Where Gods walk amongst us.

Publisher: Orbit Books
Pages: 234
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-909039-45-2
First Published: 1st January 2010
Date Reviewed: 4th February 2014
Rating: 3/5

Yeine, happily living in Darr, was commanded to ‘return’ to her maternal family’s palace in Sky to become one of three heirs to the kingdom and the world. As she learns what her role is to be, she’s given a proposition by the earth-bound gods that may not save her but will save her homeland.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is a book that sports a different sort of fantasy but is unfortunately rather confusing, static, and badly written.

The world itself, or, rather, the possibilities for it, are wonderful and promising but Jemisin only goes so far in the building of it, and albeit that detailing the palace is understandable (the story is almost exclusively located there) it does make it hard for the reader to really see Yeine’s plight and her reasons for her actions.

The writing is often confusing. There is a constant switch between Yeine’s usual narration and her inner thoughts and torment, and there are times when she looks back at the day just passed in order to tell you something she forgot to tell you earlier. Whilst the style lends the book an individuality and Yeine a distinct voice, it also hints at a lack of planning, or, at least, the look of such. And at the end of the day the look of poor planning has the same result as an actual lack of planning.

The constant ‘switch’ in narration is a pity because it becomes apparent later on in the book that there was a real reason for it. The problem is, of course, that it is too little too late. What could have been an interesting exploration of Yeine’s sense of self is simply left to hindsight. It means that the switch may indeed work for the remainder of the book but that this doesn’t atone for the confusion of what came before.

The book lacks a true focus – is Yeine concerned about the gods, her homeland, or does she simply want to find out the truth of her mother? Yeine’s mother’s life may be intriguing but it is no match, story-wise, for what is happening at that present moment, to what is happening to the world and the gods, and Jemisin’s increasing focus on it moves away from the fantastical possibilities brought forth by the premise. Nor would Yeine’s mother’s life have a true bearing on Yeine in the future as Jemisin’s focus changes once again towards the very end.

Where the book does shine is in the variation of fantasy it employs. This is no high-fantasy travelling-the-world tale of dragons and witches, and whilst those are not bad elements and whilst the book could have spent more time away from the palace, it is good to have this difference. The city of Sky is at once realistic and utterly imagined. In Yeine’s land women rule (even if Yeine is not written convincingly in that way). There is a lot of unnecessary violence and bizarre thoughts but this does fit the genre. The problem is that Jemisin does not provide any reasons for the reader to care about anyone.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms had potential but much of that is lost. It’s possible Jemisin may detail more of the world in later books but without having much of an idea about anything beyond the palace already, not least the knowledge of what the hundred thousand kingdoms are, you may decide it’s not worth finding out.

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Yet another point in history where people were treated badly.

Publisher: Sceptre (Hodder)
Pages: 323
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-444-70401-3
First Published: 1st July 2010
Date Reviewed: 20th January 2014
Rating: 4/5

Born differently-abled, Grace later contracts polio and becomes, as far as the 1950s were concerned, ineducable and severely mentally impaired. Taken from her parents, she is institutionalised along with hundreds of other children and adults, forced into a situation of poor hygiene, neglect, and abuse. Grace’s inner world is full but she has difficulty being understood by those who believe she is stupid; the exception to this is Daniel, a boy who lost his arms in an accident and takes a shine to her.

Grace Williams Says It Loud is a semi-biographical story. A look at the horrors of institutionalisation and the way disabled people used to (and still are to some extent) seen, the book is a good starting point to learn about the truth of disability and social discrimination.

Henderson wrote the book in honour of her sister, whose disabilities were never properly diagnosed. Henderson herself is therefore very much a part of the book – whilst it may take an interview to learn that this is so, the author never excuses herself; her presence as the oft-hateful younger sister Sarah is unapologetic, realistic, and at times very damning.

Whilst the institution in this book may not be as quite as awful as some were, Henderson never holds back from detailing the horrors that occurred. She shows the abuse that was meted out by the staff – sadistic, sexual, forced medication (the latter often increasing the patients’ mental and physical issues) – as well as the numerous slurs and taunts. The words ‘spastic’, ‘mong’, and other denigrating phrases are here in abundance. It is of course worth noting that unlike other books written in our times, where authors use ‘retard’, ‘spastic’, and ‘spaz’ without thinking of the hurt this causes (consider that these words are similar in this way to the N word) Henderson’s use is medical, historical, and relevant.

The author shows just how much severely disabled people – at least ‘severely’ in the sense that they seem so on the surface – can be misunderstood. Grace may not be able to speak, but she is as intelligent as she could be given her lack of a formal education. She is capable of a sexual relationship and love. Her friend (or ‘boyfriend’ – whilst Grace speaks of love a little and has sex, love is one area that Henderson does not elaborate on) Daniel, treats her as he would any other person and whilst Grace is limited in how much she can tell us, being the only narrator and stuck in an institution, there is the suggestion that it is society that is the reason for the disability. This common idea, that society is the cause of disability, the person themselves more able if society helped them be so, is very much suggested in this book. Grace often responds, or starts, or tries, to respond to questions asked by those around her. The way Henderson writes shows that those people answer for Grace before they’ve even given her a chance, never seeing the issue that their belief in stupidity before proven guilty causes.

Henderson’s writing is easy to read but the necessarily restricted-to-a-few-locations story may sometimes prove boring. This is of course both the point and an inescapable truth. Grace is stuck in the hospital, she is not allowed to live to the full extent of her capability, and the narrative is written solely from her viewpoint. Indeed if the narrative switched it would be like a get-out card – if Henderson allowed the reader time away from Grace they would never be able to appreciate just how awful, how dull, how wrong these places were and can still be.

However, beyond this, the writing can at times prove difficult. The author mixes a highly literary style with short bullet-point-like sentences and paragraphs, and whilst you could say that Grace could well think this way, it just doesn’t work. If it is to show that Grace does have a mental impairment of sorts then it is understandable, and admittedly Henderson never tells the reader exactly what Grace’s differences are (this is a nice reprieve from the world’s obsession of having to know what is wrong with someone instead of just getting on with it), but it may prove confusing and it can change the pace in a way that it seems shouldn’t happen. Apart from this the constant and sudden switches between the current time and flashbacks can be confusing as there is nothing to separate the two strands of thought – you learn that Grace is now thinking of her childhood, for example, halfway through, because an age or year is mentioned. Switches happen, we change our thoughts constantly and suddenly, so it is realistic, but the difference in reality is that we of course know what we are thinking about, and if someone else is talking and switches subject we can ask them to explain. Grace could find explaining difficult of course, but the problem is that as readers, bystanders, we don’t have the chance to so much as ask.

The writing is problematic in places, but otherwise Grace Williams Says It Loud is an excellent book. It is incredibly important, it tells of the people that tend to be looked over in the media, it uses words in their true medical and historical contexts, and albeit that it is written by an able-bodied woman, it gives a voice to those society likes to forget.

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A match made in hell. Happily.

Publisher: Phoenix (Orion Books)
Pages: 461
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-7538-2766-6
First Published: 24th May 2012
Date Reviewed: 22nd January 2014
Rating: 5/5

Amy is missing. Nick was out at the beach having a coffee and when he received the call he drove straight back. The door was open; the living room showed signs of a struggle and mopped up blood; his wife was nowhere to be seen. Nick doesn’t really like his wife. And his wife doesn’t like him. They’re no longer getting on and Nick is the prime suspect. Because it makes sense, doesn’t it? The husband killed his wife; it happens in all the TV shows.

Gone Girl is a twisted, unreliable, yet undeniably magnificent thriller. Told from Nick and Amy’s perspectives – or is it? – the book keeps you on your toes for the entire ride.

The characters give Heathcliff a run for his money in the anti-hero stakes, both taking turns, in the way it is written if not in reality, of making you feel a (little, only ever a little) sympathy for them before you scorn them instead. It’s all rather akin to the way the public and media are swept along in the book. Flynn never once lets you find your feet. Is she going to have her characters present the truth? No; oh, perhaps in a moment? Nick and Amy are as unreliable as the British weather – far more ferocious than the wind, as quick and shocking as lightening but always ready to show a sunny smile. The book may have an ending, but even then you will leave not knowing whether somewhere buried in what you know – the various ‘truths’ – is the real (really, really, real) truth or not.

Needless to say the characters are shocking. These characters weren’t written to be liked or related to. Perhaps one of the characters is more shocking in particular – it’s hard to really say if one is worse than the other due to the unreliability – but either way they stoop to low depths. Calculating, manipulative, and that word again, twisted. It’s one of those ironic situations where you can see that two characters are absolutely made for each other but you can’t say you care.

Flynn’s writing is exceptional. It’s not literary (literary would have ruined this one) – it’s the dialogue, the characterisation, the overall feel. Even the excessive swearing has its place. Flynn’s writing style as a whole is simply different. She brings the characters to life in a way that is rarely seen. The first-person narrative makes it even more damning and sly.

There are many turns in this book as well as the literal switching back and forth in mind set. There are purposes the characters don’t let you in on until later on, too. This point is worth mentioning because a fair way through the book the narrative seems to change – it seems Flynn isn’t going to give the reader what they want, but she’s better than you’ll assume. And no matter whether you like the ending not, it is difficult to say it doesn’t fit the book. Various endings are possible here, some that would provide instant gratification for the readers, some the instant gratification for the characters, others that appear to weaken the characters or to push the book to end quickly, those with loose threads, and those that would be most satisfying a while after you’ve finished. Like the characters, Flynn’s authorship is unreliable – purposefully – and she isn’t going to budge. If you want to know the details you’ll have to stay put and keep reading.

With it’s numerous twists and turns, the diversions to places that suggest a loss of the iron grip Flynn has, the book can seem long at times. Yet except for those moments when you wonder if Flynn will keep her end of the bargain, it’s never disappointing. It doesn’t feel as lengthy as it is, and when you look at the amount of time in which the majority of the story occurs, it’s really no time at all.

The best way to sum Gone Girl up is to say that whether or not it’s exactly what you pictured, this book is one of those few that are unlikely not to meet your expectations in terms of the genre, the hate, and the overall package.

Amy wants you to read this book, and if you’ve been at all intrigued it’s likely she’ll get her way. She always does.

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A book written during the events it tells of.

Publisher: Vintage (Random House)
Pages: 342
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-099-48878-1
First Published: 2004
Date Reviewed: 16th January 2014
Rating: 5/5

Original language: French
Original title: [As above] (French Suite)
Translated by: Sandra Smith

As the Germans invade France, numerous people head to the regions still free. The refugees are composed of all the social classes, including the middle class Pericands, regular bank workers the Michaunds, and an uppity novelist. As the invasion becomes occupation, a German moves into the Angellier house, where an unhappy Lucile awaits the someday arrival of her unfaithful husband. No one, neither French nor German, knows what will happen in the days ahead.

Suite Française is a theme and character driven book that defies tradition and looks at war with a unique, humorous, and tragic lens. Published posthumously, decades after the author was killed at Auschwitz, the book as it stands is composed of two of a planned five novellas, still in the drafting stage.

What a draft this is. Némirovsky’s book, translated into English by Sandra Smith, reads as though it were almost ready for publication. Beyond a few errors, some of which the translator has edited, there is little to suggest that the work, beyond the obvious lack of a conclusion, had not been through several rewrites already.

The writing is exceptional. Némirovsky speaks of the horrors of her time yet includes a constant thread of humour. It is not laugh-out-loud humour and mostly pertains to social class differences, but for its use it shows that in times of plight some light-heartedness goes a long way – the characters don’t find much funny; the humour is from the author. The book is very literary and may prove easy to loose yourself in. This is particularly interesting when you consider that the book, beyond the basic thread of the war, lacks a plot.

There are ‘mini’ plots here and there, for example the story of one character’s love for another, but by and large the book simply discusses the day to day life, if it can be called such, of the characters. Indeed the major aspect of this book isn’t the characters per se, it is society. In looking at the war, Némirovsky isn’t describing the acts of the enemy and saying how awful they are. She does include horrors, of course, but the awfulness focused on in Suite Française is the lack of compassion and community of the refugees. The middle classes thank God the lower classes were bombed instead of them, the lower classes don’t understand the middle classes, an egotistical man thinks his celebrity will continue to get him whatever he wants, and everywhere people are stealing everything from everybody else. For the most part no one helps anyone else, and that is the point Némirovsky makes in the first novella, Storm In June. Not that being out for oneself leads to long-lasting complications – though, again, this is another point that is made; maybe being out for themselves should affect the characters.

Class divides remain in times of strife. A prime example of the irony of a Christian woman of the middle class is shown here:

“Do you see how good our Lord Jesus is? Just think, we could be those unfortunate wretches!”

In the above case, the author is blunt – the sentence is a flashback a young man has of his mother after he has returned from running off to join the army, and, as he says, “Hypocrites, frauds!”

What is particularly interesting about the book, yes, beyond the theme work and different approach, is Némirovsky’s writing of the Germans in the second novella, Dolce. Whilst the Germans were written as one mass in the first novella, in Dolce there are various individuals assigned to live in certain French homes, and these men are written in a way that borders on compassion. This may not sound so strange as a whole, as war is known to be more important at the top than the bottom, and the German soldiers want to fit in despite being the conquerors, but it is somewhat strange when you consider that Némirovsky was writing of the enemy sitting outside her window, so to speak. In Dolce, the author gives personality and voice to the people despised as she wrote her book, to an enemy that wanted those of her background dead – an enemy that would later arrest and kill her. For this personification, Dolce makes for uncomfortable reading, most especially now in our present day (who knows how it might have been received if the work had been published just after the war?), where we know what happened and we know a lot more than Némirovsky would have at the time. How should the reader respond to the feelings of compassion the author invites – should we just read the book as a work of fiction or is it Némirovsky’s hope that we look inside ourselves and question those feelings? Should we be chastising ourselves for even considering these invaders’ thoughts? Should we be viewing them as people that are as human as the French? Should we be thinking about how easy it is to be led by someone to believe they are a good person?

Finally, another factor that is interesting due to the time and situation in which the book was written, there is a somewhat ironic (sadly ironic) comparison to be made between the French soldier, Jean-Marie Michaund, and the author herself. Jean-Marie wants to be a writer, and during his stay at a farm, Némirovsky writes:

He wrote with a chewed-up pencil stub, in a little notebook which he hid against his heart. He felt he had to hurry: something inside him was making him anxious, was knocking on an invisible door.

Suite Française is a masterpiece; it makes no difference that it is unfinished. (Though it must be said that, at least in the English translation, Némirovsky’s notes and a rough plan for the rest of the book have been included.) It may be low on plot, but it is high in social studies, in character development, and in beautiful language. Sporting vast appeal for those interested in social history as well as those who simply enjoy reading, Suite Française is one you shouldn’t pass up.

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The One you don’t need to drop anything for – except the building you’ve been contracted to demolish, of course.

Publisher: Carina Press (Harlequin)
Pages: 177
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-426-89433-6
First Published: 10th September 2012
Date Reviewed: 20th June 2013
Rating: 5/5

With his brother running the family’s lodge and his home town, Whitford, being rife with gossip, Mitch prefers to stay away, making full use of the travel his demolition business requires. His meetings with women are strictly no-strings and he’s spent time with many of the women in Whitford, leaving before any attachment can form. Now back to help broken-legged Josh, the arrangement with new-girl Paige is the same as any other. Paige has a business too, and no intention of leaving her adoptive town, but that won’t necessarily make it easier to leave once the couple realise they’ve more than just sexual chemistry.

All He Ever Needed is the first book to deal with the boys in Maine, and the fourth book in the Kowalski series overall. The family aspect is different to the other three, given the lack of children and the fact the siblings don’t live near each other, but this is made up for somewhat by the sheer number of secondary characters that form the backdrop of Whitford. The character development is fantastic, each person in the lives of Mitch and Paige is detailed well enough that the reader can feel as though they live in the town themselves.

This is not a story of giving up what you like in order to be with another, indeed the no-strings arrangement itself is to save Mitch and Paige from the hassle of working out which elements of their lives to leave by the wayside. Both characters are ambitious in their own right – both have built their own businesses almost from scratch, and whilst there are no plans for any leaps financially, both like what they’ve made. Stacey never suggests that either should give up their dreams, beyond the odd understandable moment of wistfulness, and the reader is likely to be satisfied with the resolution at the end.

The chemistry is fine. The characters may not commend themselves to memory quite as much as, say, Sean and Emma (Sean and Emma having a particularly comic arrangement) but it works, and Stacey makes a strong enough case for their being together. The sex may be the initial reason for the match but there aren’t too many scenes with it included; the overall set-up of the family dominates the book, as is expected by now.

The book lacks the secondary romance that a few of the others have, concentrating on Mitch and Paige and taking the odd glance at other people just to keep the town dynamic. A few premises are created, which the reader will later find were the planning stages for future books.

The only blemish is, perhaps, the way the characters remain steadfast. This may sound the reverse of the above paragraph that lauds ambition, but it is the repetition rather than the fact that is more the issue. For example much of Paige’s decision to swear off men has been influenced by her flighty mother’s numerous going-after-him relationships, but once love enters the equation Paige’s continuing self-imposed rule seems a little redundant as you know what the ultimate conclusion will be. Nevertheless it is a far cry from ruining the book and is but, as said, a blemish.

All He Ever Needed may feel very different to the previous books, but with good reason. The change of setting was necessary for Stacey to introduce these cousins that were often mentioned in the previous trilogy, and the sentiment is still the same. These Kowalskis are certainly a different part of the family, but there is enough similarity to appeal to fans of Joe, Kevin, and Sean.

All He Ever Needed is all you ever wanted in the continuing saga of the Kowalski family.

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