Review: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

When I was picking out my reading list for the Award Winning Reads challenge hosted by Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing, I pretty much just went for a random list of six: one Newbery Award winner, two Honors, and the same for the Printz Award, based on what I had or could get hold of from the library. One such book was When You Reach Me, which won the Newbery Award in 2010.The award is given for ‘the most distinguished contribution to American literature’ in any one year, and was the first children’s book award in the world.

When You Reach Me tells the story of Miranda, a young girl around whom a series of weird events start to happen. First, her friend Sal is inexplicably punched by an older boy while they are walking home from school one day,  then he cuts Miranda out of his life completely, despite the fact that they live in the same building, have known each other from birth, and do everything together. Then, the spare key to her house that they keep for emergencies is stolen, and on the same day, Miranda receives the first in a series of strange notes, telling her that someone is coming to ‘save her friend’s life’ and his own, asking her to write down exactly what has happened, to tell the writer exactly where the key that has been stolen was located, and assuming that she knows who is writing to her. As the novel progresses, Miranda receives more notes, finds out that the boy who punched Sal is actually a nice kid who also goes to her school, makes some new friends, and has some odd experiences involving the ‘laughing guy’ – an old homeless man she has to pass on her way to and from school. These all tie together to form that lightbulb moment where she goes (metaphorically, not literally) ‘OH! I know who’s been writing me those letters!’.

I really enjoyed When You Reach Me, which was nice, considering that going in, I had no expectations of it at all. Miranda and her mother were both great characters, and their relationship was really well drawn. The book begins with Miranda telling about how her Mom (I feel bad spelling it the English way when the author has spelt it the American way...) is going on the TV show The $20,000 Pyramid, which incidentally is also mentioned in an episode of Friends, for those of us who are not American and may have no idea what the show is. Anyway, to this end, Miranda and Richard, her mother’s boyfriend, are helping her to practice via a convoluted system where Sal’s mother, Louisa (also Miranda’s mother’s best friend) will make notes on each lunch time show, bring them to Miranda’s house, where Miranda will copy words and categories onto flashcards before her mother gets home, in order that they can practice with her when she does. I found it very sweet. It seemed to me that slightly less than half the time, Miranda was the grown up, taking care of her mother, but then her mother would always pull through for her, such as the time when her new friend Annmarie stays the night, and instead of Miranda making them breakfast in the morning, as she usually does for herself, her mother has got out of bed at 7.30 (unheard of) to make them a bacon omelette.

The novel was made up of little moments which pulled the story together, leading up to the big, dramatic event at its’ climax. The little events balanced out very well with the big, dramatic event at the end. While I was reading, I felt like the story was building up to something. Stead creates a feeling of expectation very well, and has you on the edge of your seat wondering how everything is going to come together, while at the same time still letting the novel be a comfortable read.

When You Reach Me is also what I would call a ‘coming of age’ novel, although I hate putting labels on things. The novel is a metaphor for growing up – throughout it, Miranda struggles to understand things, but then once the big dramatic event takes place there are many things she understands which she didn’t before. The breaking of her friendship with Sal also forces her to get out of her comfort zone, and make some new friends, with whom she has new experiences, and discovers things about the world that she wouldn’t have if she had continued on with Sal, doing what they always did, going where they always went.

I loved the novel because it was intelligent. I don’t read a lot of non- adult fiction, because I find that a lot of it tends to be very angsty, but this wasn’t at all. Rebecca Stead allows her characters to be confused and turbulent, while at the same time remaining clear and level headed. The book is based around science, which means that Stead has moved time–travel, which always seems to me (and I say this as a big fan of Donnie Darko) to be completely incomprehensible, out of the realm of the impossible, and into the possible, and indeed the real. Miranda herself is a very scientific character – she gets upset about things, yes, but instead of going off in a hormonal rage, she thinks them through, wonders about them, and tries to work them out, and it was the desire to work things out which made the book so enjoyable for me. Because Miranda was trying to work things out, so was I.

I would like to say thankyou to When You Reach Me, for making me look forward to reading more non- adult fiction, and hoping that I will find other books which are as much of a joy to read as this one was!

Rating: ****



June Acquisitions and RAK!

Once again, this month has been one in which I have acquired FAR too many books! It has been my birthday, though, so I've been gifted a lot, and as usual, the vast majority of my books haven't cost a lot (like, between 20p and £1). Also, it's really fun to put up pretty pictures of books :-) This month, we ran out of bookshelf space, for about the billionth time, and instead of telling me to stop buying books, my wonderful fiance started looking for corner shelving! We found this, and the plan is that we will get a different bit of it every month, to replace the crappy looking thing we have at the moment - it has no sides or back and looks awful! But it does hold a hell of a lot of books.

So, here goes with the books (and lists, two of my favourite things in one post!)
First up, the books I bought myself this month:

Because the picutre is blurry, which is the fault of the phone (and the fact that I can't apparently stand without rocking after a long day of working in retail (standing) in the heat!), here are what the books are, from bottom to top:

• A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel - After Reading Lolita in Tehran, I got all excited about the idea of books about books and reading, and this was being offered for the price of postage on ReaditSwapit. It sort of seemed like destiny. I'm not sure when I'll get to it, but currently it's looking very pretty on my windowsill, which is the space for the books which never quite make it to the shelves...
• The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie - OK, so for years I've been dying to read this book. When I was a teenager, and I guess still now, but less so, I had this big attraction to banned books, or books that had got their authors into trouble, and as they go, this is kind of a major one. I've always wanted to read it to see what the fuss is about! Also, it's on my list for the Back to the Classics Challenge.
• At Home by Bill Bryson - I love Bill Bryson. He is both hilarious, and interesting. I was actually initially planning to buy this because it was on a 2 for £7 offer with The Fry Chronicles (Stephen Fry also hilarious and interesting), but I committed the cardinal sin of not buying them when I saw them, and when I went back, The Fry Chronicles were nowhere to be found :-( So I bought it anyway, and it looks fascinating.
• The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry - After the disappointment of not being able to buy it on above mentioned offer in Asda, I tried, without any success at all, to swap for it. After a while, I gave up, and went to a different Asda, and bought it for £4. I'm currently buried in the depths of it, and it's making me wish I'd gone to Cambridge, and also making me want to write, so so far it's a very successful read!
• How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff - Charity shop find while I was back in London for my birthday weekend. No idea why I bought it, really, except that bloggy people have been talking about it in a positive way (sorry, I don't remember who, specifically!).
• The Postmistress by Sarah Blake - At the moment, I'm really into watching and reading stuff related to the Second World War. I watched Atonement for the first time last night, and I have to say I didn't much care for it. The book I liked, although it is the only Ian McEwan I've been able to stomach, and believe me, I've tried and may well continue to try, but the film was veeeeerrrry pretentious. And I'd forgotten how much I hate Briony. Anyway! That aside, I'd looked at this in Waterstones, and then I was listening to an episode of Bookrageous where they were talking about it, and then it turned up in the charity shop, so it had to be had.
• Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe by Jenny Colgan - My yearly 'beach read', in the most girly sense. I basically bought it because it had cakes on the cover. Shallow? Me? :-p
• Howards End is On the Landing by Susan Hill - I was ecstatic to find a like new, beautiful hardcover of this in another Charity shop. Somebody else (again, I can't remember who, the heat today has melted my brain!) reviewed this recently, and in keeping with the whole books about books thing, I had to get it!
• Up the Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton - Cost me 10p, and I have the other two Faraway Tree books. They were some of my absolute favourites as a kid, and I've been searching out the old versions, before they changed the names of the kids. I just can't read them with their new names, they feel like different books!

Long list! Now onto the books I was given as gifts this month!

Again, from bottom to top:

• The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman - Given to me by my awesome friend who works in a Charity bookshop, and picks out all the best stuff for me before it goes on sale (Judi I loooove you!!). I need to read this for my Canongate Myth Challenge, for which my total read is still one...
• Going Out by Scarlett Thomas - I am the most excited a person has EVER been to get a book EVER about this one. One of the books she wrote pre The End of Mr Y, it's disgustingly difficult to get hold of, and you can imagine how much I screamed when the bf informed me that he'd got not only this, but also Bright Young Things for me.
• The next four are birthday presents from my lovely parents :-) They knew I was running low on Streatfeild for my challenge (also her books are my comfort reading), and so they bought me:
• The Painted Garden  - my favourite of all her books that I've read so far. I adore this book. It's a gorgeous story of childhood, exotic locations, and literature, interspersed with pianos and ice cream. What more could you want? Also, the link goes to Goodreads, where the title is the U.S title, which I hate, and an awful cover, which is just so unrepresentative of the book it makes me sad :-(
• Tennis Shoes - One of her earlier books, which I've never read. Very much looking forward to it.
• Curtain Up - I remember reading this from the school library when I was about seven. I don't remember much else, so looking forward to a re-read! Again, link goes to U.S title. I don't get this.
• Ballet Shoes for Anna - Similar situation to Curtain Up.
• In Your Face by Scarlett Thomas - Again pre Mr Y (and by the way, if you haven't read The End of Mr Y, you really, really should. Seriously), this is the middle of a trilogy of which I have read the first and last. Technically, it was my birthday gift to myself!

I have another two special gifts to mention. Firstly, I got a gorgeous illustrated hardback copy of Edward Lear's Complete Nonsense, from the same awesome Charity bookshop working friend. Here it is, spine up, because the spine is the most gorgeous part I could photograph:

And secondly, I'm fairly sure that you'll all be sick of me going on about how awesome Hanna is. I think I've mentioned her at least three times this month on the blog, but really, she is lovely! And to certify this, she sent me an RAK this month. If you don't know about RAK, firstly, where have you been? And secondly, go sign up for it, now! Basically, you sign up with your wishlist, and so do lots of other people, and the idea is that people will give you books, and you will give people books. It's so much fun and you get to meet lots of awesome bloggers through it! So here is what she sent me:

Excuse the terrible picture, and my swirly patterned table cloth behind. I've been excited to start this series for a while, and having a shiny new copy of the first book is a very big incentive! Thankyou!

Right. Last picture. I do understand that by this point, I'm pretty much doing this for myself, as you will have all gone off to stare at your own piles of books, or even actually read some of them! But anyway, this last pile is a few I've been sent this month for review:

Bottom to top:

• Sew Retro - I requested this from Quayside Publishing Group, and they were kind enough to send me a copy of this gorgeous book. It's a history of sewing, interspersed with patterns for some awesome things. Grouped by decade, I think I'm really going to enjoy this, and my sister and I plan to try and make some of the stuff as we go!
• Olga - A Daughter's Tale by Marie- Therese Browne - The author contacted me asking me to review this book, which is the true story of her mothers life, which she had no idea about until her mother became seriously ill.
• Apology for the Woman Writing by Jenny Diski - requested from Virago UK, who are now my favourite publishers, because, unrequested, they also sent me
• Touchy Subjects by Emma Donoghue - Being as how I'm the last person in the WORLD to read ROOM, I think I'll prolong it a bit, and read this collection of shorts first.

So that's my book fever done for the month! Blog-wise, I've sucked. I've posted lots of opinions, lists, and random rambling, and not very many of the many many reviews and features that I have either written but not posted, almost finished but not drafted, or that haven't quite made it out of my head and onto paper yet! I'm still sucking at not being exhausted when I get home from work, and the weird weather isn't helping!

Having said that, July and August are set to be eventful here at An Armchair by the Sea! I'll post more when it's finalised, but there's the UK and EU Summer Hop in August, where I'll be giving away some exciting stuff, and, also in August, I'll be writing a guest review as part of the Georgette Heyer month, over at Stiletto Storytime, plus a couple of other, unconfirmed things. I'm excited! :-) How are you? Read any of my books? Any you loved or hated or think I must read, right now?

Review: - A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

I thought it was about time that I a) read this book that people have been raving about for ages, and b) read another book for the Back to the Classics Challenge. As this won the Pullitzer Prize, it fulfills that criteria, and I got all excited when the local library got it in for me. It's taken me a while to review it, as it took me a while to work out what I actually thought about it. That, and I'm just lazy...

It's a very odd book, and I've been having trouble writing a summary for it. Ostensibly, it reads like a series of short stories, in which each chapter is about a character from the previous chapter, but not necessarily the character who appears to be the 'main' or 'focal' character from that chapter. Starting out, this made it very odd reading for me, as it really throws you into the mix, and doesn't allow you to focus. This meant that I didn't really realise that the story was still developing in the way that stories always do, until about halfway through the novel. It was great; like the sneak night attack of the storyline.

This is the synopsis, from Goodreads:

Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page, A Visit from the Goon Squad is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption.

I've also been (vaguely) discussing this book as part of the Goodreads book club, which has been interesting. Egan's characters are very vivid, and her style is at times quite conversational. She takes strands which seem completely unrelated, and weaves them together, creating many somewhat explosive moments, where I'd find myself sitting back, staring at the page going 'hang on, what just happened?'. I love it when books do this to me!

Egan's characters range from the very young, to the very old; from those who are vividly alive, to those who are literally at death's door. Her settings range all over the world, and she depicts people from all kinds of lifestyles. Reading A Visit from the Goon Squad was in many ways, like getting a snapshot of the most vivid sections of society. Overall, it does really chart the lives of Bennie and Sasha, the characters it starts out with, from when they are very young, throughout their lives. It shows the rise and fall of Bennie, and the fall and rise of Sasha. The thing I enjoyed the most was that Egan gives each character a distinctive hook, from Sasha's kleptomania, and Bennie's inability to drink coffee without gold flakes in it (reflecting his obsession with his diminishing libido), to the voice she gives to younger characters, such as Rhea - currently there's an ongoing debate on Goodreads about whether using 'he goes/she goes' instead of 'he/she said' is annoying or authentic. Personally I'm in the authentic camp - I know I never used 'said' until very very recently, and in fact from time to time, I still slip back to 'goes' when telling stories. I also use 'like' far too much in sentences, but that's really a story for another day.

So, summary. I loved this book. It was so unique and well drawn, and stylistically different from pretty much everything I've ever read before. I would recommend that everybody give it a go, and stick with it when you think you'll hate it - especially the weird bit at the end when the entire book flips the other way around... it's worth it!

Rating: *****

It's My Birthday!!

Image Credit

This is a little bit of a nothing-y post, because I've got a moment of internet connectivity out of my hitherto dead laptop, and it's my birthday. Unfortunately, I do not actually have a cupcake tower like this (sob), however I do have the remnants of a green sponge chocolate iced dinosaur cake, decorated with many different kinds of sweets... It is my 24th birthday, and yes, I am a little bit immature! Also the reason that it was a green cake is because my sister (who's 22) insisted that it couldn't be a dinosaur cake unless it was green, as dinosaurs are monsters, monsters are green, hence green cake. Of course....

I've just got back from a weekend of loveliness back in the London suburbs with my (enormous and mental) family, and a few of my close friends. There has been large amounts of giggling, eating, and of course, drinking. On Saturday night we watched the 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Miserables, which is my favourite musical of ALL TIME, and invented a drinking game to go with it. Some of the rules were truly ridiculous - i.e. Drink whenever somebody holds a note on for an abnormally long time. If any of you have seen the musical, you will know that this happens a lot. Needless to say, the night ended very very late, and I spent most of Sunday recovering (with the help of my mum's Roast dinner, and The King's Speech - great film!).

So now I'm back, straight back to work, and thinking about all the reviews and features I need to write. Our main PC has caught some kind of disgusting deadly virus, and so I'm not touching it with a bargepole, and am relegated to my teeny little netbook, but oh well. I acquired (of course) a lot of books over my birthday weekend. Gifts aside (and I got a fair few of those), there's a huge car boot sale on every Sunday not far from my Mum's, and so we went, and many many people were selling books 6 for £1. How could I turn them down??? I have some beautiful things, beautiful pictures of which will be posted at a later date, when I'm less lazy, and for now, I'm off to get birthday fish and chips with my man :-)

Just before I go, I want to give a shout out to the most recent of my sisters to get a blog! She's mental, mutli-coloured, very bouncy, and talks a LOT! Her name is Miriam, and you can find her here. She's not written much yet, but she will, and it will be entertaining! If you're so inclined, find her on Deviant Art too. She's lovely!

Anyway, off I go! What're you all reading on my lovely rainy birthday?

A Bit of this and a Bit of That.. & why it occassionally sucks to be broke...

So, this is what I'm supposed to be posting about - William Thackeray's Vanity Fair, which I am reading for Allie's readalong. Unfortunately, due to I'm not quite sure what, possibly busyness, possibly just being in a weird, unsettled mood reading-wise, I've only got to chapter 3 of the 30+ I'm meant to have read by this point! I have read it before, and so far it is as easy to read and engrossing as I remembered, and Becky Sharpe is just as evil as I remember her being, although if I remember right, she gets quite a bit worse before the end! It's a mystery to me why some classics are so easy to read, and some are such a struggle. I guess it's the same as with any book, really - it all depends on what you like, and whether the storyline interests you. My first reading of Vanity Fair was when I was fourteen. I borrowed it from my mum, an avid reader of historical mysteries (Agatha Christie, Elizabeth & Ellis Peters, Susanna Gregory, Alexander McCall Smith are all loves I've inherited from her), because it looked to weird on the top of a pile of the aforementioned authors! I'm reliably informed that as a younger woman, my mum was quite the reader of Classics, and she does have quite a nice collection of Dickens, and I think that she'd been given Vanity Fair, as something she'd never read. Anyway, whatever the reason, it was there, and I grabbed it, and absolutely devoured it. It's weird that its so long, but at no point do I remember being bored by it. It'll be interesting to see if that's the case the second time around.

So far, that's pretty much all I've got to say about Vanity Fair. I'm hoping that the rest of the book proves as enjoyable as I remember!

In other news, my home internet is for some reason being totally crap lately. We have a really cheapy wireless pay monthly connection, which basically only works if you live close enough to a hotspot. Ours is really on and off, as the hotspot is quite close, but its' also down the bottom of a hill (we're at the top), on top of a cliff, overlooking the sea... It's usually temperamental whenever it's windy, rainy, snowing, hot, or too loud (we're a tourist destination, it's summer)... But in the last couple of days it seems to have given up completely. We're working on it, but until then, I'm not sure how regular my posts will be, which I hate! If I don't have home internet, I will literally only be able to post once a week, at the library on my day off :-(

Anyway! Moving on to more exciting things, before I become totally depressed! As I don't participate in In My Mailbox, but have got a few exciting things this week, I just thought I'd share my haul!

Johnny and the Dead & Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett (from Amazon) - I've recently managed to get my fiance (who used to read, in his vague distant childhood) back into reading again, via Terry Pratchett's children's books. Must also take this opportunity to give thanks to Neil Gaiman, as Odd and the Frost Giants was what got him excited in the first place, as I haven't read it, and he now has. He tells everybody...

I requested Apology for the Woman Writing by Jenny Diski from Virago UK, because I read her novel Stranger on a Train, and really enjoyed her slightly sarcastic style. I have to say, Virago were already favourites of mine for publishing many of my favourite authors (off the top of my head, Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood come to mind), but when they sent me this, they also sent me a copy of Emma Donoghue's Touchy Subjects, because they thought I might enjoy it, and now they've rocketed to number one position!




And finally, following my recent Reading Lolita in Tehran obsession, I've been looking to get hold of more books about books and the reading process, and managed to pick up The History of Reading by Alberto Manguel, for the price of postage on Readitswapit! Very excited to start reading this!

Finally, earlier in the week, Hanna of Booking in Heels (who, by the way, is currently one of my absolute favourite bloggy people - go read her reviews, they're really succinct and very well written and often have a heavy dose of sarcasm, which is a good thing!) were talking about how there are no UK book bloggers, and how we should create a UK Book Blogger Army, and then Lyndsey from Amused, Bemused and Confused told me about the UK Book Blogger Directory. If you're in the UK, go sign up! It's a really easy way for us all to find each other, and hopefully we can use it to do more stuff that doesn't have the dreaded 'US only' requirement! Also, stand by for a UK Book Blogger Army - Your Country Needs You! button, it may be forthcoming!

That's all I've got for now, sorry about the rambling nature of the post, and all the links. I had a lot to get out of my system, in case I NEVER GET TO BLOG AGAIN!! (I hate my internet)

Hope you're all having great weeks so far! If anything exciting happens, I'll be on Twitter :-)

Review - The Summer We Read Gatsby by Danielle Ganek

I just finished reading The Summer We Read Gatsby which I requested from the publisher, because I thought it looked interesting and fun, and I wasn’t wrong! It took me about a day to read, and was light-hearted, while managing to address many issues without getting bogged down by any of them. It got me wondering about books which reference other books or authors in their titles. By inserting something or someone well known into the immediacy of the title, surely the author must be aware that they are setting up some kind of expectation of similarity to or affiliation with, the author or book that they reference. It could be a risky move, potentially alienating some readers, in this case (and I can’t believe they exist, but am reliably informed that they do) Gatsby haters. Of course, the other side of the argument, as demonstrated by yours truly, is that people will see the word ‘Gatsby’ in the title, and think ‘oooohhh what’s that about?’ and go in for a closer look...  

*WARNING – This novel evoked lots of nostalgia and memories, many of which are included in this review*

Going into this, I was a little hesitant – I read ‘The Great Gatsby’ a lot of years ago, and if I’m honest it was the feelings conjured by the book, rather than specific characters and plotlines, which ingrained themselves into my memory. When I think about Gatsby, it’s summer and I am sitting in my college library: a huge room lined with shelves crammed full of books. Tucked away in the corner was this dusty little section marked ‘Classics’, and next to it was one solitary desk. Here I would sit, in the growing silence and the gathering gloom, until my workaholic best friend, returning from whatever study group she’d been at, would tap me on the shoulder, bringing me back to the world. I don’t think I even had to check out The Great Gatsby – the way I remember it, I read it in one sitting! My expectations of The Summer We Read Gatsby were that it would evoke similar feelings, and in this I was not disappointed.

It is a novel primarily about relationships, and has a very nostalgic feel to it; all long, sociable summer evenings, cocktails, mysteries, and flirtations, and was exactly the relief I was looking for after the unsettling and thought –provoking nature of Reading Lolita in Tehran.

The basic storyline is thus: Peck (Pecksland) and Cassie (mostly known as Stella) Moriarty are half sisters who have never really spent much time together, and seemingly don’t have much in common. Following the death of their eccentric Aunt Lydia, they are forced to live together for a month in Fools’ House, which has been left to them in her will, along with the cryptic request that they ‘seek the thing of utmost value’ from the house. Through parties and shopping trips, interventions and thievery, disagreements about clothes, men, the importance of books and whether or not to obey Lydia’s wishes and sell the house, Peck and Stella grow to know and love each other. The Summer We Read Gatsby is a story of sisterhood, and of the triumph of first love.

From what I’ve read of Fitzgerald, and admittedly my experience so far has been limited to Gatsby and Tender is the Night, a travesty which I plan to remedy this summer, his novels seem to be based around intense and passionate relationships, as was the case in this novel. Peck and Stella’s relationship is built on the interaction they had and the summers they spent with Aunt Lydia, and all the way through, the novel returns to the potential of past relationships, whether it is Peck’s first and only great love, Miles Noble, or Finn, the man that Stella is determined to hate.

I really enjoyed the book. It was light, fun, and had very likeable characters. I loved the way that Peck and Stella played off each other; Peck is hugely dramatic, confident, and glamorous (American), while Stella is much more reserved, withdrawn, and into her books (Foreign – read European). Being British, I enjoyed the feeling that being ‘foreign’ means being more introspective and obsessed with reading. I’m sure that this was unintentional on the part of the author, but it made me giggle. The mark of how much I enjoyed this book is in the fact that I keep wanting to go back to it to find passages, and quotes that I loved. I’m starting to think I should go back to reading with a pencil next to me...

My absolute favourite quote of the book is this one:

“every year she would send the summer reading list she always gave her class, and a box of books” p8

To me, the ultimate act of love that you can show a child is to try to develop their reading, and introduce them to new authors. Sending anybody an entire box of books every summer is just about the best thing I can imagine to do for a person.

One of the reasons I loved the novel so much is that for me, it was very evocative. The perfect reading experience of my life so far occurred in a similar way to the ‘box of books’ scenario. As a child, we used to go on holiday in the Devonshire countryside, to an old Victorian vicarage (read: mansion..) which my mum’s friend ran as a Bed and Breakfast after she and her husband retired from being schoolteachers. One summer, she turned her ‘spare’ living room (seriously, huge house!), into a reading room for me. It had a big sofa, and huge French windows that led out to the garden that seemed to go on forever, via a sloping hill. She had gathered up every book in her (and her friends’) houses suitable for my age (around eight or nine), and filled a huge bookcase with them, and best of all, none of my many siblings were allowed to read any of the books without asking me first! In my memory, that summer was blissful. I spent hours tucked in the corner of the sofa, bathed in sunlight, buried in a book. For some reason, reading The Summer We Read Gatsby, reminded me of that, and I’m immensely grateful.

Danielle Ganek’s style is beautiful, and the book is an absorbing and almost effortless immersion. It’s told primarily through Stella’s memories, and Peck’s stories, both of which are very vivid, and very biased. I liked the fact that the narrator doesn’t attempt to be subjective – throughout Stella talks about things very much from her point of view, and while the reader gets the impression that she is fairer than Peck would have been, she has obviously hazed over some details. The interesting thing about her as narrator is in the fact that she and Peck really don’t know each other that well. Because they had different mothers, both of whom split up from their father, the only time that they saw each other was at Fool’s House, and this is really the first time that they are doing any kind of bonding. It’s interesting because Stella is, in a sense, trying to tell Peck’s story without really knowing it.

The end of the book was really hopeful and quite funny. There’s a lot of drama throughout, which kept the story fresh and interesting. I also like the fact that Peck got to stick her oar in and give her version of events in the epilogue! I do take issue with her name – Pecksland doesn’t seem like the kind of name any mother would give their child, it took me a while to stop thinking of her as an obscure fruit tree, or an undiscovered island, if I’m honest – but it didn’t interrupt my enjoyment of the book especially.

The Summer We Read Gatsby is full of really quirky and likeable characters, who feel like people you could actually meet in reality and be friends with. It was a fun, nostalgic, dramatic, romantic, evocative, (there’s a big long list of adjectives for you!) and at times hilarious, tale of sisterhood, which I thoroughly enjoyed!

Rating: ****

The Summer We Read Gatsby was published in paperback May 2011. A review copy was provided to me by Plume.

GIVEAWAY Winner - Reading Lolita in Tehran

The winner of a brand new copy of Reading Lolita in Tehran is .....

 ****DOROTHY****

Congratulations! I've emailed her to let her know. Commiserations and thanks for entering to the rest of you, and watch this space, as I will definitely be hosting more giveaways in the near future! Also for anybody in the UK and Europe, go sign up for the UK and EU Summer Hop! It's going to be great!