The Alibi Book Club #41 {The Big Review}

Zadie Smith has a true gift of storytelling. I find her prose faultless and if I’m truly enjoying a book, I can read about 100 pages in one sitting. And that’s what happened!

A lot of people have said there was very little substance when it came to the telling of “two brown girls from Willesden who dream of being dancers.” Sure, it wasn’t much about dancing, but I think the dancing made way for showing the different paths you can take in life. What your passions are, the relationships you have with others and the life events that can make or break you.

I didn’t go in expecting to be blown away, but I truly was and if I’m correct... We never find out the name of the main character. Which I think is quite interesting and plays on how your family, friends and where you’re from can shape who you are.

The Doll Factory is a pretty ironic and dark tale.

You have Rose and Iris who are twin sisters and work in a doll factory shop. One with scars from smallpox and another with a twisted collar bone from birth.

Louis Frost, a Pre-Raphaelite painter, who Iris decides to leave her sister and the shop to model for - and be taught to paint!

Then you have Silas, a collector and pretty much a psychopath. Who happens upon Iris and becomes overalls obsessed with having her.

It’s ironic because Silas treats her like an object (even though he wants her to be his friend). But really it’s like having a doll and wishing they’re your friend. It’s so creepy and I really hated him.

The reason why this book is 3 stars is because I feel the story abruptly ends. Do Louis and Iris even find each other again? Does Rose find her? I don’t know.

I feel Macneal might have made this more deliberate to make you feel really uneasy... 

Despite the heavy topic, this was an enthralling read. Both heartbreaking and beautiful, the Lisbon sisters mystified the narrators of this story who follow them right up until their tragic ends...

Now men, the narrators look back on the time period where the sisters were still alive, while looking to “exhibits” of the girls’ possessions. They look through windows to spy on them — and after the first suicide, comment on how visibly the house “dies” with the spirits of the sisters and parents.

In a way it’s also a hidden theme of the male gaze. It’s not explicit, though a narrator going by “we” whom always talk about the girls’ appearances, sexual behaviour and how they love them, etc. And the fact the parents shut them up in the house after certain events to keep them from being seen by the others.

I advise if you get triggered by imagery of death/suicide to not read this.

This book really resonated with me, and I feel this is a book everyone should read.

A tale about the other side of Britain we don’t see. It centres around Nia, who’s run from her family and Wales, and Shan, who’s come to Britain from Sri Lanka to make a better life for his family.

Nikita Lalwani makes these characters really feel like real people and you feel yourself really rooting for their dreams and desires.

I would expect nothing less from a Nina Stibbe novel.

This one is set around 15 year old Lizzie Vogel who gets a job as a nurse in a residential home so she can afford to buy beer shampoo as her mother is essentially broke.

It’s funny and witty and you fall in love with Lizzie and her narrative!

Here’s one extract to sum it up:

“... she [Matron, another character] dabbed her hanky under her spectacles and the whole thing was too sad to watch. A dalek would’ve cried.”

And Stibbe didn’t disappoint. It just proves that she can make a third book just as entertaining and plot driven as a first book!

This one sets around nine/ten/eleven year old Lizzie Vogel and her brother and sister who set out on a mission to find a man at the helm for their mother. Set in the 70s where having a father and husband was important for a family, Stibbe explores this by having villagers that shun the family and a race against time to find the man!

Since reading Eve’s Hollywood and Slow Days, Fast Company I’ve been very intrigued by the person behind the voice.

Lili Anolik is basically an Eve Babitz fan girl, much like me with Marina Diamandis. And it really comes through in this book.

This book could easily have been a telling of Eve’s life with dates and long descriptions of her early years without any wit and dry as a stale piece of bread. I mean some biographies are like this...

But this was so far from that it felt a love letter to a person that you look up to.

I found out so much more about Eve Babitz, her lifestyle, relationships and even a bit of back story about her parents and sister. It’s also told like a story with dialogue and there’s a few photos of Eve in there too.

I never knew she was so entwined with the stars of Hollywood and L.A. in the 60s and 70s...

Sadly this book wasn’t for me...

In hindsight, after reading this preview I thought this was going to be a badass feminist book. But in reality it felt like more of a spiritual awakening and a repeated message of be true to yourself. In a very waffly and repeated way...

Apart from the beginning stories (which showed promise) it kind of went downhill from there. Maybe because I’m not more of a mature woman this could be aimed at and I don’t have a family. Because it does mention raising children a lot.

Stories are brief with little substance and nothing quite gelled with me. Glennon is a good writer in some aspects, but it’s not my style of writing...