Monthly Archives: November 2013

Jeremy reads The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

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Why did you read this book?: Because we liked The Luminaries so much.

Has Beckie read it?: She’s reading it. By the time this post appears she may be done.

42 word review: Debut published when Catton was 22. About artistic teens and sex scandal, with very nonlinear plot and various tricks with reality and characters’ roles. Incredibly ambitious, inventive, and flawed. Some gorgeous sentences. No idea what was happening by end; still mostly enchanted.

Rating: 3 1/2 gumnuts (out of 5). I would have given it 4 immediately after I finished it, but has lowered a notch in my mind afterward because I didn’t follow the ending. This is the opposite of the usual for me, as usually my immediate reaction to a book is preoccupied by my reaction to the ending, and only later do I think about it more as a whole.

Beckie reads The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

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Why did you read this book?: Because The Secret History and The Little Friend are awesome.

Has Jeremy read it?: Yes. I was waiting until he finished to put up my review, but I should have written it before my opinion was influenced by his.

42 Word Review: Black-market art thriller meets literary coming-of-age story. I was immediately taken in by the characters and prose, and I enjoyed it enormously. The plot- and character-driven elements didn’t always mesh perfectly, making the ending feel slightly anticlimactic, but it was still wonderful.

Rating: 4 masterpieces (out of 5)

Beckie and Jeremy finally shut someone out

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letterpress_shutout

We’re talking our recent collaborative obsession with Letterpress (playing under the username Beckie+Jeremy). If you’ve never seen Letterpress, this is probably the worst possible outcome screen to show you, since we control all 25 squares. But, you can see the act of perfect destruction unfold here.

Also, here’s a screenshot of the shutout victory amidst an unblemished collection of other, less extreme, Letterpress triumphs:

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Jeremy reads The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

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Why did you read this book?: It won the Booker Prize.

Has Beckie read it?: Yes, she finished it first. Note: we bought the book twice, because I bought it for the Nook but haven’t been able to get the Nook program to work on my MacBook Air here in Australia, so I bought it again for Kindle.

42 Word Review: 1860s New Zealand. Bursting with plot and period details from the get-go. Was already loving it when halfway through I finally understood how the astrology part worked and I was over the moon after that. Brilliant idea for structure of long novel.

Rating: 5 possums (out of 5)

Beckie reads The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

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Why did you read it: It won the Booker Prize (youngest novelist and longest book to do so), and it sounded interesting.

Has Jeremy read it?: Yes. I’m editing my original post to match the format he came up with for his review.

42-word review: I mostly ignored the astrological framing device while reading this gripping 848-page jigsaw puzzle of a book. Turns out, that’s the cleverest part. The masterful characterisation and plotting that kept the mystery intriguing over its entire length made the book great, anyway.

Rating: 5 kiwis (out of 5)