Review: The One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

I was really pleased to be chosen by Mumsnet Book Club to review The One Plus One  by Jojo Moyes. When it arrived in the post, and I realised how big it was, my heart sank a little. I'd just finished reading a massive brick of a book that had taken me a month to get through, and had been looking forward to something a little lighter.

Imagine my surprise then, when despite its size, I finished this book within a couple of days! 

The One Plus One is a story about a single mother called Jess. Her husband has had "a breakdown" and disappeared off to his mother's house at the other end of the country, and she works as a cleaner at the posh holiday homes on the other side of town. 

Then there's Ed. He's a geek whose software company has grown sufficiently that he and his friend can float it on the stock exchange and live the life of luxury. Then things go a bit wrong for him, and he ends up spending a lot more time at his holiday home at the coast. Guess who his cleaner is...

The book is written from four perspectives: Ed, Jess, and each of Jess's children, Nicky and Tanzie. To me, it's a story about people who don't fit in: Jess is a cleaner surrounded by rich people; Nicky is bullied by the kids at school for not fitting in; Tanzie is some sort of maths prodigy who loves to wear the clothes her mother has made for her. Ed was a massive geek at uni who nobody spoke to. 

This book probably falls into that ridiculous "chick lit" genre. It's not high-brow, and you're not likely to learn much or have any life-changing philosophical discussions off the back  of it. Then again, not all books need to be that way, do they? It's well written and the story weaves fantastically; you start off thinking, oh right, cleaner meets rich bloke whilst cleaning his loo as if it's entirely predictable - but actually, that's not how it goes at all. The story is something entirely unpredictable, from beginning to end. 

I loved this book; parts of it made me laugh out loud, and parts made me get a bit teary-eyed. It was so easy to read and a real page turner. Being an easy read, although the story was engrossing, it didn't require a lot of concentration. There were only four main characters so you didn't have to keep trying to remember who someone was referring to, or some long back story that explained the current situation. Because it was so unpredictable, I found that I kept saying to myself "just one more chapter" to find out what happened next - and have spent a lot of time reading! I can definitely see why this was a number one bestseller.

I've never read a book by Jojo Moyes before, though she is apparently very popular as an author - and I can see why. According to her Wikipedia entry, she's one of very few authors to have twice won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award. I have to say, this is not a book I would ordinarily have picked up off the shelf in my local book shop. That said, now I've read it I may well go and hunt down a few more of her books! 

Note: I was provided with a copy of this book free of charge in exchange for a review. All words and opinions are my own.

Book Review: The Skeleton Cupboard by Dr Tanya Byron

I was very fortunate to be sent a copy of The Skeleton Cupboard  to review for Mumsnet Book Club. 

This book is strange... It's not fiction, but it's not fact either. It's written in the first person, as the story of Byron's training as a clinical psychologist. Each chapter tells the story of one of her six placements during that training: a GP's office, a hospital referral unit, a children's unit, a drug dependency unit, a geriatric unit, an eating disorder unit. 

In each chapter we see Byron learning on the job and making mistakes as she goes. She has a difficult relationship with the supervisor who will ultimately make the decision as to whether she qualifies, and it's refreshing to see someone in Byron's position openly admitting to feeling lost, often on the back foot, unsure of herself. She trained in the early '90s, and it's reassuring to see that the calm, confident professor we see on TV shows today started out just as unsure of things as anyone else might in her situation.

Byron goes to great lengths to make sure the reader knows that she has broken no professional confidences in this book. Although she has experienced the situations she writes about, the characters are just that: characters. This is really hard to remember, as she has written them perfectly. In many cases it's heartbreaking to think that although the characters are made up, their situations and their pain are probably not; they're probably happening to people all over the place, right now.

Like all great books, this one doesn't just tell a story; it makes you think. What happens when a Holocaust survivor has dementia and is returned to that worst possible time in their lives? What would make a 12 year old girl want to hang herself?

Byron puts a lot of herself into this book; she's not afraid to admit her own lack of experience or knowledge, her own struggles as she trained. As well as meeting the (fictional) people Byron treats, we also see what she's really like: that she agonises over what to wear to a funeral; she goes out to get drunk and dance away her troubles; she ends conversations with her foot in her mouth, just like the rest of us. In the epilogue she talks about the "prevailing and dangerous belief that there are people who are "mad" and people who aren't." I love that she points out that all mental health practitioners are just people, the same as the rest of us; they're not impervious, they don't inhabit some space outside of the stresses and strains of daily life.

Despite being "made up," this is a very honest book. Byron does not always show herself in a glowing light, and I think that makes the book all the more readable. I literally could not put it down and find myself wishing that Byron would write some sort of a sequel.

Note: I was provided with this book in order to review it for Mumsnet, but that was not dependent on my writing a good review. All words and opinions are my own.

Review: The Hive by Gill Hornby

I was sent a copy of The Hive by Gill Hornby by Mumsnet for review. It's about the joys of playground politics at a fictional primary school in the Home Counties.

The novel is written from several different perspectives, all of whom are women whose children go to the school. The parents are members of various committees, all with silly acronyms like PASTA. The plot centres around the fact the school committees, the "community" and people helping each other out when they're in need, are actually very cliquey, with people all vying for a place in the pecking order, and ultimately the attentions of the woman in charge, Bea. 

This is an easy read; I read it while I was away this weekend, and it was the perfect read for that: not too taxing, easy to follow, no super-long words or in-depth concepts. 

I had a slight issue at the beginning, because there are so many characters introduced in the first couple of chapters; it was difficult to tell them apart. In fact, by the end of the book I still wasn't sure of the difference between a couple of them - but I think that was by design. The main ones though, do stand out - and I like the way none of them were miraculously "changed" through the course of the book: the one convinced her son is somehow gifted doesn't suddenly realise he's just a normal little boy but carries on taking him to specialist upon specialist in order to confirm her belief; another spends the whole book fighting to become Bea's right-hand woman, and seems satisfied when she achieves that. A couple of characters do change, but not in some unbelievable, miraculous way - more a sort of coming of age.

I love the way the chapters are set out as per times in the school day: drop-off, lunch time, pick-up. There are aspects of the story that are very cleverly engineered; the prime example of this is one character who keeps bees and spends most of her dialogue explaining how a hive works, and the role of the queen bee (hence the name of the book, the name of the "bad guy," Bea - see?).

For me, this book was a bit pointless. If I hadn't been spending a lot of time sitting on the patio reading (i.e. if I'd been at home, not on holiday), I doubt I would have bothered to finish it. The storyline is clever, but twistless and mostly predictable. I don't feel like my life was enriched in any way by reading it; I didn't learn anything, and the only thing it made me want to learn was why the hell herbal tea is referred to as "a lesbian" throughout the book (the answer, in case you were interested: it's "differently oriented".)

That's not to say the book is bad; it was good enough to hold my interest throughout Friday evening. There is always a place for literature that requires little thought, and I like that the main protagonist in this one is not an airy-fairy, soppy, whiney girl waiting for a knight in shining armour to come and rescue her. The book actually pokes fun at the middle-class mums who turn up for school drop-off perfectly coiffured and bitch about each other in that perfectly-engineered non-bitch. 

To me, this book would be perfect for someone going on holiday this Summer, and taking the kids with you. It's the sort of book you can read in small sections without forgetting what's going on or losing your place. Also the sort of book you can look up from to shout "hey Johnny, stop trying to drown your sister" every few minutes without feeling like you've no clue what's going on. A great Summer read that's neither taxing nor boring, rather falling comfortably between the two.

Disclaimer: I was given this book in exchange for writing a review, but that was not dependent on my writing a favourable review. All words and opinions are my own.

Review: And The Mountains Echoed

I rarely read fiction; I've always held it to an impossibly high standard, and if I'm not gripped within the first few pages, I often return the book to a shelf, and never bother with it again. In my teens, I read The Bell Jar and Salinger, and they sort of ruined me for most other authors.

When the opportunity to review And the Mountains Echoed came up, I'm not sure what made me raise my hand and say I'd do it. It's not like I've not read any fiction recently, but the fiction I have read has been what I would describe as "easy" fiction.  The sort you can still follow when your brain is addled and you've only got 5 minutes to read at a time.

This book, though... this book had me gripped within the first paragraph; it was easy to read because it was so magnificently written. This book is singularly the most heartbreaking story I have ever read. A word of warning: if you are prone to crying at sad stories, do not read this book in public. I was crying before the end of the first chapter, and by the end of the book there were proper waves of grief and sobbing.

If I were from Afghanistan, I would write a story about how the country has been torn apart - not just by the Taliban and Al Quaida, but by the Russians, the US-backed Muhajideen, and the countless others. I would write about how Afghanistan wasn't always what we see in the news footage. But Hosseini is far more clever than I am. He has written a story which shows how the country was torn apart, but as the background to a far more personal, and relatable tragedy. Rather than point out "look, look what these people did to my beloved country" he points out, "look at humans; look at what we do to each other; look at how the world is; look at what has happened."

The book is written from several different points of view. There are nine chapters, each written from the perspective of a different person. As each chapter begins, you wonder, "wait, who is this? Why have you stopped that other story? I really wanted to know what happened!" The chapters each stand alone as their own story of a person's experience - but they all intertwine, often in ways you don't really expect. The craftsmanship involved in putting this novel together is exquisite. 

The story sweeps through several decades, its earliest point being in 1949. Each chapter tells a story; each story intertwines. I don't want to tell you much more than that, because I really don't want to ruin for you what is really a fantastic read.

Hosseini portrays Afghanistan as a normal, human country that existed before 2001, with normal people living normal lives. It makes it into a real place with real people, better than any news show, documentary or newspaper report could or has. We in the West are often ignorant of what goes on outside of our immediate geography, until something happens farther afield. Suddenly, in 2001 we were all aware of the Taliban, and that is what we knew Afghanistan for. We didn't hear much about the 1979 war because it didn't involve oil, and although the US were supporting the Muhajideen, troops were not sent there en masse. Theoretically, what was happening at that time had little bearing on our lives, so it wasn't widely reported. Afghanistan has essentially been at war since then. This book doesn't deal with the fighting or the politics, but rather the lives of the people affected by it.

If I had to give this book marks out of five, it would get a six. I absolutely loved it. For someone whose living room is filled with half-finished books, to finish this book within three days is something that shocked me. And now I have that feeling you get when you finish an astoundingly epic book, and you know what whatever you pick up next is unlikely to fill that gap.

I've not read Hosseini's other books, but I'm currently wondering if they're in stock at my local library.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free copy of this book in exchange for a review, but that was not dependent on my writing a favourable review. All words and opinions are my own.