I've been reading some heavier literary books recently, so I felt like delving into some lighter ones to get a bit of balance. So I picked up Don't Want to Miss a Thing by Jill Mansell. I've read some of her other books over the years - Thinking of You, A Walk in the Park, Nadia Knows Best, and To the Moon and Back, so I knew what I was in for - and I wasn't disappointed. Mansell writes romances set in the U.K. that are funny and often a bit whimsical, and her characters are not often picture-perfect romantic leads, but ones that feel like real people living ordinary lives (with a few twists thrown in for fun).
In Don't Want to Miss a Thing, the main character is Dexter Yates - charming, handsome, and living the high life in London. But when his sister dies, leaving behind his eight-month-old niece Delphi, Dexter learns what it means to stand up for his family in the most essential way possible. He decides to leave the rat race behind and move to a small village in the Cotswolds to raise her, where a number of women are only too willing to help him out. There's Amanda, the charming village doctor, Molly, a cartoonist who's his next door neighbor, and Frankie, a newly single mother who discovered her husband has been leading a double life. While there's an essential format to romances that is formulaic - you can't get past the boy meets girl (or girl meets girl or boy meets boy), Mansell's book takes the reader on a few twists and turns and has lively characters. Her writing style is very engaging, and she deals with sometimes very serious issues in a compelling way. For fans of romantic comedies, I'd definitely recommend this book. The language in this book is beautiful. It produces a dreamlike narrative where the reader is carried along by the events taking place, so that the most horrific things that are happening in the Sri Lankan civil war seem to carry a deeper and more profound meaning than just three families caught up in a conflict. I liked how seamlessly the history of the island is incorporated into the main narrative, so that as a reader, I was transported to this paradise-turned-hell-on-earth and carried along each step of the way with the protagonists.
The one thing that pulled me out of the story is that there are some confusing moments/transitions which I think speaks to this being Munaweera's first book. The book begins in a time before the protagonist is born, but I didn't feel that inserting elements of the present-day into the initial setup of the story really added much to the narrative. There is one passage where one of the protagonists explains directly to the reader why she starts the story before she is born. It pulled me out of the narrative somewhat, and made me aware that I was being told a story rather than just being able to enjoy the story itself. This is useful if it is a repeated conceit that adds extra meaning to the narrative, but it seemed to be the only part of the story where there is this forced type of self-identification, so it stuck out to me. The second confusing part for me was at the beginning of Part 2, where another "I" protagonist appears with no explanation of who this person is in relation to the original family that the reader has been following for the first half of the book. The connection becomes apparent later, but I still felt it was a confusing transition for the reader. It lost me a bit as I floundered in the narrative trying to figure out what was going on. A very simple and commonly-used device would have negated my confusion - in each part, if the name of the protagonist had been used after the section or chapter title, such as "Part 1: Yasodhara" or "Chapter 8: Saraswathi," it would have easily indicated a change in character without necessitating extra explanation to pull the reader out of the story. Other than these small technical items which caused a bit of confusion, I really enjoyed this bittersweet story. When I close a good book, I want it to linger in my thoughts, and this book did. I would definitely recommend it. First, I want to say how much I enjoyed the writing style of this book - it was hard to put down. I can see what the hype was about and why it was made into a movie - I haven't yet seen the movie, but I can perfectly see this story being carried out in film.
Having said that, I also have to say the second half of the book was just as well written as the first half, but the plot veered too far into the implausible for my tastes. There were a couple things that pulled me out of the story: ***SPOILER ALERT 1) There were too many writers in the book. Perhaps I'm biased since I'm a fiction writer myself, but one of the first lessons we're told is: Don't write about writers. Not only are Amy's parents writers, but Amy and Nick are both writers. Although Amy's parents being writers helped fully flesh out the plot, Nick certainly doesn't need to be one also. Because of the fake diary Amy plants as part of the evidence piling up against her husband, it might lend credibility for her to pull off the con by being a professional writer... then again, perhaps it's not necessary. Many people have very wonderful blogs nowadays, but aren't "professional" writers. And the fact that ALL the main characters share the same profession? Too many writers in the book, in my opinion. Like too many chefs spoil the broth. 2) Amy's psychosis reads too much to me like a made-up story rather than a fully realized narrative. She is logically crazy. I felt myself being stretched a little past credibility with some of the actions attributed to her. 3) Amy's character is inconsistent. She goes to such great lengths to protect herself and set up the narrative to frame Nick. Then once she stages her disappearance and reaches the cabins in the middle of nowhere, she immediately starts hanging out with two strangers whom she knows nothing about, even going so far as to reveal where she keeps her money and watching a TV show about her own disappearance with one of them. I understand that to forward the plot, her money needs to be stolen in order to be forced to turn to Desi... but it really seems out of character for her. It seems stupid and spur-of-the-moment, and the whole point of the book is she ISN'T stupid or spur-of-the-moment. She's insane, but she's methodical and patient. 4) Nick staying with Amy at the end of the story seems implausible to me. While the child might be SOME motivation, is it worth the rest of his life with crazy Amy? Seems out of character to me. He's turned to another woman before, and he could again. At the end, he talks about not wanting to become Amy, then contradicts himself by saying he's reaching her level of craziness. Again, this struck me as inconsistent. ***END SPOILER ALERT*** Other than these few plot points that bothered me as I read the book, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'd definitely pick up another book by Gillian Flynn. There's definitely a lot to like about this book. It's a story about five college friends who have turned thirty and found out that their lives are not where they expected. The main character, Ben, is in the middle of a divorce with his wife, Sarah. Lindsey, whom Ben has loved since college, is a temp worker whose life lacks anything permanent, carrying over to her relationships. Alison has put her personal life on hold for ten years, since she's been in love with Jack the whole time, who is now a big-shot movie star with a serious coke addition. Chuck is still the class clown whom none of the friends take seriously, although he is currently a highly respected doctor.
The characters are complex but likable, and a story that could be full of clichés has only one or two to hold it up. The writing style draws the reader in and keeps the reader zigzagging between sympathy for the characters and laughter at their crazy antics. ***SPOILER ALERT*** There's only one part of the book that made me go: "Whaaaat?" One of the main characters is a player, who picks up random women from bars for one-night stands. One of the women he picks up lies about her age - she is still in high school and under 18 years old. Ben, the main character, finds out about this and chooses not to tell anyone about what he has found out. I kept on waiting for consequences for the characters because of this statuary rape, but nothing happens in the book - the characters just keep on doing their thing, and this part of the storyline goes nowhere. So it left me with a bit of an icky feeling. This isn't the only instance when the main characters do something highly illegal in the book that turns out "all right" in the end, so it left me with the idea of a pattern of "do anything and it'll be okay." I wasn't too keep on that part of the story. ***END SPOILER ALERT*** Other than that, I enjoyed the book and would probably pick up another one from Jonathan Tropper. I recently finished one of the best books I have read in a while. I like a good apocalypse as much as the next person - I'm a fan of The Walking Dead, for example - but those types of stories are easy to over-dramatize and throw in lots of violence or dystopia for the sake of violence or dystopia. But to have a good apocalypse tale that reveals the heart of humanity, while not showing it completely rotten or saccharine sweet, is a wonderful and unexpected change.
The book opens with a famous actor, Arthur Leander, having a heart attack on stage while playing King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a budding EMT and member of the play's audience, leaps on stage to do what he can to help. Caught up in this small but important drama to them, little do they know that a deadly flu is taking over the city of Toronto. Soon, one person's medical crisis becomes irrelevant when faced with a medical crisis for the entire world. The book leaps backwards and forwards in time, so the reader slowly learns the reasons and backstory of what led the characters to the opening scene. The transitions are smooth instead of jarring, and the beauty of the tale is woven out of these time shifts into a bittersweet story that gives the reader pause, without becoming maudlin or pandering. I won't reveal more for fear of spoilers, but this book was very hard to put down at all. I would definitely recommend it. |
Book ReviewsI read a lot - depending on my writing schedule, I can usually read about a book a day. Some of the books are fantastic and I would love to recommend to everyone - some, not so much. Either way, I thought I would share a few thoughts on what I'm reading at the moment. Categories
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