Recently in English-Language Fiction Category

We Need to Talk About Kevin - even the title is intense, urgent, and upsetting. Don't get me wrong: this book is good. Oh yes, excellent writing, amazing character development, even unexpected humor at some of the darkest of moments. Kudos to Lionel Shriver. But man, this book is intense.

The premise: At fifteen years old, Kevin Khatchadourian orchestrates the killing of seven of his his high school peers, along with a teacher and a custodian. His mother, Eva, recounts his life leading up to the crime via letters to her husband, Franklin. Tracing her pregnancy and Kevin's birth, his odd and unsettling childhood, and then the years shortly before his killing, Eva dissects a mother's relationship with her son.

And man, is it haunting. Eva is smart, quirky, and frighteningly believable. Her horrific strories of the early years of raising her son are still tinged with a sort of motherly worry, even in the retroscpect of her child's terrible crime. I devoured the book, finishing it in a few days and sneaking in reading breaks when I should have otherwise been socializing. And the final pages are absolutely incredible.

Read it: We Need to Talk About Kevin - by Lionel Shriver

The woman at the local bookshop told me that she hasn't liked the selections for the Man-Booker Prize every since it added that pesky Man on the front. Before, she argued, when it was just the Booker Prize, the pickins were good. Now, she says, they tend to be more racy and raunchy - although still quite well-written - books.

And woooo... was she right. At least when it came to the pick for 2005.

The Line of Beauty is Alan Hollinghurst's tribute to rampant cocaine use and gay sex, with a little bit of sentimentality thrown in. Or maybe it goes the other way: sentimentality first, and then all that wild stuff second. Well, I can't decide.

Really, though, behind its flashy scenes and regular use of the word "bumshoving," The Line of Beauty has a wonderful, delicate side. The book is entertaining, but touching, and - although I would hesitate to ever say the book is a comedy - I found a few scenes where I laughed out loud.

A good friend of mine is writing her thesis on Russell Banks. I can't remember why, or what exactly she's discussing, but the fact that someone I consider intelligent would spend so much time thinking about the guy was enough to convince me to pick up The Darling, his most recent book.

I read it in four days, sneaking time to read it in between metro stops and waits at the eye doctor's. Usually, this kind of behavior means I REALLY love a book. But now, several weeks down the line, I still don't know what to make of The Darling.

This based-on-fact piece of historical fiction is written by Tracy Chevalier, the same author behind The Girl with the Pearl Earring (now a major motion picture). Although I haven't read her first book, I enjoyed her second one, and would recommend The Lady and the Unicorn to anybody looking to learn something in a (very) easy-to-read format.

In fact, the easiness-of-reading issue was probably my only issue with this book. I suppose I spend so much time reading "established" authors that I have a little bit of a hard time coming back to popular fiction, but I'll admit that this book was an entertaining read - it came in handy when I accidently showed up an hour early for my doctor's appointment, at any rate.

I'm a little embarrased I wasn't familar with Coetzee's work before reading this novel. Coetzee is the only author to have one the Booker Prize twice, and is generally well-known amongst bookworms. Still, I didn't know his work nor his name, but I was happy to make the discovery.

As often happens in life, when you hear about something for the first time, you begin noticing it everywhere. In the case of JM Coetzee's novel, Disgrace, I first heard about it in a short interview with a respectable, well-read European. She was citing her favorite authors and books, and this novel was at the top of her list. Always on the lookout for new reads, I printed out the interview and took it with me to the used bookstore. When I couldn't find the book there, I more or less forgot about it.

A few days later, however, I stumbled across a mention of it in another article. Being reminded of the name was enough so that when I went to check out a local English bookstore, I picked it up.

At the checkout counter, the girl sighed heavily and said, "This book is so good. It's just... (she clutches her chest)... so... painful."

She wasn't being overdramatic. The writing is excellent, but reading the book is a bit like watching a car-crash unfurl in slow-motion. Everything is heavy, harsh, and only comes to feel heavier and harsher as the book progresses.

I picked up Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain at the library on the advice of TheKnitter. She really liked the book, and she probably knows what she's talking about because she was a litterature major. So, if you want to, take her word for it.

Me, the lowly journalism major, I did not really like this book. I began skimming halfway through. I found the characters were cold and distant, and the story was not really thrilling to boot.

To illustrate why I didn't like this book, I am going to put up a short passage that I feel sums it up quite well:

You most likely remember the cover of She's Come Undone, because it seemed to be everywhere in the 90's. I'm pretty sure the cover alone kept me from buying it. When I walked into the bookstore ten years later and saw the British cover (much better), I didn't even recognize the book.

The books was under the Staff Recommendations section of the store, and I read through all of the staff blurbs rather meticulously. I decided on She's Come Undone because its simple recommendation was: "I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!" That seemed more enthusiastic than the recommendations that read, "In 19th centure Russia, a man finds himself in dire straights when..." or anything equally as exciting. So I went for it.

I picked Audrey Niffenegger's book up just before heading to London. I spent half of the three-hour train ride sleeping and the other half reading this book, and we pulled into Waterloo before I even looked at my watch once. Even though I myself was travelling, The Time Traveller's Wife kept me entertained enough to consistently sneak in a read throughout my short stint in the city. It made me even look forward to having to wait around in the train station on my return trip, because I knew it would mean uninterrupted reading time. I devoured this book, and finished it a little over 24 hours after beginning it.

I would never say that it's amazingly written or destined to become a classic. It is, however, original and different, and pleasant to read.