Source: ARC from Edelweiss

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran

Posted September 24, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Young Adult / 0 Comments

Title: How to Build a Girl (Goodreads)
Author: Caitlin Moran
Published: Harper Collins, 2014
Pages: 352
Genres: Young Adult
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Take to trip back to the 1990s, a time I am all too familiar with; the music was great but being a teenager was not all that it was cracked up to be. Johanna Morrigan is a fourteen year old who is unhappy with her life. That was until she decided to reinvent herself. By sixteen she was a sharp tongued goth, aspiring music journalist who went by the name Dolly Wilde (named after the socialite). How to Build a Girl is the debut novel by Caitlin Moran who is more popularly known for her views towards feminism in books like Moranthology and How to Be a Woman.

I will be honest; the only reason I picked up this book was because it was often described as The Bell Jar if it was written by Rizzo from Grease. I’m a fan of The Bell Jar and this was enough to get me curious about this novel. I can’t say I have ever been a fan of Caitlin Moran or her view points but I think her underlying message that no one should be judged for being who they are is something I can get behind.

Moran has made it clear that this is far from an autobiographical novel; her parents were never like Morrigan’s parents. However there is an element of this novel that probably reflects her teenage years. I think the teenage years are often a journey of self-discovery and reinvention and this was the main reason I wanted to read this novel.

It doesn’t matter if I agree with Johanna Morrigan’s choices and decisions; this was about her finding herself. The whole notion of self-discovery being similar to reinventing yourself is an interesting one and I enjoyed watching Dolly Wilde evolve into the person she wanted to be. Her parents and family often got in the way and tried to unintentionally (or maybe it was intentional) mould her personality. This was just an interesting journey to watch evolve.

I’m not going to talk about the feminist views within this book, it is not my place to agree or disagree. How to Build a Girl reminds me of the TV show Girls (or what I have seen of it) and if you are a fan of this show then maybe you will enjoy the novel. My biggest problem with the book was not with the feminist themes but with the writing itself; it never seemed to work for me and I felt like the intent was to shock rather than tell a good story. It is a shame, the premise is excellent and I could have enjoyed the book if more time was spent improving the proses and editing.

I wanted to love this book; the whole coming of age, self-discovery, and sexual awakening topic has always been an interesting one to me. This book started off with the best intentions but it lost its way, both in plot and writing. The rise and fall of Dolly Wilde (the character in this book, not Oscar Wilde’s niece) was worth reading but there is so much in the middle that could have been taken out and the novel would have ended up being less than a hundred pages. But these are my opinions; there are people that loved this book, I wasn’t one of them.

Tigerman by Nick Harkaway

Posted August 7, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary Fiction, Thriller / 0 Comments

Title: Tigerman (Goodreads)
Author: Nick Harkaway
Published: William Heinemann, 2014
Pages: 372
Genres: Literary Fiction, Thriller
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Nick Harkaway is fast becoming a favourite author of mine; Angelmaker was his take on the espionage novel while The Gone-Away World (I hate to admit this but still haven’t read this one) saw him take on the post-apocalyptic. His third novel Tigerman is his take on the superhero genre. While you might be surprised to see me speaking so highly on genre fiction, it is Harkaway’s approach that needs to be admired. His novels have a real focus on the genre but still manage to blend a high amount of literary fiction into the book and this is done so masterfully that you can read it without looking at the themes if you are so inclined (I don’t know why).

Lester Ferris is a sergeant in the British Army, serving in Afghanistan. That was until he was reassigned to the island of Mancreu, where he can serve out his remaining time before retirement without burning out. Mancreu is a former British colony on the verge of destruction. The island is described as the most toxic place on the planet; this is all thanks to the years of pollution and chemical dumping. The United Nations and the World Health Organisation has sent representatives to turn Mancreu into an “Interventional Sacrifice Zone”, which basically means everyone leaves so we can obliterate the island.

This island gives the novel an interesting background; on one hand it is home to a range of ethnicities, from Arabs, Africans, Asians and of course Europeans. Since this is a former British colony you can look at this novel through the lens of post-colonialism and get some great value out of it. Also, as the island is scheduled for destruction there is a typical side effect; the lack of laws being enforced has led to a hotbed of unwanted criminals. Using the island to support their smuggling operations, a ring of illicit ships known as ‘the black fleet’ lurk in the bay.

Now you have a protagonist in Lester Ferris who is on the verge of burning out. He is nearly forty and has no family to speak of, his life seems to be the army and the horrors he would have seen serving in Afghanistan may have ruined him. His job is to try and keep the peace without stirring anything up; his position as a sergeant in the British Army on this former colony is purely decorative and he has been sent there to keep him out of the way.

On the island, he friends a street smart, comic obsessed kid which sparks a pseudo-paternal instinct within him. He doesn’t know how to look after a kid but the desire is there. He turns to a masked hero known as Tigerman in the effort to make the island a little better without causing a diplomatic incident. The concepts of being a vigilante and paternal instincts play a big part of Tigerman.

I find that Nick Harkaway often uses a great deal of wit, ambition and irony within his novels and I find Tigerman to be a much more mature offering. Harkaway has already proved his skills in the world of genre fiction but now his is flexing some serious literary muscle. Tigerman is proof that he should be taken seriously as a literary author for this emotionally touching and intellectually satisfying novel. For a fan of literary theories there is plenty to explore in Tigerman; I personally would put on my feminist, post-colonial or psycho-analytical hat if I was to approach this novel as a literary theorist, but I can see many different ways to go about analysing this novel. That is before considering all the intertextuality that runs wild within the novel.

This may be the fanboy within me speaking but I was yet again very impressed with Tigerman. I still hold a special place in my heart for Angelmaker and I think that will always remain my favourite but I have to wonder why I have not read The Gone-Away World yet. I have The Gone-Away World on my shelf and will make sure that I visit it in the not too distant future. What can I say, I’m impressed with Nick Harkaway and I love his unique and well balanced blend of wonderfully energetic genre fiction and smart, witty literary fiction.

Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart

Posted January 20, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Non-Fiction / 7 Comments

Title: Little Failure (Goodreads)
Author: Gary Shteyngart
Published: Random House, 2014
Pages: 400
Genres: Non-Fiction
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Gary Shteyngart is best known for his prolific blurbing; they even did a documentary about it. Few people may know that when he isn’t blurbing books he hasn’t read, he has written a book or three. He has enjoyed critical acclaim from his three books, including winning the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction and being named one of The New Yorker magazine’s “20 under 40” luminary fiction writers. He now tells the story of Gary Shteyngart, born to Jewish parents in Leningrad, USSR (that’s St. Petersburg, Russia for those too old or too young to know Leningrad) and migrated to America at seven.

As those that follow me on twitter will know, I’ve been a little obsessed with Gary Shteyngart as of late. This is mainly because I was excited to read his memoir Little Failure and also because I like his style. Granted I’ve only read one novel of his, Super Sad True Love Story but it remains in my top ten books of all time. Reading through Little Failure just reminded me what I liked about Gary Shteyngart. I rewatched all his book trailers (they are well worth checking out), and a whole heap of interviews. I even ordered the two books of his I was missing; The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan, which I plan to read this year. I might even re-read Super Sad True Love Story again as I have more to say about the book and the world.

Little Failure is a memoir that focuses mainly on Gary Shteyngart’s life as a Russian born immigrant living in America. This was during the time of the Cold War so we see the struggles he had to go through as a kid, even to the extent where pretending to be a German was a better option. Leningrad to Queens would have been a cultural shock and Gary Shteyngart lays himself bare when it comes to his struggles with his family and school. There are other parts, I felt were only brushed over; his relationships, wanting to be a writer, his marriage. I would have liked to know more about these things but maybe there is another memoir for him.

I was surprised to learn how much of Super Sad True Love Story was autobiographical. There was a lot of Gary in his character Lenny and knowing that his wife is Korean I wonder how similar to Eunice she is. I will be paying careful attention to his other novels; now that I know a lot more about his life, the context is very revealing. It makes me want to read biographies of some of my favourite authors and then re-read my favourite books to see what is similar. I know, I’ve come late to the whole ‘non-fiction’ party (I’ve blogged about my struggle with non-fiction) but I’m starting to get it.

If you’ve not read this author before, you need to remember he is satirist with a strong focus on culture, especially as an outsider. His Russian and Jewish culture plays a big part in his writing style; I’m a huge fan of Russian literature as well as satire, so it’s no wonder I enjoy his works. Shteyngart’s father always told Gary not to be a stereotypical Jewish writer, meaning not to be self-loathing. I never thought self-loathing was a Jewish trait, I always thought that was part of the formula for all good books. This is a trait of humanity and I personally love books with an internal struggle, it makes it feel so real. Not sure about this tangent but I think it speaks to the style and what to expect from Shteyngart, his novels and this memoir.

I really enjoyed learning about this author and I can’t wait to read his other books. So keep a look out for a review of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan in the coming year. You might even get another review of Super Sad True Love Story. I hope Shteyngart writes another memoir later about his life as a husband and a writer, I would be interested to know about that part of his life. This was an entertaining and funny memoir about Jewish/Russian/American life as a child; well worth reading.

The Echo by James Smythe

Posted January 10, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary Fiction, Science Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: The Echo (Goodreads)
Author: James Smythe
Series: The Anomaly Quartet #2
Published: Harper Voyager, 28-01-2014
Pages: 320
Genres: Literary Fiction, Science Fiction
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Twenty years after the Ishiguro vanished, two brilliant scientists have been asked to help answer the many questions surrounding this disappearance. Identical twins Tomas and Mirakel Hyvönen have been interested in space travel since children. Not space, just the equipment. Can that find the Ishiguro, will they solve the mystery or will this just lead to more questions.

This is the sequel to The Explorer, so it is going to be hard reviewing this book without giving anything away. Already I might have said too much about the first book but I highly recommend reading The Explorer anyway. This series is off to a fantastic start and I’m already eager for the next book, which unfortunately may not be till next year.

If you have never read James Smythe before, I recommend him highly. His books The Explorer and The Machine book made my top books of 2013; that is a rare and incredible feat since I had so many books to pick from. Smythe writes literary science fiction that not only keeps you on the edge of your seat; they will also get you contemplating humanity.

The Echo has that philosophical and bleak style you come to expect from James Smythe. While this book sounded like there weren’t any thrilling moments, I was wrong; I was addicted to this book as much as The Explorer and it kept me up late at night. I love the way this author looks at life and sanity; there is so much he wants to say and I’m beginning to wonder if the planned four books series is enough.

I really want to say more about this novel but I’m afraid anything I do say will be a spoiler. I hate leaving a review so short but I highly recommend this series and that is all I can really tell you. James Smythe has another book coming out this year, so I have something to look forward to. I’m sure The Testimony will also be read during the course of 2014 as well.

Under a Silent Moon by Elizabeth Haynes

Posted December 20, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Crime / 1 Comment

Title: Under a Silent Moon (Goodreads)
Author: Elizabeth Haynes
Series: Detective Inspector Louisa Smith #1
Published: Sphere, 2013
Pages: 384
Genres: Crime
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

A suspected murder in a farm outside a small English village, a young woman was found dead with blood all over the cottage. At the same time the police are called in to investigate what looks like a suicide by driving into a quarry. DCI Louisa Smith and her team are assigned this case, they discover a link between the two deaths, a link that sealed the fate of these two woman. It all happened one dreadful cold night under a silent moon.

Elizabeth Haynes’s novel Into the Darkest Corner was one of the best books I read in 2011. I still have both Revenge of the Tide and Human Remains sitting on my shelf and I probably should read them soon. I decided to read Under a Silent Moon first because it is her latest offer and I was interested to read her take on the police procedural genre. This is a new direction for this author and I really wanted to see how her style translated.

What I loved about Into the Darkest Corner was how dark and disturbing that psychological thriller was. It was the type of book that I loved but couldn’t recommend to everyone because it might have contained triggers; it felt too realistic and unsettling. Some of her dark psychological style is definitely in this novel but there is something so different about Under a Silent Moon.

The novel felt like a very technical police procedural, I have no idea how a detective investigates crimes, my knowledge comes from men like Philip Marlowe who are hard-boiled and so smart that you often miss the clues (sometimes I think the clues never existed in the novel). I’m not sure how accurate or researched this novel was, but I think it worked well; she got that balance between technical and plot right. I liked how this book had police reports, notes and other documents to help drive the plot and give the reader a deeper insight into the crimes.

The major problem I had was that I wanted something darker; this felt too much like a generic crime thriller but Elizabeth Haynes style was evident and I like how detailed the book was. It was a slightly different take on the police procedurals I’ve read but it also felt the same. I also didn’t think much of the characters, there could have been more to them and I know this is the start of a series so I suspect that will come in future books.

In turn, I want to like all the uniqueness of Under a Silent Moon; I definitely like Hayne’s style but I just think there are too many crime novels that are similar. Sure, they all sell well, I just like when I book stands above the rest. There are so many things that were great about this novel, and I will be reading the next chapter in the series when it gets released. I think I prefer the dark psychological thriller style found in Into the Darkest Corner and was secretly hoping for something like that. I probably should try Revenge of the Tide and Human Remains first but if you haven’t read Elizabeth Haynes before and are not afraid of something that will disturb you, then I recommend Into the Darkest Corner instead.

The Martian by Andy Weir

Posted December 9, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Speculative Fiction / 4 Comments

Title: The Martian (Goodreads)
Author: Andy Weir
Published: Crown, February 11th 2014
Pages: 384
Genres: Speculative Fiction
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

In a freak dust storm NASA aborted a mission on Mars. leaving behind one astronaut; the crew evacuated thinking him dead. Now Mark Watney is stuck, with the damage done to the equipment he might not have time to starve to death. He was the first person to walk on Mars and he is going to be the first to die there too.

The age of the self-published novel is upon us and every now and then we hear people talking about a book getting a publishing deal and going on to be hugely successful. Fifty Shades of Grey being the first of these, then came Wool and I believe The Martian will be the next sensation book. I can’t help but think of this book as Moon (the movie) set on Mars. You have this man verses nature, fight to survive type thriller but help is about 225 million kilometres away (that’s the average; it does depend on the time of year).

You have a few parts to this novel; firstly you have a log book telling the majority of Mark Watney’s story. Then you read about NASA’s rush attempts to find a way to save him and finally you get a first-hand account of Watney when the epistolary style won’t work. The tension that builds in this book is key to why this novel works so well; this is edge of your seat thriller writing at its best.

What I loved the most about this novel was the humour, while this was a tense book, the little one liners thrown in really worked for me. I just liked how Mark Watney’s mind worked; it was a case of too much time on his hands. At one point in the novel he uses maritime law to work out how he can become a space pirate. Then the novel gets scientific, I’m not good at science but I did wonder how accurate this part of the book was. I’m not going to try mixing Oxygen and two parts Hydrogen to make water, it just sounds too dangerous.

For me, I loved every minute of reading The Martian, which is a little surprising; I can’t remember when the last time I truly enjoyed a Science Fiction novel. There are some that I got a lot out of but nothing this enjoyable. This book isn’t going to be released till February next year and unfortunately the self-published ebook is no longer available. Having said that, pre-order this one; I think there will be a lot of hype behind this, but don’t let that stop you from ordering first.

Dexter’s Final Cut by Jeff Lindsay

Posted September 18, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Crime / 0 Comments

Title: Dexter's Final Cut (Goodreads)
Author: Jeff Lindsay
Series: Dexter #7
Published: Orion, 2013
Pages: 384
Genres: Crime
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Hollywood has made a deal with the Miami Police Department to help them research a new TV show. Star Robert Chase has been shadowing Dexter Morgan to learn how to be a forensic analyst. This will put a dampener on Dexter’s nighttime activities. Camera shy and hunting down one of the worst killers who escape the justice system, and now a movie star watching his every move, how will he manage?

I’ve been a big fan of the Dexter series; both the TV shows and the books. I want to say they are like a guilty read but I don’t feel guilty at all. Darkly Dreamy Dexter was one of the first books I read when I first became a reader and one of the few series that I’ve read in its entirety. I do enjoy crime novels and love the way Jeff Lindsay gets into the mind of this sociopath.

Dexter is back in the seventh book in the series and while I love the series, the books have been rocky, some are really enjoyable and some just fell a little short. Dexter’s Final Cut was luckily one of the stronger books in the series. I really liked the way this book focused less on the hunting and killing but more on Dexter as a character.

If you’ve read any of the Dexter series or watched the show you will know that Dexter struggles to pretend to be human and at times he gets really good at it. In Dexter’s Final Cut they spotlight is on Dexter in a big way and the struggle becomes the most important part of the novel. His social interactions, his marriage and his work have all been watched carefully by star Robert Chase and possibly the paparazzi.

I like this new direction, it works really well for this type of novel but if I judge by the title of this book, it might be the last one in the series (I hope not). I love the internal monologue of this series and how light and entertaining they are, if this is the last in the series I will need something to replace it so I am open to suggestions. Dexter Morgan is a well-developed character and the series has always been witty and entertaining but this would have to be one of my favourites in the series so far.

Talulla Rising by Glen Duncan

Posted May 9, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Horror / 0 Comments

Title: Talulla Rising (Goodreads)
Author: Glen Duncan
Series: Bloodlines #2
Published: Knopf Doubleday, 2012
Pages: 368
Genres: Horror
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: Amazon (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Glen Duncan’s back with the follow up to the brilliant 2011 novel The Last Werewolf. I’ve been looking forward to see how the story continues as I personally felt the last novel left off with a bit of a cliff-hanger. Talulla Rising continues the story, now from the point of view of Talulla Demetriou; an exciting strong female protagonist, whom I loved simply because she is both kick-ass and full of inner torment. The novel kicks off with a brief look back at Talulla’s life before being turned, a slightly too small of a glimpse but enough to give you an idea of the type of woman she was before becoming a werewolf.

Like the last novel, Talulla Rising continues the memoir style; not only is there a focus on the inner struggle between the human and wolf side but now Talulla has her mother’s side thrown into the mix. WOCOP (World Organisation for the Control of Occult Phenomena) have taken Talulla’s newly born son and she is racing to save him before he is used in a horrible blood-drinking ritual. While she is trying to get her son back she is still getting hunted by WOCOP (as Glen Duncan puts it in the book, think CIA meets Keystone Kops meets Spanish Inquisition) as well. As the story progresses you get a sense of just how twisted this organisation.

Talulla Rising is a fast paced, exciting novel; dark, gritty and over sexed. I really love how Glen Dunan takes a popular genre that has been selling well and makes it literary and enjoyable to read again. If the constant excitement of this novel doesn’t keep you going then the dark humour throughout this book will. From the slight pokes of other authors in literature to Talualla remembering that her first human tasted like onions and whiskey; the humour in this book was pleasing. But when it comes done to it, in the end, the thing I loved the most about this book and the one that come before this, is the internal struggle; there is something about that that always pleases me. I’m looking forward to seeing how Glen Duncan wraps up this trilogy when he releases By Blood We Live; hopefully next year.