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After reading this book, I can definitively say it went over and above my expectations and is in my view, the best book of the ones I have read by this author. It documents the life of Tully, an independent teenager growing up in a poverty-stricken area with a lifetime of abuse and neglect behind her.
The writing in this book is not exquisite Woolf-esque prose but it matches Tully's character; blunt, to the point and it puts across the situation. Tully lives through the suicide of a childhood friend, Jennifer and summons all her strength to embark on a social work degree. The story is turbulent, through the misery of Tully's young life and the resulting confusion as well as a continuing sense of wrongness in her adult life.
In many ways Tully left me distraught. The amount of times I was reduced to tears was evened out but simply laughing at her manner and her rugged determination to right the wrongs that had been done to her through her work with foster children. We are often reminded of the years that Tully used her dancing talents and although these are never outwardly discussed in detail, we do learn about her dancing past through the sexual power she continues to hold over her male counterparts.
When Jennifer's true love returns to town, Tully wants to hate him. It is obvious from the beginning, however, that he (Jack) holds the magnetism which obsessed Jennifer and later another friend, Shakie. It is likely that Tully would have gone the same way if not for her stoic temperament, where her life had taught her to deal with anything else.
The ending of this book devastated me but I could see why it happened. I would definitely recommend this book over and above The Bronze Horseman series.
This novel stands as one of the more epic science fiction adventures equalling the likes of Asimov's Foundation series. I've never read anything else by this author but my father told me that Eon is a must-read.
When a large asteroid goes in orbit around earth, some of the best scientists on offer are sent to investigate what begins to be referred to throughout the book as 'the stone' (and its inhabitants are thus referred to as stoners). The book opens as a theoretical physicist, Patricia is taken to the stone; plucked from a myriad of people with similar talents but none with the specialisation she soon learns is vital to her mission. The asteroid holds many secrets which are exposed to Patricia one by one. The reason why she has been called to the stone soon becomes evident when she sees a seemingly endless corridor stretching away into infinity.
One of the recurring themes in this book is the lack of agreement between the USSR and the USA. While Soviet scientists are allowed on the stone, they are not privy to any information and have virtually no high security clearances. What becomes clear throughout the book is that nuclear destruction on earth is imminent and the plot centres around the end of a large portion of mankind.
The book is filled with aspects of a thriller, as well as aspects more related to the science of the infinite corridor. Patricia's real purpose on the stone becomes clear to her when she begins to find articles written by her twenty years in the future. The novel continues to a devastating conclusion, while at the same time the Soviets and the Americans are forced to make amends.
A grear science fiction thriller which I would recommend to all.
This is the first book I have read by this author, being a general fan of science fiction and less so fantasy, I enjoyed it a lot. It begins with a child wailing after a serious natural disaster on her planet, but she is not wailing like a normal child does. Only telepaths can hear her wrenching cries and it is made clear to the reader from the beginning of the book that the Rowan (named after her hometown) is a "Talent" which immediately leaves her destined for a life learning to fine tune her talents. She is immediately noticed as one of the most powerful talents to come through Altair (the human colony world where she lives).
As the Rowan grows up and learns to use her talents under the watchful eye of the harsh Siglen, she feels incredibly lonely. A small electronic toy called a "Purza" is her best childhood friend and later a large cat. As she gets older, the Rowan tries to find out more about her past and looks towards a lonely future, before deciding to do something about it and there her life branches out.
I really enjoyed the Rowan's character, her stubborn will and her determination to not remain alone like the rest of the "primes" had before her made her paticularly likeable. It perhaps pissed me off a bit that she went on to have kids instead of becoming the most awesome prime in the universe (a spot which her husband got) but it was a good story. Recommend to any fantasy/sci fi fans.
This is an astonishing memoir of growing up in Catholic Ireland. I read this at about age 12 and loved it all through high school and decided it had been a good couple of years since I had read it so read it again.
The novel starts off with a four year old Frankie in the USA, and he tells the story of his very young years. His mother comes to the USA for a new life, before meeting Frank's father Malachy and Frank is born only a few months after his parents' marriage rendering him a bastard. The family moves to Ireland when Frank's little sister dies as just a baby. They travel through Dublin, visiting Malachy's family and end up in Limerick. The next part of the story chronicles growing up with an alcoholic father and surviving with not enough money for food and relying on grants from various Christian foundations and 'the dole' as well as living assistance where possible and IOUs from the grocery store down the road. The thing that makes this memoir so heartbreaking is that it is written from the perspective of his young self. Frankie tries to model himself on the masculine figure his father never was and is constantly under the watchful eye of his Catholic God and spends a lot of time in confession. He finds himself rejected from local high schools because of the family's low social status, rejected from being an altar boy despite knowing the Latin phrases back to front. His family are at constant threat from "the typhoid", "the galloping consumption" and other illnesses which are not made less likely when the family moves next to a sole lavatory in a street where sewage is emptied from the other houses in the lane daily.
The book continues as Frankie struggles as a 13 year-old to make a life for himself, with the over and above goal of leaving Ireland for the USA, he makes his living firstly as a telegram boy and then as a magazine deliverer. An especially amusing part of the book is when one of the magazines they deliver accidentally has a page advertising contraception, Frankie is made to rip out the pages of the magazines where they have been delivered, not having a clue what contraception is and sells these scandalous pages for a profit.
The Irish lilt is noticed throughout and this is something that draws the reader even more into Frankie's life and his dedication to becoming something different than his upbringing would have him believe. His father's Dublin accent is scorned throughout by the other families in the area. McCourt truly had (he died recently) a great gift for writing and for displaying events as they happened in his mind at the time which is something a lot of memoirs struggle with. This remains on my list of favourite books. I highly recommend it.
This is a book about the police investigation into the South Auckland rapes and the eventual capture of Joseph Thompson for the crimes that shook the entire country. I didn't expect a lot from this book, many books about serial rapists or serial killers that I have read go into far too much detail about the state of mind (in the author's opinion) of the perpetrator. This book was a lot more factual, being written by a journalist was probably a good start. Corbett delved into Joseph's childhood bouncing from one parent to another, to foster care and adoptive homes and finally out of the state's care when he was 18. Thankfully she does not place blame entirely on any part of his childhood for what was to come next but it did serve as an interesting insight on children who are largely forgotten by their parents.
The book then went on to depict the crimes that Thompson committed, and also described what the attacks had done to each of the victims. The emphasis here seemed to be on the fact that it affected all of them for the rest of their lives, I think it would have been useful to show that they were survivors as well as victims but the presence of anything at all about Thompson's victims was a good aside on the impact of victimisation.
Corbett also showed the intense police investigation that took place and eventually resulted in Thompson's capture. To begin with, it was difficult for the police to even get an investigation off the ground and towards the end of the investigation, media reports were aimed at the failure to catch the offender. This would have been one of the first cases to use DNA in New Zealand for the purpose it did and also probably one of the first to use criminal profiling techniques to catch the offender.
I would definitely recommend this book.
This is the third and final book in the trilogy of Tatiana and Alexander as they finally find their life in America, but there is still much more drama to come. To be honest, once I got about a third of the way through this book, I was completely sick of the series, sick of the characters who had no depth and sick of the endless unrealistic twists where the family still seemed to be constantly at risk. While I think the first or the second book of this series would have served in the place of all three, this may have been a circumstance where a publisher was demanding a trilogy. To me, the characters and plot lines were entirely dried up by this book and the author seemed to be clutching at straws.
That said, I am not doing the writing talents of this author justice. I am told, Tully which I have yet to read is absolutely amazing so I will hold off on that. I think I would have enjoyed this book far more, had it been written about characters or plots that I found more believable. The author did display interesting characters in Anthony and Vikki and also displayed an interesting twist for the reader near the end of the book. It did seem like the relationship, complex as it was between Tatiana and Alexander took up the bulk of the book and this resulted in too many characters being introduced too late in the book to end with a naive sense of sentimentality and a random discussion about a defence strategy that seemed to have no place with the rest of the book.
I did enjoy the flashbacks to Tania's childhood which provided a welcome relief from the constant drivel about the relationship. A love it seems that had to survive through rape, abuse and pure nastiness. A look back into Tania's childhood did answer some more questions about her character and I believe a more detailed look into her character and perhaps more of a building up of it would have done the book more justice.
Of the trilogy, I enjoyed The Bridge to Holy Cross the most as it provided the wartime memories which the first book was about as well as having a believable love story and a good ending.
This is probably my favourite book by this author. It tells the story of the town of Wide Acre and in particular of Julia Lacey who lives in the shadow of her aunt who was once the people of Wide Acre's leader but ended up destroying the town. Julia has dreams in which she is her aunt, and she also bears a striking resemblance to her. She grows up alongside her controlling younger cousin, Richard and they have promised as children that they will marry and make Wide Acre great again.
It is clear from the beginning of the book that Richard has a nasty personality, which can at first be passed off as childish bullying but continues well into his teens as his desire for his cousin grows. It is only after her forces her into carrying his child that a secret is uncovered which will change the fate of Wide Acre and of Richard's hopes forever.
The growth of Richard's character is done extremely well, from a child who seems to like bullying, to a teenager who hides behind a facade of goodness to an adult who will get whatever he wants. What can first be passed off as childish cruelty becomes suspicion of wrongdoing to the reader until it becomes clear what Richard's true intentions are. Similarly Julia's adoration for her younger cousin becomes damaging when she cannot find the strength to tell anyone what Richard has done to her or what she has been tricked into.
This story is as much one of love as one of extreme sadness with an emergence of hope. It shows the capability of humans to do great good as well as great evil.
