How do you pick what to read? I’m spoiled for choice, being the person who puts up the blog posts here, I am not short of potential review material. CI puts out more than I have time to keep up with, and there’s not much point me reading and reviewing books I am unlikely to get along with, so, how do I pick?
There’s the book blurb of course, which gives me a sense of whether I’d like the subject matter. I watch out for other people’s reviews. too. However, blog posts written by authors, and reviews written by authors are my main source. What matters most to me in a book is whether I get on with an author’s style. Do I like their ‘voice’? If I do, then subject matter and plot shape are of far less significance. I think you can get a really good sense of an author by reading their blog posts and seeing how they review other people’s books. I very rarely pick up something I don’t get along with, as a consequence.
Here’s some small reviews of CI books I’ve read recently and enjoyed. I hope the blog is as useful to you as it’s been for me in finding new books to love.
Reggie & Me: The First Book in the Dani Moore Trilogy
Tricky subjects, handled with warmth, honesty and compassion and woven into a compelling story about a girl overcoming some pretty horrendous challenges. Dani Moore is a survivor who is trying to rebuild her life and figure out how to be normal again. She tells her story in first person, in an intimately voiced journal. Marie Yates has constructed some really great strategies here, exploring the relationship between a rescued dog and Dani, who is determined not to let ‘victim’ become her story and identity.
It’s a book written with insight and empathy, squaring up to the issues of recovering after being attacked, but steadfastly refusing to offer details of abuse as entertainment. I really appreciated that. There’s no emotional pornography here, and a lot of sound, psychological advice threaded into the story. It’s a rare achievement to pull off a book that is helpful in these ways without being dull or preachy, but Marie Yates has done just that thing. It would be a good book to give to anyone (regardless of age, even if it is marketed as a book for teens) who is dealing with the aftermath of abuse, bullying or other violence.
Even if we don’t run into these issues personally, so awful are the stats around domestic abuse and bullying, and the stats for rape, that the odds are you’ll know someone who has been here. You may not know that you know. Having some sense of what it looks like from the other side, is really helpful.
- eBook £3.99 || $6.99
- Oct 31, 2014. 978-1-78279-722-7.
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- Paperback £6.99 || $11.95
- Oct 31, 2014. 978-1-78279-723-4.
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Lights! Camera! Dissatisfaction...
by Kim Cayer
I loved this book. It made me laugh out loud, repeatedly, which is always a good start. It’s gloriously, outrageous, the life journey of the main character so surreal... and yet somehow faintly plausible. Full of improbably and comedic setups, an array of unlikely and hilarious characters, plenty of accidental crime, abject failure, unlikely rescue, whole arrays of fire to frying pan jumps and a central character who just doesn’t fit the romantic lead format. She’s plump, she wants a career more than she wants a romance (although she’s quite keen on getting laid, and her bedfellows mostly aren’t romance material either). Furthermore, improbable heroine Alice really doesn’t have much idea how to relate to people or what to do with most of them, or how to say ‘no’ when necessary, a lifetime of poverty and disaster has left her unable to handle success as well. I could empathise with her far more than I probably ought to admit.
Just when you think this book can’t possibly get any more outlandish, somehow, it does.
If you suspect you’d like chick lit if only it wasn’t mostly a form of romance and the heroines weren’t all beautiful, slender darlings with expensive wardrobes... if you’d
like the company of the kind of woman who eats donuts and spends a lot of time struggling with her career and who has no idea how to be elegant and slinky... you might well get along with Alice
Kumplunkem. I’d go for cheesecake with her any day.
- eBook £4.99 || $7.99
- Aug 29, 2014. 978-1-78279-567-4.
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- Paperback £11.99 || $20.95
- Aug 29, 2014. 978-1-78279-568-1.
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Don't
Drink and Fly (The Story of Bernice O'Hanlon, #1)
A story of struggles, dark family secrets, people haunted by the past and doing their best to figure out a future. There were a number of things I really liked about this story. It is a confusing,
messy sort of setup which is a good deal more like life than fiction, and as a consequence makes a nice change in a novel. I could not work out where it was going, and it kept surprising me. This is
something I like in a story, however, if you favour tidy, neatly explained everything clear and reasonably predictable writing, you probably won’t enjoy it. I liked the fact that, while the main
character is a spell-casting witch, this was not the central issue for the plot. The Paganism in this story is recognisable to me, this is the kind of witchcraft that fits into my world, these are
characters I could imagine meeting down the pub. It’s grounded and fantastical in equal measure, and I really like how the magical elements are handled.
- eBook £4.99 || $7.99
- Oct 31, 2014. 978-1-78279-015-0.
- BUY | AMAZON US | AMAZON UK
- Paperback £8.99 || $14.95
- Oct 31, 2014. 978-1-78279-016-7.
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