Cristina Sanders' blog

Good Material – book review

Good Material, by Dolly Alderton

Andy’s long term girlfriend Jen, with whom has been living for a few years, has broken up with him. He is a scruffy English comedian (I couldn’t help but imagine Josh Widdicombe in the role), not doing so well on the circuit, not hugely ambitious. He thought himself happy with Jen in their ‘tribe of two’ and with their mutual best friends, who have forged ahead, married, started a family while he and Jen roll unburdened into their mid-thirties. The unexpected breakup knocks him sideways. Andy makes his living out of observing others and making comments on the human condition and ‘Good Material’ eventually comes out of his break up. But hell, does he have to suffer for it.

My Friends – book review

My Friends, by Hisham Matar

Any book that offers a description of a face ‘like a landscape liable to bad weather‘ has got my love. This is a writer with poetry in his soul. ‘We shared the city the way honest labourers share tools,’ he says of two young men finding their way around London. He describes a nurse who ‘would gently tuck in my bedsheet like a skilled cook filleting a fish.’ This is classy writing.

The Covenant of Water – book review

The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese

“Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth about how the world lives!” says a character in the The Covenant of Water. That’s an oldie but a goodie and is perhaps is an apt quote for this book. I’ve never been to India. But with Verghese’s story it felt as though I visited every evening, in that witching hour before sleep, when a book takes me somewhere else. Reading Verghese, as I experienced before with his first novel, Cutting for Stone, is an immersive experience.

The Grimmelings–book review

The Grimmelings, by Rachel King

Undersong: the sounds of a landscape

Chapters in The Grimmelings begin with a curious word or two, just to set the scene. ‘Undersong‘, one of the words to introduce Chapter Four, describes the background noise we live with, all the time. Can you hear it? I’ve got traffic drone at the moment. I’d rather the undersong of the lake, which I’ll call ‘Flitsplish’, as I have a bit of the Scottish in me. Rachel King’s book itself has an undersong: it’s the rhythm and poetry of the best children’s stories. I was mesmerised from the first line.

The same evening Josh Underhill went missing, the black horse appeared on the hill above the house.

Classic.

The Night She Fell–book review

The Night She Fell, by Eileen Merriman

Eileen Merriman is delightful. I shared accommodation with her at a book festival last year and we sat by the fire in the evenings drinking wine and chatting about writing, YA books, families, life. I should have locked my door.

Prophet Song – book review

Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch

When I described the plot of this book to my hubby – about a country turned to anarchy, the tyranny of a government and brutality of the rebels –he said it could never happen in modern Ireland. This surprised me, as we had lived in London during the troubles, had felt the bombings personally. It wasn’t so long ago. And Hitler’s rise to power less than a century ago illustrates how a modern country can turn on itself in a heartbeat of time. Why assume sectarian violence has gone away? And yet Ireland, today, seems such a peaceful place. Paul Lynch’s book imagines how, still, it could turn. Horribly, given the increasingly polarised state of the world, I found his scenario felt entirely possible.

Forgotten on Sunday–book review

Forgotten on Sunday, by Valé Perrin

This was a recommendation from my French Canadian friend. She’s young. All her friends loved it. Valérie Perrin is a best selling author in France, and her previous novel Fresh Water for Flowers was a massive hit. But does it work in translation and enchant an older audience? Hell, yes.

The Fraud – book review

The Fraud, by Zadie Smith

The Fraud is an ambitious book, not one to take lightly. It encompasses the true story of an identity fraud trial in the 1800s, where a man returning from the colonies supposes to be not an East End butcher, but the lost son of a wealthy family. The family say he isn’t. Others, including a loyal black servant and the masses, believe he is.

Absolutely and Forever–book review

Absolutely and Forever, by Rose Tremain

This is a slim book about first love, and Rose Tremain is at her absolute pitch-perfect best. Oh! That aching yearning of waiting for a boy and the need to know everything about him and be with him all the time. Marianne, at fifteen, has fallen in love with Simon. Her mother says: ‘Nobody falls in love at your age, Marianne. What they get are “crushes” on people’. But her mother could not be more wrong. I can’t think of any better description of love than Marianne’s: the narcissism and obsession, the fear and frenzy of it. She’s fizzing with love.

Whatever Love Means – book review

Whatever love means, by David Baddiel

Whatever Love Means is an easy enough read about two couples in London around the turn of the millennium, the boys best mates, one married, the other a bit of a predator, with all the ingredients Baddiel seems to think we want to read about: sex, love, death, twists, secrets. Def a holiday read, there’s nothing much very philosophical here, no bigger picture other than creepy Vic having an affair with his best friend’s wife, and an unpicking of why her car crashed into a wall. “Whatever Love Means”, of course, is the famous line of Prince Charles’s in response to his engagement to Di – a stunningly cold response to love, which sums up the book really. None of these characters seem to have discovered the meaning of love. So why has it made my good books list? Well, I enjoyed the obviousness of it. Also, I think the stilted and stifled emotions of the characters deserve exploring. A good book, perhaps, for students of creative writing to unpick. Discuss: How might different people receive the book; what does the author want us to feel; is he in control of his characters?

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