Review of 'The Collaborator' by Mirza Waheed

 

There's so much history from around the world that I'm entirely clueless about, and the tensions in the 1990s at the India-Pakistan border definitely fall into that category. I love to read books that teach me something about history, and this really did, though I could do with a bit of a deep dive into exactly what created the tensions and how they were played out more broadly.

The Collaborator is set in Kashmir, along the India-Pakistan border. Our main character is a teen who is working with the Indian army who occupy Kashmir. He navigates the wasteland of the landscape he grew up in, collecting what possessions he can from the bodies that litter it, and hating both himself and his boss as he does so. His closest school friends have crossed the border to train as freedom fighters, and he struggles to know why they excluded him from this plan, and whether they've done the right thing.

The author tells the story of what happened to the people of Kashmir in devastating prose. The reader sees the impact of the conflict and occupation first on the militants who are fighting the occupation and lie dead, but then through the eyes of a mother watching her son be taken away, the women who have been raped and cannot feed their children as their food has been seized, the communities of elders who are disrespected and abused. It's a tough read, but a necessary one to help understand this part of history.

I found the book very emotive and well written. It takes you through the loss of innocence both of a teenage boy and an entire village; both are forced to engage in and watch military brutality. I found the book a little slow at times, which is why I gave it 4 stars, but the images of the landscape that the narrator had to deal with feel like something that will stick with me for a long time.

Follow me on Bloglovin | Twitter | Instagram

Review of 'If You Could See Me Now' by Cecelia Ahern

 

I've heard so many good things about Cecelia Ahern's books that it's almost shameful how long it's taken me to get around to reading my first one. I always assumed they were pretty straightforward standard romance books, so was pleasantly surprised by the magical realism in the book.

Ivan's job is to act as an imaginary friend (not that he's a fan of the word) to a child who needs him. When he ends up living with Luke and Luke's auntie Elizabeth, he can't quite work out what Luke really needs him for. Sure, he's a little lonely, but he's generally a happy kid. 

Elizabeth never intended on becoming a mother, but when her sister Saoirse left, she had no choice but to look after Luke. When she notices him talking to an imaginary friend, she finds this more stressful than almost any of his other childlike antics. However, when she sees Ivan herself she's more disturbed that Luke's befriended an adult man. Ivan is equally horrified by the turn of events: no adult has ever seen him before, so what should he do now?

I genuinely enjoyed this a lot more than I anticipated. At the start I struggled to get into the book because I found the characters quite unlikable: Ivan is tied to his job and Elizabeth is a completely pent up and quite mean aunt for a boy just trying to have fun. However, the character growth in this book is strong, and I loved seeing Elizabeth grow as a person as her relationship with Ivan grew. 

This book also totally made me cry (a definite marker that I enjoyed things). I got so wrapped up in the romance that I started to ignore all the warning signs throughout the book, clinging on to the hope of a happy ending. I found it really easy to suspend my belief in facts etc for this and totally immerse myself in the magic of the book, and would recommend for fans of Jenny Colgan or Paige Toon.

Follow me on Bloglovin | Twitter | Instagram

Review of 'The Existence of Amy' by Lana Grace Riva

 

I'm always a little skeptical when it comes to self-published books because, from experience, they often aren't as tightly edited as one that's been traditionally published. However, after seeing a few good reviews of this from people whose opinion I trust, I was quite excited to see what it was like.

The Existence of Amy is about a woman struggling with OCD. It'd gotten to a point where it's affecting her work life, friendships and romantic life. Amy's finding more and more tasks that she used to be able to do seem harder and harder. When her work proposes a trip to Australia, she's terrified, but there's no easy way to say no. On the trip, Amy's boundaries are pushed more than she can cope with, and she starts to find things even more difficult when she returns home. 

The book was a really great representation of someone struggling with OCD. It broke down stereotypes around this illness and there wasn't an easy 'ending' to it: Amy didn't suddenly fall in love and her issues vanished away. I think that the book could have benefited from some tighter editing as there were a few bits that dragged a little, but I feel like it was an important read in highlighting particularly how a mental illness like OCD can impact your relationships with other people. There's a lot of work that needs to be done generally about stigma around OCD and this book does a really great job of showing how it could feel to struggle with it, in an understandable way for readers.

If you enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, then I would recommend this. I gave it four stars.

Follow me on Bloglovin | Twitter | Instagram

Review of 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding

 

Lord of the Flies was one of the first books I remember studying at school in English and really enjoying. It was dark and confusing, and the imagery of the conch/democracy and descent into savagery was something I really could grasp.

I found a really pretty copy of the book in a charity shop last year and thought now was as good as time as any to go in for a re-read. It'd been long enough that I remembered the general gist of the book, but couldn't really remember any of the details.

Lord of the Flies is about a group of school boys who end up trapped on a deserted island after the plane they're travelling on crashes. They soon realise no adults have survived and they need to defend for themselves. Piggy, a small boy who wears glasses, decides that they need to use a conch to demarcate who is speaking and in charge to have some kind of order. However, his efforts to organise are soon thwarted by Jack and Ralph: both boys want to lead the group, and both want to do it very differently. Things go rapidly downhill as the boys descend into savagery, spurred on by the idea of a Beast living on the island.

I loved this book re-reading it as an adult, but it definitely seemed very different to how I remembered. For starters there was a LOT of mentions of little boys just wandering around pooping too much because of all the berries they ate? But also the boys seemed more savage than I ever remembered. Things move really quickly in the novel, and I found myself genuinely horrified when *spoiler alert* they kill Simon. It was one of the most brutal things I've read in a long time, and between this and the quite sexual killing of the pig, the whole book was a clear, dark path into the loss of innocence.

I gave this three stars because whilst I thought it was an interesting read, it didn't really grip me that much and I found myself having to force myself a bit to read it.

Follow me on Bloglovin | Twitter | Instagram

Review of 'The Confessions of Frannie Langton' by Sara Collins

 

This is one of those books that I've seen all over Instagram and Twitter for months. I read it as part of a book club and I really wanted to love it. But it just wasn't for me. The plot was great, but I just couldn't get on board with the writing or writing style. It really dragged for me, despite having an interesting plot and I kept wanting things to move more quickly.

We start off knowing that Frannie Langton is accused of killing the mistress and master who own the house that she's a servant in. Frannie takes us back to her roots, showing the reader her growing up as a slave in Jamaica, and eventually ending up in England, sold by her old master as a servant in a new country.

The book is an interesting one as I said, and I would recommend it to fans of modern gothic novels. It's dark and filled with all the tropes of classic gothic novels: forlorn landscapes, terrifying science, women who step out of the place of what they 'should' be doing, mental health and illness etc. The book also has a queer romance in it, which was one of the things I did enjoy. It moved beyond what you would expect of a book set in the early-mid 1800s, showing a more realistic view of life perhaps than ones you would normally come across in books.

I gave this 2 stars because I really found myself having to force myself to keep coming back to the book because of the writing style. I do think that's an issue with me more than the book, however as I said, I did enjoy the story.

Follow me on Bloglovin | Twitter | Instagram

Review of 'Where the Crawdads Sing' by Delia Owens

 

I'm going to preface this whole post by saying that any of the hype you've seen around this book should be believed. I was a bit skeptical at first because I wasn't sure if the pace would be too slow for me, but I adored this. It's only been a couple of months since I read it, but I can almost feel myself reaching for a re-read already, and I know it's going to be a book I'll keep forever (which really I rarely do). 

Where the Crawdads Sing is set in marshland on the North Carolina coast. Kya Clark's mum and siblings have left her one by one so she lives alone with her drunken, abusive father. When he stops showing up with food, she learns to live off the land, making small amounts of money to keep her going. After trying school for one day, Kya knows that school's not really going to be for her, however she starts collecting and learning about feathers, eggs and all kinds of bits of nature. Eventually Kya meets two boys from the local town who both pursue her as a girlfriend or lover, for different reasons. Kya's forced to grow up suddenly and learn more about the world that has abandoned her. 

Running through the narrative on a different timeline is a murder mystery: someone has been found dead in the marsh, and detectives are trying to work out who and whether the strange marsh girl was involved.

I can honestly say this is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I was torn between wanting to tear through it as quickly as possible and wanting to savour every word. I'm a sucker for some good world building and descriptions and it's something that Delia Owens does so well in this book. It really does feel like you're there at the marsh with Kya. I could say so so much about why I loved this book, but I mostly feel like this is something that will be on English lit courses in the future. It reminds me a bit of The Colour Purple or To Kill a Mockingbird. I obviously gave this 5 stars.

Follow me on Bloglovin | Twitter | Instagram

Review of 'A Feast for Crows' by George R R Martin

 

Yep, I'm still on my quest to read the whole Game of Thrones series. I have to say that this one is probably my least favourite so far, though I still really enjoyed it. This book is where things split off in terms of character perspectives. We follow Cersei, Jame, Brienne, Samwell, Sansa, Arya and a number of minor characters, losing the perspectives of all of the other characters. The timelines for this and A Dance with Dragons are near parallel, and as the series isn't finished yet (come on George!), at the end of this book we're almost up to the end of the timeline in the series so far.

Obviously A Feast for Crows is a massive tome like all of the other books in the series, coming in at over 800 pages so I'm going to try to keep this brief. Arya and Sansa are now further apart than ever: Arya's in Braavos learning how to serve the Faceless God and Sansa's in the Eyrie with Littlefinger. Things are getting more dramatic on the wall, and Samwell Tarly is set on a journey to save a baby from Stannis Baratheon's bloodshed. Brienne of Tarth has set out to find Sansa for Jaime. Cersei's battling against Margaery Tyrell's power over her son and need to be Queen regent in his stead. 

It feels like there's a lot of world building going on in this book. I kept feeling as though things were on the cusp of breaking out into something more dramatic, and I'm looking forward to seeing the perspectives of the missing character viewpoints in the next two books. I really enjoyed Arya's character progression in this book, as well as Brienne of Tarth's. These were the story lines that kept me intrigued and kept we wanting to pick the book back up when I put it down.

I gave this 4/5 stars

Follow me on Bloglovin | Twitter | Instagram

Review of 'Strangers' by C L Taylor

 

After reading The Missing earlier this year, I was really hoping that the predictability of 'whodunnit' in C. L. Taylor's books was a one-off, but I'm not so sure any more? I enjoyed the writing of both books, and pretty much cast off the culprit as being way too obvious, so there was still a little bit of suspense, but I can't help feeling disappointed with it.

Strangers is told from the viewpoints of three different characters. Ursula's got a kleptomaniac habit that gets her kicked out of her flatshare, so she's looking for a new place to live. Gareth's trying to look after his mum who has been receiving mysterious postcards that she can't remember because of her dementia. Alice is on the lookout for a new man, but worries she's being stalked. The three characters' lives intersect in ways you wouldn't expect. At the same time, a number of men are being killed in their town, and each main character wonders what's happening.

I really did enjoy most of the book. I liked the different perspectives and I think they were written well. It just all sort of went downhill for me at the end - I felt that some of the conclusions to the questions you'd been asking were a bit of a cop out, and the main conclusion just fell a bit flat for me. However, if you enjoyed C L Taylor's other books, I think you'd like this. 

I gave this three stars

Follow me on Bloglovin | Twitter | Instagram