Why is Lisa hanging around Peterborough Station - she’s dead, shouldn’t she have “moved on” to the next stage? This is mainly told by her ghost self but we also learn how she got to be in this situation, after falling for the “good” doctor, Matty, who isn’t really what he seems. It is annoying how once strong women find themselves turning into wishy washy “yes dears”. I thought there was too much emphasis on the minor characters, the people who worked at the station, so I skim read those sections. Despite that I loved the book and the idea of basing it in a railway station of all things! It was captivating, amusing and sad and I was sorry to reach the end.

John Harper works as an operative for a black-ops operation. It’s 1998 and he’s staying in a hut in Indonesia in fear of his life.  He’s made an error of judgment which most likely has made him a liability to his employer and unfortunately, John is all too familiar with how his employer deals with failures.  John has plenty of time to remember his disastrous 1965 Indonesian tour.  He obviously has serious regrets about some of his past actions and struggles with his memories.  When he meets Rita, another damaged soul, he shares some of his past with her but she knows he hasn’t told her everything. 

 

The book bounces back and forth between 1998 and 1965 and when John was a child. John is the son of an Indonesian soldier who the Japanese beheaded and an alcoholic Dutch woman.  The happiest time of his life are the years spent with Poppa and Nina and his little half-brother Bud.  The author masterfully fleshes out John’s character and shows how his childhood has led him to where he is today.  His path has been a long, hard one and I longed for John to find redemption and love.  I literally had trouble breathing during the last few pages of this book.

 

I picked this book based on the author alone since I thought “Apple Tree Yard” was an amazing book. I hardly glanced at what the book was about.  When I started to read it, I thought I might have made a mistake as it obviously was an espionage book, much like Graham Greene would write, and I’m not particularly fond of that type of book.  But the author’s characterization makes her new book an excellent read and one that I highly recommend.  It’s thrilling, it’s heart wrenching and it’s powerful.

Normally I don´t rate or review a book that I did not finish, but this book totally deserves both of it. I absolutely hate this book. It´s just awful. The plot, the narration, the characters - I don´t like a single thing about it.

So what happens in the Prologue and the first four chapters which makes me dislike this book so much:

 

Prologue:

The main character, Yvonne, is on trial at the Old Bailey. She must have done something horrible and it doesn´t look good for her, but the reader doesn´t get to know what she has done. But she alone isn´t to blame for the thing that has happened. A mysterious man, who is called you by Yvonne throughout the chapters and has been her lover in the past, is a codefendant. What exactly has happened in the Apple Tree Yard?

 

I have to admit that I really liked the Prologue and I was intrigued by the mystery behind it.

 

Chapter 1:

4 years prior to the Prologue: Yvonne is a successful scientist, spezialised in the human genome, and while attending a hearing at the parliament, she meets a brooding, goodlooking stranger. After some smalltalk these two have a one-night-stand in a broom closet of the crypt chapel in the House of Parliament. 

 

A 52-year old woman, who has a one-night-stand in a broom closet. That is classy and it´s even more classy since it happens in the House of Parliament. I´m already questioning the intelligence of the MC.

In this chapter I stumbled for the first time over the narration. The story is told through the first person perspective of Yvonne, but all of sudden she adresses her lover, referring to him as you. Something like this: "And suddenly I see a man standing beside the trashcan. And this man is you." This annoyed me like hell.

 

Chapter 2

Yvonne doesn´t have qualms about her one-night-stand. We see her interacting with her husband in the morning and as soon as he is gone, she makes an appointment with a doctor, because she might have gotten a venereal disease (yeah, they didn´t use protection). At the same time she is a hundred percent sure that she isn´t going to this appointment anyway, because the odds are good that nothing has happened (1. This is so wrong and 2. why tell the reader about the doctors appointment, if it is dismissed in the next sentence). However, she is lusting for that brooding stranger. So she goes back to the House of Parliament and starts a weird stalking attack, which in the end is kind of successful. So as of now these two people are having an affair.

 

It´s official. Yvonne is an idiot. And the brooding stranger a.k.a. you is a creep (because secretly he is stalking her).

 

Chapter 3

Yvonne is justifying her affair by telling the reader that she had the opportunity to have an affair with a 25-year-old student and she is a good person, because she has taken the high road by gracefully declining said offer. But now, now is her turn to be wild and adventurous.

 

I have already mentioned that I absolutely despise this book, right?

 

Chapter 4

First sentence in chapter 4: "The next time you and I have sex, as you may or may not remember, is in a disabled toilet down a corrider at the back of House of Commons staff canteen."

 

... and I´m out. I´m so not going to read anymore of this crap.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I only got 15% in, but I hate the first person voice, life is to short to waste it on books I don't enjoy!!

69. APPLE TREE YARD, BY LOUISE DOUGHTY

Recommended by Antonio. I read the blurb and it said it was about a geneticist on trial for murder and, for some reason, I assumed it would be a science fiction book revolving around the ethics of genetic experimentation. Pretty soon it became obvious that that was not the case... I didn’t dislike this book, but the frustration of my expectations probably influenced my reading.

Synopsis: Yvonne is a successful, renowned scientist, mother of two, and still married to their father. She has a very happy marriage, or as happy as could be expected, but she can’t help but feel attracted to and have an affair with a mysterious stranger who accosts her one day in the street. She forms a fantasized idea of what her lover is, and has to face the consequences of this misconception.

Overall enjoyment: It was OK. There were some very good parts, but there were also some mediocre-to-bad ones. All in all, it was fine.

Plot: It could have been better structured. I’m not sure how it could have been done, maybe with the use of flashbacks... The first and second part of the book are too different, almost disjointed. The first part is just background for the trial on the second part, but this background takes a lot more space than the trial itself so it feels like an anticlimax. And there was SO MUCH stuff that didn’t need to be there, like the detailed descriptions of the legal procedures, and ramblings that didn’t go anywhere and had no effect on the rest of the story. Also, she does reach sometimes... Many essential plot elements aren’t very likely, or at least she hasn’t made the motivation for them clear (or compelling) enough.

Characters: Unlike most of the reviews I’ve read of this book, I had no problem with Yvonne. She lived her life, achieved everything she wanted, in spite of the odds against her, and even managed to be a “good wife” in the patriarchal sense of the word while doing it. My impression was that she simply felt like she was entitled to some fun after all that. *spoiler alert* I don’t think she believed X; she knew very well that he was lying to her, but she wanted her fantasy to be true and decided to believe it anyway. Realistically, she couldn’t have known what consequences this would have. *end of spoiler* Obviously, I liked her characters, and thought they were well made, even if their motivations were a bit funky at times.

World/setting: Not really a major element. Mostly she just tries to show how exposed Yvonne and X are, but it’s really not that important.

Writing style: It was somewhat odd. I liked the narrating voice a lot, she seemed smart, funny, and reasonable, without being all-knowing and perfect. I especially liked how you can catch her self-deception in her subtleties; how you can tell she knows she’s lying to herself but doesn’t want to admit it. And there are some impressively good turns of phrase... But she has this awful quirk of revealing the plot twists a few paragraphs before they happen. She will either tell you outright or kind of prepare you for it, with phrases like “if I had known what was about to happen...” and stealing their punch. It felt like watching a movie with someone whispering spoilers on your ear ten seconds before they happen. It did contribute to making the narration sound like a person telling a story, but it was profoundly irritating. A really bad choice, in my opinion.

Representation: Not much, but there aren’t that many characters concerned in this story.

Political correctness: It is a story about rape culture. It has some really interesting takes on double standards and gender roles. In this sense, it’s very well done, and it really gets the point across.

Up next: The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton