I’ve seen a few book bloggers set themselves the challenge of spelling the month using the first letters of book titles and I thought I’d give it a try for April, May and June.
I’ve spelt June with the title of books that I rated as five-star reads and which I’m happy to recommend as books that are worth your time.
Joyland, takes us on a total immersion ride in a time long past, in a youth long lost and in a Carnie culture now extinct. King sells the feasibility of abilities beyond the normal and the possibility that ordinary young people can do things that make the world better.
The story is told from what the now-sixty-year-old Devin Jones remembers of the summer, forty years earlier, that changed his life.
This looking back gives us the views and experiences of Devin then and Devin now. It gifts us with both intimacy and distance. It allows Devin credibly to make comments like:
“When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction.”
King weaves the supernatural in to story to enhance it, rather than letting it become the story. He makes The Sight and ghosts feel as real as the rides in Amusement Park. He avoids clichéed romance and tacky nostalgia by being deeply truthful. He also hits every emotional button available with merciless skill, leaving his readers feeling they too have been for a hell of a carnie ride
‘Unconquerable Sun’ is everything a space opera should be. It has the Military SF tropes, the imperial politics and intrigue, the millennia-long history of constant conflict between human societies living on multiple worlds connected by technology no one really understands left behind by a race no one has ever seen, the diverse societies that draw heavily on Asian and European cultures, the space and weapons hardware well in advance of our own and an intricate and slow-reveal plot, punctuated with good action scenes.
“Norwegian By Night” is a brilliant example of the thriller genre being used to deliver mainstream themes. It’s an accessible, enjoyable, realistic novel that navigates its way through the difficult waters of grief, memory, guilt, dementia, loss and personal bravery, while still providing a page-turning plot that made me laugh, cry and hope very much that everyone would be alright, although I knew they probably wouldn’t be.
Given that Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine about a person who is very far from completely fine, who bears the physical and mental scars of childhood trauma and lives in a state of brutal isolation, it might sound like a depressing read. Yet I found it to be hopeful and sometimes funny, not because it escaped from reality but because it captured it well without giving in to despair.
There is so much understanding here of how day to day life really is, how we struggle with it, how loneliness colonises our lives like a carcinogenic mould until our lives become literally unbearable and how important small acts of kindness and regular honest contact are.
The writing is pretty much perfect. The characterisation is both subtle and clear.
Mike Finn's Fiction 