Review of 'Harry Potter and the Cursed child playscript' by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne

I spent the longest time deliberating over whether I actually wanted to read this if I'm honest. There was the moral dilemma of reading something that undoubtedly gives money to J K Rowling (it's not written by her, no matter how large the publishers write her name on the cover to dupe people into thinking it is), as well as all the warnings I'd had about the fact that it ruins your childhood memories of the books. 

Thankfully I find a charity shop copy (ticking off point one), and I re-read the books about a year ago and realised how actually not-so-great Ron and Dumbledore are (ticking off point two).

'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' takes place where the epilogue for HP and the Deathly Hallows leaves off, i.e. with Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, their pals and Draco all saying goodbye to their children as they board the Hogwarts Express. 

Albus, Harry's son, is sorted into Slytherin when he arrives, becoming the first Potter to do so, and soon becomes unlikely friends with Scorpius (Malfoy's son). Harry's scar starts to hurt and, fearing that Voldemort is back, insists that the boys are kept apart. Albus and his relationship is on the rocks, and when Albus hears Amos Diggory (Cedrig's dad) asking Harry to use the Ministry's Time Turner to save his child, Albus decides fixing this is the way into everyone's good books.

Albus and Scorpius decide to go back to the Triwizard tournament challenges to ensure that Cedric does not touch the portkey trophy, but everything goes horrifyingly wrong. Scorpius in launched back into a world where Voldemort never died, meaning that Albus wasn't born. The pair end up back further in time under threat by 'Delphi Diggory' who turns out to be someone they never thought existed. It's down to them to make sure that the events at Godric Hollow follow the same route as they did way back when Harry was a baby.

I genuinely really enjoyed this, despite all of the warnings I was given. It was a chance to explore the magical world of Harry Potter further, and I'd love to have the opportunity to see the stage show one day. Having said that, I didn't like all of the characters' trajectories from when they left Hogwarts (although there's always going to be some of us that don't like whatever gets put out). I would have LOVED to see a relationship between Albus and Scorpius, and I can see why so many people have shipped them as being a sort of couple in the book. I'm waiting for the day when J K Rowling comes out and says that they are definitely 100% gay because at least it'll be more believable than Dumbledore *sips tea*.

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Review of 'Mrs Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf

I've been meaning to read some Virginia Woolf for the longest time, and whilst a number of her books line my shelves I've always been way too intimidated (and kinda scared of disappointment) to pick one up until now. 

Much like Ian McEwan's Saturday, (though a LOT better in my opinion), Mrs Dalloway takes place over the course of a singular day. Clarissa Dalloway, our main character, is planning a house party and wanders around preparing things for it, reminiscing over her youth. She considers her choice to wed the 'safe option' rather than pursue a relationship with the slightly wild (and more sexy) Peter Walsh. The novel culminates in the party, at which a friend's suicide is announced, and Clarissa wonders if he made a better decision than the one she took to stay alive.

Laying out the plot like that, it all seems a little dull, but for a novel of its time (published in 1925, the same year as The Great Gatsby), it really is something. One of the most shocking bits for me was the hint at Clarissa's bisexuality. As well as mentioning that Peter Walsh was an option to her, she looks back fondly on a kiss with Sally Seton, who she declared as being obviously not an option. The kiss was the happiest moment in her life. I've tried to rack my brains and I can't think of another book that I've come across older than this where a more-than-friends relationship between women is mentioned without it being used in a 'God will smite you' manner. 

The other issue discussed is shell shock and the PTSD surrounding that. Not only is this explored in some depth, but it's done in a caring way. It actually shed a whole lot of light for me on the impact of 'shell shock' and what those words actually mean. The book discusses how hard it is to integrate with society post-war.

I really can see why a lot of people love Woolf and I feel like reading this might just be the start of a full on love affair with her work. If you've got a favourite novel of hers please pass on recommendations!

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Review of 'Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl' by Tracy Quan

Today is a day for endless cups of tea because wow the need for caffeine is real. But, I'm here and still catching up on 2018 reads, edging closer and closer to finally being able to review things straight after I finish them (the idea at this point seems absolutely unattainable, but it'll happen). 

The life of a call girl in literature is, in my opinion, explored in a way that's both not very thorough and also, probably not very accurate. Call girls tend to be used as a foil to highlight certain aspects of someone else's character (e.g. making us realise a guy is a cheat on his wife), or they turn up as a murder victim. But there aren't many occasions where the main character in a book is a call girl, or at least, I haven't come across it very often.

Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl is written by Tracy Quan, an ex-call girl turned novelist, who uses her experiences to really tackle stereotypes around sex work. The main character of the book, Nancy Chan, is a prostitute who largely has sex with older gentlemen. She's reached a stage in her career where things are a little easier money-wise, but as she's getting older she's starting to face the idea of a future away from sex work. There's one other driving force for this: her fiancee Matt who has no idea what her real job is.

I found it pretty hard to engage with this book, and from the reviews I've read of it, it seems as though a lot of other people feel the same. The language is quite cold and distant, where it would work so well as a book filled with emotion. The stories she tells offer an interesting insight into life as a call girl, but don't delve into her feelings about it. 

A good portion of the book is based around her lying to her fiancee about what she does, and it's not told in a way that's justified: the protagonist knows that what she's doing is wrong, but she's stringing this poor guy along leading a double life. The ending is also very abrupt: we never find out what happens with her deciding whether or not to tell him, and it all just tails off randomly.

I'm giving this three stars because it did offer an interesting insight into life as a call girl, told by someone who knows what she's talking about, but the whole idea of a plot or any kind of narrative flow seems to have been a bit lost along the way.

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Review of 'Spark' by Alice Broadway

A few months ago I plunged into Ink, the first in a soon-to-be trilogy by Alice Broadway. As soon as I finished it, I downloaded Spark to my kindle because THE ENDING. I needed to find out what happened asap.

Review of 'The One We Fell in Love With' by Paige Toon

I've said it before, but I'll say it again now, chick lit is my guilty pleasure. It was something that I gave up reading entirely when I was studying English at uni because wow the judgement would have been extreme, but as soon as I finished my degree it's all I read for months.

Now it's something that I love to dip in and out of. There's something so comforting about the format of it, where you know things will (99% of the time) end up right in the end, and sometimes I really need that rose-tinted look into the world. 

The One we fell in love with is Angus, the classic boy-next-door who moves in to the house next to three identical 17-year-old triplets. Who are stereotypically beautiful: slim, blonde haired, and green-eyed. What a day for him! 

However, although the triplets may look the same, they're all so very different, and problems really start for their hormone-filled teen years when all three of them fall in love with him. The book starts when Phoebe (the most conventionally attractive of the three, personality-wise) is about to get married to Angus. She saw him first, and that was that. 

The book explores how loving the same person changes the relationships between the sisters, and what happens when the adult sisters find each others' diaries ... 

I really didn't like the whole premise of the book if I'm honest, and I think it feels fairly clear to the reader that the author is churning out a book every year. The idea that three sisters with very different personalities could all fall in love with the same guy just completely turned me off from the book because 1.) would that really ever happen? and 2.) you wouldn't just allow the first one he met to have 'dibs' on him. The whole book is based around this idea that Angus met Phoebe first and ended up with her (when they weren't the best match) and not one of the other two because of that, and I just? Is that really how things happen? Did no one step in to tell him he had the wrong girl?

I will say that the writing was good and the novel got better as it went along, and there were some parts I genuinely enjoyed. It was also a nice quick read, so it's not something I regret reading, and I'll be trying another one of the author's books to see if this just had a bit of a strange premise, as it's what really put me off!

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Review of 'Everything I Never Told You'

Do you ever read a book that makes you think you'll want to come back to it later in life? I think that's kind of what good literature is about. Everything I Never Told You makes me feel like this. It's something that if I revisited in five years, or ten years, or as a mother, or just after losing someone dear me to, I'd read in a whole new light.

Everything I Never Told You tells the tragic tale of Lydia Lee, a Chinese-American teen living in 1970s Ohio. That is, until she turns up dead in the lake near the house. The police are leaning to ruling it as a suicide, but being an A grade student with a healthy home life and a group of friends around her, Lydia's parents quite can't believe this. 

As the book progresses, the story is told from all five members of the household: Lydia's parents, Marilyn and James, her brother Nate, younger sister and Lydia herself. We begin to see that maybe Lydia's life isn't as perfect as first thought, but no one in the family thinks that she'd end her life. Even Nate, who knows all about their troubled childhood (he lived it after all), the lies she's been telling about having friends, and her hanging out with the troublesome boy living down the road, doesn't believe it. 

The book shines a harsh light on racism, exploring how it can be internalised and passed down from parent to child. It discusses mental health issues in teens, and how they can be concealed even from those closest to you. These topics are SO important, especially as I don't find myself coming across them in adult fiction as much as I do with YA. I'd recommend this to anyone as it's an incredible piece of general adult fiction with strong writing, and an even stronger message. This does come with a trigger warning that there is discussion of suicide.

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Review of "Apple Tree Yard" by Louise Doughty

I went through a tough spate of reading not-so-great books in Autumn, and upsettingly this falls into that bracket. I'd not come across Apple Tree Yard before it was next in line for my book club read, and I had to pick it up. There's a BBC series on it that I'm pretty sure I won't watch, *but* I have heard good things about. 

Apple Tree Yard is a hybrid between a crime fiction novel and general adult fiction. Yvonne Carmichael, our protagonist, has a love-filled but uneventful marriage. Her kids are grown up and she's never quite reached the peaks that she imagines in her career as a scientific researcher. Everything plods along until she meets a stranger, and begins an affair with him. Yvonne doesn't know who he is: she doesn't even know his name, but she suspects that he may be covert for a secret (government agency) reason.

As the novel progresses, Yvonne's life is split in two: her peaceful home life, and the one she's really interested in. When her two worlds collide in a tragic way at a party for scientific researchers, Yvonne's life becomes harder and harder to control. All along, we know that the present Yvonne is on trial in the docks, but the author keeps you guessing right up until the end to show you what for.

This novel comes with a big trigger warning for rape/sexual assault. The scene that contains it is very graphic, and the aftermath of the character deciding whether or not to report the rape can also be triggering. 

The novel started off, and continued, very slowly. I'm not sure if it was a lot shorter originally, and had been padded out as the author made edits, but it really did drag in my opinion. However, all the layers of description and backstory probably made it a pretty good choice for a TV series.

The rape and aftermath were probably the strongest part of the book. It really looked into why someone might not report a rape, what kind of things you might bring into question surrounding it, and how hard it is to recover from sexual assault. Although it would have been less upsetting if the scene had been described less viscerally, it does highlight how horrifying it can be, and strips away the suggestion that it's always a woman's fault.

I really wanted to enjoy this, and there were parts that made it an interesting book. I'll be giving it 3 stars because it was thought-provoking, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

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