The All Souls Trilogy
Oh, the All Souls Trilogy, how ridiculously stupid and outright naff you are, and yet how much I loved you and read you at breakneck speed.
The first of the books is A Discovery Of Witches, Diana Bishop is a witch from a strong bloodline. Yet she prefers to live in the real world, not use powers, and refuses to join a coven. A historian of science she is on sabbatical at Oxford University when she requests a manuscript 'Ashmole 782' from the Bodleian Library which has more to it than meets the eye and sets off a chain of events with dramatic consequences.
Matthew Clairmont is a vampire, and is a thousand years old, he's been watching Diana and after she finds the manuscript supernatural creatures descend upon Oxford, and he must protect her, because the manuscript is the book they've all been looking for.
With definite shades of Twilight and the Twilight inspired 50 Shades Of Grey, Matthew and Diana fall in love, and he whisks her off to his Tudor mansion and his French Chateau, remarkably they have very little sex, they don't even properly shag til halfway through Book 2 and instead seem to drink lots of wine, like a "grown ups version of Twilight" I would have said. He does however want to ravage her but is scared he will kill in her in the throes, and shows the same pathological abusive relationship warning signs exhibited by his literary forebears Edward Cullen and Christian Grey.
Book Two : Shadows Of Night, takes us to Elizabethan England with two goals in mind, find the book, and let Diana learn more about her powers. But frankly, it is more of a historical romp novel in which we can all marvel at the characters of the day like Raleigh and Marlowe; that in the end actually advances the story of mysterious manuscript Ashmole 782 precisely NO FURTHER. The paradox their adventures create and the resolution of this problem is also a complete nonsense, but enjoyable nonsense indeed.
The third book 'The Book Of Life' is a total mess, with new characters popping up all over the place, so that you barely know who anyone is anymore "It's Leonard!" says one character "Remember Leonard?!" (NOPE!) In fact I'm firmly convinced Leonard had never been in it before, and nor was he essential to the plot. What was the point of you Leonard?
And in the end the actually quite intriguing mystery of Ashmole 782 just gets lost in lots of silliness and romance so cheesy you could put it on toast.
And therein I guess is my problem, it is ludicrous and I know that I should have laughed it out of town, but I just devoured all three of them. Like a sugar high, or when you can't stop eating Pringles or something. Don't say you weren't warned....
10/10
Showing posts with label Sex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sex. Show all posts
Saturday, 25 October 2014
Sunday, 22 June 2014
Book #20 Tampa by Alissa Nutting
Tampa
I bought Tampa by accident on a buy one get one half price - I didn't read the back cover and had literally no idea what it was about. I started it on the train and was in minutes mortified both by what I was reading and that anyone I knew should see me reading it!
Tampa is without a doubt one of the most controversial and shocking novels I've ever come across - it is also by far and away the filthiest, and I have read The Fifty Shades Trilogy. If you are easily offended, I do not recommend this book.
For my part I found it genuinely disturbing but it is tremendously well written with that.
I have never read Nabokov's Lolita but I have some idea what happens in it, and Tampa is a similar novel with a woman at the centre. I have never read a book about a paedophile before and certainly have never read much of any kind about the female sex offender.
What struck me as I read this book is the number of times cases both in this country and in the USA have emerged of teachers having relationships with underage pupils. Are these men and women in love as they profess to be with their young charges or are they simply perverted predators?
Alissa Nutting quickly dispenses with the idea that her protagonist Celeste Price is anything more or less than a paedophile who is only interested specifically in fourteen year old boys, and is not interested in long term relationships with them or any relationship extending beyond them hitting puberty proper.
Written as a first person narrative Celeste Price is clearly delusional and a sociopath with literally no interest in anything beyond sexual gratification and not being caught.
This book was a very intense, often uncomfortable experience but as a piece of original and unique creative writing is also worth reading. In her review for the Times Helen Rumbelow says "by the time I got to the end I was traumatised and in awe" and I can only echo that I think. Dazed and Confused also called it "truly dangerous fiction".
Because it made me uncomfortable as it would I think any normal person I would hesitate to recommend it, however, though I was reminded at some points slightly of Notes On A Scandal, there is no book like this, you will never read a book like this unless you read this one. The other questionable thing about Tampa I suppose is that if this protagonist or this author were male - this book might well have been banned, which leads to an interesting debate.
For that a 9/10 verdict with a warning that it is utter unrelenting filth, and from the point of view of both parents and teachers pretty scary filth at that.
I bought Tampa by accident on a buy one get one half price - I didn't read the back cover and had literally no idea what it was about. I started it on the train and was in minutes mortified both by what I was reading and that anyone I knew should see me reading it!
Tampa is without a doubt one of the most controversial and shocking novels I've ever come across - it is also by far and away the filthiest, and I have read The Fifty Shades Trilogy. If you are easily offended, I do not recommend this book.
For my part I found it genuinely disturbing but it is tremendously well written with that.
I have never read Nabokov's Lolita but I have some idea what happens in it, and Tampa is a similar novel with a woman at the centre. I have never read a book about a paedophile before and certainly have never read much of any kind about the female sex offender.
What struck me as I read this book is the number of times cases both in this country and in the USA have emerged of teachers having relationships with underage pupils. Are these men and women in love as they profess to be with their young charges or are they simply perverted predators?
Alissa Nutting quickly dispenses with the idea that her protagonist Celeste Price is anything more or less than a paedophile who is only interested specifically in fourteen year old boys, and is not interested in long term relationships with them or any relationship extending beyond them hitting puberty proper.
Written as a first person narrative Celeste Price is clearly delusional and a sociopath with literally no interest in anything beyond sexual gratification and not being caught.
This book was a very intense, often uncomfortable experience but as a piece of original and unique creative writing is also worth reading. In her review for the Times Helen Rumbelow says "by the time I got to the end I was traumatised and in awe" and I can only echo that I think. Dazed and Confused also called it "truly dangerous fiction".
Because it made me uncomfortable as it would I think any normal person I would hesitate to recommend it, however, though I was reminded at some points slightly of Notes On A Scandal, there is no book like this, you will never read a book like this unless you read this one. The other questionable thing about Tampa I suppose is that if this protagonist or this author were male - this book might well have been banned, which leads to an interesting debate.
For that a 9/10 verdict with a warning that it is utter unrelenting filth, and from the point of view of both parents and teachers pretty scary filth at that.
Saturday, 17 November 2012
Book #94 The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
The Red Tent
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant is a novel which caught my eye in a bookshop many moons ago, listed in the back of my mind as a 'To Read' and never actually came to read it until roughly 12 years later, as a result of it slipping in and out of recall.
The novel is the story of Dinah, the only daughter born to the famous Jacob of many sons of the Bible (and the musical), his four wives, all apparently siblings and Dinah's entire life story from when her father met her mothers to her eventual death.
Though Dinah is a Biblical character, not much was known about her, apart from one main biblical story around which Diamant weaves the most dramatic section of narrative, so in general Diamant was free to build the picture of Dinah she chose.
It is beautifully done. In many ways The Red Tent is a very female very feminist novel, The Red Tent itself being the place the women retreated to from the general family camp whilst they bled at the new moon. There is a huge focus on sexual awakening, menstruation, womanhood and the entry into womanhood, and fertility in general. The story follows the Biblical emphasis on the woman providing her husbands legacy, providing him with sons, the joy of being able to do this and the heartbreak of being unable.
The book also looks at the secrets of women, their private conversations, feelings, superstitions and rituals, kept sacred from the men in the privacy of the Red Tent, and childbirth itself too, a private process of pain, fear and delight dealt with only by women.
In many ways the barriers between men and women's lives are now broken down, and so it is interesting to see this separation of the two, the clear lines between the female world and the male, down to the stories the two genders pass on, the heritage they feel is worth telling. It is another time and in many ways another world.
The prose is very beautiful and I connected with it straight away and had read the book in hours, it was poetic and had a hypnotic quality, you really felt like you could picture the characters and their surroundings, the atmosphere was great.
Dinah's story is in many ways sad, reflecting the difficult lot of women at the time, the loss of which many, though of course not all, modern women can be thankful for, but it is also somehow sad to see that this private culture and camaraderie between women, also broken with the passage of time.
I really enjoyed this book, and read it in one day within a seven hour period. When a book grabs you like this, and doesn't let go, you know it's quite special and this book is surely, particularly for women worth the read 9/10
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant is a novel which caught my eye in a bookshop many moons ago, listed in the back of my mind as a 'To Read' and never actually came to read it until roughly 12 years later, as a result of it slipping in and out of recall.
The novel is the story of Dinah, the only daughter born to the famous Jacob of many sons of the Bible (and the musical), his four wives, all apparently siblings and Dinah's entire life story from when her father met her mothers to her eventual death.
Though Dinah is a Biblical character, not much was known about her, apart from one main biblical story around which Diamant weaves the most dramatic section of narrative, so in general Diamant was free to build the picture of Dinah she chose.
It is beautifully done. In many ways The Red Tent is a very female very feminist novel, The Red Tent itself being the place the women retreated to from the general family camp whilst they bled at the new moon. There is a huge focus on sexual awakening, menstruation, womanhood and the entry into womanhood, and fertility in general. The story follows the Biblical emphasis on the woman providing her husbands legacy, providing him with sons, the joy of being able to do this and the heartbreak of being unable.
The book also looks at the secrets of women, their private conversations, feelings, superstitions and rituals, kept sacred from the men in the privacy of the Red Tent, and childbirth itself too, a private process of pain, fear and delight dealt with only by women.
In many ways the barriers between men and women's lives are now broken down, and so it is interesting to see this separation of the two, the clear lines between the female world and the male, down to the stories the two genders pass on, the heritage they feel is worth telling. It is another time and in many ways another world.
The prose is very beautiful and I connected with it straight away and had read the book in hours, it was poetic and had a hypnotic quality, you really felt like you could picture the characters and their surroundings, the atmosphere was great.
Dinah's story is in many ways sad, reflecting the difficult lot of women at the time, the loss of which many, though of course not all, modern women can be thankful for, but it is also somehow sad to see that this private culture and camaraderie between women, also broken with the passage of time.
I really enjoyed this book, and read it in one day within a seven hour period. When a book grabs you like this, and doesn't let go, you know it's quite special and this book is surely, particularly for women worth the read 9/10
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Book #57 Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Fingersmith
It was late when I finished Ann Patchett's State Of Wonder, but, I was suffering from insomnia and decided to start Fingersmith. I didn't sleep last night. At all. I've always thought that reviewers who claimed a book kept them up all night were at best sycophantic and at worst writing pieces of wild cliches and hyperbole. And then I read Fingersmith.
Right from the start you feel not as reader but as genuine observer. The dialogue makes the voices ring clear and true in your mind. I've always loved nineteenth century literature, and Fingersmith feels like reading a cross between a Dickens and an Austen. All the rogues normally found in the works of either writer are present and correct, drawing room society, damsels in distress, low level ne'er do wells and the charming Gentleman fallen upon hard times who may not be all he seems; but Waters is able by writing in the modern era to turn things up a notch by writing about topics with a frankness unthinkable from her literary forebears.
The plot is just magnificent, a confidence trick within a confidence trick within a...like a set of Russian Dolls. It begins with Sue: raised by scam artists who do what they must to get by, Sue is enlisted by "Gentleman" to assist him in the ensnaring of a young lady of good fortune by posing as a lady's maid. That alone sets us off on a fascinating adventure of both guile and cruelty, but the turns that await Sue and her mistress Maud are as unexpected for the reader as they are for the characters.
It would be spoiling it to give any further information on the plot than this, I don't even really want to comment on some of the revelations that await for fear of giving some of the enjoyment away.
The story told in part by Sue and in part by Maud is charmingly done in both parts, and in the end you feel for both girls equally.
The world of nineteenth century London is revealed to be a truly sinister and hellish place for women particularly and there is a real sense of the macabre, especially when the tricks begin to pay off for the truly villainous "Gentleman"and his associates.
I must confess that when Sarah Waters first began to gain notice, I somewhat wrote her off as somebody who was (apparently) attempting to pass off overt erotica as literature for headlines and notoriety. Sex for the sake of sex. The experience of reading Fingersmith ought to teach me once and for all to always ignore the views of The Daily Fail. The sexual elements of this novel are not only essential to both plot and characterisation, but are reflected in a tasteful and legitimately artistic way.
Sometime ago, a friend and I were in Waterstones one night when Sarah Waters made an appearance for an evening Q and A. Having not read any of her work, I was disinterested in her and it. Having just spent the last 24 hours engrossed in her novel and thrilled by every page, I must confess myself completely and utterly gutted at having missed an opportunity of meeting her, but to have met her without having read Fingersmith would be akin to meeting a hero who was yet to save you, you would have no idea just how great they would be one day, and so would not remark upon them at all. Hindsight is a great if bittersweet thing.
A new literary hero. Wonderful. Now, I need sleep. Read This Now: 10/10
It was late when I finished Ann Patchett's State Of Wonder, but, I was suffering from insomnia and decided to start Fingersmith. I didn't sleep last night. At all. I've always thought that reviewers who claimed a book kept them up all night were at best sycophantic and at worst writing pieces of wild cliches and hyperbole. And then I read Fingersmith.
Right from the start you feel not as reader but as genuine observer. The dialogue makes the voices ring clear and true in your mind. I've always loved nineteenth century literature, and Fingersmith feels like reading a cross between a Dickens and an Austen. All the rogues normally found in the works of either writer are present and correct, drawing room society, damsels in distress, low level ne'er do wells and the charming Gentleman fallen upon hard times who may not be all he seems; but Waters is able by writing in the modern era to turn things up a notch by writing about topics with a frankness unthinkable from her literary forebears.
The plot is just magnificent, a confidence trick within a confidence trick within a...like a set of Russian Dolls. It begins with Sue: raised by scam artists who do what they must to get by, Sue is enlisted by "Gentleman" to assist him in the ensnaring of a young lady of good fortune by posing as a lady's maid. That alone sets us off on a fascinating adventure of both guile and cruelty, but the turns that await Sue and her mistress Maud are as unexpected for the reader as they are for the characters.
It would be spoiling it to give any further information on the plot than this, I don't even really want to comment on some of the revelations that await for fear of giving some of the enjoyment away.
The story told in part by Sue and in part by Maud is charmingly done in both parts, and in the end you feel for both girls equally.
The world of nineteenth century London is revealed to be a truly sinister and hellish place for women particularly and there is a real sense of the macabre, especially when the tricks begin to pay off for the truly villainous "Gentleman"and his associates.
I must confess that when Sarah Waters first began to gain notice, I somewhat wrote her off as somebody who was (apparently) attempting to pass off overt erotica as literature for headlines and notoriety. Sex for the sake of sex. The experience of reading Fingersmith ought to teach me once and for all to always ignore the views of The Daily Fail. The sexual elements of this novel are not only essential to both plot and characterisation, but are reflected in a tasteful and legitimately artistic way.
Sometime ago, a friend and I were in Waterstones one night when Sarah Waters made an appearance for an evening Q and A. Having not read any of her work, I was disinterested in her and it. Having just spent the last 24 hours engrossed in her novel and thrilled by every page, I must confess myself completely and utterly gutted at having missed an opportunity of meeting her, but to have met her without having read Fingersmith would be akin to meeting a hero who was yet to save you, you would have no idea just how great they would be one day, and so would not remark upon them at all. Hindsight is a great if bittersweet thing.
A new literary hero. Wonderful. Now, I need sleep. Read This Now: 10/10
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