Reviews: June 2008 Archives
Sunday Times Summer Roundup by Nicolette Jones
The Luxe by Anna Godbersen (Puffin £6.99) is sumptuous and glossy like the ball gown on its cover. It is Edith Wharton meets Desperate Housewives, a tale of convoluted relationships in New York society at the turn of the century. About rivalry in love and a mysterious death, it has just enough neatness of phrase to make it the better kind of schlock...
I haven't read this myself yet, but have dipped into it, and would agree with NJ in her reference to 'neatness of phrase'.
The Incomparable Sonya Hartnett reviewed by Linda Newbery
Hartnett, who earlier this year won Sweden's Astrid Lindgren memorial award, has the keen eye and freshness of vision to make the most ordinary event spring off the page. The flames of a gas fire "jump up like can-can dancers". Peake, the dog, has "treacle-coloured eyes, and a spiky moustache of wet whiskers after rummaging in the grass". The rhythms of her prose ask to be read aloud, always a test of good writing. "How does one craft sturdy happiness out of something as important, as complicated, as unrepeatable and as easily damaged as a life?" Maddy wonders as a child. "Is love the answer, or freedom from love?" Can a busy life compensate for searing loss? It's a story that seems bigger than its generously spaced 192 pages, and the stylised illustrations by Jon McNaught - waders silhouetted on a shore, dolphins thronging in a yacht's wake, a cloud of butterflies - add to the sense of travelling through a world both familiar and strange.
Times Review form last Saturday (not always easy any more to locate review weblinks, as The Times search box is very unreliable)
Fairytales need to be handled with care to avoid descent into the twee - the worst being the ghastly Rainbow Fairy series, which no self-respecting child should touch with a bargepole. Spellbound is the opposite of this. Funny, clever, wise and charming, it's the kind of story that both girls and boys of 7+ will enjoy, and a pleasure to read aloud to younger ones of 5+. Being away with the fairies is not just a delight this summer, but something that will transform children for the better.
Monsterology reviewed by Philip Ardagh
The conceit of the book is that it's a facsimile of one published in 1904 but - to my untrained eye at least - the illustrations of the fantastical beasts themselves do nothing to evoke the period. Whereas Pirateology looks wonderfully piratey whatever page you open it at, and Egyptology looks all things Egyptian and archaeological, Monsterology is neither one thing nor the other; and certainly not Edwardian. It's a fun book on a fun subject, but in a series where production values are extremely high, it's certainly not one of the finest...
Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week
Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Cottrell Boyce has a gift for suspending disbelief, for laugh-out-loud comedy, especially about the relationship between parents and children and how "grownupness is wasted on grown-ups", and for constructing a story concisely and compellingly. "Cosmic" is Liam's favourite term of approval. It applies to this book... NICOLETTE JONES
The Knife That Killed Me by Anthony McGowan reviewed by Philip Ardagh
...there are no boring bits. Tension is piled upon tension and, ironically, it's the don't-forget-the-knife-that-kills-me that gets in the way. The main meat of the story is so well told that we don't need the death-foretold hanging over us. And, when it comes, there is the twist. McGowan is a wonderful writer, and this is a gripping and tragically topical story of one boy's spiral into knife-crime but, although it was the title that first drew me in, I rather wish he hadn't ended up being constrained by it.
Frank Cottrell Bouce Interviewed by Amanda Craig:
There is no doubt that Cosmic is the best novel he's written yet, not only in combining a pitch-perfect narrative voice and a gut-twisting plot, but in its emotional subtext. It will make a great film..."The best novel about fathers ever is To Kill a Mockingbird," Cottrell Boyce says. "You think your father is some bumbling old man, and you discover he's Atticus, he's the hero-dad. Liam knows his dad will bail him out. You never feel like you're doing a great job, you think you've got to be flawless, but the most you can do is to be generous and loving and just there."
Sunday Times Children's Book Of The Week
Rees's novels have a Keira Knightley approach to history: glamorous, courageous, post-feminist young heroines in fancy dress engage in derring-do and challenge men's preconceptions, while simultaneously breaking hearts. That's the quibble about Sovay. Authentic it ain't, but it is a compulsive, rollicking read full of colour and facts (some racy) about a feisty highwaywoman in 18th-century England, and about France in the worst days of the Terror. NICOLETTE JONES
the perfect book for 13-year-old boys. They will appreciate the authenticity of Spud's perspective, while the diary-entry chapters are short enough to be read during the animated intervals of Grand Theft Auto IV. For all its many merits, Adrian Mole is hindsight fiction. A reader can't help but feel they're looking back on a teenage boy's woes and laughing at Adrian. The very special thing John van de Ruit has done is look forward from a teenager's perspective and laugh right along with him. KEITH GRAY
Graphic Novel Version of Macbeth reviewed by Amanda Craig, The Times:
Each frame is action-packed, with dizzying perspectives, dramatic shadows hatching characters' faces and a restrained palette of red, purple and yellow emphasising the menace and gloom of moral corruption. Figures clutch their throats, Macbeth soliloquises in thought bubble, and the cadaverous, red-eyed witches are simply terrifying...
