A Boy Called Christmas - Matt Haig & Chris Mould

A Boy Called Christmas

When I first read the blurb: "You are about to read the true story of Father Christmas" and I saw that it was authored by Matt Haig, I knew I wanted to read this. From the very first page, I was smitten.

A Boy Called Christmas is rollicking good fun, full of laughs for child and adult alike on every page, (and Haig has taken the opportunity to poke fingers at the state of the international nation). It's also an adventure quest story, perfect for shared bedtime reading - or cosying up under the Christmas tree. And Chris Mould provides plenty of illustrated pages.

For anyone who's been wondering how to chat about the way we treat outsiders to young children - without getting all politicised - this could be a fun place to start.

If you believe in Father Christmas - the old man dressed in white and red, whose reindeers like Donner and Cupid and Blitzen (okay, Cupid might not be mentioned in this book!) fly him through the night delivering gifts to children who've been good; if you believe in the potential of humanity to be a generous and giving species; if you believe in the possibilities for little boys and girls to go out and become who they want to be; and if you really like a bit of mischievous fun about how things came to be, chances are you'll love this little book.

There is an elf swear word in the novel: impossible.


A Boy Called Christmas has been nominated for the 2017 Carnegie medal.


Publication details: 2016, Canongate, Edinburgh, paperback
This copy: received for review from the publisher

Highly Illogical Behaviour – John Corey Whaley

Highly Illogical Behaviour – John Corey Whaley

Likely to be a novel that I recommend widely to a variety of people.

Highly Illogical Behaviour - John Corey Whaley

Solomon Reed hasn’t been outside for three years. He’s a sixteen year old agoraphobe, unable to cope with the displeasing complexities of the outside world, most probably other human beings. Lisa Praytor has a scholarship dream and a control problem. Put the two together and you have a potentially cheesy sitcom drama or you have a novel that is thoroughly entertaining and reflective. You might even get a friendship. Throw in Superman, Star Trek, a church-going summer camper, and things coming out of the closet, and you definitely get Highly Illogical Behaviour.

Solomon Reed is an adorable character. Like most of the crazy kids, there is much more to him than meets the eye – and even he doesn’t realise this. I thought that Lisa might have made the novel terribly annoying, but even she grew on me. I loved the way that the relationship between Lisa and her boyfriend, Clark, is turned on its stereotypical head when it comes to sex.

The novel is written in the third person, and I think this ramps up the humour level a little because the narrator throws in some background details that are exactly what we’d probably all be thinking but would never tell. The narrator alternates their attention between chapters for Solomon and Lisa buts puts in a lot of dialogue – and some of it is paragraphs long. But, you don’t notice this and the writing flows at a pacey rate.

One of my favourite lines from the novel (and yes, it’s on the book’s back jacket blurb): “Sometimes life just hands you the lemonade, straight up in a chilled glass with a little slice of lemon on top.” Sums the novel up perfectly, really.

If you like John Green’s writing and if you laughed out loud and fell in love with The Rosie Project, Highly Illogical Behaviour will probably also hit the sweet spot for you. It did for me.

Highly Illogical Behaviour has been nominated for the 2017 Carnegie Medal.

Publication details: Faber & Faber, 2016, London, paperback

This copy: review copy from the publisher

The Many Worlds of Albie Bright - Christopher Edge

The Many Worlds of Albie Bright - Christopher Edge

The Many Worlds of Albie Bright is a lovely little novel packed with lots of quantum physics and a lightheartedly warm approach to dealing with the raw grief in response to the loss of a very dearly loved parent. It’ll make you chuckle perhaps a little bit more than it will make you cry (which is probably a very good thing!).

Essentially, this is a story perfect for younger readers as a roundabout way of exploring grief (and a jolly good story, full stop). Albie’s mother has recently died from cancer. His parents were both physicists, and he thinks that he might be able to find his mum alive in a parallel universe. With a little help from CERN and a slowly blackening banana, Albie sets off to do just this.

Albie is a delightful character and he meets a castful of ‘interesting’ others (Alba was my favourite). His fantastic adventures paint a trail telling us that grieving and just getting on with it can be a difficult thing to do – whatever your age – and that everyone needs a little bit of time out too. The novel also gives a very big thumbs up to kitchen dancing (of which I'm a huge fan).

If you find yourselves enamoured by 'Back To the Future' or 'Groundhog Day', the humour in The Many Worlds of Albie Bright will definitely appeal to you.

And a little warning: if your child is reading this book, you’d best beef up on your basic quantum theory, otherwise…..well, rotten bananas!

Publication details: Nosy Crow, 2016, London, paperback

This copy: review copy from the publisher

The Many Worlds of Albie Bright has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal 2017.

Sophie Someone - Hayley Long

Sophie Someone – Hayley Long

Sophie Someone - Hayley Long

Sophie Someone is a pacy mystery full of more laughter than tears with an intriguing use of wordplay.  I really enjoyed this novel.

The plot is about fourteen year old Sophie whose family moved them in cloaked circumstances to Belgian. She finds the new language difficult but by the time she’s fourteen, Sophie starts putting bits and pieces together that make her wonder who exactly she is, and that things might not be the way her parents say they are.

From the get go, I was drawn to the mixed up language. Initially, I thought the novel was going to be about dyslexia but quite quickly realised the story was going to be slightly different and quite suspenseful. I was intrigued to find about about this story that was difficult to put into words.

Initially, it was a bit of a challenge to remember what the words meant but, as it went along, I realised that I was working it out contextually. A bit like we do in life and with foreign languages, an aspect that the novel explores a little. 

There was also a definite playful element to the word play, eliciting little chuckles from me, picturing women as wombats and men as maniacs, and those wearing uniforms were actually in a unicorn. But, I also enjoyed how replacing a word with another unrelated word meant there were occasionally layers of meaning in paragraphs or sentences, a kind of sub-text. Whether intentional or not, this played along in my mind, e.g. introvert/internet, computer/companion. An additional aspect to the language meant that while there was swearing it didn't sound like it. I imagine younger readers would find this hilarious and it certainly removes any potential grit from the novel.

The novel is divided into sections that show how Sophie comes to see herself as the mystery about their lives deepens, unfolds and twists. On another level, it’s a novel about language and names not defining individuals, and that the way we view things in life – especially our troubles and anxieties - are all a matter of perspective.  Along the way, Sophie does this with the help of a cast of (mostly) warm and loveable characters.

***

Sophie Someone has been nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2017.  It was shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards 2015.

Publication details:

Hot Key Books, 2015, London, paperback

This copy: review copy from the publisher

Dear Committee Members - Julie Schumacher

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

Review by M

For me, this was more self-indulgent than a chocolate box (or whatever else is your guilty pleasure). A series of increasingly disgruntled – and often hilariously cringeworthy – letters, are written by Jason Fitger, a well-established professor of English Creativeve Writing and Literature.  His lengthy letters show he is overwhelmed by the increasing academic protocol of writing recommendations for colleagues, funding and students. All of this is set within the context of university cuts (which seem to affect English creative writing university courses more so than the Economics department) as well as his personal relationship and publishing debacles.

This is a short book and each page is almost tediously ‘more of the same as the last page’ – but I found it immensely addictive. Recommended as a light but spot-on read.

Publication details:  The Friday Project, 9 October 2014, London, hardback

This copy: digital review copy from the publisher

The Vacationers - Emma Straub

The Vacationers by Emma Straub

Review by M (Adult Fiction)

The Post family goes on holiday to Mallorca: Manhattan-living husband Jim and wife Franny take their two grown children, a best friend, and partners to an out-of-the-way villa. It was supposed to be a thirty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration but a ‘discovered workplace affair’ has thrown a couple of spokes in the wheel.

This is very much not the sort of novel that I would actively pick up to read (though the cover is quite catching!) and in many ways the characters are all many worlds away from my life (no spoons from Tiffanys here and my family is the most functional ever – of course!). But it was here so I gave it a go. I read it quickly and it is funny, in that ‘sideways’ sort of way. It also made me want to go on holiday, possibly even to Mallorca, which is not a transatlantic flight away for me.

The two week holiday, or vacation, is the setting for the plot from beginning to end, and most of it takes place in a heavenly sounding villa. Of course, like all middle class extended 'families', this one has its dysfunctions and all of the characters and couples and friends have their ‘issues’ and their ‘secrets’, from body-building powershakes to gay adoption and 'class values' (and not forgetting ‘the affair'). While there is something to dislike about most of the characters (except Lawrence, and Carmen gets a rough deal, in my opinion) there is also plenty to like, and the bossy, people-feeding matriarch, who is Franny, is actually a delight.

 

The Vacationers is a novel that is very much about, though not too deeply, the characters and their relationships (which is very much the sort of novel that I like to read). A funny and feelgood-but-not-too good-cos-that-would-be-uncool beach read.

 

Publication details: Picador, 5th June 2014, London, paperback

This copy: for review from the publisher

 

 

Geek Girl - Holly Smale

Geek Girl by Holly Smale

Guest Review by Alice (14)

A funny book with lots of interesting facts, I was crying because I was laughing so hard!

It is about a teenage girl called Harriet Manners, who is a geek. No-one seems to like her at school, then she gets the chance to remake herself and become a new person. Holly Smale is an author who can write a good book and draw readers into the plot quickly.

A book full of personality and inspiration, I would definitely recommend Geek Girl to anyone who enjoys random but fun bits of trivia and a good laugh. I rate this book ten out of ten because it is something unique and I love it! A book for anyone over the age of 12 who also likes a bit of romance thrown into the funny and fun facts brew!

Publication details: 2013, HarperCollins Children’s Books, London, paperback

This copy: review copy from the publisher

PS. Recommended age on the back cover is 11+.

MaddAddam - Margaret Atwood

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

Adult fiction rambles by M

(haha, there’s a short video of Atwood somewhere, cracking a smile about MaddAddam’s dark humour, “parental guidance and all that”!)

 

Thanks to Hatchards Bloomsbury Book Club, my copy of MaddAddam turned up early enough for me to be an advanced reader before any of the mainstream reviews surfaced. So I read it whole, then made some notes, then read some mixed reviews, and then met Margaret Atwood. A couple of other things happened too and now, these are my thoughts-at-this-juncture on MaddAddam. It's a bit uncharacteristically gushy. For a succint overview of the plot, look somewhere else.

Punning satire and parody, MaddAddam is earnestly comical cult fiction. Forget literary salons, guys, the next cosplay is MaddAddam CampGeek at my place via PulpFiction-cum-RockyHorrorPictureShow-cum-BoneyM (and if we can fix the world too, great). And then we can watch Aidan Quinn (sorry Offred) and maybe eat cake (morally disordered, of course). If ever there was an impetus for me doing fan-fiction, MaddAddam is it (wonder what the Toad’s copyright regime is...).

So yes, if you haven’t read any of it, the trilogy’s a Margaret Atwood blast: Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood and then MaddAddam. And then read The Blind Assassin: the parallels between her latest offering and her Booker winner are mad! There’s plenty of overlapping pulp fiction in that winner.

Trilogy- and plot-wise, all three overlap but fill gaps and provide alternative perspectives on the same events: the story behind the MaddAddam ARG and organisation, the apocalyptic time and the fallout. But in MaddAddam, Atwood brings storytelling to the forefront as the novel’s form is structured around Toby’s night-time storytelling. This could be be seen as the development of the chapters in a new Crakers’ gospel, much as the God’s Gardener’s from The Year of the Flood had their psalms/songs. Toby even creates the possibility for the addition of new testaments through Blackbeard. Indeed, each of the three novels are a new testament on the same central story.

Comic. Above anything else, for me, MaddAddam is funny; at times it is farcical. Known for her caustically detailed observations about our lived and culturally-enhanced humanities, Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam is nothing if not a moment of let’s-laugh-and-cry at ourselves. Much of the humour feels like it has developed straight from a creative stream-of-consciousness brainstorming session that delights in wordplay. God’s Gardeners, it’s cutting bloody dark fun.

Of wordplay there is plenty and the novel's central themes, for me, are about words and meaning particularly in the context of storytelling, both written and spoken, and with multiple narrators over periods of time. In some ways, this has threaded all through the whole trilogy and were present in The Blind Assassin.

For other readers, eco-political themes will ring loudest. And of course, as with many of her novels, Atwood also grapples with sexual and romantic relationships. Sexual relationships and particularly monogamous versus polygamous relationships, romance versus biological reproduction and consensual acts versus abuse abound in the MaddAddamite trilogy. MaddAddam shows – clearly – how blurred lines really are. An example of this is an “energetic” pun on foreplay which in some ways is a reprehensible bang.

At the same time, despite her matter of fact and non-sentimental style, MaddAdam, like The Handmaid’s Tale, is also a smouldering love story. For the critics who suggest that MaddAddam sacrifices characterisation, in my mind, they’ve missed the point/s. Nowhere are Zeb and Toby more real than in this novel. Shucks, I even shed a tear (note the singularity). And look at the Crakers whom we first meet and the Crakers that we leave.

Singing: this seems to work as some sort of motif or extended metaphor. Zeb sings little ditties when he’s frightened or stressed. Gospel singers sing. The Crakers sing. Adam, Toby, Crake and eventually, Blackbeard, don’t like singing. But Toby also learns that the Crakers’ singing is something that might save them. I even asked Margaret Atwood about it.

In the latter part of the novel, there are strains of Animal Farm.

At first, I couldn’t get into MaddAddam. I wasn’t fond of the ‘storytelling’ form that it was taking, framed by a very thin plot. However, as it develops into a story about Zeb, it becomes much more interesting although there is no real crescendo – though there are some very high and significant ends of chapters towards the end.

I read both of the previous novels a few years ago, and although there is a very extensive ‘the story so far’ at the beginning, and although Atwood provides lots of catch-up details throughout MaddAddam, I couldn’t help wishing that I’d read the three novels in order quite quickly one after the other.

 

At the end, the MaddAddamite left me sorry to say goodbye to some of my favourite Gardeners. It also left me craving to go and read, and re-read more of Atwood’s fiction. So, I did.

 

Publication details: Bloomsbury, 2013, London, hardback

This copy: mine and signed!

 

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ - M's Classics Review

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾  by Sue Townsend

 

Reviewed by M - especially for our Classics Club Challenge

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ has followed me around for years but I’d never read it. Having achieved what seems like cult status, I popped it onto our Classics Club reading list and I thought a humorous read for our 24 hour readathon would be good. So I bought a copy (the 30^th anniversary edition) and I’ve read it.

It’s written in diary form and we get to hear all the ins and outs of Adrian Mole as he enters his teenage years in 1980s Britain. Did I like it? Not especially and nowhere near as much as I'd wanted. Did it make me laugh out loud? Yes, but not as much as I wanted it too. I wanted it to make me laugh so that tears rolled down my cheeks. It didn’t do this. For other people it might (and has!). Bit of a let down for me.....but my initial expectations were very high.

Would I recommend it to anyone else I know? My expressive face is screwing up and twisting all over the place in answer to that. Probably not. Depends on who you are and what you want. If you want to read something that defies political correctness - probably (some of the honesty is one of its strengths). If you want something that’s funny – perhaps: there are lots of funny bits but it felt like the sort of humour you find in stand up comedies or sitcoms – a bit stilted and obviously placed. Lots of one liners (for me, one of its weaknesses). 

I’m sure a teacher tried to read this novel to us in primary school – but we didn’t live in Britain. I didn’t ‘get it’ back then and now I think I understand why. At heart, it’s a satire and like so many satires, it is very idiosyncratic. I often find satires too self-indulgent. If you’re researching British 1980s or lived through it, maybe you should read it. You might like it a lot more than I did.

Characterwise, I’m not sure I especially liked Adrian Mole. Apparently, he’s supposed to be an endearing character. For me, he wasn’t. There was too much about him that was unbelievable. For example, he’s a real hypochondriac; I’ve never met anyone who gets house calls from doctors so much - especially for spots! Also, the situation with Adrian visiting the old man Bert: I don’t think Adrian would have behaved that way – I think he’d have told the school and handed the responsibility of Bert back to them. I also think he was made out to be older than he actually was. His ‘voice’ sounded like an adult’s not a young teen's. This, along with the political satire and the one liners, suggested a lot of authorial presence.

Would I read the next book in the Adrian Mole series? No. It wasn't really my cup of tea - but then, I don't really like tea either!

Verdict: A classic? I’m on the fence. I don’t think it scores highly on many points of literary merit (what those are, of course, is always in debate) but I think it might be a classic example of humorous fiction that points political fingers at 1980s Britain. In this sense, it could go down as classic or cult. In the sense of it being passed on to generations of readers, it looks like some readers already do  this. After all, I found it on the shelves of two small local bookshops thirty-one years after its original publication! But, I don’t think I’m going to be one of those readers.

 

Publication details:

First published 1982
This copy: 2012, Penguin, London, paperback, my own copy that I bought (wish I'd borrowed it from the library!).

The Humans - M's review

The Humans by Matt Haig

 

Reviewed by M

There’s really nothing like being alien that gets you thinking about home and who you are.

Forty-three year old Mathematics professor, Andrew Martin, has made a world changing mathematical discovery. This results in his swift abduction by outergalactic alien hosts. Believing humans to be inherently and undeniably violent and greedy, an alien from Vonnadoria is sent to earth as Martin’s physical replacement, his main task being to wipe out any proof or knowledge of the discovery. Narrated by the alien, The Humans is his evidential report about what it is to be human.

The Humans is a compelling and relatively light read that makes you smile more than anything else. Without giving much away and while there is death and destruction, this is a feelgood novel (at least, it was for me but depending on where your headspace is currently situated, you might feel differently).

From the first page, this is a funny book that you know is going to include a fair amount of wryly observed human navel-gazing. My gut (rather than mathematical) instinct sees The Humans as a tenderised cross between The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a David Lodge novel and Baz Luhrmann’s song Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen. Little M thought the premise sounded like the film, Meet Dave. If you like any of those, you’ll probably enjoy The Humans.

The main niggle I have is that I didn’t really connect with any of the characters – I’m not sure if this is the point (emotion-free narrator) or if it’s linked to Haig’s style/the novel’s voice. The other thing that might have affected this is that I read this novel on an e-reader (I know, gasp! More about that below).

I’d highly recommend it. Suitable for any reader who can handle the f word and light sexual references.

These two videos both say a lot about The Humans:

 

The Humans Book trailer featuring Advice For a Human:

 

 Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen

 

 

About the e-reading:

I’ve never read anything on an e-reader. I’ve read plenty of non-fiction onscreen, but never fiction. So this was a first. Quite fitting that it was The Humans that smacked the champagne over this virgin voyage! My experience of reading The Humans was not too dissimilar from the Vonnadorian visitor’s experience on earth. I had to relearn how to turn a page. Plenty of mishaps. And I lost my page. Had to flick back to the beginning because my memory of the first event has been mysteriously wiped. Only, this wasn’t paper so it didn’t flick. But, I finished it and I even cried (slightly) once.

 

HUGE SPOILER & THOUGHTS

·        A flow of advice for being human is dispensed throughout. I think live in the present because it’s fleeting  and essential was a strong thread in the novel.
·        Rather than a number (prime or anything else) the alien narrator concludes that love is the basis of being human.

 

Publication details: 9 May 2013, Canongate, Edinburgh, hardback

This copy: digital proof received from the publisher for review