Review: Life on the Refrigerator Door

The day before yesterday, I read Life on the Refrigerator Door by Alice Kuipers. It’s a very short book, despite being the size of a longer book, because there’s only a few lines of text on each page. It took me just under three quarters of an hour to read the whole thing – it’s not a time-consuming read!

It’s written entirely in the form of notes left on the fridge door by a mother and her daughter. The plot, I thought, was rather obvious; it was clear from the blurb that the mother would become ill and so I could work out pretty much the entire storyline before I’d even read the first page.

Nevertheless, I thought it was interesting to see only an incidental form of communication. There are lots of gaps where the characters have obviously spoken and they refer to their conversations in their notes but you never know exactly what was said. I liked that; it showed that these people do have a life outside the refrigerator door!

All the same, though, I didn’t think all the notes were realistic. I’m part of a family that leaves notes lying around (though admittedly we use the counter rather than the fridge door!) and none of us would ever write that much or in such detail. Obviously the characters have different lives to us, but it still felt as if the author was desperately trying to shoehorn in details to keep us informed on what was going on. I for one would rather have had more mystery about the events that occurred than had the details crammed in so badly.

This book did succeed in making me cry, though that may have had something to do with the fact that I am ill and I read it very late at night. Still, it can’t have been that bad!

Recommended as a snack-for-thought read when you just don’t have time.

Weekly Geeks #18

This week’s Weekly Geeks is to catch up on something. However, I’ve not been blogging for long enough to get behind! I racked my brains, and decided that I’m going to catch up on getting this place organised.

Here’s my intentions:

• Take some pictures of books for the header. No more boring default!
• Get my list of books I’ve read since my birthday up and running.
• Get the ‘about’ page up and running.
• Sort out a blogroll – I read plenty of book blogs and I’d like to get some links in!

This challenge also inspired me to sort out some long-standing things for my other blog. I cleaned out the sidebar, redid the blogroll and am on the lookout for a new header. Wahey!

Book quotes catchup

Whoops! This week’s challenge totally slipped my mind. I reckon I’ve missed out four quotes, so today’s entry is a catchup session to get them all in.

First is from Hotel World by Ali Smith. I loved this book; it has a strange and overpowring beauty that restores your faith in the world. Here’s the first paragraph:

Woooooooo-

hooooooo what a fall what a soar what a plummet what a dash into dark into light what a plunge what a glide thud crash what a drop what a rush what a swoop what a fright what a mad hushed skirl what a smash much mash-up broke and gashed what a heart in my mouth what an end

Here’s the first paragraph of another book, namely Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. I read this book in August and it’s already in my list of books to read again:

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remembe saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

This next quote is on my wall. It’s from Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh:

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that?

And finally, one from The Sacred Art of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre. This quote is a quote from another book, actually, so it’s been around a bit. Still, as I can’t find the passage from this book that I wanted, this will do:

It is as pleasant to be cheated as to cheat.

-Edwin Sachs, Sleight of Hand: A Practical Manual of Legerdemain

Review: The Mad Woman in the Attic

I’ve just finished reading The Mad Woman in the Attic by Jim Mortimore.

This is a book adapted from the Cracker television series. Unfortunately, I’ve never watched the series, so I perhaps don’t know many things that readers of the books should know. I know that books are normally written to stand alone, but so often, you don’t get the full effect unless you’ve seen the original, just as films are often not as good (or not as bad!) unless you’ve read the book from which they’re adapted.

The writing style of this book annoyed me. The author has a habit of breaking off in the middle of sentences and splitting things up willy-nilly, which made for a very confusing read. He also liked to write conversations like this:

“So he said-”

“You can’t just-”

“-that he couldn’t-”

“-expect them to want-”

“-find the money-”

“-to do it for you-”

Which, as you can see, is insanely difficult to follow. Add to that a habit of throwing in character names all over the place (Sam passed the file to Joe, who thought about what Mary had said to Karen and immediately realised that Mandy must have killed Peter…that sort of thing) and the fact that the characters were all introduced ludicrously quickly at the beginning and you’ll see why I didn’t entirely manage to follow the plot.

Nevertheless, the book had its moments. The character of Fitz was well developed, I thought, or at least more so than the others. I could have done with a bit more in the way of description and backstory, but since these books are aimed at watchers of the series, perhaps you’re supposed to already know that kind of thing.

I found the psychological aspects of the book interesting, but overall, I felt there wasn’t enough of any one good thing to make the book a particularly worthwhile read. If I were an ardent fan of the series, then perhaps I would have enjoyed it more, but as it is, I don’t think I’ll bother again.

2nds Challenge

Hooray – I’m joining my first reading challenge!

I’m going to join the 2nds challenge. The challenge is to read 4 books by authors I’ve only read once before. So, here’s my 4 books:

• Ludmilla’s Broken English by DBC Pierre. I’ve read Vernon God Little twice and really enjoyed it, so hopefully this should be just as good! I already have a copy of this book, so I’ll have no problem reading it.
• The Little Friend by Donna Tartt. I’ve read The Secret History by her and I loved it, so I thought I’d read this book, which I found on another shelf a couple of months back. I own the copy, so I’ll have no problem with this one.
• Big Sur by Jack Kerouac. I’ve read On the Road, which I very much enjoyed, and I’d be interested to see how it relates to his other works. However, I don’t have a copy of this book and my library situation is currently limited, so I’m unsure if I’ll be able to get a copy of it. Nevertheless, I will try my hardest, and if all else fails, I will replace it with something else.
• Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. I’ve read Junky, which was strange but nevertheless interesting. Once again, I don’t actually own a copy of this book, so I may have to change it if I can’t get ahold of one.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

For today’s quote-a-day, I’ve chosen the poem from ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower‘.

I read this book a couple of months ago. I chose it because I’ve heard an awful lot about it, and I’d previously read the poem online and found it exquisitely heartbreaking.

I did enjoy the book, but not as much as I’d hoped. It was lovely to bury myself in it for a day and take myself somewhere else, but I felt like I wasn’t quite getting it somehow. There were lots of scenes where I knew I was supposed to feel something but I didn’t get it at all. It didn’t quite ring true for me; the characters didn’t add up and many of them seemed either too naive or too experienced to be believable.

Still, I guess that’s part of what the book is trying to say. I’m pretty close in age to the narrator, and while I found him hopelessly naive, I agree that that’s how teenagers probably think a lot of the time. Most people I know – myself included – see people as either very ‘experienced’ in life or as having no experience whatsoever, and it’s a constant struggle to try to place yourself in either category. Who’d be an adolescent, eh?

Overall, I found it a kind of nothing book, but it’s still one I’d read again simply because I enjoyed it and because even though I didn’t get the ‘overawed’ feeling I felt I should, I could still imagine myself getting that feeling. And on that note, here’s the poem:

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines

he wrote a poem

And he called it “Chops”

because that was the name of his dog

And that’s what it was all about

And his teacher gave him an A

and a gold star

And his mother hung it on the kitchen door

and read it to his aunts

That was the year that Father Tracy

took all the kids to the zoo

And he let them sing on the bus

And his little sister was born

with tiny toenails and no hair

And his mother and father kissed a lot

And the girl around the corner sent him a

valentine signed with a row of X’s

and he had to ask his father what the X’s meant

And his father always tucked him in bed at night

And was always there to do it
Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines

he wrote a poem

And he called it “Autumn”

because that was the name of the season

And that’s what it was all about

And his teacher gave him an A

and asked him to write more clearly

And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door

because of its new paint

And the kids told him

that Father Tracy smoked cigars

And left butts on the pews

And sometimes they would burn holes

That was the year his sister got glasses

with thick lenses and black frames

And the girl around the corner laughed

when he asked her to go see Santa Claus

And the kids told him why

his mother and father kissed a lot

And his father never tucked him in bed at night

And his father got mad

when he cried for him to do it.
Once on a paper torn from his notebook

he wrote a poem

And he called it “Innocence: A Question”

because that was the question about his girl

And that’s what it was all about

And his professor gave him an A

and a strange steady look

And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door

because he never showed her

That was the year that Father Tracy died

And he forgot how the end

of the Apostle’s Creed went

And he caught his sister making out on the back porch

And his mother and father never kissed

or even talked

And the girl around the corner

wore too much makeup

That made him cough when he kissed her

but he kissed her anyway

because that was the thing to do

And at three A.M. he tucked himself into bed

his father snoring soundly

That’s why on the back of a brown paper bag

he tried another poem

And he called it “Absolutely Nothing”

Because that’s what it was really all about

And he gave himself an A

and a slash on each damned wrist

And he hung it on the bathroom door

because this time he didn’t think

he could reach the kitchen.

Weekly Geeks #17 – Quote a day

As a new book blogger, I’m taking pride in participating in my first Weekly Geeks! This week’s challenge is to post a quote a day. There’s the option of having a theme, but I’ve decided to keep it faily loose: I’m going to post quotes from books I’ve read and enjoyed.

My first quote is from ‘Three Men in a Boat’ by Jerome K. Jerome. This was a book I enjoyed very much, even though I didn’t think I would. Come to think of it, it’s been about two years since I read it, and I should really read it again as it was one of those books that was a unique pleasure.

This quote appealed to me because it describes exactly the feeling that I sometimes get but can’t put into words. I’m not a religious person, but if I were, I think that I too would feel the same way:

Sometimes, our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her very
silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Night’s
heart is full of pity for us: she cannot ease our aching; she takes our
hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far away
beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a
mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous light of that great
Presence, all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that
Pain and Sorrow are but the angels of God.

What’s this, eh?

Gosh; new blog.

This blog has come about because I’ve found myself spending a lot of time reading blogs about books. I’m an avid reader myself, and I’d very much like to contribute to the ‘circle’, so here I am!

I’ve been blogging for a while over at notinparis, but I’ve never particularly mentioned my reading habits there, so this is something of a new start for me!

Anyway, ‘I’m new’ posts are boring, so I’ll sign this one off now.