Book Review: The Lake of Dreams

From Goodreads: Lucy Jarrett is at a crossroads in her life, still haunted by her father's unresolved death a decade earlier. She returns to her hometown in Upstate New York, The Lake of Dreams, and, late one night, she cracks the lock of a window seat and discovers a collection of objects. They appear to be idle curiosities, but soon Lucy realizes that she has stumbled across a dark secret from her family's past, one that will radically change her—and the future of her family—forever.

Thoughts: This book should have been so much more than it was.I struggled to get into it, struggled to stay with it and was relieved when I finished it. It had all the elements of a good story but it just fell flat for me. It had a strong feminist story line which some how missed the mark, family intrigue which appeared to be way more important than it was, the chance for someone to struggle with and resolve the direction of her life that happened way to easily. In the end it was just very...meh. And that's the best I can say.

Book Review: The Little Friend

From Goodreads: Bestselling author Donna Tartt returns with a grandly ambitious and utterly riveting novel of childhood, innocence and evil.
The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet - unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss.

Thoughts: A couple of years ago, stuck on the couch with a broken leg, I read The Secret History. I really enjoyed, but knew it had been an intense read. That, coupled with the fact that The Little Friend was so big has put me off reading it. However, as part of my TBR Spring Clean Challenge, I picked it up and started. So much of what I loved about The Secret History was there - solid characters, wonderful descriptions, a building of suspense. Again, a dense, attention demanding read, but enjoyable, thought provoking. Tartt sets you down in the middle of a sweltering Mississippi town and takes you into the lives of two very different families. The Cleves - a dysfunctional middle class family of some standing in the town; a family which has never recovered from the suspicious death of Robin a the age of 9. The Ratliffs - a family of four poverty stricken, drug addled brothers and their grandma. You can smell the different houses, see the different people as you read. The story slowly brings parts these two families together as Harriet spends her summer trying to solve the murder of her brother over 10 years ago.
I loved the writing. Tartt is a vivid story teller but (and it's a big but) the story just stops! Nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - is resolved at the end! While I also detest books where everything is tied up in a neat bow at the end, this type of ending is equally frustrating. It truly felt like she had a word limit, she reached it and stopped. Not quite mid sentence, but it may as well have been!  I actually checked to see if there were pages missing.
Maybe it's me - maybe I'm the one missing something, but to say I was disappointed by the end of this is a major understatement. I felt betrayed (the book is 555 pages of small type) and abandoned. I'd formed an attachment to Harriet and her struggle. I needed to know she would be ok, but there is nothing to hold onto. Nothing to give you hope, nothing to suggest that the summer changes any thing at all for her or the Ratliffs. Disappointing.

Book Review: Hand Me Down World

From Goodreads: This is a story about a woman.
And the truck driver who mistook her for a prostitute.
The old man she robbed and the hunters who smuggled her across the border.
The woman whose name she stole, the wife who turned a blind eye.
This is the story of a mother searching for her child.

Thoughts: This book is part of my TBR Spring Clean Challenge. I've had this book for a couple of years but have put off reading it. The main reason for my reticence is my memory of reading Mr Pip, also by Lloyd Jones. While I enjoyed it, I remember a feeling of struggling with it. Once I re-read my review, it obvious the struggle came from thinking I was missing something. I might have to have another go at it.
As for Hand Me Down World - I needn't have worried. I tore through this book in just 3 days. I so desperately wanted to know what was going to happen. A woman sets out from Tunisia to find her child - the child whose father has taken and returned to Germany with. From her trip on a people smuggler boat to her trek from Sicily, through Italy, across the Swiss alps and finally to Berlin, Germany, her tale is told by the testimonies of those who helped her along the way. Once in Berlin, we get to read the longer testimonies of two who helped her there. This way of telling the tale give the reader only a glimpse of the woman who we finally come to know as Ines. All your impressions comes from third parties and as Ines is not very forth coming with details, you are left wondering about her thought processes and motivations. You know she is vulnerable, but she is also determined and, at times, incredibly frustrating! Finally, in the last third you get Ines point of view. Not surprisingly, her interpretation of events does not always correlate with what you have already been told and you are left to wonder who is telling the truth - or more to the point, which part of each testimony is true. In the end, I'm not sure I knew Ines any better for having read her story.
The use of testimonies to tell this story works. It sounds like it wouldn't and if I'd known about it before I 'd read the book I would have been very skeptical about it. However Lloyd pulls it off with brilliance. Everyone's voice sounds genuine. The spin they put on their part of the tale sounds plausible, as if the narrators truly believe every word they are saying. Ines' character stays consistent from one to another - she never lets her guard down. I truly enjoyed this book and will be looking for more of Jones' work.

TBR Spring Clean Challenge.

Spring has sprung - at least it has in Brisbane, Australia. Chances are there are still parts of the country battling the cold, but it's definitely warming up here!

Since buying my Kindle, I've bought most of my books via it. It's easier to lug about and I know I will never be short of a book. However, I have managed to collect a small pile of hard copy TBR's. My aim this September is to whittle it down a bit by devoting my reading almost exclusively to the pile you see above. So the rules are as follows:

1. My reading in September must come from the pile of books above.

2. The only books that can come from somewhere else are library books that need to be read before their due date (at the moment, there is only one, but I have several on request that may or may not come in over the month), or books that are the second of a series where the first must be read. (only candidate as far as I know is Susan Duncan's Gone Fishing)

3. If I am reading a book from another source, I must read one from the pile straight after.

4. If I start the book and am not liking it, I am under no obligation to finish it, but must choose another book from the pile to substitute.

5. If I am enjoying the book, but finding in unwieldy I may purchase it to read on my kindle - especially if it's something I am likely to read again.

Anyone is welcome to join me! Just head over to my tracking page and leave a comment. Follow my rules or make up your own - what ever works for you. Most of all - have fun!