How To Be a Woman
by Caitlin Moran
Caitlin Moran is a columnist for The Times. She is also Twitter user extraordinaire. You should follow her, she really is quite funny. Be warned - she is also rather rude. In a way being one of her many followers on Twitter prepared me for her crude language in this book. She seems to have been using bad words since childhood. To her, the 'f' word and the 'c' word are just that - words, to be used in place of other words that are also just words. But that's by the by.
This book is all her thoughts on the topic of being a woman - from pre-pubescent child in a poor family wearing mum's hand-me-down knickers, to overweight teenager, through drug-addled alcoholic late teen era, boyfriends, jobs, marriage, birth, miscarriage, abortion and plastic surgery. The main topic throughout is feminism, what it means to be a feminist, how to know if you are one and why we all should be. There is not one topic that we don't know her thoughts on. She lays it out for all to read, there is no holding her back. It's hard not to disagree with her. The only times I thought "Hmm, hang on a minute love" were a) when she threw in a very generalised statement "pornography is not bad, it's just sex"; and b) having unprotected sex and then being surprised she's pregnant. But I forgive her these moments of stupidity and thoughtlessness.
The chapters range from very humorous to downright tearfully sad. I defy anyone not to come away teary-eyed from the chapters on going through an awful labour before the birth of her first child, and her decision to have an abortion later in life. Though I did find the detail of the procedure very hard to read. I spent the whole time with my hand over my mouth trying not to be sick.
But that's Caitlin for you. She will tell you anything, she wants you to know everything about her and all of her thoughts. She is not embarrassed by or about anything. She is just having a good old girly talk with us all and sharing her life. You just want to go on Twitter and tell her how great she is.
'Moranthology' is definitely on my birthday list.
Life After Life
by Kate Atkinson
In my late 20s I read Kate's first book 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' which won the Whitbread Book of the Year 1995. I still have it and must re-read it, especially after finishing 'Life After Life' and then reading a review of 'Behind the Scenes....' to remind myself what happened. There are familiar themes - death, families, children. She especially seems to like the child death theme. Anyone who has read her later series of novels following Private Detective Jackson Brodie will recognise this heartbreaking theme.
Which brings us back to 'Life After Life'. We follow the tragic life of Ursula and her family - tragic in that, from birth through to adulthood, we watch her follow different paths which ultimately always lead to her death. She is born in 1910 and lives and dies (through the aforementioned different paths) through the two World Wars, which affect her in different ways depending on which path she has taken in life. This is the Butterfly Effect in full motion. Some scenes are so tragically sad and heartbreaking you just want to moan out loud and shed many tears, and share with whoever may be in the room with you how awful such a scene was and poor poor Ursula. Then you think, but that's ok, because the next chapter she will not follow the same path and everything will be better and happy - but the future for Ursula is not often a happy one.
I read this book on my e-reader, and must admit that at times I was a bit confused with what year I was in and how old Ursula was, as the chapters continually jump back and forth in time. If I was reading a paperback, it would have been easier to flick back to the start of the chapter to remind myself of the year, but with an e-reader it's just a bit more fiddly and you don't bother. However, I found myself getting into the flow of the time changes and it wasn't a problem then.
Shortlisted for both the Women's Prize for Fiction 2013 and the Costa Novel Award 2013, this brilliant novel would be one of my contenders for Book of the Year 2013 (along with Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch).
A Boy Called Hope
by Lara Williamson
This book was such a scream, I had a smile on my face nearly all the way through and chuckled out loud in a few places. But beware the last chapter - there's a bit of a bombshell and it's so sad it'll have you weeping. What a rollercoaster of emotions in just a few pages!
The boy called Hope is Daniel Hope who lives with his sister Grace, his mum and her boyfriend Big Dave. Daniel's dad left when he was about 4 and since then he hasn't heard anything from him, not even a birthday card. But then he and his sister see him on the local news - as a presenter. Daniel finds out where he lives and begins to formulate a plan to meet with him and finally have his dad back. Unfortunately the best laid plans often go awry, but Dan has his friends and family around to help him through.
The book is full of great characters - the awful older sister Ninja Grace, the school friend Christopher who has secrets of his own, the best friend Jo who has a love of all things saintly, and the family dog Charles Scallybones who eats and sicks up again just about everything. A great read, highly recommended for readers aged 9-12.
Trouble
by Non Pratt
I must admit, from the first sentence I didn't think I was going to like this book at all. The first few pages were full of sexual references, crude language and inappropriate behaviour - all from 15-yr-old girls and boys. Do the teenagers of today really talk and behave like this? It's disgusting - and frightening. I have an 11-yr-old daughter and behaviour like that in a few years time is my worst nightmare. Then so is what happens to 15-yr-old Hannah - she becomes pregnant. And that is when the book turns a different corner and I began to enjoy it.
Even though we would never wish anything like that on such a young girl, the way it is handled in the book is with warmth, encouragement, sensitivity, understanding. Of course, there are the expected taunts and bullying from some of Hannah's classmates, and the fact that the father of the baby does not want to accept responsibility (but you will find out why), but Hannah's emotions during this period of turmoil seems very true to life. She is afraid of telling her parents, she wonders if her decision about the baby is the right one (and what a decision for a 15-yr-old to have to take). She is also about to take her exams.
Then there is Aaron - new to the school, son of one of the teachers, hanging out with a crowd he doesn't really want to be with, carrying the weight of a horrific incident from the past. He befriends Hannah and offers to do something that no other boy would do - pretend he is the father of the unborn baby. So begins a friendship which is strong enough to carry both of them through the rocky 9 months ahead. But then, being a pregnant 15-yr-old schoolgirl is never going to be easy.
Love, Nina
by Nina Stibbe
There was this lady who used to come into our bookshop in Truro with her children. She normally had a massive rucksack with her and never wanted a bag, sometimes we'd see them all with cycling helmets and waterproof jackets. She was a friend of one of my colleagues. She was very chatty, very funny, you got the feeling she was probably a little scatty, she loved books (she told me she used to work in publishing). She had huge eyes and a Roman nose. Then I stopped seeing her in the shop. Then about a month ago, I read about this book being published which was a series of letters from a young lady working as a nanny in London to her sister. It had a good review, so I requested a copy. Blow me down with a feather, if the young lady on the front cover didn't bear a very close resemblance to the aforementioned customer (I never found out her name before this). Of course, it turns out she is the one and same.
My colleagues had said this is a good book to dip in and out of, but I had to read it all. It was very funny. When she was 20, Nina worked as live-in nanny to Sam (10) and Will Frears (9), sons of Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor of the London Review of Books, and Stephen Frears, director of films such as The Queen and High Fidelity. They all lived in a large house in a very literary part of London. Alan Bennett lived next door, Claire Tomalin just round the corner, Jonathan Miller up the road. But Nina was never fazed by any of this, indeed you get the impression that she didn't know who any of these people were at the time. Alan often pops over for dinner (food is mentioned in nearly every letter - Nina seemed to do most of the cooking, some a success, some not) and the conversations they have over dinner are hilarious. They all get on brilliantly, especially Nina with Sam and Will. She often mentions Sam's 'illness' and trouble with his eyes, and having to take him to Great Ormond Street Hospital. We never find out what is actually wrong with him. On researching, I found that Sam actually suffers from a rare condition called Riley-Day Syndrome - he wasn't expected to live beyond the age of 5. The condition affects the nervous system. He is going blind and cannot feel pain. But when he was 10 in this book, you wouldn't have noticed anything different, from the way the family and Nina are with him. The boys are very mature for their age, and their sense of humour is hilarious. Swearing appeared to be allowed by all in the household - funny and shocking at the same time.
All the letters are one-sided, from Nina to her sister Victoria. Nina openly admits that she never kept any of her sister's replies, not for any other reason other than not wanting to keep more paper than necessary in the house and having a good clearout.
She talks about becoming a mature student and studying English Literature at Thames Poly, and a little about her boyfriend Nunny. You feel that perhaps it's not a serious relationship, they hardly seem to see each other, and Nunny sounds like he's having fun with other girls when he's away. You feel the relationship is doomed. You get to find out in the Afterword at the end what happened between them.
There's possibly more letters coming in the future, and even a novel by Nina. Watch this space.
Tinder
by Sally Gardner
The setting is Breitenfeld in November 1642, the midst of the Thirty Years War. Otto Hundebiss is an 18-yr-old soldier fighting for the Imperial Army who are soon to lose the battle against the Swedes. He is wounded - a bullet in his side and a sword in the shoulder - and he is suddenly facing Death himself. But it is not yet Otto's time. Instead he is confronted by a half-man half beast who cleans his wounds and gives him a gift of dice which, when rolled, will tell him which way to travel.
On his journey he meets with the beautiful flame-haired Safire and falls in love. But their meeting is short-lived. She is being tracked by huntsmen and runs off alone through the forest. He vows to find her again, and his travels take him to a ghostly castle where he uncovers truths he should not hear and beasts that will follow him for the rest of his journey. He acquires a magical tinderbox which he cannot dispose of, but which he will find to be of more use than he at first imagined.
This is a beautifully told rendition of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Tinderbox, which I haven't read but will now seek out. Sally's mastery of the language of a fairy story is excellent. It is so wonderful to escape into such a world, such a refreshing change from other novels around at the moment, but yet the story itself contains the same pieces as a modern one - love, jealousy, war, death, sorrow.
The copy I read was a proof sent by the publisher with a few sketches by the illustrator David Roberts (whose brilliant drawings can be seen in the Dirty Bertie books, The Tales of Terror series by Chris Priestley, and many many others). The final edition will contain over 100 black and white images, so I may have to buy that one too.
Half Bad
by Sally Green
When I first read the publicity blurb for this title I incorrectly assumed a few things :
a) the main character was female;
b) it was set in America;
c) it was going to be a witch version of Twilight.
The story is actually set in various parts of Britain, and follows Nathan, whose father, Marcus, is a Black Witch but his mother was a White Witch. As you can surmise from the names, the Black Witches are bad through and through, think nothing of deceit and murder, whereas White Witches do nothing but good and perform good and helpful spells. So Nathan is half good, half bad. When Nathan's mother dies, his grandmother brings him up, along with his half brother Arran and his two half sisters Deborah and Jessica. Because of the atrocious acts Nathan's father has carried out during his life, the Council of Witches and their Hunters are tracking down Nathan to try to 'turn' him, and give up the whereabouts of his father. He is taken from his grandmother, kept in a cage and trained to be a fighter, but he manages to escape. He is offered help by various characters, and in so doing, learns much about his mother and father and ultimately about his own character. However, not everyone gives favours freely, and there is one sacrifice he is not willing to make.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I finished it in just a couple of sittings. The pace is fast, there is plenty of action, the characters are exciting, and you never knew who to trust. I highly recommend it.
