All That I Am - Anna Funder

All That I Am by Anna Funder


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Oh how I love books that blend truth with mystery, history with imagination, facts with the inventive. They provide a portal to bring past into present and give a voice to a previously unknown hero. Funder's masterpiece has done exactly that. Based on her real-life friend Ruth Wesemann, Funder creates the events in Nazi Germany in the heady days before WWII.

Ruth Wesemann is an old, crusty German woman living in Sydney. One morning she receives a package containing a tattored notebook from Ernst Toller and memories of a long forgotten past come flooding back to her.

With the rise of Nazi's in Germany, many socialist and left-wing activists are targets of violent attacks. Many flee to England where they try to bring the attention of authorities to the threat of Hitler. Ernest's notebook tells their story with particular attention to Ruth's cousin, the petite but fiercely outspoken Dora. There is little known about the German emegre in England and the dangers they faced speaking against the rise of Hitlerism. Pushed to their limits, some fold, others breakdown, none remain unaffected.

All That I am is a richly told tale, with well thought out characters. Immensely satisfying, it holds a moral compass to the reader, challenging with the question: what will you do in the face of injustice or tyranny? Will you turn, will you remain silent or will you speak out?




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The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Think of Jacobson as a cross between Woody Allen & Jonathon Franzen. Dry & Satirical. I had heard so much about this book, I ignored my usual reservations at reading Man Booker Prize Winners and bought a copy.

Julian Treslove is a former BBC producer turned celebrity look-alike. A fool-hearthy romantic, Julian spends large proportion of his day fantasising of having an ophelian lover who will die tragically in his arms. A strange and morbid thought considering Treslove has never married, despite string of affairs.

Sam Finkler is successful Jewish Philosopher, personality and television presenter. He and Treslove are childhood friends and keep in regular contact along with their teacher Libor Sevcik. Since Finkler is Treslove's first Jewish contact, Treslove privately refers to all Jews as Finklers.

The Finkler Question is a story of friendship and loss, exclusion and belonging, and what it means to be Jewish. It is not always an easy book to sink into. Just like Franzen (and Woody Allen), there's a lot of waffling and meandering narrative. But for the patient and resilient reader, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The character despite their hapless and neuratic nuances, possess an appealing charm. It is also refreshing to read a Jewish point of view which is not pro-Israel.

Although a worthy book, The Finkler Question is not for everyone. Approach with caution.




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The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


When Hunger Games first came out, my husband gave a copy to our then 15-year-old son, adding'Apparently its good.' Our son, a reluctant and fussy reader finished it in one weekend! Since then, he's been an avid reader.

From then on, whenever I have a parent looking for a teenage book (especially boys), I press a copy of The Hunger Games into their hands and I'm yet to have someone come back unhappy. I too had marked it to read, but till recently, another book always managed to grab my attention away. I finally got around to reading it prior to the movie opening. And just like my son, I was instantly hooked till the nail biting finale.

North America is the nation of Panem, a country with 12 fenced-in districts that all work to feed the enormously wealthy and technologically advanced capital. Its a dystopian world. A dictatorship. Every year to remind the residents of its power, the capital hosts the Hunger Games, a bloodthirsty reality TV show. Twenty four contestants -One boy and one girl from each district - are chosen to battle against one another. The last contestant will return to their district

Our heroine, Katniss lives in district 12 - the mining district. Her circumstances have forced her to be resourceful and tough. She's a pragmatist. A survivor. A skill that comes in handy when facing her opponents.

Collins has written an action-packed narrative, guaranteed to thrill. Aside from the obvious page-turning plotline, Collins challenges the the reader with deeper issues of society's growing indifference towards suffering, and the foundations by which our core values are based.




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Good Oil- Laura Buzo

Good Oil by Laura Buzo


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The joy of being 15, when the world is new and exciting. The experiences of love's hanging shadow and the yearning uncertainties of the first kiss. Good Oil brings it all back with crushing accuracy.

Buzo's novel is a lovely coming of age book. Reminiscent of Looking for Alibrandi and Does My Head Look Too Big in This, its charming, exhuberant and innocent. Its about how we find love, the crushing hold of its first flush and the awkward teenage years.

'Miss Amelia Hayes, welcome to The Land of Dreams. I am the staff trainer. I will call you grasshopper and you will call me sensei and I will give you the good oil. Right? And just so you know, I'm open to all kinds of bribery.'

That's 15-year-old Amelia's introduction as she begins work on the checkout at Woolworths. Her boss Chris is funny, charming, and she is totally besotted. But Chris is 21 and at Uni which puts him beyond her reach.

Amelia is a great character. Her fixation with Chris is spot on. I don't think there is any girl amongst us who has not experiences similar feelings.

A wonderful read, Good Oil is highly recommended.





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In The Sea There Are Crocodiles - Fabio Geda

In the Sea There Are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A true account of an Afghani boy who is forced to make his own way in the world. Abandoned at the border of Afghanistan by his mother, Eniat spends four years as a displaced refugee. The odds stacked against him, Eniat's chances of survival on his own are slim. Forced into jobs with little pay, he faces daily dangers from traffickers and deportation in the hands of often brutal and corrupt authorities.

Unwanted and tired of being exploited, Eniat moves from Pakistan to Iran, to Turkey, to Greece, finally ending his journey in Italy. Guided by kind-hearted people, he settles in Rome, where he meets the author Fabio Geda, who will write his story.

In The Sea There Are Crocodiles is a thoughtful meditation on lives of millions of forgotten people. Though the narrative reads like a fable, the events are factual. Eniat's harrowing accounts of his four years is heart wrenchng. His courage and determination - despite his youth - inspiring. Littered between the story are dialogues between the author and Eniat, which gives the book an added dimention and intimacy.

Both Enait and Geda thankfully avoid the accusing tones used in most misery memoirs. There is no resentment lacing the narrative. There is no judgement. Eniat is simply telling his story, leaving it to the reader to make up their own mind.

In The Sea There Are Crocodiles is a deeply moving and highly enjoyable read.






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Room - Emma Donoghue

Room by Emma Donoghue


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


What would it be like to have lived your entire life within the walls of a room? What will your perception of the world be? Could you imagine never to have the sun kissed your skin? Or ever seen the world illuminated by the silvery light of the moon? And after having your world reduced, how will you cope if the doors opened, and the images you thought trapped in a tv box, suddenly came alive?

Five year old Jack has only ever known a life confined to a 11 foot square room, which he shares with his mother. We hear Jack's point of view, as he happily lives an existence with his mother. He has no perception to what lays outside the Wall. To him, the reality is the daily routines of playing, singing and living with his Ma. Aside from his mother, his companions are the Rug, Bed, Chair and Wall. The people on the television are not tangible. They are not real.

Donoghue's vision to use Jack's voice to narrate the story is a triumph. Jack does not have a grasp of their situation and questions his mother's motives who wants to escape it. The mother is a heroic figure held against her will, and yet within her prison walls, she has created a haven of togetherness. A happy and secure place for her son. I found myself championing their cause. A nail-biting turn in the book set my heart racing, worried as to their outcome. Once 'outside' Jack finds the world a large and confusing place, and yearns to return to the Room and the life he knows.

longlisted for the Booker prize, Room is inspired by high profile cases such as Josef Fritzl's incarceration of his daughter Elisabeth, and Natascha Kampusch's eight year imprisonment by her abductor. There is a dislocating appeal to the narrative. At no time it resorts to insipid sentimentality or passes judgement. The characters are wounded and fragile. And their tale is both chilling and inspiring. The Room is definately worth a read.




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The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A richly tailored tale filled with mystery, feral midland traditions and gothic prevarsities. Its a tale of love and vengence, murder and intrigue, cruelty and conventions.

Vida Winter is the most popular author of her day. She is also a recluse, hiding herself at her Yorkshire estate. When interviewed by journalists on her life, she invariably recites outlandish life histories, altering them at whim. Now old and ailing, she finally wants to share the truth of her extrodinary life.

Margaret Lea has a fascination for the biographies of the long-dead. A curiosity that has led her to write them herself. Working in her father's antiquarian bookshop, she receives a letter from Vida with the invitation to write her biography. There, she learns of the Agelfield family and their dark secrets. The cruel-hearted Charlie and his insestuous obsession with his vivatious sister, Isabelle. It is also the story of her unruly and feral twin daughters.

At times squirmish and uncomfortable, The Thirteenth Tale is a dazzling literary masterpiece. The twist at the end is particularly gratifying.




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Rocks in The Belly - Jon Bauer

Rocks In The Belly by Jon Bauer


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A disturbing yet touching account of disintegration of a family. The narrative unfolds through two timelines, touching on human insecurities,guilt,jealousy, vengence and love.

Rocks in the Belly follows an extrovert eight year old boy resentful at having to share his parents' (especially his mother's)love and attention with foster boys living with them. This jealousy reaches unmanageable proportions at the arrival of Robert, leading to an act that leaves a lasting and damaging mark on all of them.

At twenty-eight, the son returns after living in Canada, volatile and affected by the past, to care for his terminally ill mother. Only this time, he has the upper hand. And his anger can't help but to abuse this new power shift.

There is a tender nuance to the Bauer's narrative. An ebb and flow to its rhythm that is very satisfying. Bauer lays his narrative gently on the reader's lap, trusting them with its keeping.
The characters are not always likeable. Yet it's not human to not pity them. They are real. Human.

Rocks In The Belly, though not always a comfortable read, is highly gratifying.




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Still Alice - Lisa Genova

Still Alice

Lisa Genova

Simon & Schuster

At fifty, Alice is a respected cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and a renowned expert in linguistics. Together with her husband, also a Harvard professor, they lead an idealistic life. They have three well-balanced children who look to be following their parents in becoming successful in their chosen fields.

This idealistic world starts to crumple when Alice begins to forget things. At first they are minor - a word just at the tip of her tongue. Nothing to worry about. But soon other more worrying signs start to emerge. She forgets the topic she is to lecture, misses an interstate conference she is to attend, and gets disorientated jogging a route she regularly takes in her neighbourhood. Although she knows there is something wrong, Alice's life and sense of herself is thrown into a spin when she learns she's suffering from Alzheimer's.

Through Alice's eyes, we see how the event takes a toll on each member of the family. Her husband, John struggles the most to accept her diagnosis. At times selfish and insensitive, he almost seems to be in denial of his wife's needs as he continues to make career plans that are clearly detrimental to Alice's condition.

Using a professor with a brilliant career as her protagonist, Genova has added extra poignancy to the narrative. The passages in the doctor's surgery are repeated to ad nauseam. Genova overestimates the reader's interest in wanting to learn to such detail about the treatments and the various trials or medication. What is interesting however, is the changes taking over Alice. The questions she sets herself daily and the deterioration in her answers as the disease takes hold, is a brilliant demonstration of the disease's devastating effects.


It takes a lot of effort for anyone over the age of -say 30- to not become paranoid after reading this book. At one point I was convinced I may have early onset of the disease. The paranoia did not settle the further I travelled into the book.

In the end, even as Alice forgets names and relationship of those around her, at her core, she remains the same. She is Still Alice.

And that my friend, is a good lesson for us all. 3 stars

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

Fingersmith

Sarah Waters

Virago

'My name, in those days, was Susan Trinder. People called me Sue. I know the year I was born in, but for many years I did not know the date, and took my birthday at Christmas. I believe I am an orphan. My mother I know is dead. But I never saw her, she was nothing to me. I was Mrs Sucksby's child, if I was anyone's'

Susan Trinder, 17, grew up in the slumps of London. An orphan, she is raised by petty thieves and pickpockets. Her life takes a sudden turn when Richard Rivers, a trickster, comes up with a plan to make them all rich.

Maud Lilley also 17, is an heiress kept in seclusion by her uncle in a large house outside of London. Set to inherit a large fortune upon marriage, she is easy prey for the likes of Rivers - who plans to marry, then commit her to a mental asylum. Sarah is to abet Rivers in his plan by installing herself as Maud's maid and chaperon to help win her over.

Simple.

And so begins a tale of betrayal and treachery. Where nothing is ever as simple as it appear and no one is to be trusted. With dastardly gentlemen, unscrupulous villains, vulnerable girls in peril, and transgressive heroines, Fingersmith does not dissapoint in keeping the reader glued to its pages.

A thoroughly enjoyable read. 4 stars

Sarah Thornhill - Kate Grenville

Sarah Thornhill
Kate Grenville
Text

Sarah Thornhill completes a loose trilogy which includes the highly acclaimed The Secret River and The Lieutenant. While there are romantic elements, they are weighed by remorse and guilt for atrocities committed against Aborigines during colonisation.

Sarah, the daughter of William Thornhill, is independent, resourceful, feisty, and in love. Told through her eyes, the novel is narrated as it might be thought or spoken, in bits of sentences. Though illiterate, Sarah is sensitive and highly observant.

Deeply in love with a young Aboriginal man Jack Langland, Sarah imagines a life alongside her lover. Their relationship kept secret, once discovered, prompts her stepmother to reveal to Jack a hidden secret that so horrific, has haunted the family for many years and has lead to the estrangement of a son.

Believing her father to be a noble and generous man, Sarah knows nothing of the secret and is devastated when Jack leaves her. Heartbroken, she eventually marries an Irish settler who is kind and respectful to her. But just as it appears that her life is settled, family secrets are revealed, casting a chill shadow over its members.

Simply and beautifully narrated, Sarah Thornhill is a tale set in the colonial past whose theme is as relevant in today's society as it was back then. Grenville has crafted a magnificent tale that is sure to be an Australian classic in years to come. 4.5 stars