Review: Fear the Worst by Linwood Barclay

I'm trying really hard to finish up a couple of my challenges but I kept looking at this book on my shelf and I knew I just had to sneak it in.

From the back cover: Tim is an average guy. He sells cars. He has an ex-wife who's moved in with a man whose moody son spends more time online than he should. Tim's girlfriend is turning out to be a bit of a flake. It's not a life without hassles, but nothing will prepare him for the nightmare that's about to begin.

His daughter, Sydney, has vanished into thin air. At the hotel where she supposedly worked, no one has ever heard of her. Even her closest friends seem to be at a loss. Now, as the days pass without word, Tim must face the fact that not only is Sydney missing, but that he may not have known his daughter as well as he thought.

As he retraces Sydney's steps, Tim discovers that the suburban Connecticut town he always thought of as idyllic is anything but. What he doesn't know is that his every move is being watched. There are others who want to find Sydney as much as Tim does. But they're not planning a welcome home party.

I breezed through this book in just over two days - it was truly suspenseful and had me quickly turning the pages way past my bedtime. The intensity kept building and the surprise plot twists were cleverly crafted by Barclay. There were a few reality 'stretches' as Tim digs deeper into his daughter's disappearance, but I can't help but think this would make an amazing big screen thriller.

Barclay is my new Patterson.

Challenges: A to Z Challenge Titles, Canadian Book Challenge, The Countdown Challenge 2010

Review: the girl who stopped swimming by Joshilyn Jackson

I won a copy of the girl who stopped swimming by Joshilyn Jackson from Karen at Bookin' with Bingo. I had passed it over a few times as other books kept taking precedent. Snowed in last week, I finally had some time to read it. I have to admit, the book was not at all what I was expecting.

Taken from the back cover: Laurel Gray Hawthorne hasn't seen a ghost in the thirteen years she and her husband have lived in their beautiful gated community. Then, in the dog days of a Florida August, she wakes to find Molly, her daughter's best friend, standing by her bed, who then leads her to her own small body floating lifelessly in the Hawthornes' pool. Laurel's carefully constructed existence cracks, and the past seeps through ...

Laurel and her sister, Thalia, grew up in what looked like a typical blue-collar home. But the Grays have long been hiding a skeleton in their closet. While Laurel built her 'perfect' life, Thalia became an actress with a capital A, a woman who doesn't fit in Laurel's tidy world. Now Molly can't rest until someone learns her secrets. Laurel turns to her sister, and together they begin a journey that will unearth their family's history, the true state of Laurel's marriage, and what really happened to the girl who stopped swimming.

Even though the cover blurb hints at death, dark family secrets, and troubled marriage - for some reason I had formulated the belief that was going to be the fluffy chick-lit version of 'bad things', and the idea of a ghost wasn't that appealing to me.

I typically don't like to admit when I'm wrong, but in this case it was great that I was. Jackson has written a genuinely dark novel that I had a hard time putting down. The ghost story line was plausible, there was two truly evil characters, the family secrets were quite shocking, and even the 'gated community' neighbours added to the intrigue.

If you like dark with a bit of 'who dunnit', this is a great quick read.

Challenges: A to Z Challenge Authors, The Countdown Challenge 2010

Review: Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I had read a few reviews of Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimaamanda Ngozi Adichie, but I stumbled across her first book, Purple Hibiscus, while surfing for a colour that wasn't yellow to round out A Colorful Reading Challenge.

From the back cover: Fifteen-year-old Kambili's world is circumscribed by the high walls and grangipani trees of her family compound - and by her wealthy Catholic father who, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home.

When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili's father sends her and her brother away to stay with their aunt, a university professor, whose house is noise and full of laughter. There, Kambili and her brother discover a life and love beyond the confines of their father's authority. The visit will, in time, give rise to devotion and defiance that reveal themselves in profound and unexpected ways.

It has been a long time since I've read a book that I found so emotional that I actually cried while reading it. The blurb on the back cover doesn't really give you a true insight into the abuse that Kabili, her brother Jaja, and her mother are subjected to at the hands of their own father. There were a number of passages that were hard for me to read. A difficult daily struggle in their own home is further hardened by the fact that their father is truly a provider and brother to the Nigerian community at large. Outside of the home he is rightfully adored.

Adichie's writes beautifully, and the transformation of Kabili and Jaja while living with their aunt and cousins was a true testimony to the power of family. Jaja thrives in his new surroundings immediately while Kabili slowly creeps out of her withdrawn introspective personality. The story felt true to each of the characters.

Purple Hibiscus had just the right amount of Nigerian politics woven through the character development. Having bought this book simply to fulfill a challenge requirement, it was such a nice surprise to be truly moved by the writing of the book.

As part of A Colo(u)rful Reading Challenge, I'm including my thoughts on the significance of the colour purple to the book. Growing up in their walled garden, Jaja has only ever seen red hibiscus. Upon arrival at his Aunt's house, he is taken with her purple hibiscus and is often found spending time in the garden. When it is time to return to their family home, Jaja takes a stem of the purple flower to try and nurture the flower among the red hibiscus. Having learned so much in the short time at their Aunt's, things at home will not be the same again for Jaja and Kabili. The blooming of the flower is symbolic for their growth. (Man did that ever feel like I was writing a high school English paper!)

Challenges: A Colo(u)rful Reading Challenge, A to Z Challenge Titles, The Countdown Challenge 2010

Take A Chance Challenge 4: Judge a Book By Its Cover

Challenge 4 in the Take a Chance Challenge hosted by Find Your Next Book Here asks you to: Judge A Book By Its Cover. Pick out a book based SOLELY on the cover. First, write about what you expect the book to be about based on the cover art. Then read the book and write about how the book was different from and/or similar to what the cover art led you to expect.

I bent the rules slightly to combine two challenge requirements - I needed to find an author with a last name near the end of the alphabet for the A to Z Challenge Authors - so I wandered to the last book shelf in Chapters and just started pulling out random books. I have quite often picked books based on the graphic appeal of the cover. The picture below doesn't do the cover I selected justice, it is a very bright turquoise and orange and the snake image just popped out at me. My choice is Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut.


Based on the cover art and the title, I expected the book would have something to do with snakes, evolution and perhaps the odd blue footed booby. (Who doesn't associate Galapagos with the blue footed booby?)

I'm happy to report that the blue footed boobies did make an appearance, but the feature cover snake never materialized in the book. Evolution was the key theme, but what took me by surprise was that the evolution was not 'animal' but 'human'. It is hard to visualize the ways in which humans could continue to evolve, and the direction the evolution took was not anything I could have imagined when I picked up the book.

Vonnegut revealed the entire bizarre story with a technique of literary foreshadowing told through the dry sarcasm and humour of a ghost narrator, stuck in the in between watching the entire one million years unfold on the island. It was unlike any writing style I have read before.

From the back cover: Galapagos takes the reader back on million years, to A.D. 1986. A simple vacation cruise suddenly becomes an evolutionary journey. Thanks to an apocalypse, a small group of survivors stranded on the Galapagos Islands are about to become the progenitors of a brave, new, and totally different human race.

Challenges: Take A Chance Challenge, A to Z Challenge Authors

Review: A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve

Thanks to Miriam at Hachette Book Group for providing me a review copy of A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve. (Publish Date: September 22, 2009).

From the back cover: Twenty-eight year-old Margaret travels to Kenya with her new husband, Patrick, with the intent of staying a year. In a dizzying multicultural city, she struggles to maintain her balance as her sense of self, her marriage, and her understanding of the world are shaken to the core.

Invited on a climbing expedition to Mt. Kenya, the newlyweds are caught up in a horrific accident. In its aftermath, Margaret must try to understand exactly what happened on that mountain and what it has done to her and to her marriage.

I read Testimony by Shreve back in July of this year, and to me it read as a departure from her usual writing style. A Change in Altitude was much more in keeping with the tone of Shreve's previous novels I've read - A Pilot's Wife, A Wedding in December and The Weight of Water.

A Change In Altitude is set around the emotional and yet somewhat typical 'women's fiction' subject matter of husband and wife growing first together and then apart as the story unfolds around a single turning point. What makes this book so interesting is the manner in which Shreve peppers the story with amazing snippets of African culture and graphic descriptions of the physical environment in Kenya.

I found this to be a very quick and enjoyable read.

Challenges: A to Z Challenge Titles, The Countdown Challenge 2010

100th Post Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to Donna for winning my 100th post Giveaway - The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore. There was 43 official entries and random.org selected the winner.