HHhH by Laurent Binet

Back at the Copa on a very rainy night we convened to discuss HHhH an unusual non-fictional account of the assassination of Nazi Reinhard Heydrich.  Unusual because the author discusses how he found his evidence, how he struggled with what to include and exclude and also because of his extremely short chapters.  In one sense his narrative technique drew the reader into the story, it wasn't just dry historical facts or fictitious conversations, it was funny and intriguing but did we really need it?  We all found the history interesting, none of us were really aware of what happened in Prague during the Nazi occupation and the characters were well written and dramatic.  Some found the short chapters irritating but I found they made me feel as if I was flying through the book (I was in a hurry to finish).

Concept: 6/10
Plot: 6/10
Ending: 8/10
Cover: 5/10
Page Turner: 8/10
Who to Slap: Curda who betrayed them and also the boss who handed in the letter which lead to the massacre at Lidice
Where's the Cheese: The last chapter/page, the author went totally nuts

Overall: 6.5/10

We chose our next book from the following:

• After the Party by Lisa Jewell
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

 We randomly chose 'Gone Girl' by Gillian Flynn which we will be reading for our June meeting.

Next meeting is at Lisa's house on Wed 8th May, 8pm.

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Tea and cakes at Jen's seemed like a suitable way to celebrate Valentine's week and we welcomed a new member to out midst, Lucy, who leaped right in playing lucky dip with Jen's soft porn version of 'Warm Bodies' and is also a knitter like me.  Welcome Lucy!

Kate, Jen and I saw the film version of this book last weekend and to be honest it made the book look good.  As usual the film missed loads out but it also changed the ending completely and the main character R seemed to have become a teenage heartthrob, yes we were confused too.

Overall we thought this book was averagely written, it was a good concept of a zombie love story and the nods to Romeo and Juliet were subtle enough to not be annoying.  However the ending was very predictable and we were more interested in a prequel to show us what happened to the world to get it into that state.

Concept: 8/10
Plot: 6/10
Ending: 7/10
Cover: 9/10 (very minimalist, very good)
Page Turner: 5/10
Who to Slap: Zombie wife (cheating by having zombie sex, very harsh)
Where's the Cheese: quote "I dream of an exclamation mark when all I have are ellipses ..." (will get the exact quote later and amend).

Overall: 7/10 (which doesn't seem to reflect how average we thought this book was)

We chose the next book with a random draw, the suggestions were:

• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• The Innocents by Francesca Segal
• 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James (come on, own up, who put this in?)
• HHhH by Laurent Binet

We randomly chose 'HHhH' by Laurent Binet which we will be reading for our April meeting.

Our next meeting will be at Susie's house, before she sells it, on Wednesday 13th March, 8pm.