Books to Read Poster No 32 and Advent Days 16 and 17

Let's do the book first. I borrowed the e-book version from the library  and listened to most of it at 1.5 x normal speed to get through it quicker. Here's the pic from the poster

It's a bit blurry, sorry. No prizes for guessing that the book was Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman,

In some ways this book is beyond criticism from me; this is partly because it's very very definitely a YA novel and I am therefore certainly not part of the demographic at which it's aimed. The other is that it's such an earnest, well meaning, and upon occasion subtle critique of the stupidity of classing people by the colour of their skin that it places itself almost above normal critical considerations. 

Blackman is good at the insidiousness of peer pressure when it comes to race relations, and also at the societal structures that ensure that every well meaning colour blind gesture just makes things worse. What she wasn't very good at was making her two main characters particularly likeable: the boy was surly and imperceptive and the girl was a silly chit with no understanding of how her world worked. The narrative also suffered because the author was trying too hard; using a dozen words where two would do, and using complicated ones where simpler ones would be better. Her attempts at original comparisons were pretty dire too. As far as I know this was her first published book and I daresay she has got better. I cannot however fault her ability to look the real horror of life in a highly segregated society in the eye and then put some of the nastier aspects of it into her book. The ending in particular - no spoilers - shocked, amazed and gratified. 

I'm sort of glad I read it even though I didn't particularly enjoy it. 

Advent day 16 included the German swap so there were three things to open

A lovely notebook. The stitch marker was an enamelled leaf and there was a matching enamelled pin. The yarn was a bright and pretty speckle called Spring Comes to Narnia. 

Day 17 brought my favourite stitch marker to date, a little bird perched on a twig and a beautiful if rather sombre grey green yarn called The Stone Table. It's really lovely, if you like that sort of thing, which I do. 

In other news son no 2 and the OH returned safely from Glasgow last night so I suppose the Christmas break has begun, and we need to fins ways to make it work and to enjoy it when it is going to be so different to what we were expecting.