The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

 “Later, I would come to think of those first days as the time when we learned as a species that we had worried over the wrong things: the hole in the ozone layer, the melting of the ice caps, West Nile and swine flu and killer bees. But I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different—unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.” 

Luminous, haunting, unforgettable, The Age of Miracles is a stunning fiction debut by a superb new writer, a story about coming of age during extraordinary times, about people going on with their lives in an era of profound uncertainty.

On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, 11-year-old Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life--the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues.

With spare, graceful prose and the emotional wisdom of a born storyteller, Karen Thompson Walker has created a singular narrator in Julia, a resilient and insightful young girl, and a moving portrait of family life set against the backdrop of an utterly altered world.

From looking at the overall rating of this book I didn't really very high expectations, so maybe that is why I enjoyed it so much!

Not only did I find the storyline interesting - a doomsday coming of age from a new perspective - but I found the writing style of Walker made it so much more engaging, her words and juxtapositions easily brought to mind the images and emotions needed to get involved with the story on the page.

When you read the blurb on the back cover it doesn't sound like it, but make no mistake, this is a YA apocalyptic novel, so if that's not usually your style then you're probably not going to enjoy it for more than a few chapters. 

Although I don't think it's the main intention, this book also brings up some pretty good concerns about the environment and the lasting effects of our modern lifestyles. And when I was reading it I could't help but think about how much was a prediction of things to come, and how would we react if something similar really did happen in our lifetime. I also found really interesting how the slow death of humans was very similar to the death of the earth - we see ourselves as slightly more intelligent but in the end the truth is that we are just as susceptible to death as every other living thing on this planet. 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

“There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.” 

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

A really great book, as incredibly sad as it was witty and even hopeful.

John Green nailed the teenage perspective, and I can only assume the terminally ill teenage perspective.

It's not a long book, so definitely worth the read.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. 

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of. 

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance? 
          
Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

This has been one of the most interesting and shocking books I have read in quite a while - I had to keep reminding myself while I was reading it that it is based on true events, it is so far removed from anything I have ever experienced myself (although Australia obviously also has it's own dark history with it's native aboriginals).

Although Skloot is a scientific writer, this book didn't read like a text book, and even though I hadn't had anything to do with biology since year 10 high school, I found it easy to follow and her writing informative and really engaging. The language Skloot used seemed to keep in character for those that she was interviewing, and it made it easy to image the conversations actually taking place, brining the story alive for me. It made me want to read faster to hear how it all ended, but at the same time I didn't want it to end and had to pace myself.

I disagree with other reviewers when they say Skloot makes the story about her - it doesn't mention really anything about her personal life (apart from when she was studying and her lecturer first introduced her to the name Henrietta Lacks) - but it does cover her journey on piecing together this story with the Lacks family.

One of the things I enjoyed most about this book was that there was clearly so much research done in to the story - and I learnt a lot from reading it (eg how the Klu Klux Klan originated, testing that was conducted on the black community, and at the 'negro insane hospital'. In between sections explaining the scientific timelines, the lacks family story was woven through, from when Henrietta first went in to hospital, to when Deborah passed away and the book was concluded. 

One of the most heartbreaking things about this story is that even though Henrietta's cells have helped with so many medical advances in fighting diseases, creating lifesaving vaccines, and understanding the human body in general - her family couldn't even afford the medical treatment or appointments they needed to stay healthy and comfortable. 

Now that I have finished reading the book, I can't help but think 'what would the world me like if the doctors never took her cells?' Would we be in a different state with regards to medicines available? OR would researchers have still gotten there in the end?

I enjoyed reading this book so much that since I started reading it (and especially now I haven finished it) that I have talked about it to friends, family and coworkers and encouraged them all to check it out.

The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks

Ira Levinson is in trouble. At ninety-one years old, in poor health and alone in the world, he finds himself stranded on an isolated embankment after a car crash. Suffering multiple injuries, he struggles to retain consciousness until a blurry image materializes and comes into focus beside him: his beloved wife Ruth, who passed away nine years ago. Urging him to hang on, she forces him to remain alert by recounting the stories of their lifetime together – how they met, the precious paintings they collected together, the dark days of WWII and its effect on them and their families. Ira knows that Ruth can’t possibly be in the car with him, but he clings to her words and his memories, reliving the sorrows and everyday joys that defined their marriage.

A few miles away, at a local rodeo, a Wake Forest College senior’s life is about to change. Recovering from a recent break-up, Sophia Danko meets a young cowboy named Luke, who bears little resemblance to the privileged frat boys she has encountered at school. Through Luke, Sophia is introduced to a world in which the stakes of survival and success, ruin and reward -- even life and death – loom large in everyday life. As she and Luke fall in love, Sophia finds herself imagining a future far removed from her plans -- a future that Luke has the power to rewrite . . . if the secret he’s keeping doesn’t destroy it first.

Ira and Ruth. Sophia and Luke. Two couples who have little in common, and who are separated by years and experience. Yet their lives will converge with unexpected poignancy, reminding us all that even the most difficult decisions can yield extraordinary journeys: beyond despair, beyond death, to the farthest reaches of the human heart.

Nicholas Sparks definitely is the master of love stories, there is no doubt about it. While this story is nowhere near my favourite one of his (what could seriously ever compare to The Notebook??), it's still good enough to read until the end (although at about the halfway point I did question if I should keep going, I'm glad I did).

I liked how the two stories were woven together - at the beginning I couldn't see how they worked together, but towards the end you could see a pattern and get a hint as to how they were going to fit together.

With so many books similar to 50 Shades being released and increasing in popularity, it's good to read a love story that is a bit more wholesome, but at times this one felt a little bit too PG.

Although I will confess to shedding a quiet tear when it got to the part of his wife's death. How beautiful to love someone as much as they did - I can only hope to be that lucky.

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family. 

In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented.  Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave.  She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation. 

Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream, Mathis’s first novel heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

I always find it really refreshing to read a story that is set out slightly different from the norm, it makes be excited to continue reading no matter what the topic, and it makes it harder to guess how it is going to end.

This story tells the depressing yet interesting tale of Hattie's tribe of children. It very cleverly shows you who they are, and then by default tells the story of Hattie herself. 

I don't know how accurate it is, but in parts it is heartbreaking, and I found myself really wanting this poor family to finally cut a break! It seemed like each and every one of them was doomed to struggle their entire life.

But despite the bleak tales of the family members, the Mathis is a master storyteller. It may not give you warm and fuzzys when you read it, but it will definitely keep you turning the page.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Laneis told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

Not what I was expecting at all and a hard one to comment on.

The author has a vivid imagination and the storyline was very creative, but I just didn't get in to it.

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

From bestselling author Meg Wolitzer a dazzling, panoramic novel about what becomes of early talent, and the roles that art, money, and even envy can play in close friendships.

The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.

The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence. Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle. Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and becomes an engineer. But Ethan and Ash, Jules’s now-married best friends, become shockingly successful—true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken.

Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestingsexplores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.

After finishing this book the thing that struck me the most, was how normal it was. For me, it was a nice novel about a group of friends growing up, learning about themselves and each facing struggles along the way. It just felt real, it didn't sugar coat things and promise that everything will magically turn out in the end (like some novels do to make everything wrap up nicely at the finish).

The characters were flawed and damaged, and very well written. 

Nostalgia was a common theme throughout the story and at times it could get a little melancholy, but it is a good reminder to appreciate your history but keep looking forward. 

There were ups and downs in the plot, but they weren't over dramatised. Having said that if you like dramatic novels then you  might find parts of this a little mundane.