Sofa Spotlight - Follow Me Back, Nicci Cloke

So this YA has been out for a while but I only just got around to reading it. I picked it up because it was one of the top YA picks for 2016 (yes it has taken me three years to get around to it, but better late than never).

And it’s good, fast paced and intriguing. It deserves to be one of those top picks. The background to the storyline is all about social media and the persona that you present to the world. Whether that’s the real you or not. And if you’ve ever seen the show Catfish there are elements from that that you will recognise.

So the premise is that Lizzie has gone missing after apparently meeting up with someone she met online. Her friend Aiden is the one telling most of the story and he is trying to figure out which version of Lizzie is real – the one he was friends with at school, or the one he now sees on social media. He also begins a campaign with his friend Scobie to try and work out what happened to Lizzie, but for a while that feels like a hopeless cause.

Aiden is an unreliable narrator, but he didn’t freak me out as much as most unreliable narrators do. The Girl on the Train was a bit much for me (yes I am a wimp). But maybe it’s because he’s fairly stable despite having some temper issues. For me the way the backstory of Aiden and Lizzie’s relationship is revealed was brilliant. There was just enough to keep you reading but when the reveal happens you have an “oh yeah that makes sense” moment.

There’s some great twists in this that I didn’t see coming and I didn’t guess the ending either. You know a twist is good when you look back at what you’ve been reading and the story so far and think “well that completely changes how I see that.”

Just to show how behind the times I am on this book last summer Cloke’s latest book Toxic came out, and I’m looking forward to reading that at some point – hopefully not in three years’ time. I liked this more than the other YA books I’ve read recently (13 Minutes and Bullet Catcher) and although it shared some stylistic elements with 13 Minutes like chapters made up of emails or text messages, I found Follow me Back to be the more believable of the two, if a little less creepy and disturbing. The only part that I didn’t feel completely convinced by was the ending, but given that it was completely unexpected I think that can be forgiven.

But enough from me. It’s one you need to read for yourself.

Sofa Spotlight - As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Eugene Peterson

Eugene Peterson is probably best known for his translation of The Message Bible. Which I know is inaccurate because it’s not a translation. Anyway because I was never a fan of The Message I didn’t really consider reading any of his other work. Until a few years ago, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Last year when he passed away I was a good way through As Kingfishers Catch Fire. So when I heard that he had died I sat down and made sure I finished reading it. It seemed fitting.

For me As Kingfishers Catch Fire is the best example of his work, because it does brilliantly what his other books did. Which is made me fall in love with reading the Bible again, and seeing the beauty and the challenge in its pages. It’s true I don’t agree with everything that Peterson says, but he inspires me enough to go to the pages of God’s Word and explore why I think differently.

Anyway back to this book.

The premise behind it, and what makes it different to his other books, is that it is taken from his sermons that he preached over a twenty-nine year period. The time frame is from the 1960s to the early 90s and the context is reflected in the illustrations and application of the sermons. Which is a point of interest in itself and a reminder that God’s Word is always relevant, no matter the time or culture.

Peterson splits the sermons into different sections that focus on a different Biblical person. Starting with Moses, before going onto David, Isaiah, Solomon, Peter, Paul and finally John. The journey looks at each ones role and purpose in God’s plan and their writings that became a part of the Bible. It’s not meant to be an in depth study of each of those but there is plenty to inspire for further study.

And although it is a long book (heavy enough to be a good door stop or defensive weapon) each chapter is a manageable size. They could be comfortably read in 15 minutes, although you would want to give yourself much more thinking time to process what you’ve read.

Like I say, the quality of this book is Peterson’s love of God, His Word and His people. It comes across in each chapter and he really has found the beauty of the Word of God and is very skilled at conveying that. If nothing else it is good for inspiring an exploration of God’s Word, making you realise that it is a living book and full of good things.

Sofa Spotlight - The Boy from the Snow, Maria Johnson

What better way to start the New Year than with the first post being about the first book of a brand new author. Well, she’s not quite brand new, her book has been around for about a year now, but I’ve only recently found it.

So what am I talking about? I’m talking about The Boy from the Snow by Maria Johnson. I first heard it described as a bit like A Game of Thrones but without all the violence and sex. Which appealed to me because A Game of Thrones was something I would have liked to have got into (I got as far as watching the first episode with my housemate. We watched the whole thing in silence, then switched it off and never spoke of it again.) Anyway it was enough for me to give it a try.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

I’m not going to tell you much about the storyline, because you need to go and read it for yourself. What do I want to tell you about is how Johnson handles certain aspects of the story, which I think is done very well and is important in our modern culture.

The story follows the fortunes of Daniel a soldier who lives and fights in the North West of Celtic England. Being a soldier naturally brings battles and it’s the description of these battles that really got me thinking. Quite often we watch or read stuff that contains a lot of killing, whether it’s Lord of the Rings, a war film, or a murder mystery, entertainment is full of it. What I thought made this book stand out is that, although Johnson does describe death, she also describes the cost of each lost life, both on the family of the dead and also on those who do the killing. It struck me as an interesting take when most of what I see or read leaves me desensitised to seeing death, this made me think about the human cost to those deaths.

Likewise there is no sex scene in this book. And there doesn’t need to be. The story wouldn’t have gained from having it in there and it was nice to read something that I didn’t want to put down because it contained scenes I didn’t want to read.

Needless to say, the storyline is good, I consumed it in less than a week and it possibly made me fall in love with reading again. My recommendation is that if, unlike me, you still have book vouchers left over from Christmas then use them to buy this. At the very least it should be on your reading list for 2019. It’s also fun to read if you know Cumbria and the Lakes at all.

It’s a good debut novel and I hope that there will be more from Johnson. I have coffee ready if there is a sequel.