Book Review: Cold Water, by Gwendoline Riley

This short book (149 pages) is not so much a story as a snapshot of the life of its protagonist, 20 year old Carmel McKisco, an ambitionless daydreamer working in a bar in Manchester. It is difficult to describe the plot as there really isn't one. Carmel wanders around meeting different people and describing those she already knows, and the most action comes when she goes on a sort of pilgrimage to find the singer from a band she loved as a teenager.

In this book style is the substance: the characters are well drawn, the atmosphere is gloomy yet beautiful, everything is tinged with poetry - but nothing much actually happens, the novel is more about capturing Carmel's life at this stage and her development as a person. If you absolutely require action in novels to enjoy them, don't bother with this one.

I did enjoy reading this book and I will probably read it again - but I liked it for the descriptions more than anything else: I found Carmel a frustrating protagonist, because she didn't seem to want to do anything will her life besides maybe go to live in Cornwall, and I felt like nothing big had really changed by the end of the book.

However, I do think it is the right length - any longer a book and it would need a plot to hold my interest, and the style would stop being so powerful on its own. It is well paced as it is.

I would recommend this book anyone looking for a short, atmospheric book to slip into for a couple of hours (if that), so readers who don't mind novels without strong plot lines, give this a try.

Book Review: Leader of the Pack, by Kate Cann

When the rugby team gets a new coach, captain and angry-white-young-man Jack Slade has his life changed forever. The team used to have fun, but lost games more often than not. Their new coach inspires and pushes them to success, and in return the boys have to dedicate their whole lives to the sport. The boys become the stars of their school, feared by other rugby players for their rough behaviour, and suddenly very attractive to girls seeking the glamour of relationships with these infamous lads.

Gem fancies Jack from the start. She loves watching him play - but when they start dating feels increasingly uncomfortable around his team mates and coach. It seems like he has to spend all his spare time with them, and the boys are picking up bad attitudes towards women from their manipulative coach. She wants to be with Jack, and for him to be happy, but she needs more respect.

This is a pretty quick read with an absorbing story. Some of the characterisation is a little rushed, there isn't very much background information given about the school and the characters but it fits with the pace. The relationship between Gem and Jack is realistically portrayed, from their first awkward meetings to their frank discussions as they become more serious about each other.

There really shouldn't be so much pink on the cover of this book. It is not a sickly love story, and the narrative is split between the point of view of two characters, a girl and a boy, alternating between them. Kate Cann writes male characters brilliantly, and it's a shame that the cover could put boys off reading it.

I would recommend this book to mid-teenagers, both girls and boys (if you can get the latter to look past the cover). There is a fair bit of sexual content but all the sex is safe, and I think it's important that teenagers learn not to be embarrassed about protecting themselves. Anyone over the age of 17 will probably find the storyline a bit simplistic, but if you read teen/young adult fiction regularly you should enjoy this. Like all of Kate Cann's novels it has a realistic story and I could imagine it happening all over the country for real.

How to read more

"I've read 58 books so far this year (in 7 months), which is more than I read in the whole of last year!"

How I did it: I found as many books I thought I would enjoy as I could and found ways to make time for reading almost every day. I read different lengths of book - short novels as well as longer and have been amazed at how much reading I can get done if I put my mind to it.

Lessons & tips:

1. I carried a book everywhere so I could read whenever I was sitting still with no other tasks to do - on the train, whilst waiting to meet friends, etc.


2. I still watched TV - but I would decide in advance what programmes I wanted to watch and record them so that I could watch them when I couldn't read, like when I was eating or painting my nails. I never sat down in front of the TV just for the sake of it.
   


3. I listened to audiobooks when I couldn't physically read but could concentrate on the words - whilst walking, knitting, cleaning etc.

Resources:

1. I found books I was interested in by reading book reviews on blogs, I'm really into YA and I'd recommend Chicklish and Leaving Shangri-La. I also found new authors by using the Literature-Map.
   
   


2. I got books from my local library, bookstores, charity shops and via online book exchange websites Bookmooch and readitswapit.
   
   


3. I downloaded free mp3 audio books from LibriVox.

It took me 7 months.

It made me delighted!

See more progress on: Read more

Book Review: Fabulous Nobodies, by Lee Tulloch

Reality Nirvana Tuttle (daughter of a hippy, which she finds deeply embarrassing), a woman with 'seventy-two different fashion personalities', is the 'doorwhore' of the nightclub Less Is More in New York City. Her job involves deciding which "nobodies" are allowed in, on the basis of how "fabulous" they are. She wields great power in the club scene, her compliments and criticisms acting as law, until one night she fails to recognise Jackie O in a drab outfit and is fired for her mistake.

This is a absolute disaster for Reality (or 'Really', as her friends call her), who is replaced by her unstylish nemesis, Ricci, a woman that lets just anyone into the club. Reality also needs the money to pay for her tiny flat and so that she can collect an even wider range of clothes. She prefers frocks to people, which is not surprising as all her "friends" are as mean as she is. Reality is of course desperate for attention as well, wanting to one day become a somebody, and has met the gossip columnist for Frenzee Magazine, Hugo Falk, so all she needs to do now is something fabulous enough for him to write about. Eventually she hits upon the solution to all her problems - she and her neighbour Freddie will open their own club in their apartments!

This novel was originally published in 1989 and I would describe it as quirky, satirical proto-chick-lit. It has dated slightly - mostly in terms of language like the slang, but I doubt the fashion club scene has changed at all. The characters and their adventures are silly and superficial, but likeable and funny. Reality genuinely loves her frocks, believing that every dress she owns has a name, a personality and a voice. She can't stand the pain she can feel emanating from them when they are abused by other people, she has to buy them so she can look after them properly. The other characters also seem pretty horrible at first, but when they show how much they really love Reality, they seem a lot more sympathetic.

This novel is a fast and easy read that I would recommend this book to fans of fashion, satire, quirky stories, or Sex and the City - I remember one Amazon reviewer describing Reality as being like a young Carrie, before she got the bizarrely high-paid job as a newspaper columnist, would be. I think the only downside is that it is so short - I want to find out what happens to these characters next!

Book Review: Bonjour Tristesse, by Françoise Sagan

Bonjour Tristesse is the story of one summer in the life of Cécile, a seventeen year old girl, and her father, Raymond, a wealthy widowed womaniser, aged forty. Cécile has failed her recent university exams, but doesn't much care - she doesn't have to with her father around to support her - and all she wants to do is swim, lay around on the beach, and fall in love temporarily with Cyril, a young man she meets in the sea. She is comfortable and innocent in her hedonistic life, with no mother and a careless father who she barely knew before her return from boarding school to start university in Paris.

Raymond has brought along Elsa, his current, twenty-nine year old, mistress, so Cécile is greatly surprised when it turns out he has also invited Anne, who is forty-two and has a much more serious personality than theirs, to stay with them. Gradually Cécile notices that Anne is really much more beautiful and clever than Elsa, and she realises that her father will soon make Anne his new mistress.

She has the shock of her life when Raymond announces that he intends to marry Anne, and when Anne makes it very clear that she will change their lives forever. Cécile is torn - she admires Anne and imagines she will be moulded into a better person by her stepmother, but she loves her easy, carefree life and mindlessly following her impulses and passions. Anne wants Cécile to study for her exam retakes and to stop seeing Cyril, and Cécile rebels, pretending to study whilst really plotting and sneaking out to meet Cyril and Elsa. She plans to use them to break her father and Anne up, even though she knows it is wrong. She imagines that if she changes her mind, she can stop the plan at any moment, manipulate everything as she chooses, but she is tragically wrong.

This is an very short novel, translated from the original French, the edition I have read and am reviewing was translated by Irene Ash for Penguin books. It is told in first person from Cécile's point of view, and the detail of characterisation reflects her interests - Anne is the character that is depicted in the most detail, whereas Raymond, Cyril and Elsa are drawn quickly and are not really explored. Cécile has no interest in anyone but herself normally, but Anne is a threat to Cécile's way of life, and a woman completely different from her but equally skilled at manipulating people. This story is completely free from obvious moral or ethical criticism, Cécile and Raymond do not judge their own actions, they simply do not care about anyone or anything enough to do so, and it is left for the reader to judge the characters and their behaviour, which I feel gives the book more of an impact.

I found this book to be a quick, absorbing read, and I would recommend it to anyone with a spare couple of hours! I just got the 1958 film adaptation out of my university library and am looking forward to comparing the two.



Wikipedia entries, on the author and on the book