Scan barcode
katiealex72's reviews
475 reviews
The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Forced institutionalization and Ableism
Toxin by Robin Cook
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
Oh, Robin Cook. You were my gateway to reading adult books when I first read Coma; as a bookish teenager who wanted to be a doctor, I loved it so much!
I collected all of his books, buying hardbacks as soon as they were published, up until some time in the 1990s when it was clear the quality was dropping off.
Recently I reread Coma and found it hilariously dated, and not in a good way. Sexist, mildly racist, reminiscent of a far nastier time to be a female doctor; nevertheless it was a great story and it was written with care, if not much skill.
However, I picked up a copy of Toxin in a tiny village op-shop to see how far things had gone south since the last time I read a Robin Cook novel. The answer is…very far south indeed. The standard Cook plot has been recycled yet again. The MC is a doctor(surprise!) , who stumbles upon a vast conspiracy which is tangentially medical in nature, and spends the book fighting off the forces of evil, somehow surviving unscathed having revealed the dastardly plot to a wondering world. In Toxin, though, the first half of the book deals with the illness and eventual death of the MC’s only child. Despite this horrific tragedy, the Dr (who sawed open his own daughter’s chest in ICU to try cardiac massage, only to find her heart literally dissolving in his hands in a truly abhorrent scene) immediately swings into investigation mode. The child’s mother is almost equally unemotional, supporting her violent ex husband in his insane plans. It’s a truly bizarre portrayal of parents losing a child to a sudden and awful fatal illness. I can’t imagine being able to function at the most basic level for many weeks if such a thing happened to me and my kids touch wood. It made me wonder how much of this book was actually written by a human person.
I collected all of his books, buying hardbacks as soon as they were published, up until some time in the 1990s when it was clear the quality was dropping off.
Recently I reread Coma and found it hilariously dated, and not in a good way. Sexist, mildly racist, reminiscent of a far nastier time to be a female doctor; nevertheless it was a great story and it was written with care, if not much skill.
However, I picked up a copy of Toxin in a tiny village op-shop to see how far things had gone south since the last time I read a Robin Cook novel. The answer is…very far south indeed. The standard Cook plot has been recycled yet again. The MC is a doctor(surprise!) , who stumbles upon a vast conspiracy which is tangentially medical in nature, and spends the book fighting off the forces of evil, somehow surviving unscathed having revealed the dastardly plot to a wondering world. In Toxin, though, the first half of the book deals with the illness and eventual death of the MC’s only child. Despite this horrific tragedy, the Dr (who sawed open his own daughter’s chest in ICU to try cardiac massage, only to find her heart literally dissolving in his hands in a truly abhorrent scene) immediately swings into investigation mode. The child’s mother is almost equally unemotional, supporting her violent ex husband in his insane plans. It’s a truly bizarre portrayal of parents losing a child to a sudden and awful fatal illness. I can’t imagine being able to function at the most basic level for many weeks if such a thing happened to me and my kids touch wood. It made me wonder how much of this book was actually written by a human person.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Animal death, and Blood
Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life by Anna Funder
I’m a fan of Funder’s work, so was predisposed to interest in her new book but even so, this blows me away. The research seems thorough and very sound (I’m not going to pretend I’ve looked up any of the sources! But it’s meticulously footnoted (at the end so as not to distract from the story) and referenced. So I don’t find anything here that I can’t believe.
It’s best not to know too much going in to it, even (or especially) if you’ve read Orwell’s writings, because the facts of Eileen Blair’s married life can unfold before you in all it’s horrible, enraging unfairness. I will say that one of the central questions of the book is: to what extent can one separate the artist from the work they create? - which has gripped us all from Michael Jackson to Kevin Spacey to Bill Cosby. Funder invites us, almost reluctantly, to consider the artist Orwell through the eyes of Eileen for a change, and make our judgement accordingly.
To say that she was long-suffering is to significantly understate it. And it’s not a spoiler to say that he didn’t beat Eileen, or rape her, or molest their child or anything like that. It’s far more pernicious than that. And Funder’s research points quite clearly to the fact that Orwell’s cruelty and uninterest in Eileen as anything other than a kind of beast of burden, or a helpmeet, was deliberate, not just thoughtless.
My own answer to the question above is that I can and do separate the work from the artist. They are not their work and the work isn’t them. I think though that a book such as this makes it clear that feminist scholarship is incredibly important when it comes to events and figures from history.
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I’m a fan of Funder’s work, so was predisposed to interest in her new book but even so, this blows me away. The research seems thorough and very sound (I’m not going to pretend I’ve looked up any of the sources! But it’s meticulously footnoted (at the end so as not to distract from the story) and referenced. So I don’t find anything here that I can’t believe.
It’s best not to know too much going in to it, even (or especially) if you’ve read Orwell’s writings, because the facts of Eileen Blair’s married life can unfold before you in all it’s horrible, enraging unfairness. I will say that one of the central questions of the book is: to what extent can one separate the artist from the work they create? - which has gripped us all from Michael Jackson to Kevin Spacey to Bill Cosby. Funder invites us, almost reluctantly, to consider the artist Orwell through the eyes of Eileen for a change, and make our judgement accordingly.
To say that she was long-suffering is to significantly understate it. And it’s not a spoiler to say that he didn’t beat Eileen, or rape her, or molest their child or anything like that. It’s far more pernicious than that. And Funder’s research points quite clearly to the fact that Orwell’s cruelty and uninterest in Eileen as anything other than a kind of beast of burden, or a helpmeet, was deliberate, not just thoughtless.
My own answer to the question above is that I can and do separate the work from the artist. They are not their work and the work isn’t them. I think though that a book such as this makes it clear that feminist scholarship is incredibly important when it comes to events and figures from history.
Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
So here is my very late contender for BOTY, narrowly but definitively beating Demon Copperhead.
This book feels like an honour to read, which sounds dull but it’s absolutely the opposite of dull; Lucashenko makes sure of that. I don’t know if there is any Australian writer who is doing dialogue better than this at the moment. The voices are all so distinct and so clever, including the “code switching” between dialects and languages employed by most of the characters.
It’s like Too Much Lip but on another level.
The story takes place both in current day Brisbane, with Granny Eddie, ”Queensland’s oldest Aboriginal”, and her feisty granddaughter Winona; and in 1850s Brisbane/Manandjin, with some of their Ancestors. Lucashenko weaves a fiction story around the scaffolding of people who existed and events that actually happened, and the result is compelling. It tells a tale of how some of the many Aboriginal peoples in the Sourh East Qld area lived with and near the European and Asian settlers, about thirty years after the first invasion. There are horrors, and injustice so extreme it will make you cry, but the intelligence and generosity of the indigenous landowners shines through so strongly. It makes you really feel how much we all lost by stealing everything from the First People instead of learning from and living with them, as would have been entirely possible.
5 stars, full marks, hard recommend. We are so lucky that someone as talented and funny and brilliant as Melissa Lucashenko exists
This book feels like an honour to read, which sounds dull but it’s absolutely the opposite of dull; Lucashenko makes sure of that. I don’t know if there is any Australian writer who is doing dialogue better than this at the moment. The voices are all so distinct and so clever, including the “code switching” between dialects and languages employed by most of the characters.
It’s like Too Much Lip but on another level.
The story takes place both in current day Brisbane, with Granny Eddie, ”Queensland’s oldest Aboriginal”, and her feisty granddaughter Winona; and in 1850s Brisbane/Manandjin, with some of their Ancestors. Lucashenko weaves a fiction story around the scaffolding of people who existed and events that actually happened, and the result is compelling. It tells a tale of how some of the many Aboriginal peoples in the Sourh East Qld area lived with and near the European and Asian settlers, about thirty years after the first invasion. There are horrors, and injustice so extreme it will make you cry, but the intelligence and generosity of the indigenous landowners shines through so strongly. It makes you really feel how much we all lost by stealing everything from the First People instead of learning from and living with them, as would have been entirely possible.
5 stars, full marks, hard recommend. We are so lucky that someone as talented and funny and brilliant as Melissa Lucashenko exists