As my regular readers will know I mostly review food for this blog, but from time to time I like to try something a bit different and today we have a book review! I was honoured to be asked to review Veronika Carnaby's debut novel Bohemia which Veronika kindly sent me a copy of in return for an honest review.
Bohemia was released back in September and is set during the 1960s. It is inspired by the works of the Beat Generation and follows the life of a group of "bohemian" twenty-somethings on their creative journey through life.
The book follows the life of the main character Valerie and her 3 friends who want to put their creative stamp on the world. They begin their journey in England and later move to America where the bulk of the story is set. When I first started reading the book I did find it a bit odd that the language of the characters didn't seem to fit with 1960's Britain. They use a lot of American slang and I actually had to check back that I hadn't misunderstood that Valerie was British. That said, as the book is written in a style of an older lady recalling her youth then it is quite possible that she had picked up this way of speaking from her time in US and so that was reflected when she recalled her younger days.
At times the story jumped about quite a lot and perhaps this is a mirror of Valerie's hectic lifestyle but this meant at times the story was quite hard to follow. There are a lot of different characters that Valerie encounters and again at times that can make it hard to follow but perhaps this is reminiscent of her life at the time. I was unable to relate to alot of the characters in this story but I couldn't help feel a certain warmth towards Valerie and her determined spirit to succeed.
Verdict
I will be honest and say that this is not really my kind of book, I am more into thrillers and crime novels and there was not enough "action" for me. That said Veronkia Carnaby has portrayed an interesting look into life in the 1960s.
Veronika is an American writer and poet, if you would like to find out more you can visit her website here
