It's April, and C.B. James' TBR Dare Challenge ended last Friday. When I first participated in this challenge, I was thinking that maybe this would help me to leave a dent of my TBR pile, unfortunately it wasn't the case. For starters, my reading has been going on very slow since the beginning of the year; plus my regular readers will know that my commute time has also been cut short after the relocation of my office and this has somewhat affected my reading since I spent most of the time reading while travelling to and from work. And, lo and behold, another reason being that I've been eyeing at those lovely newly acquisitions and I simply couldn't say no to them after hearing them calling my name, ha (I know, it's entirely my fault and there's no excuse for this). Thus, that leaves me to only finishing two books for this challenge:

Among the two books, I've to say while I enjoyed reading one, the other was a disappointment. Maybe I'm biased (I'm a huge fan of Mo Hayder), but I had had a far more enjoyable reading experience with Gone as compared to Aska Mochizuki's Spinning Tropics. I know it's unfair to compare them since they are of the different genre, I've to say the latter didn't leave up to my expectations. Though it has a chilling factor at some point, it failed to 'wow' me and I was just perplexed over the ending, oh well.

So did you participate in this challenge? If so, how are you doing?

ISBN-13: 9780593063811
Publisher: Bantam Press
Published: February 2010
416 pgs
Source: Personal Library



Gone is the fifth instalment of Mo Hayder's Jack Caffery series. If you'd follow this series, you'd know that DI Jack Caffery of Bristol's Major Crime Investigation Unit and Phoebe "Flea" Marley of the Underwater Search Unit are the protagonists of this series.

Anyway, Jack Caffery is once again called upon to solve a case involving child kidnapping. When the story opens, Jack and the readers are given the impression that it was a car-jacking case, but as the story picks up and more clues are shown do we realise that there are more than meets the eye. And when they received news that the kidnapper had abducted a second victim, it sent them all into hysteria because apparently he doesn't pick his little victims randomly and that he is enjoying playing hide-and-seek with them. And no matter how much time and efforts Jack and his team spent on tracking him, at the end the kidnapper is always a step ahead of them.

Flea Marley, on the other hand, has a hunch of the case but Jack Caffery as well as her team do not see her views. Call her stubborn or courageous, her next step is to follow her instincts and without assistance from anyone, explore a secret tunnel which she believes the kidnapper has hid or buried his victims away. It is also at this time that Jack has found some clues on the kidnapper and this entitle him a search warrant, but then is he the right person?

I have to admit I was on pins and needles while reading Gone. Though child kidnapping is a common theme in a crime thriller, I have to say what's so great about this book is aside from the emotional intense and the suspense, Mo Hayder has further explore the nature of humanity and that there's only a fine, thin line between the good and the evil. Because I was a huge fan of this series, I was hoping to see some developments between Jack and Flea but there isn't much going on between them, and that is due to a misunderstanding which I'd rather not mention here but all I can say is I am happy to note that there is still some hope flickering between them.

Another thing I wish to mention is it touches me a lot to see the strength and the emotional support among the victims' mothers. Because I am a mother of two, I could totally understand their feelings of losing their little girls and my heart went out to them. Their role may be minor to the story, but they do play a crucial part in some ways so in my opinion, this story is very much about them other than the cops and the bad guy.

Needless to say, I highly recommend Gone. If you are new to Mo Hayder's books and would like to get a gist of her writing style, perhaps I can point you to the direction of a few of her stand-alone books: The Devil of Nanking (aka Tokyo), Pig Island and her upcoming new release next month, Hanging Hill, in which I am eagerly anticipating.

Spinning Tropics was a random pick for the TBR Dare Challenge. I haven't been reading Japanese literature for a while and I figured this book would be a good choice considering it is a thin book and that it was the 2007 winner of the Knopf Kodansha Prize, plus the blurb behind said this is a lush and evocative story of an intoxicating love affair and this further heightens the eagerness to read it.

Hiromi Azuma is a 28-year-old female who decamped to Vietnam from Tokyo to work as a Japanese language teacher. She has problems with her mother and feels she is irresponsible and selfish who thinks of no one but herself. Living in a foreign country could be lonely and terrifying, but Hiro soon get used to the lifestyle and culture after knowing Yun who happens to be one of her students in class.

Falling in love with your own student is complicated, and it makes the issue more problematic if the party is of the same gender. Despite this, Hiro and Yun couldn't deny the attraction they have for each other and because of the circumstances, they will behave discreetly to the people around them. Still, Hiro has never felt so happy in her life. Yun makes her alive, and at one point she realises she wouldn't know what to do without Yun.

Their relationship goes on for a while until Konno, a Japanese businessman walks into Hiro's life. Her relationship with Yun began to falter, and jealousy sparks and insecurity arises between the two women.

At first glance, Spinning Tropics seems to me to be an intense story of a jealous woman who is fighting hard to win back her lover, though at some point it seems to be the case but the plot takes on a slower pace and Hiro's emotions are often portrayed throughout the story more than other things. Though I felt the pace is a bit slow, I have to give credit to the author for the detailed descriptions of the characters as well as a good look into the Vietnamese setting and its culture. I felt I was reading a travelogue at times through these descriptions and this made my reading experience all the more entertaining besides the intensity between the two characters. Just when I thought I knew what the outcome would be, the story took a turn and surprised me but I was disappointed to say the punch wasn't powerful enough to shake me to the core. On the contrary, I felt there was no answer to the ending and it left me a hollow feeling. That said, I was impressed with Aska Mochizuki's sharp and concise writing style and though this book may not make it on my best thriller read it definitely leaves a mark on my list through the literary sense.

Eating Animals may sound like a dry reading material at a glance, but let me assure you that this is not the case. Jonathan Safran Foer wrote this book with a personal, memoir approach in an honest and straightforward manner (in other words - pull no punches) and I find the tone fitting to the subject.

Since his teenage years, Jonathan Safran Foer struggles with the decisions between an omnivore and a vegetarian. He also shares with us bits of his teenage years with his grandmother who had survived the holocaust and her perspective on food thereafter. While their opinions may not be the same, it has made him question on the meaning of food, the consumption and everything else that comes with it. It was only on the brink of fatherhood that prompts Foer to search for the answers to his questions instead of listening to myths and making assumptions. Eating Animals is the end result after his several visits to the factory farms and through his extensive research (not to mention doing his own detective work and getting some workers' opinions from the factory farms and slaughterhouses).

His topics varies from the general aspects of the agriculture industry (all meat products such as cattle, pigs and poultry) as well as commercial fisheries, and how they attribute to the world global warming right down to the slaughtering methods and how the biological effects on the animals (feeding them with growth hormones, antibiotics even though they are not sick and so forth) will all affect us in return.

I understand that the facts are not pretty and they are totally mind-blowing, and while I am definitely not writing this to try to convince you to become a vegetarian or a vegan (though I’d be glad if you do) but I feel it is important that we should be cautious and pay more attention to the food we are eating, where they come from and how they are being handled (treated). I have been an omnivorous person in all my life until two years ago I decided to become a vegetarian, and reading this book has further strengthened my decision of becoming one.

Thank you, Mr Foer, for making this book an engrossing and an ‘eye-opening’ reading experience for me!

Through Helen's eyes, I see the cruelty of war and how this affected the civilians and the soldiers and all. I felt her struggle between duty and principle (which I'm sure many photojournalists will feel the same), and I also felt her happiness in love at times despite it falls under the most unfortunate circumstances. And because of The Lotus Eaters, now I began to understand more about the Vietnam War (I also want to extend my thanks to a good friend, Julia, for explaining the history to me.)

Despite the saddening mood and despair of the war and everything, I have to say I enjoyed this book immensely because author Tatjana Soli's prose and storytelling is simply wonderful. She has captured the essence of the wartime through research which what makes the entire reading experience so much enriching. I am sure The Lotus Eaters will be on my list as one of my most memorable reads this year. I highly recommend this book and cannot wait to see what the author has in store next.

This year, I have participated in a few reading challenges and I am ashamed to say I have completed only one or two challenges so far. As much as I love reading challenges, I am afraid that next year will be a year for my TBR pile. I need to get through those before they get way out of hand (which I am sure many of you would be able to relate to, right? Anyway, I'm giving up on the remaining challenges I signed up for this year since there is no way I am able to complete them at this point... sigh.) Still, that doesn’t mean that I won’t be participating in any reading challenges so here’s a few which I am participating in 2011: