Mind of Winter - Dec 2024 Book Group discussion thread
6 watchers
Dec 2024
8:14am, 3 Dec 2024
54,799 posts
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McGoohan
Our December 2024 book, and the final book of Season Eight of Fetch Book Group is Mind of Winter by Laura Keunssberg telling of her time as a political journalist with the BBC.... ... ... is Mind of Winter by Laura Kasischke and therefore contains much less Boris Johnson than I had feared. It is instead a spooo-oo-oooky Christmas tale. Please post your thoughts below like your Christmas wishlist for Santa, tossed into the fireplace but carried aloft up the chimney on the heat and carried hence to the North Pole by a little Christmas magic. So... do that. |
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Dec 2024
8:15am, 3 Dec 2024
54,800 posts
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McGoohan
(PS - as chosen by Westmoors - managed to get that fact in the blurb over there >>> and left it out above, d'oh!)
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Dec 2024
8:15am, 3 Dec 2024
54,801 posts
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McGoohan
Also I can't count. This is the last book of Season SEVEN not Eight
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Dec 2024
8:59am, 10 Dec 2024
9,287 posts
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westmoors
Whizzed through this so must have enjoyed it. I liked how the snippets of adopting Tatiana were interspersed throughout the Christmas Day story. However, once it was revealed that Tatiana had had a sister, I thought I knew what the ending was going to be. I was half right. What I hadn't twigged was that the whole day had been Holly's delusion and that Tatiana had died before the day had started. |
Dec 2024
9:11pm, 15 Dec 2024
22,649 posts
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Columba
Yes - on the whole, impressed by this. Read it fast, partly because it gripped me from the start, and partly because I've got a bad cold and no energy to go out and do anything else. When I got to the end I felt faintly cheated, thinking to myself "well just how much of all this did really happen?" but thinking back over it I saw how clever it is, all the threads interwoven, going backwards and forwards via reminiscences. The faintly nightmareish unreal atmosphere, with all the snow piling up outside and no-one able to get anywhere, reflects the fact that all the "current" action is happening inside Holly's head.
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Dec 2024
3:42pm, 17 Dec 2024
54,884 posts
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McGoohan
When I opened this page to read Westmoor's review a week ago, I only read as far as 'sister' and then sensibly closed the page. Thankfully this didn't spoil the ending for me as I was expecting something a little more 'sistersy'. Initially I was a bit annoyed by the ending and got a similar 'cheated' feeling to Columba. The whole constant changing of Tatiana's clothes did feel like a big 'hello, twist coming here' thing and I was mentally juggling the idea of twins and ghosts. Turned out to be neither, just that 90% of the story was happening in Holly's head. Generally I did enjoy it - I quite liked the way the plot went back and forth slowly revealing more about the past. But I think I've read too many books or seen too many films where the ending is some variation on, 'it was all in their head all along' for that not to be a little disappointing. As Columba said though, it's very clever how those clues are scattered innocuously through the story. Thanks, @westmoors for choosing it. I've scored it 7 out of 10 which is more than twice the score I gave to my choice, Appliance. |
Dec 2024
1:09pm, 20 Dec 2024
71,695 posts
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LindsD
So, this was interesting. I wanted to throw it across the room after about 10 pages because I felt it was horribly overwritten and was annoyed by all the adjectives. But it sucked me in. I felt that the author captured the issues of parenting teens really well and could really identify with some of those from my recent past. After about 3/4 of the way, it got too claustrophobic for me, and I skipped to the end. Oops. Massive spoiler. It was OK, though, because I think I would have found it too stressful trying to work out what was going on and being in the head of someone who was so obviously unreliable and also struggling. It reminded me of Then, that Julie Myerson book I chose years ago, and another Julie Myerson I have read that features an unreliable female narrator dealing with grief. Thank you @westmoors for choosing. I'm glad I read it. I gave it a 6 because it made me feel icky, but on reflection that's me and not the book.
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Dec 2024
1:10pm, 20 Dec 2024
71,696 posts
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LindsD
Similar to everyone else, then 
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Dec 2024
1:10pm, 20 Dec 2024
71,697 posts
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LindsD
PS also whizzed through it, staying up late to finish it.
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Dec 2024
1:12pm, 20 Dec 2024
71,699 posts
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LindsD
Plus I liked how the title worked. She had to have a 'mind of winter' to ignore the signs that were there.
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