"Before I Go To Sleep" by S.J. Watson: Review

Imagine waking up in the morning in an unfamiliar house, in a bed you don't recognise, next to a stranger. A stranger who explains to you that he is your husband, that this is in fact your house and that you go through this routine every morning, because you are suffering from anterograde amnesia. That is exactly the situation Christine Lucas, the main character of S.J. Watson's best-selling novel Before I Go To Sleep finds herself in.
Her husband Ben tells her that she was in a car accident about 10 years prior and that ever since then she doesn't remember that occurred after her late twenties. Struggling with the situation, Christine still tries to make the best of it. When Ben leaves her alone to go to work she is contacted by a Dr. Nash, who claims that he has been working with her for the past few weeks to regain her memory without telling her husband. He also hands her a journal she has been keeping, trying to remember. Dr. Nash is also the one to tell her that she was not in fact in a car accident, but that she was attacked at a hotel near the airport and that's what caused the trauma for her amnesia.
Working through her journal Christine starts to remember snippets here and there from her former life. She also remembers a son. Ben tells her that they had one but that he had died as a child. While Christine doesn't really have a reason to mistrust her husband there are more and more things that don't add up with what she remembers and what she is told by former friends and soon she is not sure who she can trust anymore and who even is who they claim to be.
What starts as a interesting story of a woman trying to manage life in her condition and trying to regain her memory soon turns into an extremely suspenseful thriller that keeps you at the edge of your seat.
Like I think I have already said in earlier posts I am usually not really that much into reading thrillers, so that makes it even better when I find one once and again that really blows me away.
There is also a movie version of the book, starring Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth and Mark Strong. While I am not really a Kidman fan I have to say that the movie is also really worth watching and I enjoyed it a lot, even though I already knew how it would end ;)

"Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a noel that paints a dystopic image of the world as we know it. The story is told by the main character Kathy, who narrates her life basically in three different acts. 

In the first part she remembers her childhood at a boarding school called Hailsham for us. Those seem to be her best memories, although it is already hinted early on that this fictional place is not an ordinary boarding school and that the students who have been there all their lives are not ordinary either. 

The students (and the reader) learn soon that they are very special indeed, because they are clones, created to be organ donors when they're grown up. Kathy talks about how every donor is to give as much as possible, but that they usually only get to donate 4 times maximum before they reach their "completion", meaning before they die. 

Already in her memories from Hailsham Kathy tells the reader about her friends Ruth and Tommy, who later on engage in a romantic relationship, although it is always hinted that Kathy is actually the one who has feelings for Tommy and vice versa.

The second part revolves around the characters being around 16 years old and their time after they've left Hailsham and are to live together in huts. In their time at the huts they even try to track down the woman after whom Ruth was created, to find out if there is any likeness in character at all. Disappointingly they find none and begin to wonder whether their creation was actually important at all. 

They also find out later on that Hailsham does not exist any more, because it was only an experiment to try and give the clones a good life and not raise them under inhuman circumstances. Unfortunately the funding for that project has stopped and Kathy, Tommy and Ruth were lucky to have been raised there and have a relatively good childhood.

In the last act we learn that Tommy and Ruth have already become donors and that Kathy is a carer. Carers are clones who take care of others when they have their donations. In those last years Kathy is a carer for both, Tommy and Ruth at some point, before their completion.

I think the book is absolutely brilliant, but it's hard to say that I "enjoyed" reading it, because, while I find the topic it is dealing with highly interesting, it is also very gloomy. The idea of clones as a kind of human spare part boxes is not new, but as opposed to, for example the movie The Island by Michael Bay, which is a typical Hollywood blockbuster with lots of action and motorcycle/car chases, Never let me go approaches the topic very calmly and therefore, makes it seem all the more realistic. Nevertheless, it was a great book and definitely one of my favourites from author Kazuo Ishiguro. I'd also recommend to watch the movie with the same title, which is maybe even a tad darker than the book but otherwise very well adapted to  the screen and with Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield as the main cast it assembles some of Britain's finest young actors. 

"The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce: Review

Harold Fry and his wife Maureen live a very ordinary life in Kingsbridge, Devon.  Recently retired, Harold likes to spend most of his time mowing the lawn or chatting with his widowed neighbour Rex. That is until one day he receives a letter that shall interfere with his daily routine and change his life and his marriage from then on.

The letter he receives is from Queenie Hennessy, a colleague who had worked with Harold in a brewery over 20 years ago. She writes to him to inform him that she has got terminal cancer and that she is currently living in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed.While the news do not seem to affect Maureen very much, they shake Harold to the bone. He hadn't seen Queenie in a long time and they never really got to say goodbye to each other, when she disappeared from one day to another. Not knowing what else to do, he decides to write her a letter, expressing his well wishes. 

He tells his wife that he'll just quickly post the letter and be back. He doesn't even take his mobile with him, because why would you if you only go to the mailbox. But when he's at the mailbox, he can't bring himself to post the letter and so he just walks on to the next one and the next and the next until he is almost out of his town. He decides to get something to eat at a garage and talks to the girl who works there. She tells him that her aunt had cancer as well, and that she thinks that believing one can save a person does actually save them. This is what makes Harold decide to walk to Berwick-upon-Tweed to see Queenie and that he will save her by walking. He calls the hospice and asks the nurse to tell Queenie to stay alive because he is walking to her and he also calls his wife and tries to explain that this is something he has to do. 

From then on he is steadily walking northwards, only wearing his yachting shoes and his everyday clothes. He meets lots and lots of interesting people all over the country who tell him their stories and he tells them his. At some point he becomes so famous all over England that he finds himself with a large group of people who want to walk with him to save Queenie Hennessy. The whole "pilgrimage" of his turns into a media event and eventually the other pilgrims even let him behind because they don't think he will make it in time to see Queenie. 

While Harold is walking he reflects a lot on his life, his marriage and his son David, who is often mentioned by him and his wife, but we never encounter him personally. Gradually the stories and traumata of Harold's past are revealed to the reader by dwelling on his memories with him. It soon becomes very clear that the quiet, boring life and marriage is not at all what it seems. I really liked that the story is told through Harold and Maureen's point of view, because that allows the reader to learn much more about both of the characters and their lives, than if one only gets one side of the story. I am a great fan of the book, because it tells such a moving story in a way you don't read it all the time, but truth be told, it gets a bit repetitive at times, especially towards the end. But I guess that also fits the narrative of the story, because walking through a whole country by foot will be a bit repetitive from time to time. Nevertheless I'd recommend it, because it is a very nice read. 

I am not going to spoil what the reader discovers in the course of the story and if Harold will make it to Berwick-upon-Tweed, because I think that by reading the book you go on some kind of journey yourself and it is great to discover everything piece by piece. 

"Noughts & Crosses" by Malorie Blackman: Review

A boy is finally allowed to go to a better school, which he could not do so far, due to his skincolour. While he is more than happy about getting a better education, he is still being bullied, because of the way he looks. Sound like an awefully familiar part of history?
But what Malorie Blackman actually does in her Noughts & Crosses series, is reverse the historical roles.
The Noughts & Crosses series are dystopian novels about a society that has not developed the way our world did. In this world, the African people (Crosses) did manage to evolve much faster in various areas and therefore enslaved the white population (Noughts). This first novel is set shortly after slavery was abolished, but it is still looked down upon the Noughts and they generally live very poorly.
This is the world in which the protagonists of the novel, Callum and Sephy, grow up. Sephy is the daughter of a very important and influencal Cross, while Callum is the youngest son of a Nought family, who's mother works for Sephy's family. So they basically grow up together as children and only later in their lives are confronted with their differences. The story evolves around their friendship and the problems their different social backgrounds bring with them.
The novel follows Sephy and Callum throughout their childhood and teenage lives up until their young adult life. The reader sees how they develop together and without each other.
What starts out as a very basic tale about love and friendship develops into a thrilling, critical and heartbreaking page-turner.

When I first started reading the book I expected it to be a very classical young adult love story set in an interesting dystopian world, but I soon realised that there was much more to this book. Blackman tells the story of a whole society through the eyes of two young people who struggle with their place in it.
While the setting is, of course, fictional, the topics and problems Blackman addresses, like racism, terrorism or prejudices, seem way too familiar while reading.
Although I didn't expect it at first the book really gripped me and I had to read it in one go. One reason for that, apart from the fact that it is absolutely well written, is probably that it doesn't happen very often that a book can surprise me and that a story can turn out completely differntly from what I expected.

"The Maze Runner" by James Dashner: Review

Waking up in a dark box, remembering nothing but your first name and suddenly being pulled out  by a group of strangers in a place you have never been before - Sounds like a nightmare? Maybe, but that's exactly what is happening to the boy Thomas in the James Dashner's  The Maze Runner. The Maze Runner is the first part of a trilogy (The Scorch Trials, The Death Cure) that evolves around the protagonist Thomas and his friends. Dashner has also written a fourth book The Kill Order which is a prequel to the happenings in the trilogy.

Thomas is thrown into this strange world, where he soon finds new friends in the so-called Gladers. He learns that everyone in the Glade has their assigned duty and so he becomes a runner. That means that he runs through the gigantic maze that surrounds the Glade all day long and tries to find a way out together with his fellow runners. He seems to adjust to his life there until another person comes up in the box and this time it is a girl. So far the Gladers had only consisted of a group of boys and the appearance of the girl, Teresa, sets off a chain of events that threatens everyone in the Glade and everything they have built up until then. A brutal race against time begins for the Gladers and by the end of book 1 they learn that the maze has been the least of their worries...

I first heard about The Maze Runner because of the upcoming movie starring MTV Teen Wolf's Dylan O'Brien. Being also part of the currently very popular Dystopian Young Adult novel genre, I expected it to be similar to The Hunger Games series or the Divergent trilogy. While it is definitely comparable to those series in terms of the genre, I have to say that James Dashner's series adopts a much darker and more grown-up atmosphere in his novels than the others do. Th world of his books is an even gloomier place and everything seems to be more destroyed. The Maze Runner is one of the most thrilling and exciting books I have read in a while and trust me when I tell you that you won't be able to stop before you've read all of them as quickly as possible. Be prepared for a lot of fun and excitement, but also for a lot of suffering and tears. You have been warned!
As for me, I am very excited to see how the movie version turns out, but if they manage to make even remotely as good as the book, there's nothing to worry about ;-)

"Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls " by Matt Ruff: Review

Imagine having breakfast more than 5 times every morning, wearing clothes you can't remember buying or having the taste of cigarettes in your mouth although you don't smoke.
Sounds all rather odd? Exactly! Therefore it has to be the plot of a novel by Matt Ruff. After Fool on the Hill and Sewer, Gas and Electic: The Public Works Trilogy Ruff picks up, yet again, a completely different topic.

Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls is a book about Andrew, who suffers from a multiple personality disorder. With the help of his therapist Andrew managed to organise the personalities in his head into a house where they all live together and where he can let them out seperately when he needs to. This very organised life he has set up for himself threatens to be disturbed when he meets Mouse, a woman at work, who obviously suffers from the same disorder, but has not come to accept it yet. Her various personalities approach Andrew and ask him to help her come to terms with her condition.

I was rather weary when I first read that the book was to be about a protagonist with multiple personality disorder, because in my opinion it is a very difficult topic to approach and has often been simplified and, to a certain extent, also glorified in movies like for example Fight Club (which is an amazing movie nevertheless).
Ruff, though, manages to approach this topic very elegantly and in a sensitive way. He also goes into the depths of physical and emotional abuse that leads to the protagonists disorders, but this is also approached very delicately and in a empathetic way.

Matt Ruff managed once again to combine the element of weirdness with a lot of emotion and humour, like only he can and Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls was without a doubt the best read I've had in a long while. Would definitely recommend!