Book Review: So Much for That

From Goodreads: Shep Knacker has long saved for "the Afterlife," an idyllic retreat in the Third World where his nest egg can last forever. Exasperated that his wife, Glynis, has concocted endless excuses why it's never the right time to go, Shep finally announces he's leaving for a Tanzanian island, with or without her. Yet Glynis has some news of her own: she's deathly ill. Shep numbly puts his dream aside, while his nest egg is steadily devastated by staggering bills that their health insurance only partially covers. Astonishingly, illness not only strains their marriage but saves it.
From acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Lionel Shriver comes a searing, ruthlessly honest novel. Brimming with unexpected tenderness and dry humor, it presses the question: How much is one life worth?

Thoughts: Lionel Shriver is one of those authors that makes you uncomfortable. Her subject matters are not pretty and she doesn't sugar coat her stories at all. However I find them compelling and hard to put down. In So Much for That, we follow the story of Shep, a man who is all ready to leave his life for a simpler one - something he has planned and saved for for years. It all comes crashing down when not only does his wife get a cancer diagnosis, they discover their health insurance will in no way cover all the costs. Suddenly his nest egg starts shrinking, and fast.
To tell you the truth, Shep annoyed the hell out of me. His inability to say no to people was, at times, infuriating and nauseating. I wanted to shout at him to grow a back bone!
And really the book is pretty depressing. Along with Shep and Glynis' gruelling battle with cancer, Shep's best friend Jackson has a daughter with a rare genetic disorder which will lead to an early death and a marriage badly damaged by a not so good decision. There are a lot of people in various amounts of pain in this book.
But it is worth hanging on for the end. Suddenly in the last 50 pages in turns from being this dark, depressing tale to one of love, light and joy. And Shriver manages to do it without you feeling like you have been cheated or lied to. I ended the book with a smile on my face and that I did not expect.

Book Review: Big Brother

Goodreads: For Pandora, cooking is a form of love. Alas, her husband, Fletcher, a self-employed high-end cabinetmaker, now spurns the “toxic” dishes that he’d savored through their courtship, and devotes hours each day to manic cycling. Then, when Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at the airport, she doesn’t recognize him. In the years since they’ve seen one another, the once slim, hip New York jazz pianist has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened? After Edison has more than overstayed his welcome, Fletcher delivers his wife an ultimatum: It’s him or me.

Rich with Shriver’s distinctive wit and ferocious energy, Big Brother is about fat: an issue both social and excruciatingly personal. It asks just how much sacrifice we'll make to save single members of our families, and whether it's ever possible to save loved ones from themselves.

Thoughts: Shriver inspiration for this book came from her own brother who died from complications due to morbid obesity. My first thought was, could you write this book without that personal experience? There is a lot of stigma around weight, carrying it and losing it. As someone who does struggle with my weight, I know how annoyed and incensed I get when someone who has never had a weight issue tells me how to lose weight or, even worse, how fat they are. You feel insulted and belittled and it's only recently that I have come to accept that quite often that's not what people mean. The thing is fat is a very personal issue and one that people are frequently judged for by strangers, the media and even our own families. By having had experience with this issue through a family member, Shriver lends a legitimacy to it.
This is the first of Shriver's books I've read the whole way through since We Need to Talk About Kevin and I enjoyed it. She raises many questions about relationships, loyalty and blame. I also found the dichotomy between a husband who over controlled food and a brother who had no control over food interesting. Was what her husband doing any better than what her brother was doing? And again, having had personal experience of a certain level of food control in my childhood, I was aware of the possible implications on the kids at a later date.
Loyalty was a big thing to. Who do you owe your loyalty to? A family member you have chosen (your husband) or a family member you have had your whole life? (your brother) Or is it a matter of choosing who needs you most at that time? While I could understand Fletcher (her husband's) reactions, I felt he was an incredibly selfish man. He was also one of those who pre judges those who are fat and immediately assumes they can not change, that they are at complete fault for their situation and if they would just show a bit of will power they would be fine.  He is the exact person who makes you feel that you can never change, you will never lose the weight and so why should you try? In fact I wonder if Pandora would have chosen Emerson if Fletcher was not such as arsehole.
Then there is the end. It's not what you expect and I can imagine that some people would feel betrayed and angry about it. I was at first, but the more I thought about it, the more ok I was with it. And while I'd love to say more, I can't for fear of spoiling the book.
Big Brother is very readable. Funny in parts (laugh aloud funny), tragic in many. If you are incredibly sensitive about weight issues I wouldn't recommend it, but I do think it gives an interesting take on a growing issue in the western world.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver

This was my second reading of this immensely disturbing book.

Kevin is written from the point of view of Eva, Kevin's mother. They are letters to Kevin's father, Franklin in the aftermath of Kevin murdering seven of his high school class mates, a teacher and a cafeteria worker. As I said, the book is disturbing.

What I found most interesting this time through though, is how different I feel about the characters. Before I started blogging my books, I kept a reading journal. In it I review Kevin after my first reading and while I am angry with Franklin (and still was with this second reading), I was incredibly sympathetic towards Eva. With the second reading, I wasn't so on her side. Yes, I was sympathetic for what she is going through - may none of us ever know what it is to parent a child who performs such a horrific act - but I was a lot less sympathetic for her while Kevin was growing up. This time, rather than seeing Kevin as a purely evil child who had hoodwinked his father and many others, I seriously questioned Eva's role in shaping her child. I found both Eva and Franklin more interested in what was in it for them - why was she not getting from Kevin what she felt was her right as a mother. For Franklin, Kevin was just an instrument to fulfill a boyhood fantasy of what the perfect father was. Eva focused on Kevin's faults only, Franklin refused to see them. I kept asking myself at what point do you acknowledge your child has problems and actually seek help?? Eva knows all the problems, she recites them frequently, but at no point does she seem to want to do anything to deal with them. Kevin so obviously needed professional help and I truly feel his parents let him and his victims down by not seeking it.

Kevin is not an enjoyable book, but it is thought provoking. I'm looking forward to the discussion surrounding it when my book group next meets.