Summer Reading

Roomies by Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando

Supplied by Bookbridgr.com

Seeing this book on the Bookbridgr review scheme made me very happy - two of my favourite teen fiction tropes and by an author I already love.  I was a very happy Norfolkbookworm to find this on my doorstep over the weekend.

Lauren and Elizabeth are about to leave home for the first time to go to university, they've been assigned as room-mates for their first year and so spend the summer emailing each other in preparation for the autumn.

The book isn't deep, and there was little in it that related to my memories of leaving home for uni but I loved the book, the way that the girls are slowly trying to sort their lives out before a big change and how two such very different people can be so similar in many ways was wonderfully conveyed.  The characters felt real and their situations always realistic which is an achievement when as an adult you read light fiction aimed at teenagers.

I think that the mixture of sensible length emails interspersed with straight forward narration worked well, too often when reading epistolary fiction I lose interest because in reality very few people would write letters/emails that long every time.

I needed the escapism of something easier to read after a session of longer, complicated books and a big event at work - this fitted the bill completely and was a fun read.  I hope that we hear more from LoCo and EB as they were such strong voices.

Thought Provoking

The Virgins by Pamela Erens

(book supplied by Bookbridgr.com)

I saw this on the shelf in a bookshop a few months ago and noted it down as one to read over the summer and then when the chance came to review it for Bookbridgr I was really pleased.

It wasn't an easy read in terms of content and style but I certainly found myself racing through the pages.

Set in an elite and relatively free thinking American boarding school in the late 1970s we follow a few of the students through one academic year, mostly from the view point of the graduating class. Our narrator is truly unreliable although this only comes to light a little while into the book. He however does let us know that a lot of what he is saying is supposition or discovered after the event and so as a reader you are informed of this.

Two of the students develop a passionate relationship and this spirals out of control during the course of the year in many ways and while a lot of reviewers talk of a surprise and shocking ending I did find this signposted throughout by our narrator and enjoyed seeing how skilfully Erens managed to build to the event.

I found the book deeply unsettling, a good reminder of just how far women have come since 1979 - the casual acceptance of sexual assault (although again all from our unreliable and rather nasty narrator) really made an impact on me.

Very much like Stoner last year I enjoyed this book but I can't see myself recommending it to all and sundry - it will make an interesting reading group read for some as there are so many ideas to discuss.