Revolt - Qaisra Shahraz

So here’s the second instalment in my Arcadia books reviews. I was really pleased to be reading something written by a woman after an entire term of male dominated literature, especially one who is as interested in the universal issues faced by women as Qaisra Shahraz. On her website, Shahraz explains how much of her work is influenced by not only her own experiences as a Muslim woman, but the experiences of those around her. This emotional attachment on the part of the writer was extremely evident and effectively translated into the heart of the reader – something which makes this novel so human and accessible.

Revolt is a multi-layered story of the events – public and private – of a small village in Pakistan, touching on every single resident. The character list is extensive, there is no one protagonist – although the story does take its starting point from the impending marriage of the children of two of the three wealthy land-owning sisters in the village, the bridegroom returning from England for the engagement party. This set-up immediately focuses the story on a set of characters, whilst widening the perspective to the entire rest of the village, as well as stretching the setting across the continents to England. I found this combination of such a large expansion and inclusion of societies, cultures, races and classes with a microcosmic zooming in on each character at any given chapter or paragraph fascinating, its flawless transitions endlessly skilled. From the outset, it is clear this is not just a simple story of the petty worries and events in a random Pakistani village – it is a multi-faceted exploration of the difficulties caught up in the debate concerning the gulf between Muslim Pakistani values and the West – seen through the eyes in turn of each and every character.

Much of the terminology surrounding reviews of this book is along the lines of ‘satisfying’ and ‘journey’ with Editor of Women’s Books Anora McGaha calling it a ‘fascinating ride’. These descriptions could not be more fitting – having sped my way through the gripping thriller Cloudland, Revolt was the perfect antidote. I really took my time reading it, enjoying every chapter and relishing in each new thread of the intricate storyline – it’s not a book you read 10 chapters of at a time, it’s one you slowly weave your way through, pausing to mull over and take in each and every strand. If I were ever to liken a book to a hug, it would be this (and I did) – combined with a big cup of tea and a blanket, it’s the perfect comforting winter warmer.

Every relationship possible is explored in the book, and at the base of it all I felt the characters were being linked with the one same point: no matter your race, gender, class, job, familial/living situation, all humans are equal and prejudices can only ever cause problems. This may sound like an obvious point we take for granted, but I really felt that this book taught me a lot and reinforced this point more than ever – even in the small intricacies of life prejudice needs to be combatted. Despite being mostly based in an almost completely alien situation and location to my own, Revolt forced me to reflect on my own behaviour and actions towards the people in my life. A book that makes a difference to the way you think is the sign of a truly great achievement. Moreover, the ability to make this one point over and over again with different characters without a sense of repetition coming through conveys Sharhraz’s creation of characters developed and emotive enough for the reader to interpret each story differently, whilst maintaining this pervading message.

I was hugely excited to start this book as I am a big fan of anything that teaches me about other cultures and societies – whether it be literature, film, food, or travelling to places themselves. Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is one of my all-time favourite books, and was what really revealed my love for exotic settings and contrasting cultures. When describing Revolt I was known to call it ‘a watered down version of The God of Small Things’ – this is in no way an insult, although perhaps a flippant, vague statement – but I think it really gets to the bare-bones of the story. Obviously Roy’s novel is set in Hindu India, as different from Muslim Pakistan as England or America, it is also a hell of a lot more serious in tone, character development, and plotline (and eventual outcome) – hence the expression ‘watered down’. However, this exploration and exploitation of the serious problems and dangers surrounding traditional caste and class systems, as well as racism and the ways in which these are inherently engrained in people’s minds and souls, inescapable to even those who want to escape them, is what makes up both books. This is ultimately what made me fall in love with both books.

On the surface Revolt is an involved, intricate story that had me laughing one minute, tearing up the next. I wasn’t expecting to feel as attached to the characters as I inevitably did as their lives and situations unfolded – it’s impossible not to sympathise on some level with each and every character. However, underneath the reflex reactions and emotions, this book really taught me something and opened my mind to new perspectives of struggles regarding sexism, racism, and classism. Undoubtedly, I learnt a lot of fascinating things about the Pakistani culture and traditions, but at the root of the book is the universality that inextricably links the whole of humankind.

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The Bunker Diary - Kevin Brooks

I’ve taken a slight break from blogging/reviewing due mainly to birthday celebrations (fun) and working (not so fun). I also decided to indulge my Austen addiction for a while and have therefore been spending the majority of July with my nose buried in Mansfield Park – so I have been reading at least! I thought I’d take a quick break before getting stuck into a new book to give my blog a little attention and review a book I read earlier in the summer.

If you’re a Kevin Brooks fan, you will have some idea of what you’re in store for with this book – having been writing novels for over a decade, he is well established as a gritty, frank, and sometimes down-right disturbing author who tackles controversial, tricky topics in a completely blunt and realistic way. When I was much younger I read one of his more famous books – Candy. In hind sight I was probably slightly too young at the time to fully realise the importance and symbolism of everything Brooks was getting at in this troubling tale of a young lover caught up in a drug-fuelled world of prostitution, violence, and control. However, I did seem to have enough memory of my enjoyment of it to immediately pick up a copy of The Bunker Diary and rush home to start it without even reading the blurb. Brooks seems to be one of those authors that has that addictive effect on me, and I felt like I was unearthing a former childhood passion I had forgotten all about.

Written in the first person of Linus, a 16 year old who has run away from his rich but neglectful father to live on the streets, the book is the diary he keeps whilst being held in captivity in a bunker underground. He is joined by various other characters throughout the novel whose differing reactions to and behaviour within their situation as related to us by Linus really keep the novel captivating and gripping. In such a high pressured situation no one can be trusted – everyone is a suspect, anyone could be working for the man upstairs, not even little Jenny can be completely innocent. For me this is the real hidden gem of the novel – the way in which Brooks handles and maintains the high-pressured narration and drags us mentally into the situation which is so far from what we have ever experienced. This realistic narration never falters, Linus’ transitions from practical escape plans, to hopeless lamenting, to nostalgic memories, to philosophical thinking are flawless - both unpredictable and what can only be expected from someone in this dire position.

The Bunker Diary is one of those books that you can’t say a huge amount about without giving away the entire story and ruining it for any prospective reader. However, at the same time it is left so completely open to speculation that there is really no ultimate way of ‘spoiling’ it. Brooks forces us as readers to fill in the blanks, to create our own ending, forcing us into the sick mind-set of the kidnapper. Without any solid validation, the reader has to consider and imagine motivations and outcomes whether they like it or not. This is by no means a comfortable read. After one night of reading it (which got me through about half the book I might add – an extremely addictive read) I was having nightmares – this is not for the faint-hearted. I can guarantee you will come out of this read feeling drained, slightly emotionally empty, and in need of some serious thinking time to get your head around it all and reach your own conclusions (something I still haven’t managed to do…).

As depressing as this all sounds, the book is worth it 100%. From my previous reviews we probably all know by now that I can’t resist a study on human behaviour in difficult circumstances – but more than that, this book also compels us to study ourselves as we read it. We are both the authoritative ‘you’ Linus is writing to - raising questions which transcend the novel of how this diary has been unearthed - and the fly on the wall watching, judging, sympathising with each character. This book could have gone so completely overboard on its violence and horror but its subtlety and constant focus on characters rather than action forces the reader to check himself constantly for expecting such horror. It is this incredibly consistent technique which makes the book such a page-turner, and such a genius piece of writing. 

Greed Satisfaction Scale: A meal which you can't help but stuff yourself to the brim with for an intense period of time, but beware once you've finished it, the hunger will return worse than ever in an empty starvation that won't be remedied for a good few days.

Read it now: Get it here

Oh Dear Silvia - Dawn French

Whilst holidaying in a French villa last summer I came across an old battered copy of Dawn French’s epistolary memoirs Dear Fatty. I dipped in and out of it as a break from my uni summer reading list, and found that its hilarious laugh out loud moments, unashamed honesty, and unmistakable Dawn Frenchesque voice was a more than welcome relief. For this reason, as well as a love for The Vicar of Dibley which I’m sure the rest of humanity shares, I was excited when her new novel Oh Dear Silvia was announced. It has received rave reviews which assured me of its dark hilarity and gripping storyline, and when it came out this week in paperback it shot straight to number one in the overall charts.

So naturally, I got stuck in as quickly as possible. Now this next sentence is pretty hard for me to type but….I was disappointed. I don’t pretend to be any form of authority over Dawn French, little old me second year English student casual blogger versus Queen of Comedy, and I can’t deny the numerous people who have loved this book, but in my honest opinion it just wasn’t for me. However, I did stick with it, and that is definitely saying something – the sign of a truly awful book is the overwhelming desire to throw it into the nearest bin/fire/mass of water, and I didn’t quite get that with this.

The premise is definitely an interesting one: a woman in a coma having somehow fallen off a balcony is visited by various relatives/friends/acquaintances, each chapter is written in one of these people’s perspectives. We therefore gather a view of Silvia without ever having even met her, purely through the conflicting but revealing narrations of her visitors.  I guess in hind sight this was the reason I was slightly hooked - as each character revealed something more, I wanted to find out the next chapter (excuse the pun) in the storyline. However, what’s slightly off-putting is the obviousness of all these revelations. At times I felt as though I was being completely patronised by the assumption that I needed quite so much repetition to understand what exactly was being said. Obviously this is personal preference, but I always like a little mystery, or at least to feel as though I worked a bit to work out the meaning of it all.

Another flaw with this seemingly exciting and intriguing foundation is French’s use of tenses. I realise this sounds a little middle school English teacher, but it got to the point where it really bugged me and I couldn’t ignore it. At times I DID feel as though I was reading an un-edited school student’s short story. It’s hard to fully criticise this when putting yourself in French’s shoes: the documentation of the present conscience of a person who is feeling in the here and now, looking into the past, AND predicting the future is a potentially impossible task to do gracefully. I certainly couldn’t think of a better way I would have handled it, but this did not take away from the fact that the overuse of the present tense where it seemed inappropriate came off as pretty clumsy and awkward a lot of the time. It also confused me as to whether there was an omniscient narrator present or it was supposed to be the direct thoughts of each character – in which case perhaps first person may have fitted better. Perhaps this all stems from too much time spent scrutinising the technicalities of each and every piece of writing I read or write, feel free to blame my tutors, but something didn’t sit completely right with me.

What I did find as I got further into the book was that the far-fetched storyline and over-exaggerated characters are not so offensive once you decide to just let yourself enjoy them and try not to see them so seriously. After all – this book IS written by a comedian, and it is not in shortage of comic moments. But for me, the laugh out loud element I was so expecting was missing – much of the comedy was kind of lost on me as I felt I needed Dawn French’s distinctive comic timing and tone to carry it along – something I couldn’t quite recreate in my head. With this in mind, I would definitely give the audio book a go. Having spoken to a few other people about it, we agreed that it seemed more of  a script than a novel – not surprising given French’s fantastic well-known script writing for French and Saunders. However unrealistic this plot may at first seem, it is ultimately a study into human behaviour and a questioning of how well we really know that person we think we are closest to. Having finished it, what really stuck in my mind was not any of the things that may have annoyed me, but the unique fact that the protagonist is never given a word or a view – something I have never experienced in a book before.

This may seem like a majorly negative review, but I found this book a real thinker – its surface characters and obvious storyline carried me along as I read it, slowly getting slightly agitated by certain aspects, but afterwards my focus has switched to the overall theme of human relationships and behaviour – which I feel makes this book a success.

Greed Satisfaction Scale: At times I felt on the point of nausea and certainly overfilled by certain aspects whilst some of the yummier parts were lacking, but on reflection this interesting combination was something I have better memories of than I felt I would whilst digesting it.

Read it now: Get it here, or listen here

The Fault In Our Stars - John Green

My sister passed this book on to me and it has fast become my favourite book, I’ve since run around feverishly recommending it to anyone and everyone and have subsequently concluded that I am a serious late comer to this whole John Green obsession.

The Fault in our Stars was actually first released in January 2012. On the mere announcement of its title in June 2011 it shot to the top of both Amazon and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists. So clearly I have been rather slow off the mark. Forgive me, I’m an English Literature student - put simply, 30 weeks of compulsory reading a year. But the important thing is that I did finally get round to reading it, and it proved the perfect procrastination to revision for my 2^nd year exams.

Written in the first person of Hazel, a teenage girl with terminal cancer, this book was always doomed to end in tears. And I have to admit, for me, it did. A whole 45 minutes of them. But despite its hopeless premise, this story remains unpredictable and truly gripping throughout.

Having been forced to go to cancer support group by her loving but suffocating parents, Hazel meets the effortlessly cool, exceedingly intelligent, philosophical, and obviously drop dead gorgeous (albeit slightly arrogant) Augustus Waters…..did I hear someone say Edward Cullen? I’ll admit, when I first started the book I really wasn’t into it, I did feel it was a complete Twilight type, which obviously I adored slightly too much when I was younger (who didn’t?), but in retrospect is a just a slightly shallow, badly written book with pretentious characters. At first I found Augustus and Hazel’s quick-witted banter similarly unrealistic and slightly irritating, but oh how quickly I realised how utterly wrong I was.

This book is not just a superficial adolescent, angsty love story; the cancer plagues the story in a tragic but engrossing way. You’re forced to simultaneously deal with the gritty reality of the constant side effects of actually living with cancer and the dark humour the characters are driven to find in their impossible situations. For me, cancer is no longer just this terrible ominous monster; it is also, for the characters suffering, a routine, an everyday life that they just have to contend with. Perhaps this is just the ignorance of someone who has been lucky enough never to have a direct experience with cancer, but I think John Green deals with it in an important way for any reader.

Whilst the cancer pervades the entire story, and is a constant, tense presence, it does not drown the captivating, endearing love story of Hazel and Augustus. At heart this book is a deliciously soppy-in-a-good-way tale that made me physically grin and smirk on behalf of Hazel in certain (most) parts. Augustus’ one liners made me feel all fluttery and nervous and I guarantee they will have the same effect on ANYONE. I’m not ashamed to say that I fell so utterly in love with him that, having conjured him up so visibly in my head, I was CERTAIN that I saw him across the street just a couple of days after finishing the book. Alas, it was not him, seemingly just a side effect of my post-TFIOS-depression period. Warning prospective readers: this period lasts a while. For me, this is the true sign of a brilliant, beautifully written book, when even after finishing, you can’t get the characters out of your head, and you physically miss them as if they were your best friends. The best consolation I had was a boyfriend called Gus I could pretend was the wonderful Augustus Waters, in a strictly non-creepy way….obviously. Perhaps a slighter better consolation for the rest of you may be the announcement of a film on the cards. Although I am slightly apprehensive, as we all are, of my new favourite characters being physically brought to life without me being in COMPLETE CONTROL, I am certainly excited to see how Hazel’s hilarious, philosophical, metaphysical observations will be brought onto the big screen. 

Greed satisfaction scale: I was left craving much more of these characters and feeling less than full, but in retrospect this is what the most talented of chefs strive for: the perfectly sized meal that doesn't fill you to that sickening level but leaves enough space to retain it in your memory for a long time to come.

Read it now: get it here