Ian Turner > Recent Status Updates

Kate Atkinson is one of my favourite authors and Life After Life is one of my favourite books. This is a Life After Life prequel, of sorts, but I'm just not feeling it. Confused.

When is the pace going to pick up?

I was loving this, until it went all (adult) Harry Potter on me. I'm not averse to a bit of magical realism, but not sure I can take another 85% of wizardry.

I have read several Kristin Hannah books - I love them. I am enjoying this less and less; Frankie is becoming more and more annoying. I hope that's the point. I had a lot of sympathy for her at the beginning. But the bank of sympathy is wearing thin. Her treatment has been abhorrent. But now she's just sounding like a spoilt brat.

When you read at least a novel a week, being just over halfway in a book after two weeks must tell you something! Sushi is such a dull character! So when you write her in the first person, it gets worse. What's left of the book? A long news story about the Sri Lankan Civil War. If you want to read about the latter, in a fictional sense, I recommend A Passage North.

I'm just not feeling it.

As with (almost) all of Ian McEwan's books I am enjoying this one, one of McEwan's earlier books. But I am confused: I don't know who is spying on whom.

Slowly, but surely, I'm making my through this. Catton's use of language is wonderful, but I can't say the same about the story.

Donoghue's command of language is wonderful, but not a lot has happened. Slow.

Recently, this was voted the no.1 book of the 21st Century in the New York Times! Are we talking about the same book??? I gave up on it, and have just given up on Romantic Comedy, too. But I never give up on books! I can't give up on two books in a row! If I had to choose between the two, I'll continue reading My Brilliant Friend.

Not romantic, and not a comedy. Dull and mundane; I really can't see myself finishing this tedium.

Enjoyable, if a little slow.

It gets better.

Another Percival Everett triumph! As with Everett's other novels eg Trees, Erasure, it is heavily ironic. Whites are in a Truman Show-esque environment where Blacks are the actors.

I am reading this, because the book I read immediately before this, was St John Mandel's The Sea of Tranquility, which I loved. This includes some of the characters from Sea eg Vincent, so is sort of a prequel. I am 70% in but not a lot has happened.

I have research interests in human rights and security, so the authoritarian, if not totalitarian, aspects of the book appeal to me. And it's (kind of) interesting to view these through the lens of Larry's family left behind, not Larry who has been disappeared. But I don't just don't like Larry's family, Eilish and the kids.

I did Sartre's A Huis Clos, for French A Level. This reminds me of that: hell is of your own making.

Torture, for the characters, and me!

Pleasing.

Does not disappoint.

I loved the The House on the Cerulean Sea, but am not feeling this book.

I am not storming through this like I did with Stuart's previous novel, Shuggie Bain; my interest is waning.

I am not powering through this as I had done with Stuart's previous novel, Shuggie Bain; my interest is waning.

I am reading Young Mungo, immediately following Stuart's Booker Prize Winner, Shuggie Bain. This, too, does not disappoint. Stuart must be the King of fiction depicting working class youth!

A gem.

A little light relief from the tedium that is Soldier Sailor.

This has so much potential! I get Demon. I loved his early life, his fostering on the farm, the McCobbs, his running away to his Grandmother's. The end! But, oh no, Kingsolver believes the reader doesn't get Demon, so must subject the reader to a further 350 pages of tedium! Here - definitely - less is more.

Not feeling it, sadly.