I didn’t read a lot during November, I’ve been busy writing and being in a depression funk, so that was fun! I did read more than this, but I was reading a compilation of short stories and so that’s nowhere near finished, maybe I’ll write about it next month. (Or maybe not, who knows!)
Let me know what you thought of this months books let’s have a chat!
Next month I’ll be reading Brick Lane by Monica Ali, which is a re-read, but if you want to join me and have a chat at the end of December, or the start of January, please go ahead!
Never Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro
I read this for university, but it was already on my list, before I got my reading list for my modules. I had absolutely no idea what it was about before I started reading, as the blurb was absolutely rubbish at that, but I purposefully don’t google titles in order to avoid spoilers. The only synopsis that I will ever read is the one on the back cover, so if it’s a bit rubbish, then I guess I go into the book as a blank slate. This was one of those books.
I’d previously read Ishiguro’s ‘The Buried Giant’ and really enjoyed it. I think that his writing is beautifully economic. There are no words there that don’t belong there. It’s wonderfully refreshing sometimes to read something that is so crafted. ‘Never Let Me Go’ is written in the same distinctive style, yet is a completely different story and pace. Although I think that I probably prefer ‘Buried Giant’ out of the two, that doens’t mean that I didn’t like ‘Never Let Me Go’. I DID think that it was quite a slow paced book however, and that made it less enjoyable for me. I thought that it went along nicely, but I didn’t really get that involved in the story, which I think is due to the slow pace of it. Unfortunately, it was slowly enough paced that I would actually say that it would actually have been boring to read, if the language used weren’t so beautiful.
So the story itself takes place in an alternate world, which is essentially a very calm dystopia. I know that sounds silly, but it’s kind of true. So I try not to ruin the books that I talk about on here, but it’s almost impossible to describe this book without ruining the story of it. In this alternate world human cloning has been perfected and clones are created to become organ donors. We begin the story in a boarding school and follow the story of one character as she moves through her life and learns about the process of what happens when clones donate and age. The book explores themes of humanity and the question of whether clones have souls/ are real people, but mainly the book is about friendship. Which links in with the question of humanity, but is slightly different in practice. It’s a lovely read. I think it’s worth having a gander, and I’ll be going to a lecture on it soon so I might appreciate it more after studying it.
A Visit from the Goon Squad- Katherine Egan
I read ‘A Visit From the Goon Squad’ last year for uni, and again this year. It’s not that memorable as when I picked it up to read again I couldn’t remember anything about it. As I read I remembered bits and pieces of it, and I suppose that it was enjoyable enough to read. I didn’t stop reading it after all. But I don’t think that’s exactly a glowing indictment. Obvouisly it was written well, and I really liked the idea of all of the characters being linked in some way. I like the idea of everyone being important in that way. In this book threre are no side characters because we always return to them and read their story. I enjoyed some characters more than others, of course, but that actually made it quite difficult to read. I’ve read books with multiple protagonists before and really enjoyed them, but not this one. I think that some of the characters were well developed and had interesting stories, and others just weren’t as good. Perhaps Egan tried to do too much in one short book. I would have loved to have read an entire book about Sasha though, so there’s definitely a lot of good stuff in the mix. Perhaps there were just too many central characters and too many stories vying for attention.
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