Real Books

I have to be honest and say that I haven't read a real book in ages.  Not because I don't have the time but because I've been listening to books on Audible so that I can crochet at the same time.

This system was going well but then along came Tennis Elbow and I had to find something to do for a week whilst I rested my arm.

I have a stack of books that are waiting to be re-homed and as I looked through them I realised that there were one or two I hadn't read.  I fished them out of the pile and started reading.

Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver

1906: A large manor house, Wake's End, sits on the edge of a bleak Fen, just outside the town of Wakenhyrst. It is the home of Edmund Stearn and his family – a historian, scholar and landowner, he's an upstanding member of the local community. But all is not well at Wake's End. Edmund dominates his family tyrannically, in particular, his daughter Maud. When Maud's mother dies in childbirth and she's left alone with her strict, disciplinarian father, Maud's isolation drives her to her father's study, where she happens upon his diary.

During a walk through the local church yard, Edmund spots an eye in the undergrowth. His terror is only briefly abated when he discovers it’s actually a painting, a 'doom', taken from the church. It's horrifying in its depiction of hell, and Edmund wants nothing more to do with it despite it’s historical significance. But the doom keeps returning to his mind. The stench of the Fen permeates the house, even with the windows closed. And when he lies awake at night, he hears a scratching sound – like claws on the wooden floor...

The rest of the blurb says it's a gothic thriller and the decent into the mind of a psychopath.  I didn't see it like that.  I thought it more about a man driven insane by religious beliefs and a daughter who blamed him for the death of her mother. Definitely not a horror story.

It was an odd book but I finished it just to see what happened.  Would I recommend it?  Probably not.

Then I did a total change of pace and read.  

What Alice Forgot by Lian Moriarty

Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child.

So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over — she’s getting divorced, she has three kids and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes.

Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over. 

What would you do if you woke up and thought it was 2010?  Would you be happy with your life now?  It makes you think.

She bangs her head. She doesn’t know her own children and doesn’t know why she and her husband are about to get a divorce. Mostly she doesn't understand the way people expect her to behave. 

I was excited to read this as Big, Little Lies was so good but it's a bit cheesy and certainly very light.  The ending, I thought was a bit predictable but it's readable.  It is, as they say, a good beach read.