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spooky_missBook Eighty Six – The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen
This book starts with a woman, Julia, having split up with her husband, buying a new house, and while digging in the garden finds a skeleton. The police and forensic people are brought in to find out what / who it is. They find that it is an old skeleton, so they don’t need to do anything with it. Then the story goes back in time to what the area was like in the early 19th century. It goes to a maternity hospital, where many of the women die as the doctors do not know anything about germ theory, washing their hands etc at that time. A group of medical students come round, and when they stop at one certain bed one of them challenges the doctor and says that the woman should not be bled, but treated in a different way. This introduces the main characters, Norris Marshall (the medical student) and Rose Connelly (the sister of the woman in the bed). Norris is poor, so to fund his medical studies he has to get bodies for them to dissect. Rose’s sister dies, and she is determined no one will take the baby away from her, not even her sister’s husband, who is a horrible man and doesn’t really care about the baby, he just wants to sell it to someone. As she is leaving the hospital Rose sees someone in black who has just murdered one of the nurses. This person murders a couple more people, but this isn’t where the main part of the story lies. It is mainly concerned with Norris and his friends on their medical course, and Rose trying to scrape a living for herself and the baby. There is also a side story of how Jack, the main who worked with Norris to get the bodies, gets more bodies from his pub, not in the most legal of ways of course! Throughout the book there is someone who is following Rose and the baby and killing those that she comes into contact with, and Norris has to help her to hide from him. In between the historical bits it goes back to Julia, who has met the relative of someone who used to live in her house, and them looking through the papers of the woman who used to live in the house to try and work out what had happened. I thought those modern day bits were a bit unnecessary, and they didn’t really advance the plot, they were almost just there to make the story slightly similar to her earlier books, which are all set in the present day. The book overall is great though, there is lots about old medical practices, and dissections, amputations, different treatments etc which I was really interested in. Also it features Oliver Wendell Holmes as a medical student, who was actually a real life person who was a famous doctor, so that was good. Recommended if you like historical novels and medical books! 8 / 10
Book Eighty Seven – Beautiful People by Simon Doonan
I mainly read this book as I had seen the really great television series that was on recently, which told the story of Simon and his teenage years growing up with his family in Reading in the 1990s. As I had enjoyed the series so much, for the first few chapters I was really disappointed with this book. It has similar stories to the series – for example they do make their own wine, a hairdresser is featured prominently, Kylie (although not called Kylie!) does feature, they are really camp, he is a window dresser, but its set in a completely different era, and he moves away to London half way through, so its not really the same. Its set in the 1960s and 70s I think, and then goes through to the present day (so, more series to come then maybe!). After I’d got over the fact that it wasn’t the same, the stories were great. It described all the strange people that were connected to his family over the years – and had two more characters in the home – his grandmother who had been in a mental hospital, and his uncle who had schizophrenia, so that made for some interesting stories. It followed how him and Kylie (who wasn’t Kylie in the book, but can’t remember the name) moved to London, and the “adventures” they had there, and then when Simon moved to America what his life was like there. It was a very funny and camp book, well written so you can really imagine the characters. 8 / 10
Film 54 – Igby Goes Down
I bought this book for £1 from CEX, so it was a bargain! And I didn’t expect it to be as good as it was! It follows Igby (Kieron Culkin) and his dysfunctional family, as his dad has a breakdown, his mother becomes ill, and Igby refuses to go to school. Each school they tried to send him to he would run away from. His godfather gave him a job with his company, and helped him out, and Igby got drawn into his world. It just basically shows his relationships with his family, various girls, and the people he meets through them. Its quite a light film, but ends quite weirdly with Igby and his brother helping their mother to die at a suicide clinic (I think!) – although at the beginning it looks like they murder her). It was good though, and especially for £1! 7 / 10
This book starts with a woman, Julia, having split up with her husband, buying a new house, and while digging in the garden finds a skeleton. The police and forensic people are brought in to find out what / who it is. They find that it is an old skeleton, so they don’t need to do anything with it. Then the story goes back in time to what the area was like in the early 19th century. It goes to a maternity hospital, where many of the women die as the doctors do not know anything about germ theory, washing their hands etc at that time. A group of medical students come round, and when they stop at one certain bed one of them challenges the doctor and says that the woman should not be bled, but treated in a different way. This introduces the main characters, Norris Marshall (the medical student) and Rose Connelly (the sister of the woman in the bed). Norris is poor, so to fund his medical studies he has to get bodies for them to dissect. Rose’s sister dies, and she is determined no one will take the baby away from her, not even her sister’s husband, who is a horrible man and doesn’t really care about the baby, he just wants to sell it to someone. As she is leaving the hospital Rose sees someone in black who has just murdered one of the nurses. This person murders a couple more people, but this isn’t where the main part of the story lies. It is mainly concerned with Norris and his friends on their medical course, and Rose trying to scrape a living for herself and the baby. There is also a side story of how Jack, the main who worked with Norris to get the bodies, gets more bodies from his pub, not in the most legal of ways of course! Throughout the book there is someone who is following Rose and the baby and killing those that she comes into contact with, and Norris has to help her to hide from him. In between the historical bits it goes back to Julia, who has met the relative of someone who used to live in her house, and them looking through the papers of the woman who used to live in the house to try and work out what had happened. I thought those modern day bits were a bit unnecessary, and they didn’t really advance the plot, they were almost just there to make the story slightly similar to her earlier books, which are all set in the present day. The book overall is great though, there is lots about old medical practices, and dissections, amputations, different treatments etc which I was really interested in. Also it features Oliver Wendell Holmes as a medical student, who was actually a real life person who was a famous doctor, so that was good. Recommended if you like historical novels and medical books! 8 / 10
Book Eighty Seven – Beautiful People by Simon Doonan
I mainly read this book as I had seen the really great television series that was on recently, which told the story of Simon and his teenage years growing up with his family in Reading in the 1990s. As I had enjoyed the series so much, for the first few chapters I was really disappointed with this book. It has similar stories to the series – for example they do make their own wine, a hairdresser is featured prominently, Kylie (although not called Kylie!) does feature, they are really camp, he is a window dresser, but its set in a completely different era, and he moves away to London half way through, so its not really the same. Its set in the 1960s and 70s I think, and then goes through to the present day (so, more series to come then maybe!). After I’d got over the fact that it wasn’t the same, the stories were great. It described all the strange people that were connected to his family over the years – and had two more characters in the home – his grandmother who had been in a mental hospital, and his uncle who had schizophrenia, so that made for some interesting stories. It followed how him and Kylie (who wasn’t Kylie in the book, but can’t remember the name) moved to London, and the “adventures” they had there, and then when Simon moved to America what his life was like there. It was a very funny and camp book, well written so you can really imagine the characters. 8 / 10
Film 54 – Igby Goes Down
I bought this book for £1 from CEX, so it was a bargain! And I didn’t expect it to be as good as it was! It follows Igby (Kieron Culkin) and his dysfunctional family, as his dad has a breakdown, his mother becomes ill, and Igby refuses to go to school. Each school they tried to send him to he would run away from. His godfather gave him a job with his company, and helped him out, and Igby got drawn into his world. It just basically shows his relationships with his family, various girls, and the people he meets through them. Its quite a light film, but ends quite weirdly with Igby and his brother helping their mother to die at a suicide clinic (I think!) – although at the beginning it looks like they murder her). It was good though, and especially for £1! 7 / 10
