April reads

It seems a long month. But a nice range of books this month. I even ventured briefly into non-fiction.

The Year of Living Danishly – Helen Russell

After so many war books last month I couldn’t face something serious to start the month so I decided to read about Denmark instead. This is an Englishwoman abroad, as Helen Russell’s husband lands his dream job at Lego. She is a magazine writer living a hectic life and they are trying to conceive a baby. I found this quite interesting, partly as I’d like to go to Denmark, but also because I’m nosy about other people’s lives, but my god she was whiny! She expressed surprise that living in a different country was indeed different to living in London and didn’t seem to let up at all. Even a year living in a warm house by the sea was something she complained about. Eventually, thank god, she relaxes and seems to adjust, but there must be better ways of writing about Denmark than this.

A God in Ruins – Kate Atkinson

I always forget how difficult I find Atkinson’s books to get into. It always takes me a while to remember why I like her. This has been lauded, but I didn’t like it as much as the last one (and I found the last one tough too, probably because of the amount of child death in the first 50 pages…) The parts about Bomber Command are masterful and absorbing to read – the interview with Atkinson at the end states that this was her focus – but the other parts are interesting, if nothing else. The generational gap is well observed, but the daughter character is utterly ghastly and so when the ‘twist’ comes, it’s not as gut wrenching as when McEwan did the same thing in Atonement. (That’s the closest I can come to a spoiler.)

The Invention of Wings – Sue Monk Kidd

This month’s reading group choice was a chance to delve into someone else’s history for a while, and so we leap straight into slave-holding South Carolina. An eleven-year old girl Sarah is given a slave for her birthday and immediately tries to free her. When this fails, she teaches her to read instead, ensuring that the two women will always be joined despite the separations and trials that the years bring. This is the fictionalised story of Sarah Grimke, an abolitionist, and is told in alternate chapters with the completely fictional life of her slave Hetty. I enjoyed the slave chapters more, mainly as Sarah’s character seemed flittery and annoying.It may also be my liberal squeamishness but I dislike these ‘white people discover how awful slavery was’ books (The Help was another.) Having said all that, it’s pretty good.

On Helwig Street – Richard Russo

Russo is one of my favourite authors of all time so this tale of growing up with a mother who was mentally unstable is fascinating, if only to try and spot where his influences and ideas come from. But my goodness, it’s also a hard read. It’s partly because his mother is, I think, mostly undiagnosed for most of her life, so had she been born later, there may have been more help available for her. And you also see how much of a toll looking after her is on Russo and his family. You do also get to examine the power of memory, or not, and again, being a bit nosy, I like to find out more about someone I admire so much.

Summer of 76 – Isabel Ashdown

After the Second World War, slavery and mental illness, some light reading was required and this did the job. Summer of 76 features the heatwave, swinging and some teenagers stuck on the Isle of Wight. In some places I felt it could have done with a spot of editing, but on the whole it’s a nice beach read type book.