Love Alone by Emmanuel Kattan

Love Alone by Emmanuel Kattan

Release Date: October 22nd 2011
Pages: 225
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher
Publisher: Thomas Allen Publishers
Buy It: Book Depository

Judith and Antoine were lovers for a brief time. Then, suddenly, brutally, it ended. Nine years later, they meet again and attempt to revive their old passion. They dream of rewriting their history and burning the memories that are still troubling their souls. Eventually, the couple’s shared madness and jealousy turns homicidal.

Love Alone was one of those books that instantly intrigued me with its premise– I mean, homicidal lovers? But the actual novel, while one I enjoyed, was really different than I expected. In a way, it was a lot more about thoughts and feelings than actions, but the actions that did occur were definitely pretty disturbing.

After finishing the book, I described it as "Milan Kundera meets Simon Van Booy"– two of my favourite authors– "and the result is an incredibly but slightly twisted love child." Love Alone is both strange and lovely, filled with dozens of quotes I had to scribble down as I was reading. Lines like:

"Each return creates a new misrepresentation on the surface of the past; when we come back to the same memory too often, it becomes unrecognizable in the end."

and

"It’s the loves we haven’t lived that are the hardest to forget." 

But Kattan hasn't just written a bunch of pretty words, they are strung together into a creepy and intriguing novel. Despite that, the stage where Judith and Antoine went from being jealous that the other had lovers while they were apart, to being okay with murder, didn't quite connect with me. Kattan wrote about it beautifully, but some of their actions just felt so absurd, that it was really hard for me to relate to as a reader.

Thinking back, several months after reading the novel, my disconnect is a bigger concern than it was for me when I was reading it. When I was reading the book I was just completely entranced by the beautiful writing, but in retrospect, it's a novel I'm unlikely to reread because of the disbelief I felt about the story once it took its more wild turns. Still, Love Alone is an intriguing and beautifully written novel, and Kattan has definitely caught my attention.

Lark by Tracey Porter

 Lark by Tracey Porter

Release Date: May 24th 2011
Pages: 192
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Publisher: HarperCollins
Buy It: Book Depository

After 16-year-old Lark is murdered, she, her childhood best friend Eva, and Nyetta, a girl Lark used to babysit, find themselves facing hard truths about their lives and seeking a way to move on.

When I picked up Lark, the premise intrigued me, but when I heard mention of a "ghost" I guess I was thinking it was more like an emotional ghost than an actual ghost of the girl. It's not. This definitely has a paranormal twist to it. Still, it's the sort of twist, that like Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma, manages to be creepy rather than contrived. It's just enough to leave a haunting feeling behind.

A lot of Lark's creepiness is due to Porter's writing and imagery. I love the idea of these girls trapped in trees, and it stayed stuck in my mind long after I finished the book. That said, there was something that stopped me from falling completely in love with the novel. I was interested in Lark, the way she pushed herself so hard, doing gymnastics on a damaged knee, I could emotionally connect to her ambition and drive. The way she worked herself dry. And Porter managed this connection, even though Lark was dead. But somehow, when it came to Eve and Nyetta, the connection wasn't quite there. At times, they felt like more of a ghost than Lark did.

The other issue with Lark is that in a way there didn't feel like there was much of a story. There were feelings and ideas, and those resonated with me, but it's a very short novel and I wanted a little bit more out of it. I'm not sure if the length is to blame for this short-coming, but I did feel like perhaps with a longer book Porter would have had more opportunity to develop Eve and Nyetta as characters at least. 

Lark is a dark, creepy, and wonderfully written novel, but ultimately I found some of the characters lacking, and the overall result was one that didn't quite hit the mark. Still, Porter has captured my interest enough that I'd be interested in picking up another novel by her in the future.

Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay

Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay

Release Date: April 26th 2011
Pages: 304
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House Canada
Source: Publisher
Buy It: Book Depository

In a small prairie school in 1929, Connie Flood helps a backward student, Michael Graves, learn how to read. Observing them and darkening their lives is the principal, Parley Burns, whose strange behaviour culminates in an attack so disturbing its repercussions continue to the present day. Connie's niece, Anne, tells the story. Impelled by curiosity about her dynamic, adventurous aunt and her more conventional mother, she revisits Connie's past and her mother's broken childhood. In the process she unravels the enigma of Parley Burns and the mysterious, and unrelated, deaths of two young girls.

There's a line in Alone in the Classroom that says "It’s a novel that works better as poetry". The narrator is talking about Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, which I haven't read, but they could just as easily be referring to Hay's latest novel. That was my major problem with this book, it was absolutely filled with delicate, beautiful sentences and phrases, but what they added up to didn't fill me with any kind of emotion.

I think the root of my apathy stems from the odd narration style. Alone in the Classroom is written in first person, but the narrator, Anne,  doesn't really show up till midway into the book, and even then I didn't learn much about her. She was a non-entity. Anne was supposed to be the trigger for a passionate and bold turn of events, but even as they unfolded I didn't quite believe them. She told them with the same distance as if she were talking about somebody else. I also felt like the whole murder aspect was an after-thought, and though again, it was filled with lovely images, I didn't really get its point within the story.

It also really bothered me that Anne was able to tell this detailed story, filled with dialogue and richness, when she wasn't even alive when most of it was happening. I really don't feel like she would have known all of that, but unlike, for example The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes where the narrator is intentionally untrustworthy, I kept getting the impression that I was supposed to believe what the narrator was saying. The problem was that I didn't.

I don't want Alone in the Classroom to come across as a horrible book. It's not. There were many passages I had to jot down they were so beautiful. It was filled with perfect moments like:

"Movement always helps. A world of thoughts occurred to her whenever she rode a train, and a lesser world whenever she went for a walk." 

But they were contained within a story that had a lot of trouble keeping my interest. In the end, Alone in the Classroom was a book that was lovely by the sentence, but failed for me, as a story.

Author Jill Hathaway on Books

So there are a ton of amazing books I’ve read recently!

FRACTURE by Megan Miranda

I was soooo excited to get to read this one early. The book grabbed me from the very beginning, when Delaney falls through the ice. This is actually one of my greatest fears. Whenever I drive on a bridge over a river or something, I picture what I would do if I accidentally drove into the water. So I was completely on edge when Delaney fell. After they pull her out, she develops this weird affinity with people who are about to die; it’s fascinating. Also, Decker is one of my favorite characters of all time! Definitely check this one out!

UNEARTHLY and HALLOWED by Cynthia Hand

There are a ton of angel books out there, but what really sets Cynthia’s books apart is her gorgeous writing style. I read UNEARTHLY while I was on a camping trip last summer, and I’m afraid I was totally rude, ignoring everyone so I could find out what happened to Clara. UNEARTHLY has a really smart mythology, and I was riveted as Cynthia slowly revealed the secrets of Clara’s background. When I finished reading the book, I contacted Cynthia to let her know how much I liked it, and we became friends. She sent me a copy of HALLOWED, and it was every bit as brilliant as UNEARTHLY. It actually had me in tears, and I’m not one to cry when I’m reading. I can’t wait to read the third book in the series!

11/22/63 by Stephen King

So I’m a huge Stephen King fan (as is Rollins in SLIDE), and I needed something to read during those late night feedings after my son was born. I downloaded King’s latest novel and was immediately daunted by the book’s length… a whopping 1000 pages! But I was quickly sucked in by the brilliant premise. Jake Epping, a high school English teacher, finds an… um… portal (?) through which he can travel to the year 1958. So he’s able to go back and change things and see how they alter the future. But there’s a catch… Every time he goes back through the portal, history is reset. So he basically has to go back and change everything again and again if he wants to keep those same results. Ultimately, he wants to prevent JFK from being assassinated, but I felt like that was almost a backstory to the real tale, which is about Jake falling in love. This book explores whether, indeed, everything happens for a reason.

Thanks for having me, Zoe, and allowing me to share some wonderful books with you!

Thanks so much to Jill for stopping by!  Click here to follow the rest of the stops on this tour. 

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Release Date: August 4th 2011
Pages: 160
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Random House Canada
Source: Publisher
Buy It: Book Depository

Now Tony is middle aged. He’s had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove.

The Sense of an Ending is a wisp of a book, it can barely be called a novel, but it is incredibly masterful. Barnes captures a moment, a feeling, a desire, in a way that is both poetic and engaging. As a reader, I floated through its pages. I was captivated, and entranced. There is something slightly mystical about the writing, surreal and yet genuine in its emotion.

I loved that the narrator was imperfect and unreliable, because in real life, who isn't? I loved the dimensions of all the characters, and the ending I did not expect, and the complexity of emotions. I didn't like Tony, but I didn't really like anyone in The Sense of an Ending. That did not prevent me from loving it.

I realize this is a short review. Well, it's a short book. But it leaves a message. And hopefully so does this review, and that message is: pick up this book. By the time you put it back down, you may have accidentally finished it, and you won't regret it.