The Impossible Climb by Mark Synott

          Let me preface this review by stating that I have no interest whatsoever in climbing; to be entirely honest I have always viewed it as being a rather peculiar thing to want to do.  In fact, like all extreme sports, I tend to tut and shake my head in a resigned and derogatory fashion if it should ever be mentioned.  Fortunately, this a rare occurence living somewhere that doesn't really lend it self to such pursuits.  This novel occupies a peculiar slot as it is part autobiography, part biography, part history and part instruction manual.

So, having no interest in the sport why did I pick up the book?  It is very simple really, the writing grabs you and just refuses to let go.  Even the more technical sections dealing with equipment or climbing methods are fairly easy to follow for a person with no prior knowledge and, somehow, I assume they will not patronise someone more familiar.  Whilst it hasn't converted me in to someone who would begin to contemplate even gym climbing it has given me an understanding of the motivation to scale what looks like the untrained eye a sheer wall of rock.

There are certainly some characters in the book.  From the author, Mark Synott, himself and through a whole plethora of what can only be described as surfer-type hippie dudes (the Stonemasters) and through to Alex Honnold himself.  It must be said the discussion of the early years for both the author and Alex are some of the best in the book but there is a lot of good character based writing here about a whole cast of people.  The mountains themselves become distinct characters in the book and, judging by the affection which the author gives them, I am pretty sure to those involved in the climbing fraternity they are as alive as they are.

I will readily admit to cheating when I started reading the book - I wanted to know if Alex had managed this seemingly impossible feat or if the book was to end in disaster.  Somehow I wanted the drama to be less about the final guts or glory moment and more about the journey.  Somehow I think the author did too as much of the book is about other climbs and other climbers.

The writing style is a real joy to read, open and with plenty of wit.  The author really does bring the climbing lifestyle to life on the page; admittedly he does glorify it a little bit, but as he has such passion for the subject I can understand that.  For a non-climber this was a completely engrossing and instructive read.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED FROM READERS FIRST.
       

Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin

          This novel is very much an Islamic take on Pride and Pejudice (in fact Jane Austen's novel gets a couple of name checks throughout).  It has everything you would expect from that analogy - the (truth universally acknowledged) search for a life partner, the struggles of class, the place of a woman in the world and rather than a sisterly struggle to the altar there are the battling cousins.  Told with a wit and warmth that brings the characters alive on the page it wasn't until a few days after completing this book that I actually realised the parallels.

You very quickly get drawn in to the world that Ayesha and Khalid inhabit and find yourself firmly rooting for both characters.  Ayesha, herself, is a very modern woman with her school teaching career and desire to be a poet.  Despite being relatively young she feels that she is somewhat on the shelf having reached 27 without a sniff of marriage.  The conflict she feels about this is clear, but she isn't really sure that an arranged marriage is for her and is unsure about how to go about the world of dating. 

Khalid is very sure about arranged marriage and, as a devout Muslim, he is more than happy to allow his mother to find his wife for him.  Indeed, it is his very devoutness that causes him problems - from his clothing, his beard, down to his refusal to shake hands with women. 

Each character in the book is rich and detailed.  Unfortunately this holds as true for the self-centred Hafsa and the extremely dodgy Tarek as it does for Ayesha and Khalid.  Even supplemental characters are given flesh on their literary bones.  Couple this with a strong plot that covers everything about the arranged marriage system, immigration issues and the ways in which Religion can impact life; there is a lot going on in this book.  But you never feel like you are outside the lives of Ayesha and Khalid, in fact you revel in them.

The writing itself is warm and invites you in to this Desi world and makes you desperately want to stay for at least a cup of chai and a paratha.  The dialogue between characters is warm and feels real - from awkward encounters to teasing exchanges they all sing off the page with a distinct whiff of veracity.

This is definitely an author to watch!

THIS IS AN HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA THE PIGEONHOLE
       

The Muse by Jessie Burton

3.5 Stars

I found myself a little disappointed, overall, in this book.  Whilst I enjoyed Odelle's story in particular I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated with Olive and started to skim read her sections.  I have read a few books centred around the Spanish Civil War and it just seems to be a period of history that is unable to capture my imagination or hold my interest.  It doesn't help that I found Olive to have few redeeming characteristics and, to me, she cam across as completely manipulative, selfish and entitled.  Everything I can see (from the words on the page) that we are not supposed to really be feeling about her; nevertheless that is how she made me feel.

I was far more interested in Odelle's 1960s London.  There was so much left unexplored here that it left me quite frustrated.  She is clearly a person of colour, a post-Windrush immigrant that was in a city that was close to embracing segregation and yet this is barely touched on, there are a couple of nods to it but nods are all they are and yet the prevailing attitudes towards the Irish and Coloured (can we use that word now? I use it here because it is contemporary with the setting of the book and less unpalatable than the other most common name bandied about) immigrants were harsh and would have had a major impact on their lives.  In some ways Odelle is really just a foil to get Jack's painting seen by the gallery and to expose Olive's story.

I also wanted to know much more about the enigmatic, gin swilling, chain smoking Marjorie Quick.  Whilst it is true that towards the end of the book we learn much more about her personal history there is so much left unsaid about how she got where she is.  Information that I found myself wanting to know, to immerse myself in.

Basically, too much time was spent lingering in a parched Spain with Olive, her dissipated mother, distant father, the rebellious Isaac and the disaster zone that was Tere.  These were a cast of characters that, whilst I understand their importance to the tale, I learned far too much about and was forced in to the company of.  All I really wanted was a swinging Sixties London and the glorious Odelle.

Ivy Lane by Cathy Bramley

This is quite a fun and light hearted read that I found easy to pick up in odd moments whilst on holiday recently.  It is one of those strange books where nothing really happens but everything happens; if you know what I mean.  Unfortunately, I found that some of what did happen just stretched my belief too far and I am still trying to figure out what Tilly and Aidan saw in each other and why they both seem to feel they have this grand, fated attraction to each other - it doesn't tally with their personalities and the "romance" doesn't so much blossom as go from seedling to full bloom in less than the blink of an eye.  Very peculiar and it did spoil my overall enjoyment of the book.

The characters in the book are really wonderfully crafted and feel like real people, with all their foibles and biases.  The author even allows them to express parts of themselves that we like to keep hidden - ingrained prejudices, judgement of others, selfishness - without turning them in to monsters.  I don't think there was one character in the book that I didn't like.  Charlie is a good case study of character - it would have been so easy to turn him to some kind of stalkery monster but he is completely empathetic and the damage his spouse did to him looms so large that you actually understand why he acts as he does.  It doesn't excuse his actions but it explains them and the reader is left to judge him and I liked that I wasn't told explicitly how to feel about this character.

It is clear from the start that we are supposed to root for Tilly and, to some extent, I did.  Luckily I have never been in her situation and found myself unable to put myself in to her shoes as I just felt there was some disconnect between reader and character.  She always felt a little like a set of circumstances rather than a person, which is a real shame as the book hinges on her character and she was perhaps the least believable of the lot (except for the god-like Aidan).

I did enjoy the way the author linked the growth of the allotments through the seasons to the people Ivy Lane Allotments are populated with.  It was subtly handled and you don't really realise it until after you have finished reading that the book is full of metaphor and parallels between the produce and the people.  There is also no shying away from the natural cycle of birth and death in the book and all the little pieces of ourselves we lose inbetween.

There are also a few, admittedly small, plot inconsistencies that are no doubt down to this being previously released as a four part serialisation.  The most glaring is that there are plots free on the allotment and then in another quarter there is suddenly a waiting list for people to join despite the empty plots.  For some reason this irrationally annoyed me.

Not the best Cathy Bramley I have read but it is warm and funny and I did enjoy it (on the whole).

I'm Fine and Neither Are You by Camille Pagan

2.5 Stars

This book is supposed to be about the masks we put on every day, to the world at large, our co-workers, our friends and our loved ones.  The pretences we make so that we appear to be "doing just fine thanks", the perfection we make our lives out to be on Social Media.  How we are not honest with anyone, least of all ourselves.  For me it was more about a whiny, entitled woman who wanted everything everyone else appeared to have without examining what she did have.

Penny just about drove me around the twist, how her husband (whose name I now find difficult to remember) had stuck with her for 11(?) years of marriage I cannot begin to fathom.  She plays the martyr card about the state of their marriage, how she has to do everything - including support the family whilst he does everything to avoid growing up.  Poor Penny is struggling to juggle work and motherhood and having a social life and having a marriage.  I know this is a real struggle for many people (not just women - men struggle with these things too) but in Penny's case if she just stopped being so selfish and got out of her own head things would improve exponentially.  Unfortunately it takes a cataclysmic event affecting her best friend Jenny to shake her out of herself.

As you can probably tell by the above I really, really did not like the main character at all.  The writing itself has a good flow and there is a dry wit lurking in there which did bring a smile to my face at times.  It also deals with some genuine 21st Century issues, especially the subjugation of self and the need to appear "perfect" to absolutely everyone at all times.  It also manages to give a little kernel of hope as Penny and husband work through what is damaging their marriage with each other.  The problem for me was that I really thought they would have been better splitting up and probably seeking psychiatric counselling from a professional rather than muddling their way through.

The juxtaposition between Jenny and Penny is nicely handled and the aftermath of "the incident" does illuminate how little we can believe what we read and see on Social Media.  I haven't re-read the blurb for this book so I can't remember if the nature of Jenny's trauma is flagged up so I am trying my best not give it away here.  Suffice to say it does throw up some parallels with some of the issues facing the US Medical System at the moment.

Ms Pagan is clearly an accomplished writer but this novel just wasn't for me.

The Dangerous Kind by Deborah O'Connor

This book starts off so strongly and weaves several storylines together in a convincing way. 

First up we have Jessamine.  A journalist, working on a long running radio series that explores the nature of criminality.  Adoptive mother to Sarah and seemingly quite a relaxed mother who allows her teen a LOT of latitude.  When Cassie Scolari goes missing she gets dragged in to the investigation by Cassie's friend and her whole life seems to go off the rails.  The character herself is supposed to be a mix of tough but vulnerable (expressed through her disastrous love life) but she came across, to this reader, as plain annoying.

Then we have Jitesh.  Technical "genius" who has deferred his first year at Cambridge after a tough time in his last year at school.  Desperate to fit in Jitesh takes to hacking to help him relate to people - yes, this is as creepy as it sounds.  When he gets an internship at the BBC, he meets Jessamine and gets drawn in to the mysterious disappearence.  Damaged beyond belief Jitesh supposedly has a "good heart" but, for me, he came across as being extremely scary and one of The Dangerous Kind that the book blurb warns us about.

Our third main player is Rowena.  Rowena's story is all told in flashback.  A flashback of her early teens in care where she moves in to the orbit of a grooming ring and is terribly abused physically and emotionally by these men.  Having watched Three Girls, Rowena's story feels authentic but I did wonder if that TV programme was the inspiration behind the whole book with a few dollops of Operation Yewtree thrown in for spice.  Rowena is perhaps the best drawn character of the book and you do feel genuine empathy for her throughout.

I really enjoyed the first three quarters of the book.  Fast paced and swapping between character viewpoints was handled well, just the right amount of cliffhanger as we left each one.  Each voice is different on the page and has something to add to the plotline of the book.  Unfortunately, it then got a little bit "silly" and Jessamine in particular acts completely out of character - for most of the book she is hardly what you would expect from an investigative journalist and suddenly she turns in to Jeremy Paxman.  The resolution of her daughter's storyline also becomes a real stretch of veracity, which doesn't help matters.

I will be entirely honest here and say I think that I may have over-starred this book and that it may not be as good as I seem to have thought it was.  You see, my judgement could be coloured as I read this in a stave-format with an online book club and the chat as we were reading definitely improved the experience of the book itself.  We debated the possible twists the book could take, why a character was acting that way and strange things like whether red or brown sauce on a sausage sandwich.  The community may well have made this book better than it really was.  Also, halfway through I realised that I have the author's first book and I really didn't enjoy that one - so much so I didn't finish it and have put it back on my TBR pile.  That has also coloured my judgement just a little but I tried to work past it and may have overcompensated.

THIS IS AN HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA THE PIGEONHOLE.

Beneath The World, A Sea by Chris Beckett

          2.5 Stars

This is a very peculiar book, and not necessarily in a good way.  Rather than tell a straight forward story of the Submundo Delta and the surrounding Zona it very rapidly becomes an overly self-conscious examination of the human power to lie to itself.  The allegory isn't at all subtle and leaps of the page to slap you around the face whilst joyously shouting "look at me, see what I did here".  This did mean that some parts rapidly become turgid and I found myself skim reading to get to the next bit.  Unfortunately, these were mainly the sections dealing with Ben Ronson who is the character we spend most of our time with.

The setting of The Delta is meticulously described so you get a real feel for this strange pink and purple fractal landscape balanced on its mat of roots above the The Lethe.  The problem comes when every time one of the characters moves from the town on the rock to the forest we then get treated to another description of the helical flora and strange fauna.  Once is enough and although intriguing on the first read of the description it soon becomes a frustration as it impinges on the story and after about 100 pages begins to seem like nothing more than a ploy to increase word count.

Probably because I became more and more disillusioned with the book as I read the naming of the river The Lethe also began to annoy me.  We have The Zona which surround the Submundo Delta where you cannot remember what happened when you leave so why hammer this home by calling the river after Greek Mythology?  It all began to feel very heavy handed and clumsy, not something I would have associated with this author.

There are traces of a good story here - the imported Mundino population and how they have created a whole religion and mythos to explain their existence in this strange place.  The native Duendes that do very odd things to the human psyche (again the allegory between the landscape and the unfurling of innermost thoughts is laid on with a trowel).  The violence of the Mundinos to the Duendes, the way in which the Delta has almost become a play ground for the rich Westerner (no mention of anything other than British, American and the odd South American or South African; so I can only deduce that every other Nationality has more sense than to visit).

Characterisation is sparse and I was left with the feeling that our cast had no real personal depth.  Ben Ronson is the go-getting Policeman sent in to sort out the killing of the Duendes, he is supposed to be deep and conflicted but actually came across as leaden and quite boring (and likely in need of a good slap).  Hyacinth the Anthropologist was just there and never really developed a personality.  Jael and Rico were plain odd, although this is decidedly intentional.  Justine and the other ex-pats living on the Rock come across as cowed by the strange Delta with their personalities wiped away to be left with only their fear and isolation.

The book is endlessly repetitive and never really seems to move forward or say anything much from a story point of view.  The story is a thin veneer over the warning to beware of what we do to our planet, to be aware that people aren't who we may think they are - indeed we may not be who we think we are.  It all gets a bit laboured and "sloggy".  certainly not Mr Beckett's best.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA READERS FIRST.