Mary HorlockReseñas

The history was interesting, but I never quite connected to the main character. Her personality was past quirky and headed toward disturbing. I kept hoping the ending would redeem the book, but this did not happen for me.

What is the truth and what is a lie? Is a fib a lie, is an omission a lie? And what would make you lie? To save yourself, to save a loved one? Is it okay to lie in war? I read this book without keeping the title in my mind, but at the end I knew what the title meant.
The island of Guernsey is the setting for this family story told through the eyes of two children: in 1985, Catherine is 15; in 1940, her uncle Charlie is 12. He sees the German soldiers arrive to occupy the small island; a generation later, Cat still feels the after-effects of the lies told then. More lies are being told now, the difficulty is in identifying truth from lies.
Cat is central to the novel. She is an irreverent narrator who tells us not only her own story but also the history of the island and her family’s war story. She was told both stories by her father, and now that he is dead Cat wishes she had asked him more questions. Cat’s voice is a true teenager, her banter is littered with humour, insecurity, crushes, curiosity and indignation. Charlie’s story is told in flashbacks, but mostly through the transcripts of tapes made of his conversation with his brother Emile, Cat’s father’, telling the truth of what happened to him.
Keep reading, the twists and turns of this family, its tricks and lies, its love and secrets, ends in a twist I didn’t see coming. Forty-five years later, the truth still hurts.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/

I found The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock to be both interesting and informative, but unfortunately I also found myself struggling to finish the book. I didn’t mind that I disliked all the characters, they were well developed and distinct, but the stories just didn’t hold my interest or were able to draw me in. I say stories as the book, set on Guernsey Island, actually covers two, in one we are introduced to a 1980’s teenager, Catherine, who informs us that she has murdered her best friend. She is writing down the events that led up to this tragedy and we learn how insecure, truth-stretching Catherine was ever so grateful for the friendship Nicolette offered, that she apparently didn’t see how Nic was using her for her own benefit. Nic eventually turned her back on Catherine and ensured through her bulling and belittling that Catherine once again was a social outcast. Along with Catherine’s story, is that of her uncle’s anguish over events that happened on Guernsey during the German occupation of the 1940’s.

These are stories that are about the truth, but as seen through the eyes of one who only knows half the story, the truth becomes rather flexible. The lines here are blurred and fluid. I did feel that the author, who grew up on Guernsey, captured the claustrophobic feeling of living on an small island where everyone either knows or is related to everyone excellently

I found it slightly jarring to be in one time period and then suddenly in another. I was surprised that of the two, I actually preferred Catherine’s story and I did quite like how these stories were wrapped up. Overall, The Book of Lies was an original idea but for me, it just feel short of the mark.

It's not often that one meets an accidental teen murderess who offhandedly describes the scene of the crime as "like Friday the 13th (Part 1 or 2)" and sums up the moment her former best friend fell off a cliff with "How cool was that?" So begins Horlock's remarkable first novel, which will forever erase for readers the treacly taste of Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows's The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Catherine Rozier, an overweight loner at an all-girls school on the Channel Island of Guernsey, circa 1985, makes her first friend, newcomer Nicolette Prevost. Nic is a manipulative mean girl, and Cat soon learns that friendships come at a price. Cat's unapologetic, unreliable retelling of the events that led to Nic's untimely end is interspersed with chapters about Cat's Uncle Charlie, who struggled during the Nazi occupation of the island. Cat is not as quick or deliberately vengeful as Winona Ryder's character in the film Heathers, but she is unique and captivating. Library Journal

Couldn't say it better than the above review from LJ!
Riveting tale and off-putting 1980s teen protagonist plus factual footnotes of the German Occupation of Guernsey during WWII equals one strange and captivating fictional inquiry into the nature of truth/falsehood and friend/enemy. The Guernsey patois adds authenticity and local flavor, as do Cat's asides, e.g. "Je don't think so!" The text is shared by two stories: Cat's in the 1980s and her uncle's in WWII. Ms Horlock's research vividly defines the bitter legacy left by the Occupation to the inhabitants of Guernsey.

8 out of 10 Highly recommended to readers who enjoy well-researched historical narratives. Also recommended to fans of literature.

I did and I didn't like this book. I liked the voice. I thought the dynamics of the teenage relationship were well observed and written. I thought it had a really good sense of place which I found believable.

What I didn't like - the secondary story: the account of what happened in the war. I found that slightly *too* confusing and it didn't quite sit properly for me re motivations. I feel it missed a trick or two with what could have been done.

As a side note, this book has footnotes in it. I was reading it on Kindle and, if you've never experienced them, footnotes on Kindle are epically annoying. At the end of every chapter the footnotes appeared without a paragraph break or owt. I'd recommend picking up a hardcopy rather than the Kindle version (unless you're less easily narked than I am, obviously.)

Did you know that there were Nazi concentration camps on British soil during the Second World War? I didn’t, but having read The Book of Lies, I now know.

There were four of them actually. And it’s highly appropriate that Cat be the one who told me about this. She is the narrator of Mary Horlock’s debut novel, and she is all about unearthing horrors.

She comes by it honestly. Her father was founder and editor of The Patois Press, whose mandate was to study and reveal the history of the Channel Islands (especially Guernsey), including the nasty bits.

Emile Rozier was the local expert on such things; he knew about the underground gas chambers and the many acts of English resistance, and about tonnes of stuff in between.

Cat is interested in history; she does want to understand the political events that have conspired to make such a colourful past for the island she calls home (which lies in the English Channel off the French coast of Normandy).

But her interest in reading her father’s works is also more personal, as she attempts to reconcile herself to his recent death.

[There's more here: Mary Horlock's work is definitely a worthwhile read.]

from Flavorwire's Buzzworthy debuts at the 2011 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Cat Rozier is a murderer. She's lived all her fifteen years on the Channel Island of Guernsey, where (she will be happy to tell you) the only things for people to do are drink, have sex, and kill each other. The person she's killed is Nicolette, her best friend. Well, former best friend. It's complicated.

Cat's uncle was a murderer too, or at least that's what she tells people. He was also a prisoner of the Nazis during the Occupation of the island, and he never really got over it. Cat never met her uncle, but the history of the Occupation was her father's obsession. After her father died, Cat went through all his papers looking for answers. She found...quite a few of them.

The Book of Lies is made of documents: Cathy's manuscript confession, addressed to her mother, and transcriptions of Charles's story, and notes and letters from Cat's father's researches. The story goes from 1940 to 1985, through three generations of the Rozier family, and straight through the center of Cat's life.

I literally could not put this book down. I started it a week or so ago, then picked it back up to read on my breaks at work and stayed up all last night to finish it. Cathy is a wonderful narrator, the kind of cynical, intelligent, painful thing I remember being at fifteen. She's not a reliable narrator, though; far from it. (You don't have the self-awareness to be reliable at fifteen.) She's mostly telling the truth on one thing, though; she is a murderer.

The Book of Lies is equal parts historical drama and bildungsroman. I knew a little bit about Guernsey during World War II before I started the book; I knew that England basically abandoned the Channel Islands during the war and then looked down on them for failing to effectively resist the Germans without weapons or soldiers. It was fascinating to read a story - even told so second-hand - about life in such an awkwardly occupied state. Even the occupiers didn't want to be there, but strategically, they just couldn't leave. The things people did under the strains of the occupation make up a large proportion of the titular lies of the story.

Most of the rest come from Cathy's adolescent fury. Seen from the outside her story is terribly predictable - her father dies, she starts hanging out with new friends, she starts drinking and causing all kinds of trouble, her grades go... - but of course we aren't seeing it from the outside, but from Cathy's perspective, written as a justification after the fact for her friend's death. Teenagers are mostly made up of lies anyway, but one in her situation much more so.

The big lie, though, is the one lurking in the subtext and in between the lines of the whole story. As Cathy tells her mother in the final pages of her narrative, it's perfectly visible once you get to that point. Cathy's not out to expose anyone, just to make sure they all understand one another. It's clear she's grown up a lot throughout the course of the story.

In a sentence: The Book of Lies is a fascinating story about truth, lies, and mutual understanding, and I highly recommend it for your next book club selection.

Hard to follow the logic in a book all about lies, but an interesting story nonetheless.

Set on Guernsey in the Channel Islands in 1985 and, in memories and flashback, during the German occupation of the Islands during WWII. Told from the point of view of a teenaged girl who is hiding her involvement with the death of a school mate.

A well-told story with lots of new-to-me information.

Did you know that there were Nazi concentration camps on British soil during the Second World War? I didn’t, but having read The Book of Lies, I now know.

There were four of them actually. And it’s highly appropriate that Cat be the one who told me about this. She is the narrator of Mary Horlock’s debut novel, and she is all about unearthing horrors.

She comes by it honestly. Her father was founder and editor of The Patois Press, whose mandate was to study and reveal the history of the Channel Islands (especially Guernsey), including the nasty bits.

Emile Rozier was the local expert on such things; he knew about the underground gas chambers and the many acts of English resistance, and about tonnes of stuff in between.

Cat is interested in history; she does want to understand the political events that have conspired to make such a colourful past for the island she calls home (which lies in the English Channel off the French coast of Normandy).

But her interest in reading her father’s works is also more personal, as she attempts to reconcile herself to his recent death.

[There's more here: Mary Horlock's work is definitely a worthwhile read.]

Set on the Guernsey, with an examination of the Nazi occupation. Good follow-up for Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"?

Life on the tiny island of Guernsey has just become a whole lot harder for fifteen-year-old Cat Rozier. She’s gone from model pupil to murderer, but she swears it’s not her fault. Apparently it’s all the fault of history.

A new arrival at Cat’s high school in 1984, the beautiful and instantly popular Nicolette inexplicably takes Cat under her wing. The two become inseparable—going to parties together, checking out boys, and drinking whatever liquor they can shoplift. But a perceived betrayal sends them spinning apart, and Nic responds with cruel, over-the-top retribution.

Cat’s recently deceased father, Emile, dedicated his adult life to uncovering the truth about the Nazi occupation of Guernsey—from Churchill’s abandonment of the island to the stories of those who resisted—in hopes of repairing the reputation of his older brother, Charlie. Through Emile’s letters and Charlie’s words—recorded on tapes before his own death— a “confession” takes shape, revealing the secrets deeply woven into the fabric of the island . . . and into the Rozier family story.

I really wanted to love this book. It had an interesting premise and takes place on Guernsey Island, a place I have been fascinated with since reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

I found Cat interesting and that we find out right at the beginning that Cat kills Nic. However, it kind of goes downhill from there. The story is very fractured as it moves from Cat's story to that of her father and uncle. I don't mind an alternating story, but this wasn't done very well. I wouldn't get far into either story before it would switch and it just didn't hold my interest.

I did enjoy the history of the island and I think that it this could have been a great novel. But it was mediocre at best despite it's potential. Hopefully, the author will have better luck with her next book.



my rating 2.5/5½

The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock is written in chapters that alternate between the present with Catherine Rozier in 1984-5 and the past during the German occupation of Guernsey during WWII and her uncle Charles Rozier’s story. Like her uncle, Cat is a liar. Lies are often told to protect loved ones, to gain acceptance among peers, or to cover up bad behavior, and the lies told here are no different. Unreliable narrators are tricky in that readers can often get frustrated with the lies or become disenchanted with the story because they no longer know how to gauge the truth. However, Horlock hovers on the edge of that line so as to keep readers engaged by presenting “historic” documentation for the WWII portion of the story.

Cat’s father, Emile, often shut himself away from his family and buried himself in historical research about the German Occupation of Guernsey, and this isolationism led Cat to believe she needed to make up stories to fit in and gain attention from not only her peers and parents, but from everyone else on the island. In a way readers will wonder throughout the novel if she is still lying to gain the attention of readers with her sensational narrative of murder and teen hijinks.

Read the full review beginning Aug. 5: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2011/08/book-of-lies-by-mary-horlock.html

Lies are all around us. White lies, lies of omission, lies of ignorance, and the more egregious deliberate whoppers. Because of their prevalence, one is left to wonder, just what is truth? Is it indeed subjective or is it more concrete? Can one ever truly differentiate between lies and the truth? Does it mean the same thing to each person? The Book of Lies explores truth more flexible edges, that which allows one to blur the line between truth and fiction until the truth in its pure form is lost forever.

Another novel taking place of the island of Guernsey, The Book of Lies focuses on the aftermath of its occupation and how it affected survivors for generations. How has history portrayed Guernsey's compliance with the Nazis who inhabited the island for three years? Alongside this exploration between fact and fiction about island events during World War II is the story of Cat, a teen who is trying to find her way among the scrutiny of island living after the death of her father. Flipping back and forth between Cat's story and that of her father's brother, who is unburdening himself of the truth of his experiences during the war, the two stories merge in unusual and unexpected ways. While the switch between teen angst and the more mature, and in my opinion valid, anguish over past actions and their consequences can be jarring at times, one story does flow into the other, all the while highlighting the theme.

Ms. Horlock shines in her characterization. Cat is not the most likable of characters. She is a drama queen, who influences her own sense of flair and dramatics to all of her actions and commentary. It is frankly exhausting after a while, if only because it is too familiar and authentic. In Nicolette, she embodies the queen bee with all of the social underpinnings and cruelty that come from being at the top of the social ladder. With Charlie, and later Emile's stories, Ms. Horlock focuses on the emotional damage and regret that weigh so heavily on people. The entire story is not an easy one to read from an emotional perspective because each of the characters is a different emotional roller coaster. The reader is left to be flung about, only able to catch a breath/break when s/he stops reading for a while.

While many recent stories have been set on the island of Guernsey and focused on what occurred there during World War II, The Book of Lies is refreshing in that the reader is allowed to see what happened after the Allies won the war. It is this unique perspective that breathes a breath of fresh air into what is quickly becoming a somewhat stale story line. It is the aftermath of any trauma that defines a person, and both Cat and Charlie embody this idea with their own reactions to trauma. It is not light summer reading; instead The Book of Lies Is a thought-provoking commentary on the fluidity of truth.

Thank you to NetGalley for my review copy!

http://iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/the-book-of-lies-mary-horlock/

Sometimes I like books for the story and sometimes I like books for the storyteller. The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock is definitely in the second category. Though the book is a fantastic tale in and of itself, the true beauty of it lies in the teenaged narrator, Cat.

Cat’s story starts in 1984, on the Channel Island of Guernsey. It also starts with her immediate dismissal of the horrible death of her previously alleged best friend, Nicolette. Backtracking as she moves forward, Cat is somewhat of an emotionally changed, unreliable, albeit very enthusiastic source on the life and times of the island’s teens.

Much of Cat’s narration is backlog through the past few decades of the island, hinging primarily on the fall out of the Nazi occupation. The wartime throwback is fleshed out, in full, by entries from Cat’s deceased dad during the time of the occupation, detailing a story very similar to the one being told by his daughter.

Not your average thriller, The Book of Lies is fast paced and intelligent, charming and creepy in all of the right places. The writing is well done, especially on the part of Cat. I did find the bits from her father a little bit confusing to piece together, though his story was easier to get through as it spun deeper into the book. That’s not to say that it was hard to follow but it did seem a bit haphazard and stilted alongside Cat’s brilliantly voiced telling.

This is the very second book that I’ve ever come across dealing with the history of Guernsey (the first, of course, being the super popular The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society). Though that was, I guess, an adorable tale, itself, this was a much more solid and human story and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Channel Islands or just a really great story.½

In looking at everyone else's ratings for The Book of Lies, I'm the odd woman out.

I could not get into this novel and couldn't find any sympathetic characters in it. I quit reading about 1/3 of the way through it, which is unusual for me.

This just reinforces for me that each person sees a novel very differently..

Una vicenda narrata dalla voce di una giovane donna sul filo dell'autoanalisi, tra cinismo e amarezza per i sogni perduti a cui si alterna la ricostruzione di un passato familiare al tempo dell'ultimo conflitto mondiale. Le colpe dei padri e le colpe dei figli a confronto, come se anche il più grave misfatto possa ridimensionarsi e trovare perdono attraverso la confessione. La menzogna sopra ogni altro peccato, in un gioco serrato di smentite e nuove bugie, come in un percorso rivestito di specchi deformanti.½

Full review with footnotes posted on my blog: http://morsiereads.blogspot.com/2011/07/book-of-lies-by-mary-horlock.html

We talk about getting away and seeing the world, but we never do. We stay here making the same mistakes, over and over. (8)

The Book of Lies opens in late 1985 with 15-year-old Cat Rozier admitting that she's murdered her best friend, Nicolette. Her narrative then begins to chart the short history of Cat's tumultuous relationship with Nic. Cat's written confession is interspersed with pages of documents that Cat found in her late father's office. Those documents tell the story of Cat's uncle Charlie, "who got in trouble with the Germans and ended up being starved and tortured and driven mad. He only just survived the War and he was the reason Dad made himself an expert on said German Occupation" (27).

Cat is such a wonderfully real character, a teenager through and through. Self-satisfied and self-loathing by turns, Cat is angsty and witty, judgmental and clueless. She's also a bit of a drama queen, a snarky one. Her voice is so very authentic (and that can be very hard to pull off). One line in particular made me laugh out loud.1

Some readers may be put off by the novel's format (split narrative with footnotes), but I thought it worked really well for the story Horlock was trying to tell.2 And, while Cat and Charlie's stories are quite different, they parallel nicely.

The novel is also full of truisms. This one had particular resonance for me: "I suppose that's the thing about History, there are always several versions of that thing we call the truth" (213).

The Book of Lies is a strong debut for Horlock. I do hope that people people aren't Guernsied out after The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. The Book of Lies does deal with occupied Guernsey, but it has so much more to offer (if nothing else the 1980s storyline deals with bullying). I know lots of book clubs read Guernsey Literary (mine included) and while I think that The Book of Lies would provide plenty of discussion fodder on its own, it would be a perfect follow-up for Guernsey Literary.

Cathy is 15 years old and lives in Guernsey, an island off the coast of Normandy. Cathy kills her friend and this is the story of how it came to pass. Anyone who has ever been bullied is sure to understand. I read another book that took place in Guernsey and it sounded like a wonderful place.

This is primarily the story of Catherine Rozier, a teenager living on the island of Guernsey. Her friend has died falling from the cliffs and Catherine tells the story of the friendship and what happened. Alternated with her story is a transcript of a taped interview with her uncle who died twenty years earlier, and his story goes back to the German occupation of Guernsey during World War II.

This is an intriguing read. It took me a while to get fully into it and to really understand the different voices. Catherine's voice is slightly irritating at times, but by the half way point I’d got used to it. And I did enjoy the story that her uncle told about his experiences during the war.

What was particularly interesting about this book was the details about the German occupation and the effect it had on the islanders as some people collaborated with them, some had to work with them, and some were totally against them. The book doesn't really do a lot for Guernsey tourism though, with Catherine's bleak view of island life.

This is quite a dark book really, underneath the teenage woes, and I found myself racing through it.

What a cracking book! Two stories twist about each other; both wrapped in the way that we lie to each other; and even worse, to ourselves. Sometimes, they hardly seem like lies; and sometimes we are confronted by the evil of a character's lies, only to find that there is another perspective which diminishes the guilt of, or exonerates the perpetrator completely.The stories pirouette right up until the final page where, as in real life, we are left on something of a cliffhanger (pun intended - and if you want to know what the pun is, then read the book: you really should!)

Mary Horlock was born on Guernsey and, I would guess that some of the dislike of a captive group of islanders is autobiographical. The stories are those of two young girls in 1985, one popular and one less so, and a family in occupied Guernsey - as recreated in 1965. The claustrophobic atmosphere of fear, lies and more lies runs like a thread through this book whilst, somehow, makes one laugh at the same time.

Mary is better than most authors at writing from the perspective of young people: her characters are all believable and the stories, which would sound preposterous were I to retell them, read as eminently realistic. It is surprising how many deep issues are confronted by a book that initially appears to be a light read: for example, one is presented with the hopelessness which the people of Guernsey must have felt when occupied, their feeling of a lack of sympathy from the Allies when rescue came and the difficulty of a young person coming to terms with their family history, to name but two (or is that three?)

The book does not spoon feed the reader and, as we are warned in a letter from Catherine to her mother, near the end of the tale, we need to read between the lines, as well as the printed word. Lots to chew over: I shall watch out for further works by Mary Horlock with interest.

I really enjoyed this book. As the author points out in her acknowledgements, the title is deceptive because there is plenty of fact within the fictional story.

Told in a journal/diary style by Cat Rozier and her late father Emile, it is set on the island of Guernsey in 1985 and the 1940s respectively. Emile's journals, written in the 1960s, are based on information left by his older brother concerning the lead up to their father's death, shot by the occupying German forces in 1942. Teenager Cat's diary deals with both the death of her own father and her "best friend" Nic. Cat tells us at the beginning of the novel, that she has killed Nic by pushing her off a cliff at Clarence Batterie. Thus begins a gripping story which I found hard to put down.

Although events take place 40 years apart, there are striking similarities between their two stories. Deception, lust, murder and misunderstandings abound. The historical portrait of Guernsey during the German Occupation is really fascinating. Being such a small island of just over 3 miles across, everyone knows everyone else and it would appear to be difficult to keep secrets. This is most definitely not the case in both the 40s and 80s. It is these secrets and misunderstandings which form the fabric of this story. Some of the characters have lived their whole lives beieving things which are not true and the sadness this brings is well handled here.

I would recommend this book, both as enjoyable fiction and an insight in to how the people of Guernsey dealt with a very difficult time in their history. It appears that they were treated very shabbily by the British Government during the Second World War and this novel highlights their struggle and how it altered the whole community structure for many many years.

This book was made available to me, prior to publication, for an honest review.