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Posts Tagged ‘marriage’

‘The Versions of Us’ by Laura Barnett

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , on January 30, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Very much a ‘What If?’ kind of story – actually it’s three stories.

In 1958, two Cambridge students, Eva and Jim, meet when Eva’s bicycle has a puncture. There are three different versions of this meeting, which then spin out into three different versions of the rest of their lives. The versions are told in alternating chapters, often covering the same events.

First the good – I liked Laura Barnett’s writing, and she definitely made her characters believable. I liked Eva considerably more than I liked Jim in all three versions of their story (actually, I felt she was probably too good for him and preferred each of the other men in her life – or lives – to Jim). I also liked the fact that all of the stories in their own rights felt realistic, with each having moments of happiness and hurt. The characters made good and bad decisions each time. Also the surrounding characters – their friends and of course family members – were the same throughout each version, but obviously reacting to different situations each time.

The bad – It was simply too confusing a format to properly enjoy. Not only does each chapter change to one of the other timelines, but also several years pass between chapters, so new characters are introduced without warning and I was always having remind myself who was married to who, and who the other members of their families were. I wondered at first if it was just me experiencing this problem, but having read other reviews, I saw that lots of readers felt the same way. I wish I had thought of just reading version one straight through, then going back to the beginning and doing the same with version two, then version three. Having things jumbled up meant that certain events had less impact, because no longer were they happening than you were in a different story.

I DO like ‘what if’ stories – Taylor Jenkins Reid did it very effectively in Maybe In Another Life, and I think the concept of The Versions of Us is terrific. And any of these three stories on their own would have been a good read. So despite my misgivings I would certainly try another book by this author, and would say taht even though this one didn’t quite work for me, there will no doubt be lots of people who will love it.

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‘How To Be A Good Wife’ by Emma Chapman (minor spoilers)

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , on August 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

This was an audiobook narrated by Fenella Woolgar. It’s less than seven hours long and I listened to it over the course of about a week while out on my daily run. I did try listening to this book a few years ago but had to give up because I just found it so bleak and frankly boring; but tastes change and I thought I would give it another go.

The narrator is a woman called Marta, who certainly comes under the category of unreliable narrator. Set in an unnamed (but feels Scandinavian) country, Marta is married to the much older Hector and they have a grown son called Kylan. She is on medication – or supposed to be, but as we learn early on, she is not taking it despite Hector physically giving her her pills each day.

When Marta starts to have hallucinations about a young girl which develop into memories? or imaginings? (we are never quite sure), she starts to doubt her marriage to Hector. She tells Kylan, but he, like the reader, is never sure what to believe. Is Marta finally remembering buried past events now that her medication is not blurring her recall, or has her stopping medication caused her to think things that aren’t true?

In any event, I’m sorry to say that I did not enjoy this book and almost gave up on it a second time. It was relentlessly bleak and unfortunately I found myself bored by it. The first two thirds of the book seemed to consist of Marta wondering around in her own little world, describing the most mundane things. This may well have been deliberate, to illustrate the mundane life which Marta led, but I just couldn’t get bothered about it. Hector and his mother are incredibly overbearing and have obviously dominated Marta throughout her marriage. (The title of the novel comes from a book that his mother gave to Marta when they got married and it’s full of sexist and complete out of date advice about how a woman should please her husband.)

In the last third of the book, things actually started happening and it did pick up a bit. However, for me it was too little, too late. Ultimately I found Marta to be a more frustrating character than a sympathetic one, and the only characters who really seemed halfway nice people were Kylan and his girlfriend Katya (my advice to Katya – remove yourself from this family immediately!)

Expertly narrated, which is one thing going for it. Fairly short, which I was relieved about. Many people have clearly read and enjoyed this according to the many online reviews I have read. I was not one of them though, and I don’t think I’ll be seeking out anything else by this author.

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‘The Perfect Couple’ by Jackie Kabler

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , on July 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

When Gemma O’Connor comes home after a work trip away, she is surprised to find her husband Danny isn’t there and when he hasn’t come back after a couple of days, she reports his disappearance to the police. She grows even more fearful when it turns out that two men who bear a striking resemblance to Danny and to each other, have been murdered and she is terrified that Danny may be a victim of the same killer.

As the police investigation moves forward, Gemma learns that Danny has been lying to her about all sorts of things and she starts to wonder how well she really knew her husband. And then she finds herself the chief suspect for the killings that have been taking place…

The premise of this book was great, although a book called The Perfect Couple could only be about a couple who are anything but! Unfortunately it became too silly for words, with a stupid protagonist doing stupid things, with a ridiculously incompetent police force investigating. The denouement when all was explained seemed to drag on and on and was almost like a farce. There was a also a lot of repetition in the early part of the story which bogged it down.

So overall, interesting idea but not a success for me.

This was an audiobook narrated by Elaine Claxton and Hattie Ladbury. One narrated Gemma’s story in the first person and the other described the police investigation from a third person point of view. Both narrators did a good job.

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‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’ by Lionel Shriver

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , on November 30, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Three days before his sixteenth birthday, Kevin Katchadourian goes into his high school, where he shoots and murders seven fellow pupils, a teacher and a cafeteria worker. In a series of letters to her former husband, Kevin’s mother Eva recalls his upbringing and their lives together.

I’ll be honest – for the first 100 pages of this book (my edition was exactly 400 pages) I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it. That said, it’s not necessarily a book that you can enjoy as such, given that it is about a school shooter. It is set in 2000, two years after the horrific incident, and while Kevin and his specific crime is fictional, it references several real life school shooters. It is a sobering subject, but despite this I have become absorbed in other books on the same subject (for example, the brilliant Nineteen Minutes, by Jodi Picoult).

Eva is frankly, not an easily likeable person – although I sense that she was written that way deliberately. Her ambivalence towards her son since before he was even born, was apparent, and she wrote about him as if he was evil from the moment he arrived in the world. The question at the heart of the book is whether someone can be born evil or if – in this case – Kevin turned out the way he did as a result of his mother’s attitude towards him.

From about 100 pages in however, the book captured and held my attention. I still did not really warm to Eva, although I did feel so desperately sorry for her. I wondered if she was a reliable narrator, and if all the horrible things that Kevin did prior to the school shooting were actually as she described them, but of course events bore out the fact that he was a cruel and reckless young man.

Eva is very verbose and rarely uses one word if she can manage to use twenty. She is also clearly very intellectual and has a superiority complex to others. But she is not without compassion, even if she is very selfish. I did not like her husband Franklin either, although admittedly we only ever get to know him through Eva’s own filter. But his blind defence of his son made me want to shake him for his naivety. (Again though, I wonder how the same events would have played out written from Franklin’s point of view.)

Anyway – it’s relentlessly bleak, but you kind of have to expect that going in. It’s a book I’ve been meaning to read for a number of years, and I’m glad I finally did. On the whole, I would recommend it although I don’t think I would rush to read any more books by this author.

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‘The Thunder Girls’ by Melanie Blake

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 17, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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In the late 80s, the Thunder Girls were the biggest girl band on the planet. Chrissie, Carly, Roxanne and Anita had the world at their feet, until it came to an abrupt end. Three of their careers were destroyed and the friendship was in tatters.

Thirty years later, they are invited to get back together for a reunion gig, but after all the backstabbing, betrayals and recriminations, can they even bear to be in the same room?

This book follows the girls throughout their separate lives, which include divorce, children, addiction, and bankruptcy. Not to mention that while they are planning the huge comeback which will see them back on the pedestals, someone else is plotting to bring them down…

I wanted a book that was undemanding and light hearted, and this book fitted the bill. It wasn’t always light hearted, but it also wasn’t ever to be taken too seriously. There’s a fairly healthy dollop of Jackie Collins-esque storylines here (although without the X-rating), mixed in with The Bold and the Beautiful type scenes and some of the events require a suspension of disbelief, while others were were predictable.

This is not the kind of book that wins literary prizes and nor is it meant to be. But if you want some pure escapism, this might do the trick.

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‘The Magnificent Mrs Mayhew’ by Milly Johnson

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , on February 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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I listened to this audiobook while out running (not in one go, that would have been a LONG run!) and I realised something about the difference in enjoyment for me between physical books and audiobooks. When I’m reading a physical book, I want to be absorbed and completely drawn into it – for me, chicklit does not really do this, because it’s so easy to predict what’s going to happen. But when I’m out running, I just want something to distract me, something to occupy my mind. It doesn’t need to be *too* absorbing – it’s doing the same job as listening to music or podcasts does for others. So I enjoyed this book a lot, while acknowledging that if I was reading a physical copy I would not have liked it half as much.

Sophie Mayhew is married to John, a conservative government minister who is widely expected to be the next prime minister. Known in the papers as ‘Sophie the trophy’, her role is to basically look good on her husband’s arms and support him in all he does. It’s a job she does very well – until a story breaks about an affair her husband has had, and she  *doesn’t* toe the line. Instead she tells the papers precisely what she thinks about her husband’s behaviour and decides she needs time to herself. She ends up in the small Yorkshire village of Little Lost, near where she went to school. There, she finds friendship, acceptance and peace. She befriends Tracey, the local publican, who helps her out with somewhere to stay – and Tracey’s brother Elliot, the handsome local vicar, who sets all the local womens’ hearts racing. As Sophie grows closer to Tracey, Elliot and his little boy Luke, she starts to wish she didn’t have to go back to her old life. But reality is calling – will she answer?

Okay. So it’s chicklit, and that means you can probably guess what happens at the end from the scenario above. But getting there is great fun and there are plenty of other parts to this story, which as Tracey’s love life and Elliot’s estranged wife. I liked hearing about Little Lost and enjoyed the way that life in a small village was portrayed, with everyone pulling together and looking out for each other.

John and his family, as well as Sophie’s own family, were with one exception, all horrible. Selfish, critical and arrogant – I can’t believe that she didn’t walk out years earlier!

If you like chicklit, I would recommend this book. For me, the audiobook was extremely well narrated by Coleen Prendergast, who had a voice that perfectly fitted the story (I’m not surprised to learn that she has narrated the audio versions of Johnson’s other books too).

Overall, it’s not really my genre, but it’s one of the best in it’s own genre, and gets a good rating from me.

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‘Dinner Party’ by Tracy Bloom

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , on December 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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This was an audiobook from Audible, which I listened to over a number of runs during one week. It is narrated by Juanita McMahon, who did a great job overall. There were seven main characters, and she did give voice to them all.

The story concerns three couples – Chris and Beth, Tony and Sarah, and Marie and Duncan. The women have been friends for years, and the men are therefore friends by default, and all six of them meet up once a month at each other’s houses, for a dinner party. Then one night, Chris invites his friend Simon along; Simon is gorgeous – and heartbroken because his wife has just left him for another man.

Having another person in the mix soon changes up the dynamic of the group, as the men feel their territory threatened (with the exception of Chris) and the women are intrigued by the new face.

Throughout the year and the various dinner parties, Simon’s role in their lives means new alliances and new animosities are forged and created and eventually everything culminates in one unforgettable dinner party at his house…

On paper, there is a lot going for this book, and I would say I enjoyed it – for the most part. For the first 45 minutes I had severe doubts though, and considered giving up on it. Repetition can be quite funny, but at times throughout the book, and especially in the first part, it seemed as though Bloom had had some kind of bet to see how many times she could shoehorn a particular word in. In the first part for example, we see just how obsessed with dips Chris is. He loves his dips, and we are hit over the head with this fact as the word dips is trotted out too many times to count. Later on the same thing happens when Beth laments that people find her cuddly. How many times do we need to hear the word cuddly to realise that it annoys her? (It annoyed me too!)

The characters are a mish-mash, and for the most part, not particularly likeable. Chris is so relentlessly cheerful, but yet completely oblivious to what is going on around him (and his failure to pick up on social cues is annoying) that he just comes across as shallow and stupid. I did love him for one scene though, which I won’t reveals here as it would be a potential spoiler.

Tony is pompous and chauvinistic and goodness knows why Sarah put up with him!

Marie is the worst of all. Vacuous, self-absorbed, vain and insensitive, I couldn’t stand her and was amazed that she had managed to find two friends and a nice man who wanted to marry her (I liked Duncan most of all).

What I would say is that the writing flowed well, and it was an undemanding listen/read. I’d give it a  middling score which is to say that I didn’t think it was brilliant, but it kept me entertained enough while I pounded the streets.

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‘Her Frozen Heart’ by Lulu Taylor

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , , on November 24, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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1947: Tommy Elliot, widowed when her husband was killed during WWII, runs the family seat Kings Harcourt. Life is tough for Tommy and her family and when a particularly harsh winter cuts them off from the rest of the world, things only get tougher. Her brother Roger has returned from the war with his friend Fred, who stirs long forgotten feelings in Tommy. And then there is Barbara, an old acquaintance of Tommy’s who causes trouble when she comes to stay.

Present day: Caitlyn and Patrick have a happy marriage albeit is on his terms. But they love each other, and Patrick is the one person in Caitlyn’s life who has always been immune to the charms of her best friend Sara. But when tragedy strikes, she starts to uncover hidden truths which lead her to question whether she ever really knew her husband at all. Seeking solace in an old manor house, Caitlyn tries to piece together the truth.

I am in two minds about this book. There were plenty of things I liked about it – I always enjoy a dual timeline, because I like seeing the two threads come together. The writing flowed and it was on the whole an undemanding read.

On reflection I think I preferred Tommy’s story, probably because I really liked Tommy and her sister Gerry. They were both intelligent and resourceful and battling against the conventions of the day.

Caitlyn’s story initially really intrigued me. However, I thought it was stretched out – Caitlyn could have got the answers she wanted a lot more easily and quickly, but she seemed to choose the most circuitous route. Also the denouement of her story when it came was ludicrous. Not only was the truth she was searching for completely unbelievable, but the method of her finding it was also ridiculous. I actually didn’t like Caitlyn much – she was pleasant, but such so subservient to everyone around her.

Overall this is the first book that I’ve read by this author, and I rattled through it, so I must have enjoyed it somewhat – I really struggle to pick up books that I am not liking. Would I read another one by this author? Yes, probably but it won’t be next on my list.

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45 Years (2015)

Posted in Film Reviews, TV/Film adaptation reviews, tagged , , , , on November 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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45 Years is a British film, about a couple named Geoff and Kate Mercer, who have been married for 45 years. The story takes place over the week leading up to their anniversary party.At the beginning of the week Geoff receives a letter telling him that the body of his former girlfriend Katya, from before he ever met Kate, has been found perfectly preserved in a mountain glacier.

The news has a profound effect on Geoff, making him angry and frustrated, and in turn upsetting his wife – although he is largely oblivious to the effect it has on Kate.

Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling are outstanding in this understated film about a seemingly happy marriage which is thrown into a quiet and civilised crisis. It actually focuses more on the effect that Geoff’s behaviour has on Kate, than the news of Katya’s discovery upon Geoff, and Rampling’s acting is such that it is hard not to empathise with her pain and jealousy.

This is certainly not an action packed film – in one sense, not a lot happens, but so MUCH happens on Kate’s face, in her thoughts – which we sense through her expressions. It’s weirdly compelling and hard to tear your eyes away from – at least that was how I found it. So it’s bleak and sad, but also the actions of both main characters are so utterly understandable.

If you don’t need lots of action and special effects in your films, but enjoy a thoughtful character study, give this little known gem a try, and revel in acting at it’s finest.

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‘Evidence of the Affair’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , on November 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »

I listened to this audiobook while out on a longish run. It’s a shortish audiobook at about an hour and a half, so perfect for my purposes.

Told entirely through letters, this is the story of a growing friendship between Carrie and David, who each discover that their spouses are having an affair with each other. What initially starts as Carrie’s attempt to find out her husband’s motivations for sleeping with someone else becomes a real friendship, as the two support each other, and help each other through the tough time.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this audiobook. The narrators were Julia Whelan, George Newburn, James Daniels and Dara Rosenberg, although we only hear from the cheating spouses Ken and Janet through Carrie and David reading the letters which they have sent to each other. All the narrators were excellent and I really liked both David and Carrie, even though it was only a short story. It was interesting seeing their different reactions to the affair and their contrasting hopes for the future.

I would definitely read/listen to more by this author and recommend this book highly.

 

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