{"id":2171,"date":"2012-05-05T21:52:50","date_gmt":"2012-05-05T20:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2171"},"modified":"2012-12-09T13:49:04","modified_gmt":"2012-12-09T13:49:04","slug":"the-book-of-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2171","title":{"rendered":"The Book of Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/The-Book-Lies-Mary-Horlock\/dp\/1847678858\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/the_book_of_lies_mary_horlock-204x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock\" width=\"204\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2172\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/the_book_of_lies_mary_horlock-204x300.jpg 204w, https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/the_book_of_lies_mary_horlock-699x1024.jpg 699w, https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/the_book_of_lies_mary_horlock.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 204px) 100vw, 204px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I finished reading this book tonight.  It is set in Guernsey and goes back and forth between two connected stories, one narrated by a teenage girl in the 80s, the other tells the story of the generation before her during the German occupation.  It&#8217;s worth watching this video of the author talking about the book, not least for the scenes of Guernsey to spark the imagination:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JSolxhe26dU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t know a thing about Guernsey until I read this book so it was fascinating to discover what had happened there during WWII.  The teenage narrator&#8217;s voice was so realistic that I found myself cringing as it brought back moments from my own teenage years.  The story of the girl&#8217;s family during the Occupation seemed a bit cloudy to me at first and not nearly as engaging as the teenager&#8217;s story, however all became clear towards the end.  The conclusions of both stories were satisfying to me and I liked the slightly menacing tone at the finish.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand my enjoyment was muted for a number of reasons.  Firstly, both threads took a long time to build up any kind of pace.  I wasn&#8217;t even properly engaged until over halfway though.  Secondly, the story set during the Occupation was peppered with patois (based on French) that I mostly didn&#8217;t understand.  Thirdly there were footnotes all over the place and with the book already flitting between two stories the footnotes made it feel even more disjointed.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad I read The Book of Lies as I learned a something about Guernsey but I can&#8217;t say the book has left it&#8217;s mark much beyond that.<\/p>\n<p>(18th in 2012)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I finished reading this book tonight. It is set in Guernsey and goes back and forth between two connected stories, one narrated by a teenage girl in the 80s, the other tells the story of the generation before her during the German occupation. It&#8217;s worth watching this video of the author talking about the book, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2171"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3777,"href":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions\/3777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utilitygirl.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}