The Duch House by Ann Patchett
My Rating: ★★
An insightful exploration of how place, especially our childhood home, can impact our lives.
However, the narrator was quite two dimensional so there was little to really grasp hold of emotionally and isn’t much else to say about it.
Overall a pleasant read.
Songbirds by Christy Lefteri
My Rating: ★★★★
This novel has an ominousness that lurks and grows throughout the work.
What is even more brilliant and beautiful about it is the level of loss, love and grief that it covers only to really rip your heart out when you find out in the author’s notes that it is a fictional account of something that actually occurred.
I’m not often a fan of first-person prose, or of novels that flip back and forth between different characters’ perspectives, but for this one, it worked. It was the only way for the love of the lost Nisha to shine through and how much of her life left such a gapping hole in so many other lives.
Klara and The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
My Rating: ★★★
A quick read to start 2023, but while a thoughtful read it fell flat.
Although it is set in a future, the setting isn’t unfamiliar with concerns of pollution, sickness, gene editing and class revolving around the primary focus on artificial intelligence.
This novel questions what makes a human real from the AI’s point of view and when a child’s life is at stake.
However, the prose is almost too fast and you never get the time to consider the questions. While the narrator is wonderfully positive, the attempt at complexity is lost because of Klara’s naivety and simplicity.
The ending is extremely tidy – to the point of having little impact.
I would suggest this as an excellent read for older teens.