The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller (4 stars)

I read this book without any pre-conceptions after I had run out of library books. It turns out it is one of the best selling books of all time, which is an interesting and depressing list (How to Win Friends and Influence People beats Dune). It seems like every literature critic across the world has made a hobby of pouring vitriol on this novel, and that is balanced by an equally passionate group of people in love with the story.

The criticisms are mainly that it is a Mills and Boon dressed up as literature, the characters and dialogue are implausible, and the writing is something you would expect from a high school student. Some of that is true, but I didn't think it was groan-worthy, and I didn't want to throw it at a wall when Robert says 'I am the highway and a peregrine and all the sails that ever went to sea' as some reviewers have stated.

I think the story is very powerful and interesting. The characters and dialogue, while unusual, could be plausible for two highly educated people passionate about poetry and literature. Those qualities are so rare in modern society I don't think any of us are qualified to apply the 'implausible' stamp to the characters.

If I said I didn't enjoy it, I'd be lying. I do wonder if I read it again with those criticisms in my mind if it would be just as good. Literature intelligentsia, we're going to have to agree to disagree.

4 stars.

Under a Starless Sky, A Family's Escape From Iran by Banafsheh Serov (3 stars)

This is a first-hand account of a young girl's escape from Iran under Khomeini in the early 80s. The story focuses on Serov's and her family's experiences in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and later with people smugglers to get to Turkey. The book ends with the family's entry to Australia, and this great quote:

'Where do we go?' he asked. He pushed the passports at the immigration officer. Maybe the man had not noticed that they were Iranians. Maybe he had missed the exit stamp from Turkey declaring them as illegals and the refusal stamp from Hong Kong.

The officer took the passports, opened them again, checked the visa and handed them back with a smile.

'Anywhere you like, mate,' he said.

I'm going to give the Australian authorities in the 80s the benefit of the doubt and assume they actually did give them some support and help settling-in. More than a visa and a wave from Sydney airport customs anyway.

I think the saddest thing about this book is that this family could really only make their escape because they were very wealthy. Plenty of middle and lower class families in Iran would have suffered similar hardships during the revolution but lacked the contacts and the cash to turn the people-smuggling wheels.

The book is well-written. The focus is on Serov's experiences so don't expect a lot of historical information or background.

3 stars.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley (4 stars)

I started reading this book for a bizzare reason (thanks Lic), but I'm glad I did. It may well be the best use of c**t by a female character as claimed:

You want to talk cranky, coitus interruptus takes me well beyond cranky. My engorged labia felt like they were pressing on my brain - what there was of my brain - and if I didn't get to fuck someone, something now - a vampire would do - I was going to fucking explode. My cunt ached like a bruise.

Whoah.

That quote is actually a bit misleading - one of the things I liked the most about this book was that it wasn't a tragic teen love story between an impossibly beautiful vampire and a human (I'm looking at you, Meyer), and wasn't chock-full of sexual tension. The vampire Constantine is seen by Sunshine as a menacing, terrifying figure, an embodyment of evil and darkness. Sunshine has created a bond with him, but she isn't sure it was a good idea, and he isn't wild about it either.

I have two main complaints. The first is style. A large amount of the story is told in an internal monologue, with very little actual conversation and interaction between sunshine and other characters. Character development suffers, and I could have lived with that, but it also destroys the flow of the most exciting parts of the book. Here is a section from the climax, where Sunshine is in the middle of a battle, covered in blood, and decides it is a good time to embark on a long monologue about vampire fiction she read as a kid:

Blood stings when it gets in your eyes. And it's viscous, so it's hard to blink out again. It may not only be because the blood stings that you're weeping.

I have always been afraid of more things than I can remember at one time. Mom, when I was younger, and still admitted to some of them, said that it was the price of having a good imagination, and suggested I stop reading the Blood Lore series...

McKinley has a parentheses problem. Take a look at page 13 and 14 - there isn't a paragraph without a lengthy bit of text, or even a few full sentences inside parentheses.

My second main complaint is that McKinley barely explains anything properly and didn't write a sequel when there were so many interesting things I wanted to find out (beware tharr be spoilers ahead):

• Who/what is Mel? Some kind of sorcerer? A vigilante? What do all his tatoos do? Why doesn't he care about what Sunshine is doing? She likes that he doesn't ask questions, I think it is weird.
  
• Is her grandmother alive?
  
• What the hell is a bad spot? How do you sense one? What does the special SOF car do that allows you to drive through one?
  
• What happened in the Voodoo wars? Who was fighting? Just humans vs. vamps or all the 'Others'? What happened to all the other cities?
  
• Is the goddess of pain evil? What is her deal? Why is she called that?
  
• How are Bo and Con actually different? Why are they fighting? Sure Sunshine is fighting out of some self interest, but why doesn't she ask him about it?
  

Arrrrgggggh!

So many times Sunshine asks a question in her head, but is too gutless to voice it:

I wanted to know why: what would scar a vampire? Another vampire's try for your heart?...But I didn't ask

I wanted to know too! Ask for me goddammit!

McKinley has a massive whinge on her blog about people hounding her for a sequel. Well sorry for liking your book Ms. McKinley, and maybe you should explain things next time! McKinley has created an incredibly rich world of magic, part-bloods, vampires, wardskeepers, secret police, and so much more, yet she claims not to have any ideas for a sequel. Come on! I think the real story is that she got sick of talking and thinking about the book on the tour, and now can't face writing a sequel.

I loved the world McKinley created, if only there was more.

4 stars

The Bride Stripped Bare by Anonymous (3.5 stars)

When I started reading this book, Em made some comments like "Are you going to read that on the bus?" and others that I can't remember that made me think I was picking up a Mills and Boon. Thankfully it wasn't nearly as trashy, and although there is a fair bit of sex, not as much as I was expecting given the hysterical things that have been written about this book.

The first thing that struck me, was the second person narrative. Nikki Gemmell (not so anonymous) says:

I was fascinated by that particular tense and wanted to give it a go. It's extremely difficult to sustain...Some people have said, of my unnamed bride, that it was like "reading her brain, being in her head-space," which was exactly the effect I was aiming for-hopefully without too much indulgence.

I actually found it very impersonal, and annoying. This is what it sounds like (stop saying 'you'!):

You'd almost invited her on the spot when she said she was so low. You wanted her to join you just for a couple of days, as a treat: it's her birthday in three days, June the first. But you knew...

Some have speculated that Gemmell's outing as Anonymous was all part of a sneaky marketing ploy. I'm sure the scandal didn't hurt book sales, but I believe her when she says:

I loved the idea of writing a book that dived under the surface of a woman's life, a seemingly contentedly married woman, and explored her secret world-with ruthless honesty...I'd fully intended putting my name to the book when I began it. But six months into the project the text just wasn't singing-I was censoring myself...I'm a wife and a mother of two young boys, not to mention the daughter of two gently bewildered people in their sixties. I didn't want people judging them...But when the idea of anonymity came to me, everything clicked. I was suddenly like a woman on a foreign beach who's confident she doesn't know a soul and parades her body loudly and joyously without worrying what anyone thinks of her.

Much has been made of the sex in this book, but it is way less racy than any edition of Cosmopolitan magazine in the last 15 years. It actually gets quite cosmo-like with a section that lists 'what you want' and 'what you do not want' that could be transplanted straight into cosmo under 'turn ons' and 'turn offs'.

Overall I thought it was a good read.

3.5 stars.