Wednesday 25 March 2015

Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers

Well this is something a little different, a self-help book chosen in the New Year. It certainly provided lots of discussion.

This book talks through ways of pushing yourself, of looking at life differently, saying "Yes" and being more positive. It has some really good points, we liked the chapter on instead of thinking about multiple bad outcomes to a situation and worrying about them, just think to yourself "I can handle this, whatever happens I can handle it".

We liked the no regrets message, instead of going over mistakes and thinking about what could have been, move forwards. Every decision you have made up to now has brought you here so how can they be bad?

We also liked the life grid thingy, a way of thinking about different aspects of your life and ensuring you fill your grid. So if your relationship ends or you lose your job, you still have lots of things which make you happy, this ensures you don't rely on just one area of life to make you happy.

However, it was really cheesy and the anecdotes didn't ring true, it started to get a bit unrealistic towards the end of the book. But overall, we enjoyed it and we'd all recommend it.

Most of our categories don't fit with this type of book, so instead we each gave it a mark out of 10.

Kate - 7
Susie - 6
Jen - 6
Lisa - 5
Gill - 7

Average score: 6/10

The next book was chosen by Lisa and will be Dreams and Shadows by Robert Cargill, Gill will be hosting the April meeting.

Sunday 1 March 2015

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

This is the story of Theo Decker, it starts when he's thirteen and we follow him right into adulthood. It's a story of love and loss (lots of loss), of good friends and bad decisions.

We enjoyed the story, lots happened but it was far too long. The ending was very rambly, it could of ended at least 100 pages sooner. We felt some events were glossed over, for example Theo getting engaged to Kitsey, how did that happen?

We decided to change our scoring, each person will give a mark out of 10 and the average is the book's score.

Characters - We liked Boris, such an optimist.
Who to slap? - Most of the characters.
Concept - Good
Plot - Too long but well written.
Ending - Too drawn out, could have ended when Boris returned in Amsterdam.
Add a twist - Make the book 300 pages shorter and give the painting back at the beginning (however this would lose the point of the book).
Page Turner - No.
Where's the cheese? - No cheese, far too serious for cheese.
Would we recommend? - No
Better as a ... shorter book (sense the theme yet?)

Average score: 6/10

The next book was chosen by Jen and it's Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson and we'll be reading that for the April meeting. Lisa is hosting the next meeting.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

We read this for the January meeting, so this post is very very late.

Set in 1666, the Black Death hits a tiny Derbyshire village and the people who live there decide to isolate themselves to save nearby towns and villages. This is the story of Anna Frith, of how a village watches half their population die, their loved ones and neighbours and of how desperate times show the best and worst of people.

This was an easy read, just the right length and it was an interesting story (based on true events, but the characters are fictitious). However we didn't think it invokes the terror of living through the plague, seeing your neighbours die and wonder if you'll be next. It wasn't written emotively and left us a little cold.

We didn't like the ending, thinking it was a little far fetched but we did like the vocabulary of the time used in the book. Overall we enjoyed the story but found it rather middling.

Concept: 8/10
Plot: 8.5/10
Ending: 5/10
Add a twist: Untwist the rectors character at the end.
Page Turner: Yes
Who would we slap: Anna's Dad.
Where's the cheese: Baby Eleanor.
Would we recommend? 10/10
Better as a ... TV drama

Total: 8/10

The next book was chosen by Gill and will be Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers which we'll be reading for the March meeting. Kate is hosting the February meeting.