The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: October


The last Friday of the month is time for The Cephalopod Coffeehouse, a chance for bloggers to get together and discuss the best books they have read in the last month.  Hosted by The Armchair Squid it is a wonderful chance to gain new entries for your to be read list and of course make new friends.

This month I have read a few books I haven't gotten a chance to blog about yet but my favourite (and least favourite) among those has to be 'The Book Of Strange New Things' by Michel Faber.  This is a book I never would have picked up on my own but I won it from Read It Forward and I felt I ought to read it.


Usually if I don't LOVE something right away, I don't really like it either and it takes FOREVER to read it but I was drawn into this book and unable to put it down.  Even though I really didn't like the main character, Peter, I was dying to know what happened to him and the people around him (because it felt like something ought to happen).

The idea is that Peter, a reformed alcoholic turned minister, is sent as a missionary to a another planet, Oasis, leaving his beloved wife, Bea, behind.  Things go ever more wonderfully for him amongst the natives on Oasis while Bea sends him messages detailing one disaster after another back home on Earth.

My favourite thing about this book was how descriptive it was, plenty of detail to fuel the imagination.  I could easily visualize the airport where Peter and Bea are waiting before he leaves England or his first meeting with one of the Oasis natives.

My least favourite thing about this novel, well I can't really say because SPOILERS but I was not a happy camper by the end of the book.  I hate when that happens and unfortunately that's a thing that happens sometimes in Science Fiction and Fantasy, you are left at the end of the story either going WHAT THE %$#! or with a boatload of questions.

All in all though it was worth the read.  What have you read this month?




Comments

  1. Janie JunebugOctober 31, 2014 at 12:56 PM

    My favorite book for this month is Philomena. I like a book with a happy ending. I can't say that Philomena ends happily, but it does bring about a resolution. It sounds as if your book lacked that.

    Love,
    Janie

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 31, 2014 at 2:58 PM

    Is it intended to be a series? I can forgive a soft ending if there will be more books to explain the unresolved issues. I had a bit of that myself with UNMARKED--mostly because it is the second in a planned trilogy.
    Thanks for the review.
    Veronica

    ReplyDelete
  3. SallyNovember 1, 2014 at 2:28 AM

    What an interesting review - a book you don't like much but have to keep reading because it draws you in - that is good writing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Armchair SquidNovember 1, 2014 at 5:51 AM

    Interesting. Curious about the author's own background, I just looked him up on Wikipedia. He was a nurse before writing became a full-time profession.

    ReplyDelete
  5. ClickNovember 12, 2014 at 11:13 AM

    I've heard a couple of people talking about this book and I think it would be my sort of thing. I'll have to look out for a copy of it.

    ReplyDelete

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