Elizabeth Day (1)Critiques

I started reading eagerly interested in learning something about failing. The text is all in a very personal key and you will not get general knowledge rather a sense of familiarity to failure in the author’s life and her interviewees. I found the whole insufferable, boring, mostly obvious, and overly concerned in a personal key to viewing failure that I am not sure could help others, I found it hard to relate to in any case...

If I had paid attention it was reviewed for 5 stara or something like that from Grazia magazine, something I have never looked at but that I don’t like just on the basis of the engracing name.

3.5 stars

This book was mysterious and fun enough in the beginning but it went downhill for me after the attack and the (hard to believe for me) reach out for help to the evil mother-in-law Kate despised. The ending wrapped up a bit too quickly with everyone suddenly living an idyllic life.

superb!

Just WOW! I really didn’t expect that twist!
Magpie starts off Marisa and Jake moving in together, although they haven’t been together long. Then they decide to take in a lodger who is Kate. This is when things start becoming a little weird between Marisa and Kate, especially with a baby on the way.
Huge credit goes to Elizabeth Day, she managed to write this in such a way that when the twist happened BOOM! My mind exploded. It was clever and well thought out and so unexpected, it was surreal.
I’d definitely recommend it.

Book Name: Failosophy: A Handbook For When Things Go Wrong
Author: Elizabeth Day
Format: Kindle

My Review:
In this book - Failosophy by author Elizabeth Day there are lessons learnt, her conversations with the guests on her famous and award-winning podcast - How to Fail. In this book, she has shared stories from her life that made her strong and re-born from the failures she faced in her life. The stories are shared in seven principles format.

The book is practical, assuring, and inspirational. The principles mentioned in the book act as a guide through life’s rough and tough times. The stories range from failed exams to relationship break-ups, from career issues to confidence downfalls, and so on. Failures are the stepping stones to success si what the main philosophy of this book Failosophy by Elizabeth Day is about.

The book has great words from people like Malcolm Gladwell, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Lemn Sissay, Frankie Bridge, Nigel Slater, Emeli Sande, Alain de Botton, Mabel, Fearne Cotton, Meera Syal, Dame and many more people.

My Rating: 4/5

Elizabeth Day's latest, Magpie, is a roller coaster of a read. Unreliable narrators are not a style I particularly enjoy, but it really works in this novel of infertility and surrogacy and overbearing mother-in-law. The characters are well-written. While the story starts off slowly, it really picks up the pace in part two. I was pleasantly surprised with the ending.

This is a bendy little tale where nothing is quite what it seems. Marisa and Jake appear to be the perfect couple, until difficulties in their financial situation force them to take in a roommate. Enter Kate, a young and fun loving woman, who appears to be absorbing Jake’s attention a little too easily. Soon Marisa begins to fear that Kate and Jake are having an affair right under her nose, a fear seemingly confirmed by text messages Marisa comes across. Determined to hold her life together, Marisa vows to confront Kate. But is this version of the story real? They say there are two sides to every story, and there is no case where that is truer than this one. Layered with multiple different narratives, this is a dynamic story built on manipulation and the complexities of mental health. This is a story that goes to prove just how dangerous lack of communication can be, and how desperately wanting something can drive you insane. Thank you to Netgalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

Different story line than I expected. Solid writing drew me in, twisted characters kept me reading. So much I could say, but it would give too much away. I started feeling one way about some of the characters, then there was a switch. All I can say is that the ‘Mother’ calling her 40 year old son by a nickname throughout the book was cringeworthy, but added to the story. Did I want to smack all the characters at one point or another, absolutely! Ending was tied up a little too neatly for me. Would recommend as a summer read..on the deck or poolside with your favorite beverage, but you just may end up reading not the evening.

Thanks to Ms. Day, Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone.½

Sort of "The Talented Mr Ripley". Martin is obsessed with his friend Ben and doesn't seem to notice they are no longer such good friends.

Magpie by Elizabeth Day is a highly recommended domestic psychological thriller.

In the first half of Magpie Marisa and Jake move in together and plan to start a family immediately. Even though Jake's mother, Annabelle, doesn't approve of Marisa, Marisa is sure they will have a happy life together. With money being tight they decide to take on a renter, Kate. It appears to be a great idea until Marisa notices that Kate seems to be pushing personal boundaries and is overly familiar with Jake. Marisa begins to feel threatened by her and is concerned about what her future plans are involving Jake and their baby. The second half of Magpie totally turns the plot upside down as it is told from Kate's point-of-view.

Suffice it to say that not much more can be said about the plot without spoiling it. I will mention that experienced readers are likely going to have some of their very early plot twist predictions come true and I'm not completely comfortable with one of the plot devices used. I can also affirm without any hesitation that predictable or not, the writing is quite good and Day does create a whole lot of tension while keeping the pace fast. The novel starts out rather slow but the switch changes things. The ending is a bit over-the-top, but will keep you glued to the pages. 3.5 rounded up
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Simon & Schuster via NetGalley.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2022/04/magpie.html½

I really wanted to like this book but unfortunately it fell flat for me.

Kate and Jake have been trying to get pregnant for years, unsuccessfully. Finally, they decide to hire a surrogate, which is how they meet Marissa, a young woman who is excited to help the couple start their family. In the UK paying a surrogate is illegal, so Kate and Jake decide to let Marissa live with them for free during her pregnancy.

There is a good "twist" early on that I enjoyed, but after that there were no more thrills for me. There was no mystery. It just became a tale of pregnancy and surrogacy, and a bit of r/justnoMIL.

Thank you netgalley and Simon & Schuster for giving me an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Als een man na een ongeluk in coma raakt, proberen zijn vrouw en dochter greep te krijgen op de gebeurtenissen uit het verleden waaronder beiden gebukt gaan

This novel opens with a section narrated by Marisa, explaining her relationship with Jake. We soon learn that she had moved in with him not long before, is madly in love with him, and is now expecting their first baby. Marisa is self-employed, and writes and illustrates customised story books commissioned by parents to feature stylised pictures of their children. This requires her to work from home while Jake leaves each day to do his work in a city bank. Some of his deals go awry, as a consequence of which, they decide that they need to take in a lodger. The advent of Kate into the household seems to change their lives completely …or does it?

I don’t want to say much more abut the plot of the book for fear of inadvertently casting spoilers. Suffice to say that there are several sinuous twists.

I have read very mixed reviews of the book. A lot seem to feel that it requires too great a suspension of disbelief. I understand that viewpoint, but I felt that [[Elizabeth Day]]’s powers of characterisation and her ability to convey dialogue were sufficiently strong to keep me reading. I had read and enjoyed a couple of her previous novels, and found [Paradise City] especially effective. This is not quite in that league, but I did find it gripping, and was drawn into it right from the start.

De levens van vier mensen worden onlosmakelijk met elkaar verbonden door één onvergeeflijke daad

Kijk:
http://trijntjeblog.blogspot.com/2022/03/day.html

De ondervraging op een politiebureau in de Cotswolds van de vriend van een rijke aristocraat, heeft een reeks flashbacks tot gevolg, waardoor zijn leven een andere wending neemt

Een vrouw verdenkt haar man ervan dat hij een affaire heeft met hun huurster

What starts as an apparent tale of Marisa’s relationship with Jake and their joy at the successful early stages of their pregnancy, all related by Marisa, suddenly changes, as Kate, their lodger, takes up the story. Her view of the relationships of the three of them is completely at odds with Marisa’s and leads to a touching and deep description of the pain and sadness around infertility and mental ill-health which plays out as Marisa’s pregnancy progresses. Day’s clear and evocative writing brings out the dilemmas of all involved, as their lives are affected by the difficulties of their varying views of their lives, For most of the book, the reader is left in doubt as to the final outcome of their situation and its resolution provides a very moving and satisfying conclusion.

Non posso certo definirmi uno specialista ma una certa esperienza di fallimenti mi pare di averla acquisita nel tempo. Così, quando ho visto nella vetrina della libreria Fontana di Torino, una donna in soprabito verde precipitare nel vuoto sopra al titolo del libro di Elizabeth Day, ho sentito un irresistibile impulso e sono entrato: quel libro dovevo leggerlo.

Ammetto il mio scetticismo nei confronti di saggi che pretendono di spiegarti come fare a conquistare quella felicità che hai sempre inseguito e non sei mai riuscito a raggiungere. Così come provo sempre un po’ di sfiducia di fronte a saggi che non dimostrano un approccio scientifico e non hanno neppure uno straccetto di bibliografia. Però… se avete amato Alain De Botton o alcuni scritti di Pennac o, ancora, alcune pagine di Proust, allora conoscete il modo che alcuni scrittori hanno di presentare le loro riflessioni su aspetti della vita, riflessioni che nascono da un riesame delle proprie o altrui esperienze e che si concludono con insegnamenti profondi, insegnamenti che è difficile trovare in saggi rigorosamente scientifici. E io volevo imparare qualcosa, proprio sui fallimenti e volevo ascoltare quanto quel libro avesse da dirmi.

Elizabeth Day qualcosa da dire c’è l’ha e lo dice con l’abilità di uno scrittore: riflette sui propri fallimenti, e su quelli raccontati da altre persone che ha intervistato, per ricavarne degli insegnamenti e uscirne migliorata. Certo, si tratta solo di un breve saggio che non vuole porsi come un faro a illuminare le tenebre del dolore che segue a un qualsiasi fallimento. Ma qualcosa di significativo lo dice: ogni fallimento ci insegna qualcosa di noi, ci insegna a essere un po’ di più “noi stessi”.
Devo ammettere di essermi un po’ stupito di non trovare mai nel libro il concetto di antifragilità proposto da Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I punti in comune tra la riflessione dell’autrice e di Taleb mi sembrano molti e, in fondo, un sistema antifragile è proprio un sistema capace di riemergere migliorato da un evento avverso o da un fallimento.
Esattamente ciò che l’autrice propone. Ma non mi sembra che questo sia un difetto del libro, anzi, mi sembra una conferma della ragionevolezza dell’approccio proposto contemporaneamente da almeno due voci apparentemente lontane.

Tra tutti gli argomenti toccati dall’autrice ne scelgo uno solo che mi ha maggiormente colpito (complice la mia formazione matematica): si tratta di un paio di pagine dedicate alla equazione della felicità proposta da Mo Gawdat.

😊 Felicità = Percezione che abbiamo degli eventi – Aspettative.

Mi ci ritrovo pienamente. Ho ricevuto una formazione che era costantemente costellata da aspettative molto elevate ed ovviamente ho percepito sempre il risultato come molto al di sotto di quelle aspettative. Ecco allora finalmente spiegata la sensazione di incapacità a raggiungere la felicità desiderata che mi ha spesso perseguitato e che mi ha fatto vivere sovente gli eventi della mia vita come fallimenti determinati da una incapacità che probabilmente non esiste e che forse è determinata soltanto da una scarsa conoscenza di ciò che realmente sono.

This was OK, but not great. None of the characters really came alive for me and they all acted inconsistently. There was a big twist and then another surprise towards the end, but instead of making me think "oh, I see!" and causing me to re-evaluate everything I had read, the second one in particular just made me think that the characterization made no sense. The first twist led to a fair amount of repetition/re-interpretation of the same events, which slowed things down.

I never had any idea what Jake was thinking, which I suppose was necessary for the plot, but made him seem like a cardboard cut-out onto which the women in his life projected a personality. I felt Marisa was abandoned more or less by the author at the end, and the ending was anti-climactic.

SPOILER

How on earth did Marisa pass the screening process for the surrogacy agency?

I really wanted to read this book but had a volatile and negative reaction to the physical copy.
I will not rate this book as it may have been a manufacturing error or bad Print on Demand.

The paper was overly soft and thin, not like a bible, but kind alike a bible... but not..
Regardless it was an unsettling texture. The text line spacing was too close and made the book difficult to read except in very brightly lit rooms. it just didn't lend itself well to the act of reading and seemed to fight against me.

Een overheersende vader en echtgenoot, moeder Anne die zich niet kan of durft teverzetten en dochter Charlotte die slachtoffer is. De vader raakt in coma als gevolg van een ongeluk en langzamerhand komen alle emoties los. Een redelijk onderhoudend boek, de afloop is mooi en goed. Gelezen op vakantie in Eerbeek.

I liked the book, but found it hard to follow for some reason. A lot of back and forth from school then to current time, but not sure that's why. Interesting story. Loved the dedication Lucy had towards her idiot husband. Her actions at the end with the "snob" wife was great.

Based on her podcast 'How to Fail', Day goes through the seven types of failure and offers a few wise ideas. The book is peppered with anecdotes and words from a host of 'celebrities'. It is a really slim book, I read it in less than an hour, however I actually quite enjoyed it. Some of the 'failosophy' is a little too tailored to the millennial (Generation Y) but there is also a lot of sound advice here as well

Het feest. Door Elizabeth Day.

Sinds ik Day in Mondo zag wou ik een boek van haar lezen en dat is bij deze gebeurd. Ik las Het Feest op 24 uur uit. U weze gewaarschuwd: als je aan dit boek begint kan je het niet meer wegleggen. Het leest als een trein, als een film.

Day bezit de gave om haar karakters tot leven te laten komen, een verhaal spannend op te bouwen en je al snel verslaafd te maken. Je wil meer, meer, meer. Meer details, meer sappige verhalen; meer jaloezie, haat, nijd, hypocrisie. Ze gunt ons een inkijkje in een wereld die aan elkaar hangt van de nepheid, schone schijn en op geld gebaseerde macht. Een ons kent ons wereld. Ver van mijn bed maar wel boeiend om te lezen.

Het feest (het boek en het hoofdonderwerp van het boek) heeft plaats als Ben 40 wordt. Ben is al 25 jaar bevriend met Martin; Martin die na 25 jaar als familie wordt beschouwd, hoewel hij van een heel andere (les: veel lagere) afkomst is. Ben is Martin’s beste vriend, hij zou alles voor hem doen. Alles…

Wat er die avond plaatsvindt en wat er in de 25 jaar daarvoor allemaal gebeurd is komen we stelselmatig te weten via wisselende, elkaar in een razend snel tempo opvolgende, hoofdstukken.

De Britse upper class komt er, zoals vaak, goed vanaf (hoewel…). Maar Day beschrijft hen op zo een manier dat ze, alvast op een morele manier, als verliezers uit de verf komen. Lees en smul mee.