Book Club – Page 5 – Cristina Sanders' blog

Lola in the Mirror – book review

Lola in the Mirror, by Trent Dalton

Trent Dalton has done it again – Lola in the Mirror is Boy Swallows Universe in all its unmitigated glory, but in Lola in the Mirror we have a girl hero who’s on the rocks, fighting to gain a place in the world. This was one of my favourite books of 2023 and I do recommend it for the feisty characters, twisting plot, adversity, love and gorgeous writing all wrapped up in a thrilling read. Yes, it is sentimental and the homelessness described is packaged with optimism. Barbara Kingsolver did this with her brilliant Demon Copperhead; she gave the narration of a deprivation story to a gustsy kid with smarts. Perhaps such optimism doesn’t live in broken cars in junk yards. Or, just perhaps, it does.

The Seventh Son – book review

The Seventh Son, by Sebastian Faulks

There are books that are a joy to read for their elegant writing, and books you devour for their clever plot. This was both for me. I could feel it calling from my bedside table as I went through my day. It’s centered around interesting, provocative subjects – mostly genetics and anthropology –which gives it lots of potential for a book club read, and kicks off a conversation that starts: what if this really happened? However…

Ingenious Pain – book review

Ingenious Pain, by Andrew Miller

This book was recommended by a good reader to me, one with a shared love of historical fiction. It’s by Andrew Miller, who later wrote the fabulous but misnamed Pure about the stink of a cemetery in Paris in 1785, which I thoroughly recommend for a wallow in atmospheric history. Ingenious Pain not so much. There are flashes of writing that evoke time and place brilliantly, like: “Candlemas, 1767. The streets perfumed with coal smoke and frost, the night sky richly hammered with stars.” Perfect. A whole description in fifteen words. But these word-riches are not as frequently distributed as in Pure, and don’t flow as easily. I will still recommend Ingenious Pain, but if you’re only going to read one Miller, make it Pure, for sure.

The Bone Tree – book review

The Bone Tree, by Airana Ngarewa

I met Airana at a book festival. He’s a presence – full of youth and energy and a willingness to be in the moment. He speaks the reo in a voice that carries across an audience and compels you to listen. No wonder his debut book is so gripping. I reckon when this guy has a story, you’ll want to sit up and listen.

The Bone Tree is, yes, another story of a dysfunctional Māori family living on the edge. In this case, they’re toppling over. There is little relief and no laughs; it’s the story of the misery of a good kid – I was going to say ‘who deserves better’, but of course all kids deserve better than this. The Bone Tree is narrated by Kauri, also called Cody by fat-tongued white folk, the implication being that his name is never written down. He lives in a totally dilapidated house on a bit of land in the ‘wopwops’. When his mum dies, dad carries her body out to bury her somewhere on the land, and later the kids do the same for the dad. Kauri’s dad, a violent alcoholic, has left him with a bad shoulder and a scar under his right eye, and maybe the boy’s life will be better without him. When the little brother, Black, gets sick, Kauri is the sole caregiver with no sense of how to save him. His main focus is to hide the fact the the kids are alone, to prevent CYPS from taking Black into care. This fear of the authorities underlies the whole story and it is malignant and irrational and yet, for this child, is the bedrock of his belief. He eventually walks to the city and is given food and Māori medicine, and his brother continues to decline.

Americanah – book review

Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

What is it, to be an Americanah? That’s the question at the core of this wonderfully rich story, along with other such essential questions, such as what is it to be foreign in America or Britain? What hold does a country have over prospective immigrants, how is it perpetuated? How are different cultures and races valued? And of course, as at the heart of any great novel, how does love work?

Tom Lake–book review

Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett

Another great read from Ann Patchett. I loved The Dutch House, so was minded to enjoy this new work. And I did, though maybe not quite as much.

Tom Lake is really a tribute to Thornton Wilder, who is a bit out of my frame, not being a big reader of Americana, but no matter. The story centres around his play, Our Town, that feels very pancakes-on-the-griddle homely and probably doesn’t have the connotations for non-Americans that those folksy folk enjoy. Our narrator, Lara, finds herself (almost accidentally) type-cast as the fresh faced young woman in Our Town, first in her home town and later at Tom Lake, a theatre company in Michigan. She is Emily, the sweet thing. She can’t seem to pull off anything else.

Yellowface–book review

Yellowface, by Rebecca Kuang

I don’t know about this book. I didn’t like it. I feel a bit like I’ve been stuck in one of those one-sided conversations where you agree with the argument but feel you’re being hit about the head with a puppet.

We Were Liars – book review

We Were Liars, by e lockhart (her l/c)

I read this soon after the fatuous Pineapple Street, confirming that the joy of reading (of course!) is all in the writing rather than the setting. This story, again, features wealthy New Yorkers with more privilege entitled on them than seems fair. This family have their own island on which they spend summer; grandfather and the aunts all in separate houses through which the kids wander. But where Pineapple Street struts the flashy surface of monied lives, We Were Liars goes deep with plot and character and story. It’s a good story, a coming of age and a mystery you don’t realise is a mystery until things stop adding up. Here, our girl, Cadence, introduces us to her three companions and lets the story rip.

This Other Eden – book review

This Other Eden, by Paul Harding

Such an interesting book, such a dive into the lives of people ostensibly at the very bottom of the pile. The story has its roots at the end of the 1700s, when Apple Island is settled by an escaped slave called Benjamin Honey, and his Irish wife. A hundred years later their descendants and a smattering of other (often a bit too closely) related families still shamble through their lives in this place. They’re a stone’s throw from the coast of Maine, close enough that they can forage on the mainland but, in the eyes of the mainlanders, who consider the islanders an inbred, mixed-race of starving, ignorant, degenerate squatters, they’re too close for comfort. The islanders are an amorphous blight, a problem in need of some kind of resolution. We learn that each islander is, of course, an individual, with different wants and needs and talents.

Lioness – book review

Lioness, by Emily Perkins

Bypass the weird cover. The book beyond is bright and clever – a story of Wellingtonians not usually open for scrutiny, people with big money and flash houses but still, for all their entitlement, real people with relatable problems: complex families, children, ageing, white-lies that go bad, temptation.

Therese Thorne married money. Trevor was twenty years older, his wife had left him and he swooped in on pretty Theresa, changed her name, got her tooth fixed and folded her into his life with his business empire, his houses, his four children and their accoutrements. He set her up with a homeware business and she built up a chain of Therese Thorne shops selling lovely, darling things to lovely darlings. At their holiday house in the Sounds, a young guest suggests to Therese (as they’re peeling potatoes) they’re like the ‘help’. She’s insulted but it seems a fair comment. “Bunting, strings of lights, fat outdoor candles in glass jars, tick, tick, tick. Booze cabinet housing ancient gin and sweet holiday liqueurs, tick. Beer fridge, crated wine delivery, tick. Kayaks, rowboat, paddleboards, fishing gear, boardgames, tick.” Trevor is in his seventies now and they’re still having good sex. Tick. So far, so PA with benefits.

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