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The Swim Club by Anne de Lisle

([personal profile] sasha_t Apr. 22nd, 2011 01:30 pm)
Title: The Swim Club
Author: Anne de Lisle
Number of Pages: 300ish
Genre: Fiction
Book Number/Goal: 5/20 in one year
My rating: 1/5

Review: Had to read this one through Book Club. A feel-good story about life and the friendship that forms between women. The writing style was too simplistic to hold my attention in a genre I have no interest in. And it was way too predictable. And nothing happened till after 200pages. Deals with issues we all live out in every day life; but the author was incapable of using the right language to capture me emotionally.

Yawn - pass on this one.

  • Current Mood: bored
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Book Review - A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

([personal profile] sasha_t Apr. 17th, 2011 03:15 pm)
Title: A Discovery of Witches
Author: Deborah Harkness
Number of Pages: 592
Genre: Fiction - supernatural
Book Number/Goal: 4/20 in one year
My rating: 5/5

Review: I LOVED this book! :D

There are two main characters - Diana Bishop is an historian and a reluctant witch, and Matthew Clairmont is a vampire geneticist. This had me a little worried - is this just another vampire/witch story churned out to cash in on the latest fad in movies/books.

Hell No!

Deborah Harkness is a great writer - her descriptive style is not too heavy, not too light, so it doesn't detract from the flow of the story. I was hooked from the first page and gladly followed Diana - a loner academic - whose life gets thrown into turmoil by a future she has resisted since childhood.

The relationship between Diana and Matthew develops beautifully, and there are many other very well written characters along the way to add drama and interest to a riveting story.

I'm most happy that it ends in such a way that Deborah can write a sequel :D

IMHO - an awesome, must-read book!
  • Current Mood: jubilant
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The Rouseabout by Rachel Treasure

([personal profile] sasha_t Feb. 20th, 2011 01:29 pm)
Title: The Rouseabout
Author: Rachel Treasure
Number of Pages: 300ish
Genre: Fiction
Book Number/Goal: 3/20 in one year
My rating: 3/5

Review: This is a novel set in rural Tasmania (Australia). It's about a girl who loses her mum, gets accidentally pregnant, feels disconnected from her family, takes off, comes back, etc, etc. (yawn).

It's not a horrible read, it's just nothing new. It's a story about an individual that we all know in our regular lives and how she deals with stuff.

Why did I read it? It was a book club choice. Would I revisit the author? No :). It's just not a particular type of story/genre that interests me.

  • Current Mood: bored
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The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood

([personal profile] sasha_t Jan. 16th, 2011 06:23 pm)
Title: The Poison Diaries
Author: Maryrose Wood
Number of Pages: 278
Genre: Fiction
Book Number/Goal: 2/20 in one year
My rating: 4/5

Review: I read this entire book on a lazy Sunday afternoon, and it was great.

Its simple language style (I think its aimed for young adult/teen readers) allowed me to fly through this wonderful tale with ease. My interest was piqued by the healing and poisonous properties of plants; I got to know them in a whole new light (and immediately raced out to water my semi-neglected garden straight after - reading this book will help you understand why ;) ).

I'm disinclined to write anything that may spoil the story for other readers. So here's a little of the back cover to tantalise - 

"Even the most innocent looking plants can kill, and no one knows better than Jessamine... Jessamine has lived all her sixteen years in an isolated cottage near Alnwick Castle... Jessamine's life changes forever the day a traveller brings an orphan to their cottage, claiming that (he) has special gifts that (Jessamine's father) might value... His sensitivity to the natural world is extraordinary..."

I highly recommend this book as a great light read; it has some wicked twists and turns.

The setting of the story is based on a real place, so there are websites to visit too - poisondiaries.com, alnwickcastle.com, and alnwickgarden.com.
  • Current Mood: wicked
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To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

([personal profile] sasha_t Jan. 15th, 2011 09:41 pm)
Title: To Kill A Mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee
Number of Pages: 376
Genre: Fiction? Classic?
Book Number/Goal: 1/20 in one year
My rating: 4/5

Review: It took a lot of effort to get through this book. I picked it up, read a few chapters, then put it down. Three goes later, I finally finished it. And I’m so glad I did.

This book is a first-class read. What I love most about this book? Its very relatable assessment of human nature. It is so rich with characters, all of whom the reader gets to know quite well, all from different backgrounds with different life perspectives.

One thing that confused me – the back cover stated that “Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story”. I found this statement a bit misleading – the main characters in this book are children, so her comment is not about romantic adult love as I assumed. I spent the first half of the book waiting for them to grow up. Even at the end, I’m still unsure where the love story is; unless (as pointed out to me by a fellow book club member) it refers to the love of a father for his children.

This book has a permanent place on my bookshelf


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