- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Macmillan; First edition (7 Oct 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1405054743
- ISBN-13: 978-1405054744
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.8 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,017,058 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Independent
'Aziz has a wonderful imagination'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
South Wales Argus
'Aziz spins a carefully crafted tale...its hard to believe this beautifully written book is a first novel'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book will haunt you for days afterwards....,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Olive Readers (Hardcover)
This is not the sort of book I would normally read, but was curious to see why it won the R&J competition. The moment I began reading it I could not put it down and was pulled into a world which was both unsettling and haunting. Even when I put it down I still felt I was in the story, and couldn't wait to get back to find out what was going to happen next. It's certainly a page turner - and the characters sweep you along with them. The writer has created a wonderful, enthralling but dark world with her use of words - sometimes poetic. It's not a comfortable read though. I found it challenging and thought provoking and the ending came as a whopping surprise. I'm still recovering!
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed.,
By
This review is from: The Olive Readers (Hardcover)
I started this and fell in love with it, to the extent that I recommended it to several friends. I read the first third of it in a day and was eagerly lloking forward to completing it.
The first third of the book is beautifully written, reminding me a lot of Margaret Atwood's style. It drew me in and had me hooked. However, when I continued on I'm afraid I fell out of love with it pretty damn quickly. The main character was the only one I felt I knew, the rest being merely used to progress the plot with no idea of their motivation or thoughts. When the action moved from the Olive Country the book completely fell apart for me. It was so rushed, simplistic, under developed, under explained, hackneyed and trite. The author was obviously suffering from having to rush to meet a tight deadline and it really showed in the shift in her style and pace of writing. I'd have given this 1 star but gave it 2 as a concession to the fact that the first third of it was a great book, shame about the rest though. It's a shame for the author herself too as I can't imagine she can have been happy at the end result of her 18 years hard work; at least I only spent a few hours reading it!
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Shallow, rushed and underdeveloped,
This review is from: The Olive Readers (Hardcover)
Christine Aziz's first novel, The Olive Readers, was the winner of the Richard and Judy 'How to Get Published' competition. And while it certainly has some interesting paragraphs and some choice descriptive passages, you constantly get the impression whilst reading it that had the competition not promised a prize of publication to the winner, this novel would not have seen the light of day.For while the use of language is often admirable, it winds itself around a story that feels woefully underdeveloped, which is a shame, as the background concept - which was infinitely better utilised in one of the stories within David Mitchell's excellent Cloud Atlas - certainly had the potential to provide an entralling tale. Unfortunately, the storyline is not given the time and space to develop, and this is the same of the characters as well. While there could and should be real people there, they are just too little developed to draw the reader into empathising with them, and come across for the main part as two-dimensional objects. Without wishing to go into too much detail and give away some of the themes woven in by the author, many of the concepts that underpin the novel - such as the nature and ambitions of the corporations, the relationship of the protagonist to the historical Maya figure, and the 'sphinx' device are either hackneyed or ill-explored. And this is the fatal weakness of the book. The pacing, too,seems to have been overlooked completely: the first half of the novel is relatively measured, but once the love interest has been removed from the picture, the story rushes onwards trying to tie the few plot details up in as short a time as possible. If this was indeed the author's intent, then the goal has been achieved admirably in that every problem that faces the protagonist and the world is easily and rapidly solved without any problems, hold-ups or resistance. The all-powerful 'evil' corporation against which the central character is pitted offers no resistance to her at all, explaining to her it's secrets without the merest hesitation. This is done in the manner of the old children's programmes where the villain would explain the evil scheme to the hero, who has been tied up and faces an imminent demise. The enemy of The Olive Readers, however, does not even bother to tie up its nemesis or pose any physical threat to her at all - it rather welcomes her into the heart of its power base, gives her a tour of its secrets and lamely does nothing while she tears down its means of control. While the concept had a fair amount of potential, sadly the book feels entirely rushed, and the resolution of the world's problems comes about far too easily. Christine Aziz can certainly string an elegant sentence together every so often, but I hope that her next novel is altogether better realised, and given the time, space and passion to develop that it needs. Sadly, I would doubt that I will be picking up a copy of her next book, should it be published, to find out.
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