Sofa Spotlight - A Stranger in the House, Shari Lapena

This has a great opening. It starts off with Karen Krupp being whisked into hospital after being in a high speed car crash where she collided with a lamp post. And she gets amnesia, so she cannot explain why she was driving so fast in the first place or why she was in that particular part of town.

Her husband Tom is trying to make sense of it all and has his world turned even more upside down when it turns out a body of a man who has been shot was found near to where Karen crashed her car.

And then there is the neighbour Brigid who lives across the road. She pushes her way into the story and tries to sniff out what is happening. 

What I quickly figured out is that no one is as they seem and that sometimes is best to stop guessing and just let the story happen. Which is just as well because I didn’t guess the ending! 

It has a similar feel to The Girl on the Train with its tension, mystery and unreliable narrator. So if that’s right up your street you should be reading this book. 

I really liked it - it kept me guessing right until the end and there was no convenient ending. It felt real and also plausible, which is sometimes hard to find at the end of some books.

Looking forward to reading more books by this author.

Sofa Spotlight - To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee

First of all I can’t believe that it’s taken me so long to get around to reading this. I’m sad because it means I’ve only read it once and all good books should be read at least twice. Needless to say that this won’t be my only visit to this book! 

So my sadness aside I hope that if you’ve read To Kill and Mockingbird and loved it as much as I have that you can forgive my ridiculous delay in reading this. But also if you’ve not read it I hope that I can convince you to make sure it’s the very next book that you read. 

The story is about Scout and her brother Jem as they grow up in a small town in 1930s Alabama. Through Scout’s eyes you see all that takes place - including the main event - the trial of a black mans for the rape of a white woman. It is Scout’s father, Atticus, who is the  defending Tom Robinson, and what the reader understands though what Scout sees and hears is how Atticus is defending him because he believes him to be innocent and that his defending a black man doesn’t sit well with many of the white community. We see these things as readers but Scout doesn’t understand or see them which I think is what gives this book much of its charm. Like I say this is one of the best books I’ve ever read and Harper Lee has this character/reader perception done to perfection.

There’s loads of characters that you feel you come to know through this story, and many of them you come to love too. But not only is this book well written it is also an important book. And it’s message is one that we would do well to listen to. Things may have changed since the 1930s but some things haven’t. I doubt there will be a time when the majority don’t put pressure on people who stand up to do the right thing. There will always be those who try to stop them making a difference. But I hope that there will also always be those who do stand up for what is right and make every effort to change the world for the better. 

I think this is a must read book, and there are many many reviews out there that discuss it in much more detail, but I just wanted to say that if you read one book before the end of the year make it this one. 

Sofa Spotlight - Broken Sky, L. A. Weatherly

So on the theme of dystopian YA books this is the first in another series. But unlike The Hunger Games I haven’t read the whole series yet (just started the third book). I’d never heard of this series until someone bought me the first one as a present and I’m a bit sad that this series nearly passed me by. (That sane person after buying the first one is now being coerced into lending my the following two books!)

The premise is slightly different to other books I’ve read in this genre, in that, rather than being set in the future, we are given an alternative past to explore. Set in the 1940s in an alternative United States there’s some really interesting aspects of this series that aren’t present in the futuristic ones.

Of course it wouldn’t be a YA dystopian novel without a love triangle and although not overtly present in this first book you can see the shape of one taking place.

The book follows the fortunes of Amity Vancour who is a peace fighter. Peace fighters take part in plane fights that decide disputes between countries - rather than them going to war. The idea being it keeps the world peaceful and doesn’t result in unnecessary bloodshed. 

America as we know is split into three countries and the country next door to Amity’s is run by President Gunnison who is obsessed with astrology and what he calls Harmony. He uses both to root out people who would cause problem and they are know as Discordants. Like any good dictator he’s out to control as much land and as many people as he can. Which is where he collides with Amity.  

This is a brilliant book and seems to be a great start to a riveting series. I’m looking forward to finishing it off and bringing some more reviews.

Sofa Spotlight - The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

So it’s been a while since this came out and also since I’ve read it, but rumour has it that Suzanne Collins is writing a prequel. Therefore I decided it was about time to reread the series in preparation for the new book. If you’ve never read this series then I’m not sure where you’ve been or how you’ve managed to miss it. (Unless, of course, YA is not your think, in which case all is forgiven.)

My first read of these was in 2011/2012 and I devoured them very quickly. The film got me into them but I actually didn’t enjoy the film the first time round. The book was much much better and when I rewatched the film I enjoyed it all the more.

The story is set in a dystopian future where America has been split into 14 regions - 13 districts and then the city of Panem. Each year each district (apart from 13 which has been destroyed after a rebellion) has to give two children between the ages of 12 and 18 to serve as tributes and fight to the death in the Hunger Games. The winner is then crowned as victor and gets to live a nicer life than their fellow struggling peeps in their district.

Fairly brutal!

The focus is on District 12 and Katniss Everdeen and Gale Hawthorne and Peeta Malark. Katniss draws attention to herself the moment she steps forward to volunteer as tribute for her sister Prim. And as Peeta is also selected as tribute the two find themselves thrown together and their relationship is complicated further by him announcing that he has feeling for Katniss. But Katniss clearly hasn’t given him a second thought. And then you have to throw into the mix that as readers the book has started by giving us the impression that Gale has a thing for Katniss. Awkward. Especially as Gale gets to watch the blossoming romance on TV.

So there’s a fair bit of drama going on there.

There’s a lot of dystopian novels out there but for me The Hunger Games has to be one of the best. It might be nostalgia, because it was one of the first that I read but I really do think that the level of tension and amount of twists it’s done almost to perfection.

If you’ve not yet read it, get on and read it.

Sofa Spotlight - The French Revolution and what went Wrong, Stephen Clarke

My first experience of Stephen Clarke was when I read 1000 Years of Annoying the French. I loved it and it ranks as one of my favourite books of all time. So of course when I heard that this book was coming out I pre ordered it straight away! No hanging about for me.

The French Revolution has been one of those things that I’ve always wondered about. I first encountered it when I read A Tale of Two Cities, and as how and why the revolution was happening wasn’t all that relevant to the story I finished the book none the wiser as to how France had found itself in that position. It was always something I meant to research but never got around to. So when I saw this I was very excited. And the great thing about Stephen Clarke is the humour. His way of writing history is anything but dry. Hence why I love 1000 Years of Annoying the French.

There’s so much I could say about this book because I learnt so much from it. In fact I was annoying my colleagues at work by telling them each day what I had learnt the night before! But I think what shocked or surprised me the most was how much misinformation I had picked up over time.

I had no idea what Louis XVI was like but I figured that if the French people hated him so much as to guillotine him then he must have been bad. I had also wondered why if things were so bad he hadn’t fled the country! So having all this stuff explained to me was very illuminating.

The other surprise was how relevant the events of the French Revolution are today. Clarke talks a lot about the fake news that was being circulated at the time, which was something I had rather naively thought was a modern thing brought about because of the rise of technology and social media. But on further thought it made sense - propaganda has always been a big thing and I don’t think there can have been many if any periods of history where it’s been easy to get to the heart of the truth.

And I think that’s rather sad and worrying. What I also find worrying is how quickly we forget the things of the past. History can come across as boring and there are historians who have written it in a dull way so I can understand why it’s not always appealing. But if we forget what’s gone before how can we avoid making the same mistakes again?

All that to say I think you should read this book. Clarke’s writing style is hilarious and you never feel like you’ve just read a giant of a book when you’re finished (this book is not short). So yes it comes highly recommended as does 1000 Years of Annoying the French. Because they both make understanding history actually possible!