The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas

Christmas seems like months ago and it was great to catch up with the girls at our usual haunt, most of us had read all of this book which is very good considering December is usually a busy month for everyone.  This book started of as a bit of a mystery around a disappeared professor but it turned into one of the most mind-tripping books I've ever read (in a good way)!  The discussions on quantum physics and philosophical topics left most of us struggling but if you glossed over those, this book was great.  It had a slow beginning but I was flying through it towards the middle and the ending came far too soon.  Some of the details seemed a bit contrived, for example to add a bit of danger the ex-FBI agents appeared and started hunting the main characters, but thinking about it, why didn't they go after their bosses or other people involved in the project rather than trying to track a book down across the world?  I liked the mix of love story and sci-fi but I was frustrated by the ending and after discussing it with my fellow book-worms it seems it could be taken several ways.

Concept: 9/10
Plot: 7/10
Ending: 7/10
Cover: 9/10
Page Turner: 8/10
Who to Slap: Drippy Heather
Where's the Cheese: Adam & Eve linkages

Overall: 8/10

We have changed the way we are selecting our books, instead of voting on them we are putting all suggestions in a hat (yes, we borrowed Jen's actual hat) and drew one out at random.  We are hoping this means that we get to read some random books which may not have won in a vote.  The suggestions were:

• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
• A Dark Encounter by Roland Vernon
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
• Prophecy by SJ Parris
• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
• Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

We randomly chose 'Bel Canto' by Ann Patchett which we will be reading for our March meeting.

We also discussed our book of the year 2012, it came down to a tie between 'How to be a Woman' by Caitlin Moran and 'Rivers of London' by Ben Aaronovich, it went down to a final vote and 'Rivers of London' won!

Our next meeting will be at Jen's house on Wednesday 13th February, 8pm.