Review: The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

Arrrrrrgh, this book. This book, this book, this book. I've been putting off reviewing it for ages because my notes are a garbled mess of exclamation points, page numbers and quotes, and every time I think about this book my heart (and head) hurt all over again. It's a brilliant, brilliant book and, even if you can't make it to the end of this mess of a review, I really encourage you to read it.

Summary: 1917. As a war raged across the world, young American women flocked to work, painting watches, clocks and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous – the girls themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in the dust from the paint. They were the radium girls.

As the years passed, the women began to suffer from mysterious and crippling illnesses. The very thing that had made them feel alive – their work – was in fact slowly killing them: they had been poisoned by the radium paint. Yet their employers denied all responsibility. And so, in the face of unimaginable suffering – in the face of death – these courageous women refused to accept their fate quietly, and instead became determined to fight for justice.

Drawing on previously unpublished sources – including diaries, letters and court transcripts, as well as original interviews with the women’s relatives – The Radium Girls is an intimate narrative account of an unforgettable true story. It is the powerful tale of a group of ordinary women from the Roaring Twenties, who themselves learned how to roar.

This is technically a non-fiction work about the women who earned a living by painting luminescent dials on watches in the 1920s. I say 'technically,' because I have never cried this much over a non-fiction book (or any fiction book either, in fairness). The tone is a rarely-seen perfect mix of the emotional and the technical - although every single page contains near constant quotes from the women and their families, the remaining text tells the women's story with a very sympathetic narrative.

That's not a criticism. I never felt like I was being emotionally manipulated and it would be very, very difficult to write a book of this nature and be objective. Aside from the original horror of the women being told to put radium in their mouths in the first place, they were lied to nigh-on continuously by the company and even so-called medical experts. Their bodies collapsed, their hearts broke and their bank accounts emptied, but the company continued to Appeal, even after the Courts had already made a decision.

The tone of the text is light and very accessible, but the subject is not. Their jaw bones literally fell out of their mouths. There are photographs in the middle of the book - most are included to emphasise that these women were real, human, living people (temporarily, at any rate) but there are a few that show the size of tumours, disintegrated bones, etc. There is one particular photo that I kept turning back to and I cried every single time I looked at it. One of the women collapsed during a Court hearing after she was told that her condition was fatal (her well-intentioned doctors had decided to keep this information from her) and a photographer somehow got a shot mid-collapse. It really demonstrates the lack of knowledge provided to these women and their emotional state at that time.

There aren't words to describe how much these women suffered. It's not just the physical horrors, but the way they were treated. One woman was posthumously slapped with a 'syphilis' label even though there was no indication of any sexually transmitted disease and another woman's body was pretty much stolen from the hospital by the organisation before the family could pay their respects. They were shunned by their communities for creating trouble for the factories that provided jobs for local people and some of the women's husbands became jealous of their (later) wealth and threatened to gas them.

I cried on a train, I cried on a bus and I cried in a cafe. This was real, this happened and people did nothing. My eyes are watering with angry tears as I write this six weeks after I read it.

It's very hard to separate the topic from the book, but I'm going to try because I don't think Kate Moore's skill deserves to be overshadowed by the tragedy she writes about. She writes very well - to say that a good 300 pages of The Radium Girls is about a legal battle, it flows, it's interesting and it's engrossing. She has clearly put a tremendous amount of effort into research and interviewing the relatives of the deceased, and she appears to genuinely care about the plight suffered of the radium girls. 

And Grace Fryer was never forgotten. She is still remembered now – you are still remembering her now. As a dial-painter, she glowed gloriously from the radium powder; but as a woman, she shines through history with an even brighter glory: stronger than the bones that broke inside her body; more powerful than the radium that killed her or the company that shamelessly lied through its teeth; living longer than she ever did on earth, because she now lives on in the hearts and memories of those who know her only from her story.

Please read this book. Firstly, it's important that we acknowledge these brave and strong individuals who were so profoundly abused in so many different ways. Their bodies and their fight went on to form the basis of ground-breaking legislation that is still in place in the US today, and allowed for progress to be made with preventing radiation toxicity in others. They were ignored and shunned when they were alive, and that was not acceptable. At least now we can look back and retrospectively apologise.

Secondly, I'm desperate to talk about this book so hurry up and read it! I want to talk about the women, the people and especially how radium affected the whole town. The factory was eventually used as a meat locker - so naturally everybody who ate the meat became severely ill. After that the factory was knocked down... and the rubble was deposited around town. Dogs died prematurely, citizens developed an inordinate amount of tumours... you get the idea. I want to talk about it. 

Lastly, it's just a brilliant, brilliant book. Kate Moore is a wonderful writer who has tackled an extremely difficult subject with dignity and grace. Every second that I wasn't reading this book, I wanted to be. It's riveting and completely engrossing.

So there, you go. Read The Radium Girls because it's important, discussion-provoking and enjoyable.
  

Read Ellie's review of The Radium Girls at Curiosity Killed the Bookworm. 

Review: The Martian by Andy Weir

I don't know how to start this review.

I read a book! It has science and space ships and disproportionate responses to hardship! Let's talk about that.

Plot summary: Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive — and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills — and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit — he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

I bought this book as a result of a quick flick whilst standing in a charity shop (and also, it was £1.49 - that helps too). It looked like an interesting read; a bit sciencey but with what looked to be a lot of pop culture references thrown in to keep it light. I saw references to Poirot, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Bee-Gees... it looked quite fun. A bit quirky, maybe.

Nope. This book is very heavy with the science-shovelling. I'm sure it's correct science (actually, I'm not sure in the slightest but it bothers me not), however, it really does over-balance the story horrifically.

So we start out and Mark has essentially just been stranded on Mars with little equipment and enough food to last 400 or so 'sols' (an earth day plus an extra thirty minutes). Oh dear. So Mark has to re-jig the oxygenator, the filters, the... other stuff to support him longer than was originally intended, whilst attempting to contact Earth and also grow potatoes in a desolate, dust-ridden wasteland. Fine. But how he does this is told in excruciating detail that, to be honest, I just didn't understand.

I've tried to draft that sentence in a way that doesn't make me sound stupid, but it's the truth - I didn't understand. I don't know if it's because I admittedly didn't try very hard to understand, or I just didn't care... but either way, I still have no idea how Mark Watney stayed alive on Mars other than 'grew potatoes, created water and fixed stuff.'

Every twenty hours, I'll have 10 liters of CO2 thanks to the MAV fuel plant. I'll vent it into the Hab via the highly scientific method of detaching the tank from the MAV landing struts, bringing it into the Hab, then opening the valve until it's empty.
The oxygenator will turn it into oxygen in its own time.
Then I'll release hydrazine, very slowly, over the iridum catalyst, to turn it into N2 and H2. I'll direct the hydrogen to a small area and burn it.
As you can see, this plan provides me with plenty of opportunities to die in a fiery explosion.

I have a Masters in Biotechnology Law and a Graduate Certificate of Engineering and I still had to google a GCSE revision site to figure why the above = potential explosion.

The pop culture references that pulled me in aren't really present. Mark just rifles his colleagues' computers for music and TV shows to alleviate the boredom and makes a few quick comments about what he's found. I do like the tone of the book - Mark's voice is very dry as he mocks his situation and tries to thwart the many new and surprising ways in which Mars is trying to kill him.

On that note, there's just no emotion here. He never seems particularly bothered about the fact that he's stuck on Mars and he isn't all that fussed about the prospect of rescue either. No sense of terror, achievement, anxiety... nothing. I mean, this could be explained away by the fact that he's writing all this onto a computer log that he's aware might be published one day, but still. I found it very difficult to care about what happened to him as a result. How can I care when he doesn't!?

The way The Martian is structured works quite well. It's primarily Mark's log, as I said before, so it's told in the first person perspective. After about a quarter of the way through, we start to get the third person perspective of the individuals on the ground at NASA as they realised what's happened and try and put a plan together to save Mark. I actually liked their perspective more. It was more real, more emotional and a lot more interesting than a guy in a desert sarcastically lecturing me about potatoes. Honestly, if the entire book were that, I would have been happier. There were even a few 'gasp!' moments. I mean, I gasped. I assumed Mark just shrugged and raised an eyebrow.

Sigh. Alright then, it's time. This is the crux of it. This is the mean reason why I didn't like this book and you're all going to hate me. My boyfriend is going to wave his little black flag sadly, the way he always does when I'm being Unreasonably Cynical, and also Why Do You Hate The World, Hanna.

I just don't buy it. In this book, NASA (and the Chinese government and several other organisations around the world) spend tens of billions of dollars trying to rescue this one man and I would argue, logically and rationally, that that is not particularly proportionate. Planned launches that would have advanced science were delayed, the lives of other astronauts were risked, taxpayers' money was wasted... for one person. I'm not saying they should have left him to die and waved merrily from distant Earth, but come on. There has to be a point where you draw the line and back off a little. What would bringing him back achieve, other than a warm fuzzy feeling? Would it achieve as much as all that money, resources and manpower could have, otherwise? Would it!?*

The world united in desperation over Mark Watney; there was a 'Mark Watney Segment' daily on CNN... Really though? Fine, people would have been appalled to begin with, but this book takes place over several years. There is no way, no way, that one person's plight could sustain the public interest for that long. I know it's fictional, but it genuinely annoyed me how I was supposed to root for NASA to rescue Mark when, actually... well. Proportionality and all that. 

I didn't hate The Martian, but I was disappointed. It was too fact-heavy and too lacking in emotion, and had an irritating main character of whose rescue I was not particularly in favour. I might give the film a go, but it's unlikely I'll feel the need to read this again.

*No. It would not.

Read a more balanced review of The Martian at Girl Plus Book.

Review: Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found by Frances Larson

This is the book I bought on Christmas Eve and read over the festive period - a non-fiction book about severed heads. What screams 'CHRISTMAS!' more than learning how to remove decaying flesh from a skull for display purposes?

Summary: The human head is exceptional. It accommodates four of our five senses, encases the brain and boasts the most expressive set of muscles in the body. It is our most distinctive attribute and it connects our inner selves to the outer world more intensely than any other part of the body. Yet there is a dark side to the head's pre-eminence, one that has, in the course of Western history, manifested itself in everything from decapitation to headhunting. Over the centuries, human heads have decorated our churches, festooned our city walls and filled our museums. Long-regarded as objects of fascination and repulsion, they have been props for portrait artists and specimens for laboratory scientists, trophies for soldiers and items of barter. 

From the western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred brutal massacres, to the Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of Japanese opponents home to their girlfriends; from the memento mori in Romantic portraits to Damien Hirst's platinum skull set with diamonds; from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, Larson explores the bizarre, fantastical and confounding history of the severed head, and offers us a new perspective on our macabre preoccupations.

Severed has eight chapters (discounting the introduction and conclusion) all named after a different type of head. These include:

Shrunken Heads

Trophy Heads

Deposed Heads

Framed Heads

Potent Heads

Bone Heads

Dissected Heads

Living Heads

It's easy to guess the topic of some of these 'head'ings (HA), but not so much for others. We'll go through them anyway, as there is a little disparity in quality between the different chapters.

Shrunken Heads interested me an awful lot more than I expected it to. I suppose it's one of those topics that you think you know all about, but actually don't in the slightest. The author works from the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, which is famous for its selection of shrunken heads, so she's more than familiar with the concept. This chapter touches on the reasons for creating the heads in the first place (and whatever you're thinking, you're wrong), the process and the effects of Western influence.

I'd also expected to have to skim the second chapter, Trophy Heads, which is about heads (or parts thereof) being taken home from war as, you guessed it, trophies. Honestly, war doesn't interest me all that much - or not 20th Century warfare, anyway. This... this was actually fascinating, however. It discusses how (for example) during the Pacific War, American troops were so thoroughly brainwashed to believe that the Japanese soldiers weren't actually people, that they thought nothing of cleaning a newly-killed enemy's skull and sending it home to the family.

Deposed Heads was the chapter I was looking forward to the most, although I admit that I'd expected it to be longer. While the information contained is very interesting, I was hoping for more content on the history and examples of execution. It's the first thing that comes to mind when you think 'severed head,' after all. If I'm honest, it is pretty much the reason I bought it and it felt a little lacking.

The fourth chapter, Framed Heads, bored me a little and I ended up skimming parts of it. Call me a philistine, but I'm just not that interested in Attention Art. I don't care if somebody thought it was a good idea to freeze their blood and sculpt their head out of it - I don't want to look at it, but it doesn't bother me either. Complete apathy. My lack of interest isn't the fault of the book, however - it's written just as accessibly as the rest of it... but eh. Not my thing.

Unfortunately it does start to go a little downhill from here - Potent, Bone and Dissected Heads are remarkably similar and often repeat the same information. I swear I'm a bone (HA - ah, this is fun) a fide expert on the various ways to remove flesh from a skull by now. I'm also very, very aware that corpses used for dissections were almost always from the prison/workhouse and that there was a difficulty in getting hold of non-Anglo corpses. I know. I do. Please stop.

I understand that there are only so many different types of heads to discuss, but I do feel the information could have been separated slightly better to avoid unecessary repetition.

Thankfully, it does pick back up with the final chapter, Living Heads, which is mostly dedicated to cryogenics and other methods of keeping severed heads alive. I now know exactly how much it will cost, should I ever decide I want to be frozen for the indefinite future.

Whatever the specific circumstances, usually the people who take heads see themselves as inherently different from the people whose heads they take. They objectify their target to a certain extent. It is easy to see how cutting off a person's head transforms that person into a particularly potent kind of object - but frequently that process has already begun before the first cut is made.

The book is written very accessibly, which isn't easy considering the amount of medical terminology involved. It has a light, chatty tone that still manages to imbue an aura of authority throughout - it's not a dusty textbook, but Frances Larson still sounds like she knows what she's talking about. I'm definitely impressed with the balanced way it was written.

I really enjoyed Severed, on the whole. I think I was expecting more of a historical work, when it's actually more medical/anthropological. There's a lot more time spent on native tribes and surgical examinations than on the history of the guillotine, for example. Which is absolutely fine, but I think I was swayed by the word 'history' on the cover and the images of Anne Boleyn. It's still absorbing, but not as relevant to my interests as I had expected.     

Visit Frances Larson's website here or find her on Twitter. 

Review: Deadline (Newsflesh #2) by Mira Grant

Hmm. Alright, well, let's start with what we already know. Parasite, also by Mira Grant, was easily one of the best books of 2013, no question. Somehow, tapeworms taking over the world made perfect sense. Feed, which I read earlier this year was very good, although not quite on a par with Parasite. Yay for well-thought-out zombies. Deadline is the book after Feed, and therefore the next in the Newsflesh series. Everybody with me so far?

Contains spoilers for Feed.

Plot summary: Shaun Mason is a man without a mission. Not even running the news organisation he built with his sister has the same urgency as it used to. Playing with dead things just doesn't seem as fun when you've lost as much as he has.

But when a researcher from the Centre for Disease Control fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun's relieved to find a new purpose in life. Because this researcher comes bearing news: the monster who attacked them may be destroyed, but the conspiracy is far from dead.

Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun.

  
These aren't your typical zombie horror books, not are they the standard YA post-apocalyptic tripe. They're not YA, for a start. The prose is very advanced and holds your attention, which isn't an easy feat whilst explaining advanced immuno-biology. Secondly, whilst zombies are involved, it's definitely more sci-fi than horror, as the novels go into great detail about the science of mutating viruses and the feasibility of a mass outbreak. It's complicated.

Too complicated, one might say (and I do). At the risk of being patted on the head and told to run off and play with my toys... I massively struggled to follow this book. Parts of it just don't make sense. We're constantly given facts without the necessary explanation, like the conclusion/consequences should be blindingly obvious, only they're not. I kept rereading paragraphs in case I'd missed something, but I rarely had.

Basically, it goes too fast. Not action-wise (we'll get to that), but text-wise. It moves on to another topic before we've fully got to grips with one idea, which makes a huge difference considering the entire premise is psuedo-science based. It needs to take the time to explain itself and it doesn't. I'm a normal person of average intelligence... yet I was confused with this. Either I've grossly over-estimated my own intellect or Deadline needs editing.

For example, there's a whole thing about why it's a big deal that Georgia had retinal Kellis-Amberlee (the virus mutation that causes zombieness) when Shaun didn't, which I don't understand because they were adopted separately... so of course they have different genes. And then somehow that makes Shaun a target and everyone's nodding their heads sagely and going ''Ah yes, that makes sense..." but DOES IT!? *hyperventilates*

I'd have to say that Deadline is mostly just talking. I mean, I don't object to that in a book necessarily but it's a large contrast to Feed, which had a good mix of scientific theory and poking zombies with sticks. There's a lot of travelling from place to place (and then back to the original place (via a different place)) in a van, while they talk the entire time. I never thought I'd say this, but I really just wanted them to shoot something.

And now for the point that irritated me most about Deadline: Georgia talks inside Shaun's mind. Constantly. They have conversations throughout. I considered whether this might be mildly spoilery but it's revealed within four pages, and I wish I'd known this before I picked the book up. Partly because it took me a while to understand what and why that was happening (which is never explained), but then I suppose we're back to the lack of communication mentioned above.

Anyway. If you're going to kill off a main character, COMMIT TO IT. You don't get to have the reader's respect for being ballsy enough to do it and still get to use them as a character in the sequel. She comes up with plans, discusses other characters with Shaun, points out pratical flaws in new ideas... exactly as she did she was alive, really. It just seemed like a lazy way to have Georgia feature in the book without that pesky problem of her being dead. 

Just quickly... they are implying incest, right? Because they have a creepy-ass relationship if they're not. 

While, we're on the topic of characters, I actually really did like Maggie and her epileptic bulldogs. There we go, I said something nice. Shaun, however, I did not like (aaaaaaand we're back). He's awful -he's an arrogant thug and his entire team just kind of accepts it. It's a first person narrative too, so we're subjected to him calling people 'bitches' and talking about he constantly 'wants to punch him/her in the face.' I even hated his team for the way they just meekly took it. Get a backbone, people.

I struggled with seeing any of them as adults. I think I assume they're all 17/18 so it's odd when they have (reasonably graphic) sex and one of them is suddenly married. They act like teenagers and it's asking my imagination to out-do itself in order for me to believe otherwise.

Finally, the end of Book IV would have been a perfect place to end the novel, but it doesn't. It's unecessarily dragged-out and I really didn't appreciate the weak and obvious ending.

I know it sounds like I'm being overly harsh on Deadline, but I had high expectations so I feel frustrated and disappointed. I still barely understand what's going on, who's behind it or why. It's dry and repetitive with incredibly irritating characters. I really hope Symbiont, the sequel to Parasite, is better than this.


Go read my happy, positive reviews of Feed and Parasite. See? I do LIKE things occasionally!

Review: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Anybody who's read anything about We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves will be aware that there's a 'twist' about a third of the way into the book. I use the quotation marks because, after talking with JimjamJenny, I can't quite decide if it is a twist or common knowledge. I knew about it before I read the book and I can't really review it without mentioning what it is, so you have been warned: this review contains mild spoilers. I think.

Plot summary: Meet the Cooke family. Our narrator is Rosemary Cooke. As a child, she never stopped talking; as a young woman, she has wrapped herself in silence: the silence of intentional forgetting, of protective cover. Something happened, something so awful she has buried it in the recesses of her mind.

Now her adored older brother is a fugitive, wanted by the FBI for domestic terrorism. And her once lively mother is a shell of her former self, her clever and imperious father now a distant, brooding man.

And Fern, Rosemary’s beloved sister, her accomplice in all their childhood mischief? Fern’s is a fate the family, in all their innocence, could never have imagined.

This isn't about what I thought it would be about. While this happens fairly frequently and isn't usually the end of the world, I was actually looking forward to reading about what it didn't turn out to be about... *shakes head*... Did that even make sense? I shouldn't write reviews at this time of night morning, I swear. Anyway, I was expecting to read an adult's assessment on how on growing up as a scientific experiment impacted her life, but the novel barely even touches on the issues relating to that.

Instead we're treated to a not-very-subtle novel about the horrors of animal testing, which occasionally reads like a preachy essay. It's barely disguised, as the plot itself isn't really strong enough to hide it. The premise itself is interesting and I've never seen anything like it done before, but it's obviously quite unusual. The problem is, the novel never tries to make it believable so I couldn't take it seriously.

Rosemary quite frequently says, "Nobody understands what having a chimp for a sister is like..." but then never actually tries to help us do so. "Oh no, people just don't understand that Fern wasn't a pet - she was my sister!" Well, no... I still don't. I could have got on board with the whole idea if the book had gone for thoroughness instead of shock value, but it didn't. It feels very flat for the most part, with little explanation and no emotion. One minute Rosemary didn't care, and then suddenly did... and then didn't. Ad nauseam.

While I obviously object to pointless experiments on animals in general, I can't say I objected to the treatment of this chimp in particular - mainly because Rosemary didn't either.  There was just no feeling there, which is a feat in itself considering it's a first person narrative. For a theoretically 'moving' novel with the main purpose of drawing attention to laboratory conditions, it's quite distant.

I actually quite liked Rosemary as a narrator; she was just too flat to be liked as a character. I really enjoy self-conscious narrators and it was carried out very well in We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. Occasionally she'll mumble during the prose that so-and-so isn't really part of the story or that she'll explain a certain point later on. It adds a little kick to the writing and makes me care that tiny bit more.

Most importantly, this device allows her to look back over her five-year-old self's memories and assess the reliability of them herself. Usually a reader is left to figure this out off their own back, so it's quite interesting having a character become part of that process. I struggled to see her as the 40 year old woman she apparently is, but I suppose that's the difficulty of having characters discuss their own childhood.

I think my main problem with this book is that it's actually kind of pointless - nothing happens. It's more of Rosemary sat in her bedroom wondering what happened than anything else. Even the grand denouement itself is remarkly anti-climactic (if that isn't an oxymoron). I remember finishing the book with a raised eyebrow as I realised that nothing had actually changed from when I began the novel, aside from my being grouchy and a day older. 

There are worse books, don't get me wrong. I just don't see this as a Man Booker Prize contestant - I'm glad I've read it, but it hasn't blown me away and I don't think I'll feel the need to read it again. For a more subtle yet impactful novel about the ethical treatment of laboratory apes, I'd go with Ape House by Sara Gruen (although it shocks me that I wrote that review in 2011...). 

Read JimJamJenny's review of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves at I Spiral Down. 

Review: Parasite by Mira Grant

In the interests of full disclosure, I haven't read Mira Grant's Newsflesh series so I have absolutely no idea how it compares. That said, based on how truly amazing Parasite was, if I had any money I'd have run out and bought all three books already.
It's just so good.
 
Plot summary: A decade in the future, humanity thrives in the absence of sickness and disease. 

We owe our good health to a humble parasite - a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the tapeworm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system - even secretes designer drugs. It's been successful beyond the scientists' wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them.

But these parasites are getting restless. They want their own lives . . . and will do anything to get them.

I know it sounds really odd - tapeworms trying to take over the world or something. But just trust me when I say that Parasite is so, so much more than that.

First of all, I thought this was YA and it's not - not even the slightest bit. The main character is Sally, who is a full 26 years of age which was a pleasant change. Admittedly she only remembers the last six years since a terrible accident wiped her memory, but having a card-carrying adult as a protagonist is necessary for the science-based and occasionally shocking plot.

The basic gist is that a huge company called SymboGen have developed an 'Intestinal Bodyguard,' which is essentially a genetically modified tapeworm that lives inside you and protects you from illness, allergies, etc. Sally had an almost fatal car accident years ago, but recovered just minutes before her family was due to turn off her life support, thanks to her Intestinal Bodyguard. Now there's a 'Sleeping Sickness' epidemic, where hundreds of people are losing all mental capacity and their implants suddenly aren't working. What could be behind the new illness and why are SymboGen so interested in Sally?

I actually went and looked into whether Mira Grant (real name: Seanan McGuire) had a background in science, because the theories expounded here actually make sense. I'm not about to imbibe a tapeworm, obviously, but the references to the 'hygiene hypothesis,' various parasites and genome splicing indicate a huge amount of research and care. A book doesn't have to be 'possible' for me to enjoy it, but I do like it when your imagination doesn't have to struggle to picture it.

I was hooked from the beginning. Parasite begins with a transcript of a recording made of scientific trials of the Intestinal Bodyguard - the first success caught on tape. After that, in between every chapter there's a newspaper article, interview, textbook excerpt, something, about the history of SymboGen and the development of the project. It may seem gimmicky in other books, but here it worked very well. It's worthwhile paying attention to these as what you've learned there ties in perfectly with the plot later on. The intricacies of the detailed story could be lost without this knowledge.

Being Sally Mitchell sucks sometimes. There's always another doctor who wants a question answered and thinks the best way to do it is to poke a stick through the bars of my metaphorical cage. I didn't volunteer to be the first person whose life was saved by a tapeworm. it just happened.
I have to remind myself of that whenever things get too ridiculous: I am alive because of a genetically engineered tapeworm. Not a miracle; God was not involved in my survival. They can call it an 'implant' or an 'Intestinal Bodyguard,' with or without that damn trademark, but the fact remains that we're talking about a tapeworm. A big, ugly, blind, parasitic invertebrate that lives in my small intestine, where it naturally secretes a variety of useful chemicals, including - as it turns out - some that both stimulate brain activity and clean toxic byproducts out of blood. 

The characters are also pretty much perfect. Sally is slightly naive, but then again she's technically only six years old. Having said that, she doesn't fall into any of the usual traps - she doesn't withhold information from the authorities for no reason, she doesn't fall head-over-heels in love with a horrible man at first sight and she doesn't decide she can deal with the whole thing herself, despite it having nothing to do with her. 

All the characters' decisions are rational and well thought out. There were times when I shook my head at what I thought was a silly twist or lazy writing... only for it to be either a) not what I thought or b) explained so well and so logically that it ended up making perfect sense. Parasite is as far from lazy writing as you can possibly imagine - every plothole, every doubt, every niggle is closed and I cannot think of a single fault with the story.

The only thing that irritated me was a tiny, tiny thing. Sally is terrified of cars, as you can imagine you would be after a near fatal accident. Unfortunately it's just way over the top -  she turns into a sniffling, whiny mess when anybody so much as glances at her while they're driving. 'How could they do that to me!?' Aside from anything else, Sally, you were driving when you had your crash. You. So shut up. Like I said though, small point, and otherwise she's a respectable heroine.

The relationships also work very well. Sally already has a long-standing boyfriend when we jump into the story, so it's a pleasant change not to bother setting up a new romantic interest. Their relationship is a factor, but it's more of a sub-sub-plot. He supports Sally when she needs it and plays a large part in the story in his own right, but he never bullies her or resents her. A good love interest, all told.

What's more complex is Sally's relationship with her parents and sister and it's done... you guessed it, perfectly. There are an awful lot of issues regarding Sally's accident and how her personality has changed, and Mira Grant doesn't shove them under the carpet. The resentment and tension are felt very subtly to begin with, but then it builds gradually until it's an unavoidable situation. Perfect.  

The ending is slightly predictable, but like I mentioned before, it's so well done and so... perfect that it really doesn't matter. it's the journey that's important, not the destination. I was a little frustrated because I hadn't realised that this was going to be a series and now I won't get to find out what happens for practically forever. Points to the author though - there is a dramatic conclusion, but no obvious give-me-your-money cliffhanger. Like I said, no lazy writing here!

So. Perfect. This book is perfect. I do wish the blurb had been phrased differently as it did take away the mystery of what was causing the sleeping sickness, but I understand that isn't the author's fault. It was interesting watching the characters figure it out, but maybe it would have been better to learn along with them. But hey ho. 

Parasite is a book that will capture your full attention and not let you go until you've turned the last page. It's not some silly little zombie book - it's a complete and well thought out story that's, dare I say it, perfect.

Read another review of Parasite by Mira Grant at Curiosity Killed the Bookworm. 

Review: Don't Kill the Birthday Girl by Sandra Beasley

I apologise in advance for any typos or odd symbols that find their way into this post. I'm typing this on my boyfriend's shiny new Windows Surface that is balanced precariously perfectly safely on a cushion on my knee. Thing is, because a) it doesn't have a proper keyboard and b) I am shit scared of breaking it, I'm writing rather like my dad right now... *pokes button with index finger* *pauses* *pokes again*

Summary: Like twelve million other Americans, Sandra Beasley suffers from food allergies. Her allergies—severe and lifelong—include dairy, egg, soy, beef, shrimp, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, swordfish, and mustard. Add to that mould, dust, grass and tree pollen, cigarette smoke, dogs, rabbits, horses, and wool, and it’s no wonder Sandra felt she had to live her life as “Allergy Girl.” When butter is deadly and eggs can make your throat swell shut, cupcakes and other treats of childhood are out of the question—and so Sandra’s mother used to warn guests against a toxic, frosting-tinged kiss with “Don’t kill the birthday girl!”

It may seem that such a person is “not really designed to survive,” as one blunt nutritionist declared while visiting Sandra’s fourth-grade class. But Sandra has not only survived, she’s thrived—now an essayist, editor, and award-winning poet, she has learned to navigate a world in which danger can lurk in an unassuming corn chip. Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is her story.

So I don't have a whole lot of great experience with illness memoirs, as I've decided to call them. The only other I've read is Chocolate and Vicodin, which could have been great but... wasn't. Far be it from me to snobbily assess the merits of a person's illness, but it read like a rather long whine about how tough the author's life is.

Enter Sandra Beasley. She does not whine, or rant, or bitch. She does not melodramatically hold her hand to her forehead or sink to her knees amid wails of despair. Instead she just kind of... gets on with it. She doesn't state what her motivation for writing Don't Kill the Birthday Girl was, but it reads as a tool to raise awareness of just how dehabilitating severe food allergies can be.

It's fairly obvious that eating out at a restaurant can be problematic if you have allergies, but this book opened my eyes to the less obvious ways in which they can impact your life. What if you're a devout Catholic unable to take Communion? Or a child at a birthday party who sees all their friend eating cake? Sometimes you just don't think through the consequences of what can seem like a rather trivial illness.

All the rites of eating I've ever envied have been secular - defined by pop culture, geography, or my era. But in scenarios where the ritual is religious, and strictly codified, those with food allergies or other dietary restrictions experience a more profound exclusion. Around 2001, a controversy arose when Boston's Roman Catholic Church (seconded by the Archdiocese of New York) affirmed its decree that rice-based wafers were not an acceptable substitute for wheat-based Communion wafers - even for those unable to ingest wheat.
...
Or, as the pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians Parish was quoted as saying during a 2001 interview with the Associatied Press at the time of the Boston controversy: "We many are sharing one bread and becoming one with Christ. We can't make different flavors for different folks and maintain that theological reality."

It's evident that an awful lot of research has gone into this book, in addition to the information that the author has presumably accumulated over several years visiting allergy specialists. There are historical and sociological points brought in, as well as visiting allergies from lots of different perspectives. The result is almost an accessible examination of allergies through the ages and it works really, really well. It is a memoir as Ms Beasley frequently draws upon her own experiences, but it's much more well-rounded and objective than you'd think.

For example, despite obviously, obviously, obviously having sympathy for allergy sufferers of all types (it would be odd if she didn't), she's able to discuss whether perhaps certain aspects are overhyped - there's a whole chapter on how peanut allergies have been blown out of proportion and she doesn't agree with nut-free airplanes, etc. Just to clarify, this lady is severally allergic to dairy, beef, soy, shellfish and a whole host of other things and yet she still doesn't need the world to alter itself just for her.

Not only do I like the book, I also like Sandra Beasley herself. Sometimes it can be difficult to review a memoir objectively when the voice and opinions of the author get in the way, but here she only adds to the value. This is an informative, objective look at allergies from the perspective of a likeable long-term sufferer. I really can't recommend this highly enough.

Visit Sandra Beasley's website here or find her on Twitter.

Review: On The Map: Why the World Looks the Way It Does by Simon Garfield

I bought On The Map from King's Cross Station on a whim last year. You know when you're convinced that your Kindle is going to die so you need to buy a book (genuinely need, for a change) right there and then so you're not left book-less for a two hour train journey? Oh, just me then. But apparently Kindles are way hardier than I ever gave them credit for, because On The Map ended up languishing on the shelf at home until... well, now.

Summary: Maps fascinate us. They chart our understanding of the world and they log our progress, but above all they tell our stories. From the early sketches of philosophers and explorers through to Google Maps and beyond, Simon Garfield examines how maps both relate and realign our history. His compelling narratives range from the quest to create the perfect globe to the challenges of mapping Africa and Antarctica, from spellbinding treasure maps to the naming of America, from Ordnance Survey to the mapping of Monopoly and Skyrim, and from rare map dealers to cartographic frauds. 

En route, there are 'pocket map' tales on dragons and undergrounds, a nineteenth century murder map, the research conducted on the different ways that men and women approach a map, and an explanation of the curious long-term cartographic role played by animals. On The Map is a witty and irrepressible examination of where we've been, how we got there and where we're going.

I loved this book - by the second chapter I wanted to devour every snippet of map-related knowledge it could teach me. And there are a lot of those snippets, by the way. It covers everything from cholera to GPS to the Polar Expeditions, with a great deal in between, in an accessible and friendly manner. At one point I was so engrossed I almost missed my train stop and had to hurtle to the doors with half-open book still in hand!

It's very, very comprehensive, which is a good thing, but it does occasionally result in some chapters being more interesting than others. For example, I loved learning about how disease maps have led to cures, but I really wasn't interested in the spread of guidebooks for travel destinations. 

It's set out more or less chronologically, starting with Alexander the Great founding the Library of Alexandria in 330BC and ending with the GPS-type stuff of the modern age. It includes all kinds of modern references, including the Marauders Map (if I have to explain that, you're on the wrong blog) and the 2011 Muppets Movie, which pleased me no end. It doesn't always follow the timeline though, which is a bit odd. For example it jumps straight from the creation of the London Underground map to travel books in the 1800s. I mean, I don't mind, it's just a little confusing.

The topics get more irrelevant towards the end and therefore the chapters also get shorter. Subjects like maps of movie stars' homes and the Indiana Jones-style moving diagram maps probably don't deserve an entire chapter to themselves. I really do give Mr. Garfield credit for being as thorough as possible, but I did feel like it was dragged out a little.

The writing style is actually kind of perfect, however. It's casual and accessible, but not dumbed down. It's a perfect balance - you don't need any prior geographical knowledge, but the author doesn't get the hand-puppets out to explain it either. It's not easy to read, exactly - you do need to pay attention. There are lots of names (often Greek and similar), facts, figures and dates so you can't half-arse it or you'll end up skimming and not taking anything in.

It is worth it, however. I learned so much about a wide variety of topics and actually ended up liking and respecting Mr Garfield a great deal, which is rare when I read non-fiction. On The Map has taken pride of place on my non-fiction shelf and I'm looking forward to reading it again in the future. It's a comprehensive yet accessible look at how we came to be where we are.

Visit Simon Garfield here.  

Review: The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder by J.W. Ironmonger

Okay, so this isn't anywhere near the top of my unreviewed books list, but I had to bump it up and talk about it RIGHT NOW. It doesn't seem to be The Big Thing that it deserves to be -  I probably wouldn't even have come across it if Lewis hadn't found it at the library and dangled it in front of my face. However The Notable Brain of Maximian Ponder is casual, poignant and yet thoroughly amazing. It has to be the best undiscovered book of the decade.

Plot summary:  Maximilian Ponder shut himself away for thirty years in an attempt to record every memory he ever had. Now he lies dead, surrounded by his magnum opus - The Catalogue - an exhaustive set of notebooks and journals that he hopes will form the map of one human mind. But before his friend Adam Last can call the police and inform them of Max's death, one rather gruesome task remains in order for Max's project to be complete...

Interspersed with sections from The Catalogue, Adam tells the story of the man he knew - a man whose life changed dramatically the day he buried a dead labrador and fought a duel with his father. What emerges is both the story of a friendship and also of a lifelong obsession, a quest to understand the human mind, memory, and how we construct the story of our lives.

It's probably going to take half this review to explain the damn thing although on the face of it, it's quite a simple concept. Maximilian Ponder is a recluse - thirty years ago he closed the door on the world in an attempt to record everything on his brain for scientists of the future to unravel. He compares it to a neurological Rosetta Stone - experts may be able to compare his brain with his notes from The Catalogue, and thereby finally unlock the secrets of the brain.

In essence, it's a story of a man's perspective upon witnessing either genius, madness or both. It gets quite philosophical at parts and clearly there's a psychological aspect there as well. That said, it's never difficult to read. The narrator, Max's long-term best friend, talks in an informal style as if he's simply explaining his friend's eccentricities over a cup of coffee. Intermixed are excerpts from The Catalogue, the form which the project begins to take.

It's this that really makes the book. Mr Ironmonger has clearly put an awful lot of thought into exactly how somebody would go about this ambitious project and then ensures that we understand perfectly. There are three parts to it - firstly, in the main part of The Catalogue, Max details his memories. He can only write down what is actually in his head and cannot check details with anybody else, even if he thinks he may be misremembering. Secondly, the Appendix contains Max's knowledge. Lists of dog breeds, for example, or every film he can remember. People he has known also feature here and as much of a profile on them as he can put together. Finally, there is Max's Day Log. Here he details everything that happens to him as he is actually doing the project, although it may only consist of conversations with Adam and his meals.

Entries from The Catalogue itself and the Appendix feature in the actual novel, sometimes relating to Adam's narrative, sometimes not. It gives a very jumpy feel to the book, especially as Adam doesn't really attempt any kind of chronological order either. Normally this would annoy me, but it works so well here. I mean, what's more inconsistent than the human brain?

It's clever. So very clever. There are sometimes tiny but deliberate discrepancies between Adam's account and Max's Catalogue entries to emphasise the core point that two people's experiences of the same event may be very different. As the book itself points out, no man steps in the same river twice, nor two men into the same river. It also brings up the point of false memories - how much of what Max remembers is correct and how much was 'filled in' by his imagination?

The ending is one of the best I've read, ever. I wasn't sure whether to cry or throw up or what, but my heart was hammering and my fingers were gripping the sides of the book so hard I left permanent indentations. It's just perfect. It's a slow build-up, but it makes so much sense and left me absolutely desperate to know what happened. It almost, almost matches 11.22.63 and we all know how much I loved that one. 

Sometimes when you review a book you loved, you can't really explain yourself and your review post ends up a tangled babble of mush, much like this one. I know I'm not being coherent or even particularly helpful, but read between the lines. I loved this book. I want to hug it at night and weep. This is the book that the words 'modern masterpiece' were created for.

You can read an extract from The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder by J.W. Ironmonger here.

Review: Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

I got this out from the library way back in February and I was absolutely desperate to read it. You know, champing at the bit, frothing at the mouth, clawing at the windows type desperate. We'd just watched the film for the first time in years, and I think I fell in love with it even more than I did the first time. I just loved it and it made me so ridiculously happy that I clicked straight onto the library catalogue and reserved myself a copy of the novel. And then didn't read it for three months, obviously.

On a remote jungle island, genetic engineers have created a dinosaur game park.

An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now one of mankind's most thrilling fantasies has come true and the first dinosaurs that the Earth has seen in the time of man emerge.

But, as always, there is a dark side to the fantasy and after a catastrophe destroys the park's defense systems, the scientists and tourists are left fighting for survival...

I loved the book even more than the movie, once I'd eventually got round to reading it. They changed quite a lot for the big screen, especially character-wise (Jeff Goldblum's role in particular) and it was fascinating to work out which was original and which was Steven Spielberg. There's one change in particular that means I'm not going to be able to watch any of the three films again without ranting. It's a huge, huge change and I need somebody else to read it so I can rant! Certain iconic scenes are identical though - T-Rex overturning cars in the rain, anyone? 

It's a lot more serious and scientific than the film. The explanation behind the DNA-ing process (clearly I've picked up a lot of the terminology) is much more in-depth and there's a lot of dinosaur facts inserted neatly into the text. At the same time, you never feel like you're actually learning. As so many of the characters are palaeontologists or botanists, it feels so natural for them to be talking in that way. It even ventures into the philosophical at times - Dr. Malcolm in particular is very keen on chaos theory, which he (frequently) uses to explain how he believes Jurassic Park is doomed to fail. There doesn't seem to be as much action in the book, but then it makes up for it with rational, thought-out discussion and tense atmosphere.

However, that doesn't mean I didn't want to feed any of the characters to a dinosaur. Lexy, for example. I'd have rescued the goat and chained her to the post instead. In the book, it's actually the girl child that's younger - apparently Steven Spielberg liked Joseph Mazello so much that he switched the fictional children's ages round so that he could play the boy. But anyway. She's honestly the one thing I'd have changed about Jurassic Park - she's just so whiny and god-damned annoying. She doesn't care about dinosaurs and constantly informs her brother that their father loves her more. Charming. Stabbity stab stab.

But now science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting not to fit the world any more. Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent. Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating. But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it cannot tell us not to build it. Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it. And our world starts to seem polluted in fundamental ways---air, and water, and land---because of ungovernable science.
 
The atmosphere in this book is just incredible though. You can practically feel the dinosaurs (seriously, every single time I've written that word in this review, I've accidentally typed 'spiders' first. Which sucks because Arachnid Park wouldn't be half as exciting) breathing down your neck. It's tense, exciting and I was on the edge of my seat, half expecting a spider dinosaur to take a bite out of me at any moment. 

That said, it's nowhere near as gory as I expected it to be. If it were a film (which it is, obviously), I'd probably give it a PG, or 12 at a push. There's a few moments that made me go 'Eww!' but nothing to do with humans and nothing even remotely memorable.  Basically, if you can put on your big girl panties to watch the movie, you can cope with the book.

Long story short, I really really loved Jurassic Park. It's even better than the film and I can't wait to read the second book. Speaking of, did anybody know they're currently making a new film?

Visit the website of Michael Crichton here, or 'like' him on Facebook.

Review: The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe

I was so desperate to read The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists, that when my reserved copy at arrived at the library I did what I never do - I read two books at once. I know, I know, I understand your shock and your disapproval. I'll do better in future. In my defence though, I'm currently reading Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore and it's long. Plus it's mostly dialogue based so it's slightly slow going at places... more to the point, I really wanted to read this one! It's short and light, so it didn't detract from that much Bitterblue time... *coughs* Anyway, it was worth every second, because I LOVED this book!

Plot summary: Worried that his pirates are growing bored with a life of winking at pretty native ladies and trying to stick enough jellyfish together to make a bouncy castle, the Pirate Captain decides it's high time to spearhead an adventure. 

While searching for some major pirate booty, he mistakenly attacks the young Charles Darwin's Beagle and then leads his ragtag crew from the exotic Galapagos Islands to the fog-filled streets of Victorian London. There they encounter grisly murder, vanishing ladies, radioactive elephants, and the Holy Ghost himself. And that's not even the half of it.
 
I first saw this book in the Borders store years and years ago (long before any mention of the movie, thank you very much!) and I really wish it hadn't taken me this long to get round to reading it. The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists is the start of a five book-long series, starting with this one and ending with the newly released ...with the Romantics (because I REFUSE to type it out every time). It's a tiny, light-hearted book that more than brightened up my gloomy day with its typically British (read: 'awful') weather.

So, the basic premise has the Pirate Captain and his crew going on adventures, shockingly. In this one, they are led to believe by their arch nemesis, Black Bellamy, that there's a ship from the Bank of England carrying tons of gold across the Ocean and they set off in search for it. Except perhaps Black Bellamy is not quite as reformed as they have been told, because the ship in question turns out to be the HMS on their second voyage to the Galapagos Islands!

It's got a very simple tone - verging on clunky at times, but never quite crossing over the border. It never seemed to take itself seriously - it's just a good, funny story told for a laugh. Very few people actually have names and there's hardly a great deal of time invested in character development, but it just adds to the whimsical nature of ...with Scientists.

'Living at sea tended to leave you with ratty, matted hair, but the Pirate Captain somehow kept his beard silky and in good condition, and though nobody knew his secret, they all respected him for it. They also respected him because it was said he was wedded to the sea. A lot of pirates claimed they were wedded to the sea, but usually this was an excuse because they couldn't get a girlfriend or they were a gay pirate, but in the Pirate Captain's case none of his crew doubted he was actually wedded to the sea for a minute.'

It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but there are a few paragraphs that made me smile. Gideon Defoe (I've looked and looked, and it really does seem to be his real name) has a knack for using a sardonic, conversational tone that reminds me a little of a simpler Terry Pratchett, which can only be a good thing. I love how he brings in historical characters like Charles Darwin and Robert Fitzroy, who I didn't know much about but was apparently the Captain of the HMS Beagle, and his work in the meteorology field is responsible for the accuracy of weather predictions today.

The author even uses footnotes in a similar way to Terry Pratchett, although to enlighten us with factual asides, not to amuse. For example, apparently the HMS Beagle was only ninety feet long and notoriously unseaworthy - in his notes Darwin described the voyage as 'one continual puke.' I've wandered off to check the accuracy of a few of these facts so I don't look like a complete moron believing made-up things meant only to entertain, but no, they're true. They aren't frequent enough to really be annoying but they do add a nice happy bonus to the book :)

I got my copy from Sheffield Library, but I have every intention of purchasing this book and the next four in the series the second I get paid next week. I need my own copy to nuzzle and smile at lovingly! It's just so, so good!

Visit Gideon Defoe's website here, or find him on Twitter.

Review: Ape House by Sara Gruen

First off, a massive thank you to Ellie from Musings of a Bookshop Girl for being wonderful enough to send this to me for Christmas because she loved it herself (her review is here). She also sent me the Pride and Prejudice DVD (the proper one, with Colin Firth) so that's my Christmas Day all sorted! Anyway, gushing thank yous aside, I really can't recommend Ape House highly enough.

Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn’t understand people, but animals she gets – especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she’s ever felt among humans… until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what’s really going on inside.

When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and “liberating” the apes, John’s human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he’ll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show, Ape House, featuring the missing apes, débuts under mysterious circumstances and immediately becomes the biggest – and unlikeliest – phenomenon in the history of modern media.

I had no idea that Ape House was written by the author of Water for Elephants until browsing Ellie's blog a week or so ago. I haven't read it yet, so I can't comment on the multitude of comparative reviews I've come across, but if it's even half as good as this book, I can't wait. 

To be honest, I've never really been a massive fan of apes but I still loved this book. Obviously they feature heavily in the story, but it's more about Isabel's perseverance to save the animals she loves and the extent humans will go to achieve their own ends. It discusses both the terrible treatment of animals in entertainment and in laboratories, but also when animal rights activists take their protesting too far. My feelings towards bonobos and their primate relations have taken such a turn-around that I have a Firefox tab open this very minute for The Great Apes Trust to see what I can do to help.

I don't think I've ever gone through such a range of strong emotions while reading one book. I had to keep putting down the book and staring off into space just to process what I'd just read. In fact, it's so impossible trying to write this review without talking about what happens that I'm writing an e-mail to Ellie at the same so I can rant/rave without spoiling anything for anyone. I think my primary emotion was sheer horror - you know where you're so shocked and disgusted at human nature that you get that tight, contracted feeling in the pit of your stomach? I particularly wanted to slap Cat Douglas - not a pathetic little tap, but a fully-fledged whack across her face. She and Peter have to be two of the best-written characters of all time.

Even without the drama, Ape House is fascinating. Ms Gruen has obviously put a lot of effort and time into researching the methods of communication between humans and apes. Basic American Sign Language is taught to the bonobos which they can then use to communicate with each other and with their human carers. They're even intelligent enough to order products online with a simplified computer program. It just blew me away. Plus, it's hardly just scientific babble - the facts and concepts are inserted so subtly into the storyline that you have no idea you're being taught. I had no idea about any of this and I've already wishlist-ed the books the author recommended.

It's a very intelligent book, but it's very emotional and domestic at the same time. John and Isabel's personal lives and problems are a major part of the book, and the thought of the actions of various characters actually kept me awake last night.

Long story short, it's a wonderful, moving, compelling story with likeable characters and tangible issues. I'm dying to read Water for Elephants, but I don't see how it can really improve on Ape House.

This book was:

• One of the Top Five Books I Found Through Blogging
• The Best Author I Discovered During 2011

You may also enjoy We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - another novel about chimps in laboratory settings.