Book reviews covering war, violence and the blurry line between romance and the ridiculous
Today's cReview departs from newspaper literary sections and samples book reviews and literary articles from popular book review blogs and a think-tank site. Toby's Room by Pat Barker was reviewed by Jon Page at Bite The Book (also of Pages & Pages bookshop, Mosman) who thought the book paled in comparison to Barker's Regeneration trilogy, which was also First World War fiction. Page found it difficult to connect to the characters and wrote, “you don’t feel satisfied or engaged with what the novel was attempting to achieve.” Sharp Objects by Gllian Flynn was also reviewed by Bite The Book's Jon Page who was inspired to read Flynn's earlier work after enjoying the new release, Gone Girl . Page found Sharp Objects, a crime mystery novel, to be disturbing, “but disturbing in an interesting way.” It was mostly the psychological and self-inflicted violence that got to him, Page reveals, with the novel set in small Missouri town which it is festering in gen...