Category Archives: Book Clubs

Book Review All the light we cannot see

Posted on by

By Anthony Doer

Summary

Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds a perfect miniature of their Paris neighbourhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. But when the Nazis invade, father and daughter flee with a dangerous secret.

Werner is a German orphan, destined to labour in the same mine that claimed his father’s life, until he discovers a knack for engineering. His talent wins him a place at a brutal military academy, but his way out of obscurity is built on suffering.

At the same time, far away in a walled city by the sea, an old man discovers new worlds without ever setting foot outside his home. But all around him, impending danger closes in.

Comments

Our readers very much enjoyed this book. Some are highly recommending this book to others for a “good read.”

The reader follows two storylines in this book. One set in Germany with an orphan boy, Werner Pfennig, the other set in France with a young blind girl, Marie-Laure. Their stories are told in parallel from very different childhoods in 1934 to their eventual meeting in 1944.

Some readers did find the style of writing difficult to adjust to, jumping from timeframes and countries then back. These readers did not become as attached to the story and abandoned the book but most found they adjusted to this style of writing once the characters were established.

This style was described by one reader as “laying layer upon layer of information” steadily throughout the story.

There were many emotionally attaching characters throughout this novel, both French and German. The struggles for some young German boys and girls with a world that was rapidly evolving around them, a world they had no control over and were powerless against. One reader described this well as “a clash of the individual on the machine around them.”

The group felt that the two main characters, and many of the supporting characters, were beautifully written. Their individual life situations were very emotionally moving and thought provoking. This was achieved so well by the beautiful prose by the author.

Along with the stories of Marie-Laure and Walter there is a third dramatic suspenseful mystery story line following their paths. This story itself is also intriguing.

There was much discussion about World War 2 and how so much of this war was waged through the airwaves. Beginning with Nazi propaganda, their use of radio station and programme control in the brainwashing of the German people, particularly German youth. This was so engagingly written in the life of Werner and his sister in the German orphanage just before the war. The story then follows the use of radios by partisans in invaded countries bravely attempting to alert the allies to German troop and munitions movements.

Readers also commented on how they enjoyed the resolution of events after the war and how well it was managed by the author.

A highly recommended read. 

Read by MJ Readers

Book Review A Spool of Blue Thread

Posted on by

Anne Tyler

Summary

This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she and Red fell in love that summer’s day in 1959. The whole family on the porch, half-listening as their mother tells the same tale they have heard so many times before.

From that porch we spool back through the generations, witnessing the events, secrets and unguarded moments that have come to define the family. From Red’s father and mother, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to Abby and Red’s grandchildren carrying the family legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century – four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their home…

Comments

Many of our readers really enjoyed this book while some were disappointed by the structure of the story. There was real division within our readers with this structural format.

The story centres around three generations of the Whitshank family and the house in which they live in Baltimore. The Whitshanks are an average family and the house itself is presented as a real character in the book. Each generation’s connection to the house is quite well detailed and each of the key inhabitant’s special feelings toward the house outlined.

Most readers agreed the book is well written. The author’s use of dialogue was excellent and the attention to descriptive character detail all throughout the book was very good. Some readers were transported easily to the time and place in the story while other readers found the abrupt transitions in time confusing and irritating, distracting them from the story line.

Some readers also found the story line laboured on and on at times and was really not taking them to anywhere that they felt was interesting.

There was also a feeling by many that the story had an anticlimactic ending with some readers feeling unfulfilled by the story.

There is definite humour frequently throughout the book and moments that are emotionally very touching. There is also one very big shock incident in the middle of the book that none of us saw coming.

For those readers who had read Anne Tyler before it was a good book but not her best.

Many readers however did enjoy the story, the characters involved and the descriptive skill of the writer.

A recommended read.

Read by MJ Readers

Book Review The Alice Network

Posted on by

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

Summary

In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.

1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She’s also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive. So when Charlie’s parents banish her to Europe to have her “little problem” taken care of, Charlie breaks free and heads to London, determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister.

1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she’s recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she’s trained by the mesmerizing Lili, the “Queen of Spies”, who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy’s nose.

Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn’t heard in decades, and launches them both on a mission to find the truth…no matter where it leads.

From the publisher

Comments

As a group, we had not read much historical fiction, or knew very much about the role female spies had played in WW1 and WWII. However,  we were impressed and enjoyed the history lesson! We quite liked The Alice Network.  We love a story told from different points of views, through alternating chapters.  In this case, moving back and forth between Eve during the war, and Charlie, after the war as she searched for her lost cousin.  While we loved Eve’s story, riveted and turning pages quickly to get back to her side of the story; we struggled a little with Charlie.  We didn’t connect as well with her, however, we loved the small cast of supporting characters. We were amazed to learn at the end that some characters had been based on real people and that some of these events had actually happened. Overall, we would recommend this one for anyone who loves a historical fiction read. 

Read by Cultcha Club

Book Review French by Braid Anne Tyler

Posted on by

Summary

When Mercy Garrett moves herself out of the family home, everyone determines not to notice.

All she wants is space and silence. No clutter. Not even their cat, Desmond.

But it turns out family life is impossible to escape – particularly when it’s in your past. For Mercy it all begins in 1959, with a holiday to a cabin by a lake. It’s the only one the Garretts will ever take, but its effects will ripple through the generations.

Comments

French Braid is a story about family dynamics and the reality that sometimes we can be closely related but are in reality, almost strangers. Anne Tyler offers insights into family relationships and human nature through the recounting of the lives of the Garrett family. The characters are not particularly interesting and very little of interest takes place in the story.

This book met with mixed responses from our group. Some found it to be a very satisfying read which they could relate to from their own family experiences. Others found it tedious to read and could not see the point of the book or what it was trying to achieve.

5/10

Read by Dundas Readers

Book Review Apples Never Fall

Posted on by

by Liane Moriarty

Summary

From the outside, the Delaneys appear to be an enviably contented family. Even after all these years, former tennis coaches Joy and Stan are still winning tournaments, and now that they’ve sold the family business they have all the time in the world to learn how to ‘relax’. Their four adult children are busy living their own lives, and while it could be argued they never quite achieved their destinies, no-one ever says that out loud.

But now Joy Delaney has disappeared and her children are re-examining their parents’ marriage and their family history with fresh, frightened eyes. Is her disappearance related to their mysterious house guest from last year? Or were things never as rosy as they seemed in the Delaney household?

Comments

A long and rather tedious family saga/ psychological thriller. The Delaney family appear to be a normal happy family however when the mother, Joy, suddenly disappears the whole family is scrutinised and their underlying characters are revealed and found wanting. Has Joy been murdered and if so is her husband Stan the killer? To complicate matters a young woman named Savannah arrives on the Delaney’s doorstep in the middle of the night in a distressed state. She has apparently been injured by her partner and has nowhere to go. Joy allows her to stay with them despite opposition from her four adult children and lukewarm suport from her husband.

The background of the Delaney’s obsession with tennis is a crucial factor in the relationship between Stan and Joy and the lives of their four children. They met at a tennis club and went on to own a coaching school. All the children played from an early age and were expected to be champions. Such pressure to succeed has blighted the lives of all four of them in various ways.

One suspects throughout that Savannah is in some way responsible for Joy’s disappearance but we are kept waiting, not in nail biting suspense, but wishing that the end is in sight. When it comes however, like all good fairy tales, the family all live happily ever after and the wicked witch Savannah has the satisfaction of slaying the dragon who ruined her life.

The underlying theme of the damage caused by ambitious parents imposing their dreams of fame and  success on their offspring is a positive in this otherwise rather ordinary novel.

Read by Dundas Readers