Alysha Kaye - The Waiting Room

The Waiting Room (6.5-7/10)

I finished this book about 3 hours ago and I can't seem to quite let it go. I keep reaching over to pick it up and carry on but it's finished and there's no more left the read. Compared to other books I've read, I hadn't had The Waiting Room that long. I probably never would have found it at all because, as far as I know, it's Kaye's only book and she isn't particularly well-known, but I found her Twitter one day and looked the book up and was really taken by her concept. Basically, the 'waiting room' is some kind of limbo or purgatory where people go after they die to wait to be placed in a new life - reincarnation!

I personally don't believe in life after death. For me death is just silence and blackness, though of course we'd never know that because we'd be dead so we'd have no way of recognising the silence and the blackness. Even so, if I had to chose one 'theory' about the afterlife that I thought was most believable, it would reincarnation. That's mainly because I find the whole concept of 'Heaven' and 'Hell' - these other worlds that we move onto when we die - just so impossible; it's all very Doctor Who and I can't get my head around that. But anyway, just because I don't find this stuff believable doesn't mean that I don't enjoy to read about it, and Kaye does something lovely with reincarnation that fits both with the idea I like about us living a series of different lives that we'll never know about or remember, and that of Heaven and the afterlife that so many people cling to.

Despite this though, it isn't the concept of the book that made me read it in under a day. In all honestly, the plot got very repetative after a while (as you can imagine reincarnation would!) and I would have loved to have spent longer hearing about each life that the main characters lived together... What I loved were the characters (in all of their different forms) and how they sucked me into their lives... they just feel so real and normal!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Waiting-Room-Alysha-Kaye/dp/1500307041

I really want to read a spin-off told by the waiting room staff!!!! 
Rox
xx

I left but now I'm back!!!! (Sorry!)

Hello again!!!

I don't even want to think about how long it's been since my last post but that's what university does; it takes over your soul and replaces you with a workaholic maniac who spends every waking moment hunched in a corner of the library... But that's not to say it's a bad thing... Promise (learning is 'fun'!!!)

Anyway... I don't really know how to get back into this now I've been away for so long, so this is probably going to be a pretty dull post...Nevertheless though (which I think has become my favourite connective this semester) I'll tell you some of the stuff I've been reading that's peaked my interest (or not... as the case may be!)

1. Before I Go To Sleep (S J Watson)
Okay so I read this AGES ago because my aunt and cousin wanted to watch the film with me but I wouldn't go until I'd read the book... That was probably a mistake because I ended up absolutely hating the film because the book was so fresh in my mind and I noticed every little deviance the film (which I'm sure I'd have loved ordinarily) made. It's a good holiday read - something you don't have to pay much attention to and can flick through lazily whilst lounging on a beach, but I wasn't blown away... mainly because I predicted the twist... no one wants to be able to predict the twist... that's why it's a twist...

2. The Quiet Room: a journey out of the torment of madness (Lori Schiller and Amanda Bennett)
I seriously recommend this for any fans of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, or Girl, Interrupted (Susanna Kaysen), etc. out there! I discovered it on Amazon years and years ago before I was even introduced to Plath, when I was reading any coming-of-age story I could get my hands on, but didn't actually get round to reading it for the first time until last summer. It's a true story about a girl living with schizophrenia and there's a really touching afternote/epilogue at the back which reminds you just how real the story is. I was totally hooked.

3. Absolute Beginners (Colin MacInnes)
This is sort of another coming-of-age one but I don't think it's really written to be read by teenagers, unlike most others. It was the first book I had to read in second year on a course called 'Teenage Dreams' (not dodgy as it sounds I promise!), but I enjoyed reading it so much that I had to add it to this list! It was a module about subcultures and this particular book follows the Teddy Boys and the beginnings of Mod culture. The characters (particularly the narrator) are absolutely hilarious and the story itself is told with brutal irony and scepticism but it's still quite stirring at times. Good book. Go read.

4. Moranthology (Caitlin Moran)
In truth, I haven't actually finished this yet...Actually I'm only 137 pages in but it's Moran and she's a genius and I love her so she gets a place on the list! I recently watched her creation of pure FABULOUSNESS 'Raised By Wolves' and fell a little bit more in love with her wonderfully sarcastic tone (which I honestly didn't ever think was possible) and am now the proud owner of How to Build a Girl which I couldn't buy in hard back because I physically have no space for it anywhere but nonetheless I am incredibly excited. I'll leave you with this, as an example of why we should all love Caitlin Moran:

'But why are there only three episodes?' Britain asked, scrambling around in the schedules, in case there was a Sherlock left they'd overlooked, at the bottom, or underneath some Coast or something. 'Only three? Why would you make only three Sherlocks? Telly comes in SIX. SIX is the number of telly. Or TWELVE. Or, in America, TWENTY-SIX - because it is a bigger country. But you never have three of telly. Three of telly is NOT HOLY. WHY have they done this? IS THIS A GIGANTIC PUZZLE WE MUST DEDUCE - LIKE SHERLOCK HIMSELF?' (Moranthology, pp. 94).

5.  Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)
Right! Let's go back to my thoughts on Thomas Harris' Hannibal. I love Hannibal Lecter; the books are AMAZING and The Silence of the Lambs is without a doubt my favourite book ever. However I still insist that Harris was either high, or someone was holding a gun to his head tell him how to write the final pages of his trilogy (I haven't read the prequel, I haven't calmed down enough yet.) But this seems to be a pattern that runs through soooooo many great works!!! DEXTER FOR EXAMPLE, don't get me started on how that one ended... Anyway, the point I'm making is that this was an AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING read. I was completely obsessed with it and couldn't figure out for a second what was going to happen! And then it ended! What the hell is with that ending?!!?! Flynn, you ruined your novel. I hear they changed the ending for the film and I'm not surprised in the slightest.

6. Poor Things (Alasdair Gray)
Think of Frankenstein. Now imagine it with a woman and pictures and a million times better. You now have a pretty accurate image of what Poor Things is. It's just so good. I sat an exam on it 10 days ago and I'm still not sick of it.

Rox
xx