This has been a slower month because I have been booked and BUSY. I only managed six books in March – I’m hoping I’ll be back to normal in April x
The Chain – Chimene Suleyman
I’m not sure where to even begin with this astonishing memoir except to tell you to read it IMMEDIATELY. Chimene tells the story of a man she once dated, an aspiring comic who abandoned her quite literally during her abortion – he left her in the clinic, went back to their apartment, and stripped the place clean. Afterwards, she discovers he has done the same to dozens of other women, and their accounts of his behaviour are almost unfathomable in their cruelty. Once she connects with his other victims, Chimene begins to heal, ultimately using the experience as a way to explore toxic masculinity and misogyny in our culture at large. You’re going to want to buy multiple copies of this and hand it out to friends, promise. If there was ever one to choose for your book club…
My Favourite Mistake – Marian Keyes
We are reunited with the one-and-only Walsh Family!! SCREAM! Anna Walsh, to be precise, who has returned to Ireland, leaving her v glam job as a beauty PR behind her in New York. In an act of desperation, she takes a job in the wilds of Connemara, helping an old friend set up a luxury coastal retreat. And it’s there that she is reunited with old flame, Joey Armstrong, AKA Narky Joey… Because no matter how far you go, your mistakes will still be waiting for you.
Marian Keyes is BACK, baby, and this is a classic. It’s so sexy and funny and there’s a cast of brilliantly odd supporting characters – this book is pure escapist joy, which I think is what so many of us are craving right now— but it’s also brilliant on middle age and the menopause and female rage. Truly, no one does it like Marian. I love her and I love this book.
In Memoriam by Alice Winn
This is about Gaunt and Ellwood, two boys at a posh English boarding school in 1914 who are secretly in love with each other. When Gaunt decides to enlist in the British army to deflect suspicious that his family are German sympathisers (his mother is from Prussia), Ellwood, a dreamy, artistic poet, quickly follows suit.
I made the error of reading this book in public and I must warn you not to do the same. I SOBBED throughout the whole thing. Like, it was embarrassing how hard I cried. In Memoriam really brings home the horrors of war, the futility of it, and how utterly senseless the loss of life was. These men were just babies, really, and they were so readily used as cannon fodder. It’s beautifully written – you will feel as if you’re in the trenches yourself – and almost unbearably moving.
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
Benny and Byron have been estranged for years until they are reunited at their mother’s funeral. There, they receive an unusual inheritance – a Caribbean black cake, and an audio recording their mother made for them, telling the story of a decades old murder which shatters everything they thought they knew about their family. Will these revelations bring them back together or drive them further apart?
The style of this book took me a little while to get into – it’s told from multiple POVs, and there are frequent shifts in timeline which can be confusing initially. But once I got into the rhythm of it, I could hardly put the novel down. In particular, I found what it had to say about intergenerational trauma – how the slave trade and Windrush migration impacted a single family, for example – fascinating; I was thinking about it for days afterward.
Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst
Mickey Hayward writes for a women’s magazine in New York but after it’s acquired by a large online conglomerate, she soon finds out she’s about to be replaced. Wounded, she writes a detailed letter outlining the racism she’s experienced as a Black woman in the media, expecting it to cause a firestorm. When the letter is met with silence, even from her girlfriend, Mickey flees to the last place on earth she wants to go – her home town.
Mickey is such a compelling main character – complex, messy, impulsive, and brave — and this is a sharp, assured debut
The Selfish Romantic by Michelle Elman
Now that I’m back dating (see here), I decided it was time to give this book a proper read. The subtitle is how to date without feeling bad for yourself, and The Selfish Romantic covers topics like ghosting, text etiquette, and how to take relationships off line. (The holy grail!) I follow Michelle on Instagram and I just like her attitude to life in general; this book is practical, accessible, and helpful.