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Overall: so recommended and a bloody good narrator.
I say on my bio for Goodreads that I like books with good characterization and books with compelling story-lines. This book combines both.
Allegedly is about a nine-year girl who is convicted of murdering a 3 month of baby... Allegedly. It is a compelling read about a girl who never had a chance at a normal childhood and became part of “the system”. Why or how you enter the system does not really matter once you are in it. I defy you to read this and not get angry at how we (Western society) treat our children, teenagers and young adults who are not lucky enough to have stable homes with adequate funds.
“Guess birthdays don’t mean nothing in a group home. I mean, it kind of makes sense. Hard to celebrate the day you were born when everybody seems to wish you were never born at all. Especially after you come into this world and fuck it all up”
As a thriller this story is compelling and I guess thrilling? Oh, it just bloody works. The story-line uses the most unreliable narrator of all, a teenager who has plenty reason not to tell you the whole truth but really, really needs to for her own sake. From the first chapter I was nearly shouting out loud, begging her to tell someone what had really happened. There are lots of "What the Hell?" Moments. It was overall a great big whopping emotional ride of a book. Sometimes it made me sad, others hopeful but mostly it made me angry.
I listened to this book on audible. The narrator was Bahni Turpin and she was amazing and added to an already 4/5 star book.
I recommend this book to anyone who likes Thrillers and books written from a teenager rather unique perspective.
I say on my bio for Goodreads that I like books with good characterization and books with compelling story-lines. This book combines both.
Allegedly is about a nine-year girl who is convicted of murdering a 3 month of baby... Allegedly. It is a compelling read about a girl who never had a chance at a normal childhood and became part of “the system”. Why or how you enter the system does not really matter once you are in it. I defy you to read this and not get angry at how we (Western society) treat our children, teenagers and young adults who are not lucky enough to have stable homes with adequate funds.
“Guess birthdays don’t mean nothing in a group home. I mean, it kind of makes sense. Hard to celebrate the day you were born when everybody seems to wish you were never born at all. Especially after you come into this world and fuck it all up”
As a thriller this story is compelling and I guess thrilling? Oh, it just bloody works. The story-line uses the most unreliable narrator of all, a teenager who has plenty reason not to tell you the whole truth but really, really needs to for her own sake. From the first chapter I was nearly shouting out loud, begging her to tell someone what had really happened. There are lots of "What the Hell?" Moments. It was overall a great big whopping emotional ride of a book. Sometimes it made me sad, others hopeful but mostly it made me angry.
I listened to this book on audible. The narrator was Bahni Turpin and she was amazing and added to an already 4/5 star book.
I recommend this book to anyone who likes Thrillers and books written from a teenager rather unique perspective.
This book reminds me of a daytime soap opera. People arrive on the scene, die unexpectedly and dramatically disappear only to make an even more dramatic timely re-entrance. Dramatic co-incidences abound and are essential to the plot. Maybe this is as a direct result of its original serialisation by Dickens?
Overall, it’s a fun read. I found it easier to listen to on audio (due to Dickens long sentences) and the narrator (David Timson) was so good that I recognised voices of returning characters which were supposed to have a dramatic reveal later in the book. This book has a very large cast of characters so that was no insignificant achievement. I was having syncing problems with the book and ended up rereading huge chunks of this already chunky book but loved them too much to bother fast forwarding.
Overall this is recommended for those who like a good Soap Opera written by a very talented classical author.
Overall, it’s a fun read. I found it easier to listen to on audio (due to Dickens long sentences) and the narrator (David Timson) was so good that I recognised voices of returning characters which were supposed to have a dramatic reveal later in the book. This book has a very large cast of characters so that was no insignificant achievement. I was having syncing problems with the book and ended up rereading huge chunks of this already chunky book but loved them too much to bother fast forwarding.
Overall this is recommended for those who like a good Soap Opera written by a very talented classical author.
This is a very short book written in a prose poetry style about a Mum who dies and leaves Dad and two Boys behind. Dad is writing about the Ted Hughes poetry collection Crow and interestingly enough the infamous Crow comes to visit the Dad and two boys to help them grieve.
There are some lovely stories and insights here. I loved the Dad’s young adventures in Oxford to met his hero Ted Hughes, the glimpses of the fun and competent Mum, the boys antics, cruelties and games.
There are three narrators. Dad, the two boys and Crow. I would recommend reading some of the Crows pieces out loud, they veer towards poetry and seem to make better sense that way.
Overall the style makes it a different and interesting read
There are some lovely stories and insights here. I loved the Dad’s young adventures in Oxford to met his hero Ted Hughes, the glimpses of the fun and competent Mum, the boys antics, cruelties and games.
There are three narrators. Dad, the two boys and Crow. I would recommend reading some of the Crows pieces out loud, they veer towards poetry and seem to make better sense that way.
Overall the style makes it a different and interesting read
I rate the first half of the book five stars and the second half three stars; so I am settling on four stars.
Rosemary is the most fun, quirky narrator of a story I have read for a long time. I really enjoyed her and I love the way she colours her memories with little unimportant details, describes the smells of her family members and always starts a story in the middle and then jumps around at will. There are themes of sadness, loss, family and comedy running throughout her story. Though, as she would say, this is really as close to the stories of her brother Lowell and sister Fern that she can tell. Their stories are the ones she finds important.
I was less fond of the more factual accounts of the scientific experiments throughout the book. I kept finding them jarring against the tone of the fictional story. It just didn’t work for me and I wondered was there no other narrative device to get these important messages across? Perhaps a book told more from Lowell’s and/or Ferns perspective?
Overall this is a fast, fun read and has a rather important message at it’s core
Rosemary is the most fun, quirky narrator of a story I have read for a long time. I really enjoyed her and I love the way she colours her memories with little unimportant details, describes the smells of her family members and always starts a story in the middle and then jumps around at will. There are themes of sadness, loss, family and comedy running throughout her story. Though, as she would say, this is really as close to the stories of her brother Lowell and sister Fern that she can tell. Their stories are the ones she finds important.
I was less fond of the more factual accounts of the scientific experiments throughout the book. I kept finding them jarring against the tone of the fictional story. It just didn’t work for me and I wondered was there no other narrative device to get these important messages across? Perhaps a book told more from Lowell’s and/or Ferns perspective?
Overall this is a fast, fun read and has a rather important message at it’s core
The twitter hashtag #wtfthatending, the blurb and all of the hype in general, had me so suspicious reading this book that I worked out the ending with about 100 pages to go. So my advice would be to stop reading this or any other review until after you have read this book. Please go away ! Ignore the back of the book! Why are you still reading this? You are spoiling it for yourself! Very well if you insist I will go on.
This is the utterly compelling story of David, Adele and Louise. Similar to a lot of thrillers the narrative skips around telling what happened in the past and then what is happening in present, slowly revealing the whole picture. The present tense part of the story is told from the two female protagonists point of view, leaving you to work out David’s true motives and intentions. So slowly you get to piece together what has happened and what is about to happen. This is a fun, sometime tongue in cheek comedic fun read. I absolutely loved it!
By the way I love the ending but fully understand why others hate it. It’s let’s say a bit of a twist on a normal psychological thriller and it may not be from a genre that thriller readers normally enjoy.
If you have read this book you will understand why I had to lie about something above, so as not to give away the ending :)
This is the utterly compelling story of David, Adele and Louise. Similar to a lot of thrillers the narrative skips around telling what happened in the past and then what is happening in present, slowly revealing the whole picture. The present tense part of the story is told from the two female protagonists point of view, leaving you to work out David’s true motives and intentions. So slowly you get to piece together what has happened and what is about to happen. This is a fun, sometime tongue in cheek comedic fun read. I absolutely loved it!
By the way I love the ending but fully understand why others hate it. It’s let’s say a bit of a twist on a normal psychological thriller and it may not be from a genre that thriller readers normally enjoy.
If you have read this book you will understand why I had to lie about something above, so as not to give away the ending :)
This is a beautiful hardcover book illustrated with black and white photographs by Emma Byrne and it is a joy to behold as well as read.
When I purchased the book last week, I originally thought it was short stories. I was mistaken, it is actually a memoir of 15 women that touched Alice Taylor’s life. Some are relatives such as her mother, others are neighbours and others visitors to her house. However each story is an exploration of what it was like to be a woman in the rural West of Ireland in the beginning half of the 20th century.
The women differ a lot in their day to day lives in that they are from the traveling, farming, professional (typically nursing, teaching) and anglo Irish backgrounds. Some are mothers and others nuns. But all women are strong, make the most of what they have and have strong connections to their families and often to the Catholic church.
This is an eye opening read in what it was to be female in rural Ireland from about 1900 to 1950 and I would recommend it to all my GR friends who are interested in what life was like in Ireland.
When I purchased the book last week, I originally thought it was short stories. I was mistaken, it is actually a memoir of 15 women that touched Alice Taylor’s life. Some are relatives such as her mother, others are neighbours and others visitors to her house. However each story is an exploration of what it was like to be a woman in the rural West of Ireland in the beginning half of the 20th century.
The women differ a lot in their day to day lives in that they are from the traveling, farming, professional (typically nursing, teaching) and anglo Irish backgrounds. Some are mothers and others nuns. But all women are strong, make the most of what they have and have strong connections to their families and often to the Catholic church.
This is an eye opening read in what it was to be female in rural Ireland from about 1900 to 1950 and I would recommend it to all my GR friends who are interested in what life was like in Ireland.
