Review of 'Thus Bad Begins' by Javier Marias

It feels like forever since I've sat down to write a book review, and it seems that despite promising myself I'd use December to catch up on the massively mounting pile of reviews I haven't written, *checks notes* this is the first one I've actually done this month. So it's clearly going well. 

Thus Bad Begins was a bit of a weird one to try and place, in my opinion. Reading it, I imagined it was written in the mid-twentieth century, or earlier, but it was actually published in 2014. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just had a much more classic vibe, so I was shocked when I realised how recently the book was written. 

Set in the 1980s, the main character Juan de Vere is the assistant of a prominent film director, Eduardo Muriel. He lives in Muriel's house and observes the breakdown in Muriel's marriage to his wife Beatriz. He's witness to Eduardo's coldness in his behaviour to her, her weeping and their arguments. At the same time, he's convinced that Dr Van Vechten, who often visits the house, is cruel to women and starts to follow him to investigate his life. 

This was a much longer book than I expected it to be, and in all honesty not masses happened in it in comparison to its length. However, it was incredibly well written. This was a kindle read for me, so I only read it before bed each night, but it took a couple of months to finish. I didn't lose interest in it, or forget what happened as I was reading, which often happens if a book takes so long to get through. I really wanted to know what the issues that Beatriz had that were hinted at, and to discover what was happening with van Vechten.

This is one of, if not the, most sensitive and astute book that I've read that deals with mental health issues that isn't a YA read. It discusses depression and suicide in a way that's neither brash or flippant or even patronising. These are part of the characters' lives and form a natural part of the narrative. It looks at manipulation, deceit and gendered power relations in a really strong way. I've given it four stars because, despite its length, it was a well-written, insightful read.

I would recommend this if you like books like 'Love in the Time of Cholera' or are interested in reading a book by a Spanish author.

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Review of 'A Quiet Kind of Thunder' by Sara Barnard

I read Beautiful Broken Things last year and it was a full on breath of fresh air for me. I WISH I'd had more authors when I was a teen that wrote about friendship and not just romance. BBT was the book that really made me fall in love with Sara Barnard's writing and now I just want to read all of her novels, especially Fierce Fragile Hearts, set in the same world as BBT.

When Rhys joins Steffi's school she's asked to show him the ropes, with a special nod to their shared skill: sign language. Rhys is deaf, and Steffi has selective mutism which has meant that she's learnt to use sign language to express herself as she's gotten older. The book is a YA love story (no spoilers - this kicks in pretty early on), about anxiety and disability and how you can navigate these as a teen. 

I really enjoyed this as a nice quick comfort read. I wouldn't say it's as good as BBT, but the insight into the insecurities and challenges you face as a teen absolutely hit the nail on the head. The plot is quite clear from the start, and there's the usual get together, someone cocks up, fall apart and get back together again narrative, but it's one I love.

I'm giving this 4 out of 5 stars and would recommend it if you like YA romance. It'd be a good book for getting you out of a reading slump - I was muttering 'just one more chapter' under my breath for roughly half the book!

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Review of 'A Clash of Kings' by George R R Martin

This year I went through a *bit* of a Game of Thrones reading phase, but WOW they are exhausting aren't they?! This one came in at almost 900 pages, and whilst the first 300 pages (aka pretty much an ENTIRE NORMAL BOOK) set all the different scenes of action, the rest of the book was very intense and I really did enjoy it.

The book is told from 9 main characters' perspectives (Arya, Bran, Sansa, Catelyn, Daenerys, Jon, Tyrion, Davos, Theon), with an extra prologue from a tenth point of view, and I've broken the plot down into much more detail on my other blog here. It's the second and longest (in a single volume) book in the series. 

Joffrey, Renly and Stannis Baratheon all believe they have a claim to the Iron Throne after Robert Baratheon's death. With Robb Stark having proclaimed himself King of the North and Balon Greyjoy raising fights as a self-proclaimed king too, this time is declared the War of the Five Kings. 

Tensions are evidently high, and Stannis calls on witchcraft through the Red Lady to help him secure his foothold as a contender for the throne. Meanwhile, the Lannisters are still looking for a wedding with a Stark to tie the families together in the hope that at least one of them will be powerful by the end of the war.

The book culminates in the Battle of the Blackwater at King's Landing. It's fiery and deadly and changes everything for the warring factions.

This is my favourite book from the series that I've read so far. Whilst it was a VERY long read, it did mean that all of the action-packed scenes were set up with lots of details beforehand that really came together and made everything a lot more powerful. It's hard to summarise a 900 page book without going into masses of detail, but I really think this is where some of the characters really started to come to life. Sansa finally becomes tolerable, Bran becomes less tolerable but more himself, and Tyrion becomes even more likeable.

If you're a fan of the show, or sci-fi fantasy in general, then this really is a great read.

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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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