Life Without Limits - where does she get the energy?

I took a bit of a punt on this book as it was in a 2-for-1 sale on Audible and I needed a book about a sport for one of the Popsugar Challenges, so I thought I'd got for something I knew nothing about. A Life Without Limits is the autobiography of Chrissie Wellington, a sporty girl from Norfolk, who, in 2007, became a world champion Ironman, almost from nowhere. Why is this so remarkable ... well, an Ironman is a long-distance triathlon consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride and finishes with a marathon length run! I have absolutely no idea how anyone can complete such an epic race, so let me say here and now that I am in total awe of people who participate in such sports. This book takes you through Chrissie's life, beginning in Norfolk, where, as a sporty child, she enjoyed swimming and did compete at school level, but was not what you would call an outstanding talent. As a young adult, she developed an eating disorder that stayed with her for several years and despite this, continued to push herself physically in the sporting world - although she preferred the social side of it more than anything else. She had a thirst for travel and was interested in overseas development, which took her to Nepal, where she started to ride a bike. Over time, she drifted towards the triathlon, where she realised that she might actually have a talent. She started to train more seriously and took the brave decision to become a professional athlete and aim for the Olympics. The training was brutal, but she strangely enjoyed it, but began to realise that Ironman was really what she was built for. With almost no race experience behind her, she became the world champion in Hawaii in 2007, completely smashing the best time by a woman. And from that point on, she was virtually unbeatable until her retirement in 2011, beating record after record. This is a remarkable story of a remarkable woman. On display is her incredible drive to push and push and them push herself some more - almost beyond the edge of her physical and mental capabilities. I don't know why, but I found this to be a bit of a dry read. I was longing for a bit more  depth in terms of the feelings and thought processes rather than what, at times, felt like a list of spectacular achievements from around the world. Many people will find this an inspirational book, but I fear it left me feeling totally inadequate in some ways - which I'm sure says more about me than Chrissie. However, what it did make me think was that we all have our own strengths - it's just a matter of finding what yours is and then striving to keep on improving to become the best you can be. You never know, this book might spawn more world champions in the athletics sphere, but sadly, I won't be one of them.

POPSUGAR Challenge 2018 prompt 19: A book about or involving a sport.

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 352 print pages.
Price I paid: £2.98.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, MP3 CD, ebook.

Americanah - an eye-opening love story

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a novel centred around a deep love that endures despite years of separation. Ifemelu and Obinze meet when they are teenagers and still at school in Lagos, Nigeria. They soon fall in love and seem destined to remain a couple, and after university, and following the path set by their peers, they plan to move out of the country to free themselves of its military regime. Ifemelu goes to America, but finds it hard to adapt to her new home where she experiences racism for the first time in her life. Obinze was to have followed her to the States, but in post 9/11 America, he cannot get a visa. He goes to the UK instead and finds it equally challenging to find his place in London, where he is living illegally, and finally gets deported back to Nigeria. Ifemelu struggles to make ends meet and during a particularly desperate time, takes on a job which she immediately regrets and enters a period of depression. She cuts off all contact with Obinze, who is devastated. Over the next 13 years, they form new relationships and develop differing careers. However, Ifemelu is increasingly drawn back to her homeland and finally gives up everything and returns to Lagos, with the hope that one day, she will be able to meet Obinze once again. This is a huge novel, full of emotion and heartache, and is sometimes hard to read. There are lighter moments too, of course. I really cared about the main characters, who were ably joined by a fascinating supporting cast. It's also a study of immigration - the challenges, threats and abuse suffered by people who are just trying to live their lives in a new country. It's also an eye-opener for anyone interested in cultures that may not be familiar to them. An enjoyable, expansive read that I would be more than happy to recommend to anyone.

POPSUGAR Challenge 2018 prompt 32: A book from a celebrity book club (Reese Witherspoon).

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 400 print pages.
Price I paid: £2.98.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, MP3 CD, ebook.

Her Fearful Symmetry - good entertainment for a rainy afternoon!

When Elspeth Noblin dies, she leaves her London flat to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina Poole. This comes as a great surprise to the twins who never even knew they had an aunt, let alone, that she was their mother's twin. The conditions of the will are that the twins move over from America and live in the flat for at least a year - without letting their parents (and especially their mother) into the flat for the duration. (There is a reason for this which is slowly revealed - though I'm not sure it was a big surprise by the time it did). Excited and nervous, Julia and Valentina find themselves in the flat which overlooks Highgate Cemetery. Their neighbours are Martin, an obsessive-compulsive who doesn't go out and whose wife has left him, and Robert, who was Elspeth's lover, and who takes tourists round the Cemetery. The twins have quite different personalities - Julia is the more outgoing, but has a tendency to be a bit of a control freak. Valentina is quieter, and nervy, but also has health issues.  However, underneath this, Valentina wants to find her own way in life and not always be doing what Julia wants or decides they should be doing. The residents of the flat soon discover that they are not alone - the ghost of Elspeth is lingering, and she has a plan of her own! Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger, is a study of grief, twins and the dangerous relationships we can fall into when we are not paying attention. By no means perfect, I really enjoyed reading it at the time, though I have to admit, I haven't really dwelt on the characters or plot since finishing it. Maybe it was because many of the main characters are not particularly likeable, and there are some massive leaps of faith the reader has to take to go along with the unlikely events of the story. But overall, a good book to take on holiday, or while away a rainy afternoon with. Not earth shattering, but suitably entertaining.

POPSUGAR Challenge 2018 prompt 30: A book with characters who are twins.

My STAR rating: THREE.

Length: 496 print pages.
Price I paid: free, borrowed from the library as an ebook.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.

A Prayer For Owen Meany - masterful prose!

This story, set in 1950's and 1960's New Hampshire, tells the tale of the strange force of nature that is Owen Meany, as told by his best friend, John Wheelwright. John relays this biography from a distance in both years (his present is 1987) and geography (his location is Canada). Owen is tiny, has an alarming voice (cleverly highlighted by the use of block capitals in the text), and seems wise beyond his years. Owen has a tremendous crush on John's mother, and she shows great affection for him too, helping him out with his school fees and treating him like a second son. But one fateful day, Owen and John are playing a Little League baseball game, when Owen strikes a ball that kill's John's mother. They remain friends, despite Owen's belief that he is an instrument of God and that there are no accidents - which John gives no credence to. As they grow older, Owen claims to know when and how he will die, and everything he does from that point onward seems to lead him up to that end point. In particular, he tries everything he can to make sure that John will be okay after he has gone and steers him in various directions, including ensuring that John is never called up for the Vietnam War. His other obsession is to solve the mystery of who John's father is - a secret his mother took to her grave. Owen is an extraordinary person and is, John states, the reason why he now believes in God. This is a book full of heart, with lots of tender moments highlighting how close two friends can be. But there is plenty of humour too, with lots of boyhood pranks and scrapes to enjoy. Rage and despair rub shoulders with joy and love as we journey with these two boys through their childhood, adolescence and adulthood. It is moving to see how, despite all the bad times, their bond of friendship remains unbreakable. There is so much to like about A Prayer For Owen Meany, by John Irving and yet, I only awarded it 4 stars. This is because, for me, there were some repetitive passages that were not necessary and seemed to stall the narrative. It's well worth the effort though, with fabulous characters and sparkling dialogue, and Irving has a way of engaging the reader that is quite masterful.

POPSUGAR Challenge 2018 prompt 36: A book set in the decade you were born.

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 636 print pages.
Price I paid: free, borrowed from the library as an ebook.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.

Artemis - thrills and spills on the Moon

Jazz Bashara is not your conventional hero. Officially, she's a porter working in Artemis - the first city to be built on the Moon. Unofficially, she is a smuggler of contraband goods. Full of schemes and serial bad decision maker, she has almost no money and is struggling to come to terms with the painful end to her most recent relationship. When one of her best clients offers her an enormous amount of money to sabotage the equipment of Sanchez Aluminium so that he can take over their business, she goes for it, figuring she's got nothing to lose. In true Jazz style - things do not go according to plan and she finds herself having to go into hiding to escape from the wrath of the shady people behind Sanchez Aluminium. They have murdered her employer, and are now on her trail too! The more she finds out, the more she realises that unless those people are stopped, the future of her beloved Artemis is under threat ... so she gathers a small team of friends and misfits to try and turn things around. But guess what ... things do not go smoothly and she risks destroying the very thing she is determined to save. Artemis, by Andy Weir, may be a love it or hate it book - the reviews on Goodreads and Amazon vary wildly. The less favourable reviews keep comparing it to his previous work - The Martian - but I haven't read it, so this is my first experience of Andy Weir's style of writing. And I have to say, it's a highly entertaining read. No, it's not high literature, but it is a fun ride with a good dash of science thrown in for good measure. The central character is a deeply flawed individual and doesn't make it easy for the reader to like her, but she grows on you, as does the setting - a city on the Moon ... what's not to like! Full of vim and vigour and humour up the wazoo, Artemis made me chuckle many times and it's definitely a page-turner! If you don't mind some bad language and a smattering of violence, then give it a go.

POPSUGAR Challenge 2018 prompt 28: A book with song lyrics in the title. (See Firedance, by Rainbow) 

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 320 print pages.
Price I paid: £2.98.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, MP3 CD, ebook.

Life After Life - so many ways that one life could go!

This is the story of Ursula Todd, or rather, it is the many stories of Ursula Todd - for in Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, we see the central character live her life, again and again, but in a kaleidoscope of different variations. She is born during a snowstorm in England in 1910, and in one version, she dies before she even takes her first breath, and in others, she lives. Many of the core events are the same, it's how she reacts or is affected by them that changes. In the lives where she gets older, she often gets a feeling of deja vu, or sometimes dread, and this can influence what she does - either resulting in saving herself or saving others - or occasionally, both! Inevitably, at the end of each story, Ursula dies. It's how long it takes her to get there, and what she does in the meantime that leads the reader to start pondering a deep question. What if you got the chance to live your life over and over again - what might you do to change the course of your life? This is an intriguing book, and it almost like a series of short stories - it's just that each story has the same character and the same starting point ... that snowy night in 1910. Beautifully written, with some heartbreaking moments, it was a book I raced through, but didn't want to end. I almost wish that I hadn't read it, so that I would be in a position to read it for the first time again! This was not the feeling I thought I would have at the start, as I found the repetition of "going back to the start" a bit jarring, but it didn't take me long to be pulled into Ursula's many lives and start rooting for her to take different turns along the road. Well worth the effort of reading, this book is one that seems to be staying with me for some time after turning the last page.

POPSUGAR Challenge 2018 prompt 35: A past Goodreads Choice Awards winner. 

My STAR rating: FIVE.

Length: 640 print pages.
Price I paid: FREE, borrowed from my husband.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.

Litte Doritt - Four months in the reading!

As usual with a novel by Charles Dickens, there is a cornucopia of characters and events to get your head around in Little Dorrit, some of which I could have quite easily done without. However, the main action centres on two families - the Dorrits and the Clemens. William Dorrit has been languishing in Marshalsea debtors' prison for many, many years, in fact his daughter, Amy was born there. Why so many years ... well, once you are in debtors' prison, you cannot get out until you earn enough money to pay back the debt, which, if you are in prison, is hard to do! Amy looks after her father and her two siblings as best she can, and earns some money through her needlework. It's a hard life, but she quietly gets on with it and is content when her father is content. Arthur Clemens has worked in China for 20 years, and returns to England upon the death of his father. However, his mother does not welcome him home and he becomes estranged from her, but not before he meets Amy, who has been working for his mother. He is intrigued and follows her back to the prison and makes himself known to the family, offering some support. They form a friendship, but their lives diverge when Arthur sets up in business with a friend, and William Dorrit inherits a lot of money. The whole family leaves the prison and start moving in very different circles - Amy does not find this change of fortune easy and struggles to find her feet, especially when her own father dies. Through no fault of his own, Arthur loses all his money and ends up, you guessed it, in the Marshalsea prison. This is where Amy, or Little Dorrit as she prefers Arthur to call her, finds him once again. There are sub-plots and shenanigans aplenty, which can become a tad confusing - well, I find them confusing anyhow. However, the main story and characters are a delight and this is a very enjoyable and accessible work. It has real heart and helps to shine a light on how easy it can be to fall foul of "the system" and how hard it can be to get back on track. Dickens was certainly taking a swipe at this at the time of writing (1855-1857), but much about the dip into poverty, and subsequent struggle to get out of it is still relevant today. This is a long book, and it has, unbelievably, taken me 4 months to read it in audio - probably due to me not finding as much time to read audio as I have in the past. However, if you have enough time to spare, then you could do worse than delve into the pages of this novel.

POPSUGAR Challenge 2018 prompt 31: A book mentioned in another book. (Mentioned in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books)

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 848 print pages.
Price I paid: £1.99
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.