The Islands by Di Morrissey (2 stars)

When I picked this book up from the library I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it:

...a handsome American naval officer sweeps her off her feet and she goes to live in the beautiful Hawaiian Islands with her new husband...she begins to discover that paradise has a darker side...

But it was on the Dymocks top 100 list, and I figured I might as well get it read since I'm willing to give most authors a chance.

The first part of the book was exactly what I had expected: a cardboard cutout of a 'perfect' courtship, marriage, and honeymoon. The only thing that kept me interested was I could see some definite cracks appearing.

As the story unfolded I was surprised by the depth of detail about Hawaii and surfing. This aspect of the story managed to keep my interest while I was waiting for darling Bradley to turn into a psychopathic killer. Unfortunately the 'darker side' alluded to in the description is not really that dark: the book is completely devoid of twists and plays out the very obvious plot.

Certainly not a great book, but I had been ready to dismiss it as trash. Ms. Morrissey obviously really liked Hawaii, and I enjoyed matching her descriptions with my memories of the islands.

2 stars.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (5 stars)

After the last book I got from Dymocks' top 100 list, I picked this one up with some trepidation since it came from the same list. The Book Thief is the story of a German girl growing up in Nazi Germany through World War II, and is narrated by Death. Yes, Death. Sound depressing enough?

Surprisingly, although at times it is incredibly sad, it isn't depressing because it demonstrates both the potential for great goodness and great evil that exists in human nature. It explores the incredible moral conflicts faced by ordinary Germans in the face of a regime that ruthlessly punished dissension. Extra special punishments were reserved for those who helped the Jews.

Zusak tells of the Hubermann's bid to shelter a Jew from the death camps from the perspective of their adopted child Liesel. I thought the language and writing style was excellent, and very poetic:

A young man was hung by a rope of Stalingrad snow.

Rosa Hubermann, who looked like a small wardrobe with a coat thrown over it.

Zusak is an Australian born in Sydney. He published the book in Australia as regular fiction, but it has been marketed overseas as young-adult fiction. That is an interesting choice, given the subject matter - I saw an interview with Zusak and he said he hadn't set out to write a young-adult novel; he actually only planned a 100 page novella! In any case, I was surprised to see it was classified as young-adult.

I loved Zusak's portrayal of Death: compassionate, gently scooping up souls, powerful, efficient, and yet haunted by the goodness and hatred of the humans he touches. Brilliant.

5 stars!!!

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (2 stars)

As a winner of the Booker Prize in 2000, and on Dymocks' top 100 list, I decided this was a worthy candidate for my summer reading list. I wish I hadn't.

The unusual thing about this book is the number of simultaneous stories that are being told. They are: Laura and Iris growing up, Iris' affair with Alex Thomas, the science fiction story Alex and Iris come up with together, and Iris' day-to-day life as an older woman. The only interesting story out of all of these is sadly the sci-fi one, which gives the book its title. Unfortunately Atwood treats this story flippantly and has Alex end it in a couple of paragraphs with no regard to the readers' interest:

Not one escapes alive. The King is hanged from a tree, the High Priestess is disembowelled, the plotting courtier perishes along with the rest. The innocent slave children, the guild of blind assassins, he sacrificial girls in the Temple - all die.

My main complaint about this book is the lack of any interesting, thoroughly developed characters. Atwood pre-empts this criticism in the text by acknowledging that she (Iris) has merely provided a cardboard cut-out for her husband Richard. Unfortunately it is also true of all the characters except Iris.

Iris is boring, lacks backbone, and is so weak-willed she does nothing when others conspire to commit her sister to a mental institution. In contrast, Iris' sister Laura is one of the most interesting characters, yet we never discover her motivations: why does she constantly challenge the status-quo and display all of the spunk that Iris lacks?

The only other potentially interesting character is Alex Thomas, but his involvement is mainly limited to an emotionally cruel treatment of Iris and being the vessel for the science fiction story.

The 'twist' at the end of the story is less twist and more bleeding obvious plot development. Even Atwood acknowledges it:

But you must have known that for some time.

As I would expect for a Booker Prize winner, the writing is excellent. It's a shame the story is no good.

2 stars.

My 2009

The best (5 stars):

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty

Special mentions (4.5 stars):

• The Steig Larsson trilogy.
  
• Peeps and the Uglies, Pretties, Specials trilogy by Scott Westerfeld.
  
• In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan
  
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
  
• Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.
  
• The Host by Stephenie Meyer (NOT the twilight saga).
  
• March by Geraldine Brooks.
  

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (0.5 stars)

Could a book be more highly acclaimed? Midnight's Children has won the Booker of Bookers in 1993 and 2008, which makes it the best book ever. Right?

Not so much. I gave up after 400 pages, and it was a serious struggle to get that far. Rushdie obviously has amazing talent as a writer, but it certainly isn't light reading (or fun reading, or interesting reading, or enjoyable reading). The story is different: incorporating chunks of Indian and Pakistani history into Saleem's life story with a bizarre sci-fi-like thread that pops up out of nowhere into:

a Goanese girl with the gift of multiplying fish ... and children with powers of transformation: a werewolf from the Nilgiri Hills, and from the great watershed of the Vindhyas, a boy who could increase or reduce his size at will, and had already (mischeviously) been the cause of wild panic and rumours of the return of Giants ... from Kashmir,...

Overall I found the novel fairly boring and slow, but it did have a habit of sucking me back into the story; so I found my interest in it went through peaks and troughs. Although the writing is of high quality and very 'literary' I was annoyed by the ridiculous use of ellipses: turn to any page in the book and you will count 5 or more. The narrator's interjections and meta-story with Padma were also annoying and continually disrupting the flow of the story, although I concede her voice often brought sanity and an end to the rambling, for which I was grateful.

I will admit to liking some parts of the book - I think my favourite character was Tai the boatman who made a stinky pact as a personal attack on Saleem's grandfather.

0.5 stars.