I wonder if that’s the way authors write their books? Does it mean that if they never publish their book but keep changing it according to the way they feel at a given moment, the book will keep growing throughout life like a plant without ever acquiring a solidified form? In fact, I once heard one author saying that he would have changed one part in his book (the one I didn’t like either) had he been writing the book nowadays. What would happen to Lolita then, for example? Would Lolita happen at all?

I definitely feel that some modern books didn’t grow properly or fully. They were plucked too early from their drafts so that they could be put on shelves and promptly sold.

I’m sure a similar change of perception happens to readers too. You read a book and enjoy it. You still think you love the book so you open it later to live through all the emotions again but there are only shells left while the essence has vanished. The book itself didn’t change! And yet it feels completely different.

Maybe there is never just a book but an author’s perception crossed with a reader’s perception at a certain moment of time. Ten different people will read ten different books even though the books would have the same author and title. And then they will read ten more books from the same pages if they open the book later.

Have you noticed it too?

I recently heard an idea that exposing a child to classic literature can bring them a wider range of experience than the actual human world can bring. As much as I was suffering through War and Peace at school I think there’s some truth in it. Still, I don’t think every child can appreciate the chance to analyse human nature when there are more rewarding activities waiting outside the classroom. Now though, when the classroom is a couple of decades away, it’s a different story for me.

I don’t remember all events of The Forsyte Saga, but Irene Heron will forever be my hero. If I ever return to these books, it will be for her.

The plot of Madame Bovary is quite interesting, but Madame Bovary herself mesmerised me more than any storylines in the book, and I don’t mean to say the things that mesmerised me were noble or nice. I love watching all sorts of people, as long as I’m doing it from a safe distance of a book.

And what about Anna Karenina? I said it before and I will say it again – it will forever be a mystery to me how Tolstoy managed to lock real people within the covers of the book. But he did. Those are not characters. Those are living beings. And I love watching them.

I think this love is one of the two things that kept me through the books about Patrick Melrose, this and the impeccable, precise, scalpel-sharp writing.

Maybe that’s why it’s easier for me to enjoy literary fiction than fantasy (if I ever enjoyed fantasy). Maybe it’s because one can breathe only that much life into a book, and if you created believable dragons you don’t have any magic left to create believable humans?

I’m currently going through all the works by Daphne du Maurier. Apparently, not all of her stories are good (to my huge surprise). Some of them are so plain it’s hard to believe they are her creations, but the people… the people are always there, alive and breathing.

If you can recommend any books with characters like that, you are very welcome. The characters don’t need to be strong or do incredible things. They don’t even have to be good human beings. They just have to be real.

Here are the things I noticed:

1. All men are assholes (apart from the ones in the end of the story)

While female characters can be multilayered, male characters are there with one trait only, they are mean. They often don’t have any grounds for that apart from being men.

Those cardboard wrong-doers are already enough to ruin a story but what really infuriates me is that in the end of the story the same asshole or some newcomer becomes a knight in shining armour and rescues the woman to her happily-ever-after. Seriously?! You just created a whole story where a woman suffered because of a man but the final message of the book is find yourself a better man?!

2. Pregnancies

It seems that just like “Chekhov’s gun” is supposed to shoot in a good story, a woman is supposed to produce a baby. It either happens during the story or before its onset, but regardless of its relevance to the plot the physiological details will be provided to you with the accuracy of an anatomy textbook.

I’m still not sure if this obsession is coming from the excitement of being able to describe something that male authors have no first-hand experience of, or it’s an attempt to speak about things that people around could not listen to.

3. Society vs women

Struggling stay-at-home moms, women facing harassment at work, women treated like cattle, these all are acute issues, but as it usually happens, once a message gets overstated it stops being noticed. And that’s exactly what I’ve been witnessing in modern books. Although, maybe conveying a message is not their main aim? Maybe it’s simply done to sell the books to certain audiences?

Obviously, I’m talking about my personal observations. I’ve read some books that do not orbit around those mentioned topics but include some other themes too. If you also know such books, please, let me know

House of Glass is a platypus of literature. The book has a body of one creation and a tail of another one. It starts as a gothic mystery but turns into War and Peace in the end.

What is the book about

It’s a story about Clara, a young woman whose bones are fragile like glass and whose emotional state has also been shattered by a recent loss. Clara is hired to work in a glass house of an old estate, and of course the estate hides many mysteries which Clara will try to solve.

What I liked about the book

The gothic part

The book creates a perfect gothic atmosphere. There is an old mansion, spooky sounds, and a history of complicated lives.

The mystery

I absolutely loved Clara’s attitude which turned a spooky story into almost a detective one.

Characters

The characters are not either good or bad. They are multidimensional and complicated. It’s hard to come to final conclusions about them.

Storylines

There are many storylines and they are all connected on some level.

Chekhov’s guns

Each detail mentioned in the story has its function.

What I liked less

Women’s rights agenda

I know it’s a sensitive topic so I’ll try to tread it carefully. I understand the necessity of acknowledging the problems, both historical and current ones, but modern female-authored literature seems to be overusing the topic to the point that it’s starting to repel people rather than draw the limelight to the problems.

Random villain

It feels like the characters were drawing straws to pick up a villain, and the one who landed the role didn’t really fit it.

The platypus tail

When I want to read War and Peace, I read Tolstoy. If I am drawn to the book by its gothic atmosphere, I prefer the atmosphere to persist till the end.

Final thoughts

It’s a well-written book with an interesting and complicated plot that for the most part combines mystery and gothic. If it was not for the ending I would have easily given the book five stars.

General information

Cora Seaborne has recently become a widow. She has quite unexpected feelings about it. It will take you time to learn why. You will realise early on, though, that she’s quite an unusual person for England in 1893. She’s fascinated by science, biology and nature. She loves wearing men’s clothing and walking alone in the woods. She dreams about finding a living dinosaur. She takes her friend and her very special son to Essex where she does find something she didn’t expect to.

How was the book?

I loved it! But I know that many readers won’t share my opinion. The story is extremely slow. If you are not into slow reading, sophisticated writing and the main focus on personalities rather than on action, then you might not enjoy the book as much as I did.

What I loved about the book

The writing

Sarah Perry’s writing is intricate and intense. Each paragraph, each line, each phrase bears a lot of meaning. This is not complexity for the sake of complexity. She reaches to the truth in each sentence. To skip even one is to lose a lot.

The characters

This is what I want from characters in all books! The characters in The Essex Serpent are not only alive and breathing, they are actually interesting. You can’t shelf or label them, they are unique, just like real people are. There’s no other Cora Seaborne in the whole Universe, fictional or not, as there are no copies of any other characters in this story.

Views on friendship

I can’t think of any other book that explores friendship so deeply, and brings up such ideas about it. Books often focus on love. The Essex Serpent shows that there’s another type of relationship with just as much potential for passion and complexity as love is.

Perfectly knitted plot

I absolutely admire how Perry knitted all the details together. You can’t discard any big or minor events without ruining the whole construction.

What I liked less

If I weren’t such a fan of complicated deep writing and interesting personalities, I might have dropped the book midway. The first half of the book is as uneventful as bits of frozen wax on a candle. All action ceases and you feel like no movement will ever be made again. Unfortunately, I think it will draw many readers away.

Would I recommend the book?

If having read my review you got interested in the book, then I think you should definitely read The Essex Serpent. If you want a gripping fast-paced story about a dinosaur hunt, you should choose another book.

General information

Several good women face several bad men. The women struggle, fight, develop and grow, each through their own story that involves either their talents, or their marriages, or their families. The story is set on a magical land so some of the characters are magical too.

Fun fact #1

I bought the book in summer and planned to read it in winter somewhere in the northern mountains so that I would have snow and a fireplace. The Universe heard my wishes so it brought the snow to my doorstep and a blackout for a day. I improvised “a fireplace” from a few candles and started reading the book.

Fun fact #2

So how was the book?

I was repeatedly warned that Spinning Silver is not as good as Uprooted, an earlier novel by the same author. Taking into account my bad reaction to Uprooted, I wasn’t expecting much. I braced myself for something even worse and probably that’s why I actually liked Spinning Silver more. Although, there are more reasons.

What are the reasons?

No magic spells!

That felt SO good to just be watching the magic without having to go through all the mumble-jumble! There’s still a lot of magic, and the magic is still too often the answer to a problem, but it feels more natural in this book.

Character development

All female characters started as feeble and insecure and grew into something more. Even though I find it horribly predictable, I think it was executed quite well.

The writing

The writing is decent and pleasant. I think it’s better than in Uprooted because it reflects the drama of dynamic moments (unlike the writing in Uprooted).

Some storylines

Some of them are quite interesting.

What I disliked about the book

The attempt to sell the same product twice

Spinning Silver is a spiritual twin of Uprooted. But now, we get a new deal! Get one villain and a good girl, and receive two more of each for free!

Also the voice of Miryem from Spinning Silver is so similar to the voice of Agnieszka from Uprooted that Spinning Silver could be easily sold as a sequel.

All women are good, most men are bad

I’m SO tired of this concept! I understand it’s unfair to blame only Novik for it because it’s a prevailing tendency in all female-authored literature. But it has become too predictable, overused and over-marketed. I understand where it’s coming from, but stories should be more diverse than that, because people are.

The Russian words

I found the whole idea of using Russian words to make the setting feel exotic quite silly, not only because the words don’t sound exotic to me. They were often applied wrongly, so there were dumb combinations like “Staryk children” which, if translated, would be something like “old babies”.

Chapters

Chapters don’t have titles, but each one is written in first person, so it takes a couple of paragraphs to understand what’s going on and whose eyes we’re looking from now. There are quite a lot of characters, so it gets pretty confusing and exhausting.

The plot

The plot got drunk.

For the biggest part of the book the story develops logically. There’s a start, a climax, and then you expect the finale, but it doesn’t happen. Instead the story explodes and goes all possible directions. It’s not a twist, it’s a furball in the wind! Characters start being irrational, hysterical and there are a lot of unnecessary drama-queen monologues going on.

The ending

The ending doesn’t match the overall idea that seems to be promoted in the book.

Final thoughts

I can’t recommend this book because I didn’t enjoy it that much myself, even though it is not a bad book. I’m not sure that the chaos that happens with the plot can be forgiven even by a fantasy lover. I’m definitely not reading any more of Novik’s stories. She’s just not the right author for me.

Of course, I should have never picked up this book. The cover alone should have been enough to let me know that this is not the type of book I would enjoy because I don’t like romantic stories. Surprisingly, I ended up disliking the book for other reasons.

What is the book about?

It’s another teenager tragic love story. I suppose, those have been around even before Shakespeare times.

What’s good about the book?

The writing

The writing is absolutely fine. The style is great and perfectly conveys the voice of a teenager. I could easily imagine this boy.

The setting

North Carolina little town in 1958 sounds like my Montenegro in modern days.

People waved from their cars whenever they saw someone on the street whether they knew him or not…

Yes, this sounds like home.

… and the air smelled of pine, salt, and sea, a scent unique to the Carolinas.

Not unique, after all. That’s what Montenegro smells like.

The first two thirds of the story

This part is dynamic and easy to follow. It’s interesting even though it is based on a cliché: a selfish rich kid with father’s issues, minister’s angelic daughter who takes care of orphans. Oh my god they are so different, we will never guess what will happen between them!

What went wrong?

Even though there was the minister’s angelic daughter I was completely unprepared to the Bible becoming a character too.

When “the Lord’s plan” became a centre point of the plot, and the characters started communicating via Bible verses, I felt like an intruder to a party I had never been invited to or planned to visit.

Final thoughts

A Walk to Remember is not a badly written book. It’s easy to read and it’s entertaining. It’s a cute love story that can make you laugh and cry. There’s also lots of Bible in it. This book is definitely not my cup of tea, but maybe it is yours.

December was unusual. I dropped more books than I had ever dropped in one month. Probably, thanks to this attitude I ended up mostly liking all other books I read. Here they are. Click the links for more information about the books.

1. The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt by Andrea Bobotis

It’s a beautifully written family story and my most favourite book of 2018. It will be out in the summer 2019. I’ve also published my full review of the book and I also talked about this book in my other post.

2. No Motive by Daphne du Maurier

It’s a fast-paced and gripping short story. If you want to know why a perfectly happy woman just shot herself, read the story.

3. The Familiars by Stacey Halls

This is a historical novel about a woman who’s trying to save herself, her baby and her friend. The book will be out soon!

4. Patrick Melrose novels

There are five novels about Patrick Melrose. At least the first three focus on just a few short events that illustrate Patrick’s whole life.

Never Mind is about Patrick’s childhood.

Bad News is about Patrick in his 20s.

Some hope is about Patrick when he’s 30.

5. Woman Last Seen in Her Thirties by Camille Pagán

I didn’t like the book, but I quite liked the protagonist, although Maggie was slightly too needy. People seemed to have enjoyed my review.

6. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

A nice story about two teenage boys who are discovering love and life.

7. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

This is a story about a book store owner. It’s basically a library in a form of fiction.

The three books that I did not finish

Daughters of the Lake by Wendy Webb

I hoped it would be a gothic scary story but it turned out to be a not very well written chick lit.

The Dry by Jane Harper

I liked Force of Nature, another thriller by Jane Harper, but I couldn’t finish The Dry. There is lots of fuss but no meaningful action. I got bored by the middle of the book so I dropped it.

The Bette Davis Club by Jane Lotter

I got the book because of a heartwarming introduction. This novel was initially self-published. The author didn’t live to see the book picked up by the publisher. The description is also intriguing. It’s a story about an aunt whose niece ran away from her own wedding so the aunt and the groom set off on an adventure to find her. Unfortunately, the book lost its logic by the middle. It also started focusing too much on unnecessary details and the protagonist started behaving very implausibly. That’s when I quit to give time to other books.

That is it for December. My January already started with something I liked and something I didn’t. I will tell you more soon. Meanwhile, here are some other posts where I mention several books at once.

Books I read in September
Books I read in October
November was awesome!
If somebody asked me what to read

I just realised that telling you about each of the novels in the series can be a spoiler on its own. I mean, this way you learn that Patrick, a survivor of a horrible childhood and a person with a history of drug addiction, doesn’t die and continues to grow older. Thus, if you want to dive into the novels completely unaware of the story’s direction, you might want to ignore my reviews of the novels completely. I still give out no spoilers in each review, so decide for yourself. Here’s my review of Some Hope, the third novel about Patrick Melrose.

What is it like?

First of all, it’s easier to read. At some point I even checked if I was really reading a Melrose novel because the sentences of the first two books took much longer to unravel. The hallmark sharp writing that reveals people’s essence in just one sentence is still here.

Bridget seldom found the time to see her daughter. She could not forgive her for being a girl…

Johny looked at Amanda and marvelled again at the phenomenon of pretty girls who were not at all sexy.

Obeying the law that people always loathe those they have wronged, Sonny found himself especially allergic to Bridget…

Alexander Politsky, whose extreme Englishness derived from his being Russian, was perhaps the last man in England to use the term ‘old bean’ sincerely.

The humour is still here too.

‘Do you know where we are?’ asked Tom.

‘Sure,’ said Anne. ‘We’re out of our minds.’

Patrick is as quotable as ever.

‘One seldom knows whether perseverance is noble or stupid until it’s too late.’

‘It was a terrible shock to me when I realized I was getting too old to die young anymore.’

‘There’s no point in staying stuck,’ Patrick agreed. ‘But there’s even less point in pretending to be free.’

I could probably quote the whole book to you. I had to restrain myself from sharing all of the quotes so that you can discover the gems for yourself.

What’s wrong with the book, then?

Have you seen all those people in the quotes? There are actually even more of them. They all keep talking all the time! Do you see how awesome Patrick is, how interesting it is to listen to him? Well, there isn’t enough of him in this book. All those strangers keep philosophising at a dinner party, but with all due respect to them, I’m in this for Patrick not for them. That’s why I’m giving the book 3.5 stars. The lack of any action played its role too. One single step that Patrick takes towards hope is really meaningful but not enough for a reader who’s been dragging through tons of strangers’ conversations!

So, is there any hope?

Yes, there definitely is, but don’t hold your breath, it’s just a glimmer of hope.

Will I continue with the series?

I’m already continuing. I’m reading the fourth novel at the moment. I can’t let go of the writing that is so perfect. In his novels Edward St. Aubyn is doing the main thing that I love about literature. He’s cutting to the core with just a few phrases. He’s giving names to the things that you feel were always there but you become fully aware of them only when they acquire form. Edward St. Aubyn achieves this in all the three Patrick Melrose novels that I’ve read so far.

Here are the reviews of the previous novels in the series: Never Mind, Patrick Melrose novel #1 and Bad News, Patrick Melrose novel #2.

What the book is about

It’s about a book store owner who lost his wife and then lost one valuable item from his store, but he has found something else instead. It’s also about a few other people in his life.

What I liked about the story

Reading list

Claudia McGill found the list of books mentioned in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. Thank you for the link Claudia! Just look at this list! A whole library has fit into the book!

When a new character was introduced

I won’t say who it was so as not to spoil it for you, but I found it very unexpected and almost surreal. That’s when I resolved to keep reading the book. I also found the character very charming.

The actual story

It’s pleasant, kind and peaceful but it doesn’t get overly simplistic. It is light, but not silly.

Of course, people had felt sorry for him then, but they had felt too sorry for him.

They held their breath as they walked past the store, like it was a cemetery.

…a theft is an acceptable social loss while a death is an isolating one.

It’s very bookish

It’s a book about books, and about people who live books and breathe books. It feels like the book bloggers and reviewers are actually the target audience of the story.

They had only ever discussed books but what, in this life, is more personal than books?

Infinite Jest is an endurance contest. You manage to get through it and you have no choice but to say you like it.

Who are these people who think a book comes with a guarantee that they will like it?

The protagonist is a long distance runner

Just like yours truly. This detail doesn’t get too much focus but it’s always nice to relate to something in a book, isn’t it?

There are many challenges to long-distance running, but one of the greatest is the question of where to put one’s house keys.

What I found strange about the book

The writing

It feels very distant, as if someone is reciting contents of newspaper clippings. It is especially noticeable when something dramatic or tragic happens.

The shifting point of view

There is no stable point of view. Sometimes you get a bit of a story from one character, then you get another story from someone else. It’s always unpredictable and feels quite chaotic.

Redundant subplots and characters

There are a few characters who seem to be survivors from the first draft. It looks like their roles had got redundant but by the time it became obvious, they turned into close friends and family members, and so it was unethical to get rid of them for the sake of a more structured plot.

Would I recommend this book?

Yes, definitely. If you are looking for a quick and light read that will lead you to more books, you will likely enjoy this book.