Review: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Somehow I wasn't even aware of the existence of I Capture the Castle until Laura's review earlier this year... although now I reread that, she didn't know about it until she was 20 either. Huh. Anyway, apparently it's one of those staple classics that every woman should read (aside from the fact that neither Laura nor I 'stapled' it until we were 25)... but I'll be honest. I don't get it.

Plot summary: Cassandra Mortmain lives with her bohemian and impoverished family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. She records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her fadingly glamorous stepmother, Topaz, her little brother, Thomas, and her eccentric novelist father who suffers from a financially crippling writer's block. However, all their lives are turned upside down when the American heirs to the castle arrive and Cassandra finds herself falling in love for the first time.

I know, I'm sorry. I really wanted to like this one, especially as I know it's so universally loved and I occasionally do like books, you know. It just read to me like an older, longer and more tedious version of Little Women.

This book had its good points. It absolutely did. My review notebook doesn't quite enlighten me as to what they were and I'm a month behind with reviews, so I can't remember myself... but I'm sure it did. Probably. My lasting memory of I Capture the Castle is of beautiful prose but not a whole lot of actual content.

It's a very character-driven novel, which is I usually quite like. Unfortunately the characters are alternately flat and lifeless, or so annoying I want to shake them. Combining the two is quite a feat. It's told using a first person narrative as we're theoretically reading Cassandra's diary... so how is it possible that I feel I don't know her at all? I may as well have been reading the minutes of my dentist appointment it's so abnormally clinical.

My problem, character-wise, is that we're told to like somebody and then suddenly told not to like them, but by other characters. We're never shown their true personalities so we can make up our own minds, thus it feels a little bit convoluted at times. Cassandra changes her mind about people so often that the other personalities never get chance to stabilise.

However, the prose is beautiful and there are some lovely passages. There's one where Cassandra talks about how she imagines scenarios in her head but then grows to rely on them to get her through the day, which is something I think a lot of teenagers do. I don't find her to be at all relatable on the whole, but this particular quote kind of resonated with me:

Rose came in while Simon was kissing me and was absolutely livid - or was that a later imagining? There have been so many that they have gradually merged into each other. I don't think I could bring myself to describe any of them in detail because, though they are wonderful at the time, they give me a flat, sick, ashamed feeling to look back on. And they are like a drug, one needs them oftener and oftener and has to make them more and more exciting - until at last one's imagination won't work at all.

Most of it, however, was simultaneously boring and melodramatic. I found the first half to be much more interesting than the second half, because it does start to drag towards the end. I felt that the entire point of the novel was lost as it tried to follow too many different paths at the same time. The actual ending made me want to push Cassandra off an extra large cliff as I really can't stand self-imposed martyrdom.

I kind of feel like I should apologise for not liking this book and I'm not really sure why. I know it's loved by an awful lot of people but it's just not for me. The flat and irritating characters plus a rambling plot just didn't add up to something I could 'click' with. I think I'll stick to Little Women.

Read Laura's more positive review of I Capture the Castle at Devouring Texts. 

Review: We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

You'd never believe how long I've put off writing this review; it's just going to be impossible. Not only did this book make me feel such a complex range of emotions, but every single person I've talked to seems to have taken something different from We Need To Talk About Kevin. Ah well, here goes nothing.

Plot summary: Eva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who tried to befriend him. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her absent husband, Franklyn. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

In Lionel Shriver's afterword she says, 'Though any writer is pleased by admiring reviews, I've been more fascinated by the responses to Kevin from so-called 'ordinary' readers. Not only are many of these amateur reviews well written and reflective, but they divide almost straight down the middle into what seems to be reviews of two different books.'

That's exactly it (as much as I bristle at being called ordinary). I've spent quite a while talking to Ellie about this and I swear that she's read a completely different book because her viewpoint is almost the exact opposite of mine. The basic point of We Need To Talk About Kevin is what drove him to murder seven classmates and two adults in a highschool gym - did his unaffectionate mother drive him to it or was he just born 'evil?'

There doesn't seem to be any middle ground here at all - you either completely believe that Eva shouldn't have had children in the first place or you feel desperately sorry for her and the way Kevin turned out. That's a testament to Lionel Shriver's great writing - there are two books intertwined within and your own experiences and your own morals (I think my nine months of working with serial rapists affected my judgement) determine which version plays out in your head.

You know what happened right from the beginning; it's even in the blurb. Kevin shot people and is now in prison. It's hardly a secret. But that's all you know until Eva unravels it for you, little by little. It's as if she's telling a story to her estranged husband but with the benefit of hindsight, and it's that hindsight that makes this story fascinating.

I have reflected on the fact that for most of us, there is a hard, impassable barrier between the most imaginatively detailed depravity and its real-life execution. It's the same solid steel wall that inserts itself between a knife and my wrist even when I'm at my most disconsolate. So how was Kevin able to raise that crossbow, point it at Laura's chestbone, and then really, actually, in time and space, squeeze the release? I can only assume he discovered what I never wish to. That there is no barrier.

This book is perfect. Well, no, actually it's horrible. But it's perfectly written. It's not just what Kevin eventually ends up doing, it's the little details that really 'get' you and keep you looking over your shoulder for days to come. His mannerisms are so spot-on and vaguely terrifying that it's a masterpiece of characterisation.

Eva is also a perfectly written character, but one I had an awful lot more sympathy for. Not killing nine people helps with that, I've found. I wouldn't say I liked her, but I had a lot of respect for her honesty and her willingness to admit her own flaws. Plus, nobody deserves to go through what she has, regardless of... well, anything.

Franklin, Kevin's father, is a little bit flatter as a character but then he doesn't feature half as much as Kevin and Eva do. If I'm honest, I'd have to admit that I hated him more than the other two combined, just for being so damned naive and the infuriating way he undermined Eva at every opportunity. Maybe I should pin any 'blame' on him for lack of appropriate discipline.

I might be more kindly disposed to this ultra-secular notion that whenever bad things happen someone must be held accountable if a curious little halo of blamelessness did not seem to surround those very people who perceive themselves as bordered on every side by wickedness. That is, it seems to be the same folks who are inclined to sue builders who did not perfectly protect them from the depredations of an earthquake who will be the first to claim that their son failed his math test because of attention defecit disorder, and not because he spent the night before at a video arcade instead of studying complex fractions.

It's not just the characters though. What well and truly makes this book is the altering relationship between Kevin and Eva. I've never seen anything like it and I can't even begin to decide which adjectives describe it effectively. It's so subtle but it's definitely there. I think you might have to read it to understand, but you should be reading this anyway.

It was a struggle to read the last few pages. Not because I didn't passionately love the book, but because it's hard. If you have a soul, a heart or any form of compassion, it's so damned hard to turn those pages. I predicted parts of the twist but it didn't stop it from hurting so much. I wanted to cry, throw up and hug Eva all at the same time.

The only only only thing wrong with this book is that occasionally the sentences are a little... odd. Sometimes I had to reread a sentence a few times and mentally add a few commas before I could understand the meaning properly. It's not a constant fault and the prose is of a generally high standard, but that's why I noticed it all the more when it did happen.

We Need To Talk About Kevin isn't an easy read and it's not particularly an enjoyable one either. What it is, is truly amazing. It takes real skill to create a novel so unique that every reader interprets differently. Please read this. It's one of the best books I've ever come across.

This book was:

• The Best Book I Read in 2014
• The Most Unputdownable Book of 2014
• The Most Memorable Character of 2014 (Kevin, obviously)  
• The Book I Can't Believe I Waited Until 2014 To Read

Have you read We Need To Talk About Kevin? What's your view - whose 'fault' was it?

 

Review: The Dinner by Herman Koch

As previously promised, this is the second installment of 'That Month Where Hanna Could Only Read Her Birthday Books.' Not that I'm complaining though, as I've had a 100% success rating so far. Bex bought me The Dinner after hearing about the 72 times I dithered over it whilst book shopping, and it turns out that I should have just bought the damn thing in the first place. It's amazing.

Plot summary: A summer's evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the delicate scraping of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of politeness - the banality of work, the triviality of holidays. But the empty words hide a terrible conflict and, with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened...

As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children and, as civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

The entire novel takes place over one meal at a fancy restaurant. Paul and his wife are soon joined by Paul's brother, a high-ranking politician, and his wife, Babette. It starts out trivially enough but eventually it's revealed that there's a purpose for that a meal; an issue relating to their children that needs to be discussed. Slowly, with the aid of flashbacks, more is revealed about what the teenagers have done and which adult knows which part.  

It's done very, very well. It's fast-paced; incredibly so when you consider that hardly anything actually happens - it's all in the past. I absolutely couldn't put it down as I needed to know how the meal was going to end as we slowly progressed through the many courses with the two couples.

It's not for the squeamish. Don't read it if you can't deal with violence. It's not just that there is a lot of explicitly-described gore but even the language and tone are somehow aggressive. It's very cleverly done and I'm sure the translator deserves some credit there as well.

The Dinner also raises some interesting moral issues - how far would you go to protect your children? At what point do your actions stop being for their benefit? How much does a children's upbringing affect their mental state? Unfortunately for Paul, these questions are incredibly clear-cut.

I'm struggling to think of a negative for The Dinner. The main character is incredibly irritating, but it's more of a plot point than a failure of the writing. The other characters are also quite flat and two-dimensional, but again - plot point. It's a very short book so there's not much more I can say without beginning to give away spoilers, but I really do recommend reading it. Just perhaps not in the queue for a Sarah J. Maas book signing, like I did.

What did you think of The Dinner? 

Review: Tell The Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

I... don't understand. I genuinely and utterly feel like I've missed something with Tell The Wolves I'm Home, as I don't feel moved, tearful or even a little sad. I mean, I didn't hate it but it's a profound 'meh' from me on this one, if such a thing isn't too much of an oxymoron.

Plot summary:
There's only one person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus, and that's her uncle, the renowned painter, Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her once inseparable older sister, June can only be herself in Finn's company; he is her godfather, confident, and best friend. So when he dies far too young of a mysterious illness that June’s mother can barely bring herself to discuss, June's world is turned upside down.


At the funeral, she notices a strange man lingering just beyond the crowd, and a few days later, June receives a package in the mail. Inside is a beautiful teapot she recognizes from Finn's apartment, and a note from Toby, the stranger, asking for an opportunity to meet.


A the two begin to spend time together, June realises she's not the only one who misses Finn, and if she can bring herself to trust this unexpected friend, he might just be the one she needs the most.

I really like the idea of this plot - older relative dies of AIDS and a close younger relative discovers his secret gay lover. It just really appealed to me as something slightly different and I care quite a lot about HIV/AIDS and the associated hysteria in the 1980s. Except I nearly gave up after twenty pages. Tell The Wolves I'm Home is horrendously emotionally manipulative - I've read My Sister's Keeper and it wasn't THIS bad. It's not even subtle - you're really, really bashed over the head with the Sad Mallet to the point where I felt that AIDS was being used almost.

In the end I was glad I persevered. I got into it properly after roughly a third of the book or so, when the drama had settled down and the character growth began. There were plot points I liked and some (more) that I didn't, but occasionally I saw some nice touches that gave the book a bit of character. The room in the basement, for example, or the portrait.

The problem was, I hated everyone. I know that's almost the point of a book like this one - I was shocked and almost offended by the general attitude and ignorance towards AIDS. I know it was basically prompted by fear of the unknown illness, but June's family's treatment of Toby just angered me. So yes, manipulativeness aside, I understand my dislike. Unfortunately I also hated June, which is most probably not the point.

She's annoying, wet and sulky. Theoretically she's fourteen but I struggled with thinking of her as anything but around ten years old. My biggest issue with June, though, was her relationship with her uncle. Not necessarily that she had feelings for him because I'm sure that's natural, but that everybody knew and encouraged it. Why did nobody, including him, deal with that in a sympathetic and understanding manner? I don't see it as necessary - the plot would have worked just as well with a close uncle/neice relationship, so why shove that in there?

Let's move on to Greta. Again, she's over-done and unrealistic. I'm used to stroppy teenagers in fiction but she's too over-the-top and just becomes an irritatingly Actual Bad Person. Also...

Spoilers below. Highlight to read.

What the hell is with the whole 'Oh, I'll just lay down in the woods and dramatically cover myself in leaves because I know June will be psychic enough to decide she has to find me?' crap. WHAT IS THAT!? I think that stuck out as the most unrealistic and over-dramatic part of the whole novel. Which takes some doing.

Spoilers over. 

I think I'm done with ranting about the characters. I know I've spent most of this review discussing them, but they spoilt the book for me. They're just the standard stereotypes of loner girl, bitchy sister, kind uncle, distant mother but then with bits of unrealistic weirdness thrown in.

I guess my main point about Tell The Wolves I'm Home is that it tries too hard. If the story had just been simply about a girl whose uncle died of AIDS and so she sets out to befriend his secret lover, that would have been fine. I would have been moved and affected quite naturally, but this way was too forced and I ended up irritated. As you may have noticed.

Read more positive reviews of Tell The Wolves I'm Home at An Armchair by the Sea and Devouring Texts. 

Review: The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

I barely know where to start with The Shock of the Fall. I bought it on a whim from ASDA and began it simply because it was close at hand. I had a vague idea of the subject matter, but no more than that. Perhaps it was due to my low expectations, but this book completely blew me away. The second I'd finished, I texted Ellie to let her know that she really must read this... and I've recommended it to almost everybody else I know now too. 

Summary: 'I'll tell you what happened because it will be a good way to introduce my brother. His name's Simon. I think you're going to like him. I really do. But in a couple of pages he'll be dead. And he was never the same after that.'

That's a rubbish blurb, so let me embellish it a tad. So, we have Matthew, who we know is writing his story down on a computer he uses at some kind of care centre. We know he had a brother, Simon, once and we also know that Matthew has been institutionalised at some point in the past. The rest of the novel focuses on what happened to Simon and Matthew's subsequent interpretation, as well as his journey through the mental health system to present day.

Why yes, that is rather vague but so is the book. I know a lot of other readers figured out what happened almost immediately, but I just... didn't. I was trying to interpret it with some kind of Adam-and-Eve theme due to the titular 'fall' and the tree on the cover. Yeah, sometimes you can over-analyse. This way though, my understanding developed along with Matthew's and it was a wonderful journey.

I think it suits the book better if you go into it without knowing too much, so excuse me for not bringing up the details. I was lucky enough to go into it almost blind and so The Shock of the Fall surprised and moved me the way it was meant to. Apparently Nathan Filer is a psychiatric nurse with a degree in Mental Health Nursing, so he understands better than most how symptoms of mental illness can exhibit themselves. 

It's a mixture of Matthew typing away at his computer in the present day and his reminisces of his previous experiences, but there are also medical reports, family trees and official letters. In certain novels this can seem gimmicky, but here it's infrequent and subtle enough to work. It helps that all the inserted media looks like it could be real - a lot of effort has gone in to creating logos, typeface, etc and so it seemed to demonstrate how chaotic Matthew's world feels to him.

What particularly impressed me was that the book didn't seem to set out to make you pity Matthew or his family. It's more of an explanation - why Matthew acts the way he does and what might be going through the head of somebody like him. It doesn't always make for attractive reading as he's very difficult to like, but at the same time I found myself caring so very deeply for him.

The Shock of the Fall is a masterpiece of characterisation - Matthew and his family seem so damn real that I keep expecting to run into them when I go in to our local care facility for meetings. I'd guess that they're drawn from Mr Filer's real-life experience of patients and their parents as nobody's imagination is that good! 

This book really got to me. I sat there with an anxious, tight feeling in my stomach throughout and it persisted long after I'd finished. I really cared what happened to Simon, what was going to happen to Matthew and if the situation was ever going to resolve itself. This is easily, easily going to be one of my best books of 2014. 

Visit Nathan Filer's website or find him on Twitter. 

Review: Wonder by R.J. Palacio

Ellie sent me a copy of Wonder as a giveaway/RAK type thing in the early months of 2012... and I subsequently failed to read it for a substantial period of time, obviously. However, a few months ago I participated in my very first 24 hour read-a-thon and it seemed like the perfect, light book to keep me going. Except it's not 'light.' It broke me into a million tiny pieces and I still want to hug it three months down the line.

Plot summary: Auggie wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things - eating ice cream, playing on his Xbox. He feels ordinary - inside. But ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids aren't stared at wherever they go.

Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life. Now, for the first time, he's being sent to a real school - and he's dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted - but can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, underneath it all?

To begin with, I think it's important that I clarify that Wonder is not just a children's anti-bullying book. It is a book about a boy who is bullied, yes, but that is far from the point of it. I thought it might be too young for me and it wasn't. I thought it might be too twee for me and it wasn't. Whatever your preconceptions are about this book... they're wrong.

I fell completely and totally in love with it by the end of the first paragraph, literally and seriously (because you can never have too many adverbs in one sentence). I never do that. Auggie's voice was just so perfect that something 'clicked' in my head and I settled down to what I knew was going to be a one-sitting read. I wanted to savour every single word because it's not often that a book speaks out to you that clearly.

Obviously I'm not a ten year old boy and I don't have any facial disfigurements, but Auggie seems so real. Everything he says seems to be exactly the way somebody his age and in his situation would think. He's never self-pitying or whiny - he might be slightly naive, but hey, he's ten. It's allowed. It's also clever how he never really explains what he looks like, except for vague hints like 'whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.' 

I walked towards Jack and followed him out of the auditorium. He held the double doors open for me, and as I passed by, he looked at me right in the face, kind of daring me to look back at him, which I did. Then I actually smiled. I don't know. Sometimes when I have the feeling like I'm almost crying, it can turn into an almost-laughing feeling. And that must have been the feeling I was having then, because I smiled, almost like I was going to giggle. The thing is, because of the way my face is, people who don't know me very well don't always get that I'm smiling. My mouth doesn't go up at the corners the way other people's mouths do. It just goes straight across my face. But somehow Jack got that I had smiled at him. And he smiled back.

It works very well as the narrative then changes to Via, Auggie's sister, who does explain what he looks like. By that point, you're already too in love with him to really care - which is the point of the book, I'd guess. Once you know a person on the inside, you don't care what their outside looks like and this is demonstrated perfectly here.

Some narratives are better than others, obviously. Via (who named these kids!?) can be a bit of a martyr, but then again people do tend to forget about the healthy child and focus on the disabled one. I wish her father would stop going on about War & Peace though, like the fact that she's read it means it's okay for her to take the subway alone? It's a book, not a rape whistle.

The best narrative by far was Jack, a school friend of Auggie's. Again, it captures the persona absolutely perfectly. It demonstrates the precise level of cruelty in children, where they kind of understand the effects of what they're saying, but then kind of not. I read on the author's website that the story was inspired by her own accidental reaction to a child with the same physical problem to Auggie, which probably explains why everything here is so carefully thought out.

Basically, Auggie's disfigurement is shown from lots of different angles - his family, his schoolmates, strangers, etc. These perspectives show that you can think you know what's going on inside a person's head, but you can't - not ever. You automatically assume that people who look afraid of a disfigured person are rude or inconsiderate, but you cannot know how they're actually feeling. Any other book would shove you with the narrative of the poor, disabled boy and that would be that, but not Wonder. It thoroughly explores all the possibilities and leaves you a slightly altered view of the world.

   Jack whispered: "Are you always going to look this way, August? I mean, can't you get plastic surgery or something?"
    I smiled and pointed to my face. "Hello? This is after plastic surgery!"
   Jack clapped his hand over his forehead and started laughing hysterically.
   "Dude, you should sue your doctor!" he answered between giggles.
   This time the two of us were laughing so much we couldn't stop, even after Mr. Roche came over and made us both switch chairs with the kids next to us.

If you've ever been within poking distance of Booking in Heels before, you'll know I don't tend to find the usual books 'moving' or whatever else it is that they're lauded as. Go read my review of The Fault in Our Stars for a demonstration, cause we really didn't get along. But then Wonder came along... and it broke me. I was sat in bed at 3am, tears streaming down my face, full-on sobbing because of what this book did to me. Then I got up and wandered pathetically round the house, looking for my dog to comfort me. When I went back to bed and finished the book, the ending took whatever pieces of me were left and mushed them up a little bit more. This book actually is moving, none of that over-hyped teen romance crap.

The true friendships in this book that really make you feel as if the world isn't such a bad place, after all. There's an all-encompassing form of acceptance that occurs only in very special circumstances, but when it happens it's beautiful.

If you read between the lines of this review very, very carefully, you may just discern that I kind of liked Wonder. Maybe. It's not what I was expecting in the slightest but it's truly Wonder-ful (perhaps the clue is in the title). I don't care if you don't usually read Middle Grade or you're bored of 'bullying is bad' books. I don't CARE - you still have to read this as I can almost guarantee it will exceed your expectations.

Read Ellie's review at Book Addicted Blonde.

Review: In Leah's Wake by Terri Giuliano Long

Don't you love it when not only is an author nice enough to send you a copy of their book, but also takes the time to write a nice note in the front of it too? Terri Giuliano Long seems like a lovely lady and I whole-heartedly wish her success with this book and her next, Nowhere to Run.

The Tylers have a perfect life--beautiful home, established careers, two sweet and talented daughters. Their eldest, Leah, an exceptional soccer player, is on track for a prestigious scholarship. Their youngest, Justine, more responsible than seems possible for her 12 years, just wants her sister's approval. With Leah nearing the end of high school and Justine a seemingly together kid, the parents are set to enjoy a peaceful life...until Leah meets Todd, a former roadie for a rock band.

As Leah's parents fight to save their daughter from a world of drugs, sex, and wild parties, their divided approach drives their daughter out of their home and a wedge into their marriage. Meanwhile, twelve-year-old Justine observes her sister's rebellion from the shadows of their fragmented family-leaving her to question whether anyone loves her and if God even knows she exists.

In Leah's Wake reads like an early Jodi Picoult novel - there's a similar unfolding emotional saga, alternating perspectives between different family members and the strange, nagging feeling that you're not really sure who you're meant to be rooting for. It has a very 'what would you do?' type theme, as Will and Zoe attempt to reign in their rebellious teenager, although I suspect my zero-tolerance, Nazi-esque ideals of parenthood may be slightly over-dramatic. 

From the title, I figured that it would be a story revolving around the death of a daughter and the aftermath, taking 'wake' to mean 'funeral.' But apparently not - instead it refers to the trail of destruction and heartache that Leah leaves behind her as she continues to do, well, exactly as she pleases.

That was the sticking point for me - I liked the plot, the writing and the dialogue, but I just could not stand Leah herself. I didn't really have difficult teenage years myself (it's true, I was always a model child), so I always want to give recalcitrant adolescents a good kicking. I didn't really have a problem with her rebellion - that is, after all, the point of the book - it was the way she did it that irritated me. She just whined and bitched, and refused to believed that not everybody was out to get her. She's not a bad girl, and that's kind of the underlying concept of the book, but she makes horrendously bad decisions. I know that she's meant to make bad decisions, but I just couldn't get past the overwhelming urge to beat her over the head.

But, like I said, there are five different perspectives, so it's hard to stay annoyed with one character for too long. I particularly liked Justine, Leah's sister, who feels pushed out of the frame because of the drama surrounding her older sibling. She's a confused little thing, constantly torn between her parents and her sister. For me, she was the most 'real-' as her grades slowly decline and she fails to take an interest in anything at all, I really wanted to reach across the pages and help her.

It's a slow-moving story, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Instead, the time is devoted to building up three-dimensional characters and creating believable dialogue. I'd have liked to have a few more questions answered in the epilogue, I think, but all-in-all it's a good ending and I finished the book satisfied.

As a long story short, I really enjoyed In Leah's Wake. The build-up of emotion and poetic dialogue creates a wonderful look at the unintentional sadness caused by angry teenagers, although I think perhaps Leah herself could have been less of a caricature of an adolescent.

Visit Terri Giuliano Long's blog, or find her on Twitter.

Review: The Secrets Between Us by Louise Douglas

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is one of my all-time favourite books, so I was a little anxious when The Secrets Between Us landed on the doormat. It's theoretically based on du Maurier's novel, but I couldn't see how it could be even half as good as the original. I was surpised though - it has the same tone and creepy atmosphere as Rebecca while having enough unique twists to stand on its own two feet.

A chance encounter: When Sarah meets dark, brooding Alex,she grasps his offer of a new life miles away from her own. They’ve both recently escaped broken relationships, and need to start again. Why not do it together? A perfect life: But when Sarah gets to the tiny village of Burrington Stoke, something doesn’t add up. Alex’s beautiful wife Genevieve was charming, talented, and adored by all who knew her. And apparently, she and Alex had a successful marriage complete with a gorgeous son, Jamie. Why would Genevieve walk out on her perfect life? And why has no one heard from her since she did so? A web of lies: Genevieve’s family and all her friends think that Alex knows more about her disappearance than he’s letting on. But Sarah’s fallen in love with him and just knows he couldn’t have anything to hide. Or could he?

Nothing makes me happier than receiving a book from a publisher that I would never have picked up on my own. It's a chance to broaden my horizons a little and discover some real treasures. The Secrets Between Us is the perfect example. Normally I tend to stay away from books that try and pretend that they're actually an older, classic work, but Transworld Publishers offered this as part of their challenge and I thought I'd give it a go.

The thing that impressed me most is that the prose actually flows very like Dpahne du Maurier's, and that's not an easy style to achieve. It's very formal, somehow, and nobody describes a creepy atmosphere quite as well as she does. Ms. Douglas has actually managed to recreate that chilling feeling and Sarah, the main character, is very, very similar to the protagonist in Rebecca.

Like I said before, this is anything but a straight rip-off of Rebecca from beginning to end. Although it still concerns a damaged woman who ends up with a controlling man who is hiding his wife's past, the circumstances are completely different. Right from the beginning, the evidence tells you that it isn't going to end in quite the same way. It also features a lot of minor characters while Rebecca primarily concerns a maximum of four people. 

The one thing that irritated me was the amount of stupid decisions that Sarah made. At times she even seemed vaguely deranged. I couldn't help but think if she'd just got her act together and stood up for herself, everything would have gone a lot better for her. Her behaviour may acceptable in de Maurier's time, but in this day and age it just makes me want to beat her with a sharp stick.

I can't decide whether it would be more enjoyable or not if you hadn't read Rebecca first. I have (a good few times now) and I really liked this book, but I read another review by a blogger who suspected that she didn't like it because she hadn't read du Maurier's version. The Secrets Between Us doesn't reference it in any way though, so aside from spotting the similarities and differences, I wouldn't have thought it would affect it much.

Amusingly enough, my alphabetic ordering of my bookshelves means that it sits right next to Rebecca!