andintothetrees's reviews
554 reviews

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

2.0

Dystopia is the new vampires, apparently. This is the first in a trilogy of YA fiction (wrongly filed in my library – I found it in the adult fiction section, but nevermind, that wouldn’t have put me off anyway), following the fortunes of Lena, a seventeen year old girl living in a dismal future version of Portland, USA. I love a good dystopia (if that’s not too much of a contradiction) as much as the next person, but this was pretty disappointing and severely lacking in originality.

... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/delirium-by-lauren-oliver/]

My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time by Liz Jensen

3.0

Since reading The Rapture earlier this year I’ve been intrigued by Liz Jensen’s work. She melds genres, writes with complexity but without pretension, bringing an original voice to contemporary British fiction. My Dirty Little Book Of Stolen Time has a typically zany plot – fin de siècle Danish prostitute Charlotte stumbles across – and subsequently into – a time machine during an on-the-side cleaning job and finds herself in twenty-first century London. She teams up with other disorientated-in-time-and-place ex-pats and falls in love with a Scottish archaeologist single dad, facing various complications in matters romantic and metaphysical. So far, so good, no?

... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/my-dirty-little-book-of-stolen-time-by-liz-jensen/]

So Much For That by Lionel Shriver

4.0

This isn’t a book for the faint-hearted. It is gory, unflinching, cold-hearted until (almost) the end, and depressing as hell. It centres around two middle-aged American couples: Shep and Glynis; and Jackson and Carol. Shep has spent his life scrimping and saving for his retirement, during which he plans to experience an “Afterlife” by living in a country with good weather and cheap living costs – however this all goes belly up (to put it politely) when Glynis announces that she has cancer. Not just any cancer either, but a rare and virulent form. His best friend Jackson is an extremely angry guy, who makes the amount of ranting I do look pitiful and who is the novel’s strongest voice of discontent (which is saying a lot, as he is among a chorus of significantly irked people). So Much For That follows the two couples, and to a lesser extent their children, throughout a year or so of their lives.

... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/so-much-for-that-by-lionel-shriver/]

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

5.0

I must begin by thanking my friend Donna for sending me a copy of this book after I expressed an interest in reading it. I must admit that it took me around six months to get around to doing so, as I knew it wouldn’t be a comfortable experience – and it then took me well over a week to read, as my expectation was correct – this isn’t an easily digestible book. It is difficult not through suboptimal writing (indeed, it is very well written) but because of its subject matter, which anyone who cares about animals (I would hope, therefore, most people) would find hard to hear. I have given it five stars not just because it is a well-written book, but because I passionately believe everyone should read this. Well, almost everyone – if you are already a committed vegan then you aren’t contributing to anything documented here, but if you choose to consume animal products (and especially if you are a meat eater) then I believe you have a duty to inform yourself about what that choice means for animals and the environment. If you don’t want to read it/educate yourself*, then you are sadly choosing willful ignorance.
* I accept not everyone has the time/inclination to sit down and read an entire book on the matter, but please at least check out the Eating Animals website.

... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/eating-animals-by-johnathan-safran-foer/]

The Roundabout Man by Clare Morrall

2.0

I didn’t think much of this one. My opinion isn’t even that it was such a bad book that I can get worked up and rant about it, more that it was just a bit “meh”, so apologies in advance is this is a bit of a “meh” review.

... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/the-roundabout-man-by-clare-morrall/]

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

4.0

Once in a while I read a book so well-known that I wonder if I could possibly add anything to the discussion of it already out there, and this is certainly one of those books. Nevertheless I’ll continue as I am vain enough to think that my readers might be interested in hearing my take on it…

... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/extremely-loud-and-incredibly-close-by-johnathan-safran-foer/]

Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher

4.0

Ketchup Clouds is ostensibly a “young adult” novel – but what does that mean, really? It does have a teenage protagonist, and she does pass comment on how annoying her family are and narrate her homework on occasion, but that made it no less relatable to me as a not-quite-so-young adult that I would find a novel with an elderly protagonist, or someone who lives in a faraway country. Annabel Pitcher has captured a young voice very well (if comparisons with my teenage journals are anything to go by), and in a manner which is endearing rather than irritating – probably because it isn’t lathered with “teenspeak”.

... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/ketchup-clouds-by-annabel-pitcher/]

They F*** You Up: How To Survive Family Life by Oliver James

4.0

They F*** You Up takes its title from the Larkin poem This Be The Verse, and is an introductory thesis to the idea that our personalities, and level of mental health(-y-ness) are shaped by our childhood and not by genetics. Indeed, the earlier something happens in childhood the more crucial it is for our early development, as it lays down the brain’s basic pathways and shapes what we expect to happen in future. Often people discount the importance of events in babyhood/early childhood as they can’t be remembered, but Oliver James makes it blindingly obvious that these pre-memory times are actually what set the tone of our emotional development both in childhood and as adults. At times he labours his point a little too much – to the extent where his refusal to accept any influence/interference on the part of genetics feels almost bigoted – but overall this is an insightful and well-researched book, notwithstanding the author’s thankfully occasional bad attempts at humour.

... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/they-f-you-up-by-oliver-james/]

The Daughter Game by Kate Long

3.0

The reality of this book was quite different to my expectations of it, which isn’t to say that it was bad, not at all, just quite a change from what I had anticipated. I had previously read Swallowing Grandma, The Bad Mother’s Handbook and Queen Mum by the same author, and enjoyed them all (particuarly the first two) as light, humourous reading. I picked this up during our house move expecting the same, but as I ploughed on through the novel I discovered that Kate Long has here ventured into darker territory. There is humour, just about, but there is also a huge undercurrent of dissatisfaction and laughs are supplementary to the plot rather than at its core.

... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/2012/08/26/the-daughter-game-by-kate-long/]

Fifty Shades Trilogy by E.L. James

1.0

Yes, I read the whole lot. Why, you may ask, when I am about to dig into them and when it was surely obvious from the opening instalment that they were terrible books (it was, in fact I was initially surprised at just how bad they were)? Well, firstly because I like to be able to rant with knowledge of what I am verbally annihilating; secondly because I got some weird enjoyment from reading something so utterly rubbish and picking faults in it (this wore off by the third book though, by which point I was eager for it all to end, and took to skipping most of the sex scenes in order to speed up getting the book over and done with*). And thirdly, though it pains me to admit it, some pathetic part of me wanted to know how the story ended, and to come to that end “properly” rather than through reading a spoiler online (I didn’t bother reading the final final section though, which is some weird rehashing of events from Christian’s perspective. That would have been a step too far and crossed a “hard limit” for me).
* I truly struggled through that one. The chance to read would present itself to me and instead of reading the book I would find myself messing around online, reading random blogs and news articles for up to an hour on end in order to avoid picking up the dreaded tome.

... [Read the rest of my review here: https://whathannahread.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/the-fifty-shades-trilogy-by-el-james/]