Lyrebird – by Cecelia Ahern

25 03 2017

If you read this regularly you’ll know I’m a big fan of Cecelia Ahern. The last adult book she wrote wasn’t a favourite of mine but this one is back on form, back to the days of things that are slightly unreal, not fantasy, but not quite normal!

Lyrebird is actually Laura. She’s lived a very sheltered existence to the point that no one knows she exists, she doesn’t even have a birth certificate. When she was 16 her mother died and so she went to live in a run down cottage on the land her father owns. Ten years on she’s discovered by a team making a documentary about her father and his brother and the life they lived on their farm when they visit after her father’s death.

What I haven’t told you is that Laura is a bit unusual. She makes noises. Perfect imitations of any sound she’s ever heard – from her Gaga’s voice to a chainsaw to someone running their hand over their stubble. Obviously the documentary team are intrigued, and with her father gone they try to find a way to support her in her future – they plan to make a documentary about her life and her extraordinary ability.

A really interesting idea, great mix of characters and a wonderfully told story! Definitely one to read!

Favourite one-liner from the book: “Why can’t people just be really good at something? Why do they have to be the best at something?”


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The Testament – by John Grisham

25 01 2017

Yes, you’re right, this is not my normal genre! My Dad recommended it to me first, and I thought, maybe. Then my Mum did, and we generally have a very similar taste in books, so I said I’d give it a go.

At first sight, this book is about Troy Phelan, an elderly billionaire. But when he jumps out of the window after signing a last minute will, we realise we won’t be spending much time with him. This last will writes out his six debt-ridden children who were all expecting to do rather well out of his death, and instead leaves his fortune to an illegitimate daughter who is a missionary in the depths of Brazil, whom no one has heard of until this point.

The story actually turns out to be about Nate O’Riley, fresh out of rehab, he is sent by Phelan’s lawyer to Brazil to try and find this Rachel, get her to let them act for her, and prevent the awful Phelan children from getting their hands on the fortune and frittering it away. The book is full of drama as they have to travel to find her by boats up rivers, through crazy storms, and there’s even a bout of Dengue fever to deal with…

I think the thing that struck me most about this book is how well the Christian side of it is portrayed. Rachel is a missionary, she talks about her faith in a very real way, not twee, not cliche. Through his time with her, and with a Vicar he meets back in the states, Nate comes to a point where he prays, and wants to know more about God. It’s written in such a respectful way that you don’t hear much of these days. Very impressed.

I was worried it’d be a bit heavy but it was a pretty easy read in the end, definitely gripping. That said, I did see the ending coming – sometimes when you look at how little of the book is left you realise that really it can only go one way.

the-testament


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The Versions of Us – by Laura Barnett

30 07 2016

The front cover cites Elle Magazine as saying this is “One Day meets Sliding Doors” and I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Eva is a student at Cambridge University in 1958 and is cycling to a lecture but swerves to avoid a dog while Jim looks on.

  • Version 1 – as she swerves she goes over a nail and gets a puncture and Jim comes to her aid
  • Version 2 – the dog changed direction and so she just stopped to gather herself, then continued after Jim asked if she was ok
  • Version 3 – as she swerves she loses balance and falls off, again Jim comes over to help

And from these, we have three parallel stories that we pop in on at varying points over the next 56 years.

The beginning is hard to get into until each of the three threads have become a little more distinct and easy to separate out, but once you get to that point it really is a good read. We see marriages to different people, relationships with different characters, some who pop up in more than one version, and some who are only in one. We don’t always pop in at the same point, but occasionally all three come together to one event, but you read it happening in different ways with different people and allegiances, eg a brother’s birthday, a parent’s funeral (not a spoiler, we’re spanning half a century here!).

I know of one person who read this book in a different order – reading all of version 1 first, then all of version 2, then all of version 3. I’d love to do this if I didn’t have so much else to read as I’d really be interested to see how each thread flows on its own!

It’s quite interesting to cover than length of time in a book as well, the throwaway comments about fashions and hairstyles, as well as the first time facebook gets a mention right at the end almost feeling too new-fangled!

After a tricky start I really liked this. The first half took me about 3 weeks, the second half was less than a week I reckon! I often find that’s the way with books, but with this one more so.

the versions of us


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The Marble Collector – by Cecelia Ahern

7 05 2016

Another trip through an airport, another early paperback!

Sabrina is a mum with a young family, and her Dad, Fergus, is in a home/hospital sort of place following a stroke that’s left his memory damaged. The book is set over one day for Sabrina, who tells us her side of the story, whilst Fergus writes from all ages from childhood through to the day Sabrina is living.

It was hard to follow in places – with each chapter you had to remind yourself who was talking, and if it was Fergus, then work out when on earth it was!

I wouldn’t say this was my favourite of her books, but still a good read as Sabrina spends a day trying to work out and investigating what secret it is that her dad’s been hiding from his entire family for his whole life – marbles!

Favourite quotes from this book:

  • “The eye directs the brain, the brain directs the hand. Don’t forget that. Always keep an eye on the target, Fergus, and your brain will make it happen.”
  • “When you’re dead you’d think you’d want to just enjoy being dead without having to worry about the people you left behind. Worrying is for the living.”
  • “The best way to be the best you can be is to be dead.”
  • “Perhaps it’s true that you never know yourself until someone else truly knows you.”

the marble collector


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Dream a little Christmas Dream – by Giovanna Fletcher

2 01 2016

Giovanna Fletcher seems to be another author whose books I’ve gotten into the habit of reading, so when she brought out a little Christmas Novella like last year, based on the novel she had published this summer, I thought, why not?!

I was so keen to finish my last book that yes, I have read this one in January, but it’s only 85 pages and I managed it in about 3 sittings.

It’s warm, fuzzy, and predictable – I had the ending pegged from only a few pages in, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t still give me goosebumps at the end, very feel good, pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a mini Christmas chick-lit read. Delightful.

dream a little christmas dream


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Look who’s back – by Timur Vermes

31 12 2015

We’re all taught not to judge a book by it’s cover, but I believe it’s ok to pick one up because of its cover to see if the blurb is any good. (In fact, I think I did a similar thing with Paradoxology!) I scrolled past this book on Amazon and took a double take at the distinctive cover, read the blurb and was totally won over by the concept – a complete impulse buy.

The best way for me to tell you what this book is about is to put the blurb below, because it tells you exactly what it’s about!

Berlin, Summer 2011. Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. Things have changed – no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognises his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman.

People certainly recognise him, albeit as a flawless impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable happens, and the ranting Hitler goes viral, becomes a YouTube star, gets his own T.V. show, and people begin to listen. But the Führer has another programme with even greater ambition – to set the country he finds a shambles back to rights.

There really isn’t that much else to say about it, it does exactly what it says on the tin, and things enfold pretty much as you would expect 🙂 There are some great one liners, and some really good observations on modern day living, as if it were just anyone who had jumped forward 70 years or so!

If you’re offended by the concept, probably don’t read it, but if it intrigues you, then definitely do!

look who's back


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The Rosie Project – by Graeme Simsion

29 08 2014

Firstly, this is the first book review I’ve not managed to find the correct book cover for online, and it annoys me more than it should! Mine is the same as below but turquoise!

Anyway, enough of that, from the back of this book I gathered it was about a guy who decided to find the perfect woman he’d start matching them up to criteria and find the one who literally ticked all the boxes – then met Rosie who didn’t tick all the boxes, “and yet…”

However, it’s so much more than that. From the outset it’s clear that this guy is massively socially awkward, somewhere on “the spectrum” (well we all are, but this guy further along than most), and his whole life is rigidly set by schedules, criteria, etc, and so he tries this stance with women too. The book is narrated by this character, so it’s great to see how he thinks – not dissimilarly to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

There’s a fairly major sub plot to this book too, and much as it’s often perceived as a bad thing, I kind of saw where it was going from pretty early on. But as there were some major curveballs thrown in which massively made me doubt myself, it definitely kept me going, and I really was hooked, I read this in less than a week I think?! Brilliant.

the rosie project


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Billy and Me – by Giovanna Fletcher

7 07 2014

I should admit the main reason I bought this book was because it was written by the wife of Tom from McFly, but I’d also had a friend read and like it, and it’s chick lit, so thought it was definitely worth a try.

The book focuses around a girl who lives in a small village, working in a tea shop, and falls for a young man who happens to be a massive teen movie star (which she doesn’t realise) who is filming locally, and what happens when she’s thrown massively into the limelight.

I enjoyed the read, it was an easy holiday book, though it got a little sickly sweet in places and though it has it’s ups and downs, it’s all a bit too easy!

billy and me


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The Help – by Kathryn Stockett

15 03 2014

I’d seen the film, but it was quite a while ago and I didn’t really remember it, so in many ways, this was like reading a new book.

The story is set in 1960s Mississippi, and looks primarily into the lives of a few white women, their maids and their children. Now I wasn’t anywhere near alive in the ’60s, but I thought I knew a bit about what had gone on. I know about Rosa Parks, I know about Martin Luther King, and I know about Apartheid in South Africa. I did not know that a white woman would consider, let alone actually build a separate toilet outside her house for her maid to use so that she wouldn’t catch diseases from her. I didn’t know that to serve a white woman her coffee you would set it on the table rather than give it to her for her fear that her hands may touch yours and catch something. I am privileged to have grown up in an environment where this would never be tolerated, though I know that in some places things still aren’t quite right.

It was really encouraging to find out at the end that while it this wasn’t based on the authors life per say, she did grow up with a black maid who she was close to around this time, and so in general it was based on life at that time, though the book itself is fiction. It does close with a nice little account of her story in the back though.

The book itself has three women sharing the job of narration, two black maids and one white woman who isn’t quite like the rest of them. Just home from college and living back with her mother while her friends are married and enjoying high society life, she is far more interested in what life is like for the maids.

Definitely a bit of an emotional rollercoaster – there’s time for laughter, sadness and anger definitely, but it really opened my eyes to what things used to be like compared to what they are now, but also was genuinely a great read. One of those books you carry around with you incase you find a chance to read a few more pages!

the help


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