contempory fiction – Cristina Sanders' blog

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?

Water – book review

Water, by John Boyne

The last John Boyne I reviewed went in my books that don’t make the cut page. This one, however, was a highlight of the year so far (hey, it’s only February).

A woman arrives on an island off the coast of Ireland with chopped hair and a new name and takes a remote house. It’s a fail-safe start to a yarn. Why is she there, who is she hiding from, what’s happened? She’s been all over the press, we learn. Her husband is in jail, disgraced. Willow, not her real name, engages with the community on the island, enough to keep the gossipers away, hoping they wont discover her past. She takes a young lover, has the occasional meal at the local pub. Thinks about how she ended up in hiding. Boyne leads us along through this excellent woman’s voice, into a past story that slowly unfolds.

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.

Pet – book review

Pet, by Catherine Chidgey

Very creepy, very noir, if domestic New Zealand, circa 1970, can be called noir. The story certainly starts off sweetly enough. Our girl, Justine, is in class, trying to please the new teacher, Mrs Price. Everyone is. Mrs Price is young, new in town, and glamourous. Hot, she’d be called today. She also has a tragic past: a husband and daughter, dead in a car crash. Justine watches as she selects her pets and desperately wants to be the one asked to stay behind to wipe the board, or empty the bins, but these jobs go to the popular kids. Justine, and best friend Amy, are not part of the cool crowd. They go home to each other’s houses, rate the prettiest girls in the class in order: Melissa first, others depending on haircuts and body parts, and then they select each other as fourth. Pretty enough, but not up there. They are kind to each other. They talk about boys, and buying a first bra. There’s nothing creepy here, yet. Just a whiff of foreboding. Chidgey is a clever writer. It’s all good until it isn’t.

Oh William! –book review

Oh William! By Elizabeth Strout

I read this in one sitting (long haul flight) and was totally consumed. Our narrator Lucy talks directly to the reader, repeating herself, I mean, repeating herself like a speaker would, telling you what she’s going to tell you, and then telling it, and there’s an easy rhythm to her chat. This is an intimate memoir of New Yorker, Lucy Barton, and her ongoing affection for her ex-husband, the titular William, with the oh! representing all the times she feels sorrow for him, or frustration, or exasperation, or pathos. There’s a lot of Oh Williams! because she does still care, deeply, about this man, the father of their two daughters who, after they split, went on to other wives and lovers and then found himself, in his seventies, alone, with no one to tell him his trousers are too short. Oh William!

(My kids ‘oh Mum!’ me. I know how many different ways there are to say it).

Sorrow and Bliss—book review

Sorrow and Bliss, by Meg Mason

Sorrow and Bliss is a lively and intelligent book. The author uses her vocabulary well and can summon up a hundred ways to describe ‘awkward’. A lesser author might tell you that a couple sat on sofa and she felt awkward. Mason says: ‘He was sitting at one end of the sofa. I sat down and folded my legs underneath me. Facing him, the posture felt beseeching and I put one foot back on the floor.’ How wonderful is that complicated word–beseeching, and how perfectly it describes this character. There are words and descriptions to admire all thorough this book. ‘The Germans have a word for heartbreak, Martha. Liebeskummer. Isn’t it awful?’

Slow Down, You’re Here–book review

Slow Down, You’re Here, by Brannavan Gnanalingam

Well, there’s a lesson in this narrative. Mothers, stay home with your children. If you stray from the natural order a ghastly comeuppance will be visited upon you.

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