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Book Review: The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
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 In The Wonder by Emma Donoghue, Lib, a Nightingale trained Nurse accepts a job in Ireland. Her job is to observe Anna, a child whom claims not to have eaten in months. Anna and her family claim that she is being maintained by manor from heaven. Lib’s job is to prove or disprove these claims with the help of a Roman Catholic Nun.

Sounds simple enough? Well nothing about this cleverly woven story is simple. Each of the characters is complex, felt completely real and has their own secrets that are revealed over the course of the story.

Lib and the Nun agree watch shifts, ensuring that Anna is watched at all times. Lib immediately sets to stripping down the room to search for food.

Visitors flock to see The Wonder, the child who can survive without food. Lib immediately puts a stop to the visitors. Lib even limits the contact Anna has with her mother and other family members. All to prevent any food from being slipped covertly to the child. Throughout Lib’s watches she keeps a memorandum book noting down anything observed.

Whilst off-duty Lib meets Byrne, a Correspondent for the Irish Times. At first she wont say much about Anna, Anna’s family or the situation because she is concerned about confidentiality. But as Lib notices subtle deterioration in Anna’s health, Lib confides in Byrne.

The plot starts at a crawl, to slow for me. But pacing does increase to the equivalent of brisk walk from the middle to the end of the book. The ending is inventive, imaginative and overall pleasing.

The Wonder was a Christmas I requested off my mum. The description online didn’t tell me much about the story. If I’d known it was historical fiction, I probably wouldn’t have asked for it. I’m really not into historical fiction. With that said, it was an enjoyable read. But not a story that I would read again.

If you like historical fiction or stories set in Ireland then The Wonder is worth picking up. The Wonder is available to buy on Amazon and at all good book shops.

Review soon,

Antony

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Tuesday 21 February 2017

Book Review: Cell by Stephen King

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
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 Cell by the remarkable Stephen King is an addictive read, which is a must read to anyone who likes disaster stories or zombie stories.

In Cell at 3:03pm on the 1st of October a Pulse is emitted that is transmitted to everyone with a mobile phone. They become zombie-like and start attacking those who didn’t have a mobile phone and therefore weren’t affected.

Clay is a young artist who has just made his big break. He is away from home and just out of an important meeting when the pulse strikes. Minutes after The Pulse, Clay meets Tom, a gay man. They join together to survive chaos and attacks.

Clay is adamant that he must get home to find out what has happened to his wife and son.

Clay’s son has a mobile phone, but it’s usually under his bed. He has to hope that this was the case when The Pulse struck and that somehow his wife survived the proceeding chaos and attacks. Tom joins him.

Clay and Tom are first joined by Alice, a 15 year old girl and later by Jordan, a scholarship student from a private school.

Clay and crew start to see changes in the zombie-like people’s behaviour. First they start to flock, all drawn together and moving in certain patterns. The zombie-like people come out during the day, but disappear at night.

Clay and crew destroy a flock resting at night. They later learn that the flocks have a shared intelligence and communicate through telepathy. The flocks know who Clay and his comrades are and what they did.

Can Clay reach home? And if so, what will be the fate of his wife and son?

The characters were likeable, had depth and the reader comes to care about them. The description was clear and concise, enabling the reader to imagine scenes perfectly – adding suspense. The thrilling plot was utterly riveting from the first word until the last.

I read this book in just a few days, despite being exceptionally busy. I just couldn’t put it down. It is without a doubt a King classic.

My only criticism of Cell was that it was too short. Cell is a total of 473 pages, meaning it is about the average size of a novel. But having read the mammoth-sized novels The Stand and Under The Dome both by King, I would have loved Cell to be of that length.

Cell is an absolutely excellent read. You can buy Cell on Amazon and at all good bookshops.

Review soon,

Antony

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Thursday 26 January 2017

Book Review: The Marble Collector by Cecelia Ahern

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
the-marble-collector-ahern-book-cover Ahern’s books are either a hit or a miss with me. The Marble Collector was most definitely a miss. If I had to choose one word to describe this novel it would be: dull. Or pointless. Or boring.

The Marble Collector is essentially two stories rolled into one.

The first story is that of Fergus Boggs who is an avid and secretive Marble Collector. It is the story of his life that starts in his childhood and proceeds over the decades through his adolescence and adulthood, right into his present old age.

The second story is is an extraordinary day in the life of Boggs’ daughter Sabrina. It stars with her throwing a cup at a wall in work, which leads to her being sent home by her boss.

Then there’s a delivery of a marble collection that she didn’t know her father even had collected, never mind kept. Sabrina discovers her father’s life long obsession with marbles.

As Sabrina looks through the marble collection, she notices that the two sets of marbles that are worth the most money are gone. So she sets off on a mission to find the missing marbles and along the way learns more about her emotionally distant father and more about herself.

Both of the main characters were uninteresting and lacked depth. The idea behind the novel was reasonable at best, but the plot was completely flat. The pacing was slow throughout. Description of scenes and characters were sparse, but mostly adequate. Pages and pages of words were wasted, with these pages adding little to the two dimensional characters or plot.

I wanted to like The Marble Collector by Cecelia Ahern. But I have found it difficult to find anything positive to write. The best part of the The Marble Collector was reaching the end of it.

You can buy The Marble Collector by Cecelia Ahern on Amazon and at all good book shops, but I wouldn’t bother. In fact The Marble Collector was bad enough to put me off from pre-ordering any of Ahern’s books in future.

Review soon,

Antony

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Tuesday 10 January 2017

Health Tech Review: Daylight Lamp by Beurer

By Amazon, Health, Reviews, TechnologyNo Comments
Daylight-Lamp-Beurer I had been thinking about getting a Seasonal affective Disorder (SAD) lamp for a while. Everyone I spoke to about it had friends that swore by theirs, but nobody that I knew actually had one.

So this Autumn, as evenings started to get darker earlier and there was less light in the mornings I treated myself to a Daylight Lamp by Beurer.

I have popped the daylight lamp on my desk and have used it daily, usually in the evenings after work throughout November & December.So what are my thoughts?

They are mixed. The dark mornings haven’t seemed to affect my mood as bad, but this could be the placebo effect.

Despite the Daylight Lamp box boasting that the lamp is medically certified it doesn’t reference any specific research studies to back this claim up, let alone some good longitudinal research studies.

Here are my Pros and Cons for the Daylight Lamp by Beurer:

Pros Cons
  • It appears to work. Getting up in the dark mornings hasn’t felt as difficult as in previous years. Nor has my mood seemingly been affected as much as normal by the lack of light. This could be the placebo effect, but does it really matter? As long as it works.
  • It is easy to setup and work. Simply position it, plug it in and use the one simple on/off switch on the front.
  • It is super-bright. I have nicknamed it my God Light.
  • It has a stand, so sits on my desk easily.
  • It is thin, meaning that it doesn’t take up much space.
  • It is plastic, meaning that it is easy to dust/clean.
  • It is lightweight meaning that it is easy to move. You could take it to work or other places with you.
  • The lamp made no difference to my blood sugars, which is a good thing as a type 1 diabetic.
  • It was expensive, when compared with other non-SAD lamps, costing nearly £50.
  • Replacement bulbs can only be bought from the manufacturer and not in any high street shops. I haven’t tried looking online, it’s possible that I’ll be able to get bulbs online. Hopefully they are not to expensive.
  • Switching on/off the lamp requires you to hold the back, as the product is so lightweight that trying to press the switch without holding the back results in it moving.
  • The front of the lamp does get warm/hot to the touch once it has been on a while. The manufacturer does recognise this and warms customers about it in the instructions.

Overall the Daylight Lamp by Beurer has more Pros than Cons and can be bought on Amazon.

Review soon,

Antony



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Monday 2 January 2017
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