The Good Luck of Right Now! by Matthew Quick

The Good Luck of Right Now!
by Matthew Quick

The last book I read by Matthew Quick (also probably more famous for his book 'The Silver Linings Playbook' which was made into an award-winning film) was the young adult novel Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock, which I think I actually preferred to this adult novel 'The Good Luck of Right Now!'. This book is very sad in a poignant, tragic way.

The story is about 39-yr-old Bartholomew Neil, who has a learning difficulty. He still lives with his mum, that is until she dies from cancer, and suddenly Bartholomew has to survive in a world of the unknown. He and his mother were always very religious and attended Mass every week. They had become very close to Father McNamee, who decides to move in with Bartholomew to take care of him. He organises a counsellor, Wendy, for Bartholomew, who also refers him to group therapy with another man, Max, who suffers from tourettes. It just so happens that Max's sister, Elizabeth, is a young girl that Bartholomew has taken a liking to in the local library, but she also has had a troubled past and is in need of help.

The four of them - Bartholomew, Father McNamee, Max and Elizabeth - decide to take a trip to Canada. Father McNamee wants to introduce Bartholomew to his biological father, whom Bartholomew thought had been killed by the Ku Klux Klan when he was little. And Max wants to visit Cat Parliament (Max has been suffering from grief since the loss of his cat Alice). The trip turns out to be a life-changing experience for all of them, but in different ways.

The chapters are set out as letters to Richard Gere, as Bartholomew's mum was a big fan of his and began to call Bartholomew 'Richard' towards the end of her life which he pretended was a game. After her death, Bartholomew hears Richard's voice giving him advice, so uses Richard as a sort of counsellor to describe all his fears and worries to. It turns out that Richard will mean more to Bartholomew than he can ever imagine.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
by Claire North

There were two things that attracted me to this book. Firstly, the storyline. Sounds similar to the storyline of Life After Life by Kate Atkinson but with a twist. Harry August is a Kalachakra, a person who dies but then immediately starts his life over again from birth. He is also a mnemonic - he remembers everything from all his previous lives and if ever forced to be put through a 'Forgetting' (electrical impulses passed through the brain to wipe your memory and make you forget all your past lives), it will not work on him. In his eleventh life, while on his death-bed in hospital, he is visited by a 7-yr-old girl, who passes on a message which has been handed back through future centuries. The world is ending, and he can help save it.

During his next few lives, Harry uses his 'past' and 'future' knowledge, and that of his fellow kalachakras across the world who make up the Cronus Club, to track down those responsible for bringing the world to an early end, and most importantly to try to stop them. It's a fascinating book. Some of the quantum physics material had me a little overwhelmed but you get the gist of it!

The second interesting thing about the book is the author. Claire North, we are told by the publisher, is a pseudonym for an acclaimed British author who has previously published several novels, and this book is completely different from any of them. While reading it, I was frantically trying to recognise writing and storytelling patterns, and I came across one phrase which almost brought a name to my lips but I couldn't bring my brain to give it to me! So when the real author is finally revealed (which of course it will be - see J.K Rowling and Robert Galbraith), we will all either declare 'Oh of course!' or 'Well I never, I'd never have guessed'.

The Apple Tart of Hope by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

The Apple Tart of Hope
by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

This was such a lovely book. The style of writing reminded me so much of John Boyne and Frank Cottrell-Boyce. It's gentle, heartfelt, emotional, a little book kooky - I just adored it. It had the feel of a 9-12yr audience, but the subject matter might deny that age group because it deals with attempted suicide which I think is a bit too adult emotionally for young children to grasp and cope with.

The story is set in Ireland. Oscar and Meg are best friends - they live next door to each other, go to the same school, they talk all day and nearly all night out of their bedroom windows. Meg's father takes a job in New Zealand for 6 months, and Meg reluctantly goes with them. While they're away, Paloma and her mother move in to Meg's old house, and Oscar befriends Paloma. But this is where Oscar's life suddenly gets turned around, from good to bad. He is hurt, ridiculed, and bullied, and due to an awful misunderstanding over a letter, Meg no longer keeps in contact with him. He feels all alone, and sees only one way out. But what Oscar doesn't realise is that there are people around who care about him, and save him from a life-threatening action.

A beautiful book about being different, about good and bad friendships, and how salvation can come from an unlikely place.

The Year of the Rat by Clare Furniss

The Year of the Rat
by Clare Furniss

Isn't it strange when you start to read a book thinking it's going to be about one thing, and then find out it's going a completely different way? It was a bit like this with me with this book. I'd read the blurb about it (albeit not properly as it turns out) - young teenage girl, mother dies after giving birth to next baby, teenage girl ends up having to look after it. In fact, the teenage girl, Pearl, resents the baby (Rose) for many reasons - having the baby made Pearl lose her mum, the baby is now the focus of everyone's attention and no-one takes notice of Pearl. Pearl is dealing with the loss of her mother by becoming angry with everyone and she finds herself on a slippery slope to the depths of despair and self-pity. Her mum appears to her at various moments and speaks with her, and although Pearl takes some comfort from this, she still can't reveal her anguish to her or anyone else.

'The Rat' in the title is how Pearl calls her new baby sister, Rose. She can't seem to call her by her real name, she hates her, and she hates anybody who loves Rose. There is a quite upsetting part of the book where Pearl, who is supposed to be looking after the baby while her dad is out, just abandons the baby and runs off - she can't handle anything to do with her. Her best friend, Molly, tries to pull Pearl out of the deep hole of gloom, but even she cannot help Pearl.

The storyline, which seems very real and true-to-life, is handled with pathos but also humour. The author has done a good job of writing a story which could also be a script for a real life drama documentary. I enjoyed it.

For teens due to language.

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Landline
by Rainbow Rowell

I have a bit of a hot and cold relationship with Rainbow's books. I absolutely loved 'Eleanor & Park' but then was disappointed with 'Fangirl', and now I'm a bit in between with 'Landline'. I'm not overly fond of all her talky bits, of which there are many. It's like reading a West Wing or MASH script - fast and American. All the characters over-think everything, and I just want to scream at them "Just chill out! That's not what they're thinking! You're over analysing! Be cool and British and bite your tongue!" But that's just how Rainbow writes, that's her recognisable trait.

Georgie is married to Neal and they have 2 children, Alice and Noomie. Georgie is a scriptwriter for an American sitcom, along with her co-writer Seth. A pilot of a new series that they have been working on together has just been accepted by a huge TV network, and they have about a week to perfect it and write the next 3 episodes. The only problem is, it's Christmas, and Georgie is supposed to be going with her family to stay with Neal's parents for the week. Neal and the kids go without her, which is what she was not expecting. Then he doesn't answer any of her calls. What has happened here? Is it over? Was it a step too far in her busy working schedule? She moves in with her mother and uses the old rotary telephone in her room to try to call again. This time Neal answers, but something about him is different. Can Georgie patch up her marriage by long distance telephone calls - calls with a difference.


I was glad to finish it, because the end was the best bit. You will cry. The rest of it you'll say "Mehh, that was okay". But perhaps that's just me.

Her by Harriet Lane

Her
by Harriet Lane

I think it's just coincidence that I chose to read two very sinister books one after the other. First there was The Night Guest, and now this, 'Her'. Harriet Lane's first novel, 'Alys, Always' was given very good reviews. I haven't read it, but with review words such as "thriller", "chilling", "surprises", "dramatic", "Ruth Rendell", "tragedy", "mysterious", "suspense", and "psychodrama", I can imagine that it is in the same vein as this, her second novel. I could use all the same nouns and adjectives to describe the story. Think "Single White Female" crossed with "Fatal Attraction" and even though the premise is different, the feelings you get while reading the book aren't.

The one thing about the book which annoyed me, was that you were told a scene from the viewpoint of the one main character, Nina, and then told the same scene from the viewpoint of the other, Emma. So I found myself skimming through a few paragraphs to reach unknown territory. Other than that, if you like to be made feel uncomfortable and on edge at the end of a reading session, then this is for you. Watch out who you let into your life.

The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane

The Night Guest
by Fiona McFarlane

Ruth is in her 80s and lives alone in a house by the sea in Australia. She is a widower and her two sons, Jeff and Phil, live away. The only thing she has for comfort and companionship are her two cats and her memories. She is happy and she gets by. The only thing she is slightly troubled by is the feeling that some nights she has a visitor - a tiger. She thinks she can hear it in her living room, slinking around. She telephones Jeff, her nearest son, in the middle of the night to tell him about her fears, but she can tell he is slightly irritated by the interruption of sleep, and especially with a farcical, fantastical tale of a tiger in the house.

The next day, she gets another visitor, this time in human form. She is Frida and she says she's been sent by the government as home help for a few hours every morning. Ruth lets her in without many questions and even Jeff, on being telephoned and informed of this, does not seem to be surprised or anxious about this sudden arrival of a very larger-than-life character. Frida fusses, cleans, cooks, posts mail, takes calls, shops, looks after bills, and eventually, but quietly, moves in.

If this already hasn't started to sound unsettling and unnerving, then the rest of the book definitely will. Poor Ruth seems totally incapable of halting Frida's intrusiveness. You feel so sorry for her helplessness, and angry with her sons for not hearing any alarm bells ringing with the whole situation. The author does a very good job of drawing you deeper into the suspense and the horror of a poor defenceless old lady up against a big, bustling, matronly, bullying, dark character of a lady that is Frida. It cannot end well.

The tiger continues to make appearances throughout the book, and you start to wonder who or what this animal actually is or stands for. Is it out to harm or protect. Ruth does not always seem to fear the animal's visits, in fact she seems to enjoy to seek out evidence of its existence in her home.

This is the author's first novel, and if you love mystery and psychological suspense and the workings of the mind, then this is for you.