Sara's reading log

I am a book hoarder and reader. My main genre is SF, but I also love magic realism, fantasy and general fiction. Favorite authors are Iain M. Banks, Ursula K. LeGuin, Haruki Murakami, José Saramago, Isaac Asimov, Ben Aaronovitch and more. My rating system is based on five stars. I rate books based on my expectations and what a books aims to be. This means that the brilliant 'Fahrenheit 451' gets five stars because I thought it would be good, people said it was good, and it was good, but 'A Closed and Common Orbit' also gets five stars because in its series, in its style, I really enjoyed it and was not disappointed.

De appel by Michel Faber

  • Started on: 2011-05-31
  • Finished on: 2011-05-31
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ***–
  • Genre(s): Historical Fiction

After reading The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber two weeks ago, I, like many others, was unsatisfied at the ending. I wanted to know what happened to Sugar and Sophie and felt the book ended way to early. I was not the only one, I noticed from the reviews on LT and the many letters Michel Faber prints in his introduction to this book, The Apple. In this book he revisits the world of Crimson Petal to tell seven short stories about characters we know from there. These stories take place before or after the events in the main book. However, I am sorry to say, a true ending is still not offered.
There are stories about Sugar before she met William, about William twenty years after Sugar left, about Clara after she was fired, about Bodley and one told by Sophie’s grandson. And although the book doesn’t explicitly tell us what happened after we read the last page of Crimson, it does offer a glimpse. Faber says you don’t have to read Crimson to enjoy these stories, but I think that would take out most of the enjoyment to be had here. An explicit tale of a whore and a strange client isn’t any fun unless you already know that whore. At least, that’s how I experienced it. All in all this was a nice short read.

  • Started on: 2011-05-31
  • Finished on: 2011-05-31
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ***–
  • Genre(s): Historical Fiction

After reading The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber two weeks ago, I, like many others, was unsatisfied at the ending. I wanted to know what happened to Sugar and Sophie and felt the book ended way to early. I was not the only one, I noticed from the reviews on LT and the many letters Michel Faber prints in his introduction to this book, The Apple. In this book he revisits the world of Crimson Petal to tell seven short stories about characters we know from there. These stories take place before or after the events in the main book. However, I am sorry to say, a true ending is still not offered.
There are stories about Sugar before she met William, about William twenty years after Sugar left, about Clara after she was fired, about Bodley and one told by Sophie’s grandson. And although the book doesn’t explicitly tell us what happened after we read the last page of Crimson, it does offer a glimpse. Faber says you don’t have to read Crimson to enjoy these stories, but I think that would take out most of the enjoyment to be had here. An explicit tale of a whore and a strange client isn’t any fun unless you already know that whore. At least, that’s how I experienced it. All in all this was a nice short read.