Books of the 2013
I'm almost a month late considering I wanted to write this post the first days of January!! But, well, here it's the list of the books I read last year!
The hangman's daughter by Oliver Potzsch
This is a German book, an historical crime story. The protagonist is quite original, since he's someone who usually is the baddie, or in any case someone people fear. Infact the main character of the book is the hangman of a small German village, and it's inspired by a real ancestor of the author of the book. This man wants to prove the innocence of a woman accused of being a witch and a child murder. The idea is pretty interesting and the plot and the historical description are good. The only thing I didn't like so much was that the hangman seems a bit too good to be true. He can read and write, he's more cultivated than the rest of the villagers and in some cases he cures people even better than the local doctor, so that the young son of that man prefers to learn from him rather than his own father. But, in any case, overall this is pretty good I would suggest to you if you like historical whodunit books.
3/5
The God of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye
Despite the name, this isn't a fantasy or a sci-fi book, but it's another historical crime/mistery story. (LOL, I kinda like this genre!). This time the setting is New York, in the 1845. The protagonist is a young man who, after having being injured and having lost his job because the restaurant he worked in went up in flame, is forced to join the newly founded New York Police by his older brother. It took me a while to warm up to the protagonist Timothy Wilde, I couldn't understand why he despised his brother (overbearing and not exactly a saint, but also protective toward him) and his love for the perfect but cold daughter of the pastor who raised him and his brother, but as the book progressed I felt more and more invested in his story and understood the reasons behind the main characters actions; ND WELL also the mistery part was cleverly done!
4/5
The man from Primrose Lane by James Renner
This book mixes a family mistery, a crime story and also a lot of sci-fi. It could seems a big mess but instead I think the result is brilliant. If you like this genre you would surely enjoy this book! The protagonist is a widower with a child who want to know why his wife killed herself and, since he thinks it's related to the never solved trauma of her twin sister abduction and disappearing, happened when they were children. From then it starts a story rich of subplots and different characters that the author is able to connect smoothly and in a believable way, thing that I appreciated very much. Because, in my opinion, you can use supernatural or sci-fi elements in a story, but you've to be consistent with them and don't leave plotholes or unanswered questions!
4/5
Norwegian Wood by Murakami Haruki
Murakami is a famous japanese author who often mixes supernatural or noir elements in his books. This one, instead, is pretty different than his other works. It's the sentimental educations and growth of Toru, a young man who has feelings for two girls. One is the ex-girlfriend of his high school best friend, a boy who killed himself; the other is a fellow students he meets at university. The two girls couldn't be more different; Naoko has a seemingly easy life, she doesn't have economical problems, she studies at an excellent university and she doesn't have any practical problem, but she's very fragile and depressed and this brings her to be admitted to a clinic for mental problems; Midori, instead, is full of life and she's very energetic, despite of the fact her mother died few years before, his father is terminally ill and she has to look after him and their struggling small bookshop with her sister. Toru feels the need to cherish and protect Naoko, but he's also attracted by Midori's vitality. The strong points of this book are the characterization of the female protagonists (adn of the other female characters, which are all well done). Basically this story is a love triangle but, for once, I enjoyed it because Murakami was able to not make me root for one of the girls but instead made me genuinely like both of them.
4/5
The vanishers by Heidi Julavits
I really don't know where to start with this book. It really baffled me, and not in a good way. I read this book 'till the end, but I can't understand what kind of story it wanted to tell. A family mistery? A psychological thriller? Something supernatural?? The author tried to mix a bit of everything but in the end she made a big mess, at least for me! If you ask me to describe the plot of this book, I couldn't do it...because I didn't understand it!
1/5
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
This book disappointed me a little. I know a movie with Tom Hanks was made out of this it, and also that had good reviews, so I had high expectations. The story starts well, the young protagonist (who I think has some form of Autism, even if it was never stated) has lost his father the 09/11 attacks and after a couple of years the boys slowly starts the process of mourning and moving over the man's death deciding to find what a key he found in his late father office opens. Meanwhile another subplots explores the facts that brought his paternal grandparents to meet and marry. I think this story had a very good potential, but as the book progressed, this potential and all the good ideas the author threw in at the beginning got wasted. leaving me pretty frustrated!
2,5/5
Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the world by Murakami Haruki
This is another book that disappointed me. Since I liked very much Norwegian Wood I decided to give Murakami another try. I already knew the story would be completely different from the previous one but, since I liked Murakami's style it didn't make a lot of difference for me. The story this time is a sort of noir with a lot of fantastic and sci-fi elements in it. As I said, I appreciates these elements if they are well done and coherent with the story. Infact I liked them elements and how their presence in the book is explained, what I really didn't like what how the story was developed and the protagonist's attitude. After a series of misadventures (that weren't really necessary IMHO) the protagonist is handled a shocking revelation regarding his life and death and he doesn't nothing to change it, accepting it passively. What was the purpouse of telling me his story, then??
2/5
The colour of milk by Nell Leyshon
This book was highly praised but I have to say that it didn't inject into me the same enthusiasm. The story is pretty simple: Mary, a young poor farm girl is sent to live with a preacher and her ill wife to look after her. The woman teaches her how to read and write and, after she dies, his husband start to harass the girl. The originality of the book is in the fact that it's written as if it was Mary's diary, using a languange that's intentionally ill-formed. This is also the limit of the book, IMO, the girl's short sentences doesn't gave me any emotions, she seems not have a real affection for her sisters or parents, she doesn't transmit fear or shame or longing in her writings, even if what happens to her is pretty bad. She appears emotionless to me, the only emotions she shows are affection for her grandfather and homesickness, but just because she was used to the hard life in the fields and she isn't accustomed to the new one.
1,5/5