Tag: Toni

Addition by Toni Jordan

Posted April 15, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Chick Lit / 0 Comments

Addition by Toni JordanTitle: Addition (Goodreads)
Author: Toni Jordan
Published: Sceptre, 2008
Pages: 243
Genres: Chick Lit
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Grace Lisa Vandenburg is obsessed with numbers; she counts everything. Her whole life is centred around numbers; how many banana’s to buy, how many bits of an orange cake to take, how many brushes to take for her hair or even teeth. Everything was organised but then something went wrong and now she survives on disability checks and tutoring. Here only real connection in the world was a portrait of Nikola Tesla; that is until she met Seamus Joseph O’Reilly who changed everything.

Addition is a quirky chick lit novel of predictability but still has a few elements I was not expecting. Firstly the obsession with Tesla meant that there was a lot of talk about this great twentieth-century inventor, which really was the main reason I enjoyed this book.  She talked a lot about Nikola Tesla and I found myself learning some interesting facts that lead to researching more about this great man. Honestly this might annoy people but I love a book that pushes me to explore more.

Grace’s OCD was also handled really well by the author; I was worried it would turn into something similar to The Silver Linings Playbook but I was wrong. Mental health is a difficult subject to write but I like the way Toni Jordan handled Grace’s obsession with numbers. There was a mix of emotions regarding Graces obsessive-compulsive disorder that were explored in the book from misunderstanding, accepting, desire to change, anger and hatred, as well as many more that I would expect Grace to experience while trying to live with an unusual compulsion. I could not imagine just what Grace would really be going through but I do think this might be a pretty faithful to what might happen.

The main focus of Addition is the quirks of Grace and the romance between her and Seamus; here is where everything starts to feel too much like everything I would expect from a chick lit novel. The romance blossoms in a typical funny and emotional way which I admit I was worried about. Seamus really does not understand this obsessive-compulsive disorder and tries to change Grace.  For a while there I thought he would succeed and this would have killed the book completely but then I realised that this was a chick lit novel and that meant there had to be a conflict to force the two characters to make a decision on if they should be together or not.

There was one major problem I had at the start of the book that forces me to wonder if I should bother continuing or not. This was the poor research, two facts in the book near the start of the book (maybe more) that really threw me. Both felt like really stupid mistakes that I don’t think were intentional that put a major dampener on my enjoyment. One was about the Big Ben using Roman numerals IIII instead of IV and the other was when she called Thomas Edison ‘the telephone guy’.

While I did have some issues with Addition, in the end I did end up really enjoying the story a lot more than I anticipated. It was quirky and funny, even if it was completely generic in all the other aspects. I really think the OCD helped this book the most, it was fascinating to see how Grace handled her situation, to the point where I thought there was nothing wrong with her and this wasn’t a mental health issue just a harmless obsession and quirk.


Monthly Review – March 2013

Posted March 31, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Monthly Reading / 2 Comments

Happy Easter everyone, hope you are all enjoying the long weekend. I hope everyone has had a wonderful month of reading and had time to fit Lolita into their busy schedule. I’ve noticed a lot of mixed reactions to this book which would mainly be a result of the controversial nature of this book but it really is one of those books that have helped shape twentieth century literature, so well worth checking out. Still a lot of action happening with the reading challenge as well; looks like two hundred books been added this month. For those who don’t know about the reading challenge, there is still time to join in the fun, so check out my introductory post here.

A reminder that next month’s book will Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami for our Japanese literature theme. I haven’t read much Murakami but expect some great discussion on this book, hopefully with some thoughts to the Magical Realism genre.

Highlights for my month’s reading included Infinite Jest which I’ve finally finished; the beautiful painting of Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding; Lolita; and In a Lonely Place. I would like to mention two other books that really blew me away. First, Pride and Prejudice which I finally got around to reading after putting it off for far too long (also have you seen the Lizzie Bennett Diaries?). Also Tenth of December; while I’m not much of a reader of short stories George Saunders showed me just enough to change my mind. What have you been reading this month and what were the highlights?

My Monthly Reading