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Whatchareadin (174 KP) rated Boy, Snow, Bird in Books
Apr 3, 2019
A girl named Boy, a girl named Snow and a girl named Bird. Three unique names for three unique individuals. It's 1953 and Boy is living in New York, the daughter of a rat catcher. She has never known her mother. Boy "was a girl with a white-blonde pigtail hanging down over one shoulder..." When life with her father got to be too much, she packed her stuff and moved to the farthest place she could get on the bus, Flax Hill, CT.
Quickly, Boy made friends and met a man, Arturo Whitman. Arturo has a daughter named Snow, who the whole town adored. Shortly after Arturo and Boy are married, she becomes pregnant. When she gives birth to her daughter, Bird, the Whitman family secrets soon come to light.
There is an underlying theme in this book with mirrors. The women claim that they do not "see" themselves in them. Is it because they are ghosts? Or is it that their family secrets run so deep that they find it hard to see themselves as they really are?
This book reminded me of books I had to read for school. I enjoyed the storyline as a whole, but reading it, I felt as though there were questions I was supposed to be searching the answers for instead of just enjoying the book. There are so many secrets throughout the entire book with the biggest secret coming at the end. Told in three sections by Boy, Bird, and then Boy again, this is very interesting story about race in the north in the 50's and 60's.
Quickly, Boy made friends and met a man, Arturo Whitman. Arturo has a daughter named Snow, who the whole town adored. Shortly after Arturo and Boy are married, she becomes pregnant. When she gives birth to her daughter, Bird, the Whitman family secrets soon come to light.
There is an underlying theme in this book with mirrors. The women claim that they do not "see" themselves in them. Is it because they are ghosts? Or is it that their family secrets run so deep that they find it hard to see themselves as they really are?
This book reminded me of books I had to read for school. I enjoyed the storyline as a whole, but reading it, I felt as though there were questions I was supposed to be searching the answers for instead of just enjoying the book. There are so many secrets throughout the entire book with the biggest secret coming at the end. Told in three sections by Boy, Bird, and then Boy again, this is very interesting story about race in the north in the 50's and 60's.
Lee (2222 KP) rated A Monster Calls (2016) in Movies
Jul 26, 2017
A Monster Calls is based on an idea by writer and activist Siobhan Dowd, who sadly died from cancer in 2007 before she could develop her story to print. Her ideas were developed into a book by Patrick Ness in 2011 and illustrated by Jim Kay where it went on to receive a number of childrens literary awards.
The story is set in a very dreary looking England and features a boy called Conor struggling to cope with his mother’s terminal cancer. His father is divorced from his mother and is living in the States with his new family. He’s bullied at school and he’s troubled by nightmares. And then he starts being visited at night by a monster who tells him 3 stories. It’s a bleak tale about the harshness of life, and I was kind of worried about how my 11 year old daughter might take to it when she said she wanted to see it with me.
J.A.Bayona, director of The Orphanage, handles the subject matter well, showing us how a child’s fantasy can make sense of the world and their feelings. The stories told by the monster occur over a number of days and are beautifully depicted in watercolour animation. Each one providing its own lesson to be learned in life. Liam Neeson is the monster, the large yew tree that Conor can see from his bedroom window, giving his best Aslan voice. Felicity Jones is the mother, gradually dying as each cancer drug fails. Sigourney Weaver is the grandmother who Conor reluctantly goes to stay with while his mother is receiving treatment.
The monster itself, the great yew tree, is a real triumph. Beautifully rendered and realistically interacting with its surroundings. When you consider the films meagre budget of 43 million dollars, it’s breathtaking what they’ve managed to achieve.
As expected, the movie really packs a punch with barely any humour or lightheartedness. There are times it’s a little too slow and gloomy, but it’s hard hitting thought provoking and intense. I don’t mind admitting that both me and my daughter found ourselves in tears towards the end too. Along with most of the cinema!
The story is set in a very dreary looking England and features a boy called Conor struggling to cope with his mother’s terminal cancer. His father is divorced from his mother and is living in the States with his new family. He’s bullied at school and he’s troubled by nightmares. And then he starts being visited at night by a monster who tells him 3 stories. It’s a bleak tale about the harshness of life, and I was kind of worried about how my 11 year old daughter might take to it when she said she wanted to see it with me.
J.A.Bayona, director of The Orphanage, handles the subject matter well, showing us how a child’s fantasy can make sense of the world and their feelings. The stories told by the monster occur over a number of days and are beautifully depicted in watercolour animation. Each one providing its own lesson to be learned in life. Liam Neeson is the monster, the large yew tree that Conor can see from his bedroom window, giving his best Aslan voice. Felicity Jones is the mother, gradually dying as each cancer drug fails. Sigourney Weaver is the grandmother who Conor reluctantly goes to stay with while his mother is receiving treatment.
The monster itself, the great yew tree, is a real triumph. Beautifully rendered and realistically interacting with its surroundings. When you consider the films meagre budget of 43 million dollars, it’s breathtaking what they’ve managed to achieve.
As expected, the movie really packs a punch with barely any humour or lightheartedness. There are times it’s a little too slow and gloomy, but it’s hard hitting thought provoking and intense. I don’t mind admitting that both me and my daughter found ourselves in tears towards the end too. Along with most of the cinema!
Rachel King (13 KP) rated Never Let You Go in Books
Feb 11, 2019
I was originally drawn to this book because it was about a mother fighting for her daughter. As a mother of two young daughters who has already been through quite a bit of fighting for them, I can relate. Once I got into the book, I was a bit put off partly because I was introduced to too many characters so soon into the plot and a lack of unique characterization made it difficult for me to keep up with the plot (and this is coming from someone who has read Sara Douglass). A second reason was that it somewhat reminded me of another book I read recently with the meth theme. Drugs are just not something that I purposely want to read about in my fiction. The only thing that really kept me reading was Lexi's relationship with her daughter, Molly. Along the way, I discovered that there actually is a fantasy-like aspect to the book that is difficult to see for at least half the book. This is probably as close as you can get to the fantasy genre without actually qualifying for the classification. I so badly wanted the book to come "out with it" over the supernatural aspect that I flew through the rest of the book. The ending was mostly satisfying in that the bad guy gets his just desserts and all the lose ends are tied up appropriately, but my fantasy-loving side wanted a more fantastical intervention than what actually occurred. At times, the plot felt like a soap-opera, with Lexi's affair and two other characters being convicts, as well as Ward's constant harrassments and almost reality-defying omnipresence. I would describe the book as high-intensity suspense combined with overdramatic reality and a dash of supernatural.
ClareR (6129 KP) rated The Silver Road in Books
Mar 7, 2019
A wonderful debut
This is a novel of love and loss, guilt and grief, and of family in both the good and bad sense of the word. It has been translated so well from the Swedish by Susan Beard that I didn't actually occur to me that it had been translated at all.
Lille's daughter has been missing for three years, and he spends every night of the summer driving the Silver Road in an effort to find her. This has caused the breakdown of his marriage, and he has a tenuous grasp on his sanity: he drinks too much, he smokes too much, and he sleeps too little in the summer. His wife has left him, and he spends a lot of time alone with the ghost of the daughter he is searching for.
Enter Meja: her mother has mental health problems, and has decided to move in with a man she has only met online. Meja is used to being her mothers carer, and she's used to a series of men moving in and out of their lives. This is such an emotional novel. I became really invested in the characters of Lelle and Meja. There was a real atmosphere of sadness around both of them.
The peripheral characters were really well written as well: from the ex-wife to the local police officer, from the family of 'Preppers' to Meja's mother and her new boyfriend, Torbjorn.
I loved the atmosphere of this book: there was an air of 'something drastic is going to happen very soon', and the melancholy was palpable. Although the subject matter was very sad, it really was a joy to read.
Many thanks to Readers First, The Pigeonhole and the publisher for the chance to read this book.
Lille's daughter has been missing for three years, and he spends every night of the summer driving the Silver Road in an effort to find her. This has caused the breakdown of his marriage, and he has a tenuous grasp on his sanity: he drinks too much, he smokes too much, and he sleeps too little in the summer. His wife has left him, and he spends a lot of time alone with the ghost of the daughter he is searching for.
Enter Meja: her mother has mental health problems, and has decided to move in with a man she has only met online. Meja is used to being her mothers carer, and she's used to a series of men moving in and out of their lives. This is such an emotional novel. I became really invested in the characters of Lelle and Meja. There was a real atmosphere of sadness around both of them.
The peripheral characters were really well written as well: from the ex-wife to the local police officer, from the family of 'Preppers' to Meja's mother and her new boyfriend, Torbjorn.
I loved the atmosphere of this book: there was an air of 'something drastic is going to happen very soon', and the melancholy was palpable. Although the subject matter was very sad, it really was a joy to read.
Many thanks to Readers First, The Pigeonhole and the publisher for the chance to read this book.
Sassy Brit (97 KP) rated Don't you dare in Books
Jun 5, 2019
‘Don’t You Dare’, by author, A.J. Waines was a riveting, taut and cleverly choreographed read from start to finish!
Although a mistake, and seemingly justified at the time, Rachel, accidentally kills the man her daughter Beth was having an affair with. From then on, both women are forced to cover their tracks to not only hide evidence from the police, but Beth’s fiancé, Peter, too. Beth’s marriage to Peter was supposed to be the answer to all their financial worries and further her acting career, but if this ever got out, well you can imagine, not only would the wedding be over because of her affair, but if caught for murder their lives would be inevitably ruined forever with prison awaiting.
Written from from both mother and daughter’s point of view in first person, this edgy psychological thriller had me hooked from the first page.
‘Don’t You Dare’ was one heck of a fast, tense read for me. Watching the mother desperately trying to sort out her mess, and keeping her daughter from going into a full on meltdown and revealing all, kept me on edge throughout. On top of that, each time I thought I knew all the answers the storyline branched out into another direction, and upped the stakes for both ladies even more.
The ending is superb! I loved how twist after twist the final scenes came to a satisfying end, whilst at the same time the story took on a different angle where an underlying threat would always shadow the two women. Yes, I’m being cryptic for a reason! This is indeed heart-stopping as the hype suggests! I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller, and A.J. Waines’ entertaining writing.
Thanks to A.J. Waines, Bloodhound books and Netgalley for my copy. This is my honest opinion of Don’t You Dare.
Although a mistake, and seemingly justified at the time, Rachel, accidentally kills the man her daughter Beth was having an affair with. From then on, both women are forced to cover their tracks to not only hide evidence from the police, but Beth’s fiancé, Peter, too. Beth’s marriage to Peter was supposed to be the answer to all their financial worries and further her acting career, but if this ever got out, well you can imagine, not only would the wedding be over because of her affair, but if caught for murder their lives would be inevitably ruined forever with prison awaiting.
Written from from both mother and daughter’s point of view in first person, this edgy psychological thriller had me hooked from the first page.
‘Don’t You Dare’ was one heck of a fast, tense read for me. Watching the mother desperately trying to sort out her mess, and keeping her daughter from going into a full on meltdown and revealing all, kept me on edge throughout. On top of that, each time I thought I knew all the answers the storyline branched out into another direction, and upped the stakes for both ladies even more.
The ending is superb! I loved how twist after twist the final scenes came to a satisfying end, whilst at the same time the story took on a different angle where an underlying threat would always shadow the two women. Yes, I’m being cryptic for a reason! This is indeed heart-stopping as the hype suggests! I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller, and A.J. Waines’ entertaining writing.
Thanks to A.J. Waines, Bloodhound books and Netgalley for my copy. This is my honest opinion of Don’t You Dare.
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