Books I Read in April

Hi!

After only managing to finish 4 books in March, April was a much better month for me. I got through a lot of kindle books at night, and began to tackle my pile of physical books too. I finished 14, so let's get started!

Book Club
There were four books to choose from in the Rick O'Shea Book Club this month. The theme was YA (Young Adult), and the choices were all on the shortlist for the 2015  YA Book Prize. I had already read one of the books - Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill (my review here) and couldn't get my hands on another (A Song for Ella Grey by David Almond), so I chose these two:

The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick
This is comprised of four stories, linked by the central theme of spirals. The idea is that spirals are everywhere and have been since the beginning of time - in staircases, in plants, in insects, in our fingerprints. Supposedly this can be read in any order (presumably to drive the point home that spirals have no beginning or end) but I read it in the order of publication and it was fine. The first story was set in caveman times and was more of a long poem, the second was in the middle ages and set around witch trials, the third was in an asylum in the 1920s, and the fourth was in space. It was thought provoking and good, but the maths stuff in the 4th story went over my head. 3 stars for the middle two stories, brilliant. They were reminiscent of The Crucible and Shutter Island respectively.

Half Bad by Sally Green
Nathan is a witch - half white, half black. Black witches are captured on sight and killed, so his life is in grave danger. He wants to find out more about Marcus, his Voldemort-esque father, so embarks on a journey to learn about him while trying to avoid capture on the way. When he reaches 17, he will receive three gifts that will allow him to become a fully-fledged witch - but who will give him his gifts? He hears of someone named Mercury who might be able to help, so decides to go and find her. Throw in a love interest and a host of secondary characters and you have a mediocre read that didn't leave me aching to buy the sequel.

Non-Fiction
I read two non-fiction books this month, both had a similar writing style.

The Great Beanie Baby Bubble by Zac Bissonnette
A book about beanie babies?! How interesting could that be?! - VERY! This was the true tale of the Willy Wonka-esque creator of Beanie Babies and how he basically turned a very simple idea into a multi-million dollar operation. The creator refused to give his side of the story - notoriously private Ty Warner doesn't even have a telephone number listed for his company. Zac Bissonnette travels all over America talking to people who spent their life savings on beanie babies that are now worthless. He also talks to people who worked for or know Ty Warner - and builds up a picture of a man who treated his workers generously while appearing to loathe fellow businesspeople. This was a brilliant read, so entertaining.

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
I read about this on Breige's blog - to be honest, it took me a while to get through. I found a lot of it to be repetitive,but it was still a good look at the role social media has in instantly punishing people. Jon talks to people who have been publicly shamed in some way - be it for a picture posted online, or an ill-judged tweet - he follows their stories and finds out what happened to them afterwards. He also asks - can you ever recover from a public shaming? I was spoiled with Zac Bissonnette's engaging writing in the previous book, so this fell a little flat for me, but I still enjoyed it.

Trilogy
I heard about Blake Crouch's Wayward Pines trilogy when I heard that a new TV show starring Matt Dillon was coming to FOX TV in May. It looked like a cross between Twin Peaks and The Stepford Wives so I wanted to see what the books were like - they were fantastic and I read all three over a weekend.

Pines
FBI Agent Ethan Burke is on a mission to investigate the disappearance of two Federal Agents. He wakes on the side of the road in a strange town with bruises and cuts, and no memory of who he is. He is in the small town of Wayward Pines, and needs help. Unfortunately for Ethan, he soon begins to realise that once you arrive in Wayward Pines - there's no getting out.

Wayward
Now that Ethan knows the truth about the town, we see what happens when other residents begin to figure it out. There's a branch of residents who are trying to break away - Ethan is asked to infiltrate them, but can he do it? Will he use what he knows to help them escape? More importantly, is there any point in trying?

The Last Town
In a book reminiscent of Hugh Howey's Dust, we find out about the origins of the town and those in charge. Meanwhile, all hell has broken loose in town and everyone is in grave danger. There's only one thing that Ethan can think of that will save them - but will anyone go along with him?

Brilliant, loved it, definitely going to watch the series (May 14th, FOX, Sky 188 & UPC 126 - it's apparently the three books in one series).

Re-Reads

Under The Hawthorn Tree by Marita Conlon McKenna
Those of us over a certain age remember reading this in Primary School - who wasn't affected by the death of baby Bridget and the uncertainty over whether the children would survive the famine? It's amazing what stays with you over the years - I didn't remember the story 100% but I had always remembered the blood-letting of the cow and how sick that made me feel. It's easy to be detached from the events of the famine while we sit with takeaway numbers and full freezers to hand - it's humbling to read about events that took place in reality, events our ancestors survived. A must-read even if you've read it before. This took on a whole new meaning for me reading it as a Mum, the parents must have been so terrified for their children.

Fiction
I read six fiction books:

The Ice Twins by S.K Tremayne
This is a really creepy atmospheric thriller about a grieving couple who have lost one of their twin daughters. They are preparing to move into a lighthouse keeper's cottage inherited by the husband. The remaining twin begins to claim she is actually Lydia, the twin they thought they had buried. Have they made a huge mistake or is there something more sinister at play? The couple have other personal issues to overcome, neither of them are being 100% honest and the little girl is a great character. Recommended!

The Accidental Life of Greg Millar by Aimee Alexander
A look at how a couple cope when one of them is affected by mental illness. This follows the highs and lows of their relationship, and how they deal with it - this got a bit silly towards the end for me but it was a worthwhile read and not a theme I've come across too often lately.

The Crooked House by Christobel Kent
A young girl narrowly escapes a horrific killing spree one night that leaves most of her family dead and her father accused of the murders. Years later, she is living far away from her hometown under a different name - until her boyfriend has to perform best man duties for a friend holding her wedding there. Will the townsfolk remember her? Will she discover that someone knows what really happened the night she lost her family? A really good thriller - the "big reveal" let it down for me, it ended a bit abruptly, but the descriptive writing and the story up to that was brilliantly captivating.

Kiss a Girl in the Rain by Nancy Warren
The premise for this was great - a successful wealthy lawyer finds a bucket list he wrote when he was 12 and realises he hasn't completed half the things he wanted to do as a boy. He embarks on a journey to tick items off his list - and gets on a motorbike to ride cross-country. He gets about an hour in before he has an accident, and meets a stunning doctor (as you do) and despite the title being the uber-romantic "kiss a girl in the rain" (one of the items on his list), the two of them are at it like rabbits before you can say "What's up Doc?" rendering the whole thing pointless. Insta-love, utter tripe, horrible characters, predictable (there's a heavily pregnant character, so we know what's going to happen there). Waste of time.

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride
This was physically one of the most challenging books I've ever read. Eimear doesn't write in traditional sentences - it's a "stream of consciousness" style that has been compared to Joyce (not a fan). It's a basic story - Holy Catholic Ireland, secrets, abuse, shame, more abuse, loss, death, grief, more secrets, more shame, more abuse, more death - it's very hard to read (physically and emotionally), and for that reason I think that when I found my rhythm I stayed with it and got completely sucked in to the character's head. It had me in tears more than once and I have thought about it several times since - worthwhile, but you need the energy for it. If you have experienced a loss recently approach with caution.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
I dipped my toe into the world of Rachel Joyce last year with her book Perfect (review here), which I liked. This had been recommended to me several times since, so I thought it would be something easy to read after the Eimear McBride book. Harold gets a letter from his old friend Queenie to say Goodbye, as she he has cancer and can't be cured. He writes a short reply and walks to the postbox to post it. When he gets there, he decides to walk to the next one, and so on. Harold ends up on a 600 mile pilgrimage from the South of England to Scotland to "save" Queenie and let her know she has something to hang on for. Harold and Queenie aren't the real story here - Harold and his wife Maureen have a sad, strained marriage with both of them afraid to express their feelings and thoughts after some incidents that left them broken. Maureen goes on a journey as much as Harold - their relationship had me in tears! A lovely, lovely book and I'm currently tearing through Queenie's side of the story in Rachel's latest book, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey.

So that's it - as always, I'm open to recommendations, so please let me know if you're reading something good at the moment. Hopefully you'll discover something from this post that you will enjoy!

Why You Need To Vote Yes on May 22nd.

Hi!

The original title of this post was "Why You Should Vote No on May 22nd" - but I've had feedback from some people who felt uncomfortable sharing it because of that title, and others that were annoyed by it. So the message still stands, but I've changed the title of the post.

On May 22nd in Ireland, we're having a Referendum on whether or not LGBT people will be allowed to get married. Here's why you should vote no:

If you will be paying for their weddings from your own personal bank account.

That's it, really.

Otherwise, I implore you to vote yes. I wasn't even going to do a post on this but there's so much I want to say that I get muddled and flustered and annoyed - really annoyed.

I live in a very rural area in the Midlands. LGBT people don't make up a huge percentage of the population, but they are here, and for the most part I have always assumed that they're accepted - that might be incredibly naive of me, going by recent "revelations" from people I thought would know better.

On May 22nd, we are voting on whether or not a woman can marry a woman, or a man can marry a man. That's it. We're not voting on whether they can adopt a child or on their parenting abilities. Every single argument against this vote that I have heard in my locality has mentioned children. One argument included the sentence "but listen to me, if they get rights, they'll want more. They'll want to adopt and it's not right, children need a mother and a father." This was from someone who didn't raise his own children, by the way. I'll be sharing this post on facebook, so if you happen to see this and recognise yourself - tough. Shame on you. SHAME ON YOU.

Considering everyone is so concerned about children and about same sex parenting and traditional parenting - I'll say this. I was born to a married couple, and raised without a father. Two women raised me. My mother and my grandmother. My mother did not make good choices all the time. I had no male influence. I think I turned out alright, if you'll excuse the ego. I may not have gone to University and gotten a degree, and I am a little bit fat, but would a Dad have changed that? I'm not mean, I'm not a racist or a bigot, I'm married, and have three sons now. I think I do a good job with them. I don't get pissed, I don't do drugs, I don't abuse or neglect them. I think I'm a good wife. Being raised by two women didn't mean that I was afraid of men or I didn't know what to do around them or how to deal with them. I've never felt uncomfortable around men. Did I miss out on a Dad? Maybe. But I had a mother, and sometimes I feel like I missed out on a mother.

We are voting on marriage. Only marriage. On whether or not two people should be allowed to stand in front of their family and friends and tell them, and each other, how much they love and care for one another. In a society like the one we live in, so full of hatred and fear, so full of evil and badness, why on earth would you want to be responsible for denying someone of doing that?

Buy your badges at voteyesbadge.com.
All proceeds to the Marriage Equality campaign.

I often look at those wonder kids who can do things like play Mozart on the piano at 4. Or those people who, at aged 22, have done more in their short lifetimes than I've done with a ten year head start. I often think - "I have done nothing in my life worth anything except have my children". If you can identify with that feeling, here's your chance. Change lives. Change the course of history. Stand up and show people that we are not as backward and as ignorant as we are sometimes portrayed. You can be a part of something amazing, something that will lead to true equality - or you can be a part of destruction, pain, prejudice. Unless you are a member of the LGBT community, this isn't going to change anything for you personally. Nobody is going to knock on your front door and declare your marriage invalid or any less important just because others will be given the opportunity to marry. As far as I'm aware, my wedding ring still means something.

Stand up for your future gay sons and lesbian daughters/friends/nieces/grandchildren. Those who feel strongly that the definition of marriage should not be changed have already lost - because it has been changed. Women no longer have to give their jobs up after they marry. More and more women don't take their husbands names. Sometimes (like myself), we have a child first and then live together for a decade and THEN get married. Some people bring children from previous relationships into marriages. It has already changed. THE DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE HAS ALREADY CHANGED.

The people who are against this are really against it, and they will vote No. They will vote no, because they are afraid of change. Some will vote no because they don't understand what they're voting for. Please, please vote Yes on May 22nd and show solidarity with those who just want to be able to get married.

I'm all for balance and hearing both sides on most issues - but I can not wrap my head around the reason for denying two people a marriage. What effect does it have on you? NONE. Absolutely none. Think about it. NONE.

If your argument involves children, firstly go and tell all your childless married friends that their marriages are invalid. Then, think about all the children born to alcoholics, drug addicts, prisoners. Those children are already on the planet. They need help right now. The hypothetical children that some think will be handed out across the hatch at the HSE office along with the marriage certificates do not. If you feel that strongly about the safety and welfare of the children of Ireland, get off your arse and do some volunteer work for Childline, Barnardos, Temple Street, St. Vincent de Paul, or some of the other charities who would be only too grateful of your assistance.

This is your chance to sit back with that smug grin on your face at the end of May and think "I did that. I was part of that. I helped change history." Do the right thing - all you're voting on is whether or not two people who love each other should be allowed to get married. That is it.

Make sure you're registered to vote - check www.checktheregister.ie to find out if you're registered. You still have time to apply for a postal vote - the deadline is April 25th according to the website. Deadline to register for voting at your local polling station is May 5th.

Visit yesequality.ie for more information on the Yes Equality campaign.

Books I Read in March

Hi!

Oh lads. March was an awful month for reading. I got addicted to Dawson's Creek DVDs and I broke out a Dimensions cross stitch kit that I got for Christmas (this one) - there was no time at all for reading, unfortunately! I only managed to finish four books this month, a pitiful total for me. As usual, I managed to make time to buy more books - I bought at least 20, when I'm going to read them is anyone's guess!

Here are the ones I finished in March.

Book Club

Takashi Hiraide - The Guest Cat
A beautiful story translated from Japanese about a cat that comes into the life of a young American couple living in Japan. Slow moving and descriptive, I found it inherently boring and couldn't wait to finish it. I feel like a bit of a heathen because the writing was so pretty, but the main character drove me nuts. He never even bothered to give his wife a name, yet obsessed over someone else's cat. I know that there was a lot going on under the surface - it was probably more about the couple than the cat but my god, no. Didn't enjoy it at all.

David Sedaris - Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls
I've had this a while so I was delighted when it was picked as a book club read. The first half didn't win me over - sometimes I don't get David, and it takes me a while to just relax into his stories, but when I got to the "Obama!!" chapter it really took off for me. With great observations on people at airports, rants about how long it takes for official paperwork to be sorted out, and how hard it is to find a decent taxidermy owl - the second half of this book was very funny. It also contained this brilliant quote:

Books Sent to Review

Sheena Lambert - The Lake
I was lucky enough to be invited to read a couple of books this month - this being one of them. This is set in Ireland in the 70s, and surrounds the discovery of a body in a small rural town. It was really good and I hope that the author revisits the town and characters in the future. You can read my full review of The Lake here.

eBooks

Hugh Howey - Dust
The third and final installment in the Wool trilogy, Dust brings us back to where we were at the end of the first book. We're bang up to date with what's going on back at Juliette's Silo, and we know that something big is afoot. This was brilliant - fast paced, everything was tied up, and nobody underwent the major personality change that sometimes befalls characters in the third book of a trilogy. I thoroughly recommend this series - it's fantastic.

And that was it. Agh! I need to get back to reading and stop buying, my TBR pile is ridiculous at this stage.

I'm going to take this opportunity to check in with my reading challenge:

I'm trying not to double up on challenges, so that means I have 14/50 completed. I'm looking foward to seeing all those boxes go green!!

So - that's it for March, hopefully I'll be able to tear myself away from Dawson & Co long enough to make a dent in my ridiculous TBR pile during April.

Book Review: The Lake by Sheena Lambert

Book provided for consideration of review. As always, I'll give a fair and honest opinion.

Hi!

Recently, I was contacted by author Sheena Lambert to see if I'd be interested in reading her latest book. The Lake, published under the Killer Reads imprint at Harper Collins, sounded right up my street so I accepted.

Image:amazon

Set over the course of an All-Ireland weekend in a small village in Ireland in 1975, The Lake is a crime/mystery novel. In the small village of Crumm where nothing really ever happens, Peggy Casey is responsible for running the family bar. Her siblings are off doing their own thing - flamboyant brother Jerome seems to be more at home in Dublin, brother Hugh is working in London, and sister Carla is too busy causing trouble to help out regularly.

The main excitement in the village seems to be the possiblity of being able to watch the match on a colour television in Caseys - until a body is found on the shore of a local man-made lake. Detective Sergeant Frank Ryan is called down from Dublin to assist young Garda Michael O'Dowd with his enquiries, but although the locals are willing to help Frank - nobody seems to know anything about the identity of the person who died.

However - one person knows - and if the truth comes out, it will have a devastating effect on one Crumm resident.

I really, really enjoyed this book. The author could have gone down a very predictable route with Frank and Peggy, but she didn't. The mystery was given a satisfactory ending, and it was sad and touching in parts. I really enjoyed the whole atmosphere of the book, the setting of the Irish family pub isn't one I have come across before, and it was well written. It brought to mind the old smells of pool chalk, beermats and smoke - it was really atmospheric and all the characters were well written.

I liked Jerome a lot, I would have liked a bit more about him. I'd actually like a bit more on all of the characters - my only quibble with the book would be that it was too short, I seemed to race through it and I'd love another book featuring the same characters.

I'd be happy to recommend this, particularly if you're looking for something to read over a weekend or something to take on holiday. Despite the presence of death, it's not scary and it couldn't be described as gruesome - there was only one part with the pathologist that I found made me a bit squeamish but it wasn't overdone.

A really good read - it's out on March 19th, you can pre-order it for Kindle now here on Amazon, it's very reasonably priced and will also be available in paperback form.

I really liked the author's writing style, I've actually just bought her previous book on Kindle based on how much I liked this one. I'm delighted to have discovered another great female Irish author, and I'm really thankful to the author and publisher for getting in touch.

Recommended!

Books I Read in January

Hi!

It's the first round-up of the year, woohoo! I'm not sure if anyone else will be as excited as I, but anyway. Here it is. This also means a new page for Books in 2015, so you'll find that there on the right sidebar under the "books" heading --------->. As always, just click a book cover to go to my Goodreads review. On with the show!

In January, I read 17 books. I didn't even think I had read that many - probably because January felt like the longest month since time began. I read a good mix of paperback and eBooks, which was great because my poor books have been neglected in favour of the kindle lately.

Netgalley
I finished two ebooks from Netgalley in January:

The Room by Jonas Karlsson
Translated from Swedish, this is a short novel about a man who finds an escape from mundane office life when he discovers a private room at work that nobody else can see. Witty, sarcastic and a lot funnier than you'd think, a very enjoyable read.

Baby It's Cold Outside by Kerry Barrett
A fluffy, light rom-com story about a witch planning her wedding and all the obstacles that fall into her path. Meh.


Non-Fiction
I read three non-fiction books in January, all biographies/autobiographies.

Not Quite a Geordie by Holly Hagan
Holly from Geordie Shore, as she is better known. This book was ghostwritten, fair enough. What wasn't fair enough was the fact that it was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. It promised to show us another side to Holly - but it didn't, she is exactly as she appears on TV. More power to her, if that's the way she wants to live her life then she's entitled to do that, the book was just not my cup of tea at all.

My Life and Other Unfinished Business by Dolly Parton
This was really warm and funny, just as I would imagine Dolly to be in reality. She tells stories about her childhood, about breaking into the music business during a very male-dominated time, and about the various friendships and loves she has had along the way. Her passion about her faith is admirable, and she doesn't push her beliefs on to anyone. Liked this a lot.

Kevyn Aucoin - A Beautiful Life by Kerry Diamond
I picked this up in a used book order, it's a beautiful hardback book full of pictures of Kevyn's makeup (not a makeup guide, though) and anecdotes from some of the people he worked with and called friends. It covers Kevyn's childhood right up to his tragically early death in 2002, and it's a lovely read.


Fiction
January was a great month for fiction - I got through 6.

Horns by Joe Hill
Ignatius Perrish wakes up after a wild night with a hangover and a pair of horns. Ig soon realises that the horns have a very strange effect on people - they tell him their innermost, darkest secrets or desires. Can Ig use the horns to discover who really murdered his girlfriend Merrin a year before? Loved this.

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey
Maud has early dementia, and needs little notes to remind herself to do things. She hasn't heard from her good friend Elizabeth in a while, so when she thinks something is wrong, and nobody seems to be listening to her, she makes it her business to find out where Elizabeth is. There's an old mystery too - one that Maud can't quite remember, but the details slowly come back... adored this book, but I would proceed with caution if you've had a family member with alzheimers or dementia as I think it could be really difficult and upsetting to get through.

Room by Emma Donoghue
I was so late reading this, it's been on my to-read list for a long time. I really liked it - told entirely from the perspective of a five year old boy, it's the tale of a mother and son who are being imprisoned in an 11 foot square room and their attempt to escape.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Rachel passes a house every day on the train - a house with a glam young couple who appear to be very much in love. She knows them so well from watching them that she notices immediately when something is wrong - and sure enough, the woman goes missing. Can Rachel overcome her own battles and demons to help find out what happened? Thought this was excellent, even if the ending was a bit lukewarm for me.

I Was Here by Gayle Forman
Cody and Meg have always been best friends - so when Meg ends her life, Cody is shocked that Meg didn't confide in her. She goes to Meg's to pack up belongings, and there she meets people that knew Meg before she died - Cody begins to realise that perhaps there were things in Meg's life that nobody knew about. With the help of some of Meg's friends, Cody goes on a journey to find out why Meg swallowed a bottle of poison. This was brilliant - parts of it made me weep. It's a respectful look at depression and suicide among teens, and it was handled brilliantly. Hopefully this will make an impact on the YA (young adult) community and get peope talking.

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
This was a re-read due to the fact Sarah has just released a sequel to this - First Frost (reading it at the moment). Claire Waverley is a caterer, she knows just what ingredients to include for various purposes - remembrance, love, foresight, healing, etc. When her sister Sydney returns to the Waverley house after escaping an abusive relationship, the two sisters begin to help each other heal and enjoy life. Love this book so much!

Classics
I'm trying to be more open this year and tackle some classic "must-read" books - this month was Dubliners by James Joyce.

Oh, Mr. Joyce. You are not for me. I didn't enjoy this in the slightest - I actually felt less intelligent the more that I read. I thought a lot of it was just a thinly veiled reference to "being trapped" whether it be by religious or political issues, and I didn't really like any of the characters. I know that this was written in a time where it was hard to express an opinion on politics or religion, so I understand why it was important, but I thought it was pompous, and to be honest - a lot of it went over my head. Should I go and prepare for my lynching?

Harry Potter
One of my reading resolutions this year was to re-read the Harry Potter series. In January, I read the first four.

There's no point in reviewing these individually, they are all 5-star books for me except The Chamber of Secrets. I still find it amazing that the entire Hogwarts world came from the imagination of one person, it's unbelievable. I adore the books, and I had to stop myself from racing through the series in order to make it last longer.

Finally Finished
I had been slogging through this book since November, and I finally just gave up and raced ahead in January.

I had high hopes for US by David Nicholls, but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. I found the protagonist, Douglas, inherently boring. I couldn't fathom why his wife ever married him in the first place, they were woefully unsuited. His son needed a lesson in respect and a kick up the bum. There were more art references in here than there were in The Goldfinch, and by the end of the book I not only wanted Connie to leave, I wanted her to run screaming. I skimmed a huge chunk of this - but there's a synopsis in one of the chapters near the end where Douglas is musing on everything that has happened since the night his wife told him she was leaving him. I gave this everything I could, but I just couldn't wait to get rid of it.

So - that's January done and dusted! See you in February!

Books I Read in December

Hi!

I'd usually have this round-up at the very start of the month, but as I had a few book posts around Christmas I held it back for a little while in case things started to get a bit samey around here.

I did okay in December - I managed 9 books - a few of them were very short. I tried to keep to a Christmas/December theme (apart from one).

First up - Netgalley approvals that had been sitting on my Dashboard for weeks:

A Christmas Horror Story by Sebastian Gregory
Set for the most part in present-day UK, Katie and her two siblings are home alone on Christmas Eve. They have all had strange dreams about young children being taken away by a black shadowed figure - and when strange things begin to happen, they realise that they may not have been dreaming....very spooky, a great fairytale, modern-day young horror akin to Goosebumps or some of the scarier episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark.

The Boy in the Cemetery by Sebastian Gregory
Boy lives in a cemetery, but he is not really alive. Carrie moves to a new town after enduring horrific abuse (very uncomfortable to read about) and seeks solace in the cemetery when she has a terrifying experience at school. This was a brilliant book, but quite dark. Sebastian Gregory is firmly on my radar.

I Will Marry George Clooney (...By Christmas) by Tracy Bloom
I requested this on Netgalley months ago and was just approved before Christmas. Michelle is a 36 year old single Mum (with a horribly rude 15 year old daughter) who works in a chicken factory. In order to try and stop her daughter doing something stupid, Michelle vows to track George Clooney down and ask him to marry her to show her daughter Josie that you should follow your dreams. A light, easy read, a bit ridiculous in parts but enjoyable enough all the same. Even though Josie was a total and utter wagon.

The Room by Jonas Karlsson
Translated from Swedish, this short novel (under 200 pages) is a deadpan look at mundane office life from the point of view of Bjorn, a workaholic who is determined to succeed and get promoted ahead of his new colleagues. When Bjorn finds a room he can think in, a room that seems to stimulate his creativity and help him achieve great things, he is overjoyed - but when Bjorn enters the room, all his colleagues see is him standing at a wall in a catatonic state. To everyone else, there is no room. As his colleagues become increasingly irritated by his oddness, and he becomes increasingly irritated by...well, by everything - something has to give. But will Bjorn give up his room without a fight? Is he playing his colleagues? Is he playing the reader? Or is he genuinely going mad? A fantastic read, very clever and highly recommended.

Next up was the book that Rick O'Shea chose for his book club for December:

The Thing About December by Donal Ryan
Set over the course of a year in the life of twenty-something year old loner Johnsey Cunliffe, this is a powerful, devastating story. Each chapter covers a month from one December to the next. It looks at how Johnsey deals with a terrible tragedy, and how lonely he feels. It's full of rural colloquialisms, but they aren't distracting. Johnsey's voice is so strong, and so pure. It may sound like the most miserable book in the world, but it's not. Johnsey is a lot sharper and stronger than he gives himself credit for. I don't think I took a breath for the last chapter - it's just powerful writing. An absolute must-read, unlike anything else I read in 2014.

Last up - four books that I picked up on Amazon:

Getting Over the X by Steve Brookstein
You may remember Steve as the first ever winner of the X Factor. Or you may not - and this book will tell you why. A really interesting read, reviewed in-depth here.

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
A compilation of holiday-themed stories from Sedaris - some true, some fiction. If you've read Me Talk Pretty One Day or Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim then you've read two or three of these stories already. It's not a bad thing, really - Us and Them could be included in every one of his books and I'd still laugh like a hyena at it every time. As usual, he completely crosses the line a few times but the humour in some of the other stories more than makes up for it. Almost. Except the dryer part. Ugh, David. Just Ugh.

How the In-Laws Wrecked Christmas by Fiona Gibson
This was free on Amazon, it's a short story that comes in around 60 pages. It had great potential - Anna and Ben are on their way to spend their first Christmas together with Ben's very posh parents. Anna feels self-conscious and feels left out - and then the whole lot goes downhill very quickly. The title is inaccurate - they weren't "in-laws", and they didn't wreck Christmas. Anna changed her opinion based on something she overheard, that's what "wrecked" Christmas. The ending was blah, with a predictable twist.

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham
The movie version of this (Christmas with the Kranks) has long been one of my favourite Christmas movies. It's just a pure guilty pleasure, and it's something I watch several times every year during December. I have often wondered how the movie compared to the book, so I bought this. Holy moly - the movie is SO MUCH BETTER. In the book, Luther Krank isn't just crotchety - he is miserable, rude, and just horrible. I don't like the way Grisham writes women , either- "Even dressed, she felt like a slut" - this was in reference to Nora wearing a bikini under her clothes. Awful. Just awful. The book has no heart. Even though the movie has the stupid flying Volkswagen at the end, I'll take it - there's no contest, it's a million times better.

And that's it! That rounds off my reading year for 2014. If you want to have a look back at all the books I read in 2014, I've moved my book pages to the sidebar up the top where they're more manageable. Each book cover links to my review on Goodreads (feel free to add me as a friend).

See you in February!

Book Review: Getting Over the X by Steve Brookstein

Hi!

I saw a couple of people talking about this on twitter one night during the Xfactor (namely Kellie) and it sounded like a good read, so I took advantage of a special Kindle offer and downloaded it there and then.

"'One of you will leave with a million-pound recording contract, and the other will leave with nothing,' Kate Thornton had said on the night. Eight months later, I had never envisaged that it was possible to leave with both."

I've watched every season of the Xfactor from the beginning. In later years, I've become a bit disillusioned with it due to the trend of publicly humiliating people who aren't very good, or by putting novelty acts through (Wagner, anyone?!). The first year, I watched mainly because I had seen Tabby Callaghan's band Petronella live a few times the previous year while in college. I don't really remember being too concerned about the other contestants. The only thing I remembered about Steve was that he had released a cover of Against All Odds.

When people enter TV shows like the Xfactor, they are labelled pretty much straight away. For Matt Cardle, it was "House Painter". For Leon Jackson, it was "Works in a shoe shop". For Rebecca Ferguson and Stacy Solomon, it was "Single Mum". For Steve Brookstein, it was "Pub Singer". Steve was in actual fact far from a pub singer - he had already supported Dionne Warwick the year he applied for the competition, and turned down a job supporting Lionel Richie to take part in the show. Hardly a bog standard pub singer. In Steve's own words, he had "better irons in the fire." Steve was labelled overconfident from the very beginning, yet at one point Simon Cowell said of him "He found self belief when we gave him a stage." At the final, Sharon Osbourne tore into him in a most unprofessional manner, saying she had enough of his "Mister Humble" act. So which is it?! Overconfident, lacking in self belief, or humble? As you learn to watch out for certain phrases that the judges dole out, you realise they just recycle the same labels over and over again - if they take a dislike to you for whatever reason, they have the power to turn the public against you (ask Christopher Maloney). If they love you, they will champion you to the end, regardless of how the public vote goes ("the real winner").

As I read about the way Steve was treated when he won the show, I was disgusted. I'm not a fan of Simon Cowell anyway - that level of ego is not endearing to me. He comes across as incredibly self-involved, surrounded by people who are willing to fall at his feet and lick his boots. Steve's story is a cautionary tale of what can happen when you dare to put forward your own ideas, or step outside the Cowell 'bubble'. The sheer power of the "Simon Cowell Collective" is shocking. The press manipulation, misdirected quotes, false accusations - they can, as Max Clifford (don't even get me started on him) stated, "bury you".

"What have I become? I'm 35. I'm sitting in a mansion trying to impress a guy who turned up late to his own microwave dinner party. Why wasn't I saying 'What the f*ck's this sh*t?!'"

This stuff about the Xfactor having "a real winner" was obviously there from the beginning, as G4 were given the moniker in 2004. G4 themselves would later tell the press that the Xfactor was a pantomime, with staged bickering between the judges. You can see that in every year since - especially this year. One incident in particular this year was just ridiculous - "real winner" Fleur East (who came second to Ben Haenow) - was given a track called Uptown Funk to sing. Fleur rocked the song, and shot straight to number one on iTunes. If a contestant can score a number one before the show has even ended, what's the point anymore? The winners' careers seem to be lukewarm, and the management appears to lose interest before the next series begins. So what's the point of the prize? Of the competition?

Back to Uptown Funk - singer Lily Allen accused Simon of "industry corruption" because the song hadn't actually been released when Fleur performed it. As a result of her reaching number one, Mark Ronson had to push the single release date forward before people lost interest in the original (yet unreleased) version. In a media press conference, Simon claimed "This corruption thing is ridiculous. To be honest, I didn't even know what label it was on." Simon's record label SYCO is 50% owned by Sony, who also own Mark Ronson's record label. Presumably they wouldn't even have needed clearance from Ronson to perform the song on the show - are we supposed to be so stupid that we would think that Simon knew none of this?! Oh, and Mark Ronson's version is now head-to-head with Ben Haenow's debut single for Christmas Number one - but that doesn't matter anyway, because the song already seems old after hearing a contestant cover it. Well played, Simon et al.

Poor Ben seems to be the latest addition to a long line of male winners, set to be overlooked in favour of the "real winner" - he's already being referred to as "Ben Whonow?" on twitter and he only won it four days ago - I would be shocked if he were to be invited back to perform on next year's show.

I think Steve's book is a great read, it really exposes the staging and pettiness of the whole show. It was never a singing competition - it's about the judges, their egos, and how much money they can squeeze from the general public. If you do what you're told, you're wrong. If you step outside your comfort zone, you're wrong. The corruption, manipulation, and sheer deceptiveness regarding the media is shocking - but sadly, after recent revelations including the whole Max Clifford debacle and the demise of the News of the World - unsurprising.

Referring to 2014 contestant Jake Quickenden's stint in the Jungle (that's a whole other ballgame - a contestant on a TV show going straight into the Jungle as a "celebrity" before the show had even ended?!) Simon had this to say at a press conference: "I think with any competition, if you don't want to win, that tells me you haven't got that killer instinct to do well in the real world. If you're happy to come fourth or tenth and end up in the jungle.... what we want on this show are people who want to be recording artists in the real world. I mean, that's just the way it is."

But...........that's NOT the way it is. Every single year, Louis Walsh sits like a Pantomime Dame defending whatever novelty act he has chosen to put through to the live shows, while genuinely talented people go home. Simon Cowell plays with people as if they were puppets - putting people through to spite other judges (Raign & Cheryl Cole?!). Take a show like The Voice - I haven't seen a single novelty act on that show. I'm sure it's not perfect, it's still TV, but it seems so much fairer than leading lambs to the slaughter after telling them they're perfect for the TV rounds before tearing them to pieces and laughing at them. We have had whole hour-long shows dedicated to "The Worst Auditionees", yet people who actually won the whole blimmin' show have been snubbed.

Steve has proven that he definitely has that killer instinct - and here's hoping he continues to do well in the real world. The Xfactor bubble may be the dream of many a young starlet, but it's definitely not something I'd want any of my loved ones involved in. I'm really glad Steve wrote this book (with the help of Tony Horne), because it just confirms opinions I've had about Simon Cowell for a long, long time - does he have any actual interest in the music at all?!

A must-read.

You can get the book here on Amazon.