The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug

The Book

The middle section of the Hobbit story is made up of a series of minor adventures whilst Bilbo and the dwarf's continue their journey towards the Lonely Mountain and Smaug the Dragon's lair.
Firstly there is a brief stay with Beorn, a Grizzly Adams sort of guy, who can metamorphose into a bear. He represents the wild and unpredictable nature of the great outdoors, for although he offers shelter and food, there is never the feeling that the visitors are completely safe or at ease. They remain locked indoors at night whilst the bear roams in the moonlight.

Catching Fire

The Book

I somehow expected something different from the second part of the Hunger Games trilogy. It was gripping and I enjoyed the story, but we have been here before. Once the 74th Hunger Games had ended and Peeta and Katniss had rebelled against the system, I expected the revolutionary movement to begin. Katniss would instigate mass protest and defeat the oppressive Capitol and President Snow.

Therese Desqueyroux

The Book

The book starts with Therese's acquittal at a trial where she is charged with the attempted murder of her husband and then, on her train journey back home, reviews what has lead her to this desperate act.
In just over 100 pages, Mauriac manages to convey the stifling, repressive backwater in which Therese endures her unloving husband whilst dreaming of a better life. The language is precise and vivid in order to cover Therese's past and the subsequent limitations that her husband places on her in order to maintain appearances.

Ender's Game

The Book

The interesting Reader's Game to always play with science fiction novels written in the past, is to see how right they got it.
Ender's Game was written in 1977 and is set in an unspecified future. It explores the preparation needed to establish a successful army and future leaders in preparation for an interstellar conflict.
Children are monitored for the best behaviour and thought patterns that will single out possible leaders. They are then sent to space training camps in order to teach them about strategy, loyalties and distancing emotion.

Filth

The Book

Its not often when reading a novel, that you find yourself routing for a tapeworm!
Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson is the most foul-mouthed, misogynistic, callous character I have ever come across in fiction. Filth is readable and entertaining, but I had to do it in small doses. I almost felt physical revulsion when picking up the book as I had to steel myself for descriptions of disease, sordid sex and constant swearing. Maybe it was because I was unwell at the time of reading it - not a bedside read.

The prose is very cleverly written, with some Scottish accent, varying points of view and gradual psychosis of the main narrator. The gradual slippage into the plural, as in the royal "we", signifies the narrator's breakdown and duality of viewpoints - but is it the tapeworm or is it a further split in Bruce's personality?

Under the Dome

The Book

One of Stephen King's heftier novels, the paperback is just under 900 pages long. The story doesn't feel as though it is plumped out or full of unnecessary text, however, and each chapter keeps you engrossed in the microcosm of small town American life as it is put under pressure and gradually disintegrates.
An unexplained invisible barrier cuts of the village of Chester's Mill from the outside world and allows for an initial rash of grotesque and horrific events to take place, as people discover its inflexibility the hard way.
This is just the set up for allowing King to delve into a large collection of characters familiar to his stories - the religiously fervent, the megalomaniac bureaucrat, the increasingly unhinged sadist, the right man in the wrong place - and crank up the set pieces of confrontation and mutilation.

The author seems to have an unhealthy fascination with the mouth as a wound - so may of the citizens end up with bloody maws with broken teeth - which left me unsettled and not in the right way!

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Book

This is a short 200 page novel written in the first person, with the narrator talking to an American stranger he happens to meet in Lahore. He proceeds to tell him his life story - how he was educated in Princetown via a grant, graduated with honours and went to work for a high profile US company. Combined with this is the love story between the narrator and Elisa, a girl who cannot move on from the love of her life who died of leukaemia.
I found the narrator method quite clunky when his is the only voice you get to hear - the stranger does not get to speak at all and the book becomes a one-sided conversation. Perhaps this is allegorical linked to Eastern and Western cultures. It has been said that the narrator's love for Elisa and then her gradual decline and madness are symbolic to that of his love for America. You gradually get to learn how he becomes disenchanted with the US and its political and economical approaches to the Middle East following 9/11.

 I was expecting more than a dissenting voice based on the title of the book, but this is misleading as the company he works for in the USA deals in fundamentals (rationalising businesses and making them more profitable).

Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

The Book

City of Bones is the first in a series of books that merges the mundane world of 21st century America with that of the fantastical - werewolves, vampires, demons, fairies etc. They live amongst us but with a veil of glamor that shades them from discovery.
The setting is not an unfamiliar one, but the pace never lets up and by the end as Clary and Jace flew over New York, I was almost convinced that these creatures might just live amongst us too. Clare doesn't dwell too much on lengthy background or exposition, but leaks out explanations and back story gradually over the action, which helps keep the pages turning.
The main characters were interesting and a whole range of teen situations were explored - unrequited love, family loss, adoption, homosexuality and trying to get a sense of who we want to be as an adult.

 The dialogue was witty and had some great retorts to situations (asking the werewolf if he wanted to hang his head out the car window as they drove along for example).

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

The Book

This is the second in the Percy Jackson series, and not having read the first I was basing my previous knowledge on the first Percy Jackson film - the Lightning Thief. The general conceit is that the Gods and monsters of Greek legend are real and still live amongst us, albeit having to adapt to 21st Century civilisation.
Percy is the half-blood son of Poseidon and together with Annabeth (of Athena) and Troy (a Cyclops), they head of to the island of Polyphemus to rescue their satyr friend Grover and recover the Golden Fleece.

As the book is a sequel, it is clear that the original film played about with the plot removing a connecting strand about the evil Kronos. Having seen the trailer for Sea of Monsters I can tell that this part of the story has now been included, but quite a lot has been altered.

The film does seem to make the story more adult and sensible, however - not a bad thing. I found quite a lot of the humour a bit childish and ill-judged.

Beautiful Creatures

The Book

Spoiler Alert! 

An easy page turner with a plot along the lines of something you may already be familiar with - a sort of Romeo and Juliet, where Ethan is a Mortal and Lena is a Caster and where small town mindedness and High School posturing are just some of the problems. Its a mix of Buffy (librarian), Carrie (Prom night) and the Craft. Sometimes familiarity is comforting, however, and the knowing references and self-deprecating humour worked well.
The whole cast of Casters and Mortals were well drawn and the main characters are ones that you feel sympathy and a connection with. 
The whole story hinges on Lena's sixteenth birthday, where she will either become light or dark and where the fate of her whole family and her relationship will be decided.

The near 600 pages build up to this climactic event, so it is a bit of a disappointment when such a simple thing as the moon not being out (caused by cloud of Lena's own making) derails the ages old curse and the choice is put off for another year. What's to stop Lena doing the same again every year? I will have to read the sequel to find out..

Now is Good

 The Book

The book has the more downbeat title of "Before I Die" but with a quote from Heat magazine saying "A book that will make you happy to be alive".
The story is of sixteen year old Tessa who has been diagnosed with leukemia and given a few months left to live. She draws up a Bucket List of many of the things that you would expect to be typical behaviour for a teenager living today - sex, shop-lifting, driving, become famous. Not being a teenager, some of these immediately grated with my programmed social norms!
The author does a very good job through first person narrative of putting you into Tessa's short-term life view and priorities and there is empathy there. I did find myself feeling more sorry for the family and friends that would be left behind, however.


 The most affecting piece for me was where she learns that her boyfriend Adam has been making long term plans behind her back - going to University - and she sets about destroying all her clothes and possessions in a frenzy of anger and frustration. Her father comes in to her room and calls her a monster, as she is leaving nothing intact behind as an object to remind him of her.

The Silver Linings Playbook

The Book

Having watched the trailer for the film adaptation of Silver Linings, I was anticipating a quirky sort of rom-com drama featuring someone suffering from a mental health issue. I have yet to see if that is what the film is like, but the book is more than that. Yes it does have its humorous moments, and thankfully they are not derived from laughing at people with mental health problems, but underneath it has a lot of sadness and heartbreak.
Pat Peoples is released from an institution and goes back to live with his parents. In his thirties, he was married to Nikki, and all he looks forward to is the end of apart time, when they can be reconciled. His dogged determination to be re-united leads him to new friendships and eventually a new beginning.

Cloud Atlas

The Book

Cloud Atlas is one of those modern day books that is virtually required reading for a reading group to discuss. There's much to admire in the clever way the author delivers different interlocking stories, one inside the other like a Russian Doll, not only changing time periods but fictional genres. I couldn't help feeling that it was all too clever for its own good, however.
The reader may enjoy a historical novel or a political thriller or a futuristic sci-fi plot, but finding a reader who will enjoy all of them may be rare. The further in to the novel I got, the harder I found the reading, until the middle segment set in a post-apocalyptic future where even the language had broken down and I came to a stodgy halt, skipping forward to the conclusions of the earlier stories.

On the Road

The Book

I was looking forward to reading On the Road, as it is feted by so many as a cult American novel and the essence of the Beat Generation. Looking at other people's reviews on Good Reads, it seems to be you either love it or hate it. I feel somewhat ambivalent - it is a rambling story, very much just an outpouring of Sal's thoughts and deeds and you do get carried along, like you are clinging to the tail bumper.
It's like reading someone else's travelogue diary on speed, who never stops to savour the place or the moment, but always wants to keep on moving to the next shallow experience. There are some examples of wonderful descriptive prose, describing some of the landscapes Sal travels through, but these are thrown in amongst the haphazard picking up and dropping off of so many characters that you never get to know.

Warm Bodies

The Book

I will start by confessing that if there is one type of monster film I avoid it is a zombie movie. The walking dead still hold a subconscious fear over me and they continue to be the one thing that gives me nightmares.
Reading this book helped me to examine those fears and think about why zombies have developed into one of the zeitgeist monsters at this time. As our fears and beliefs in heaven and hell disappear along with religion, what is left? When our soul or life force stops, the ultimate insult that could happen would be for our bodies to carry on without that spark of consciousness that makes us human.
As well as the deeper questions, I also purely enjoyed the story itself as a radical and new twist on Romeo and Juliet. There is a plague on both their houses - a zombie plague.  "R" gradually develops an attachment for Julia, after he eats her boyfriend's brain and acquires his memories. He takes her back to his Hive at the airport and we get to see the "life" zombies lead when off camera.

These zombies have rituals and a parody of human life, however, with marriages and assigned children, which makes them more interesting than the usual shuffling groaning undead. The humour comes with these parodies and with R and Julia trying to mimic each other to pass unnoticed amongst their own kind.

The Perks of being a wallflower

The Book

The novel is told through a year's worth of letters that the first person narrator, Charlie, sends to a random stranger. This allows for thoughts and feelings to be shared to the reader, but it does make you wonder at the poor receiver of these letters - why is this person sending me letters? Who are they? I would have contacted the police!
It is a story of high-school teenage years, retreading some of the familiar plots of boy likes girl but girl has boyfriend; boy is gay and has a relationship with the jock, who doesnt want it known; girl becomes pregnant but boyfriend doesn't want to know etc etc. The first person narrator is rather wet and I felt like giving him a shake, as he is always crying - when he's happy or sad. It all comes to a head when he finally gets to be with Sam, the girl he has been moping after the whole time and when things begin to get physical, Charlie baulks.
I wanted to throw the book down then, but as there was only 20 pages to go I thought I would finish it.

Lawless

The Book

The novel is a fictionalised account of the author's grandfather and his brothers, "The Bondurant Boys", who ran a bootlegging operation during the prohibition era in Franklin County. It doesn't shy away from portraying his ancestors as a criminal gang, but as so much of the population were involved in the production, selling or running of distilled liquor, this is nothing extraordinary. They do have integrity of a sort, however, and refuse to bend to the intimidation of locals and the law looking to make a piece for themselves, which sets them up for conflict and revenge.
The description is unflinching and gritty in its portrait of the 1930s - this was not a glamourous time. It is brought vividly to life and it does seem shocking that this was only two generations past.
I also enjoyed the additional side story involving the writer Sherwood Anderson researching some of the local news. Having read Winesburg, Ohio it was nice to find that link and also discover his bizarre death.

The Life of Pi

The Book

I was thinking of taking my daughter to see this film, but having read the book I am slightly concerned, regardless of the PG rating here.
The story is the ultimate survival manual, with the majority of the novel taking place on a lifeboat following the sinking of a freighter carrying Pi, his family and some of their zoo animals to a new life from India to Canada.
Pi tells the story of his 227 days living on the raft with only a Bengal tiger for company, establishing his superiority, marking territory and keeping them alive.
There is an interesting background tale setting the scene in Pondicherry, whereby Pi visits the Muslim, Hindu and Christian places of worship and decides to adopt all three. When it is discovered the religious leaders are outraged, thinking Pi had settled on their own one true teachings. It highlights the inflexibility and stubborn attitudes to religion, where all the follower is looking for is a path to God, regardless of the ritual.