JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

The Shape of Water by Guillermo Del Toro and Daniel Kraus

It is 1962, and Elisa Esposito—mute her whole life, orphaned as a child—is struggling with her humdrum existence as a janitor working the graveyard shift at Baltimore’s Occam Aerospace Research Center. Were it not for Zelda, a protective coworker, and Giles, her loving neighbor, she doesn’t know how she’d make it through the day.

Then, one fateful night, she sees something she was never meant to see, the Center’s most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man, captured in the Amazon, to be studied for Cold War advancements. The creature is terrifying but also magnificent, capable of language and of understanding emotions…and Elisa can’t keep away. Using sign language, the two learn to communicate. Soon, affection turns into love, and the creature becomes Elisa’s sole reason to live.

But outside forces are pressing in. Richard Strickland, the obsessed soldier who tracked the asset through the Amazon, wants nothing more than to dissect it before the Russians get a chance to steal it. Elisa has no choice but to risk everything to save her beloved. With the help of Zelda and Giles, Elisa hatches a plan to break out the creature. But Strickland is on to them. And the Russians are, indeed, coming.

The Shape of Water weaves fantasy, fable and mystery. It was put together by two artists — award-winning director Guillermo del Toro and author Daniel Kraus. Scattered throughout the novel are black and white sketch illustrations by visual artist James Jean. These illustrations help give the reader a sense of vision, and they allow us to imagine this story on the big screen.

I was intrigued to read this novel after the movie won Best Picture at the Oscars. It has such an odd plot and quite a quirky romance that I was definitely keen to see what all the fuss was about.

This novel may appeal to all age groups, but it is written like an adult novel, with complex vocabulary and a dry third-person narration. The pacing is quite slow but the characters are full of depth. Given Elisa’s mutism, there isn’t much dialogue to the book. The Shape of Water is mostly prose and description.

“Man should be better than monsters.”
“Ah, but who are the monsters?”

The Shape of Water also highlights the gender inequality of the 1960s. The two main female characters are cleaners, with low-paying jobs and very little respect. The ‘important’ workers involved in the project are all men, and some of them are very dismissive towards Elisa and Zelda. The novel also explores the relationship between Strickland and his wife Lainie. She stays at home with the children, not working or having the chance to make many friends. He’s away for work, sometimes months at a time, and there is very little communication between the two.

There is a definite imbalance in each relationship. Strickland is rarely home and when he is, he doesn’t treat his wife with much respect. He’s dismissive and doesn’t understand how demanding their children are. Over the course of the novel, Lainie finds her own purpose and starts to imagine a life without Strickland.

Additionally, Zelda’s husband Brewster is useless and unappreciative of his wife. He’s demanding and he belittles her and Elisa often thinks about how Zelda would be better off without him in her life.

“Working women don’t get to scurry home and bury their faces in pillows when they’ve been yelled at. You settle your trembling hands by wrapping them around your tools and returning to work.”

The pacing is a little inconsistent. The book takes a long time to kick off — with a lot of backstory and build up — and then the final third of the book moves so quickly that I actually had to go back and reread a few chapters because I was sure that I had missed something integral.

I haven’t seen the movie, but this novel feels void of character emotion. This is supposed to be a grand love story between Elisa and the sea creature, and yet, their romance seems to blossom very quickly but behind the scenes so the reader doesn’t really witness it. And then there’s this grand plan to save the creature from his fate, and I found it quite predictable. Truthfully, I didn’t find myself hugely invested in their romance.

“Zelda kneels to pick up the punch card. Yolanda’s going wild behind her. But all Zelda hears is Brewster carrying on about how she shouldn’t trust anyone. He doesn’t know Elisa, though, does he? Of course he doesn’t. Despite their long years of friendship, Elisa’s never been to Zelda’s home, not once.”

This novel will appeal to people who, like me, want to read the book before they see the movie. It’s not my favourite novel, nor my favourite fantastical romance, but it is something rather different and the characters carry this novel just as much as the plot does.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Shape of Water
Guillermo Del Toro & Daniel Kraus
March 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Lebs by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

As far as Bani Adam is concerned Punchbowl Boys is the arse end of the earth. Though he’s a Leb and they control the school, Bani feels at odds with the other students, who just don’t seem to care. He is a romantic in a sea of hypermasculinity.

Bani must come to terms with his place in this hostile, hopeless world, while dreaming of so much more.

The Lebs by Michael Mohammed Ahmad is a coming of age novel set in Punchbowl, Sydney.

This is an adult novel, but it would still be very relatable for teenagers — particularly males. It’s mostly set within a high school, and explores the relationship between Bani and his friends, and some of the girls that he meets over the course of the year.

The novel is saturated with swearing and adult themes, so I’d definitely set a 15+ age recommendation on the book.

The Lebs explores themes of race, gender, sexuality and identity, all through the telescope of male teenagers. It’s set in the wake of September 11, when most Muslim and Arabic men are labelled terrorists or rapists. The novel highlights racism in Australia, and would be particularly eye-opening for white readers.

The dialogue is sharp and blunt, and Michael Mohammed Ahmad has done a great job of really painting all of these characters through their dialogue. There are a lot of scenes featuring a large number of teenage voices, and I think the author did well to differentiate them so that the reader doesn’t get too confused when reading.

“I look onto Osama and Shaky, and they lock onto me, and onto one another, a triangle of thorns. I hear the thoughts transmitting through their gaze, telling me that this isn’t the girl from the plays we learn at school; this is the girl from the news, the girl who sends us to prison.”

The writing in this book almost feels like stream of consciousness — long sentences with very little punctuation and a real concentration is needed in order to follow what’s going on.

At first glance, not much actually happens in the book. Sure, Bani talks about his friendships and his first girlfriend and then we read as he joins a multicultural arts program. But at its core, there doesn’t seem to be a message or a theme or any kind of meaning. It’s just, meaningless teenage stuff in Punchbowl?

And then I realised, that’s the point of the book. This is about Bani navigating his school year and all that’s going on, and the reader getting a real insight into life as a student at a school where no one really seems to care about much and life is rife with hyper-masculinity.

‘Bani Adam thinks he’s better than us!’ they say over and over until finally I shout back, ‘Shut up, I have something to say!’

They all go quiet and wait for me to explain myself, redeem myself, pull my shirt out, rejoin the pack. I hold their anticipation for three seconds, and then, while they’re all ablaze, I say out loud, ‘I do think I’m better.’

I’m glad that this novel is only 250 pages, because if it were any longer I would’ve lost interest. The plot and the narration starts to drag a little towards the end, and I wasn’t as absorbed in the storyline and the characters as I thought I would be. This isn’t really my favourite book, but I still followed along and finished the story.

This book would appeal to Sydney-siders, or young teenage boys looking for a story they can relate to. Literary fiction readers might find some of the content quite confronting, but the lyricism and poetic flow of the book will probably intrigue them enough to enjoy the read.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Lebs
Michael Mohammed Ahmad
March 2018
Hachette Book Publishers

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.

You will assume you are reading about a jealous wife and her obsession with her replacement.

You will assume you are reading about a woman about to enter a new marriage with the man she loves.

You will assume the first wife was a disaster and that the husband was well rid of her.

You will assume you know the motives, the history, the anatomy of the relationships.

Assume nothing.

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen is a chilling novel about the complexities of marriage and what we fail to see when we’re so blinded by love.

Vanessa Thompson has recently split from her husband, hedge fund manager Richard. She is devastated to hear that he’s now engaged to the woman he left her for. She’s a bit of a mess. She can’t seem to hold a job, she’s living with her Aunt, and she’s obsessed with Richard’s new fiancé. Vanessa becomes so obsessed with Richard’s fiancé that she starts to stalk the two of them. And then just when the reader feels like they understand what’s going on, the story starts to twist and turn and you realise that what you thought you knew was wrong.

“I hurry across town, ignoring the man who tries to shove a flyer into my hand. My legs feel shaky, but I press on toward the entrance to Central Park…Maureen is probably at the restaurant by now. Richard would have ordered a nice wine; savoury bread would be placed on the table. Perhaps the three of them are clinking glasses, toasting to the future.”

This novel is not what it seems, with more surprises than I thought there would be. Vanessa is broken; Richard’s new girlfriend is hopeful, happy and in love. The two characters seem to be pretty stereotypical at first, Vanessa being the bitter wife and the new girlfriend being the victim.

But as the reader continues to delve into this tale, they learn that things are not as clear cut as they first appeared to be. These women are not as clear cut as they are first portrayed.

I won’t give anything away, but I will admit that I guessed the first twist. About halfway through the novel, the reader realises something about these women, and I saw it coming. Not because of the writing, though. Greer and Sarah have done a marvellous job of weaving this tale. I saw the twist coming because of the blurb (above). The way the book is described means that I was on the lookout for any way that this plot could be misleading. And as a result, I was able to guess one of the major twists within the first couple of chapters.

“This is good.”
“I remembered you told me once lamb vindaloo was your favourite dish.”
“I said that?” Richard bent his head to take a forkful of rice.
I’d felt puzzled. Hadn’t he?

Greer & Sarah have done a great job with the pacing, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat and enticing us to turn every page hastily. I was desperate to find out how they would wrap up the book, and I found it rather satisfying.

This is a quick read, with short chapters and a lot of shifting back and forth in time. Interwoven throughout the books are flashback scenes so that we come to understand why Vanessa’s marriage to Richard ended so abruptly. After a series of failed attempts at conceiving a child, their marriage deteriorated and Vanessa started drinking a lot and Richard ended up having an affair and leaving her.

The Wife Between Us reminded me of The Girl on the Train, and just like with that book, any reader who picks up this book will have no trouble following the story. The Wife Between Us is haunting and harrowing. All of the characters are flawed, and we are also dealing with an unreliable narrator so the reader has to work hard to determine what is real and what is fake. All of this allows for an addictive read!

I recommend this to readers of crime and thriller fiction. But if you’re a frequent reader of that genre you may see the twist coming like I did, so perhaps don’t think too much of the blurb or the twist will be spoiled for you as well.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Wife Between Us
Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
February 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

On A Beautiful Day by Lucy Diamond

Treasure every moment. Life can change in a heartbeat.

It’s a beautiful day in Manchester and four friends are meeting for a birthday lunch. But then they witness a shocking accident just metres away which acts as a catalyst for each of them.

For Laura, it’s a wake-up call to heed the ticking of her biological clock. Sensible Jo finds herself throwing caution to the wind in a new relationship. Eve, who has been trying to ignore the worrying lump in her breast, feels helpless and out of control. And happy-go-lucky India is drawn to one of the victims of the accident, causing long-buried secrets to rise to the surface.

On A Beautiful Day by Lucy Diamond is a novel that explores friendship, family and the importance of letting others in. The novel is set in England, and at its core, it is about unexpected events and wake up calls — it is about tackling the unknown and not being afraid to let others in.

When these four women — Laura, Jo, Eve and India — witness a car accident, they’re shook. The driver had a heart attack and unintentionally ploughed into multiple people. The four women were so close to where it happened — it could’ve been them pinned under that car. And so the accident affects them all in different ways.

“They hadn’t discussed IVF before, or undergoing any tests. As a sales manager for a medium-sized insurance firm, Matt could talk for Britain about claims and premiums; as a lifelong United fan he could bore on for hours with his mates about managerial tactics or the pros and cons of the 4-4-2 formation; but ask him to go into detail about his baby-making skills and he would fail uncharacteristically silent.”
LAURA

At first glance, these women may appear to lead perfect lives. But underneath, they’ve all got their struggles. Laura and her husband have been trying to get pregnant for years but they’ve suffered many miscarriages and it’s starting to feel like this will never happen for them. Jo has split from her husband and has just begun a new relationship with a man, but his step daughter Maisie is quite rotten and difficult. Eve keeps secrets from her husband, and she’s not even sure why. And India has long-buried secrets that she’s never told her husband and she must learn to face them so she can let go of this secret that is holding her back.

On a Beautiful Day is about being brave, confident and determined even when your whole world is in turmoil. The characters are full of emotion and passion, and despite the fact that I thought there were too many characters in the novel and I sometimes found it hard to keep track, I did read this book rather quickly and I enjoyed following the characters on their journey post-accident.

The novel alternates between the four different point of views, allowing the reader to follow each character as they confront the issues that they have been ignoring or keeping secret for some time now. Personally, I was more invested in Laura’s storyline. Her marriage and her hopes for a baby are shattered after the accident, and I kept reading because I wanted to find out what would happen to her.

“It wasn’t as if they didn’t talk — they did, all the time; anecdotes about work and friends, what to do each weekend, news and gossip. But not the big stuff. Not the exes.”
JO

Unfortunately, most of the men in the book are quite unreliable and pretty disappointing. The four women are fun and determined, but their partners are all very flawed and I wish there wasn’t so much of an imbalance. Laura’s husband is unable to cope with difficult conversations, Jo’s new partner likes to keep his head in the sand and doesn’t realise that his daughter Maisie is manipulative and troubled, India’s husband brushes her off all the time and she feels undervalued, and Eve’s husband is quite self-absorbed and doesn’t really pull his weight around the house. I found myself growing quite frustrated as the book progressed.

The book is set after ‘happily ever after’. All of these women have found love, had children, and are now facing what’s next. For some of them, it’s a new start, and for others, it’s about strengthening what they already have.

“Tuesday night was the one evening of the week when India actually peeled herself away from the sofa and TV in order to venture out for some self-improving Pilates with Laura.”

On a Beautiful Day might have some deep and important lessons for the reader, but aside from that, this is also a fun read. I think if you love reading novels that feature strong friendships, then you’ll love this novel. And if you’re the kind of person who likes historical fiction, then I think you’ll enjoy this read as well.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

On A Beautiful Day
Lucy Diamond
February 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale

The Emporium opens with the first frost of winter. It is the same every year. Across the city, when children wake to see ferns of white stretched across their windows, or walk to school to hear ice crackling underfoot, the whispers begin: the Emporium is open! Christmas is coming, and the goose is getting fat…

It is 1917, and London has spent years in the shadow of the First World War. In the heart of Mayfair, though, there is a place of hope. A place where children’s dreams can come true, where the impossible becomes possible – that place is Papa Jack’s Toy Emporium.

For years Papa Jack has created and sold his famous magical toys: hobby horses, patchwork dogs and bears that seem alive, toy boxes bigger on the inside than out, ‘instant trees’ that sprout from boxes, tin soldiers that can fight battles on their own. Now his sons, Kaspar and Emil, are just old enough to join the family trade. Into this family comes a young Cathy Wray – homeless and vulnerable. The Emporium takes her in, makes her one of its own. But Cathy is about to discover that while all toy shops are places of wonder, only one is truly magical…

The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale is an enchanting, rich, emotional novel that is both historical fiction and a family saga.

Kaspar and Emil are two brothers who rival each other in their ability to design magnificent toys for their buyers. Their father, Papa Jack, spends a lot of his time in his workshop and doesn’t seem to venture down to the store very often. Both brothers compete with each other in their designs, and their ability to run the store.

Additionally, Kaspar and Emil compete for the affections of Cathy, a runaway teenager. She arrives at the Emporium at the beginning of Winter, and she captures the attention of both brothers. Over the coming months, both fall in love with her. Cathy is enchanted by the store and the brothers and all of their creations, and soon she chooses between the brothers.

“Around her, every aisle was garlanded in lights. High above, the Emporium dome was swirling with pinpoints of white, like a constantly falling snow. The arches that opened each aisle were wreathed in holly leaves of crepe paper and card; plump red berries of paper mache hung from every leaf.”

The Toymakers reminds me of The Night Circus, so if you liked that novel then you’ll most certainly love this one. It’s filled with wonder, imagination and magic, with rich characters that leap off the page and a story that encompasses decades.

The Toymakers takes us from 1917 to 1953, documenting the ups and downs of The Emporium and the magic within it. A major turning point in the novel is when Kaspar leaves for war and comes back a broken man many years later. His relationship with Cathy devolves, and his connection with his brother Emil appears to sever.

“It was the first frost of winter this morning. We don’t turn folk away, not on first frost.”

This is a novel for grown ups — adults who loved toys as a kid and loved the wonder of the unknown. This is for anyone who fell in love with gadgets or figurines or games, and who loved spending their pocket money in toy shops. The Toymakers is probably too advanced for a child to read, but the plot is friendly enough to young eyes in case they do decide they want to give it a try.

The writing is poetic and lyrical, flowing between paragraphs and allowing the reader to settle into the story easily. The Toymakers takes us on an enjoyable ride, not just within the walls of the shop but within London as well. Robert Drinsdale has packed so much into one book — this book moves through time quite quickly and so we follow Cathy through most of her life.

“The patchwork rabbit was a dainty thing. It had a key in its side that was slowly winding down and it hopped along, as rabbits do, until it found a few scraps of fabric left on the workshop floor. At these it bent down and started to eat.”

I did feel that Papa Jack could’ve been a much stronger character. Considering that this was his Emporium and he was known for his marvellous creations, he felt a little dry in the book and he didn’t seem to inspire or intrigue me at all. I found him quite mundane, actually.

Set in London in the 1900s, I recommend The Toymakers to those of you who love magic and all the possibilities of our imagination. This is as much a character-driven story as a plot-driven story; we experience the highs and lows of the Emporium family and the layered relationship between Emil and Kaspar. There is also a surprising twist at the end of the book that I rather enjoyed.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Toymakers
Robert Dinsdale
March 2018
Penguin Random House Australia

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