Sparking Syllables

Sorry for the delay,,,

2009-05-25T23:50:00.002+01:00

There's been no post today (I've decided that because I have such insanely busy weekends this is, for the moment, going to be a weekday blog) because I've spent the day helping the lovely Sarah Rees Brennan (whose book I'm hoping to get tomorrow and review this week!) recover her journal posts after they were hacked.

Hacking is a terrible thing, folks. Especially malicious hacking such as this, which seems have had no purpose except to mess things up for Sarah the week before her debut novel comes out. It's sick and sadistic and it makes me angry.

Business on the blog should resume as normal tomorrow - I was going to do an Old Favourite today but that will wait until next Monday now. Tomorrow shall be 'Prep' by Curtis Sittenfeld. Theoretically.

Hope you've all had a good weekend and enjoyed as much sunshine as we did!

Hannah

The Girls - Lori Lansens

2009-05-22T01:47:00.008+01:00

Title: The Girls

Author: Lori Lansens

Publisher: Virago Press Ltd.

Genre: YA/Commercial Fiction (some adult content, mild)

Summary

Twin girls Rose and Ruby are growing up in small-town Ontario, cared for by their adoptive parents. They have happy days and sad, they work hard and love their family. In short, they are like any other girls except for one thing: they are conjoined twins.

The story is told autobiographically by the girls, detailing the history of their lives in a

frank and mostly unsentimental manner that is nonetheless touching. The reason for the telling the story? The girls are approaching their thirtieth birthday and a series of ever-worsening health problems means they aren’t likely to reach it.

Review

I really enjoyed ‘The Girls’. I’ve always been a fan of first-person narratives, particularly shared first-person narratives, and Lori Lansens manages to give both girls their own voice, making it clear that although they may share a whole lot of blood vessels and a skull-plate, they’re very much their own people.

There were occasional flaws in the novel – one of the pitfalls of shared narration is that events are often repeated from each perspective. Lansens usually manages to avoid this trap but sometimes it was unavoidable and at those points I was slightly bored. In places it dragged; there were one or two scenes I felt could have been cut in order to pick up the pace. In a novel about time running out for the protagonists I would have expected a rapid pace, but for the most part it is fairly leisurely.

However, it was a good read. There were even a couple of twists which took me pleasantly by surprise! So I would recommend this book with the warning that this is best read slowly. I tried to take it too fast at first, and stumbled because of it. But once I found my way, it was a lovely read which I will definitely read again.

Plot –

Writing –

Overall –

Hello and Welcome!

2009-05-21T21:10:00.002+01:00

Hello, welcome to my blog! This blog was created for purpose of reviewing books I have read. Most will be recent reads, but once a week I will have an 'Old Favourites' post, in which I will review a book I've known and loved for a long time. And I also seem to be the only UK book blogger around, which is quite exciting. Hopefully I can provide an alternative outlook on literature to my fellows in the rest of the world and maybe introduce everyone to some of the exciting things happening in the world of British/European literature!

This blog was named after the Victor Hugo quote: "To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark." Well, I read so much that there must be a veritable inferno going on in my head! So I thought that I would offer others the chance to feed their own fires with new and exciting syllables from books they may never have heard of.

I hope you enjoy reading my blog and that I can help you to find something new and exciting to read. I would just like to point out that everything posted on here (unless otherwise stated) is my opinion. Although I like to think that I'm always right about everything, sometimes I'm not. Just because I don't love a book, it doesn't mean it isn't the perfect read for you. Equally if I enthuse about a book it is entirely possible that you might hate it. I'm truly sorry if that is the case but please don't come back and tell me off for promoting a book you hate - the beautiful thing about opinion is that it differs, and maybe you'll like something else I suggest.

So - please dive straight in! Comments make me happy and if you have any questions do not hesitate to email me at sparkingsyllables @ gmail.com (spaces removed of course!) Thanks for visiting and I would love to see you again soon!

Hannah xxx