Cecily > Recent Status Updates

A compelling and well-written book, even if you know nothing of its provenance. When you do, it's extraordinarily insightful and prescient, especially now.

Review to come.

Lots to think about.
Review to come.

Irreverent comic take on the Old Testament.

Review to come.

Echoes of The Sense of an Ending, but in a different key.

Review to come.

Part 1 is called The Cliffhanger - and I read the whole book in one sitting!

Review to come.

Not what, or how, I was expecting.
Very disappointing.
Review to come.

I have many emotions to digest after finishing this. 5* review to follow.

For the Notify box to be checked, you now have to use GR in a browser (not app) AND comment on the review in the newsfeed, or on the reviewer's profile page.
If you click through to the review page and comment, or try to check Notify, it won't 'stick'.

Halfway through, and already wishing it were longer.
I am captivated by the main characters, the situation, and especially the way it which the story is told: viscerally realistic, sweetly amusing, and somewhat surreal - all at the same time.

Very good, with lots to think about, albeit a little padded in places.

Review to come

Amusing but thought-provoking, and impressive for something written in 1972.

Review to come.

Understated, light, and profound. Realistic but dreamy. Poignant, endearing, and moving. Brilliant.

Review to come.

Stunning. Heart-breaking and not. Acceptance is key.
As the epigraph says:
“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
(The final lines of TS Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”)

Review to come.

A fascinating and impressive woman who deserves to be more widely known. The book is well, and passionately, researched, too. But it read too much like a presentation than a book - perhaps because my first encounter with author and subject was an in-person talk.

Review to come.

Very good, which is impressive, given the essential political history that needs to be included, and the fact it's a man writing about the lives of women oppressed by religious patriarchy.

Review to come.

Not awful, but very disappointing after her 'Home Fire'.
Some good ideas, but executed in rather banal and unsubtle way. A competent beach read, bordering on YA.

Review to come.

Thoughtful, gentle, compelling, disturbing, hopeful.

Review to come.

Home Fire was brilliant, but at page 70 this is still something of a YA beach read, but Zahra and Maryam are still only 14, so fair enough. I hope it improves as they age.

A novel take on different approaches to marriage and issues of female emancipation and education. Very progressive for its day (1893), and also surprising because the male author focused on female characters.

Review to come.

Utterly wonderful in every way. 15 classic texts taught in schools, discussed and analysed, combining the author's memories of studying many of them, and teaching all of them. Warm reminiscence and great insight.

5* is not enough.
Review to come.

I'm loving this mix of literary analysis of well-loved books (most, but not all, of which I've read) and memoir of an English teacher.

Half-way through, and I think 5* may not be enough.

An interesting counterpoint to The Memory Police.

Review to come.

Perfection.

Loving this: the poetic immersion in the environmental elements is typical of what I love about many contemporary Irish authors, and the family (blood, and found) are wonderful, because of their many and varied flaws.

Death, (apparent) resurrection, and birds are also important. Even young men, swayed by their libido, are tenderly, empathetically, portrayed.

I've only read 21 pages, but I'm slowly dissolving in the beautiful prose I associate with many contemporary Irish authors:

“They watched the dawn like a caress travelling the heavily misted veil of the river valley.”

“The day was improperly born. Blotches of wet fog obscured its shape, there were loose long sinews of mist.”

I think the plot will prove engaging too.

A novel of two, barely-related, but profoundly linked, parts. Intriguing, sometimes elusive, and occasionally overreaching. Glad I read it though.

Review to come.

The seemingly random, character-switching, stream-of-consciousness opening pages were baffling, but I'm really glad I stuck with it, as the narrative gradually came in to focus - and occasionally out of it again.
I'm looking forward to switching from Francescho to George in under 50 pages.

At 90, Bennett writes as well and recognisably as ever. A group of quirky and distinct characters brought together in an institution, featuring tragi-comic dialog, repressed sexual tension, slowly-revealed secrets, and a decent plot.

Review to come.

Disturbing and thought-provoking. Requires a fair degree of willing suspension of disbelief, but it's well worth doing so.

Review to come.

This was wildly creative and action-packed, which carried me though the casual racism and misogyny of 1956 SF.

But the last 100 pages became progressively weirder till I had little idea what was happening or why. Was the author tripping when he wrote it? Should readers do likewise?

Review to come. Maybe!