Turning the page

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

I really enjoyed this book, read it in a couple of days and towards the end I couldn’t put it down. It feels a bit like gothic tale with a contemporary twist. Narrated by a woman in her nineties in a care home (modern day), she shares her experience at the English location “Riverton” where she worked as a servant in the 1910’s and 1920’s.

In the beginning an elderly woman “Grace” (the central character) is approached by a filmmaker who is attempting to reconstruct a time when grace was working at Riverton, during which time a now famous poet committed suicide. It becomes apparent that Grace is keeping a secret regarding the poet and the revelation of this secret for me makes the ending of the novel.  

Kate Morton’s descriptions are incredible, as she describes war torn England it is difficult not to be submersed and feel sympathy for the characters.

Bear with the middle section! The story is a bit thin for a while but it doesn’t last long and the ending makes it well worth it.

I would recommend this for the classic lovers or people who like a gothic/sinister element to their reading. However don’t be put off if you aren’t much a horror reader because it is in no way scary. Perfect for an easy to follow holiday read.

Floodland by Marcus Sedgwick

winner of the Branford Boase Award in 2001

This is a young adult’s book, and it reads like one. I read this in no time at all. The language is simple and the chapters short as is typical of Marcus Sedgwick’s writing. Ordinarily I would say this makes a book childish and over simplified but not here, although this is a tiny book (only 148 pages in hardcover), it’s packed full of a great story.

The book begins with the idea that England has been mostly reclaimed by water leaving a small island called Norwich above the sea, home to Zoe black, the ten-year-old heroine of this novel and her family. The island is in danger of flooding. The family becomes separated when the last supply ship sets sail with Zoe’s parents of board, but not Zoe. In an attempt to follow her parents, Zoe finds a small row boat. Inexperienced in rowing she falls short of the mark and finds herself stranded on Eel Island. Eel island is run by a group of savage children, led by a boy named Dooby. Eventually, new friend in tow, Zoe sets off to find her parents again and gets much more than she bargained for.

I think this book is excellent for busy people who don’t find much time to read or young teenagers as it can be read quickly and is very easy to follow. The story is food for though and relevant today with its ideas surrounding global warming. Probably a 3/5 at most. Not fantastic, but not bad either.

Don’t lose faith in Marcus Sedgwick though! He has had many better books since then including: The book of dead days, Blood red snow white, The dark horse, Revolver, The kiss of death and my favourite The Foreshadowing. Any one of these books is well worth a read!

The Host by Stephanie Meyer

Ok, so some of you have already left in a blind panic because you saw the author’s name and immediately linked it to Meyer’s previous series featuring those shiny immortals that made pre-teens across the world “go wild” (personally, I don’t understand the movie hype, read the books though, if you’re around twelve years old then they aren’t all bad). But rest assured dear reader, this is not another watered down, over stretched version of twilight, this is actually worth reading. (sorry twihards!)

Anyway! The book is based around the idea that earth has been taken over by a friendly alien species called souls (bear with me on this one). The species take over their human hosts leaving the bodies unharmed. It begins at the place where most of humanity had been overpowered and there are a small group of resisting humans left in hiding.  “Wanderer” is the soul assigned to one of these rebels in particular (Melanie Stryder) and here the problems begin.

Melanie is not as easily overcome as your average human and overthrows the “soul” inside her mind by her continuous thoughts of a boy called Jared, (enter sappy love story and familiar writing style). Eventually Melanie forms an alliance with Wanderer. Now immune to detection from over souls as she has become a pretend “host”, they now set off to find a boy they both love, yes, they both love him, cue weirdly complicated internal argument and Melanie’s fight for control over her own body.

Although this isn’t marked as a “young adult” novel, it sits in the grey area, one of those books that could pass for either.

I’d recommend this because the concept’s interesting and it’s pretty unusual, but be warned it is kind of tough going towards the start and I found the ending a bit disappointing, but once you get your head around it it’s quite a good story. Plus it’s also a bit like sci-fi but without all the meaningless jargon to weigh it down. It’s worth a shot!

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

This is an amazing book. I’ve chosen to use it as one of the texts for my dissertation this year and so have had to constantly reread it throughout the year, but still I’m not tired of it.

The book is told in epistolary form over seven days and nights from the perspective of a young Indian boy turned entrepreneur (Balram Halwai) from Old Delhi. He writes a series of letters to the Chinese premier that are never sent. These letters tell his own story as well as advising the premier about Indian success regarding their entrepreneurial skills as a nation. The story gives an insight into India’s traditional caste system and also the extreme rich/poor divide.

As the divide becomes unbearable it shows how a boy (Balram) with solid morals and upbringing, caged by the system, can so quickly can fall into corruption, bribery, theft and murder. (what more could you ask for?!)

As Balram gains wealth later in the novel he demonstrate how a person having experienced poverty, can use and appreciate money more than a person who has always been surrounded by wealth. For example he hangs a chandelier is he office to look as, just because he can…  

Through telling the story of Balram, a lowly servant who takes his revenge and succeeds, I believe Adiga conveys a much more stark and worrying picture of a society, in which the fundamental social structure has broken down leading to the encouragement and nourishment of violence and deception in order to thrive.

Favourite quote: “The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave”

I would recommend this book to almost anyone, not just the lovers of crime or political fiction, but anyone who enjoys a book cleverly written with a strong underlying message. It’s the type of literature that makes you think long after you’ve read the last page and moved on, and that to me is a good book.