Saving the best until last

 Let's think of more pleasant things. Some short book reviews.

The Chilbury Ladies' Choir

Jennifer Ryan

4*

Set in a small English village in the early years of the second world war, when the vicar decides to disband the church choir because most of the men have gone to war. The women are downhearted but the arrival of a new choir-mistress lifts spirits and the formation of the Ladies' Choir helps to change lives for the better.

I was a bit uncertain at first but it grew on me, and the character development was very good.

Normal People

Sally Rooney

3*

I am a bit late coming to this very popular book, now made into a television series. The fact that the author doesn't use quotation marks upset me from page one! I read mostly last thing at night when I need all the help I can get to follow easily, without having to re-read paragraphs to work out who's saying something.

Anyway I put up with that but found the whole plot a bit tedious. I suspect I'm on my own with this opinion. I didn't really like Marianne or the things ... I don't want to say too much in case you haven't read it. I'd be interested to hear your opinion if you have read it.

Saving Missy

Beth Morrey

4*

Another book it took me time to get into but then I was hooked. Missy, an elderly ex-academic, who lives on her own and is rather stand-offish, is befriended and persuaded to look after a dog, from which point on her life changes dramatically.

The novel looks back at her married life and her growing up years, but is best when she's discovering how to live in community again - or perhaps for the first time.

American Dirt

Jeanine Cummins

5*

Late to the party again. I saw this in the library and thought it looked a bit more challenging than most of my reads so took it home. What a good decision, although I still put it off until I'd read all the other books.

Lydia lives in Acapulco with her reporter husband and eight-year-old son. On eth day of a family party gunmen break in and kill sixteen of her family members, with Lydia and her son, Luca, being saved by hiding in the shower.

Because it's a drug cartel killing - her husband was one of the few brave enough to report on their doings - Lydia decides she and Luca must get away to el norte, the US. There's an unusual twist to the story that makes it even more fascinating, but the rest of the novel is about their journey northwards.

And it is horrific. Not just the lengths people have to go to to escape, but the power of the cartels and the way they reach into every aspect of life until it's impossible to know who you can trust.

It was scary, it was unbelievable, it was horrendous. And how the characters in it, who all have their reasons for trying to escape, can face a future with all the trauma behind them is unimaginable.

I was so moved by it that the other night, lying in bed I pictured people who even at that moment might have been risking their lives to leap on to the side of a fast-moving train, and I prayed for them. It seemed ridiculous but vital.