Book Beginnings On Fridays

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

My book beginning this week is I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes:

 

There are places I'll remember all my life - Red Square with a hot wind howling across it, my mother's bedroom the wrong side of 8-mile, the endless gardens of a fancy foster home, a man waiting to kill me in a group of ruins known as the Theatre of Death. 

 

 

I finished a book yesterday afternoon and didn't know what to read next. I picked up the proof copy of this that I was kindly sent by Transworld, read the first page and couldn't put it down.

 

 

Book Description:

 

Can you commit the perfect crime?

Pilgrim is the codename for a man who doesn't exist. The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed up a secret espionage unit for US intelligence. Before he disappeared into anonymous retirement, he wrote the definitive book on forensic criminal investigation.

But that book will come back to haunt him. It will help NYPD detective Ben Bradley track him down. And it will take him to a rundown New York hotel room where the body of a woman is found facedown in a bath of acid, her features erased, her teeth missing, her fingerprints gone. It is a textbook murder - and Pilgrim wrote the book.

What begins as an unusual and challenging investigation will become a terrifying race-against-time to save America from oblivion. Pilgrim will have to make a journey from a public beheading in Mecca to a deserted ruins on the Turkish coast via a Nazi death camp in Alsace and the barren wilderness of the Hindu Kush in search of the faceless man who would commit an appalling act of mass murder in the name of his God.

 

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey

Ten year old Melanie is special, although she doesn't know why, and is kept in a cell overnight. In the morning the Sergeant and his men come to get her, strapping her into a wheelchair while aiming guns at her. She jokes with them that she won't bite; they don't find this funny. She's then taken to a classroom with over twenty other children who are also in wheelchairs. They can't look at or talk to each other and there are days when some are taken away, never to be seen again. Melanie loves school and learning and her favourite teacher is Miss Justineau, and a lot of the story centres on the relationship between the two. 

 

It's very difficult to write a review for this without giving too much away. I only heard of The Girl With All The Gifts a week ago, and as soon as I read the book blurb I couldn't wait to start it. I downloaded it to my kindle as soon as I'd finished my then current read. I was gripped straight away and for me the first third of the novel, set in the military base, was my favourite part of the story.  We know that the world outside isn't as it should be and we're told that Birmingham now has a population of zero. Later on in the book, it becomes more of a "survivors against the elements" story.

 

I've read a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction, some good and some unfortunately not so. The Girl With All The Gifts fits into the first category and the beginning is different to anything else I've read in this genre. 

 

 

Rating: 4 out of 5

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Its Monday! What Are You Reading is a weekly meme run by Book Journey and you can mention books you've just finished, are currently reading and any you plan to read this week. You can leave a link to your blog and read other bloggers posts.

 

This week I've read The Three by Sarah Lotz and Another Night, Another Day by Sarah Rayner.

 

 

 

I've been good recently at getting through my review and tbr books so I've treated myself to The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey. I've just started reading it, I only heard about it on Saturday but it looks so intriguing I couldn't wait to start it.

 

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week.

It was created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books but now has a permanent home here

 

Only one for me this week and it's my current read:

 

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey 

 

 

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her 'our little genius'.

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

 

Another Night, Another Day by Sarah Rayner

 

Three people meet at Moreland's Psychiatric Clinic where they are all receiving treatment. Karen's father is dying, she's a widow with two young children to bring up. Abby is separating from her husband and they have a seven year old son who has autism. Michael is married and his two children are at university; he's the family's sole bread winner and his business has collapsed with him owing lots of money. All of them are believable and it could easily be any one of us in their situation. In this novel we meet some characters from two of the author's previous books, One Moment, One Morning and The Two Week Wait. Another Night isn't a sequel to either of these though and you won't need to have read them to understand or enjoy her latest.

Despite the subject matter I found this an easy read and with some humour throughout it never becomes too dark or heavy going. Sarah Rayner manages to convey what it's like for people suffering from anxiety or depression and how it affects the way they think about and see things.

Thanks to Picador for the proof copy. It's published on 17th July but will also be available in Waterstones from 8th May, to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Book Beginnings On Fridays (Another Night, Another Day)

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

Another Night, Another Day by Sarah Rayner

 

Johnnie struggles to open the heavy metal door of the clinic without dropping the stack of files he has clutched to his chest.

'Ah, Johnnie,' says Gillian, just as his duffle bag slides off his shoulder. 'Thank goodness I've caught you.'  She is chatting with Danni, the receptionist.

Johnnie's heart sinks. The traffic into Lewes was nose to tail, his first session is due to start in less than five minutes, and he badly needs a cup of coffee. 

'Could we catch up at lunch?' he ventures.

He can tell at once from her expression that they can't. 

 

 

 

Book Description:

From the author of the bestselling One Moment, One Morning comes another beautiful, bittersweet novel set in Brighton…

Three people, each crying out for help

There’s Karen, about to lose her father; Abby, whose son has autism and needs constant care, and Michael, a family man on the verge of bankruptcy. As each sinks under the strain, they’re brought together at Moreland’s Psychiatric Clinic.

Here, behind closed doors, they reveal their deepest secrets, confront and console one another and share plenty of laughs. But how will they cope when a new crisis strikes?

 

Published by Picador on 17th July and available in Waterstones shops from 8th May to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week. 

The Three by Sarah Lotz

They're here ... The boy. The boy watch the boy watch the dead people oh Lordy there's so many ... They're coming for me now. We're all going soon. All of us. Pastor Len warn them that the boy he's not to­­--
The last words of Pamela May Donald (1961 - 2012)

 

In 2012 four plane crashes happen across the world on the same day and within a short space of time of each other. This day becomes known as Black Thursday.  Pamela Donald lives long enough to leave a mesaage on her phone but miraculously from three of the crashes there's a single survivor, and each one is a child. The children are creepy which I always find scary in a horror novel; they are Jessica Craddock, Bobby Small and Hiro Yanagida. We get to see how the crashes affect the bereaved and how they cope with looking after the children.

The story is told via excerpts, interviews, emails etc used for a book written by Elspeth Martins, an investigative journalist. I wasn't expecting this and to be honest was disappointed at first as I would have preferred if it had been told using more traditional story telling. It did work well though and the short sections because of this format made it easy to pick up and read in short bursts. The dictaphone messages recorded by Paul Craddock (Jessica's uncle) were probably my favourites but I found the online discussions between Chiyoko (Hiro's cousin) and her friend Ryu dull for the most part. 

 

I first heard of The Three last year and have been looking forward to reading it ever since. I was delighted to get a review copy from the publisher via Netgalley and started reading it straight away. I enjoyed it even though it wasn't quite what I was expecting, I thought it was going to be more of an out and out horror novel and I was a little disappointed with the ending, but don't let that put you off. It's a good novel but I was hoping it would be great, especially as it has been compared to Stephen King, a comparison which is always going to be hard to live up to and maybe this raised my expectations.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5