loociejj Uncategorized

A Little Something Different – Sandy Hall

a little something different

This book is so clever! It follows two characters (Lea and Gabe) who ‘secretly’ really like each other – each chapter is written from a different characters perspective; including a bench and a squirrel. They think that no one else has noticed how much they like each other, but everybody has. It follows the story of how they get together. They eat the same Chinese food, like the same bands, hang out at the same coffee shop and all the characters notice how much they like each other and should be together – except them.
The clever bit is that this probably happens to lots of people – speaking as someone that has worked in a coffee shop and a bar, you get to do a lot of people watching. It’s a fun game to pass the time with your colleagues – pairing people off. The ladies that work in the coffee shop observe them every time they come in, the bench remembers them when they sit on him, the squirrel observes them when collecting his winter nuts! I think that you could write this novel about anyone, using a whole host of different characters. Either way, it’s a good twist on a romantic novel – a little something different!

loociejj Uncategorized

Revolution – Jennifer Donnelly

Meet Andi Alpers in modern day America. Her parents are divorcing and her beloved brother, Truman has just died. She is angry and grief stricken and not really coping with life. She is about to be expelled from her school when her father suggests that she accompany him on a business trip to Paris. Seeing that she has no other option, she goes.

Then, meet Alexandrine Paradis in revolutionary France. A turbulent and dangerous time for anyone, but when you are friends with a prince then even more so.

Andi finds Alexandrine’s diaries in a violin case and gets swept up in the past. She soon learns that the past can sometimes be all too present when she sets out to discover the truth about what happened to Alexandrine.

This book is so well written I was disappointed to finish it. The narration jumps between the two main characters and both are engaging and interesting. Andi is difficult to like at first but once you delve in to her past a bit and see why then you warm to her. Alexandrine is ambitious and living in a dangerous time, which she finds out to her cost. Paris has an amazing system of catacombs underneath it where all the bones of the cemeteries were placed when they needed to make space for housing during the 18th century. A really interesting book about this is Pure by Andrew Miller (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10116927-pure?ac=1).

It’s somewhere I would like to go and have a look at one day (bit creepy I know!) so a book about what it’s like is awesome! I love anything about the French Revolution, it was a scary time in French history and a  this book is a really interesting take on it. Donnelly writes so well and with such description that sometimes you feel like you could almost be there with them.

I found the historical narration more interesting then the modern day one but that’s just my inner history geek coming out! Try it though, you might like it.

Further reading includes The Red Necklace The Silver Blade by Sally Gardner or for ambitious readers A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens or A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel.

http://www.catacombes.paris.fr/en/homepage-catacombs-official-website

loociejj Uncategorized

A Gathering Light – Jennifer Donnelly

Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore Hotel, where guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters. But when Grace’s drowned body is fished from the lake, Mattie discovers that the letters could reveal the grim truth behind a murder. The book is based on the real murder of Grace Brown by her lover Chester Gillette. Some of the characters are fictional but the main players are real.


This is the debut novel by Jennifer Donnelly and was written in 2003. She has since gone on to write some amazing novels, not least of which is Revolution (see review). This one is outstanding. The book is set in 1906, a time in America where anything was possible. People like Mattie went to work at places like the Glenmore and succeeded. Earned money, met new people, changed their lives – the class system in America was not as stringent as it was in Britain. So when she meets Grace Brown she is fascinated, and a little overwhelmed.

The opens with the staff watching as the lake is dragged for a body. When she is brought in Mattie assumes that she isn’t dead, just faint. The description in this book is amazing. The cold foreboding of the lake, the dripping of the dress as the body is brought in, the naivety of Mattie – it’s so clever. The present is juxtaposed with stories of Mattie’s upbringing. There are lots of mouths to feed and not much money to go round, but Mattie is obviously trying to better herself and her siblings. She gives them all a word of the day and is trying to teach them all to read. She spends all their grocery money on a notebook because it looks so pretty and she wants to write in it. It is a constant throughout the novel that she worries for them and their future.

The book is part mystery novel, part thriller and part social commentary. Life was tough, there is no doubt; but not if you had money. The difference between the staff who eek out a living at the Glenmore and the guests is obvious. Mattie holds the key to mystery and it becomes obvious that Grace Brown gave her the letters because she assumed she couldn’t read, so there would be no danger of her discovering the truth. Grace in turn is not as wealthy as her lover, not a great catch, and this is ultimately the reason that she has to go.

A really well written and clever book. Donnelly is so good at describing the world that she creates, it makes you feel as though you can reach out and touch it. You empathise with Mattie, but also with Grace and her predicament. Well worth a read if you want to immerse yourself in something on a rainy day.

loociejj Uncategorized

Monkey Wars – Richard Kurti

Well – what can I say about this book? It’s essentially a West Side Story set in Kolkata – with monkeys! A group of monkeys live in a cemetery and are attacked one night but another group of monkeys who are basically evil. They end up meeting another group of monkeys and the evil group take over the cemetery. they then attack another group of monkeys and kill them all, and take over their home as well – with me so far?

The main character is a naïve monkey called Mico who’s family are Langur monkeys – they are power crazy. He is a clever monkey but not physically strong, unlike his brother Breri who is indoctrinated by the General Pogo and his evil sidekick Lord Gospodar. on the other side is Papina, a rhesus monkey who’s father has been brutally murdered by the Langur monkeys in the cemetery takeover. She knows a secret way into the cemetery and meets Mico one night – cue love affair. The humans do make an appearance as gullible idiots who have made a pact with the Langur monkeys to rid the city of rhesus monkeys after they killed a politician.

It’s silly. I couldn’t get over the fact that all the characters were monkeys, the fight scenes were well written, in fact the whole book is well written and it’s a shame that the content is all a bit far fetched. I didn’t really care when Papina found out that in order to fit in Mico had been forced to take a mate (that’s men for you!) and felt cheated by him. So many of the character are killed off or driven mad and when the final reckoning takes place between Mico and Lord Gospodar you just want the book to finish. Granted the plan was pretty clever but it’s a long book. Sorry, for a debut novel this could have been so much better if the story was about actual humans – which I suppose is the point!

loociejj Uncategorized

Echo Boy – Matt Haig

This is the third book I have read by Matt Haig and after The Radleys and The Humans I had high hopes. The idea of the book is a good one; it’s set in the future and a robot has been developed that looks like a human but is not. They’re made of flesh and blood but have a chip implanted in their brain which switches off emotion and makes them able to process information at an amazing rate. Most Echoes are modern day slaves; people use them in their homes to cook and clean, educate their children and do all the menial tasks that they don’t want to do.

The main character is called Audrey Castle. Her father is a journalist who writes articles and books about the dangers of the Echoes. If they are able to develop and gain control of their own minds then they could be dangerous. Her uncle is Alex Castle, a multi millionaire who has developed the echoes and controls a huge proportion of them. He is in direct competition with a Japanese company who are also making and developing the ‘echo’ technology. Her father and her uncle don’t get on.

After a car accident that has badly effected her fathers health, Audrey’s mother decides that they should buy an echo to help them round the house – her father is against this and gives Audrey the deciding vote. She agrees that it would be useful to have one and, instead of buying a Castle Echo they purchase one of the Japanese ones. Within weeks, while Audrey is having a lesson in her pod, the Echo brutally murders both of her parents and then tries to kill her. She manages to escape and is fleeing the house in her parents’ ‘magcar’ when her uncle coincidentally rings her and directs the car to his house. Chaos ensues.

At her uncle’s house she meets an echo called Daniel, he is a prototype that her uncle has had developed by his main developer, a Spanish lady called Rosella. Rosella has lost a child in infancy and decides to implant Daniel with a tiny speck of his DNA to see whether he will be any different. Daniel, although able to do all the things that an Echo can do (like count how many hairs you have on your head) can also feel emotion and empathy, and immediately tries to tell Audrey that something sinister is going on.

I enjoyed this book, it was fast paced. I liked the characters and the intrigue. Although it wasn’t difficult to figure out what had happened I liked the way in which it was drawn out.  Daniel was a sympathetic robot and although you did wonder how it was all going to end you still want them to have a happy ending. The section in the zoo is well written and quite harrowing, and the description of the colony on the moon really felt like it could happen. The end is also left hanging so you could write a sequel, and the film would definitely be a hit. Haig writes books that really make you think about what the future could be like, they are believable and although a little scary, almost make you want to get there and experience it!

loociejj Uncategorized

The Maze Runner – James Dashner

I really, really wanted to like this book. Everyone is reading it or has seen the film; it’s all over the internet and everyone is talking about it. In fact it’s been so popular that I haven’t been able to get a copy from the library and downloaded it on my kindle instead! So, as you can see, I had high hopes.

It really irks me then, when I read a book that is not brilliantly written but that is so hyped and whose author has made so much money. It’s so badly put together that I could have written it myself. The premise is good: a boy pitches up in a world where there are loads of other boys who all have jobs to do in order to help their community to survive. He has no memory of where he has come from but knows his name is Thomas. He doesn’t have any memories of his previous life but he knows how to do things. He doesn’t know how old he is but he knows what a cow is – you get the idea. At the start of the book he hears terrible screaming and is told that the boy has been attacked by something called a Griever; he is then shown a Griever, a hideous mutated creature with robotic appendages which can kill or spike the boys causing them to have hideous hallucinations and flashbacks of their previous lives. Then he nearly gets attacked by a crazy boy and sees another boy who is a runner; a job he wants to do but doesn’t understand. The runners are trying to solve ‘The Maze’, an elaborate construction that they explore every day, hoping to find the way out.  He’s just got his head round all this when a girl arrives in the box and tells them all that their world is ending and they need to get a move on solving The Maze. And he can talk to her telepathically!

It is so badly written that I wanted to get a red pen out and start correcting it! The last quarter of the book was so rushed I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened. The epilogue set the sequel up nicely (for the author to make more money and another film to be made!) It is exciting, it’s fast paced (sometimes a little too fast paced!) some good characters that are fleshed out and you start to like – it has a lot going for it, it’s just the quality of the writing that let’s it down. But I guess if you like this kind of genre then you will love it!

I may or may not read the next one…

loociejj Uncategorized

Dead Ends – Erin Lange

This is the story of Dane, the school bully and his unlikely friendship with his neighbour, Billy D. This is kind of the mirror of her previous book, Butter. I have read Butter and enjoyed it, although the end was not as satisfying as you would expect.

Dane is a typical 16 year old boy. His grades at school are really good but he has a lot of anger. He lives with his mom who is a yoga instructor. She had him when she was in high school and his father has never been on the scene. The books opens with Dane beating up a boy who is driving in a red mustang, a car being something that he doesn’t have and desperately wants, when he gets distracted by another kid staring at him. He describes the need to hit someone as being like a physical itch on his palms. Every time he gets angry his hands itch. The boy that distracts him is Billy D, a new kid in town who happens to live opposite Dane. Billy D has Downs Syndrome. Billy D somehow persuades Dane that if he walks him to school then he won’t get beaten up by the other bullies at school because they’re all scared of Dane. The first example in the novel of Billy’s ability to manipulate people. He ends up persuading the behaviour officer at the school that instead of giving Dane a detention, Dane can act like his personal bodyguard. This leads to a fascinating friendship between the two boys; and they both discover a little about themselves in the process.

Billy D has a map with clues in written by his dad. Billy and his mum have been moving around from state to state to escape him and Dane assumes that he understands the reason for this. As they follow the trail of clues and Dane teaches Billy to fight so that he can protect himself, their friendship grows and Dane starts to evaluate the reasons why he behaves in the way he does. There is a really interesting scene in the canteen when Dane beats a boy up for drawing a picture of Billy which he thinks is offensive, when the reason is investigated a different truth emerges. Along the way they also meet Seeley, who has two gay dads and a bio dad oh, and white hair!

This isn’t your average story about school bullies.   Its a story about two fatherless boys who are a bit lost in the world, but it is also a novel about misunderstanding. Dane is following a path based on a misconception and Billy is generally misunderstood because he looks different. I wish I could say that it ends happily ever after, and I guess in a way it does, but not in the way you would expect. If you have read the book Wonder by R J Palacio then it may give you another view of teens with disabilities and how others view them. This book makes you think about how you treat people because of the way you look and that if you took the time to look beyond what they look like, you may really like what you see.

This author is really insightful about the world of American teenagers and their need to fit into a category. Butter wanted to be thinner so that he can be liked, and when this doesn’t work he takes another option. Dane, Billy D and Seeley are a bunch of kids who don’t fit in anywhere until they find each other and create their own category – yeah for them!

loociejj Uncategorized

Attachments – Rainbow Rowell

I read this book in a day, that’s how much I enjoyed it!

The book follows the emails (and lives) of two women, Beth and Jennifer, who work for a local newspaper. It’s set in 1999 so the concept of sending messages to each other via email is relatively new. Because the ‘powers that be’ are convinced that people will immediately start online shopping and looking at porn, they employ an IT guy who comes in at night and monitors what’s going on. His name is Lincoln. He reads any email that is red flagged, or has a word in it that may cause offense. This is how he meets Beth and Jennifer. Instead of disciplining them he starts to enjoy reading their emails to each other and feels like he is involved in their lives. He is a kind of lonely guy who had a bad break up and is now back home with his mum. He plays Dungeons and Dragons for goodness sake!

So, the more he reads the more he starts to fall for one of them. Although she is in a relationship with a rock god she is unhappy and longing for some normality. She feels too old to be a groupie and wants to settle down, while the other one is trying to avoid getting pregnant (although she is married and her husband is longing for a child). But now he’s in a difficult position; how can Lincoln introduce himself to the woman that he has fallen in love with, without mentioning that he has been reading her personal emails for months and knows everything about her? in the meantime he finds out that she is interested in him –  very complicated!

I really enjoyed this book, maybe because it reminded me of a less complicated time when you had to speak to the person you liked instead of texting them! There is also the Y2K drama in there which I remember really clearly because everyone was convinced the world was going to end and there would be no more computers (imagine if that happened now?!) The ending is kind of predictable but I didn’t really mind that, the characters were a little annoying and I didn’t empathise with them as much as I wanted to but, its definitely worth a read. It has also made me want to read more of her books, especially as I have already read Eleanor and Park and really enjoyed that too.

loociejj Uncategorized

Every Day – David Levithan

This book blew my mind! The concept of a body being inhabited by a soul that is totally asexual, who then falls in love with a girl, who then meets the soul inhabiting other bodies, and is still in love with it! How crazy is that?!

‘A’ is a soul that inhabits a different 16 year old body every day. At the beginning of the book it goes into the body of Justin, a thuggish boy who treats him girlfriend badly. His girlfriend is called Rhiannon. ‘ A’ feels an immediate connection with Rhiannon and plans the perfect afternoon with her at the beach. It is obvious that she loves Justin and although she can tell that he is different she just enjoys the day. The next morning when ‘A’ wakes up it is in the body of Leslie Wong, a girl. Luckily most of the bodies that ‘A’ inhabits live within driving distance from Rhiannon so ‘he’ can still see her, the challenge is getting her to A. accept that its the same soul but in a different body and, B. the strength of feeling towards her.

It’s difficult even writing about ‘A’ because I want to say ‘he’ all the time, I suppose because stereotypically it is a man who loves a woman, but that’s what challenges us in this book. Love is not about male and female or male and male or female and female, it’s just love. Because ‘A’ does not have a gender it makes the love even more poignant. To persuade Rhiannon that she can love a soul, or personality if you like, and look beyond the body is what we, as the reader, are being asked to do too. For us, we meet someone, like the look of them and then the process of love begins, this book is taking away that beginning and just asking us to get to know the personality inside. Almost like internet dating!

I love this book; I love the fact that it is challenging stereotypes, I love the different teenagers that are inhabited every day and how, in the end they all get a bit confused at the things they are doing when ‘A’ is controlling them, but they are, in essence all still struggling with the same issues and think they are the only ones. The square kid who goes to a party so that ‘A’ can see Rhiannon, the twins who both look the same but have visits from ‘A’ on consecutive days, the goth girl, the jock – all parts of teenage life are there for us to experience through the consciousness of ‘A’. you know when you’re reading it that it can’t possibly have a happy ending but you want it to, so much!

The book stretches our concept of why we love; ‘A’ is in a female body and asks Rhiannon for a kiss – such a lovely description of a first kiss but with the challenge that Rhiannon is not gay and therefore feels a little weirded out by it.

This book is in my top ten books of all time, and I’ve read a lot of books! It will make you  laugh and cry, and wish that someone will love you so completely that they are willing to give up eternity to spend a day with you. Go and read it: now!

loociejj Uncategorized

The Giver – Lois Lowry

I decided to read this book because it is shortly to be released as a film. I read a review of it on goodreads and was surprised to find that there was a lot of stuff written about it. The book was written in 1993 and follows the life of Jonas. He lives in a community where everything is the same. Children are given to ‘parents’ and brought up following a very strict system. When they are 12 they are allocated their positions within the community and work until the can join the old. The old are then looked after until they are no longer useful and the ‘released’. It is pretty easy to work out what that means but Jonas thinks that  they have this wonderful ceremony where they recount all the marvellous things that the old person has done and then set free…. Set free to where?

Jonas is allocated as the position of ‘receiver of memories’; a special job that is unique within the community. He has to meet with a man called ‘the giver’ who will pass along memories to him. It becomes clear that the community has given up things like this. They are given tablets to repress their sexual appetite, do not have relationships and feel no emotions. Jonas is given the gift of all these so that he may pass them along in his turn. There is an interesting section where he asks his ‘parents’ if they love him, their response is  alarming. Jonas’ father is a Nurturer. He works at the Nurture Centre looking after the newborn children until they are ready to put with a ‘family’. There is a sinister feeling to this, the child they look after in their home, Gabriel, is obviously cared for, but only in a practical sense. If he does not shape up, he will be ‘released’ too.

I can see why this book has been so talked about. They study it in American schools and it is easy to pigeonhole it as utopian/ dystopian fiction. What starts off as an idealistic portrayal of  society quickly deteriorates into a controlled regime where mind control and chemical suppression is normal. As with most dystopian fiction the main character realises the danger that they face and tries to escape it, you will need to read the book (or watch the film!) to see if he makes it…..