I am a little late writing this month’s round up of books but I hope you can forgive me. It has been something of a whirlwind here in Sydney as my debut novel Greenteeth was finally sent out into the world! I had a truly wonderful few weeks, encompassing the final trade reviews, a fantastic launch event surrounded by friends and family, and a couple of interviews and livestreams with various great people!
I am now drifting back to earth and catching up on my regular tasks; foremost among them my review of February’s reading. I actually managed to pack a lot of reading into 28 days, I found it a great distraction from the book release nerves! I read eight books and this is what I thought.
Thornhedge – T Kingfisher
Short novella retelling of the Sleeping Beauty myth, told from the point of view of a changeling girl who is locking up the beauty to protect the world from her. I found this a pleasant and easy read, though not my favourite of Kingfisher’s excellent work. It contained the second depiction of Greenteeth I have ever read, outside my own, and I did like them very much, I thought my Jenny would get along with them excellently.
Commonwealth – Ann Patchett
My third Patchett, after Tom Lake and The Dutch House and I fear by reading them in reverse publishing order I am experiencing diminishing returns! Patchett is definitely improving as a writer, and I thought Tom Lake was just great but I struggled with Commonwealth. The story follows two families that merge and then split, across fifty years from California to Virginia and back. Patchett doesn’t focus on any of the big scenes: infidelity, death, marriage, but instead looks at the inbetween times, and just mentions the headlines. I found this technique interesting in concept but in execution rather frustrating. It also took me less than one chapter to decide that the stepfather figure was my mortal enemy, and I wished him nothing but misery, and that really tinted my enjoyment of the book. I will give older Pratchett one more go, probably Bel Canto, and then I will just wait for her to put some new work out.
Please Look After Mother – Kyung Sook Shin
Korean translation. When a family’s elderly mother goes missing in Seoul, her adult children have to search the city to find her, all while reckoning with their own preconceptions about her. Ooh this is a tough one to review! It was excellently written but quite hard to read. I really liked the different narrators voices, and the portrayal of the childhood each of them experienced. I thought that there would be a reveal that the adult children were all selfish and ignoring their mother’s life, but it was much more complex than that, and I think the end point was that no children can ever truly know their parent. The ending quite took my breath away and left me blinded with tears for a moment. A really fantastic book.
The Last Blade Priest – WB Wiles
The Last Blade Priest is a return to classic fantasy writing but utilising all sorts of new ideas and tropes. The story is set in a world once ruled by an empire aligned with a mysterious mountain-worshipping cult but now being taken over by a new meritocratic force. The narration is split between one of the few remaining scions of the religion and a builder conscripted into the invading army. I liked this book a lot, the writing was descriptive and felt cinematic. There was a slight weakness in the character building which left me a little underinvested in their stories but I’m eager to see where the story goes next.
Children of Time – Adrian Tchaikovsky
I switched gears from reading Tchaikovsky’s fantasy to trying his scifi with this epic universe-bending story about the descendants of a lost earth. Lightyears from earth lies a planet seeded with new life as part of a forgotten experiment to terraform new worlds. Now the survivors of the old earth are coming and will have to reckon with what was left behind. This story follows two threads: the spaceship humans and the planet bound spiders that have developed without them. I loved the spidery half of this book but struggled to really connect to the humans (classic weirdo problems). Book 2 combines the threads so I’m keen to start that.
The Chequer Board – Nevil Shute
A return to my public access book pile – The Chequer Board follows a man diagnosed with a terminal injury who decides to find the three men who were kind to him as he lay in a prison hospital ten years previously. Then they were all at the low point of their lives and he wants to help them now if he can. The first thing to say about this book is that there are some DEEPLY racist words used. I’m talking the N-word used pretty liberally to the face of African-American characters. However, if you can get past that this is actually a pretty liberal book for its time. It was published in 1947 and features multiple mixed race relationships and marriages in a positive light, discusses the racism of the American south as a stupid and pointless evil, and even promotes as heroes the anti-colonial Burmese fighters. I enjoyed the stories and found it a relaxing read, albeit with some jumpscare slurs.
Round The Bend – Nevil Shute
My second Shute of the month, and this was a little weirder. It follows an Englishman setting up a small charter airline in the Middle East in the aftermath of the war and the rise of the oil powers in the region. But it’s also about the charismatic mechanic he employs and the new religion that forms around him. So that’s very odd. I liked this book but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me and I couldn’t really work out what it was saying. There is some major criticism of the White Australia policy when one of the Sikh pilots can’t land in Australia or the entire baggage handler and ATC staff across the nation will go on strike. Shute accurately characterises this as terrible, but it’s a startling reminder that this was happening up until the 1970s.
My last read of the month – Pastoral is set at an English Bomber Command base during the war and follows a romance between a pilot and a radio operator. Something I found a little frustrating was how much these two acted like dopey teenagers – but then I realised they were only 23 and they were almost the oldest people on the base! That really put things into perspective for me and I stopped expecting them to act like adults. There was a really sharp contrast between the gentle courtship and the nightly risk of death when the pilots flew off to bomb Germany. There were a few moments when I had my heart in my mouth but it was definitely worth the ride.
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