Big Brother, Perfect and The Fault In Our Stars

I found the first half of "Big Brother" by Lionel Shriver fairly heavy going. There seemed to be far too much information about the background of some of the family members whose story this isn't. And when we want to know what drove Pandora's brother to become obese, we have to wait and wait. But halfway through the writing strangely takes on a wholly different tone, one that is positive, uplifting and terrifically enjoyable. All through, the dialogue remains consistently good, and the characters are very well drawn. The ending is a bit of a shock, but thinking back to that turn half way through, I should known something was up.

"Perfect" and imperfect. I loved Rachel Joyce's "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" so I was looking forward to this, her latest novel. The book alternates between two seemingly different stories, one in 1972 and one in the present day. The first, where eleven year old Byron and his friend James plan to save his mother from what they imagine is a crisis, is pretty uninteresting. There are the odd moments where the drama and the writing shines through, but I didn't find it believable. The second story about Jim, who is in his fifties, is marvelous. He suffers from OCD and although you can feel his pain as he struggles with his affliction, the overall effect is one of well being. Each chapter is about fifteen pages long, and as I was reading a section about Byron, I desperately wanted to get back to Jim. The revelatory connection towards the enjoyable ending is well structured. It was just a shame that wasn't the case all the way through. So the average of two stars (Byron) and four stars (Jim) is how I arrived at my rating.

It would be churlish of me not to give "The Fault In Our Stars" five stars. It isn't perfect, but the writing is so smart and touching that it made a huge impression on me. When I ordered this book, I was not aware that John Green is a writer of young adult fiction as that might have led me to avoid it altogether. I'm glad I didn't know as this may have meant I would not have had the pleasure of reading this wonderful novel. I did wonder why a story narrated by a sixteen year old girl with cancer had become so popular. The answer is the writing. Full of dark humour and some real laugh out loud moments. Whereas the last book I read (Perfect by Rachel Joyce) had too much description, this book had just enough. There is a huge amount of dialogue, all of it sharp, witty and intelligent. The author will be on my to read list from now on.