It’s probably not Cecelia Ahern’s fault I consider her a hit-and-miss author. Probably anyone who tried to turn such magical ideas as she has into a book would struggle because almost every one of her ideas is outside the realms of possibility (not including the one about invisible friends, If You Could See Me Now. Trust me, they are real).
Where Rainbows End is slightly more grounded in reality than most but it also includes the ‘magic’ of two people’s being soulmates. Ahern’s central characters Rosie and Alex (Alex is a guy) are meant for each other but they kind of keep missing each other. They arrange to go to the school Prom together despite the small inconvenience of Alex’s living in the USA at the time but Alex’s flight is cancelled and the only guy without a date is so awful Rosie has to get drunk. And she ends up having a baby. Then Rosie realises she likes Alex but Alex goes off and gets married. Then Alex realises he likes Rosie but she goes off and gets married. Then Alex… you get the idea. I don’t know why they do it really. Surely marriage is bad enough if you actually love the person you’re marrying.
Rainbows End, like the Holly’s Inbox books, is a novel in letters. It starts off with Alex and Rosie aged 7 writing each other notes in class (or from their bedrooms on the many occasions when they’ve been banned from seeing one another). They later graduate to Instant Messaging each other in class (which is a bit surprising, I’m ten years younger than them and I’m sure we never had Instant Messaging in class, I didn’t even know how to do Instant Messaging till I was twenty) before mostly e-mailing when they’re adults. Alex moves to America when he and Rosie are in their late teens, which ensures they have good reason to continue writing to one another.
The novel in letters can be alienating because you never find out anything until someone writes about it in a letter or e-mail. You don’t know anything until it’s happened, which kind of rules out the idea of them dying tragically in each other’s arms. In this case, we barely see the two main characters together because they’re mostly writing to each other (although they do get to meet up every so often, where they take turns at making fools of themselves).
But in this book, it isn’t a problem. If you think about it, all books (apart from the present tense ones I suppose) involve reporting events. Many books are written in the first person – just like letters and e-mails. Also, the letters and e-mails in this book tend to be quite long, so in some ways it’s not much different from a multi-viewpoint book, with several pages from one person’s point of view, followed by several pages from the point of view of another person. Most of the book is Rosie and Alex, but Rosie’s daughter Katie, Katie’s best friend Toby, Rosie’s new friend Ruby, Rosie’s sister Steph and their parents all make regular appearances.
And the Instant Messages are so much like conversations, they flow naturally too. True, as far as Instant Messages go, they’re not terribly realistic. Ahern uses a bit of poetic licence, allowing the characters to interrupt each other mid-sentence. As far as I know, Instant Messages aren’t that advanced yet – I don’t think you can see what the other person is writing until you’ve pressed Send, so while someone might only read the first sentence before writing back, they can’t really interrupt you mid-sentence. But Ahern gets away with it. And if there isn’t an Instant Messaging system like that now, there probably will be at some point. And maybe this book is set in the future.
Tuesday 17 November 2009
Tuesday 10 November 2009
Woody and Nord: A Football Friendship (Gareth Southgate and Andy Woodman)*****
I love football and I love Gareth Southgate, so I was always going to enjoy this book a lot. And I did, but not just for the reasons I was expecting to enjoy it. The book is about a friendship between two men, one who makes it as a Premiership and international star, and his friend who spends a lot of time sitting on the bench in the lower leagues.
The book offers a fascinating comparison not only between the two situations, but also between Then and Now. It is very difficult to imagine, for example, Aaron Ramsey of Arsenal cleaning his team-mate Andrei Arshavin’s boots, but this was an everyday occurrence when Gareth Southgate and Andy Woodman were young players. They had to clean mud-covered football boots, keep the changing rooms clean and tidy, do whatever other filthy and time-consuming jobs they were asked to do - and all for under £30 a week. There are rumours now of players of that age earning at least £45,000 a week.
But the book is so much more than that. The friendship between Gareth and Andy is the important thing, and it is exciting, interesting and also encouraging to read about two people who genuinely care for each other, and how it develops even though the two live very different lives (in the same profession, yes, but still very different). Many people have commented that Andy has been lucky to hang onto Gareth’s friendship – and to an extent, they’re right. Anyone who finds such a strong friendship as these two is lucky. But what they actually mean is that Andy is lucky to stay friends with someone who’s so rich. Anyone who reads this book will know that side of things never comes into it.
Gareth and Andy did have a sports writer to help them with the book, but the impression is that they wrote most of it themselves. And they can both write. Andy, as Gareth tells us many times, can be hilariously funny, and this is shown not only in his actions but in his writing style too. No matter what happens, he is always cheerful, and not in an annoying way either.
And although Gareth, in theory, has a much better life, you have no trouble at all understanding why it has often made him unhappy. Money does not make you happy and anyone who thinks it does is either mad or Scottish. How can money make you feel better if you think you’ve just let the country down? You can’t buy your team a trophy (this book was written before the invention of Manchester City. And if buying trophies were possible, I’d like to think Ryan Giggs would have bought one for Wales). And I’m not just talking about that penalty. Or any of the other three Gareth has missed. He’s a very sensitive man and a lot has happened to him. And he’s a brilliant writer too.
He’s also a really lovely man. I wrote to him a few months ago and he replied right in the middle of Middlesbrough’s relegation battle. Can you imagine Alex Ferguson or Chelsea’s latest manager (I know what his name is, Carlo Ancelotti, however there’s no guarantee he’ll still be there by the time I get around to posting my review) doing this? Well, I wouldn’t mind putting them into a relegation battle so we can find out…
And one more thing. The first two words of the book are ‘Mitcham Station’. Is there any better way to start a book than by naming a railway station that technically doesn’t exist anymore? The station has been rebuilt as a tram station, with two platforms served approximately every three minutes. Very different from the station described by Gareth and Andy, with its one platform and one train every half-hour. But it used to be a railway station and now it’s not a railway station, so it’s a disused railway station, isn’t it? And there is nothing in the world nicer than a book with two lovely protagonists (you know what I mean!) that’s all about football and disused railway stations. (Except maybe Pride and Prejudice, but I’m sure Jane Austen would have mentioned them if she could.)
The book offers a fascinating comparison not only between the two situations, but also between Then and Now. It is very difficult to imagine, for example, Aaron Ramsey of Arsenal cleaning his team-mate Andrei Arshavin’s boots, but this was an everyday occurrence when Gareth Southgate and Andy Woodman were young players. They had to clean mud-covered football boots, keep the changing rooms clean and tidy, do whatever other filthy and time-consuming jobs they were asked to do - and all for under £30 a week. There are rumours now of players of that age earning at least £45,000 a week.
But the book is so much more than that. The friendship between Gareth and Andy is the important thing, and it is exciting, interesting and also encouraging to read about two people who genuinely care for each other, and how it develops even though the two live very different lives (in the same profession, yes, but still very different). Many people have commented that Andy has been lucky to hang onto Gareth’s friendship – and to an extent, they’re right. Anyone who finds such a strong friendship as these two is lucky. But what they actually mean is that Andy is lucky to stay friends with someone who’s so rich. Anyone who reads this book will know that side of things never comes into it.
Gareth and Andy did have a sports writer to help them with the book, but the impression is that they wrote most of it themselves. And they can both write. Andy, as Gareth tells us many times, can be hilariously funny, and this is shown not only in his actions but in his writing style too. No matter what happens, he is always cheerful, and not in an annoying way either.
And although Gareth, in theory, has a much better life, you have no trouble at all understanding why it has often made him unhappy. Money does not make you happy and anyone who thinks it does is either mad or Scottish. How can money make you feel better if you think you’ve just let the country down? You can’t buy your team a trophy (this book was written before the invention of Manchester City. And if buying trophies were possible, I’d like to think Ryan Giggs would have bought one for Wales). And I’m not just talking about that penalty. Or any of the other three Gareth has missed. He’s a very sensitive man and a lot has happened to him. And he’s a brilliant writer too.
He’s also a really lovely man. I wrote to him a few months ago and he replied right in the middle of Middlesbrough’s relegation battle. Can you imagine Alex Ferguson or Chelsea’s latest manager (I know what his name is, Carlo Ancelotti, however there’s no guarantee he’ll still be there by the time I get around to posting my review) doing this? Well, I wouldn’t mind putting them into a relegation battle so we can find out…
And one more thing. The first two words of the book are ‘Mitcham Station’. Is there any better way to start a book than by naming a railway station that technically doesn’t exist anymore? The station has been rebuilt as a tram station, with two platforms served approximately every three minutes. Very different from the station described by Gareth and Andy, with its one platform and one train every half-hour. But it used to be a railway station and now it’s not a railway station, so it’s a disused railway station, isn’t it? And there is nothing in the world nicer than a book with two lovely protagonists (you know what I mean!) that’s all about football and disused railway stations. (Except maybe Pride and Prejudice, but I’m sure Jane Austen would have mentioned them if she could.)
Sunday 8 November 2009
The Secret Daughter (Catherine Spencer)**
Another day, another Mills & Boon. This is from the Presents series which I think is now called Modern Romance. In other words, non-explicit sex and not a lot of it.
There were things I loved about this book, but so many things that infuriated me. Firstly, most importantly, the big twist is not just revealed in the blurb, it’s revealed in the TITLE. It would have been so much more exciting if this hadn’t been given away before I’d even read the first sentence. It’s actually a really interesting story, weightier than a lot of Mills & Boons. So I feel a bit deprived really.
The plot was probably slightly wasted on Mills & Boon. I don’t really mean that in a snobby way, but there’s a lot going on with all the characters, not just the central couple Imogen and Joe, and a 50,000 word novel where the main focus has to be on the romance doesn’t really give Catherine Spencer the opportunity to explore all the stories in detail. There are lots of really interesting characters who barely feature, such as Joe’s family and Imogen’s old nanny. And Imogen’s horrible mother Suzanne is great. Her behaviour is despicable from the beginning to a page or two from the end, but it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for her. She seems so unhappy. And her views aren’t so much wrong as desperately old-fashioned. She’d have got on fine a century or two ago.
Joe, like a lot of M&B heroes, really annoys me. I can understand why he finds Imogen irritating, but the aggressive way he treats her is pretty disgusting. As usual, he expects all to be forgiven because he loves her, but I wouldn’t forgive that easily. Maybe he does love her (although I certainly wasn’t convinced), but that doesn’t change all the horrible things he said to her, and it also doesn’t change the fact that the same could happen again the next time he gets stressed about something.
A quickie wedding that certainly isn’t based on love is the last thing Imogen needs. The poor girl really has nothing on which to base her expectations for a happy marriage. Yes, she is irritating, and not very intelligent, and her sudden u-turn from being snobby about Joe to practically begging him to love her does seem rather pathetic. But no-one deserves to be treated like that. All I can say for Imogen is she’s very lucky she lives in a Mills & Boon. It’s her only hope of happily ever after.
There were things I loved about this book, but so many things that infuriated me. Firstly, most importantly, the big twist is not just revealed in the blurb, it’s revealed in the TITLE. It would have been so much more exciting if this hadn’t been given away before I’d even read the first sentence. It’s actually a really interesting story, weightier than a lot of Mills & Boons. So I feel a bit deprived really.
The plot was probably slightly wasted on Mills & Boon. I don’t really mean that in a snobby way, but there’s a lot going on with all the characters, not just the central couple Imogen and Joe, and a 50,000 word novel where the main focus has to be on the romance doesn’t really give Catherine Spencer the opportunity to explore all the stories in detail. There are lots of really interesting characters who barely feature, such as Joe’s family and Imogen’s old nanny. And Imogen’s horrible mother Suzanne is great. Her behaviour is despicable from the beginning to a page or two from the end, but it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for her. She seems so unhappy. And her views aren’t so much wrong as desperately old-fashioned. She’d have got on fine a century or two ago.
Joe, like a lot of M&B heroes, really annoys me. I can understand why he finds Imogen irritating, but the aggressive way he treats her is pretty disgusting. As usual, he expects all to be forgiven because he loves her, but I wouldn’t forgive that easily. Maybe he does love her (although I certainly wasn’t convinced), but that doesn’t change all the horrible things he said to her, and it also doesn’t change the fact that the same could happen again the next time he gets stressed about something.
A quickie wedding that certainly isn’t based on love is the last thing Imogen needs. The poor girl really has nothing on which to base her expectations for a happy marriage. Yes, she is irritating, and not very intelligent, and her sudden u-turn from being snobby about Joe to practically begging him to love her does seem rather pathetic. But no-one deserves to be treated like that. All I can say for Imogen is she’s very lucky she lives in a Mills & Boon. It’s her only hope of happily ever after.
Wednesday 4 November 2009
Secrets in Texas (Carrie Weaver)**
I wouldn’t usually review a Mills and Boon. After all, they only seem to be available in the shops for a month or so, banished from the shelves once the new shipment comes in. But why not review it? They’re common enough in charity shops after all and the chance of finding this one will be marginally greater if I re-donate it.
Secrets in Texas comes from the Super Romance series. I haven’t read all that many of them, but as far as I can make out they form a series of books that place the hero and heroine in great danger, often with some sort of crime-based plot that to some extent takes precedence over the romance.
In this book, law enforcement officer Angel Harrison has to infiltrate a group of Mormons by marrying Matthew Stone, the son of the head Mormon who is returning to the fold out of concern for the family he left behind years ago, and pretending he wants to return to the Mormon ways. Angel comes with him as his wife – they’re legally married, but certainly to begin with neither of them are even thinking of consummation. Or that’s when they tell themselves anyway.
But Matt finds himself falling for Angel’s strength and free spirit, enjoying watching such a powerful woman and trained killer playing the role of the devoted, passive wife. And Angel discovers that, despite the abusive marriage that led her to train as a law enforcement officer in the first place, maybe it will be possible for her to love again.
The characters are rather nicely done. Angel is very funny, and she and Matt have a great rapport. Matt is often called Matthew (one of the common literary names for unfaithful wankers) in this book, but despite his Uncle Jonathon’s demands that he take a second wife, he is faithful to Angel. Jonathon himself is a real monster, but there is something vaguely sexy about him that probably attracted his many wives. His ‘favourite’ wife, Eleanor, is a fascinating character, such as is not often found in Mills & Boon. Carrie Weaver reveals her character gradually and cleverly.
But other parts of the book really bother me. I know a lot of people object to Mormons, and most readers will probably sympathise with Angel’s disgust – and certainly there is something very wrong in the particular sect she visits. But it is still a religion and a way of life which I’m sure makes some people very happy. If Weaver had written about an evil Catholic community, for example, I’m sure there would have been some very strong objections; if she had written about an evil Muslim community, she really would have been in trouble. So I don’t think she should be passing comments on Mormons like this. Just because the concepts are completely alien to our society, it doesn’t mean they are wrong in other people’s. It happens all the time in the Bible.
The plot is also a bit questionable. Weaver has some good ideas, and she certainly has a flair for creating tense drama, but I didn’t really understand what Jonathon was up to. He seemed to be committing so many crimes at once, it just became confusing. At best, he is completely and dangerously amoral, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to be committing every possible crime on offer to him.
I think really, I’d like to give it three stars. There were parts of the book I really enjoyed, such as when Angel and Matt decided to rattle the headboard in order to fool the bitch sleeping next door into thinking they were having passionate, enthusiastic sex. It’s almost a disappointment when they start doing it for real. And any scene with Eleanor in is great. But my reservations about the book are so strong, I’ll give it two.
Secrets in Texas comes from the Super Romance series. I haven’t read all that many of them, but as far as I can make out they form a series of books that place the hero and heroine in great danger, often with some sort of crime-based plot that to some extent takes precedence over the romance.
In this book, law enforcement officer Angel Harrison has to infiltrate a group of Mormons by marrying Matthew Stone, the son of the head Mormon who is returning to the fold out of concern for the family he left behind years ago, and pretending he wants to return to the Mormon ways. Angel comes with him as his wife – they’re legally married, but certainly to begin with neither of them are even thinking of consummation. Or that’s when they tell themselves anyway.
But Matt finds himself falling for Angel’s strength and free spirit, enjoying watching such a powerful woman and trained killer playing the role of the devoted, passive wife. And Angel discovers that, despite the abusive marriage that led her to train as a law enforcement officer in the first place, maybe it will be possible for her to love again.
The characters are rather nicely done. Angel is very funny, and she and Matt have a great rapport. Matt is often called Matthew (one of the common literary names for unfaithful wankers) in this book, but despite his Uncle Jonathon’s demands that he take a second wife, he is faithful to Angel. Jonathon himself is a real monster, but there is something vaguely sexy about him that probably attracted his many wives. His ‘favourite’ wife, Eleanor, is a fascinating character, such as is not often found in Mills & Boon. Carrie Weaver reveals her character gradually and cleverly.
But other parts of the book really bother me. I know a lot of people object to Mormons, and most readers will probably sympathise with Angel’s disgust – and certainly there is something very wrong in the particular sect she visits. But it is still a religion and a way of life which I’m sure makes some people very happy. If Weaver had written about an evil Catholic community, for example, I’m sure there would have been some very strong objections; if she had written about an evil Muslim community, she really would have been in trouble. So I don’t think she should be passing comments on Mormons like this. Just because the concepts are completely alien to our society, it doesn’t mean they are wrong in other people’s. It happens all the time in the Bible.
The plot is also a bit questionable. Weaver has some good ideas, and she certainly has a flair for creating tense drama, but I didn’t really understand what Jonathon was up to. He seemed to be committing so many crimes at once, it just became confusing. At best, he is completely and dangerously amoral, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to be committing every possible crime on offer to him.
I think really, I’d like to give it three stars. There were parts of the book I really enjoyed, such as when Angel and Matt decided to rattle the headboard in order to fool the bitch sleeping next door into thinking they were having passionate, enthusiastic sex. It’s almost a disappointment when they start doing it for real. And any scene with Eleanor in is great. But my reservations about the book are so strong, I’ll give it two.
Monday 2 November 2009
Got You Back (Jane Fallon)**
I loved Jane Fallon’s first novel, Getting Rid of Matthew. I gave it three stars at the time but I think that was mean. It’s definitely a book I still enjoy thinking about months later. It’s very funny, with three love triangle characters who are engaging, if not technically likeable. But it’s also a clever novel that turns a clichéd situation into something a bit different.
So when I saw Got You Back in the shops, I was expecting more of the same from Fallon. No matter that the plot had a similar-sounding love triangle. It was hilarious last time, so I didn’t mind having the same plot rehashed with a few differences. Not if it was funny.
It wasn’t funny. It started really well, with Stephanie finding texts from a mysterious K on her husband James’ mobile (yes, it’s two-timing James again). She discovers they’re from a woman called Katie, and she phones her, introducing herself as James’ wife – not ex-wife, as Katie thought. Katie is all for telling James she knows straight away but Stephanie decides it might be more fun to make him suffer a bit first. So when Katie dyes and styles her hair like Stephanie’s, and when both women buy identical tops, comedy does seem imminent.
But the comedy soon disappears, and it becomes yet another story about a two-timing husband who’s more in love with himself than his women, a wife who jumps straight into a new relationship the first chance she gets, and a girlfriend who would certainly have boiled the guy’s bunny if he happened to bring one home from the surgery where he works as a vet. It’s not deep enough or moving enough to be a serious dramatic story, but it’s not funny enough to be anything else.
Without all the humour, the story falls flat. Neither James, his girlfriend Katie, nor his wife Stephanie are particularly engaging characters. I didn’t like them or care what happened to him. There are some vaguely amusing moments at Stephanie’s work, where she tries to persuade various wannabes not to go to an awards ceremony with their naughty bits on show. But I wasn’t that interested, and while I could understand why Stephanie was feeling upset and stressed, the unkind and unprofessional manner in which she treated her clients was really worrying. Stephanie was extremely lucky they all happened to be nice people.
Stephanie’s workmate Natasha is my favourite character but even she’s inconsistent. One minute, she’s trying to think up an appropriate punishment for James that doesn’t involve causing GBH. The next, she’s hiding from one of her clients because she’s frightened of them. It doesn’t quite make sense. And as for Stephanie’s son Finn, I can fully understand her concerns that he might be psychotic. Given his propensity for drawing mutilated animals, perhaps it would be better if he didn’t take after James and become a vet.
Also, I find the book difficult to read. A lot of it is written in the pluperfect tense, which is quite alienating. I used to loathe books in the present tense with a passion and I’d rather have died than actually written one myself. But now I love the present tense best because everything seems so immediate. And if you do want to do a flashback you can put it into the past tense and you hardly notice the difference.
Got You Back is in the past tense which can have the advantage of sounding more literary than the present tense but it means you have to use the pluperfect if you want to make it clear something has happened before the events that have just been described. Usually this is fine as there will usually be only a couple of uses of the pluperfect - enough to get your attention - before it switches back to the preterite. But when just about every verb is preceded by ‘had’, as happens all the time in this book, it can sound really clunky.
It also really brings home to you the fact that things have already happened. The characters/author are only keeping you up to date of happenings in their life in a second-hand sort of way. Even in real life it’s not unknown for people to start talking about past events in the present tense (“So I’m standing there, then suddenly I hear this voice behind me so I turn around and there he is, and he’s looking at me, and I’m looking at him, and I’m just like in shock…”) or something like that. Then in one chapter a character might be worrying about a problem they have, and by the next chapter they’ll have moved on to a different problem, and you won’t here anything about the first problem until it’s casually mentioned later on it’s been solved. I felt a bit shut out from it all.
So when I saw Got You Back in the shops, I was expecting more of the same from Fallon. No matter that the plot had a similar-sounding love triangle. It was hilarious last time, so I didn’t mind having the same plot rehashed with a few differences. Not if it was funny.
It wasn’t funny. It started really well, with Stephanie finding texts from a mysterious K on her husband James’ mobile (yes, it’s two-timing James again). She discovers they’re from a woman called Katie, and she phones her, introducing herself as James’ wife – not ex-wife, as Katie thought. Katie is all for telling James she knows straight away but Stephanie decides it might be more fun to make him suffer a bit first. So when Katie dyes and styles her hair like Stephanie’s, and when both women buy identical tops, comedy does seem imminent.
But the comedy soon disappears, and it becomes yet another story about a two-timing husband who’s more in love with himself than his women, a wife who jumps straight into a new relationship the first chance she gets, and a girlfriend who would certainly have boiled the guy’s bunny if he happened to bring one home from the surgery where he works as a vet. It’s not deep enough or moving enough to be a serious dramatic story, but it’s not funny enough to be anything else.
Without all the humour, the story falls flat. Neither James, his girlfriend Katie, nor his wife Stephanie are particularly engaging characters. I didn’t like them or care what happened to him. There are some vaguely amusing moments at Stephanie’s work, where she tries to persuade various wannabes not to go to an awards ceremony with their naughty bits on show. But I wasn’t that interested, and while I could understand why Stephanie was feeling upset and stressed, the unkind and unprofessional manner in which she treated her clients was really worrying. Stephanie was extremely lucky they all happened to be nice people.
Stephanie’s workmate Natasha is my favourite character but even she’s inconsistent. One minute, she’s trying to think up an appropriate punishment for James that doesn’t involve causing GBH. The next, she’s hiding from one of her clients because she’s frightened of them. It doesn’t quite make sense. And as for Stephanie’s son Finn, I can fully understand her concerns that he might be psychotic. Given his propensity for drawing mutilated animals, perhaps it would be better if he didn’t take after James and become a vet.
Also, I find the book difficult to read. A lot of it is written in the pluperfect tense, which is quite alienating. I used to loathe books in the present tense with a passion and I’d rather have died than actually written one myself. But now I love the present tense best because everything seems so immediate. And if you do want to do a flashback you can put it into the past tense and you hardly notice the difference.
Got You Back is in the past tense which can have the advantage of sounding more literary than the present tense but it means you have to use the pluperfect if you want to make it clear something has happened before the events that have just been described. Usually this is fine as there will usually be only a couple of uses of the pluperfect - enough to get your attention - before it switches back to the preterite. But when just about every verb is preceded by ‘had’, as happens all the time in this book, it can sound really clunky.
It also really brings home to you the fact that things have already happened. The characters/author are only keeping you up to date of happenings in their life in a second-hand sort of way. Even in real life it’s not unknown for people to start talking about past events in the present tense (“So I’m standing there, then suddenly I hear this voice behind me so I turn around and there he is, and he’s looking at me, and I’m looking at him, and I’m just like in shock…”) or something like that. Then in one chapter a character might be worrying about a problem they have, and by the next chapter they’ll have moved on to a different problem, and you won’t here anything about the first problem until it’s casually mentioned later on it’s been solved. I felt a bit shut out from it all.
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