Enigma - Robert Harris

Enigma is the story of about 3 months in the life of a codebreaker, Tom Jericho, in Bletchley Park during the war. The book starts at the end of those three months, mainly the last week and there is a series of flashbacks to fill in the gaps for the reader. I have to say, really not a fan of flash backs. If you need to use more than two flashbacks maybe you should have placed the start of your book earlier as far as I’m concerned. I just feel they interrupt the flow too much.

Fear not however, the plot is packed actually. Tom has been an incredibly busy bee in three months. In the course of three months he managed to meet a girl, go to four dates with her, sleep with her twice, get dumped, mope, have a nervous breakdown, be sent back to Cambridge to recover, return and so on. You may now be getting pissed off because you think I gave away the plot? How wrong you are, I just told you chapter one. Seriously. In other words this book is completely packed.

I like Tom. Tom is, well quite damaged, but nice. He is brilliant, which means he has no common sense at all and the fact that he makes it from day to day is simply proof of how civilised society is a nice place to be if you are a mathematical genius. You just can’t help but really feel for poor Tom. He just gets in the middle of things and faces them with such stoic bravery. It’s very lucky that he has Hester for a sidekick, seeing as she is actually capable of not acting suspicious for two seconds and keeping calm as opposed to him. Hester is a force of nature and without her Tom Jericho, clever as he might be, he wouldn’t get very far.

In terms of plot, the twists are great. you spend your time suspecting one person, then you realise you were blind and then Robert Harris tells you’ve missed the woods for the trees. I love it when that happens. You also get to read a bit about code breaking during the second world war and I found that fascinating. All in all I really enjoyed this book,I strongly recommend it if you can stand flash backs. They do stop by page 175 so if you grin and bear it for the beginning you’re in for a treat!

Next up: In Cold Blood

Enjoyed it: Yes!

Read again: Of course, I’ll get to skip the flashbacks!


270 days remaining - 20 books down, 1 unfinished, 80 left.

A Certain Smile - Francoise Sagan

So I picked this up because I loved Bonjour Tristesse  so much. I thought it was going to have the same refreshing voice, the easy going pace, the well thought out characters of her first novel. It didn’t. It was not good. Dominique was very annoying. Don’t get me wrong, she shares so many great qualities with Cecile like her self absorption, tendency for the dramatic, debatable morality. And yet she is so dull. I just didn’t connect with her at all, I didn’t care if her heart broke, or if she was happy, or ill. I just didn’t care. Something about her made me completely indifferent to her.

So the story is: Girl loves boy, boy introduces her to his uncle, girl falls for said married uncle, uncle and girl have affair. Too bad the girl is as interesting as baked beans.

And as for the uncle: Let me put it out there- he is a creep. There is nothing romantic about him. He is a creep and a boring creep at that!

Over and out!

Next up: Enigma!!! So put your codebreaking hats on!

Enjoyed it: No.

Read again: Absolutely not.

275 days remaining - 19 books down, 1 unfinished,  81 left.

Bonjour Tristesse - Francoise Sagan

This is the story of Cécile, a 17 year-old girl living in the 1950’s, spending her summer holiday with her father in the company of one of his many mistresses. As a teenage girl she is described to idolise her father and his chosen life style, lack the direction of solid parenting that was absent in her life and despise anything that tries to unsettle the fragile balance of her life. In fact she is very a much a teenager, trapped between being a child and being an adult and she evidently resents that. Especially when the latest conquest of his father is here to stay, with Anne becoming his fiancee and taking firm control of Cecile’s life in the same sense as a mother figure would.

This very short novel was incredibly well written, honest and very direct in terms of its characters and situations. You can’t help but like Cecile, not because she is a nice human being (she’s not.) but because she is honest and does exactly what you’d expect her to do. With Cecile, what you see is pretty much what you get. She is a great character and her mental voice is very refreshing.

As for the plot, it had a tendency for the dramatic but it was written by a teenager, reflecting a teenager’s view. It was very enjoyable! Highly recommended!

Enjoyed it: Very Much

Read again: Absolutely!

275 days remaining - 18 books down, 1 unfinished,  82 left.

The Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld

This book not exactly a sequel to The Interpretation of Murder but it does use the same protagonist and in a sense it gives us the “what Stratham Younger did next” vibe. Set in the 1920’s in New York, it follows two lines: the life of a police detective who witnessed the 1920’s terrorist attack on Wall Street and Stratham Younger, trying to unravel a plot against a young radiochemist. The plot was great, if you ignore the ridiculous parts of it and the shaky science bits, it was fun. But something happened to the book. I’m going to guess it happened at the printers, they accidentaly added to the book another book, called “Memoirs from WWI”. If that’s not what happened then I can’t explain why he spent easily 150 pages telling us, in  a very preachy manner, about the horrors of the First World War. It didn’t add to the plot, it didn’t add to the experience and frankly it was tedious.

The other thing that happened to that book was Stratham Younger turned from a fun nice person to an arrogant jerk that deserves to be run over by a train. I hated everything about him. The worst part was that it wasn’t as if Rubenfeld took his character and then imagined the emotionally scarred version of it and tried to reproduce it. He took his character, shredded it, started again and gave him the same name. Seriously.

The other thing that had bothered me about Jed Rubenfeld before is the outlandish plots. There are parts where his story is simply unbelievable. In a way, he writes such hard to believe story-lines that when he brings out the outlandish spin you are unsurprised because there is nothing that can surprise you anymore.

The nice treat in his books is always the Freud cameos that appear. Now, I know most of Freudian psychology has been disproved but he still looks very cool in a historical novel! That was really a treat. In terms of other characters, Colette was possibly the most confusing character I’ve read: so liberal and yet so sexist at the same time! It was all a bit confused... The only decent character was Detective Littlemore (who I imagine to look like Paul Giammati a la The Illusionist). He was a well written, well thought out character. He is the only character I truly enjoyed reading about!


Enjoyed it: So so.

Read again: Not really.

275 days remaining - 17 books down, 1 unfinished,  83 left.

Life in the United Kingdom - The Home Office

Let me tell you a little story: There once was a girl who lived in the UK for years and years. She never needed any resident’s permits or visas because she was an EU citizen. Then one day she thought: “Why don’t I become British? I must be eligible!” And lo an behold, she was!!! So she started reading about the process of naturalisation and finding the forms and documents she would need. And then suddenly she stumbles across something called a “citizenship test”. “What is that?” She asks herself. “ A test?” So she reads a bit more and finds out that there is indeed a test that you have to sit to be able to apply for citizenship.

And of course, where there is a test, there is a book to study from... Enter Life in the United Kingdom: A journey through citizenship. (I swear I’m not making it up, that’s what it’s called...) The content was useful. I won’t go as far as to describe it as interesting but useful is a fair enough description. The language, as was expected, was very simple and this at least gave it some entertainment value when you reached parts like the Holidays and Festivals section where Santa was described as an old man coming in the house at night, when the children are asleep to leave things and drink alcohol. That was, aside from creepy, hilarious. Aside from sections like that, because the language was very simple some more complex concepts were overly simplified and that was less funny. In terms of information load there were useful bits and bits that even though they come up in tests (and in the majority they did in mine.... sigh...) are completely pointless. Why is it important to know how many independent schools there are in the UK? How will that help me as a future citizen of the UK? Pointless.

The other issue was the fact that there were no sample questions in the book. If you are like me and in this case you are just studying for the test rather than for the fun of it (in which case: What is wrong with you???) then the sample questions would at least make you focus on the appropriate pieces of trivia that they will ask you before you can successfully get on with your life! All in all, not a fun read, but if you have to read it then do it with patience and a sense of humour.

And if you are wondering...the girl in the story passed her test....

Enjoyed it: Oh no...

Read again: Absolutely not.

275 days remaining - 16 books down, 1 unfinished,  84 left.