Some Books I've Read Whilst On Sick Leave

I know what you're thinking - it's "what a great catchy blog post title!" isn't it?

 

I really couldn't think of anything even half decent so that'll have to do - it's a Ronseal title methinks, does what it says on the tin.

 

 

 

I've been signed off work for 8 weeks; I've done 3 of them already and {shock horror} have only managed to actually read 4 books. There's just far too many things on the internet to watch, blog posts to read and far too much knitting to learn about. I do still have a large pile of stuff to read (thankfully there's only one left from this pile though) though so I'm going to try and plough through them (mainly so I can go and get some more).

 

 

The four I've read so far are...

 

 

The Quest for Anna Klein by Thomas H. Cook

 

 

I like books set in the Second World War and this one, all about a female spy and an plot to assassinate Hitler sounded quite good. It starts out with a journalist sent to interview a man all about his time during the war and the story that unravels is all about this mysterious woman, Anna Klein. The plot skips between the present day and 1939 (sometimes even on the same page) which I found quite annoying to be honest (I don't mind plots that travel back and forth, just not quite so often) and there was a lot of reminiscing; at times I felt myself thinking 'just get on with the story!'. Towards the end it also gets quite complicated and without writing it down as you go along, I found you had a job to work out who was actually a spy for who. Maybe that was the aim of the book, to completely confuse you but by the end, I kind of felt as if a lot of the plot had been lost or made a bit pointless by the ending.

 

 

 

Dear Thing by Julie Cohen

 

 

I was intrigued by the storyline of this one; a childless couple end up using their close friend as a surrogate for their child, only for the surrogate to want to keep the baby. I really liked the book for about 80% of the novel but then by the last few chapters it seemed to generate into a game of 'you take the baby, no you take it'. I did think the characters were really well written though and there were several other storylines throughout the book that develop nicely so apart from the slightly absurd pass-the-parcel style ending, it was pretty good.

 

 

 

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

 

 

I've seen quite a few people review this and say how utterly amazing it is; in summary I thought it was good but not particularly spectacular. It's the story of a rich and privileged family, holidays on their private island and how the children rebel against the adults. Told from the point of view of one of the children, Cadence, looking back, the plot jumps from one year to the next with the narrator (who has some kind of head injury) often forgetting details and conjuring up fairy tale style daydreams. There is a twist near the end and it's quite a dramatic one but again, I just didn't think the twist was well, twisty enough. Maybe I'd been expecting too much from all the hype. That said, it was an easy enough read and quite an intriguing tale, I just got to the end of the book thinking, 'oh, is that it?'

 

 

 

Free by Katharine Hibbert

 

 

I quite like reading books about travelling and freeing yourself of your possessions (and living cheaply) so this was quite up my street. It's non fiction and the author sets out to spend a year as a squatter with no money, aiming to learn more about the life and find out just how much waste really does go into landfill (answer - a hell of a lot). We've all read about how much perfectly good food cafes and supermarkets throw out and the whole skip-diving/freeganism movement; Katharine Hibbert does exactly that and manages to eat far more luxurious meals than I eat myself! It's a well-written book and shows a different side of squatting to what most of the papers would have people believe.

 

 

 

 

My next book is The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North; I'm about a quarter of the way through it at the moment so when I've read that and a few others I'll do another mini review.

 

Have you read any of these? Or anything else good recently?

 

 

(apologies for the picture quality as well; they were taken on my phone whilst balancing against a table and trying not to drop my crutches)