March by Geraldine Brooks (4.5 stars)

Brooks uses her imagination to fill in the missing story of Mr. March from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, with amazing results. I really liked this book, it draws on factual accounts from the Civil War to weave together a compelling and tragic story. I found I could visualise much of the landscapes described in the book from my own travels: John Brown and the armory at Harper's Ferry, spanish moss on trees in the south, Georgetown etc. Very deserving winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

4.5 stars.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (2.5 stars)

This book feels like a long, and modernised, biblical parable. It is a good read although does feel a little preachy at times:

No life is a waste...The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.

and

Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else.

2.5 stars.

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano (0 stars)

This may be the worst book I have ever read.

I'm giving it up after 150 pages of the total 577. This book has received rave reviews from many in literary circles and Bolano has been touted as the new Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I don't agree). It has also received plenty of criticism - reviewers on amazon tend to give it either 5 stars or 1-2 stars.

I found the first half to be reasonably enjoyable, despite not much really happening apart from graphic sex. The text is chock full of Latin American literary references, which went totally over my head, I'm sure the literary in-jokes are hilarious, really:

There was Ifigenia cruel and El plano oblicuo and Retratos reales e imaginarios, in addition to the five volumes of Simpatias y diferencias, all by Alfonso Reyes, and Prosas dispersas, by Julio Torri, and a book of stories, Mujeres, by someone called Eduardo Colin whom I'd never heard of, and Li-Po y otros poemas, by Tablada, and...

The second, and longest, section of the book is 396 pages of short commentary, usually under 3 pages, told from the point of view of over 40 different people. This style of writing was ridiculously hard to follow, and incredibly boring, with little time to engage with a character or storyline before being moved to the next narrator.

The author does seem to be a very good writer, and the book feels very 'literary', it just didn't say anything I thought was worth reading. I was intending to read 2666 by Bolano, since it was on the Amazon editor's best books of 2008 list, but I think I'll give it a miss.

0 stars.

A Child Called 'It' by Dave Pelzer (3 stars)

This book is incredibly sad from page 1. The fact that a mother could do the things written in this book to her child is completely horrifying. Compelling reading, but not the sort of story you actually enjoy. I'll be reading the sequels 'The Lost Boy' and 'A Man Named Dave'.

3 stars.

White Gardenia by Belinda Alexandra (3 stars)

This book struck me as being very unusual in its coverage of multiple cultures. It included time in Russian communities in China, refugee camps in the Philippines and Australia, Sydney beach culture, and Moscow during the Cold War.

Since the focus of the book was supposed to be the mother-daughter relationship I was surprised the author didn't include the mother's point of view at all. The mother's story is told very briefly by another character towards the end of the novel, but there is no first-person description of the mother's thoughts or feelings.

Enjoyed it, although I got sick of the main character's pointless pining after Dmitri.

3 stars.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (3.5 stars)

Fun read, even stayed up to 1:30am to finish the final pages.

I found the early parts of the book fairly forced, where the father makes up a series of increasingly ridiculous travel plans to continue the narrative with his daughter. Much to my relief the context switching between past letters and present day events was dropped towards the end of the book. I think it would have read a whole lot better in the first person, since the daughter's role in the story was pretty much non-existent.

I found the ending to be a bit too quick, like the author got sick of the storyline, although perhaps that's just because I'm used to the ridiculously drawn out epic battles of hollywood movies.

The Dracula character was awesome, it's a shame he didn't feature as more than a shadowy presence for most of the story.

The history content was just right, and I may have even learned something :)

3.5 stars.