When I Found you by Catherine Ryan Hyde

The book tells the story of Nathan, a married, childless, middle age bookkeeper who finds a baby in the woods when he is out hunting. He would like to raise the child but the baby's grandmother steps in. Fifteen years later, when she finds the boy (Nat) too difficult to handle, she asks Nathan if he's changed his mind. Nathan takes Nat in and commits to raising him come what may.

I enjoyed the book but Nat wants to be a boxer and the boxing storyline reminded me of many a dull boxing movie. I was also bothered by the book's suggestion that middle age couples who dedicate themselves to helping troubled teens may just be trying to find some excitement, or create meaning, in their otherwise boring lives. When asked why he goes to extraordinary lengths for Nat, Nathan says something along the lines of "what else have I done that's extraordinary?"

I doubt the story would inspire anyone to take in a stranger's child; that doesn't seem to be the aim.  It has a more general message about helping people not because you have to, but because you can.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

This is the third book I've read by Liane Moriarty (the other two were The Husband's Secret and Big Little Lies). They're all witty and entertaining stories. I enjoy that they feature places and situations I'm familiar with e.g. Sydney mums doing the school run etc.

Alice is about to turn 40, has three children, and is getting divorced. She bumps her head at the gym and wakes up thinking she's 29 and pregnant with her first child. She has no recollection of her children or what went wrong in her marriage.

The book looks at the stress of having children and what that can do a marriage. It also looks at the stress of not having them (Alice's sister has had multiple miscarriages). As the story unfolds we find out how a happy carefree young wife and her doting husband turned into a workaholic executive and a high-maintenance, helicopter mother, who hate each other!

There are lots of other great characters in the book including Alice's 'grandmother' Frannie who writes a blog, Alice's mother who has remarried and taken up salsa dancing and Alice's children who include a rebel, a princess and a geek.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

The girl on the Train is a whodunnit on a par with Gone Girl, but set in the UK. It's a riveting tale about the impact of adultery. The two main characters are Megan, an attractive, screwed up, young wife and Rachel, an equally screwed up, dumped, ex-wife. Both women use self-destructive coping methods to deal with emotional pain; Megan plays around and Rachel drinks.

Rachel sees Megan in the garden each morning from the window of a London commuter train and wonders what her life is like. When Megan disappears Rachel becomes involved in her story.

Other characters include Scott, Megan's husband; Tom and Anna, Rachel's ex-husband and his new wife; Cathy, Rachel's flatmate and Dr Kamal Abdic, Rachel's therapist.

This is definitely the best book I've read in a while!

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

The book is set in the early 50s. Fictional narrator Holden Caulfield is the handsome 17 year old son of a wealthy New York lawyer. He tells the story of when he was 16 and got kicked out of yet another fancy boarding school. He was expelled 3 days before the end of term and spent those days hanging out on his own in New York. Descriptions of the characters he meets in New York are interspersed with tales from boarding school. His time in New York involves a lot of smoking and drinking; he seems unable to stop moving from one depressing bar to the next.

Holden's younger brother died a few years earlier and he is obviously lost and depressed. He is looking for someone who might provide emotional support but they all come up short. On the verge of adulthood, he flits between a need for intellectual conversation and the desire to horse around. He finds almost everyone he meets to be a phoney and every event depresses him.

The only joy in Holden's life is his sister Phoebe who he adores, and a girl named Jane who he keeps meaning to phone. By the end of the book I felt concern for Holden. He comes across as smart, genuine and generous but at the same time immature, judgemental and not much fun to be around. The moral of the story seemed to me to be that when children go off the rails it's often the adults that have failed the child and not the other way around.

Bared to You by Sylvia Day

I picked up a stack of books at a charity book sale, thinking house guests might read them. I thought I'd better read this one before offering it to my mum! It was billed as Fifty Shades of Grey only better written. It tells the story of Eva, a young girl starting a new job in New York and super rich Gideon Cross. They both have baggage and can't keep their hands off each other. It's an on-again, off-again tale, as Eva is drawn to Gideon and then he upsets her and she runs off.

I haven't read anything from this genre since I was a teenager reading Jackie Collins and Jilly Cooper. The only thing that's changed is the frequency of the sex scenes, which occur about every 10 pages and last for 3. I guess things have moved on from Lady Chatterley's Lover, where it was more like one scene per book! I have the other two books in the series but I think I'll give them a miss. A story where arguments end with an apology and a cup of tea would be more my thing!

The Girl with all the Gifts by M.R Carey

I picked this book up in the local bookstore (we still have those here). The cover calls it a thriller; it doesn't call it a zombie story written by someone who usually writes for Marvel. If it had I wouldn't have read it. That said, it was good (377 reviewers on Amazon agree with me).

The story is set twenty years in the future. A disease has turned most of the world's population into zombie like Hungries who feed on other people. Melanie is one of 20 children scientists have found, who have the disease but are still able to reason. The children are kept in a prison, strapped into wheelchairs to stop them eating anyone, and experimented on in the hope of finding a cure.

Helen Justineau is a psychologist whose job it is to teach the children and to report back on their mental state. She becomes attached to Melanie and the other children. Caroline Caldwell is the scientist in charge of the project. When the camp that houses the prison is overrun by Junkers (people who haven't got the disease but choose to live outside society) Helen, Caroline, Melanie and two guards escape and need to find their way to civilisation under the constant threat of Hungries, Junkers and other children like Melanie.

The book explores the relationship between teacher and child, scientist and subject. Melanie is highly intelligent and slowly comes to realise that she is somehow not human but at the same time not a zombie. As they move across Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire the 5 escapees encounter the detritus of consumerist Britain. They reflect on how people used to turn their homes into nests of ornaments, toys, books and other stuff no one needs. The survivors ponder how people had nothing more to worry about than remembering where they'd parked their cars.

Films and books about the future used to be a lot more cheery. We had The Jetsons, now we have The Hunger Games and this sort of thing. No one is sure whether we'll all hack each other to death, be wiped out by disease or killed in some catastrophic climate event. I can see why people who stick to this genre (a lot of video games have similar storylines) might become depressed. The end of life as we know it appears to be just around the corner, but of course in some parts of the world, it's already happened.

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

This is the second book in the Maze Runner trilogy (there is also a prequel). The series seems to me to be a poor man's Hunger Games, or at least a series with a much simpler plot that younger children can follow. Like The Hunger Games, children are left to fend for themselves, but they are not pitted against each other.

Thomas and the rest of the Gladers have escaped the maze only to find they're in yet another test arranged by WICKED. This time they have to cross scorched lands that are inhabited by Cranks (people who have been driven mad by a disease called the Flare).  Every time the Gladers think they're safe a few more of them die gruesomely.  Just like Book 1, Thomas isn't sure who he can trust and is is slowly regaining memories of life before the glade. Thomas also has to sort out his feelings for Teresa (from Book 1) and new character Brenda.

For Discussion.

The book raises the issue of whether the end justifies the means. Is it reasonable to kill a few so that the lives of many can be saved? The Flare could also be linked to Ebola or Leprosy. How should we treat people who have a highly contagious illness? What have we done in the past?

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

This is a first novel, written by an Australian IT geek (his previous books were about data modelling). A sequel The Rosie Effect came out at the end of 2014.

Imagine Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory but without the friends. Prof. Don Tillman is a geneticist who schedules his life minute by minute and cooks the same standardised meals each week. He knows he's different and he has very few friends but he's never been given a specific diagnosis of Aspergers or OCD.

Don hasn't had much luck with dating so he embarks on a project to find a partner, this involves women answering a 16 page questionnaire. He meets Rosie, who is beautiful but not compatible. Rosie is trying to find out who her real father is and needs the help of a geneticist. Together they embark on a hunt for her father.

It's a great story that, if made into a movie, could easily become a classic romantic comedy. Most of the jokes centre around Don not fitting in. There are scenes in expensive restaurants and Don has a special VIP card that means QANTAS never sits him next to another passenger if they can help it.

On a more serious note the author shows how Don and his friend Gene (who is a womaniser) are both jokes among the academic community and both need to change. They are both stuck in roles that they developed to survive in school and it's time for them both to grow up and change.