I am at present busy with a project to catch up on the books that I have read since January 2009 when I started with my 36 books a year challenge. This blog documents what I have in a hand written book journal in order to give other book fans the chance to share in my challenge and to have access to reviews of books they might be interested in. Please leave a comment or link to your book blog if you have one.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

January 2009 - Book 1

Things without a name by Joanne Fedler.

When I saw this book at the Bookclub I was immediately attracted to the cover (unfortunately no image available on Amazon) and that was the sole reason I chose it. The main character of the book works as a social worker with a woman's rescue centre and one is immediately struck by the sense of hopelessness that this type of work sometimes involve. Her personal and family life ill equipped her to deal with theses situations and at best, she is emotionally unstable herself.

However the book turns at a stage towards a positive message - as her personal life takes an upturn you spot the positive in her work as well. At the end of the book, a list of names used reflect real life abused people as a sort of eulogy which gives the book a new meaning. I found myself paging back and looking for the characters and reflecting on the connection with their real life counterparts.

This book really made me reflect on a subject that seems to only surface once in a while in a newspaper article or on the TV news. It makes these poor abused people so much more real in your mind.

In general, a good and provocative read. It does have the obligatory romance at the end, but in this case it serves well to turn towards the positive.

A solid 7/10

No comments:

Post a Comment