My Book Reviews

The story seems to be four stories, point of view from four different main characters surrounded by other people. The storylines get together further in the book. It's all wel constructed. I like it that Denis Mina is writing quite straight forward, but by doing this is hampers the reader a bit. During the first half of the book I often wondered: Who was this person again? It would take a page, sometimes even a bit more before I remembered/recognised what the person was about. The plot was very plausible and the whole book quite consistent. All in all a good read, I can recommend it. I gave it 4 stars.

  A very remarkable novel. Jon McGregor has his own punctuation and it works really good for him. This novel has an amazing amount of things happening. A lot of writers would need 4, maybe five times as many words to tell the story. The writer gives you pieces of a puzzle, tells you later where they fit. So you see the bigger picture later. The story is told from the perspective of the two main characters, David and Eleanor, except for one chapter. It is the story of love and perseverance, of misunderstanding, disappointments and misfortune. I was drawn into the story, felt for the characters and there were times I had difficulty to read on. It all became too much misery. In the end and looking back at the whole story it feels optimistic in it's own way, how surprising that was for me. All in all I loved the book and I would certainly recommend it.

Just finished the book and I need to express my feelings about it. It is not a book for people who like flowery words and romantic stories. It is raw and direct. For full disclosure, I was sent a copy of this book by the author for a fair and honest review. After receiving it and having a quick look, it seemed quite dark and gloomy. When I picked it up again and started reading, I had the idea of reading a little bit every following day. My plan didn't work, I just had to read on. The book consists of poetry, art work made by the author herself which emphasises the meaning of the words and a few more or less short pieces of prose which describes moods and situations. I am not an expert on poetry, but do know a bit about structure. Michelle Torez uses interrupted rhyme for her verses, which vary in length.  But poetry is more about feeling than structure to me. I felt the fear of letting oneself in for relations. In doing so you need to let go of protecting walls, making yourself vu...

A very sympathetic initiative of poet and editor Jacqueline Belle, this anthology of work written by members of the #writingcommunity / #writerscommunity *. The stories and poems of the chosen writers are being alternated by poems of the editor herself. The result is a very enjoyable book. It was a pleasure to read it. (Not just because there are two pieces of my hand included!) * Contains work by: Shylovedheart Jane Jago Sallie Moffitt Bella Rayne W.Rix Victory lll  Margaret Lindsay Holton Duncan Walters Barbara Avon Kathleen Cranidge Cheryl Burman Albert van der Steeg Melony Teague David DeWinter Julie Kusma Val Ormrod Jill Yoder Karen Honnor Carol Sheppard Jon Hart Melinda Lucas Doug Stuber Stoney deGeyter Duncan Wilson G.Quinn Rogers 3Mind Blight and of course editor and poet Jacqueline Belle

                                                                                                                                                         I gave this book 5 stars. It's a long read. If you are not up to reading a lot of names and a lot of details, this book is not for you. I did like it a lot. The biggest challenge the writer has is keeping it up being a detective book. Sometimes it gets very near being a sort of soap opera, but in my opinion it's still mainly a detective. I love it that there are so many detailled complications and yet J.K.Rowling always keeps her eyes on the ball. It's very c...

This is a very interesting book, one that you need to read in a different way. I normally sort of gulp a book, in this case a sort of sipping is needed. The amount of information is hard to take. I admire the writer for her research: it must have taken so much time and patience to do it. The book is not like the television program "A House through Time". It's a bit more about the achitecture and building styles and most of the houses have been occupied by aristocracy. I do understand that: these beautiful houses were not like the building in the slums. Still the history of the people involved in these houses was very interesting.  I have been sipping it like a very fine liqueur.  It was a joy doing this.

A very interesting read, but don't expect it to be like the BBC series with the same name. This is the book that can be seen as the base to that. It's about the history of houses; the building of houses; the change through time of homes; the history of neighbourhoods; the policies of governments and local authorities towards houses, homes and neighbourhoods. It's very detailed, well illustrated and gives a great insight in the subjects in a sociological view. More than that this book gives us a better understanding of houses and housing in our contempary time. It even gives us handles how to investigate the past of our own houses. All in all, as I already wrote: I think this is a great read and I enjoyed reading it.