Concentr8 by William Sutcliffe

William Sutcliffe is an author I have followed and loved since reading New Boy in 1997, although this is his first YA novel I read.

I wanted to love it, but it's hard when the first quarter of the book nothing actually happens. And I mean nothing. It was hard getting through those pages.

Blaze is not the leader of a gang of scum from one of London’s rather squalid areas. They have been on a diet of crap and Concentr8 (a drug for ADHD) for most of their life. During a riot brought on by the removal of the drug they kidnap a worker from the mayor’s office. The major is Boris Johnson and Sutcliffe doesn’t even try to hide this fact, even down to his blonde hair. So begins five days in the warehouse they are holed up in.

Told in multiple first-person perspectives the structure of which I did like we suffer as everyone in the warehouse does the author’s ineptness of doing this story some justice?

It would appear that Sutcliffe had an idea for the novel but like the story itself it didn’t know where it was going. Maybe that was his idea all along. If it was then STOP doing it. In your head it might seem like a good strategy but when it gets put on paper the story has more holes than a seasoned junkie.

Disappointed

½/5

Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum

Finished Hausfrau, I deserve a good book after getting to the end of this. Anna Benz is American and married to Bruno. With her husband and three kids she lives in Switzerland. She is friendless, struggles with the language, is not much liked by anyone, hasn't much interest in her children. Oh and eh yea she fucks anything, all the time.

Anna is like the whole cast of this book, completely unlikable. I don't what to say more about them as they will be forgotten once I finished this review. Just take my advice and don't read this book.

As much as the characters have flaws that is not the worse part of this book. As I have said previously debut novels are one of two things. Either exceptional, daring and downright mesmerising or full of its own self importance. This book as you can imagine falls into the latter.

There are whole sections of the book about the intricacies of the German language that may have be a subtle way to get the authors story across but fuck me it's just so vane. Like her pontificating through the voice of Anna's psychologist. If I want this kind of crap I will read Richard Bach or some other such narcissist. And don't get me started on her willingness to name every single place in Switzerland.

Don't write anything like this again please.

½/5

If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie

If I Fall, If I Die A Novel is the debut novel by Michael Christie.

Will is home-schooled, spends his time Inside with his painting projects and his agoraphobic mother until the night he heard a bang and ventured Outside for the first time.

Christie writes beautiful prose from the start with snatches of humor and wonderful insight. I couldn't recommend enough just for that. But there is so much more. A wonderfully paced novel that sees Will ventures out more and more even dropping the protective bike helmet all to the despair of his mother.

On his adventures and through school he meets up with Jonah who opens up new worlds to him including the joys and dangers of skateboarding.

“Shit,” Will said, swearing credibly for the first time, but still too afraid to enjoy it.

My one issue (for want of a better word) is the rather strange and sickly-sweet ending. Maybe I am trying to pick faults in this rather excellent novel.

This is why I love reading debut novels, they can be so very incredible.

Please read this book if you enjoy the written word, the prose is so very very beautiful.

Other sensations, too, unmistakable as neon: a dull pain throughout, a soreness to her blood, a twisting in her gut, stardust in her fingertips. It would pass, a mere miscalculation of an errant brain that found danger where there was none, that saw a lion instead of the lamb before her.

4½/5

The Girl on the Train: A Novel by Paula Hawkins

I'm struggling to write a review of The Girl on the Train without given anything away. I could just say you HAVE to read this book (that contains no spoilers and it's true). This is one of the best thrillers I have read in many a long year.

Rachel Watson rides the train every morning and every evening from her home to London. The train journey is frequently halted by the usual shit that plagues train travel in England and most days it stops along the back fence of a suburban line of houses. Rachel sees into the back of people homes and conjures up a story of the perfect couple Jason and Jess. She is accompanied by alcohol on her evening trips home a somewhat mundane activity you might think until you get further and further into the story and we find out about Rachel's reliance on it.

The premise of this story is so simple and I thought there was no way it would have maintained my interest. I was wrong. Every time you think it is going to slow down Hawkins drops a twist and you are hooked all over again.

I really cannot write any more without opening the story to you and that is unfair. Read this book because it is so engrossing, so relentless and so much better than the book you are currently reading.

5/5

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

The world is raving about Elizabeth is Missing and for good reason too. It's the debut work of Emma Healey, ginger, 29 and 'a pale-faced, slightly distressed looking author' ~ The Times. It is good, well the 9% of it that I read anyway. It just didnt take me in and hold me.

Maude has dementia, Alzheimer’s or some other such illness and Healy does great to portray the struggles that this condition holds on its quarry. Maude cannot remember what she did yesterday and in some cases what she just did or said minutes ago. It’s frustrating for her, her carers and her daughter (who visits her daily, mostly to find cans of peaches everywhere).

Maude cannot contact her friend Elizabeth and suspects foul play is at hand. She asks everyone she can, constantly. There is a lot of this repetitiveness in the story because it is the condition that plagues Maude. We are also made aware of something that happened to Maude’s sister some 70 years ago. This is where it gets a bit too unreal for me. Maude can remember this part of her life in detail but nothing else. She cannot remember if she bought tins of peaches but knows exactly where her friend Elizabeth lives and how to get there. The inconsistences I believe was the reason I didn’t persist with the book. If she has memory loss then she has memory loss and the narrator cannot have total recall of events, places and situations to justify the story. The story cannot be written because the story cannot be remembered. Maude is the narrator not someone outside looking in.

Here Are The Young Men by Rob Doyle

Here Are The Young Men was the type of book I had been waiting on for a long time. A contemporary new voice from Dublin. Imagine my surprise then when it was such a disappointment.

The Leaving Cert exams have finished and five friends are on the tear. Matthew, Rez, Kearney, Cocker and Jen. Our famous five are from Dublin Southside so you can gather money is never a worry for them. They are able to source copious amounts of drink and drugs without any problems and they do. I thought with the Matthew or Rex character we were going to have an Irish Holden Caulfield. Someone rich, at a loss end and a character you couldn't give a fuck about. We did get that but rather than one character you got five you really didn't care about. When I say five I mean three. For Cocker starts as a main character but it would appear that having 4 of the same twats in the book was even too much for the author to deal with. The character of Jen is worse. Such a stereotypical female character. There for the love interest and nothing else. Really bad to introduce such a single dimensional character. How this passed the editor I cannot say.

Anyway on with the book.

It started off fine. The three up to all sorts of shenanigans taking their drugs and drink to access. Matthew, the most stable, Rez the intellectual and Kearney the loose cannon. Through visits to beaches and hills around Dublin south side they drink, smoke, pontificate, take drugs and then take more drugs. This continues up until Rez doesn’t try to kill himself and Kearney heads off to Boston for a few weeks (money no object) to his brother and his eyes get opened to new violent ways. When they all back everything goes wrong. I don’t want to go into it too much. There is lots of viciousness in the story that you can find out for yourself if you want.

Doyle has a real grasp and understating on drug use and the effects. One of the finer points of the book. Maybe this is Doyle’s Dublin when the Celtic Tiger was in full roar. If it is then I am glad I wasn’t there at the time.

If you like you violence ultra and you don’t get attached to characters then this could be for you. If not then this book isn’t for you.

2/5

Are You Seeing Me? by Darren Groth

Let me just say from the start that I like Darren Groth as a writer, a champion of great causes and an all round nice Canadian-Australian guy. I also like his new book Are You Seeing Me?, but I don't love it.

Groth has said previously that Are You Seeing Me? "is a gift to my daughter" and it's not hard to see why. The story revolves around twins Justine (Just Jeans) and Perry (Pez). Perry has "a brain condition that can cause him to feel anxious or upset in different places and circumstances. He has trouble with people - mixing with them and communicating with them - and it sometimes results in inappropriate behaviours. I appreciate your understanding and patience." Darren himself has twins one of which, his son, is diagnosed with autism. And there in lies my problem with this book. Darren is so close to the subject matter that it hard to see this as a work of fiction but more of a personal testimonial for his children.

But let me try forget that I know Darren's back story and look at the book as a stand alone piece of work.

The story is told as a dual narrative with both Justine and Perry given an equal voice. Justine takes Perry on a trip to Canada and North America after the death of their father. Some might see is as a holiday (or creating memories) before Perry moves into the Fair Go Community Village but its more than that. Justine is trying to connect with the mother that abandoned them when they were very young but she doesn't tell Perry about this.

We don't find out what Perry's "brain condition" is but it's not really that hard to figure out. Perry is obsessed, a part of his condition, with three things Jackie Chan movies, earthquakes, and Ogopogo all which comfort him when life outside his mind becomes too difficult. One of the ongoing themes around Parry is his 'pshycic" ability. Which doesn't exist but plays on the misled belief that all people with autism have some special skill (i.e. Rain Man). This is not true and it is one of the better things that the novel deals with. As Justine says "... amazing in his own right, and no better or worse than anyone else".

Playing centre stage in the book is their Dad. We get his thoughts throughout thanks to a journal that he left for his children. I don't particularly like this trick. We could get his love, his fears and hopes for his children through their voice without having to resort to this.

There is none of the wit that has been in Groth's previous work and although I liked Perry, Groth's previous character (with a brain condition)  Kieran Monk from his novel Kindling, comes across much stronger and altogether more believable. Maybe I am just to old now to understand YA!

3/5 stars