The Girl, the Gold Tooth and Everything by Francine LaSala

This latest novel by Francine LaSala (Rita Hayworth’s Shoes) is a fast-paced, richly layered, and darkly humorous satire filled with quirky characters and unforgettable moments of humanity.

Mina Clark is losing her mind—or maybe it’s already gone. She isn’t quite sure. Feeling displaced in her over-priced McMansion-dotted suburban world, she is grappling not only with deep debt, a mostly absent husband, and her playground-terrorizer 3-year old Emma, but also with a significant amnesia she can’t shake—a “temporary” condition now going on several years, brought on by a traumatic event she cannot remember, and which everyone around her feels is best forgotten. 

When a trip to the dentist leaves Mina with a new gold crown, her whole life changes. Slowly her memory and her mojo return. But when everything begins to crash down around her, she's not sure if what's happening is real, of if she's just now fully losing her mind... especially when she realizes the only person she can trust is the one she fears the most. What’s it all going to cost her in the end?

After finishing this book I am left with mixed feelings. There were several times throughout the first half that I was really confused, and I get the feeling that that was the point the author was trying to make with Mina's crazy life and stories that weren't matching up, but it was more of a frustrating confusion that made me want to put the book down and pick up a new one...BUT I'm glad that I persevered and finished it because towards the very end everything was revealed and magically worked out for the best (and who doesn't love a book with a happy ending against all odds every now and then?).

The writing was very good with some very creative characters appear throughout the story, and I will definitely be looking at other novels from this writer to give them a go. 

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

“You don’t think ahead in years or months: you think about this hour, and maybe the next. Anything else is speculation.” 

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. 

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them. 

M. L. Stedman’s mesmerizing, beautifully written novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel’s decision to keep this “gift from God.” And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another’s tragic loss. 

The Light Between Oceans is exquisite and unforgettable, a deeply moving novel.

I thought this was a good book, but not great, which is a shame because the blurb on the back cover held such promise with a juicy plot line. The characters were good, but the plot needed to move faster to keep me engaged with what was happening. At around 80% things looked like they were going to pick up, but then all of a sudden everything was resolved and worked out. 

The writer was very descriptive with their language and dialogue, but almost boringly so. I was surprised I actually finished it, but to be fair I did skim read the last couple of pages.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

'The thing about being catapulted into a whole new life - or at least shoved up so hard against someone else's life that you might as well have your face pressed against their window - is that it forces you to rethink your idea of who you are. Or how you might seem to other people.'

 Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

WOW.  
When I first started reading this book I thought I had it all figured out. They'd meet, fall in love, he'd have a new outlook on life and they would live happily ever after. I wasn't even close.

By the time I was halfway through the book I was absolutely hooked. I would start reading and forget I was on the train on my way to work, people beside me would vanish and I would magically be standing in the 'annex' watching their conversations happen in front of me.
I found myself thinking about the story when I was at work and trying to figure out where it was really heading, and I was actually a little sad when I had to stop reading to work. Additionally, this is the first time in a loooong time that I have actually cried while reading a book, and from the looks of others reviews, I was not alone!

I agree with other reviews that have commented about the deceiving cover - it gives a totally different image of what style the book really is - from the outside it looks like a light and fluffy love story, but that is definitely not the case, there is a lot more substance to it than that.

I think the best way to describe this book is a cross between Marian Keyes and Jodi Picoult, a cheekily written novel that actually looks at a controversial issue and shows the grey areas. Lovers of both author styles (Keyes and Picoult) will love this book by Jojo Moyes, guaranteed! 

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

“It was like drowning, only from the inside out.” 

Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland strays from the path while she and her recently divorced mother and brother take a hike along a branch of the Appalachian Trail. Lost for days, wandering farther and farther astray, Trisha has only her portable radio for comfort. A huge fan of Tom Gordon, a Boston Red Sox relief pitcher, she listens to baseball games and fantasizes that her hero will save her. Nature isn't her only adversary, though - something dangerous may be tracking Trisha through the dark woods.

While this isn't my favourite Stephen King novel (it's still Misery) you can't deny that he is a great storyteller.

The first impression of Trisha is that she is very mature ("9 years going on 10, but big for her age") so originally I was really shocked when she panicked so soon after realising she was lost, but then I thought back to 9 year old me, or my nephews and it was probably pretty accurate depiction of how they would react.

For a story that you are essentially only engaging with one character, King gives you a glimpse in to her family life, interests, and friendships, and shows you how tough a human spirit can be when in a hopeless situation, and how you can draw from these things to help get you through.  

The Silence of Trees by Valya Dudycz Lupescu

“When he looks into your eyes, tells you he loves you-and the pickled herring and onions are stronger than his voice-yet you still smile. You still want to be close to him. Yes, then you have found love.” 

In Chicago's Ukrainian Village, Nadya Lysenko has built her life on a foundation of secrets. When she was sixteen, Nadya snuck out of her house in Western Ukraine to meet a fortuneteller in the woods. She never expected it to be the last time she would see her family. 

Decades later, Nadya continues to be haunted by the death of her parents and sisters. The myths and magic of her childhood are still a part of her reality: dreams unite friends across time and space, house spirits misplace keys and glasses, and a fortuneteller's cards predict the future. Nadya's beloved dead insist on being heard through dreams and whispers in the night. They want the truth to come out. Nadya needs to face her past and confront the secrets she buried. 

Too often the women of history have been silenced, but their stories have power-to reveal, to teach, and to transform. This is one such story.

This was a very well written book, the author has a gift for making the characters and settings come alive, and at the same time bringing each era together to round out the story.

I love hearing about different cultures and the Ukrainian lifestyle is not one I have come across in any depth before. How amazing to have so many ceremonies and rituals to hold on to, very fascinating!

This book shows the importance of family and how string those bonds are, even through different countries, generations and centuries!  It also demonstrates the strength and ability of humans to heal and move on. "Love the past but live in the present".

ROOM by Emma Donoghue

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

I first tried reading this book a few months ago, and only got a few pages in as I couldn’t get over the way Jack spoke, but luckily I tried again and once I made it over that initial hurdle, I was soon engrossed in the story. It is really just a unique way to write a book and I had to keep reminding myself that this kind of thing actually can happen.

The book was very well written. From the perspective of 5 year old Jack we got to hear about the ‘games’ they would play with his Ma, which in the eyes of a child who doesn’t know better are innocent fun, but are really cries for help to the outside.

I enjoyed how equal time was spent focusing on their time in the room, and then moved to them adjusting to outside - it didn’t just end with them leaving the room and they lived happily ever after. It made the abrupt change feel more life-like, not how it would necessarily be in a Hollywood movie.

I thought the ending was quite abrupt (really I could have read more) but even then you were left with a sense of what their plan was to move forward and how they were going to get their closure now they had seen the room again and were ready to move on.

If, like me, you are struggling to get in to the story at first, then the only advice I can give it to please persist, it is worth it I swear.

Don't Tell Mum I Work On The Rigs, She Thinks I'm A Piano Player In A Whorehouse by Paul Carter

Since age 18, Paul Carter has worked on oil rigs in locations as far flung as the Middle East, Columbia, the North Sea, Borneo, Tunisia, Sumatra, Vietnam, Nigeria, Russia, and many others — and he’s survived (so far!) to tell stories from the edge of civilization (places, as it happens, upon which most of our lives rely).
Carter has been shot at, hijacked and held hostage, almost died of dysentery in Asia and toothache in Russia, watched a Texan lose his mind in the jungles of Asia, lost a lot of money backing a scorpion against a mouse in a fight to the death, and served cocktails by an orangutan on an ocean freighter.
Taking postings in some of the world’s wildest and most remote regions — not to mention some of the roughest rigs on the planet — Carter has worked and gotten into trouble with some of the maddest, baddest and strangest people you could ever hope not to meet.

From looking at other reviews before starting to read this book, I knew I was in for a good laugh, and honestly, it didn’t disappoint. Initially I was a bit worried that it might be too much of a ‘boys book’ for me to enjoy, but right from the first page I was hooked and couldn’t wait to hear more.

The writing style is very colloquial, which to me, made it feel more personal and real. It covered all aspects - funny, shocking and the down-right unbelievable - there were times when I visibly would laugh and cringe at the same time on public transport while going to work every day.

I loved this book and can highly recommend it if you’re looking for a good laugh - or even as a glimpse in to more extreme work environments to give you a bit of perspective and make you appreciate it on the tougher days.

Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner

Jennifer Weiner's rich, witty, true-to-life "New York Times" bestselling novel tells the story of three very different women as they navigate one of life's most wonderful and perilous transitions: the journey of new motherhood.Becky is a plump, sexy chef who has a wonderful husband and baby girl, a restaurant that's received citywide acclaim -- and the mother-in-law from hell. Kelly is an event planner who's struggling to balance work and motherhood while dealing with an unemployed husband who seems content to channel-surf for eight hours a day. And Ayinde's basketball superstar husband breaks her trust at her most vulnerable moment, putting their new family even more in the public eye. Then there's Lia, a Philadelphia native who has left her Hollywood career behind, along with her husband and a tragic secret, to start her life all over again.

From prenatal yoga to postbirth sex, "Little Earthquakes" is a frank, funny, fiercely perceptive take on the comedies and tragedies of love and marriage.

Not being a Mum myself, I basing this opinion on what others have told me, but I really enjoyed reading this book because to me, it gave a me more of a 'real' insight in to what I think motherhood would really be like - the good, the bad, and the hilariously terrifying! It also focuses on how important it is to have a good group of friends around to laugh (or cry) with and to help you get through.

The characters felt real to me and  it was written in a way that the drama, or conflict, wasn't  overdramatised like some chick-lit books can do, and although the ending saw all of those conflicts resolved, it wasn't in a way that felt fake or unrealistic.

I enjoyed reading this book much more than "What to expect when you're expecting" and felt that I had a more in-depth connection with the characters and storyline. I think this is a book any woman would enjoy reading no matter what your relationship status or stage of life.