Book Review: The Road – Cormac McCarthy

The Road is a 2006 post-apocalyptic narrative that follows a man and his son as they travel along ‘the road’ and try to survive.

I had heard mixed things about this book before I started reading. Some said that it was brilliant and it was their favourite book, some said that it was awful. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say I loved it, I did find The Road an enjoyable read once I got into it. The style is quite odd which took some getting used to, it lacks normal punctuation and shifts perspective rapidly making it difficult at times to work out who was speaking – or if anyone was speaking – and what the reader is meant to be looking at.

I watched part of the movie adaptation before I began reading which was a mistake, the movie is way scarier than the book, if only because I could build tamer versions of events in my head. I lasted 45 minutes of the movie but I found that once I passed the point I turned the movie off at – the scene with the people in the cellar and the cannibals, which was not as bad as the film version – it was easier to enjoy and I couldn’t put it down once I relaxed.

The bleak setting and horrible descriptions of ‘the bad guys’, as the boy calls them, and their slaves make this book horrible. But it’s a horrible side of dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels that is not often depicted, yet perhaps more grounded in reality than a teenage girl overthrowing dictators and saving the world. The novel isn’t explicit, it isn’t grotesque in it’s depiction of horror, it infers and suggests that the ‘bad guys’ had impregnated their ‘slaves’ by force, it presents a pregnant woman travelling and the protagonists’ discovery of a charred and picked at infant at a campfire soon after. The distance from these events makes the reading experience easier, but doesn’t make it comfortable.

Overall, I enjoyed reading The Road. It was not a happy read, but I appreciate the necessity for depicting the horrible side of human nature in the face of crisis, however depressing it is. This book left me speechless for a variety of reasons, I’d definitely recommend it – provided you have some time to just stare into space once you finish because god.damn.

Book Review: Caraval – Stephanie Garber

 

Caraval was the first book that I have finished this year and I’m really glad I did because I enjoyed it soooo much. I picked it up last weekend in Manchester and finished it in a few train rides and then one last jump when I couldn’t put it down one night. It looks and reads like something that will be enjoyed by fans of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus (which is pretty much anyone that’s picked it up) and although I don’t want to mention it too much in my review, I think that confused me a little bit. It feels so familiar even though the mystery surrounding the circus/caraval is completely different, at points I thought I had already read it and had to put it down to make sure.

The story centres around Scarlett as she attends the Caraval at the Master Legend’s invitation after years of writing to him for her sister, Tella. Tella uses the Caraval as an opportunity to escape their abusive father and Scarlett follows (sort of) to the island with Julian, a sailor that agreed to transport them in exchange for Scarlett’s mysterious fiancé’s ticket. Once they get to the island, the mysteries and games begin for Scarlett.

I think that Stephanie Garber’s use of magical realism and an indistinct time/place for her story is what makes it a great fantasy story for both readers of fantasy and of more general fiction. Sometimes it can be difficult to get into or follow a story with a similar kind of setting but Garber’s world is perfect for a casual fantasy/magical world reader. That isn’t to say that this world isn’t fleshed out, there are hints of a bigger story behind Caraval. Their father’s political position and the state of the island that they live on being one of the least powerful suggests that in the future, he will be a factor in whatever is to come. I didn’t know that this was the start of a series, or at least a duology as the sequel comes out in May 2018. The story is engaging and well-paced as it really needs to be with a mystery like this that could get lost in details or dead ends as Scarlett tries to solve the mystery and win the game in order to get home in time for her wedding.

I don’t want to include any spoilers for the story as I think that part of what I enjoyed about reading it was that I stayed away from reviews or wikipedia summaries of the novel and the pace and mystery kept me guessing until the end of the novel. Whether it is the mystery of the caravel itself, Julian’s motives for helping the sisters, where Donatella has disappeared to or who Scarlett’s fiancé really is, Stephanie Garber’s debut is a gripping read that I would thoroughly recommend to anyone.

You can find Caraval on BookDepository.com here using my Affiliate link. OR, you can find the next in the series which will be released 29th May 2018, Legendary, here.

 

Book Review: The Penelopiad – Margaret Atwood

Part of the Canongate ‘The Myths’ series, The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus is Margaret Atwood’s female-centric depiction of the events of Homer’s The Odyssey. I honestly love this book.

My Masters dissertation was focused on classical works rewritten by contemporary female authors and this is by far my favourite of the bunch.
Atwood’s humour is more prevalent here than in her other works that I’ve read, Penelope has a dry humour that I just adored. She doesn’t attempt to change the events of The Odyssey to make Penelope’s role more prominent but instead shifts between the past and present (life and afterlife) to show her reflection on the events, allowing for more examination of what happened. Atwood gives Penelope more credit and more personality than Homer allowed, she purposefully gave female characters more voice and agency than Homer did – especially the Chorus of maids – which is the aim of The Myths series, really. The novel switches between Penelope’s narration and the maids in either songs or interviews in the style of a Greek Chorus which is a really interesting way of incorporating source material into a rewrite (even if there is no Chorus in Homer’s poem because it’s a poem not a play) but it makes the maids presence so much more sad and sympathetic. In The Odyssey, Odysseus kills the maids that slept with the suitors and betrayed his kingdom – kind of – and in The Penelopiad, Penelope persuaded the maid to do this in service to her, becoming close to the suitors so that they can pass information along to her and their murder is something that weighs heavily on herself and her husband in the afterlife. The portrayal of rape in the story is a bit jarring but when you remember the period in which it is set AND that the protagonist is 2000+ years old, you just have to go with it. To be clear, there are no direct depictions of rape or sexual violence, only the understanding that the maids are there for the use of palace guests and Penelope states that this use is often sexual and this was acceptable (even taking children from slaves that she expected to grow up to be beautiful, for this purpose).
If you’re familiar with The Odyssey and Greek drama then I would really recommend picking this up, Atwood mixes the format of prose poetry and dramatic choral odes in a way that feels modern and natural and it’s a really enjoyable read. I’m most familiar with The Handmaids Tale, having studied it a few times and (not quite finishing) watching the TV series but the humour that you find in that (though sometimes sparse) really drives The Penelopiad. There are moments of tragedy and betrayal but Penelope is ultimately a relatable character, maybe it’s because I’m a cynical person now that I think about it
Star rating: ★★★★★

Hello, I’m going to take a look back at 2017…

I’m going to start my NEW blog by looking back at LAST YEAR, why not do that when you’re nearly six months into the year?

2016-2017 was quite bad for me. Not in a couple of aspects but almost ALL of them. One area that suffered was my reading because as much as I love reading and dedicated a significant portion of my life to reading and studying literature, I couldn’t bare the thought of picking up a book for most of the year. What really made me start reading again in the middle of the year was my looming Masters dissertation deadline.

I do enjoy using Goodreads (link here if you want to find me) and below is a compilation of the books that I read in 2017. 1 was for a university module, 4 were for my dissertation and only 4 books were read for FUN. Now that I have finished my Masters, I’m looking forward to getting back to reading for FUN! So far this year I have read 4 books, am in the middle of an audiobook that I’m thoroughly enjoying and started a new eBook on my commute to work this morning.

Since this is a new blog I will be reposting my old blog posts on here soon but since I am reading more now I’ll be posting more up-to-date reviews very soon! I’ll also be posting reviews for the books that I read in 2017 but didn’t review at the time so if you have any suggestions for my TBR or want to see my reviews when I post them then feel free to follow me on here!