February reads

I should preface these reviews by saying that I had terrible reader's block in February - it took me weeks to find anything I wanted to read and I struggled again and again to get into books, starting and discarding novels by entirely blameless authors as I just couldn't be bothered (all of the reviews here are of books I did finish). So any somewhat lukewarm opinions may be coloured by this fact.

1. Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion is, as the name suggests, a (broadly) Marxist take on the fashion industry. If this makes it sound dry and academic, never fear: I found this inspirational and full of fascinating (albeit depressing) details about the ways in which the industry exploits and destroys communities in developing countries while in turn exploiting consumers in the Global West. Hoskins is particularly strong on recognising and explaining the intersections of class and race, and I also enjoyed the chapter on body image, with its all-too-brief look at fatshion and the fat blogging movement.

2. I absolutely adore so many of Patrick Gale's other novels - if you're looking for a good place to start, Rough Music is a favourite of mine and I also love The Cat Sanctuary - so I was excited to start reading A Place Called Winter**. Now, I don't know how much of my struggles with this book were to do with the glitches in formatting and editing on my proof galley copy, how much were to do with my reader's block, and how much were to do with the book itself but the words I've said so many times this post are about to be said again: I struggled to get into this. Following Edwardian gentleman Harry Cane through his life starting as a wealthy batchelor to marriage and fatherhood, a shocking and passionate affair which leads to his departing for the Canadian Plains and life as a farmer and homesteader, I found the narrative a bit disjointed and there was a great deal of, "This happened... then this happened... he said this.... she said that...." rather than any real insight or descriptive detail. As I say, I love Gale's writing usually, so maybe chalk this one up to me being a grumpy reader at the moment!

3. Vivian Versus The Apocalypse tells the tale of 17 year old Vivian Apple, an average Pittsburgh high school student in an America that's preparing for The Rapture. With society split between Believers and Non-Believers, Vivian doesn't accept that the world is about to end... until she returns home one morning to find that her parents have disappeared, leaving body-shaped holes in the roof of the house. Determined to find out the truth about the sinister Church Of America, Vivian ends up on an unconventional roadtrip across America in her quest for answers. I thoroughly enjoyed Vivian Versus The Apocalypse: from the bleakly comic 'Advice To Girls' snippets from Church magazines that pepper the narrative to the central mystery, it's a witty and hopefully not prescient look at how rapidly America could fall for a fundamentalist cult. I thought Coyle was especially good at identifying and satirising the crazed patriotism and worship of capitalism that characterises so many Christian fundamentalists in the US.

4. Since first reading Wolf Hall six years ago, I've been head over heels in love with the Tudor period. So I thoroughly enjoyed CJ Sansom's novels featuring Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked lawyer (and, in the first novel, employee of Thomas Cromwell who, over the course of the series, survives the terrifying machinations of Henry's court by obtaining powerful allies such as Thomas Cranmer and Katherine Parr). However, as the series has gone on they've suffered somewhat from the curse of the successful novelist: a lack of editing. Lamentation, which takes us to the last days of Henry's reign and a time of religious upheaval, as the Catholic and Protestant factions at court maneuver to become the ones in power once the King dies and Shardlake seeks to solve a series of murders that threaten the Queen, clocks in at a hefty 640 pages in hardback. What this means in practice is that the book becomes bloated with extraneous detail, with characters spouting lines of exposition that are just not believable (would a Londoner in Tudor times have to have it explained to them by their friend why the heretic burnings were taking place? I think not). Sansom would have done better to trust his readers with a little sense and background knowledge, and concentrate more on what is undeniably a cracking plot when it has the chance to advance.

5. I was drawn to pick up The Axeman's Jazz after hearing that it was set in 1920s New Orleans, a city with which I have a long fascination with and love for. Based on a real series of killings in the city, known as the Axeman Murders, I found it a little difficult to get into this book, mainly because I found splitting the narrative between the different characters investigating the murders - wannabee PI Ida, police detective Michael, and the ex-con with Mafia ties Luca - meant that I was never properly invested in any of their stories.

6. The Insect Farm* was the second Curtis Brown Book Group pick, and I was sad to once again find it lacking. When university student Jonathan's parents die in a house fire, he is left to care for his older brother, Roger, who has learning difficulties and is obsessed with the insect farm built in the back garden. Already a jealous and controlling boyfriend to Harriet, Jonathan moves back to London and their relationship becomes long-distance, further fueling his jealousy. When a horrifically violent act intrudes on the quiet life Jonathan and Roger lead, a cat-and-mouse game with the police begins. The novel opens with a striking and attention-grabbing image but from that point onwards I was disappointed. I found the portrayal of Roger specifically, and of people with learning difficulties generally, hugely ableist. More problematically, the reader is urged to side with Jonathan despite him clearly being a thoroughly unpleasant, misogynistic and controlling man.

7. After that run of bad reads, I was thrilled to find a crime novel that I loved! Faithful Place was another of Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series, and my favourite one yet. Undercover detective Frank Mackey's life has been overshadowed by the disappearance of his first love on the night they were supposed to run away together. When her suitcase turns up on abandoned property in the rundown street of tenements on which he grew up, Frank is forced to reconsider long-held assumptions about just what happened to Rosie that December night. Slightly shorter than the other two I've read (with which my main issue was the fact they went on a bit), I thoroughly enjoyed Faithful Place and found it tense reading despite guessing whodunnit.

* This book was kindly given to me by the Curtis Brown Book Group but all opinions are entirely my own.

** This book was kindly provided for review by the publishers via Netgalley but all opinions are entirely my own.

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