The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

My work has been a bit crazy this year. And during August and September it was hectic and full of changes. So a lot of the hype surrounding the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale passed me by. I saw some excited chattering on blogs, twitter and goodreads. I heard some of the discussion around it's long-listing for the Booker Prize before publication date. And I caught a fleeting glimpse of the embargo breach by Amazon.

But until the day before the Booker announcement, I hadn't really given The Testaments much thought. Obviously I wanted to read it. I usually love Atwood's stuff and I LOVED The Handmaid's Tale. But it would have to be twenty years since I last read it.

When I first read it in my twenties it made me furious (in that good bookish way when a book excites your passions). A reread, a few years later in my early thirties, confirmed that it could still enrage me (in that good bookish way when a book can get under your skin).

Sadly, I missed the recent Elizabeth Moss tv adaptation of the book.

My plan had been to reread The Handmaid's Tale prior to starting The Testaments. I was in no hurry; knew I would get around to it one of these days, so I just let it sit in the back of my mind for later on.

Until Monday afternoon last week, when my new boss asked me who I thought would win the Booker. I had been so busy, I hadn't even clocked that it was that time of year again. Not having read any of the shortlist, all I could go on was my gut feel that Atwood would win. Her book had the hype, her writing was guaranteed to be good and it seemed like the safe option.

Tuesday morning.

I was up early, getting ready for work, thinking a million other thoughts about all the things I needed to prioritise at work that day. As I sat down to eat breakfast, I glanced at twitter and suddenly realised that the Booker Prize was about to be announced. I quickly found the facebook feed so that little old me, all the way across the other side of the world on a completely different day, could watch the Monday night announcement in London, live! Don't you just love technology.

And joint winners!

Didn't see that coming at all.

Without even thinking about it, I raced up to my bedroom, grab The Testaments from beside my bed and read the first chapter before work.

Any thought of rereading The Handmaid's Tale first went straight out the window - my justification being to see if one could read The Testaments without having any, or much knowledge of the first. I was going to offer myself up as a reading guinea pig!

So what did I remember about The Handmaid's Tale after all this time?

None of the names for starters, except that the Handmaids were named after the man - 'Offred' 'Ofthomas' etc. The handmaids were basically baby making machines. For some reason the wives were not able to produce healthy babies of their own. Religious ritual was evolved to make the baby making thing palatable. I remember that, in the end she (the main character, the titular Handmaid) must have escaped, or at least her story had got out, as she was being studied in a future history class or symposium. I remember that it was religious fanaticism that created Gilead, that this regime was still fairly new as people could remember a time before. I remember thinking that the parallels with our times were frighteningly familiar - which is the trademark of all truly good sci-fiction writing - to make it just enough like our world to make it seem possible. I recall that our Handmaid, either rediscovered her old boyfriend or established a new connection with a driver or guard or someone who helped her plan her escape. I believe the ending was deliberately unclear about the success of this mission. I loved it. It was feminist and very critical of the role religion plays in keeping women in their place.

What were my initial reactions as I started The Testaments?

Firstly I was confused by the names. I couldn't remember if any of these people had been in the first book. Aunt Lydia? Commander Kyle? Not sure.

But I was soon delighted to discover that this didn't matter very much, as what I was getting here was the back story that filled in all the gaps. Via various narrators we saw how Gilead was created, how the rest of the world responded to this change as well as various hints and rumours about the story surrounding our earlier Handmaid and what happened to her and her baby.

I've read that some people have been disappointed or underwhelmed by Atwood's latest offering, but I thoroughly enjoyed being back her capable hands.

It didn't move me as strongly as I recall being moved by The Handmaid's Tale. This book felt less political, less feminist, less concerned with religion, less personal and dare I say, less urgent. Perhaps the chorus of voices diluted the power that I experienced with the first Handmaid's story. Maybe I've mellowed with age. Perhaps Atwood has. Or it could be a simple as the purpose of the story. The Handmaid's Tale asked questions and left lots unanswered. The gaps allowed for supposition, insecurity, fear and doubt. The Testaments tidied all of that up. And without giving away the ending, the homage to the first book at the end of the second, was satisfying and offered a number of pleasing resolutions.

Naomi @Consumed by Ink and Marcie @Buried in Print are hosting Margaret Atwood Reading Month in November that will include a readalong of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments. I'm the rebel who will be reading the books in reverse order as I'm hoping to squeeze in a reread of The Handmaid's Tale along with ALL the other blogging commitments I have on my plate for November!

To finish up, I want to bring to light a little known Aussie connection to Atwood. Well, I didn't know this - perhaps you did?

In the Sydney Morning Herald on the 16th Feb 2019, Nick Bryant wrote,

Her connection with the Sunshine State comes from her second husband, the novelist Graeme Gibson, whose father emigrated there from Canada in search of a friendlier climate and cleaner air. "Every time we got invited to Australia we would go up to Brisbane to visit the rellies," she says, laughing. "His mother and his grandmother were from there." 

Longlisted for The Giller Prize 2019

FranKissStein by Jeanette Winterson

I have spent a ridiculous amount of time wondering how best to write the title of this book - FRAN KISS STEIN like the cover, FRANKISSSTEIN like the title page of the book or Frankissstein like Goodreads.
FranKissStein appealed to me, but it's not a version I've spotted anywhere else.
Whatever you call it, though, Frankissstein: A Love Story was fascinating stuff.

• I was never bored except in the company of others.

After reading McEwan's Machines Like Us earlier in the year, I was in the mindset to be thinking about AI, robots and what our future world might look like as technology takes hold or even takes over. It was very interesting to be able to compare and contrast two such prominent authors and their approaches to the topic and their different ways of weaving a story around it.

• The timeless serenity of the past that we British do so well is an implanted memory - you could call it a fake memory...where the turbulence of the past is recast as landmark, as tradition, as what we defend, what we uphold....History is what you make it.

Last year I also read Shelley's Frankenstein and a bio about her and her mother (Romantic Outlaws). All of this gave my reading of Frankissstein a much richer experience as my knowledge of the original story and details about Shelley, and her mother's life, were still fresh in my mind.

Winterson weaves together several strands of story. We start with a reimagining of Shelley's time in Italy with her husband, Percy, her sister, Claire, Lord Byron and Dr Polidori where she first develops the idea for her story Frankenstein.

• Percy - the mystery of life is on earth, not elsewhere.

We then jump to now, or perhaps a now just minutes away, where sex bots, AI, cryopreservation and cephalic isolation are becoming the norm. Our modern characters are called Dr Ry Shelley (a transgender doctor/journalist), Ron Lord (the sexbot king), Claire (the admin assistant who keeps popping up everywhere in different roles), Poly D (the Vanity Fair reporter) and Prof. Victor Stein (a TED talking scientist).

• Victor - I want to live long enough to reach the future.

Later on, Winterson also brings in an alternate ending for the original story, with some time in the lunatic asylum, Bedlam. Frankenstein has been admitted by Captain Walton, after he found him floating by his ship on an ice floe. To make it even more interesting, the director of Bedlam, Mr Wakefield, then invites Mary Shelley to his facility to talk with the patient who claims he should have 'perished on the ice'. Love it!

• Ry - I am what I am, but what I am is not one thing, not one gender. I live with doubleness....I am in the body that I prefer. But the past, my past, isn't subject to surgery. I didn't do it to distance myself from myself. I did it to get nearer to myself.

To round out the tale, we finish with a glimpse into the life of Ada Lovelace, Byron's mathematician daughter.

• Ada - It was hoped that numbers would tame the Byronic blood in my veins....My life in numbers has been as wild as any life lived among words.

There are so many ideas to explore within these pages - gender, duality, consciousness, religion, soul, history, change and knowledge - just to name a few. What's real and what's false? Does history repeat itself? What's the difference between privacy and secrecy? Is history memory or fact? Are inventions dreams or machines? What does it mean to be alive? Can technology be bad or good, or is just the use it gets put to?

• Byron - we are haunted by ourselves, he says, and that is enough for any man....The human race seeks its own death. We hasten towards what we fear most.

We also have books in books, with references to Albert Camus, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood and Ovid.

Winterson's delicious imagery emerges from page one and draws you into the various strands of story, with a poetic, Romantic writing style for the 19th century sections morphing into a more jarring, rapid speak for the now.

• every solid thing had dissolved into its watery equivalent.
• We were all around the fire that night, the room more shadows than light, for we had few candles.
• We update ourselves individually and generationally. We can adapt within a generation to a changing world.

Ultimately, I found Frankissstein to be the more satisfying, complex read. Machines Like Us failed to excite me or fully engage me in the discussion that McEwan was aiming to stimulate. Whereas Winterson stimulated me from start to finish. But, I've just realised, none of that really tells you why I enjoyed this story so.

The technical stuff obviously played its role, but the stuff I'm still thinking about two weeks later is all the discussion around gender, personality and who we really are.

What is it that really makes us human? From the stories well tell about ourselves to the way we chose to present ourselves to the world. It's an age-old process that flows over into the kind of future we end up creating for ourselves. We merge fact and fiction, dreams, beliefs and misconceptions, until we have something that makes us unique. Or does it?

Favourite Quote: Humans: so many good ideas. So many failed ideals.

Favourite Character: Ry Shelley, who seemed to inhabit quite a bit of Winterson's own persona, and certainly captured my own doubts and questioning way of viewing pretty much everything.

Favourite or Forget? Loved it. It would make for a great book group discussion.

Facts:

• Longlisted for 2019 Man Booker Prize

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - The Preface

Who knew that when I decided to join in Marg @Books in Bloom's #Frankenfest as my #CCdare choice for October, that I would be opening up a can of worms simply by reading the Preface!

I'm reading the 1999 Wordsworth Classics edition that includes the original 1817 Preface by Percy Bysshe Shelley as well as the 1831 Author Introduction by Mary Shelley (it also have an Introduction by Dr Siv Jansson that I will save for the end to avoid spoilers). The book was originally published on the 1st January 1818.

This is my first time with Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus. I have never read or seen any movie versions of the story. I have a vague notion of the story - the creation of a man-made creature by a mad doctor that runs amok - is the best synopsis I can provide at this point. And most of that comes from my knowledge of The Rocky Horror Picture Show - the modern, sexualised spin-off.

I was therefore blissfully unaware of the controversy that has surrounded the novel since its publication about who actually wrote the book. How did I not know about this?

How did this controversy even happen?

Actually I know exactly how it happened.
It's the same thing that successful, intelligent, creative women have had to struggle against, in what feels like forever. It's why women published book anonymously or under a male pseudonym. It's why women like Mary Shelley got slut-shamed and lived a life of isolation for daring to run off and have babies with a married man, while the man gets high-fived for being such a smooth dude.

From Mary's Author Introduction in the 1831 edition we learn that -

• Mary was born to two 'distinguished literary celebrity' parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. She grew up in a literary, philosophical, modern thinking world where women (her mother, anyway) could write and be published (under her own name).
• She 'scribbled' and wrote stories throughout her childhood.
• She spent most of her childhood in Scotland (where part of the book is set).
• Shelley, Lord Byron and Mary discussed the latest scientific thinking, shared stories and ideas.
• She and Shelley edited and assisted each other with their creative efforts.
• Frankenstein was born from a ghost story telling session in Switzerland with Shelley, Byron and others. 'I busied myself to think of a story - a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror - one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart.'
• Mary has a believable and fairly common tale of the origin of the idea for her book 'My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie.'
• 'At first I thought but a few pages - of a short tale; but Shelley urged me to develop the idea to greater length. I certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely of one train of feeling, to my husband, and yet but for his incitement, it would never have taken the form in which it is presented to the world.'

The 1817 Preface by P.B.S was written as if he were the author, although he provided none of the origin details that Mary did in her introduction.

In a letter to Walter Scott from 2nd January 1818 P.B.S. wrote about the book he had enclosed for Scott to review by saying -

My own share in them consists simply in having superintended them through the press during the Author’s absence.

Yet Scott still attributed Frankenstein to Percy. A letter from Mary to Scott on the 14th June 1818 tried to rectify the mistake -

I am anxious to prevent your continuing in the mistake of supposing Mr Shelley guilty of a juvenile attempt of mine; to which – from its being at an early age, I abstained from putting my name – and from respect to those persons from whom I bear it.

Over the years people have scoured letters and hand writing samples to try and prove one way or the other who wrote Frankenstein or how much input P.B.S may have had in the creative process. Curiously I didn't find very many articles on how much input Mary may have had on Percy's creative process except to acknowledge her posthumous role as editor of his poems.

Since this time we have had a gay rights activist claim that it had to be P.B.S who wrote the book because it was actually all about homosexuality. This claim was then counteracted by Germaine Greer in one of her fairly typical back-handed ways by saying it had to be written by a woman because it was so bad!

Frankenstein is a masterpiece; masterpieces are not written by self-educated girls and therefore Frankenstein cannot have been written by Mary Shelley. If Frankenstein is not a masterpiece, the thesis collapses. Though millions of people educated in the US have been made to study and write essays about Frankenstein, it is not a good, let alone a great novel and hardly merits the attention it has been given, notwithstanding the historic fact that its theme has inspired more than 50 (mostly bad) films. 

The Guardian 9th April 2007

This has only whetted my appetite for Frankenstein, Mary Shelley and the rest of her work. And I think it's also time that I jump into the bio about Mary and her mother, that has been skulking on my TBR pile for ages, Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon.

A list of the various texts discussing the authorship issue are:

• James Rieger, “Introduction.” Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus. Bobbs-Merrill, 1974.

• E. B. Murray, “Shelley’s Contribution to Mary’s Frankenstein.” Keats-Shelley Memorial Bulletin, vol. 29, 1978, pp. 50-68.

• Anne Mellor, Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. Methuen, 1988.

• Marie Hélène Huet, Monstrous Imagination. Cambridge, 1993.

• Charles E. Robinson, “MWS and PBS’s Collaboration in The Frankenstein Notebooks.”

• John Lauritsen, The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein. Pagan Press, (2007).

#Frankenfest

Children of the New World by Alexander Weinstein

Speculative fiction is not usually my cup of tea, but I had heard interesting things about this debut author and his book of short stories.

This is part of the rave book blurb from goodreads -

AN EXTRAORDINARILY RESONANT AND PROPHETIC COLLECTION OF SPECULATIVE SHORT FICTION FOR OUR TECH-SAVVY ERA BY DEBUT AUTHOR ALEXANDER WEINSTEIN.

Children of the New World introduces readers to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games, and alarmingly intuitive robots. Many of these characters live in a utopian future of instant connection and technological gratification that belies an unbridgeable human distance, while others inhabit a post-collapse landscape made primitive by disaster, which they must work to rebuild as we once did millennia ago.

Children of the New World grapples with our unease in this modern world and how our ever-growing dependence on new technologies has changed the shape of our society. Alexander Weinstein is a visionary new voice in speculative fiction for all of us who are fascinated by and terrified of what we might find on the horizon.

Could the book possibly live up to its hype?

Yes.
Yes it can.

I don't normally read this genre, so perhaps there are lots of books like this out there. Therefore this may be nothing new or remarkable. But for a speculative fiction novice, I found these stories extraordinary, startling and original.

The longer stories in the second half of the book worked best with the title story creating a very eerie and sombre mood as the joys and woes of having a data family in the 'New World' are explored. In fact, it was all of the stories that featured family life in the near future that had the most resonance for me. The impact on the children and their various possible reactions were the human element in this book full of new technologies and social media gone viral.

I enjoyed the little references that crossed over between some of the stories that provided a sense of a coherent, consistent world view.

If you're not sure if this book is for you, try out Saying Goodbye to Yang, Children of the New World, Migration, The Pyramid of the Ass, Openness or Ice Age. They're the ones that have continued to haunt me.

Special by Georgia Blain

In Special, Georgia Blain imagines a world not too far removed from what is possible now.

A world before 'The Breakdown'.
A world where data is the new currency and where genetic modification is the norm. For some.
For everything has a price. Even our individual identity.
Especially our individual identity.

A world where being special isn't all its cracked up to be.

Special pays literary homage to Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, even down to the ambiguous future-looking end.
Special didn't induce that overwhelming feeling of fury and fear like A Handmaid's Tale did when I first read it as a young woman.
Perhaps I've became more jaded as I've got older?
Or maybe it was the strong feminist messages that Atwood conveyed that captured my imagination?

Blain's protagonists are female, but the message is not necessarily a feminist one. Her futuristic genetically modified world affects everyone - male, female, young and old. The issues are ones of humanity.

What makes us unique? The effects of nature versus nurture - or in this case, genetics versus environment.

The Lotto Girls are genetically designed with the best possible characteristics on offer. They are given the best possible living conditions and education. They are expected to fulfil their promise.

The premise of Special is fascinating because it feels so possible, so close to the path we seem to be on. Datastreaming rules this new world. It's a constant distraction as well as a way of keeping tabs on everyone. Without your mobie and your datafile, you have no access to food, work or shelter. To be datawiped and sent to Recorp or PureAqua is considered the worse thing that can happen to you.

Which sounds just like our house when the wi-fi crashes!

Special is an April release through Random House Australia.

This post is part of my Australian Women Writers challenge.
#LoveOzYA

Slade House by David Mitchell

Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed The Bones Clocks and recommend it to many, many people who have never read a Mitchell before. I think The Bone Clocks is very accessible and not as dense or as incomprehensible as his earlier works. But I still usually only give it a 3, maybe 4 star rating in my mind.

My judgement of Mitchell's earlier works is purely based on my abortive attempts to read Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and Mr Books so-so attitude towards Ghostwritten. I haven't actually read one of these right through though.

Despite all of this, I was ridiculously excited when my ARC of Slade House arrived. There is something about Mitchell's writing and the worlds he creates that sucks you and makes you forget your previous prevarications.

Due to it's slimness, I approached it (in my mind) as a novella. But I knew nothing else, except that it seemed like a good book to read during R.I.P.X so that I could sneak in with my one and only Peril the Third choice.

I was pleasantly surprised when I quickly discovered that I was inside another Bone Clocks world. Starting in 1979 we follow the (mis)adventures of the occupants of Slade House every nine years. The date is the last Saturday in October each time. For those of you good with numbers, you'll have already realised that the last chapter finishes in 2015...on the last Saturday in October - the 31st October, 2015 - Halloween!

Slightly creepy, a little disturbing and immensely readable. The final chapter is very satisfying if you've read and enjoyed The Bone Clocks.

Slade House is due for release tomorrow...just in time for the weekend and you guessed it...Halloween!

This is also book 14 in my #15in31 challenge.

The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick

My brain is spinning, cycling endlessly, much like the spiral symbolism throughout Sedgwick's latest book, The Ghosts of Heaven.

This was not the light, easy, I-need-a-break-from-my-desperately-sad-chunkster-bio, YA read that I thought it was going to be. The Ghosts of Heaven was intense reading. Absorbing, intriguing, frustrating, compelling, disturbing, thought-provoking....but what does it all mean?

The main (the only?) flaw with this book is its lack of a solid ah-ha moment. That point when all the amazing stuff that you've read before comes together and the authors purpose is revealed.

Normally, a book that lacked such a major component, would be a dud for me. But curiously, the lack of (apparent) meaning or higher purpose is a very minor detail.

Sedgwick takes us on a journey through time, to places & people tinged with madness, magic & mystery. The book is divided into four parts that can be read in any order. Each quarter is a stand alone story (well, almost. The final story, The Song of Destiny does connect some of the dots that only makes sense (I think) if you've read the previous three quarters).

I could barely put this book down. Like many of the characters, my dreams were disturbed by these stories. Each quarter was a quick read. But they were so dense with symbolism, murky with half-formed ideas & barely contained from spinning out of control, that it felt like a lifetime in each story.

The first quarter was written in verse.
Having read several verse novels now, I wasn't phased by the style and upon reflection, Whispers in the Dark, was probably my favourite of the four sections. Set in forest dweller times, we followed a tribal community preparing the magic required for a successful hunt.

The Witch in the Water brings us into the era of witch hunts & another strong female protagonist fascinated by spirals, desperately trying to find their meaning, & tap into their power, before it's too late.

The third quarter, The Easiest Room in Hell, takes us into a Victorian lunatic asylum where spirals spark madness and the line between sanity and lunacy is a very fine one indeed.

You've probably already worked out that the fourth quarter is set in the future, in space. High-tech space craft & a mission to find a new planet habitable for humans, The Song of Destiny has a very 2001: A Space Odyssey-ish tone. Solitude, dreams & deceit mess with our heads as Sedgwick tackles parallel universes and light-year travel sickness.

Truly incredible story-telling.
With a more convincing, satisfying ah-ha moment, this book could have been a masterpiece. Although, perhaps that will be revealed in future re-reads.

Part fantasy, part historical fiction, part science fiction. Where to shelve this book will become a librarians nightmare!

Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean edited by K Murray, P Dahr & A Roy

"In late 2012, Australia and India were rocked by violent crimes against young women. In Dehli, thousands protested against rape. In Melbourne, thousands stood vigil in memory of a young woamn raped and murdered walking home. The fate of all young women, what they should fear and what they could hope for were hot topics in the media around the world. Out of that storm rose the idea for this anthology."

Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean is a collection of short stories & graphic novels aimed at the teen/YA market, packaged within one of the best covers I've seen for a long time!

As often happens with such a wide-ranging group of authors & illustrators, some of the pieces work better than others, depending on the type of story you normally find yourself drawn to.

Swallow the Moon by Kate Constable & Priya Kuriyan is a graphic novel that follows a small group embarking on a female initiation ceremony. Set in a future world with glimpses of what happened to the old ways, the feminine spirit is ultimately celebrated by the whole tribe.

Justine Larbalestier's evocative story called Little Red Suit is about a futuristic fairy-tale Sydney, while Anita Roy tantalises us with a time-travelling Masterchef contest in Cooking Time.

Cast Out by Samhita Arni combines banishment, fear & suspicion with magic and a world that is, eventually, safe for all women to live in. Margo Lanagan's Cat Calls reminds us of the power of friendship (between girls and boys) to overcome prejudice and bullying.

And, finally, Nicki Greenberg in Back-Stage Pass reminds us at the end that all women have the power to write, or re-write their own stories.

Published by Allen and Unwin, February 2015.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

I read A Wrinkle in Time as a child (many wrinkles ago) and failed, back then, to understand why it was considered a modern day classic by my teachers.

As a budding mathematical, rational 10 yr old I found the religious references obvious & off-putting (the very same reason I struggled with many of the Narnia books as well.) 

In my mind, all this time, I thought A Wrinkle in Time was a religious parable with some time travelling kids and an old house on a dark & stormy hill, but not, ultimately, my cup of tea. 

About 12 yrs ago, I reread the Narnia series & thoroughly enjoyed them, especially the first three stories in the series. 

The stories, however, still caused me to laugh ruefully at the blatant religious parallels. As an adult, though, I was less indignant & more tolerant of the preachy tone than I was as a child. As an adult, I was happy to go along for the fantastical story ride & I appreciated the wonderful characters created by Lewis.

I expected a similar experience with A Wrinkle in Time.

But, oh, how I struggled!

The fantasy & philosophy were fine - the maths and science for girls - great!  The big words and philosophy quoting Mrs Who - loved it! 
But the characters were soooo one-dimensional (to use L'Engle's own terms) and so very annoying. 

Calvin's constant "protective gestures" towards Meg grated. They seemed to nullifying L'Engle's 'girls can do anything, even maths and science' approach with an 'as long as they have the strong arm of a man to lean on as they do it'!

Good versus evil, light versus the dark, love & kindness versus individualism are common themes in a lot of books, but in this story, they were so wrapped up in the religious connotations that I often found it a bitter pill to swallow. 

I dislike being force fed someone else's beliefs just as much now as when I was a child. 

It's a curious thing, though, rereading a book from your childhood. 
Memory is not as infallible as we like to believe, but our likes and dislikes often remain the same. I found A Wrinkle in Time to be a heavy handed, humourless story then and now.

As a child I couldn't tell you why I didn't like to read a lot of fantasy or science-fiction, but now I realise it's because a lot of science fiction/fantasy has religious overtones. It's not the science, the maths, the politics or the philosophising that I shy away from, but the heavy hand of god! 

L'Engle won the Newbery Medal in 1963 for A Wrinkle in Time. Sadly, time has not been kind to this story. The language & attitudes have dated which makes it difficult for modern readers to access the universal themes that it explores. 

I've always felt a little guilty for not liking this book as much as everyone thought I should. At least now, I know why.

A thousand apologies if this was your favourite childhood read. 

I would love to know what it was that appealed to you or what it is that you remember fondly about this book, since I have been so free in sharing my dislikes!

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

What a journey!

My first David Mitchell has left me glowing, gloating & groaning.

Glowing - in the delight of having found a 'new-to-me' author - I now have a whole back list of books to look forward to.
Glowing - from delight in finding such an absorbing, magical story that swept me across generations and times and worlds.

Gloating - that I was reading this year's Booker winner (until the shortlist was announced & he was missing from it!)

Groaning - that now I've finished the book, I miss it terribly. I miss Holly. I miss being in Mitchell's world.
Groaning - about the Crispin chapter - what purpose? why?
It didn't seem to add anything new to the Script, except for a little romantic angle and a trip to Australia.

The Bone Clocks is about purpose, relationships, good vs evil, freewill, doubt, time & timelessness, memory & the environment. All told with a hearty paranormal, science fiction twist.

The Bone Clocks also helped me to finally understand the purpose of twitter!
Sharing my favourite quotes with others reading the book at the same time added to my sense of journey & immersion in the story.

The Australian edition has an extra few pages of  "In conversation with David Mitchell" that talks about the Australian settings in the book. He describes Rottnest Island as

"an extraordinary location...that deep, burnished, glassy blue of the Indian Ocean, so unlike the ginger-beer-coloured English Channel of my childhood; the brain-broiling, skin-frying sun, drier and more dangerous than in Japan; and when a quokka lolloped across the road, I nearly fell off my rented bike."

Mitchell also talks about meeting Australian award-winning writer, Kim Scott who is a Noongar Elder and his time back-packing around Australia. Timelessness comes naturally to the Australian environment,

"The quality of light at dawn, and the alien (to my ears) birdsong and, how, in Europe, you have to go a long way and look selectively to find a view where nothing tells you what century you're in. In many regions of Australia, by contrast..., you can easily find a view containing no clues whatsoever about any century."

I loved this book from start to finish - even the slightly flawed sections. Holly was a character I cared for deeply. Her journey became my journey.

But now that I've finished it...what next? What should my next book journey be? Perhaps I will leave my 'what next' in Mitchell's very capable hands...because I've always loved a little bit of ambiguity!

"For one voyage to begin, another voyage must come to an end, 

sort of."

1Q84 Book 3 by Haruki Murakami

I made it!

It's an epic read and I'm still mulling over how I feel about it.

I'm glad I left some time between No. 2 and No. 3 otherwise I may have become annoyed at some of the developments or to be more accurate, the slow pace of development in No. 3.

The dream sequences started to annoy me, but just as I was feeling really bugged by them, they stopped. As did Ushikawa. I can see that he was used as a way to bring the two stories together, but he bugged me too. His ending felt quite satisfying!

I enjoyed the references to other books and authors.

The ending was satisfying.

Murakami's writing, his world, his characters were memorable and vivid. A little editing might have helped things along though.

But I will be reading more Murakami in the future.

In some ways this quote sums up the book ""No need to explain," Tengo said. If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation."

Book One
Book Two

A Hero For Wondla by Tony DiTerlizzi

I've been skimming through quite a lot of uninspiring teen new releases at the moment for work. I was in need of a pick-me-up, so I turned to Book 2 of DiTerlizzi's Wondla series.

I had been pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the first book, The Search for Wondla.

And book 2 is no different.

I'm still surprised by how much I'm loving a science fiction fantasy story. Perhaps the success (or not) of a science fiction fantasy story lies in its ability to shine a light on our humanity.

Now that we know young Eva is actually living on Earth...an Earth that was detroyed hundreds of years ago and then eventually recolonised by a band of aliens as well as weird mutated creatures that kind of resemble current flora and fauna...the message is very strong (but not laboured).

Eva is a delight, as is her friend and travelling partner, Rovee.

Eva's strength of character and her humanity is tested throughout book 2. She is a wonderful female protaganist which may be one of the reasons why I enjoy this story so much.

The illustrations at the start of each chapter add so much to our understanding of what this new world and it's creatures looks like.

I highly recommend this series for mature 10+ readers. Don't be put off by the science fiction fantasy label; it is really an action drama series beautifully written and presented with lots of messages about belonging and identity.

The Cloud Hunters by Alex Shearer

It has been a while since a new children's fiction book has won my heart so completely. Wonder by R J Palacio may have been the last.

But here we have The Cloud Hunters by Alex Shearer to warm the cockles of your heart.

Full of beautiful, philosophical language, almost poetic at times and memorable characters.

"It seems in life that for every plus there is a minus, and that freedom itself doesn't come free. For that too, there's a price to pay."

"Why is it that your parents are forever urging you to be careful? As if beinf reckless, getting yourself killed, or ending up in hospital are all you have in mind? Do they imagine that you have no other plans than to do yourself an injury as quickly as you can? And even if you were careless by nature, did telling anyone to be careful ever make them so?"

"It seems, that for all our faults, we still have an inner yearning to wish each other well. I think we want the best for each other, despite it all. We want each other's journeys to be safe and successful. If only out of superstition. Because then our journeys will be successful too."

"A few minutes later, a sky-shark came along, heading in the same direction, as if in leisurely and confident pursuit, sure that it would get its prey before the day was out. The sky-ray was a dead fish flying."

My only concern is that sometimes the action takes a while to get going as Christien does like to spend quite a bit of time reflecting on life!

The Cloud Hunters live in a future world where the Earth has been destroyed. Old shards of earth float around the old earth's core. Water is scarce; the cloud hunters job is find clouds, harvest the water and sell it to those in need.

But The Cloud Hunters is so much more than a futuristic story with an environmental message. This is a story about relationships, life and death and the choices we make along the way.

Highly recommended for mature 11+ readers.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami - Book 2

I ended up having a little mini-break between book 1 and book 2.

My mental images of the Little People were starting to creep me out and I felt it would be healthier to put some distance between them and me!

Book 2 has definitely taken a more sci-fi turn with the sinister meter turned up several more notches.

Aomame and Tengo are drawing closer together as their understanding of 1Q84's world increases.

It took me a little while to get back into the rhythm of the story, but it eventually got to the point where I couldn't put it down.

I no longer need a break between the 2 voices as both Tengo & Aomame feel so familiar now that I can easily pick up where we left off at the last chapter. Maybe it also has something to do with how the two stories are slowly coming closer and closer together. (Some people might say too slowly, but I'm enjoying the anticipation, the suspense and the missed opportunities so far.)

I've loved the Orwellian references in book 2 as well as The Great Gatsby quote (esp since Gatsby was the book I read between book 1 and book 2!)

Murakami's ability to make his 1Q84 world so real is incredible. I'm not usually very visual when I read (for me it's about character & mood), but I have so many vivid images in my head for the Little People and the 2 moons that they're invading my dreams.

The image of the Little People emerging from the dead goats mouth & the exploding dog will haunt me for the rest of my life!

Book 3 will now have to wait for me to finish my Classics Club spin challenge (see below). But since I've heard that book 3 feels different to the other two due to the change in translator, a little time delay will probably be good.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

I've decide to write three reviews for Murakami's trilogy (even though they're presented in English in one huge book) as a way to give me a breather between each one.

I've never read any Murakami before so I wasn't even sure if I would like it, his style, the translation - anything! And I knew absolutely nothing about the story except that lots of people I know love it.

I wasn't even sure how to pronounce the title - was it a date 1984/1Q84 (with some kind of reference to Orwell) or was it the letter 'I' - IQ-84 and some kind of Intelligence test?

Now that I'm looking at the cover again closely it's obvious that it's a date. The cover even gives hints that 1Q84 is a fantasy/time slip story - again something I wasn't expecting.

So what did I think of book 1?

I loved it!

I'm intrigued, captivated and full of questions about what's happening.

There is obviously going to be a meeting up of Aomame and Tengo at some point and I'm curious how this will play out.
The secretive cult Sakigake is the obvious link between the 2 sides of the story along with the mysterious young damaged girls with their sinister tales of the Little People.

And what's going on with the 2 moons? What has happened to Aomame's 1984 and why?
I'm loving the mystery & the gradual build up of tension and horror.

I can see I wont have much of a breather bewteen book 1 and 2 after all!

My only grump is that sometimes the language seems somewhat unwieldy or awkward. I'm not sure if it's the translation or the Japanese way of describing things that sometimes pulls me up. The chapter headings often make me laugh with their obtuseness.

I do like that the letter 'q' is pronounced kyu in Japanese which is the same word/sound for the number 9. It gives the title an extra little spark knowing this.

Book 2 here I come!

Crewel by Gennifer Albin

I approached Crewel with some trepidation and an "oh no, not another dystopian YA novel" attitude.

So I have to say up front that I loved this book from the first page.

I loved the whole weaving of time concept. It captured my imagination and drew me in. It felt original, new and exciting.

It was a little confusing trying to work out how the whole weaving of time thing worked though.
There was enough information to give you a 'feel' for it rather than a proper grasp on the concept.
I was okay with that.
I don't need to have everything spelled out for me and I could see this was going to be a series, so Albin has to leave some stuff for the other books!

There was a section in the final third of the book that slowed things down as the romance was being developed. There was also a very obvious ah-ha moment that we were all waiting for Adelice to work out for herself.

Despite these flaws, I found Crewel to be a rivetting read. I've been telling everyone about it and I can't wait for book 2 to come out.

Allen and Unwin have got themselves a winner with this one.

It's due for Australian publication in October. Keep an eye out for it...whichever cover they decide to go with - it's eye-catching.