Book Reviews

"Back When We Were Grown-Ups" Anne Tyler

Rebecca is the family cheerleader. The one who takes control of the family events. Making sure that everything that should be celebrated is celebrated and that all new family members are made to feel welcome. She steps in to make sure all her parties run smoothly and soothes the bickering between her daughters. Waking up after a dream of a son she never had she begins to wonder of the life she left behind. She wonders what would have happened had she married her high schools sweetheart. She longs to go back to being that 19 year old introverted scholar.

I have been wanting to read Anne Tyler for a long time now. Someone I worked with loved her books and since then I have been meaning to give them a try. Since I am going through a fiction phase I decided to finally go ahead and pick one up. This was the first one I looked at and as soon as I read the back I knew immediately that I would like it. It's very rare for that to happen, to just know and it was exactly as I expected it to be. Almost everything about it can be described as 'nice'. It was what popped into my head as soon as I put it down, 'it's a nice story'. I must admit that my heart did go out to one of the characters and if you read it you know who I will mean. A great book if you want a light read and a story that you really don't have to think too much about.

"100 Years of Solitude" Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A Man and his wife decide to leave their home town believing that they are haunted by a ghost. A group of men and women leave with them and after a lot of travelling they finally settle and build the town Macondo. There this man and wife bring up their family and their descendants. The town starts off as isolated but slowly the outside world breaks in. During these 100 years this family are heavily involved in the evolution of this little town.

This has to be one of the stranger books I have read. I started off not knowing when it was set due to the superstition and supernatural beliefs of the people. I was then thrown off by the introduction of technology. This supernatural is dotted through out the book which threw me off now and then. It took me about 30 pages to get into it but in the end I did enjoy it. I loved reading about all these people who seemed to live unfortunate loves (I realise that makes me sound sadistic but it's not like that, honest). It was one of those books that stays with you. There were certain scenes that I couldn't get out of my head. Mostly because I came away not sure what to think of the book as a whole.

"The Cutting Room" by Louise Welsh

Rilke is an auctioneer working for a small company that just gets by. He then gets a fantastic deal when an old man dies and the elderly sister want to rid of everything quickly and without fuss. It means extra work, man power and some cross words from the owner of the company but he agrees. The old lady has only one demand. Rilke alone must deal with the contents of her brothers private study and burn his collection. Rilke reluctantly agrees rather than lose the job. When going through the study he finds some photographs he hopes aren't real. He finds it difficult to let them go and so begins to do some investigating of his own which gets him into a lot of trouble.

I decided to try this book because the author is from Glasgow and the book is set here. I have to admit that I didn't enjoy it. The only reason I didn't give up was that I wanted to know how it turned out. I just didn't enjoy reading about an old auctioneer drunk investigating the possibility of a dead man being into snuff porn. Some of it made me feel a little uncomfortable to be honest. I know a few people who have read the book and enjoyed it but I wouldn't recommend it.

"Ya-Yas In Bloom" Rebecca Wells.

A book of short stories based on a group of friends an their families. Mainly from the point of view of Vivien Walker, the leader of the Ya Yas, and her children. There were also some from other people in the town who's lives were affected by the ya yas in some way.

This is the third book about this group of friends. There are some nice stories in there and it makes for very light reading. To be honest I only read it as I had read the first two. I would recommend reading them first as they give a better idea of the background.