Personalities – DaneCobain.com

Sally Rooney – Conversations with Friends | Review

Title: Conversations with Friends

Author: Sally Rooney

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 330

Rating: 4*/5

Sally Rooney – Conversations with Friends

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book for free to review as part of my position on the Young Writer of the Year Award shadow panel. Click here to find out more about that.

I got super excited when I started this book because the characters were into stand up poetry, and I run a spoken word night of my own every month in the town I live in. It’s certainly true that several of the characters here are writers or poets of some kind or another and so we get to see a glimpse of the literary world, but that turned out to be more of a secondary plot behind the overall story.

The problem for me was that I struggled to relate to the main story line, which is about a young woman who has an affair with an older, married actor. The way that the characters acted was consistent with their personalities, but it made me dislike them. And I feel bad about saying that because much of their dialogue is taken from the author’s conversations with her own friends – hence the title.

The good news is that it’s well-written, and the fact that it’s written in first person actually adds to the story line and doesn’t just feel like it’s been done for the sake of it. The bad news is that I struggled to relate to it, but I think that’s partly because I’m not the target audience.

I usually don’t bother to look up reviews for books I read, but I did for this one and I found them to be pretty accurate. It’s a little predictable and it’s drawn out at times, but it’s the kind of book that might suit you well if you’re sitting on a beach. And while I gave it a 4* rating, I rounded up from 3.5.

Sally Rooney

Click here to buy Conversations with Friends.

Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti – Zeroes | Review

Title: Zeroes

Author: Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 552

Rating: 10/10

Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti – Zeroes | Review

Disclaimer: While I aim to be unbiased, I received a copy of this for free to review.

This is one of the best books that I’ve been sent in a long time, and I’ve already been recommending it to my friends and family – I’m certainly recommending it to you! What’s not to love? This epic story follows the story of the Zeroes, a group of friends with superpowers. Just because they have superpowers, though, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re superheroes – in fact, the main characters are in their late teens, and each of them has to come to terms with their ability.

You see, each of the superpowers comes with a downside – the blurb puts it better than I ever could: “Take Ethan, a.k.a. Scam. He’s got a voice inside him that’ll say whatever you want to hear, whether it’s true or not. Which is handy, except when it isn’t – like when the voice starts talking in the middle of a bank robbery and gets you into a whole heap of trouble.” Meanwhile, there’s a character who can manipulate electronic devices, but with the caveat that they get headaches whenever they’re around them. My favourite weakness, though, came with my favourite character – damn, what’s his name again?

It’s with this character that Westerfeld and co. show a serious level of genius, to me – there was a guy called Thibault, whose codename was ‘Anonymous‘, and his superpower was that people could forget him, even if he was in the same room as them. That comes with the worst drawbacks of all – he has no choice about whether people remember him, as he found out when he was a child and almost died after his parents took him to a hospital and left him there, and then forgot about him. How can someone like that ever be loved?

Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti

I won’t go too much into the story line, but suffice to say that it’s a rollocking tale of friendship and camaraderie, and I hope that the authors produce further books in the series for me to feast upon. Loosely speaking, though, it follows the Zeroes as they get embroiled in a bank robbery and Scam ends up getting himself into a little bit of trouble. Scam said some things, using the voice, and they almost tore the Zeroes apart. Can they find friendship again, when tested? There’s only one way for you to find out, and that’s to read the book.

Another interesting aspect to this was that it had a cinematic feel – I could imagine it working well on the big screen, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the film option has already been discussed. Now, I don’t normally go to watch superhero movies, but this would be different – as their name suggests, the Zeroes aren’t exactly Iron Man, and close combat isn’t their forte. These guys (and girls) live on their wits, and on the sheer strength of their personalities. There’s also another reason why they’re called Zeroes, but you’ll have to read the book to find that out – it worked well with the story though, and whilst it wasn’t exactly vital, it was an excellent touch. Definitely read this.