Reading challenge book 24: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Book 24, and the final book (yes, I'm down two), in my challenge to read one book (I haven't read before) a fortnight in 2012 is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

I didn't do this on purpose, but it seems like I saved the best for last - Never Let Me Go is my favourite book I've read this year.

Narrated by Kathy, Never Let Me Go is a collection of memories from her childhood, teen years and up to the present day - although we're never quite sure when or where the present day is. This review will be a little vague, since I don't want to spoil anything for future readers.

A large part of Kathy's memories include her best friend Ruth, and Tommy, who went to school alongside the two of them and morphs from someone they mock to someone who comes to mean a great deal to both of them.

At the centre of Kathy's story is Hailsham School, the boarding school where Kathy grew up with Ruth and Tommy. The school is there in every memory of Kathy's, even when the stories she is telling are not set there.

Never Let Me Go does not have a conventional linear narrative. The Kathy we meet in the present is not moving from one point at the beginning of the novel to another at the end. Rather, the narrative we read is the beginning and middle of Kathy's life, and it is up to us to figure out the end from what we are told.

Kathy's stories unfold often because she has remembered something while driving from one job to the next, and she often talks to the reader while she is driving, or her stories involve driving from one place to another. She is constantly on a road to nowhere - a fitting metaphor for her life, and one that makes perfect sense once the secret at the centre of Never Let Me Go is unveiled.

Never Let Me Go is a haunting book, one that had me gripped from start to finish even though there was a sadness permeating every word and every tale Kathy told. Kathy's fate, as Ruth and Tommy's, is inevitable, yet I still found myself desperately hoping for some mad twist that would mean her life played out as I wanted to. That Ishiguro didn't give me that respite was the reason that Never Let Me Go has haunted me and stayed with me, much like Kathy's memories haunt her.

Reading challenge book 23: Dads, Geeks & Blue Haired Freaks by Ellie Phillips

Book 23 in my challenge to read one book (I haven't read before) a fortnight in 2012 is Dads, Geeks & Blue Haired Freaks by Ellie Phillips.

This book is billed as "one girl's search to find her father, using the internet, some boys and quite a lot of hairspray". 

It's a bit Mamma Mia, without the music and the impending wedding and a Greek island and with teenagers. Okay, it's not really like Mamma Mia, but the lead character, Sadie, is trying to find her dad just like Sophie (see, even their names are similar), and there are multiple candidates, blah blah blah.

Dads, Geeks & Blue Haired Freaks is typical teenage fare - there's a cute guy, although he's not really a central part of the story (his role is clearly going to get bigger in the upcoming sequel), a ditzy mum and a whole lot of thinking your hair is the key to being fabulous (sometimes it is, sometimes it's not).

Phillips has written a fairly bog-standard teenage novel. It's an easy read and enjoyable enough, but nowhere near as good as the stuff I read as a teenager which I would still recommend to youngsters today (Judy Blume, anyone?). My teenage cousins would enjoy Dads, Geeks & Blue Haired Freaks, but I doubt they'd be recommending it to anyone in 15 years.

Reading challenge book 22: How to be a Explorer of the World by Keri Smith

Book 22 in my challenge to read one book (I haven't read before) a fortnight in 2012 is How to be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith.

Categorising this book is difficult. It's not fiction, since there is nothing made up in it, and it's not strictly what I would class as non-fiction, since it's full of few facts.

Instead, How to be an Explorer of the World is a little of both. It does exactly what its name suggests - teaches you how to explore the world around you. And by doing so it invites you to explore your imagination, making up stories in some cases and just looking at the world in more detail in others.

Smith's book is full of suggestions about everything from people watching to writing down 10 things about the place you are sitting to making collages with found objects. The book's primary aim is to stop everyone wandering through life ignoring everything around us, and start really appreciating life by noticing the tiny things that make up our surroundings.

Alongside the suggestions are quotes from everyone from Carl Jung ("The creative mind plays with the objects it loves") to Brenda Veland ("The imagination need moodling - long, inefficient happy idling, dawdling and puttering") to Walt Whitman ("Now I will do nothing but listen. I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused, or following, sounds of the city, and sounds out of the city - sounds of the day and night..."). These quotes make you stop and think, and for me were the most interesting words in the book.

How to be an Explorer of the World is a very visual book, full of drawings, photographs and diagrams, all alongside block capital handwriting. And at the back of the book there are a series of pages you can rip out or stick things on or fill out as you explore the world. 

I'm not sure whether I'll be taking on some of Smith's suggestions, including wearing a costume or disguise, but How to be an Explorer of the World does succeed in its mission to make me want to pay more attention to the world around me.

Reading challenge book review masterpost

All book reviews from my reading challenge for 2012 (26 books I haven't read before - yes, I'm two books down) in one place.

Book one - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Book two - A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin
Book three - Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
Book four - Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Book five - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Book six - Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Book seven - The Search by Nora Roberts
Book eight - Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Book nine - Smokin' Seventeen by Janet Evanovich
Book 10 - Play to Kill by P.J. Tracy
Book 11 - Forever by Maggie Stiefvater
Book 12 - The Land of Stories - The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer
Book 13 - Sam Silver Undercover Pirate: Kidnapped by Jan Burchett and Sara Vogler
Book 14 - Girl Reading by Katie Ward
Book 15 - Dancing with Mr Darcy by Various
Book 16 - The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Book 17 - Beauty by Robin McKinley
Book 18 - Virals by Kathy Reichs
Book 19 - Sweetly by Jackson Pearce
Book 20 - Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce
Book 21 - The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
Book 22 - How to be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith 
Book 23 - Dads, Geeks and Blue Haired Freaks by Ellie Phillips
Book 24 - Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Reading challenge book 21: The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman

Book 21 in my challenge to read one book (I haven't read before) a fortnight in 2012 is The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman.

The only work by Pullman I've previously read is the His Dark Materials series, which I loved. The Ruby in the Smoke though, while still great storytelling, is something completely different.

Sally Lockhart's father has drowned at sea, and she receives an anonymous letter mentioning the Seven Blessings. Setting out to find out what the Seven Blessings are, Sally is thrust into a mystery, where her enemy is more dangerous than she can ever imagine.

A mystery set in the Victorian era, The Ruby in the Smoke is a fast paced tale with a twist round every corner - literally. Much of the tale takes place in London, where the streets are narrow and those who succeed know where every alley leads. Vivid descriptions of places including Wapping and other communities along the Thames make you feel as though you are right in the heart of the city.

Sally is a great heroine - clever, tough, imaginative - and could easily be transported to 2012 as a sassy girl detective. Alongside her detecting identity, she's still a young woman trying to make her way in the world by making new friends, and discovering the first feelings of attraction towards handsome photographer Frederick.

Villainous Mrs Holland may be an old woman, downtrodden and poor as a church mouse, but she's terrifying all the same, and a great villain for Sally to do battle against.

The Ruby in the Smoke is an intriguing story, and one that will keep you guessing with its intricate plot, characters full of depth and the picture it creates of Victorian London.  

Reading challenge book 20: Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce

Book 20 in my challenge to read one book (I haven't read before) a fortnight in 2012 is Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce.

This is the second book I've read by Pearce - the first being Sweetly.

Like Sweetly, this is a retelling of a classic fairytale, in this case Little Red Riding Hood. Only in Sisters Red, there are two Red Riding Hoods.

We meet Scarlett and Rosie March as young girls, in a prologue that sees a creature breaking in to their house and killing their grandmother.

Seven years on Scarlett, who was scarred fighting the creature - a Fenris - and Rosie are Fenris fighters. Basically they're both something out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - but Scarlett is more Faith while Rosie is a very, very reluctant Buffy.

During an encounter with a Fenris the two find out that groups of Fenris are gathering in the nearby city of Ellison, because the phase is about to begin. The pair, along with childhood friend Silas (who is starting to see Rosie in a new light) move from their quiet cottage where they've been living since their grandmother died (how no one noticed two children were living alone, I don't know), to Ellison at the behest of Scarlett, whose mission in life is to kill Fenris above all else.

In Ellison they try to solve the puzzle of the phase, while Silas and Rosie's relationship blossoms into romance.

Sisters Red, for me, was a much better book than Sweetly, perhaps because the narrative switched between Scarlett and Rosie, giving an insight into both characters' minds. The relationships are all well developed (although they are in Sweetly too), whether they are between siblings, friends or (potential) lovers.

Scarlett's single-minded determination to destroy the creatures who left her scarred, lonely and with the weight of the world on her is compelling, even though sometimes I just wanted to reach into the book, shake her and tell her it was okay to have some fun occasionally.

Silas and Rosie are also fascinating to watch, and their relationship with each other is interlinked with their relationships with Scarlett.

The mystery of the phase isn't exactly a mystery (I guessed as soon as the phase was defined what it was leading to), but it's interesting to watch the trio try to figure out what is going on, unaware that it will affect them all deeply.

The ending is more sweet than bittersweet, and left me with hope for all the characters.

Sisters Red is an interesting take on the Little Red Riding Hood tale, with Pearce only borrowing slight elements from the original story, and really adding her own twist.