Review of 'Cousin Henry' by Anthony Trollope

I love it when I'm expecting a book to be a bit rubbish, but then I end up totally into it. Cousin Henry, originally published in 1879, looked completely dry. The jacket was dull, the title is dull, and the opening wasn't exciting either. BUT, I powered through and it ended up being a very insightful look into the idea of primogeniture and why it's flawed.

Isabel Brodrick had been living with her elderly uncle Squire Indefer Jones. After the death of her mother, Isabel found herself an unwelcome extra mouth to feed in the household of her father and step-mother, but since living with her uncle, she felt nothing but loved. 

As he grew older and more unwell, the squire knew that he needed to solidify his will. But there was one key problem. A man of tradition, Indefer Jones wanted to pass his estate down to the next male successor in his line, and keep it under the Jones name. However, he also loved his niece as a daughter, and knew deep down that it was right to give it to her. Indefer made a series of wills, changing his mind in each one. At the point of his death, it appears as though Indefer's left everything to Henry, but two of the men living on the land swear they were witnesses at the signing of a more recent will, leaving everything to Isabelle.

The main problem is that Indefer's heir is Cousin Henry. And he's a bit of a prick. Henry cares for himself and himself alone. He's a shit landlord, he's an awful master to the servants in the house, and he didn't even care about his late uncle. Isabel embodies everything that Henry's not. She would make an excellent landlord with her knowledge of the land and good business head.

This book challenges gender norms and the way society was constructed way back in the late 1800s, which is just incredible. Readers are shown that 'what if' that surrounds the idea of what would happen if you passed your land down to a shoddy heir. Isabelle is a strong woman, who is treated wrongly at every turn and holds her own. Emotionally abused by her stepmother, ignored by her father, wrongly disinherited by her cousin, she still refuses to agree to marry the man she loves because she wants to be independent before she does so. 

If you want to read a classic that challenges some of the norms that Dickens and Austen would normally gloss over, then this is a great one to go for!

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Review of 'No Filter' by Grace Victory

This year so far I've read more semi-autobiographical/non-fiction/self-help books than I have done in the rest of my life put together, and I'm kind of digging it. I've always found mental health based books a bit too tricky to handle: often they go in too deep, making them triggering, and then they 'resolve' it by telling you how to fix things (which never actually works).

I knew from the offset that Grace's book wouldn't be one of those. Grace Victory is a blogger and Youtuber from the UK who absolutely spends her time lifting people up. She's endlessly supporting the body positivity movement, crying out against racism, and genuinely making the world a better place. The idea of buying a Youtuber's autobiography had never appealed to me until Grace brought one out, because I knew it'd be different.

No Filter is a mixture between a look back on Grace's younger years and her growth from them, as well as an amazing resource for all kinds of issues. Grace tackles domestic abuse, PTSD, sexual abuse, self harm, depression, anxiety, loneliness, body image and just about everything a teenage girl could deal with. And not only does she talk about them in a non-judgemental way, she offers a whole variety of different websites you can get help from, phone numbers you can call and places to find information about what you're struggling with. There's no 'one size fits all' approach; as someone who's struggled in the past, Grace has clearly thought about the contents of this in a lot of detail and really considered all the different ways in which people might need to be helped.

I really think the consideration that she's put into this book is what makes it a winner. It's clear that Grace has put her absolute heart and soul into this book without making it a thing that's just nice for her to reflect on. She's hit the nail on the head with finding the thin line between giving details about your issues, and triggering people, or allowing them to go away with ideas about ways they can self-sabotage. And this isn't something that comes easy: so much care has been put into it, and this is why I think it's an incredible read.

This is a must-read for teen girls, and those in their early twenties, especially if you're going through a bit of a rough patch!

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Review of 'Dadland' by Keggie Carew

There are definitely a few set criteria that I judge a book on: its cover needs to appeal to me, the font needs to be a good size (12 Times New Roman is my dream) and the title has to intrigue me. Dadland was a book club pick at work, and it didn't fit any of my criteria, but I was determined to give it a go anyway. As it turns out, I should stick to my three-step book choosing plan ...

Dadland is written by the daughter of Tom Carew, an ex-special forces soldier in the UK suffering from dementia. As Tom loses more and more of the memories of his life, Keggie is determined to bring them to the surface. Tom was a guerilla soldier parachuted into France, and later Burma, in the second world war. Keggie narrates the stories of his bold encounters in France, interspersed with mind-blowing statistics. This was my favourite part of the book, but from then on it really went downhill.

As Keggie reflected on her dad's early life, she also described him as a father. Here's where the problems started for me: Keggie adores her father, and it's easy to see in the book. She looks up to him, she cares for him, she views him as a hero. Yet, he was a terrible father. She narrates the story in such a way that we blame her mentally ill mother for his affair, and we blame the war for his inability to spare one kind thought for anyone but himself. It's when you take a step back from this biography that you begin to see that everything has a severe bias.

The majority of the 'action' of the novel takes place in Burma, and here's where things started to drag. Each of the main characters here has multiple names that get used interchangeably and it makes this a book that you can't just leave and pick straight up again; you need to work to keep staying interested and sure of what's going on. 

All in all, I was SO hopeful when I started reading this, as the first couple of hundred pages were very strong, but it definitely tailed off as you got further through the book.

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Review of 'The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling' by Henry Fielding

Whenever I pick up a physical book, and it looks a little *too* long, I always check the font to see if it's a full on tome. But I never check when I'm downloading books to my kindle, which is how this happened. The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling is a full on 900-odd page doorstop that took me three months to get through on my kindle, but was still an interesting read for sure.

One of the earliest English novels, Tom Jones was published in 1749. It's a bildungsroman, which means that it follows the story of someone's growth from childhood to adulthood, and even death. Tom Jones was abandoned as a baby on the bed of Squire Allworthy, who took him in out of the goodness of his heart. Allworthy's sister Bridget begs him to take on the baby, as she knows it will struggle to survive outside of this family. Filled with jealousy as they're brought up together, Bridget's son Master Blifil begins to accuse Tom of crimes he's innocent of. Eventually succumbing to the deception, Squire Allworthy turfs Tom out of his home, devastated that the teen would do what he believes he's done.

And here's where it gets a bit comical, in the same strain as a bawdy Shakespeare play. Tom sleeps around, getting into mishaps and hiding under beds. He lives a sexually debauched life, but maintains his moral compass in all other areas. Eventually all the threads of the story come together in a happy ending (my fave tbh).

Although it took a whole lotta time to get through, I did enjoy this. It really did remind me of a tongue-in-cheek Renaissance play, but the action was extended over 900 pages (help), rather than 5 Acts. Tom was a bit of a trope, a man that loves getting drunk and falling into trouble with the ladies, but is 'actually really good on the inside'. Master Blifil is a great wicked character who stirs the point and twists perspectives at every moment.

The ending genuinely had me shocked, and tied up every loose end which I LOVED. I didn't expect to have had the wool pulled over my eyes in this plot, and it was genuinely a great way to finish things off.

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