The Year in Books: August

My book for August is The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey.  I had started to read Jane Austen's Persuasion but I stopped at the library on my way back from town one day to change my title and address, and picked up a few books.  I've been fancying some quicker reads, recently, and this looks like it could be a good one of them.

All in all, I read quite an assortment of books in July.

In one of the many newsletters I subscribe to The Last Day by Emily Organ was offered as a free Kindle download, and who can say no to free?  When he was a child, George had a premonition regarding the date he would die in 1985, aged 53.  It is now that date, and the story follows George as he worries whether his premonition will come true, whilst trying to sort things out with his family before he potentially dies today.  This isn't a book I'd have chosen for myself, but I did quite enjoy it.  The plot moves along at a good pace, and I thought the ending was appropriate.  Emily Organ's apparently in the midst of writing her second novel at the moment, and I think I'll be keeping an eye out for that when it's published.

A super-quick read this month was Disraeli Avenue by Caroline Smaile*.  Each chapter is written in a different style, about the occupants of one house on Disraeli Avenue.  I liked how each chapter was so different, and relevant to the occupants of that particular house.  It was a good technique for highlighting how we never know what goes on behind closed doors, and our neighbours are often trying to hide something from us - does this mean we are trying to hide something too?!

Maddaddam by Margaret Atwood* is the final book in her Maddaddam trilogy.  It's been a long time since I read the first book Oryx and Crake (published over a decade ago) and the second book The Year of the Flood (one of the first books I read on my Kindle), but handily Maddaddam starts with a recap of the previous two books, so with those and the help of a little bit of online research I soon could pick up where I left off.  The first two books are set at the same time, so their stories happen in parallel with each other, and then Maddaddam starts where those two books jointly finish.  At the start of the first two books, a man-made plague has pretty much devastated the planet, but there have been a few survivors.  It's very much a dystopian trilogy, and I can't say too much about it as saying what happens in this book is naturally a spoiler for either of the first two books!  All I will say is that in places it is scary, funny, thought-provoking and overall very well written.  I've always loved Atwood as a writer, and this trilogy only cements that.  I think, though, it would have been better had I read these three books closer together, as that would have given me a better all-round understanding, without having to resort to the internet for more information!

My favourite book of the month was A History of Loneliness by John Boyne, a story I enjoyed so much I've already reviewed it here.

My book for July was A Game of Thrones, and I'm still reading it, I just needed a break from it.  So much happens in each chapter, there are hundreds of characters and it was getting to the point where I was slightly losing track of who was who and who was doing what to who and why.  Despite having watched most of the first season of the television show, reading the book's synopsis online and actively looking for spoilers (no surprises for me thankyouverymuch) I was still a tad confused, so I reached a suitable stopping point, and I've left it there for a while.  I think I just needed to read something a bit lighter! I am fully intending to start it again soon, it's just not the right book for me right now.  Funny how these things happen.

Joining in with Laura.

*These books were sent to me by NetGalley for the purposes of review.  All words, photos and opinions are, of course, my own.