorrowBox I decided to give it a whirl. Loved it - thank you to those who recommended it. I'd never heard of Ibbotson before and will look out for other works by her.

This follows Maia, an orphan sent from London to live with distant relatives in the Amazon rainforest. It was perfect escapism, a fantastic story and I wish I'd had it available to me as a child as I know I would have loved it. Definitely one I'd like to read to DD when she's older.

I've given up on My Father's House - I hate the writing.

Unfortunately, I have nothing to replace it with except some pretty heavy non-fiction and it's not calling to me.

30. The Stroke of Winter by Wendy Webb Amazon first reads freebie. I thought this was going to be a normal mystery/thriller but it turned out to be about the paranormal which isn't normally my sort of thing but I stuck at it. On the banks of Lake Superior in the little town of Wharton, Amethyst (Tess) Bell, granddaughter of renowned artist Sebastian Bell, is renovating her family's 100 year old home into a b&b. A section of the upstairs of the house has been closed up and sealed for over 50 years and Tess plans to open up this section to turn into an owner's suite. What she finds behind the door is a shocking secret from her family's past and soon strange goings-on in the house have Tess freaking out

Once I accepted the elements of the paranormal this was a good book. The mystery was well handled and revealed slowly enough that it kept me guessing until the end. The only thing I struggled with was Tess and her attitude to her blossoming romance. I'm about 10 years younger than Tess and I always presume women in their 40s don't get quite so giddy over a new man but maybe that's my mistake 🤷🏼‍♀️

42 Espedair Street by Iain Banks

This is my second IB novel and I’ve loved them both although The Crow Road might have the slight edge. It’s about the rise and fall of Danny Weir-d, a rock star from a 1970s Scottish band. The band, Frozen Gold, is a mixture of the bands around at the time like Fleetwood Mac, The Stones and Marillion and from the descriptions of Danny’s physicality, I pictured him as Mick Fleetwood.

Danny’s life has imploded to the point that he’s considered suicide (another brilliant opening paragraph from IB) and the story moves back in time revealing how the band was formed, their successes and tragedies that have taken Danny to where he is now. The characters are so well drawn, from the lovable but deeply flawed Danny to the hilarious McCann and the dialogue between them is sharp, funny and often touching. My only (tiny) criticism is the ending felt a bit too neat and wrapped up.

I do have The Wasp Factory on my shelves but not sure if that’s the right book for me at the minute but would love some more IB recommendations.

76. The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes by Suzanne Collins

This is The Hunger Games prequel and if you've read any of the others expect more of the same. Why deviate from the formula that's made you millions? I get it. It's an OK reading experience. Snow, the antagonist in the original series, becomes the protagonist in this. Villain origin story etc. Ludicrous names abound stuff that even JKR rejected from Harry Potter as too far. Sejanus Plinth anyone? Crispus Demigloss?

The build up to The Games and its conclusion takes just over half the book, and so the final third is a meandering coming of age exercise with little real tension, wonder or jeopardy. Also, there's pages and pages devoted to naff songs.

She could carry this story of how the Games grew up from the early inception and became the glossier but nastier show of the original trilogy and financially I suspect this series will get milked for all its worth.

That last sentence is missing the word on somewhere to make it make sense!

32 The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight

This took me ages to get through. I found it muddled and messy and there seemed a weird attitude to Barker throughout, as if the author was leaving something significant out about him (what made him leave his previous post, perhaps?). There’s a good book to be had about precognition, but this isn’t it imo.

@nowanearlyNicemum - I also loved Mothering Sunday and have also read Waterland. They are quite different and I didn’t love Waterland - but you may obviously feel completely differently!

My latest reads are:

29. The Sentence - Louise Erdrich

This book tells the story of Tookie who works in a bookshop and is being haunted by a former customer. However, it’s not a woo book at all. The bookshop is in Minnesota (and is a real life bookshop owned by the author) and the book covers the murder of George Floyd and the pandemic during the story. Native American history and culture also feature in the storyline (about which I knew practically nothing). Tookie is a well-rounded character and engaging despite/because of her flaws. I wasn’t sure about this when I started on it but it grew on me.

30. Unfinished Portrait - Mary Westmacott

Mary Westmacott is the alias of Agatha Christie for her non-murder books. This book was the Agatha Christie challenge book for this month so I feel slightly robbed. There is no murder but instead we follow the life of Celia from a small child to adulthood and marriage. It starts before the First World War and Celia lives a comfortable upper middle class and is happiest in an imaginary romantic world of her own or with her mother. Things change when her father dies and there is less money but Celia still dreams. Apparently Celia is the character most similar to Agatha Christie out of all her books. It was fine and but I wouldn’t rush to read another.

32. State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Perry. The Secretary of State - a middle aged women who people constantly underestimate - has to save the nation from terror attacks caused by the previous megalomaniac president having opened the door to America's enemies. Sound familiar?! Very silly and full of gaping plot holes, but Louise Penny (who I assume did most of the writing) can craft a pretty good thriller so it did race along. If you liked early Homeland, you wouldn't hate this.

33. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. I think mentioned upthread by @EineReiseDurchDieZeit? I spotted it in a charity shop and snapped it up. Young adult (I think) novel following two teenagers in the 80s falling in love against the background of Eleanor's very difficult home life. Sometimes I thought the cruelty of her stepfather was a bit overdone but it really captures the exciting, obsessive nature of first love and I can see why it's a bit of a cult classic.

Yes, I read Eleanor and Park at the right moment for me and it did something special so I often recommend it.

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

Sally has some social and emotional difficulties due to a trauma in her past, which comes to the fore when Sally hits the news for following her dad’s instructions to just put him out with the rubbish when he dies. I really enjoyed this - it’s a good story and the character of Sally felt realistic to me, not that I have any experience in that area.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

I did not enjoy this one which was disappointing as I usually do like Sittenfeld’s writing. This is just a woman massively overanalysing everything when a good looking man falls in love with her. The first third is really dull as it’s just a long explanation of how a live American sketch show is put together. The middle third is emails between the main characters during covid (which means this probably isn’t going to be one that works well on audible). Then the final third is just lots of overanalysing. The main female character is really annoying and the main male character doesn’t have much personality. Not recommended.

@ChessieFL I've been looking forward to reading Strange Sally Diamond since I saw it reviewed on Between the Covers. Just waiting for it to come down in price.

36: The Feast - Margaret Kennedy

Read for the Rather Dated Book Club. Probably a fuller review to come there, but I enjoyed this quirky novel published in 1950 and set just a few years earlier.

The eccentric Pendizack Hotel in Cornwall is run by the Siddal family, but the donkey work is done by son Gerry, who sees no way of escaping from his drudgery. Also working there is delightful local girl Nancibel, as well as the gossipy and unpleasant Miss Ellis, who avoids as much work as possible. An array of guests descends, possessed of varying degrees of oddity and in some cases downright unpleasantness, and we know - thanks to the opening chapter - that the hotel is going to be swallowed up by a huge cliff collapse. The question is, who will survive?

Kennedy wrote this after discussing with friends a way of writing a novel about the 7 deadly sins, and she manages to make it very amusing whilst also creating some memorably horrid characters. The ending is a bit abrupt (I suspect she was rather stumped as to how to pull all the threads together) but it’s an unusual and entertaining romp.

34 Devil In A Coma - Mark Lanegan

A very short read (I got through it in one sitting) describing the singer’s near fatal bout with Covid, and with various poems. The writing is beautiful and it makes a darkly compelling, if brief companion piece to his outstanding memoir Sing Backwards And Weep.

@TimeforaGandT I read some of the Mary Westmacott's and in the first one I was waiting for the murder to happen for ages before I realised of course there wasn't going to be a murder

Finished 29 The Grand Tour: Letters and Photographs from the British Empire Expedition 1922 its Agatha Christies letters and memoirs of the year she accompanied her husband on the Grand Tour. It was fascinating, in my mind I always picture her as an old lady so reading about her surfing was wild! I just can't imagine spending nearly a year away from her 2 year old daughter though, with only letters that might take weeks to arrive to keep contact. The descriptions of the countries were interesting (though the descriptions of some of the people living in the countries were quite uncomfortable).

I like the sound of Strange Sally Diamond, Chessie. Good to read your review.

I've just finished Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Gabrielle Zevin) It took forever and an age (forever x3). The description of the creative process around games design was interesting enough despite my lack of knowledge or interest in gaming. The extended virtual sequence towards the end tried my patience a bit and I was flagging at that point. I found the book a bit long. I think the continuous falling in and out of friendship was somewhat repetitive and it was a long learning curve for the two friends. Overall I liked it, but it probably won't be a bold.

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh

The extended virtual sequence was the reason it didn't make a bold for me also. I can see it as a film or series though

Ah...interesting Eine! Yes. Once I got the point of it I moved quickly on. That was written for gamers! It has potential to be made into a film alright.

The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson
This was lovely. Some similarities with The Morning Gift with a quite similar heroine but tighter, brisker and much more fun. A very ‘lovely’ book and well worth a shot for anybody who needs reading to just be a pleasure right now.