Forty Rooms by Olga Grushin

"Papa, do you  believe there is any meaning to life?" I blurted out. "I don't not believe" he said sternly. "I know. The meaning of life - the meaning of a single, individual human life, since I assume that is what you are asking - consists of figuring out the one thing you are great stand then pushing mankind's mastery of that one thing as far as you are able, be it an inch or a mile. If you are a carpenter, be a carpenter with every ounce of your being and invent a new type of saw. If you are an archaeologist, find the tomb of Alexander the Great. If you are Alexander the Great, conquer the world. And never to anything by half."

Totally original in conception and magnificently executed, Forty Rooms is mysterious, withholding, and ultimately emotionally devastating. Olga Grushin is dealing with issues of women’s identity, of women’s choices, that no modern novel has explored so deeply. 

“Forty rooms” is a conceit: it proposes that a modern woman will inhabit forty rooms in her lifetime. They form her biography, from childhood to death. For our protagonist, the much-loved child of a late marriage, the first rooms she is aware of as she nears the age of five are those that make up her family’s Moscow apartment. We follow this child as she reaches adolescence, leaves home to study in America, and slowly discovers sexual happiness and love. But her hunger for adventure and her longing to be a great poet conspire to kill the affair. She seems to have made her choice. But one day she runs into a college classmate. He is sure of his path through life, and he is protective of her. (He is also a great cook.) They drift into an affair and marriage. What follows are the decades of births and deaths, the celebrations, material accumulations, and home comforts—until one day, her children grown and gone, her husband absent, she finds herself alone except for the ghosts of her youth, who have come back to haunt and even taunt her. 

Compelling and complex, Forty Rooms is also profoundly affecting, its ending shattering but true. We know that Mrs. Caldwell (for that is the only name by which we know her) has died. Was it a life well lived? Quite likely. Was it a life complete? Does such a life ever really exist? Life is, after all, full of trade-offs and choices. Who is to say her path was not well taken? It is this ambiguity that is at the heart of this provocative novel.

This is such a fantastic concept for a story. Even though each chapter is only a snapshot of her life in a particular room/year, I felt like I had such a clear image of who she was.

The story is so crushing, not because of the intense drama in the characters actions, but because this theory could be applied to anyones life, unintentionally making you question how many shadow lives you have of your own. 

The plot isn't really anything new - girl has dreams, goes to uni, falls in love, gets heart broken, meets new boy, gets married and starts a family, there is an affair, life, deaths, friends...but there is so much angst and so many parallel lives in this story that it is hard not to feel it within yourself too.

Some chapters I could relate to, others not as much, but more so as she became a mother and struggled with the new identity and how to fit in time for who she was as well as all the there things that need doing. The first half of the book was the hardest to enjoy, because at times I found her a little annoying - each era of her life was frayed by more and more hesitation, selfish,unsure of herself and never quite satisfied yet not really doing anything to change it - but on reflection I think tis is what makes the story so real and relatable, because what young adult isn't like that at times?

There was a lot going on in this book with so many layers, and while it is ver intelligent and poetic at the same time, it isn't the sort of book I could read if I didn't have any mental energy to focus. 

What I have taken away from reading this, is that sometimes the only real challenges some of us face are the ones we put in front of ourselves.

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Sweet Thing (Sweet Thing #1) by Renee Carlino

“You are your mother and your father. You are your experiences and your fears and the love you let yourself feel. You are your degree and your talent and your passion. You are your pain, your joy, and your fantasies.” 

Mia Kelly thinks she has it all figured out. She's an Ivy League graduate, a classically trained pianist, and the beloved daughter of a sensible mother and offbeat father. Yet Mia has been stalling since graduation, torn between putting her business degree to use and exploring music, her true love.

When her father unexpectedly dies, she decides to pick up the threads of his life while she figures out her own. Uprooting herself from Ann Arbor to New York City, Mia takes over her father's cafe, a treasured neighborhood institution that plays host to undiscovered musicians and artists. She's denied herself the thrilling and unpredictable life of a musician, but a chance encounter with Will, a sweet, gorgeous, and charming guitarist, offers her a glimpse of what could be. When Will becomes her friend and then her roommate, she does everything in her power to suppress her passions—for him, for music—but her father's legacy slowly opens her heart to the possibility of something more.

A "heartbreaking and romantic" (Aestas Book Blog) debut, Sweet Thing explores the intensity and complexities of first love and self-discovery. 

This was the best prologue I have read, and I loved how it was woven through the story again at the end.

The writing was really really good. Not only did it have cool band/music references, but the actual writing itself was intelligent and articulate. For a romance novel there was also the right amount of lovin' without being too cheesy, tacky or overpowering.

The only section I didn't really enjoy was watching Mia screw things up (again and again) so badly, and then having to watch her wallow in self-pity for so long. I found that a bit hard to believe because in the real world you can't lie on the couch and drink tequila for months without more consequences - well not in my world anyway. And if it was 'their dream' then why did Will exclude Mia from the planning and keep secrets from her? 

But overall I really enjoyed it. I didn't realise it was a series so I will probably end up reading more to see how it follows on. 

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Tears of the Giraffe (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #2) by Alexander McCall Smith

Following on the brilliant The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Tears of the Giraffe charts the further adventures of Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's only - and finest - female private detective.

It's going to take all her intuition and eminent sensibility for Precious to crack her hardest cas yet: the decade-old disappearance of an American on the edge of the Kalahari. And if that wasn't enough, there are plenty of matters closer to home to concern her: her highly talented secretary, Mma Makutsi, eager to be promoted to detective; the unscrupulous maid of her husband-to-be, the wonderful Mr J. L. B. Matekoni; and the sudden - and unexpected increase to her family by not one, but two. 

The second book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency is just as great as the first one. The characters stayed true to who they are and Botswana was shown in the same light. I can see why this book series is so popular. 

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My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal

Leon is nine, and has a perfect baby brother called Jake. They have gone to live with Maureen, who has fuzzy red hair like a halo, and a belly like Father Christmas. But the adults are speaking in low voices, and wearing Pretend faces. They are threatening to take Jake away and give him to strangers. Because Jake is white and Leon is not. 

As Leon struggles to cope with his anger, certain things can still make him smile – like Curly Wurlys, riding his bike fast downhill, burying his hands deep in the soil, hanging out with Tufty (who reminds him of his dad), and stealing enough coins so that one day he can rescue Jake and his mum.

Evoking a Britain of the early eighties, My Name is Leon is a story of love, identity and learning to overcome unbearable loss. Of the fierce bond between siblings. And how – just when we least expect it – we somehow manage to find our way home.

This is a slower paced story so it might not be a good one to read if you don't have a lot of time (I feel it would just drag on too long), but stick with it because the ending does it justice.

For the majority of this book I couldn't understand how anyone would let their child wander the streets on their own and not question what they were up to - I certainly couldn't imagine me not caring about where my son was - but then I realised that that was exactly what my childhood was like growing up in the almost-country. It just made me sad that the whole time I was reading it, I was worried about someone nasty snatching him.

What I took most from this story, was that Family is what you make it. Leon was too young to understand that initially, but by the end he had made found himself in a very unique but caring family, as opposed to struggling to put back his real family. It breaks my heart to think that is a reality for some children, and I hope that it works out right for some of them, even though it also seems hard work. My heart strings were definitely pulled for Leon.

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The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #1) by Alexander McCall Smith

“Our heads may be small, but they are as full of memories as the sky may sometimes be full of swarming bees, thousands and thousands of memories, of smells, of places, of little things that happened to us and which come back, unexpectedly, to remind us who we are. And who am I?” 

Mma Ramotswe is the proud proprietor of the finest ladies detective agency in all Botswana (also the only one). When clients come along, whether it is to enquire after a missing spouse or establish the identity of a long-lost father, it is not The Principles of Private Detection that helps her to solve cases, but old-fashioned common sense and a warm-hearted understanding of human fallibility - especially that of men.

This book had a little bit of everything - humour, wit, smarts, mystery, love - and I loved it.

Despite the name and the blurb, it is a story that is as much about everyday life in Botswana as much as it is about solving mysteries. Each chapter offered insights in to life in Africa, both past and present.

Mia Ramotswe is a very endearing character who isn't easily fooled and isn't afraid to say it like it is. 

Easy to read but still intelligent.

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The Gravity of Birds by Tracy Guzeman

I was born old. My mother told me once that I looked like a grumpy old man from the moment I was born - wrinkled, pruney face, rheumy eyes. You've heard of the expression an old soul? I was born with a head full of someone else's failed dreams  and a heart full of someone else's memories.

In this compelling debut novel, an art authenticator and an art historian are employed by a famous, reclusive painter to sell a never-before-seen portrait, leading them to discover devastating secrets two sisters have kept from each other, and from the artist who determined the course of their lives.

How do you find someone who wants to be lost?

Sisters Natalie and Alice Kessler were close, until adolescence wrenched them apart. Natalie is headstrong, manipulative—and beautiful; Alice is a dreamer who loves books and birds. During their family’s summer holiday at the lake, Alice falls under the thrall of a struggling young painter, Thomas Bayber, in whom she finds a kindred spirit. Natalie, however, remains strangely unmoved, sitting for a family portrait with surprising indifference. But by the end of the summer, three lives are shattered.

Decades later, Bayber, now a reclusive, world-renowned artist, unveils a never-before-seen work, Kessler Sisters—a provocative painting depicting the young Thomas, Natalie, and Alice. Bayber asks Dennis Finch, an art history professor, and Stephen Jameson, an eccentric young art authenticator, to sell the painting for him. That task becomes more complicated when the artist requires that they first locate Natalie and Alice, who seem to have vanished. And Finch finds himself wondering why Thomas is suddenly so intent on resurrecting the past.

In The Gravity of Birds histories and memories refuse to stay buried; in the end only the excavation of the past will enable its survivors to love again.

A 3 star rating sounds too harsh, but I can't quite make myself commit to 4 stars, so 3.5 it is. 

The story was intriguing and engaging enough to make me want to keep reading until the end, it was just that I was never really shocked enough by anything (I would call them 'plot bends' instead of 'plot twists'). It was extremely well written (see above quote, this is just one example) and a good display on how a decision can change the course of a persons life, but there was just something missing for me to consider this a great book rather than just a good book. 

I found Alice to be a bit of a bore. I understand there was probably another side to her (i.e. that she showed the children in scouts) but you didn't really ever get to meet that side of Alice, only the whinging self-pitying cripple side of Alice.

It was a similar thing with Natalie - she was apparently so despicable and callous as a teenager and adult, but you never really found out how much until the end, you just had to trust the other characters opinion of her until then.

I loved how the story evolved through the different times, and how it was entwined with art. Overall I enjoyed it but would not recommend for anyone who loves their thriller novels fast paced. 

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