Book Review

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I absolutely adored this novel and am amazed by the literary genius that must have gone into it.
It is definitely in the Top 2 Best Novels I Have Read, up there with Middlemarch!
My new favourite book; simply fantastic.

This book spans 1805-1820 during the Napoleonic wars between Russia and France. We follow such a variety of characters and how their lives are affected by this conflict, with additional messages of love, family, marriage, bravery, and how to be happy in a very imperfect world!

Even at a staggering 1215 pages, it was worth the time. Do not worry too much about the history/philosophy essays; you are well within your rights to skim and scan those sections. Focus on the wonderful characters, the lessons they learn, and above all, the phenomenal writing!

A very readable, fun, and mind-broadening book that you will completely fall in love with, despite the length.

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Mick Herron is a comparatively new spy thriller writer and if you have not read any of his books I suggest you start! If you decide to give him a go read “Slow Horses” first. It is in first book in this genre and although they all stand alone it will give you a feel for the characters who will appear in subsequent books. “Slow Horses” concerns the activities of a group of British agents who have messed up in some way and have been put out to grass. All the books, he has published four so far, are written with humour but also exciting investigations. Give him a try.

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Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is the only book I have read a greater number of times than Pride and Prejudice. I do know for a fact they will both become my two “read-again-and-again” gems.

Hats off to Jane Austen for writing such a masterpiece that absolutely never disappoints: this novel is 370 pages of pure genius and utter brilliance. Having now read it three times (and of course watched the 1995 series billions of times), I feel like I know this story and its wonderful themes inside out! Full of messages like not taking unnecessary dislikes to people, good nature despite conflict, understanding everybody has reasons for outward appearance, and generally BEING POSITIVE.

This one follows the five Bennet sisters: Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia. It also includes their very crazy, eccentric, society mother and their down-to-earth, sceptically witty and hilarious father. The story mainly focuses on Elizabeth Bennet but it does follow the love stories of nearly all the girls. Again, this is a book set in a similar time period and they live in a society in which women were socially obliged to marry well and therefore, Mrs. Bennet wants all her daughters to marry well so it will look good for the family.

At the beginning of the book, we meet a number of characters, one of which is the much-well-known Mr. Darcy! We meet Mr. Darcy and we find out that he is very proud and stern; he tends to look down his nose at people a lot and he’s very upper-class. Because of that, Elizabeth Bennet, who is very lively and generally finds amusement in people like that, develops a lot of prejudice against him. (Hence the title: Pride and Prejudice!)
Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy (this isn’t a spoiler as it’s on the blurb!) have a love story going on and the book follows them as Darcy overcomes his pride and Lizzie overcomes her prejudice and their story follows on from there!

Elizabeth Bennet was another fantastic Jane Austen character, very lively and out there, always took things well, and got the perfect balance between positivity and maturity. She is my absolute favourite Jane Austen heroine. Jane Bennet was another character who I really understood, and the journey the poor girl has to go on throughout the novel. Mrs. Bennet is MAD and the chemistry between her and the hilariously sceptical Mr. Bennet is just perfect.

Mr. Darcy, I think, is my favourite Jane Austen hero because he is just so socially anxious and DREADFUL with girls that you can’t help but love him as he is revealed to be as charming and as emotionally strong and good-natured as he is. Mr. Darcy is there with Elinor Dashwood (S+S) and Lizzy as some of my all-time favourite Austen characters.

I don’t need to say anything about the writing: flawless.
What I will say is that, for me, this is one of those books which you read and you know from the first chapter whether or not you’ll love it or hate it. Personally, I absolutely clicked with this from Page 1.

But what I admire about this more than anything are the messages behind it. All of them are interwoven ingeniously into the story; it is full of morals one could take away from it.

You do not have to be an iconic, extroverted, popular society figure in order to be a good person;
Even if two people have differences, if they both have good morals, the situation can be resolved;
If someone has a bad opinion of you or insults you, don’t dwell on it and be the drama queen – just don’t care about it and carry on with life;
People who appear unlikeable socially can have different and truer personalities elsewhere; the same applies to you yourself;
Listen to both sides of the story;
Just be positive!

I can’t say anything more: it’s Pride and Prejudice! Obviously it’s fantastic! The story’s beautiful; the characters are wonderful; it’s marvellously written and the whole thing is a total gem of complete perfection.

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This book has recently been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal: a literary award which celebrates recently published teenage fiction. As I am a secondary school student and Wymondham High has a very active library, I, with a team of other pupils and our librarian, review the shortlist each year and publish our reviews. (It certainly acts as an incentive for me to read books that aren’t just classics!)

Some of the time, I do not gel brilliantly with some of the books: Rook, however, was not too bad at all! I ended up quite enjoying it.

Essentially, this book follows two young brothers named Kenny and Nicky who live with their divorced dad and his girlfriend. Their father is a little dysfunctional and is trying to sort his life out; Nicky is secondary school age and Kenny is slightly younger. In the opening of the book, the two boys are on a dog walk and they find a rook (hence the title) which has just been attacked by a sparrowhawk and is lying on the ground bedraggled and dying. Kenny, with his young personality, is desperate to take this animal home and nurse it better, to which Nicky eventually does agree. The two boys subsequently take the animal home.

Other various subplots include Nicky having a crush on somebody at school for his first time, that girl’s elder brother who torments and bullies Nicky, whilst also dealing with family issues between the two brothers and their father. The book continues as follows really!

Contrary to inevitable belief upon looking at the cover and blurb, this book does leave you with a lot to say and a lot to think about after finishing it in terms of what themes it discusses. However, something I will say immediately before going into themes is that this did not feel like reading a novel: it felt like reading a short story.
That is not a bad thing! The book is 123 pages long and it has possibly the biggest font I have ever seen in a book that is not a children’s book or a picture book. It does certainly feel like the sort of book you could read in one sitting – I read it in an evening – and because of the big font and small page count, the story feels like it comes and goes very quickly. That I really liked about this!

I would not have wanted this book any longer than it was: I feel that extending its length would have been a push on the boundaries of reader-patience. But I think that because it was so short, I was able to enjoy it as much as I could possibly enjoy it. The themes were conveyed and stuck in my mind as well as they could possibly have done because there was no boredom or exasperation with the book going on too long. No exasperation meant the positive qualities of the book stuck in my mind and it meant that I have even been starting to enjoy a Carnegie shortlisted book. A quick in-and-out style suited this book perfectly as it got its point across very concisely and with no difficulty for the reader.

In terms of themes, this book really surprised me! The main two plotpoints really are finding the rook and seeing how its condition improves, and Nicky’s massive crush on his girl at school. But regardless of that, those plot areas were not really the point of the book, per se; the main focus, for me, was learning to deal and co-operate with family, atonement for past mistakes, doing the right thing even if it is the hardest thing, endurance during hard times, the benefits of that, not retaliating to vile people, the consequences of succumbing to retaliation, and learning to accept the world as it is without telling small lies to cover up the harshness of the world.

A brilliant way the latter is illustrated is through the rook storyline: Kenny, of course, is desperate for this messed up, vulnerable bird to live after suffering such a vicious attack. Whereas Nicky, with more maturity and also with age and being a teenager, he is thinking that Kenny needs to be spoon fed the cruel reality of life. He disapproves of his dad saying to Kenny “do not worry; your bird will be fine” because the lies are protecting him and not exposing him to the cold reality that Kenny needs, in Nicky’s opinion, to be exposed to.

Additionally, it turns out quite early on that Kenny has a best friend at school who claims that he is Doctor Who (the fun of children) and that he has all these powers. In reality, he has showed Kenny a few card tricks and basic magic up-the-sleeve illusions and that has convinced Kenny enough considering he is very young. As the book goes on and more trauma accumulates, Nicky becomes more exasperated at this and thinks to himself ‘Kenny needs to know’.
There are lots of other themes in this book as well: there was certainly an emphasis placed on making up for mistakes and doing the right thing even if it is very difficult. Through all that, there was an extra message of sticking through rough and hard times in order to eventually get the best eventual outcome and how if one does not do that, the outcomes can vary and change much for the worst.

I could sit here for a long while writing about how all of the themes mentioned in bold above are used and interwoven into the plot of this book. It certainly is not a book which will let you down in terms of themes. In that respect, it did very well indeed!

As a short story itself, it also was quite satisfactory. The storyline as a whole was very poignant and very meaningful. I liked very much how there was more than one storyline and the two storylines were fairly different so they seemed unconnected and added more variety to the story but then at the same time, they still shared very relevant themes.
Overall, I would recommend this to people who like books with themes and also to people who like short stories. I will say that if you do not like books that are very much focused around young teenagers and if you do not like books that can get quite angsty, I would NOT go for this book. I usually am that person and I did not suffer from that when reading this book but I certainly can see why some readers still would; I would therefore caution against that.

Overall, however, this was a very satisfying start to the Carnegie reviewing. Therefore I would recommend it based on what is said above.

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This was certainly an incredibly interesting novel! It is certainly thought-provoking and gets the reader thinking about morals, forgiveness and deceit. It is bizarre because in some ways, I thought this book was incredibly accomplished…in some places however, I thought it was completely and utterly bonkers!

The Trouble With Goats and Sheep is Joanna Cannon’s debut novel and despite the 3-star rating, I think it is very impressive for a debut! It is set in Britain during the summer of 1976 which, I believe, was the hottest summer ever recorded in the UK! Obviously, for some countries, it was not that hot but for the UK’s usual standards, it was boiling. It follows a very small avenue in which live two young girls, Grace and Tilly. One of their neighbours, Mrs. Creasy, has recently gone missing and in order to entertain themselves during this summer, they decide to investigate into Mrs. Creasy’s disappearance and try to figure out what happened. By doing so, they inadvertently unravel all the other hidden dark secrets that the people of the avenue have surreptitiously kept for many years.

What they do in order to find Mrs. Creasy is the following: they talk to the local vicar who says that God divides society into people who deserve eternal punishment (“goats”) and people who deserve eternal life (“sheep”), hence the title. The girls decide that if they can discover where God is in this avenue, they can find him and he will bring everybody together again and bring Mrs. Creasy home. Initially, this was one of the things I found most interesting about the book, even not being any sort of religious person myself, but towards the end, it was one of the things I questioned the most. (To be explained later!)

The novel then continues by giving the reader a slice of the culture in this avenue, exploring the lives of all the neighbours, as well as their consciences, secrets, and certain things they want to hide and keep safe from knowledge. Tension rises in the avenue (as does the heat) when Mrs. Creasy’s disappearance threatens to bring up a past which the residents of the avenue would much prefer not being brought up. So not only does this novel have a sense of being a literary fiction, considering how it is a commentary on the culture and society in this avenue, but it also has elements of a mystery in it as more secrets are being revealed and in how the reader is constantly kept guessing throughout the book. Themes are introduced too such as love, self-realisation, conscience, guilt…all of those themes really get the reader thinking!

There were some things I really enjoyed about this book! It is an incredibly easy read – nice big font makes it fairly easy to plough through the pages – and the writing style is very cosy and British. Throughout the beginning stages of reading it, the word I was using to constantly describe how I felt about the book was “calming”. It is certainly that! This is the sort of writing style that you can slip into and become very swept up in. The main character’s personality came across perfectly in her first person narration, for example! Additionally, some scenes I thought were just brilliantly written and the writing style gave the book the air of being a terrific literary fiction. Another thing I really enjoyed was the pacing: this book is extremely slow-paced. The plot is certainly a focus in this book, considering it is partly a mystery, but the slow pace of the novel allows the book to focus on the society too and focus on a lot of detail, as many great literary fiction novels do.

Considering that this is NOT a short book (my edition being 453 pages) and considering that it was very slow-paced, I never thought at any point that it was too long. Joanna Cannon managed to keep me fairly boredom-free throughout the fairly substantial length: a very good sign!

Bizarrely, although I usually like mystery novels, the mystery elements were by no means the parts of the book I was most interested in. Yes, alright, you somewhat want to know what happened to Mrs. Creasy but that is not the part I was most interested in: I was more interested in the characters’ journeys of self-realisation throughout and how a harsh look on their morals is forcibly brought to the surface after Mrs. Creasy’s disappearance. Another thing that really captured my interest was just the slow and steadily paced look on a British society. Just reading that was relaxing and delightful enough to the point where the plot was not overly relevant to me.

(Having said all that, the plot WILL become more relevant as the book goes on: you do not really have a choice but to really pay attention to the plot towards the latter third of the book!)

In conclusion of the positive parts, this was an easy and quick read, very cosy, very British, really slow-paced and society-focused, yet also has some intriguing elements of mystery and interesting moral themes raised by that mystery.

However, I do have a few complaints which definitely prevented me from giving this book higher than three stars.
My first complaint is that, whilst I think this is a strong debut that without doubt has merits (as explained above), it still had a small element of not overly motivating me to pick the book back up when I was not reading it. I never struggled to finish it at any point (that certainly was NOT the issue): it is just that there are some books which excite me so much that I cannot wait to get to them after finishing work and diving into them. The Trouble With Goats and Sheep did not give me that sadly: I was very much enjoying it and finding it extremely immersive when I was reading it but it never left me with a hunger to finish it off as some other books have done. I am not entirely sure why this is: maybe it is not the fault of the book! Nevertheless, it was an issue I had.

The second complaint I had was with this God business. I really enjoyed how Joanna Cannon incorporated it into the first half because the girls are walking around people’s houses in the avenue in an attempt to “find God”. They assume that God is hiding somewhere in the avenue! I very much enjoyed this part of the book because I assumed that Joanna Cannon was trying to convey the message of God being a very individual thing to believe in and how, if you do believe in him, he is an all-round entity and not to be found in a specific place. I am not a religious person myself at all but these themes were still very clearly specified in the book.

This was all blown apart in the latter quarter of the book when this God situation got so beyond ridiculous it had me absolutely cackling with laughter as I was reading: almost every single character in the book starts gathering around this drainpipe suddenly ‘seeing Jesus’ in a dried splodge of creosote on the pipe. (You read that correctly!)
I can understand if this was supposed to be a humorous part of the book or something which was supposed to DISPROVE the fact that God was on the drainpipe…but then every single character claimed that they could see Him and starts telling everyone to “come and see Christ!”. This created a juxtaposition between two very different religious messages conveyed, to the point where it became very confusing. I was thinking ‘is this a comic part of the book…oh, wait, no, she’s being serious about this’!

Then, later on, she contradicts herself again by conveying a ‘God-is-everywhere’ theme once again after all this kerfuffle! So, if that was the case, how did every single character allegedly see Jesus in this dried creosote if the eventual moral was that it wasn’t Jesus after all?

As I’ve said, I am NOT a religious person by any stretch of the imagination so maybe there is a religious allegory which I am not seeing. Yet whilst the book was still enjoyable after that point, that section of the book was just a bit too bonkers for me.

There are positives about this book! It is quick, easy, brilliantly written, very slow-paced, and very literary. The complaints I have with it were the small lack of motivation I had to pick it up and the latter quarter of the book during which everything went a bit mad!
I would still recommend this if you fancy a cosy holiday read, if you enjoy literary fiction, if you enjoy books with lots of atmosphere and with elements of mystery, and/or if you enjoy books with a very slow pace. If you are a fan of one or more of the above, this would be a good book for you!