Review of 'Anatomy of A Scandal' by Sarah Vaughan

I'm now on day 13 of self-isolation in this pandemic (although writing this on 28th March and I'm not sure when I'll be posting) and good lord has the boredom hit. I'm so SO behind on these reviews, and despite my best efforts to blast through as many as possible so far this year, I'm not *actually* sure if I've made any headway on catching up as I've had extra time to do more reading. Anyway, let's hope that during this lockdown I finally manage to get somewhere with catching up - maybe even onto my 2020 reads? Who knows. 

Sophie and James have everything going well for them on the surface: a nice home, beautiful kid, and James has a great job in politics. That is, until he's accused on sexual assault. Sophie knows her husband would never do something like that, and is determined to stand by him throughout his upcoming trial. Kate, the prosecution lawyer for the case on the other hand, is utterly convinced he did it. Set against the backdrop of James and Sophie's privileged time at Oxford, the book is told part by Sophie and part by Kate. Perhaps the two women aren't so different after all.

This book comes with a massive trigger warning for sexual assault and rape. In covering the court case, the book goes over the incident time and time again from different angles using different evidence, as they would in a real court case. It was likely a very accurate insight into what this kind of trial is like, and the repetitive and exhaustive nature of the questioning of the woman really came through. 

Interestingly, the book comes with a disclaimer from the author that James and his Etonian/Oxford cronies are not supposed to be a reflection of any particular UK top level politicians. However, we all know that a large amount of the ones we have and have had in government in recent years have belonged to the same elite clubs as these characters did at university, and bear the same level of privilege.

I've given this four stars - it was an interesting read and I enjoyed it, but it felt like the plot fell a little flat at points for me.

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Review of 'The Rest of the Story' by Sarah Dessen

Sarah Dessen was my favourite author as a teen, and I read this last year before *that* twitter scandal emerged and banged on for WEEKS about how much I loved her as a writer/this book. Anyhow, it was a nice return to a comforting read, which is kind of what I feel we all need at the moment. 

Emma Saylor lives with her dad as a family of two after her mother's death. She's never met her mother's family until this summer: with her dad and grandma unavailable, she needs somewhere to stay. It's only when Emma arrives at North Lake that she discovers she stayed there as a child. Her mother's family came from the working class side of the lake, residents all year around working at the big resort to keep tourists happy, whilst her dad lived around the other side of the lake (and other side of the wealth gap).

Over the summer, Emma learns not only more about her mother than she ever expected, but more about herself. She's reunited with Roo, a boy who remembers her as his best friend when she stayed at North Lake as a child. He holds the key to the mystery that changed the course of her mother's life, and Emma's not sure she wants all the answers.

I've been a fan of all of the books Sarah Dessen has written - there's never just the boy meets girl element to the plot, but always something a little deeper. Her books remind me a little bit of a sort of Jacqueline Wilson for young adults. I loved this coming-of-age, trying to navigate your identity story. Emma doesn't live in a vacuum, and as with most teens there's a LOT of different pressures on her from different people to be a certain type of person, and the book follows this as well as Emma's attempts to really work out who she'd like to be.

I'd recommend this if you're a fan of romance or YA books, especially for a slightly comforting read in these anxiety-ridden times!

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Review of 'Body Positive Power' by Megan Jayne Crabbe

If I could only recommend one book I read last year this would be it every single time. I hope in the near future there's copies of this in all school and public libraries so that there's something at least standing in the way of the flooding of self-hate that teenagers, particularly girls, are encouraged to accept and participate in.

Body Positive Power exceeded all my expectations from the off. Although I follow the author on social media platforms, I was a little prejudiced in thinking this was going to be a bit shallow and fall short of what it could be. However, it was incredibly well-researched; there was SO much I learnt throughout the whole book, and everything was backed up with articles or books the author had read.

The book explores modern diet culture, starting from the roots of how it's come to be what it is over the past few hundred years. Megan Crabbe explores how the whole industry has become so pervasive everywhere, and how information has been taken by the diet industry to suit their own needs. A couple of things that really shocked me (without giving away too much) are these: being underweight kills far more people than being overweight; only 5% of the population can achieve the body goal we've all been told is possible, so no matter how hard you try you are likely to never reach it; BMI was never designed to be a measurement of health for all people.

There are trigger warnings throughout, so if you are struggling with an eating disorder, or don't feel comfortable with certain things, Megan's added in handy 'stop here' and 'start again here' signs, so you can skip over any potential triggers without having to scan the page to see where you can pick up again.

As I said, I thought this book was incredible and I'll be lending it to as many people I know as will agree to read it!

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Review of 'The Woman in Black' by Susan Hill

I'm not a fan of anything 'scary'. No thank you horror films. I still remember when I was at school and the drama kids went on a trip to see The Woman in Black in the theatre and spoke about how terrifying it was. Everyone else was gutted they couldn't go on the trip but I was pretty glad I didn't have to watch something that would make me scream. Anyway, I've found the prettiest little copy of the book and after finally going to see it in the theatre last year I can confirm I would/did scream and also have nightmares. Such fun.

Arthur Kipps is an old man now, and can hardly bear to hear his grandchildren tell ghost stories. When they finally badger him into telling them one, he launches into his tale of the woman in black, a tale that wasn't just a story for him.

When Kipps is a young man, he is asked to secure the estate of Alice Drablow by his boss, and arrange her affairs after her recent death. He travels to her home unaware of what awaits him. The townspeople avoid the house, and warn him to look after himself. The more time he spends there the more he feels as though he's not alone, and after he asks around as to who the woman in a black dress that he sees wandering around is, he realises that he's the only one who sees her.

This book was honestly frightening. Susan Hill is incredible at creating a terrifying atmosphere that builds and builds as the novel grows more tense. There's some twists and turns in it that I absolutely did not see coming, and I finished the book fully shocked. I can see this as something I'll come back to over and over again in coming years as it was such a good quick read that's different to what I would normally go for. I've given this 4 stars.

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Review of 'Reading in the Dark' by Seamus Deane

Despite its geographical proximity, I really haven't read much literature from Ireland, and I don't know too much about it either. I did the whole Seamus Heaney poetry thing as part of my English a-level, but I've rarely stretched out beyond that. 

Set in Derry, Reading in the Dark is a coming of age story, stretching from the main character's boyhood in the 1940s up to the 70s. With a background of The Troubles, the book dips into a lot of Irish folklore and the need for small town gossip. The reader starts the book innocent of any knowledge of the boy's family history, as the boy does himself, but as the book progresses the darkness and violence of the past leaps out in suspicions and confidences told to the boy by his family.

Following an unnamed main character makes you a little distanced from the story in my opinion, but it almost serves as a reminder that this could be any Derry child growing up in the Troubles. At the heart of the novel is religious and familial divide. It opens up to the reader how fraught these times were, and how knowledge is not always a good thing. 

There have been suggestions that the book is too similar to Seamus Deane's own upbringing and early life for it to be anything more than a memoir. Whether there's any truth to this or not, I enjoyed the book in its relative simplicity. We followed a boy starting (and struggling) to understand the world in which he lived, his loss of innocence and introduction to politics. It's a good read if you want a fairly simple insight to life as a child during the Troubles, and I enjoyed it although I didn't find it very gripping. I've given this 3 stars.

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Review of 'Th1rt3en' by Steve Cavanagh

I'm always a 'you have to read a series in order' kind of person ... unless it's crime fiction. Then I don't think it matters at all because they all have kind of a similar plot and the lives of the investigators fall into a secondary plot behind the main 'whodunnit' one. 

Th1rt3en was my favourite thriller of 2019. It's told from two perspectives. The first is Eddie Flynn's: a con-man turned lawyer trying to prove his client's innocence. The second is the killer who really has committed the crime the trial is based around. The problem is that he's on the jury. The trial is a high profile one: Hollywood's biggest couple are at the centre of it, with the husband accused of brutally murdering his wife. It's down to Flynn to convince the public that the conspiracy theories they've created and want to hold onto might not be true.

The book really keeps you guessing as to which juror the murderer is, how exactly he got there and whether Flynn will realise that his case is being sabotaged from the inside out. It delves into Flynn's own history of alcoholism, crime and personal struggles with certain people in the justice system. The plot came together so well at the end and I found myself totally absorbed the whole way through the book. The twists were well-written, well-paced and believable. I now can't wait to read Steve Cavanagh's other books!

I've given this book 5 stars and would recommend it if you're a fan of shows like The Mentalist or White Collar. 

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Review of 'Love in the Time of Cholera' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I had a hard time picking my favourite quote for this one, but I had to go with the opening sentence of the book. It made me realise from the very first moment that this book was special, and as it progressed I realised it's the most poetic prose I've ever read.

Love in the Time of Cholera is one of those books people have recommended to me over and over again, but I've always put off. Written almost twenty years after the author's One Hundred Years of Solitude, and hailed as another great classic, this is a tale of great unrequited love. Fermina Daza and her husband Juvenal Urbino have reached a platonic stage of their relationship in their old age. When he dies after falling off of a ladder at the start of the book, her childhood lover Florentino Ariza turns up at her house at the wake. 

The book then launches into the tale of this love that never quite came to be, right from the very start of their relationship. The book explores class divides and struggle in a country in South America, most likely Colombia although this is never stated explicitly. Their love can never be as Ariza is a poor man, trying to earn his way in the world but not proving very successful, whilst Fermina's father wants her to marry into an old noble family to better their social standing.

I loved this book. The author put a lot of emphasis into sensory descriptions of scenes, making them so vivid that you felt almost as though you were right there with the characters. I enjoyed the non-traditional love story narrative, and the different perspective you have in knowing from the start that the young lovers aren't going to end up together. It's a book about love in all its forms: physical, conversational, platonic, familial, sexual and even predatory.

I would really recommend this, especially if you're looking to engage more with South American literature.

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