Review of 'Holding up the Universe' by Jennifer Niven

After I fell in love with All The Bright Places earlier this year, I wanted to devour everything Jennifer Niven's ever written. Which, aside from some books aimed at a much younger audience than me, basically equates to just this book. I first bought this after seeing it recommended for one of the Zoella Autumn book clubs (what even happened to those?!), and it sat on my shelf unloved for a couple of years.

Libby Strout is known as 'America's fattest teen'. Dealing with her mum's death, Libby gained a lot of weight, forcing her to become housebound. Now however, she's able to go back to school after shedding some of it. She's filled with nerves about the prejudice surrounding her size that she knows other students will have, but she's determined.

Jack Masselin on the other hand looks like he has everything made for him: popular, good looking, and dating the hottest girl in the school. On the inside however, things are crumbling. Jack's suffering from a neurological condition that he's determined to keep a secret from everyone which causes him to be unable to recognise faces. He finds ways to remember who is who (their voice, or things like memorising hair colour etc), and pretty much everyone is duped. 

When one of the cruel tricks Jack's friends have been playing on Libby doesn't quite go to plan, Libby and Jack end up having to do counselling and volunteering together. The pair realise that not everything is the way it looks on the outside, and they might have more in common than they think.

I really enjoyed this book. It's possibly the first YA fiction I've read that has a female main character who is fat, and who isn't used as part of a joke in any way. She's not the best friend of someone with a love interest, or the younger sister, or the butt of the joke, or someone whose femininity has been stripped away. It's shocking and really sad that I can't think of a single book I read as an actual young adult that had a character like Libby in it, and I'm glad that this book is out there.

Niven also deals with mental health and neurological illness in a very profound way in the book. I think it's well with mentioning that she did a lot of research into Jack's illness, and had the book read through by someone who suffers with the same thing before it was published. The narrative looks at how both teens struggle with their mental health, and how this manifests itself in different ways, including panic attacks and anxiety. 

My one gripe is that it follows my least favourite trope of 'popular guy will turn his back on friends and popularity to date unpopular girl' that pervades so much YA fiction. It's such a lovely idea, but teens are selfish and scared of being rejected and outcast (which is totally okay - teenage years are rough), and it just really doesn't happen. Maybe I'm being cynical, but I really think there's an element of wishful thinking in this whole idea.

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Review of 'Wonder' by R. J. Palacio

In a world that seems to be more and more governed by bullying (whether that's nasty names at school, abuse on social media, or the increasing targeted harassment of minorities), it feels as though we can't make a big enough of a deal about the impact that your words and actions can have. Wonder is a YA novel with teen bullying at its heart, and it's a book that really makes you what kind of a person you were ~ or are ~ at school, and the effect that has on other people.

Wonder is a book about a ten year old boy with a facial disfigurement. He's been home-schooled all his life as his parents are fearful of how he'll feel if other people are nasty to him. However, when he reaches middle school age, they (somewhat reluctantly) agree to send him to a proper school. The headmaster grants him a chaperone, who August (the boy) soon finds out is being nasty about him behind his back. 

The book tells the story of what it's like to be a kid struggling with your own identity, as well as people's reactions to it. August is a boy with a lot of issues going on at home, and the book highlights how the bullying intersects with this and exacerbates everything. It looks at the benefits of real friendship, and showing August making friends for the first time in his life really is written very well.

My one main gripe with the book is that it weirdly sexualises one of the main characters who's a ten year old girl. It made me sit back with a bit of a 'yikes' and has totally decreased my star rating for the book as a whole. I think there were times at which the author was trying to make such complex characters, and include an edge of romance in this that they started to come across as teens rather than children. It would have been a five star read if not for this, but it just didn't sit right with me. 

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Review of 'Brighton Rock' by Graham Greene

I never thought I'd be saying I enjoyed a Graham Greene book. After being forced to read a truly bleak passage from one of his books during my a-level English studies I was convinced I'd never read anything from this dreary author again if I could help it.

And then I gave him another go, and it turns out I must have had to read a really rubbish part of his writing because I was hooked from the very first line of Brighton Rock. As it turns out, I'm a fan and I now want to read all his other works.

The book takes place in Brighton, but imagine less of the fun vibe, and more of a rainy murderous one. Charles 'Fred' Hale is a journalist come to Brighton to hand out newspaper cards as part of a competition. Having previously written an article that resulted in the leader of a local mob's death however, Hale begins to realise he's unsafe. 

On the other side of the tracks we have Pinkie, the new teenage leader of the gang. Desperate to prove that he's not just a kid, and to keep the mob in control, he becomes ever more dangerous as the book progresses.

And completing our circle of three, we have Ida Arnold, who met Fred on the day he was killed, and who's the only one determined to track down his killer, or even to find out what happened to him at all. 

This murder thriller had me gripped and felt like the ultimate Bugsy Malone style mob fiction. Greene managed to make the whole book so cleverly vivid that I feel like I can still imagine some of the scenes and the characters, without it having been too wordy. Set in the 1930s, I found this really hard to place time-wise as I was reading, as it almost seem to exist outside of time.

There were a couple of bits where the narrative slowed down a little too much for me, and I could never really connect with Hale, so I'm giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

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Review of 'The One Memory of Flora Banks' by Emily Barr

I read so much good YA fiction earlier this year, and (finally) writing up some of the reviews for them is making me want to read all the rest of the YA on my shelves. The One Memory of Flora Banks isn't a book I'd heard much about before I read it, but the cover is so pretty that I couldn't not pick it up.

This book tells the story of Flora Banks, a teen suffering with severe amnesia as a result of a brain tumour. She remembers nothing day-to-day, and has had the same best friend since before she was ill: Flora remembers her, just like she remembers her parents and brother, though sometimes this (and everything else) takes a little coaxing. She wakes up every day not knowing who she is, or being able to trust that she'll remember enough to be safe.

And then one day she kisses a boy, and the next day she remembers. It's SUCH a breakthrough for Flora, and would be great if it wasn't her best friend's boyfriend (the girl that's stuck by her side through everything). And, if she could remember that her bestfriend is pretty pissed off and won't want to answer her calls that would be pretty good too. However, now Flora has hope, and she heads off on an adventure in search of the boy who she thinks will unlock her memories for her. 

This book really reminded me of Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon, but I much preferred this book. I felt as though it taught you a lot about amnesia, why it happens and its different types. Flora as a main character was written so well, and I felt that it was important that the book was from Flora's point of view: when she was confused, so were you. I've given this four stars because there were points where I wanted the plot to move along a bit quicker, and a few moments that I found quite jarring. Overall, it was a good YA about family and friendship, growing up and first crushes and I think it encapsulated those things really well in quite a short (300-odd page) book.

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Review of 'The Summer of Impossible Things' by Rowan Coleman

Magic realism isn't my favourite writing style, especially when it's used as a trope to push a story along. However, when it's done right, it can make a book ... well, a bit magical. The Summer of Impossible Things (2018) is one of the better examples I can think of, where the author's managed to blend the magic into the rest of the book and the plot and make it believable.

When Luna and her sister head to their mum's old apartment in Brooklyn, they're determined to get to know her a little better. In the years before her death, they knew she was struggling with something that had plagued her, and it's only now that she's gone that she's prepared to let them know the truth. Thirty years before, their mum was happy and thriving, a teen ready to face the big wide world, and Luna wants to know what changed.

What she's not prepared for is how much the trip will change her. Luna begins to struggle with intense headaches, and fears the worst. However, as they flare up, she begins to see her surroundings shift: though she doesn't know it at first, she's gone back to 1977. Switching between the present and a past where she has the opportunity to meet her mum before she became a mother, Luna struggles to comprehend what's happening. Soon she realises that these transitions through time are going to offer her the answers she's looking for.

This is a story that does magical realism well, without it jarring you out of the story or making it *too* unbelievable. More importantly however, it's a story that does love and loss and grief and family well. I loved seeing Luna and her mum bond (despite the years and the secrets between them) and trying to work out exactly what had happened. It was a full on page-turner that I could not put down.

*Trigger warning - sexual assault*

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Review of 'How to Stop Time' by Matt Haig

I've been following Matt Haig on twitter for a LONG time, and I love his honesty and ability to really get to the heart of things even in as short a writing format as a tweet. However, it wasn't until this year that I actually read one of his books, and now I want to read them all. 

Haig is a big advocate for improving mental health services, talking about men's mental health and living in a way that is positive for you. Though this isn't the main message of the book, or even really at its forefront, I think it's there in the way the main character presents his outlook on the world.

The book follows the story of Tom Hazard, a man with a rare condition that means he ages much much slower than the average person. Born in Shakespearean times, Tom's story line flits from the present day back to when he was a child, and explains why Tom behaves the way he does. Over time, he's learnt that nothing really matters apart from love and that it's the only thing that isn't completely transient. Having lost his wife to the plague when he was young, Tom knows that his daughter Marion is someone like him and he's desperate to find her.

Tom was discovered by an agency that protects people with the same condition as him. He's assigned to seek out someone that is suspected to be the same, and either recruit them or make sure they're not able to tell anyone that people like him exist. 

I honestly LOVED this book and gave it five stars. I'm a massive fan of back stories for characters (honestly the more in-depth the better, and don't even get me started on prequels). I'm also a big fan of historical fiction, and learning more about history, so this was right up my street, albeit in a heavily fictionalised version kinda way. The book took us through Shakespearean times to Tom meeting F Scott Fitzgerald, and all around the world too. 

Sometimes books like this delve too much into the side of creating a really nice back story for a character without any real plot, but I loved learning about the dark side of the society that Tom ends up a part of, and I felt this added some much-needed drama to the story. I could honestly read book after book from this world, and I'd be SO into hearing the story of Tom's daughter and how she's grown up differently in a world that hates people that are 'different'.

It reads a little like YA fiction, though I'm not sure if it's intended as adult literary fiction. I think as something that comes across a bit YA-ey, it's important that this isn't a traditional romantic love story. but a familial love story because those are honestly so rare in the genre.

I would recommend this to YA fiction fans, especially if you enjoy historical fiction too!

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Review of 'The Essex Serpent' by Sarah Perry

It kind of seems as though 2019 might be the year of literary fiction for me? I'm actually reading books that have been brought out ~fairly~ recently (aka in the past five years) and they are real adult lit fic? Am I alright?

For real though, this is a genre I've largely steered clear of in the past just because other ones interest me more. Now that I've got my teeth sunk in a little though there are SO MANY that I want to pick up and give a go. 

The novel kicks off with a mysterious death of a man, which is later attributed to be caused by a mythological beast named the Essex Serpent. The main story then starts with the death of Cora Seaborne's abusive husband. Set in 1893, Cora lives in a time where she couldn't leave this man, and inwardly rejoices that he's lost his hold over her.

Desperate to leave her boring, restrictive life behind, Cora takes her son Frances and his governess to Essex, to be a little removed from the hustle of London life. She is an inquisitive woman, who places reason and science before religion. When a couple of friends suggest that she stay with a priest and his wife and children so that she can find out more about this Essex Serpent, Cora is a little apprehensive, but decides to go for it.

The book questions the boundaries between fact and fiction, faith and science, and where the boundaries lie between morality and immorality. Cora's own sense of what is right is put in jeopardy by her desires, and she loses sight of the strange behaviour of Frances. On the surface, he's a naughty little boy who won't do what he's told, but deep down he's a little troubled, and much more interesting than at first glance.

I've given this a 3/5 stars, because although it's a very good imitation of a Victorian novel (my fave), and at times I felt as though I could be reading an Austen novel, there were some jarring anachronisms that totally took me out of the world of the book and made me remember that it is a modern novel. 

I did love the questioning of where the boundaries lie between being masculine and feminine, and I felt this was a real strength. However, the plot was spread very thinly throughout the book. I feel as though it might have worked a little better being 50 or so pages shorter, but I can see that the level of detail was part of the aura of it being a Victorian-esque novel.

I've heard so many people rave about this, and maybe if I'd gone in without this idea in mind it might have come across a little better! 

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