claire_fuller_writer's reviews
1030 reviews

I heard Karen speak about her poems and read some of them at a recent event, and I bought this book there and then. I like the matter-of-fact way she has of writing about terrible things - I found some of the poems beautifully blunt so that the pain of them came from me, the reader, having to read between the lines and do some work. That's the way I like to read.

Very tender story, quiet and beautiful, and at times heart-breaking - especially in the second half. I also really loved the descriptions of the sea and landscape.

I read a lot of this book on the train to London, and it made me cry. The man opposite me stared, but I didn't care. I loved the character of Anna, lonely, isolated, reckless. I read it on the way back from London and walked home reading it so I could finish.

This book worked best when Marsh was describing his operations (fascinating, absorbing) or his interactions with patients (illuminating, honest), but not so well when he was describing the weather or the sunsets, which seemed a little out of place. Obviously you have not mind reading about operations nor be the kind of person who starts imagining symptoms just by reading about them. My husband agreed to let me read some of the book aloud to him, and said he would tap my arm when he'd heard as much as he could bare; I didn't get to finish one sentence - although I did deliberately select a more gruesome one.

I loved all the medical detail, the people Marsh worked with, the frustrations of the job. Highly recommended for the non-squeamish.

A tense drama of two parallel stories about expeditions to the Antartic island of Everland. I loved how Hunt used the structure to increase my anxiety about what was going to happen in this story of extreme survival. The descriptions of the landscape and the cold were really vivid.

Beautifully written, frank and strangely life-affirming, even though it made me cry. I just wasn't too sure about the structure, and felt that McCracken was holding back on what actually happened on the day her son was born for too long, as if it was a denouement or a big reveal. And I kept wanting to know what actually happened, but because this book is a memoir, someone's real life, I felt rather grubby for wanting to know the details.

David Vann is a master at building tension to a point where you think things can't get any worse, but then he ratchets it up again, and again. It makes me read his writing so fast - the pages flying by - that I want to go and read Aquarium all over again, and I will once, I can wrestle it from my husband.

Why not five stars? Very minor things, that shouldn't put you off buying and reading Aquarium. The story is from the point of view of a twelve year old girl, but there are a few sentences which make it clear that she is looking back from some years ahead. However there doesn't seem to be any consideration of that older voice, or an adult's ability to examine the possible thoughts, emotions and actions of any of the other characters.

Lovely writing, lovely descriptive passages of the countryside, but I just never connected with what was going on with Macdonald and her hawk. I think I should have, perhaps I'm cold-hearted, though I did connect with White, and what went on with him and Gos, I found those sections very moving.

And although Macdonald writes about the hunting and death as a sport, I struggled to forget that as I was reading. Her bird had been bred for people to enjoy flying and catching prey - a blood sport. I kept asking myself what I would feel if this was a book about Macdonald and a hound that she took out fox hunting. (I know it's not quite like that - they are in packs; there's not a connection between one person and a dog, but the principle is the same.)

Oh Wallace. I wanted to love All the Little Live Things (isn't that one of the best titles?), and there were moments when I did - the beginning, and the end: when there was Wallace's amazing descriptions of landscape and nature, and when things happened - when we escaped from the inside of Joe's brain. Yes, I think it was Joe's brain which was the problem for me, and how much it was switched onto repeat. Joe didn't like his hippie tenant, but he did like his sweet and beautiful neighbour. Wallace could have just said that in one line (only written it better) and it would have been enough, but he took a whole book to do it.
I might still forgive him though, because I do love Wallace.

This was a hard book for me to rate because I could see Williams' skill with language, character and story, but it just wasn't for me. 'Poetic', a lot of the reviews say, and it is, but I think I prefer my writing more pared back; plainer. But if a more exuberant style is one you like, I'd definitely recommend this.