Imi

I don't want to say too much about this, because I was completely blown over at the sinister and disturbing direction this book eventually took. Sam Marsdyke is a 19-year-old farmer's son living in the North Yorkshire Moors. His life revolves around the land and the animals, and the novel's beginning builds on the young man's growing sense of isolation and disconnect with any other human being. From the very first page, the reader is struck by just how powerful and real Sam's voice is. This a shining example of how to write in first person narration. Sam's voice uses a broad Yorkshire accent combined with his witty and terribly funny. It is so unique and absorbing, I even found myself thinking in his way a couple of times after putting the book down, which is pretty disturbing with how the book develops later on... Even though it is clear from the start that Sam is capable of terrible cruelty and is deluded in his ideas about reality and his place in it, I still wasn't quite expecting the direction it took. I enjoyed how chaotic Sam's narrative was, alongside the commentary on the demise of rural life and just how harsh and relentless farming is. So smart and all its own, I don't think I've ever read a contemporary novel quite like it. Recommended.

How vast was a human being's capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn't a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care.

I'm so glad to have finally ticked this gem off my to-read list! Astrid, our protagonist who we following growing from 12 to 18, is a simply brilliant character. I grew to love her more and more, and couldn't help rooting for her, as she has to adapt to changing, horrifying circumstances, as Astrid flits between various different foster homes and institutions. This is a deeply sad and melancholic book, and I was grateful for the moments of hope.

Sadly, a rather superficial look at big data, algorithms and how they've impacted on society. You probably know/have guessed all this already. The correlations O'Neil point out are not very convincing, and it felt like she just wanted to rant about how unfair the world is. Not that I disagree with that conclusion; society is unfair and unequal. But O'Neil really doesn't state much more than that, and, worse, some of her examples felt misleading or simply speculative. Where was her evidence? And if she'd explored this issues in more depth I'd have wanted clear ideas for resolving these issues. Instead, any suggestions she made seemed vague and impractical. I admitedly feel out of my depth with this topic, but am most definitely willing to learn more and expand my understanding about it. Disappointingly, this book didn't offer that.

I should probably have foreseen that this was going to get repetitive with that title... The novelty wore off pretty quickly and I think it lost credibility too. The social issues covered felt, sadly, preachy and forced into the plot. That was my biggest disappointment really, because I think this element of the novel could have been fantastic if properly executed.

3.5 stars rounded up.

I can't really face writing a full review of this right now. I'm surprised I managed to finish it actually, but I was so close to the end and had really liked it up to this point, so didn't want to DNF it or even just put it aside for an indefinite period. Sadly, I had some terrible news this weekend that one of my closest friends had passed away. She was meant to turn 26 yesterday. So seeing that a major theme of this book is losing friends at a young age... Yeah, bad timing. Although, I definitely needed a good cry, so I guess the ending really helped with that. I will maybe come back to this and write a proper review, when I feel more up to it. There was actually quite a bit I wanted to discuss before yesterday.I will say though that Yale is an utterly brilliant, wonderfully realised character. I felt all of his anxieties, struggles and furies to the core, like I was right there with him.

4.5 stars. I had so much fun reading this biography! Field explores the life of Sarah Marlborough in remarkable detail, never shying away from exploring both her flaws and admirable qualities. This biography covers everything from her involvement in polticss, her strong support for progressive Whig policies, her wealth and investments in properties, and her countless epic feuds with kings, queens, ministers, and her children and grandchildren. Field argues that Sarah's famous temper may have come from her frustrations that despite her surprising amount of influence as a woman, despite how intelligent and capable she clearly was, she still felt held back and silenced in a way she never would have been had she been born male. Other than this, however, Field is careful to stick to the historical evidence and facts, and in fact if I had one complaint it's that she never really draws too many conclusions on various conflicts in Sarah's life. I enjoyed this book far more than I was expecting to, after watching the fantastic film The Favourite based on Sarah's fall from grace, and in some ways fact was really stranger than fiction. Highly recommended.

This is the problem of history. We cannot know that which we were not there to see and hear and experience for ourselves. We must rely upon the words of others [...] We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must always ask yourself. Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth?...

Incredibly, I'm rating this 5 stars (although, I'd say it's really 4.5) after feeling like I'd have to DNF very early on. Of course, you expect a book about slavery to be difficult, but the first couple chapters nearly finished me off. It's devastating. Gyasi covers many generations, along two lines of a family originating in Ghana, to show how suffering, in its many forms, continues along the years. Recently, I've read a lot of novels using a narrative structure similar to this, that is multiple narrators, each one covered in only a single chapter before moving onto the next, and I have to say this may be the best I've ever seen it done. It's beautiful and intimate on a character level, but also wonderfully presents the bigger picture. Really, I'm speechless. I think Gyasi writes in such a evocative and vivid manner that I fully believed in every single character, and I also think the novel as a whole is an important statement on class and race up to the present. It loses half a star because I didn't quite love the ending (the last two chapters) but everything before was flawless. Hugely impressive. What an achievement. 

It's easy to love.

This turned out to be a pleasant surprise! In some ways (although they are very different in other ways), it reminded me a lot of [b:The Life and Death of Sophie Stark|23281949|The Life and Death of Sophie Stark|Anna North|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1437951712s/23281949.jpg|42819833]. Both books are about one woman and use the different perspectives of multiple characters to build up her character. But by the end of the book, you question, despite everything you've learnt during the course, whether you really know her character at all. The protagonist of The Nine-Chambered Heart remains nameless, emphasising the idea that, perhaps, the reader and her lovers never really know her or understand. Are all nine narrators describing the same woman, adding layers to her personality, or are they seeing a different character? How can she be one and the same? There are contradictions, similarities and repetitions to each perspective which add to this mystery. Ultimately, this book is above love. Whether it's about the source of that love or the act itself is another question. Both beautiful, mysterious, and slightly discomforting at times, I believe I've found a hidden gem.

2.5 stars? A bit of a disappointment after [b:The Ecliptic 24933375 The Ecliptic Benjamin Wood https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1436545609s/24933375.jpg 44588816]. This is well written, but I felt the story was overly dragged out. I don't really think there was enough to it for a full length novel. It starts slow, then hits you in the gut when the “incident” finally occurs, then drifts back into nothingness... While it did hit me emotionally in parts, I can't help questioning what it was all for. I'm glad I didn't know what the “incident” was before I got to it (please, be careful when reading reviews), and that section was definitely the novel's strongest, even with how pointless and sad it seemed.

You already know that the first thing that makes you foreign to a place is to be born poor in it; you don't need to emigrate to America to feel what you already felt when you were ten, looking up at the rickety concrete roof above your head [...] You've been foreign all your life. When you finally leave, all you're hoping for is a more bearable kind of foreignness.

3.5 stars rounded up? Stunning beginning and end, but the middle dragged a little for me; there was just a little too much sex and partying for my personal tastes, and I found that fairly repetitive. That's my one complaint though, and really the rest of the book blew me away.

The story centres on a Filipino community in California. Castillo uses a fantastic mix of English with untranslated words from the many Filipino languages (Tagalog, Pangasinan, Ilocano...). I loved this aspect of the novel, as it's the provides a wonderful sense of authenticity and the reader is instantly involved in the culture. It was fascinating how even members of the same community cannot communicate with each other in their own native languages, as they're all so different. This was emphasised with character of Roni, who is a 7 year old girl born to a Pangasinan mother and a Ilocano father in California:

It felt like Roni didn't really know the difference between Tagalog and Pangasinan, and moved between the two interchangeably as if they were one language. Nobody had told her otherwise, Hero supposed. But for Hero, listening to the mixture was like listening to a radio whose transmission would occasionally short out; she'd get half a sentence, then nothing—eventually the intelligible parts would start back up...

Donal Ryan is an incredible writer with undeniably gorgeous prose and fantastic character voice. His quirk is that he builds his “novels” from disconnected chapters, almost like short stories, narrated by different characters. In the first book I read by Ryan, [b:The Spinning Heart 15995144 The Spinning Heart Donal Ryan https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1349169242s/15995144.jpg 21753684], there were 21 of these narrators, too many in my personal opinion, so I was pleased to learn that this number is vastly reduced in From a Low and Quiet Sea. Unfortunately, I actually think Ryan pulled off the unusual structure better in The Spinning Heart, where there were little hints to the overall “novel” plot and how the stories linked together throughout forming a cohesive storyline of interlocking events. Here, however, the standout “story” which begins the book and is narrated by Farouk seems remarkably distant from the next two sections. Indeed, it is only in the forth and final section that the connections were finally revealed. More than that even, it was really just in the last few pages. This reveal seemed too unexpected and out of the blue for my tastes, and unfortunately really affected the strength of the middle two sections, in my opinion. A shame as I do love a lot that was here!

A quick, fun crime thriller. There's no mystery or suspense here (it's all in the title), but Braithwaite wastes no time and the pages fly by. Korede is an enabler, even more of a mess than her sister. The novel is full of witty observations from social media to men and what they want. Easy, breezy to read, but perhaps a bit to sparse in the end to be truly satisfying.

Glorious! Don't go into this expecting a traditional, linear plot. Yes, it's mostly set in the months immediately after the Brexit referendum, and yes, the main focus is the wonderful friendship between Elisabeth and the elderly man, David, she met as a neighbour when she was a young girl. But the novel is about these things and so, so much more. Smith jumps around continuously. It's a stream of consciousness, a garble of half-remembered moments, a dialogue between writer, reader and character. It never stops and never feels like it can be tied down as one thing or another. Go with the flow, let yourself drift, and you're in for a treat. Smith plays with words, plays with time, plays with ideas, and plays with the rules of fiction. She has captured a moment of time in modern Britain, with all its division, uncertainty and pessimism, and somehow, miraculously, crafted something that can present all of that while still leaving the reader feeling hopeful. How is that possible? A marvel. Examples (putting behind a spoiler tag so you can choose to enjoy them first when you read book, but not really spoilers because, spoiler, not a lot really “happens”):

The Pessemistic, No.1:Someone killed an MP, she tells Daniel's back as she struggles to keep up. A man shot her dead and came at her with a knife. Like shooting her wouldn't be enough. But it's old news now. Once it would have been a year's worth of news. But news right now is like a flock of speeded-up sheep running off the side of a cliff.The Pessemistic, No.2Elisabeth grimaced. Every morning she wakes up feeling cheated of something. The next thing she thinks about, when she does, is the number of people waking up feeling cheated of something all over the country, no matter what they voted.Uh huh, she said. I'm still looking at properties up there [Scotland], her mother said. I'm not leaving the EU.It is all right for her mother. Her mother has had her life.The Optimistic/Beautiful/Delightful, No 1Hello, he said. What you reading?Elisabeth showed him her empty hands.Does it look like I'm reading anything? she said.Always be reading something, he said. Even when we're not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.A constant what? Elisabeth said.A constant constancy, Daniel said.The Optimistic/Beautiful/Delightful, No 2Words don't get grown, Elisabeth said. They do, Daniel said Words aren't plants, Elisabeth said. Words are themselves organisms, Daniel said. [...] Language is like poppies. It just takes something to churn the earth round them up, and when it does up come the sleeping words, bright red, fresh, blowing about. Then the seed heads rattle, the seeds fall out. Then there's even more language waiting to come up.The Optimistic/Beautiful/Delightful, No 3There is no point in making up a world, Elisabeth said, when there's already a real world. There's just the world, and there's the truth about the world.You mean, there's the truth, and there's the made-up version of it that we get told about the world, Daniel said.No. The world exists. Stories are made up, Elisabeth said.But no less true for that, Daniel said.The Optimistic/Beautiful/Delightful, No 4It's all right to forget, you know, he said. It's good to. In fact, we have to forget things sometimes. Forgetting it is important. We do it on purpose. It means we get a bit of a rest. Are you listening? We have to forget. Or we'd never sleep ever again.Elisabeth was crying now like a much younger child cries. Crying came out of her like weather.Daniel put his hand flat against her back.What I do when it distresses me that there's something I can't remember, is. Are you listening?Yes, Elisabeth said through the crying.I imagine that whatever it is I've forgotten is folded close to me, like a sleeping bird.What kind of bird? Elisabeth said.A wild bird, Daniel said. Any kind. You'll know what kind when it happens. Then, what I do is, I just hold it there, without holding it too tight, and I let it sleep. And that's that.Fortunately for me this is the first of 4 in Ali Smith's "seasonal" quartet. I cannot wait for [b:Winter|34516974|Winter|Ali Smith|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1498905680s/34516974.jpg|55647867] (now there's a sentence I never thought I'd say).

I wanted to talk about my mother, who lived in a desolate place in the country because she could not live two lives—and could not accept a life of mockery, as Latvia had been mocked.

A short but perfectly formed novella, Soviet Milk presents a Latvian perspective of the dying days of the Soviet Union through an intimate story of two (arguably, three) women in a single family.

The story is told in first person using unnamed and unnumbered alternating chapters from mother and daughter, who also remain nameless. At first, this narrative structure is perplexing as strange echoes of the mother's life and thoughts are littered among her daughter's perspective, but very quickly these perspectives diverge and become wildly different. Indeed, at this point it was surprising to me that it had been possible to confuse the two at the book's beginning.

The mother and daughter have always had a strange, difficult relationship, and the daughter was mostly brought up by a third nameless woman, the grandmother (the mother's mother). Mother and daughter have become so unlike, they struggle to comprehend each other and are opposites in every way, but nevertheless they are clearly emotionally entwined, needed by one another.

A devastating, quiet, little book about isolation and a yearning for freedom. The story depicts the “cages” in life, cages imposed not only by the State, but also the cages we impose on ourselves as individuals. A wonderful discovery and one I hope many to read and ponder.

Are you surprised I'm only rating this 3 stars? Because I am... I adored Yanagihara's debut [b:The People in the Trees 16126596 The People in the Trees Hanya Yanagihara https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1356108388s/16126596.jpg 21950352] and I actually put off reading this for so long because I'd heard so much about how powerful and emotionally draining it is, that I was wary about reading it at the wrong time. Nevertheless, I was expecting something special. I don't think I read it at the wrong time, but I also don't think it quite met my expectations. People were not exaggerating when they said it's dark; it actually got too much for me at around the half way point that I actually had to take a short break and read something else. I won't spoil anyone and explain what triggered this, but it was definitely a relief to read something lighter for a bit. Having said that, I was quite happy to start up again after this break. For a book so long and so dark, it's surprisingly engaging and hard to put down. There is a lot to admire here: the incredibly real characterisation, little detailed scenes that make the reader feel they are truly experiencing another “life”, the complex construction of the novel using foreshadowing and slowly revealed flashbacks, countless passages that I highlighted for their beauty and bittersweet truth... Unfortunately, I couldn't help feeling that this good material was often buried and above all it needed a damn good edit. I really don't feel this needed to be 700+ pages long and this leads to repetition (of subject matter that is already very hard to read) and made it excruciatingly difficult to understand what Yanagihara's focus was well into the book. I feel sad that dragging out the novel in this way buries what could have been a masterpiece. Sadly, I feel Yanagihara got closer with The People in the Trees and it still astounds me that it seems nobody has heard of it.SpoilerA sidenote, as I was concerned that this was too spoilery for my main review, perhaps my biggest disappointment was how little JB and Malcom ended up appearing in the main story. This wasn't a book about four close friends promised at the start of the book; it really was only about 2 of them. I'm honestly a bit sad about that. Part of me thinks the other 2 just shouldn't have the extensive backstories they did, because this is another example of Yanagihara's lack of focus, but part of me would really hate that, as they both had moments, especially JB, that were some of my favourites of the entire book. The descriptions of JB's art was incredible and felt authentic, and I loved how these paintings linked the present back to moments in the past. That was wonderfully done, so I wouldn't want to lose that, but JB's role in the story himself... it surprised me how unimportant it was. And Malcom... well, I basically forgot about his existence until....you know when. This really was Jude's and Willem's story, which is fine, but I was confused about how much else there was, and how much else was seemingly ignored. That's the problem with lack of focus.

Life, so far as she troubled to conceive it, was a circle of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests and identical foes. In this circle, one thought, married, and died. Outside it were poverty and vulgarity for ever trying to enter, just as the London fog tries to enter the pine-woods pouring through the gaps in the northern hills.

Wonderful, and more than simply entertaining! From the very first page, I loved the narration; it's written in an endearing and charming manner, so pleasurable to read, and with cutting humour, as our all-knowing narrator points out the hypocrisies and ironies rooted in Edwardian society. It's impossible not to laugh at many of the narrator's observations. This book would have been a joy to read for that alone, but I was surprised that I was fully swept away by the story; you see, romance is not usually my genre. But, here, the transformation of our protagonist Lucy is remarkable and a thrill to watch unfold: from a naive girl fearful of even thinking for herself to a brave woman who is fully capable of standing up for herself. I loved how by the end of the book she called out Spoilerboth sides of the love triangle, the supposed “good guy” as well as the “jerk”. I will say I was slightly disappointed by the very final chapter and I do kind of wish Lucy had just upped and left for Greece as planned! Sorry, like I said, I'm not the romantic! Having said that, I can see that George is not the worst of romantic heroes. Very happy to have read this and enjoyed every second!

4.5 stars. An epic book of Chinese history following the lives of 3 classical musicians in China across 60 years from Mao's Cultural Revolution to the Student protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The story covers a tumultuous period of history and has a wonderful cast of characters. The central figures, Sparrow the composer, Kai the pianist, and Zhuli the violinist, struggle to find and maintain their identities and creative freedom under the Party's rule.

You couldn't live against the reality of the time but it was still possible to keep your private dreams, only they had to stay that way, intensely, powerfully private. You had to keep something for yourself, and to do that, you had to turn away from reality. It's hard to explain if you didn't grow up here. People simply didn't have the right to live where they wanted, to love who they wanted, to do the work they wanted.

The sound of the orchestra tuning chilled him; strings, woodwinds and brass made their simultaneous climb or descent to a sustained A, and an oboe fluttered up the scale like a thought set loose.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Can all of my favourite singer/songwriters please make collections of their lyrics like this one? I had no idea I wanted this until now, but reading this beautiful collection was such a joy, such an incredible reading experience, and I loved every second of it. Of course, as a life-long Kate Bush fan, I've always known she has a remarkable way with words, not just music; her imagination and imagery are all part of her charm. So, perhaps, the experience of reading lyrics written out in poetry form wouldn't quite work with some artists (in fact, thinking about it and without naming names, there are some that I love music-wise, but probably wouldn't seem so great if the focus was on their lyrics!), but with Kate it's amazing how well her words work on their own in this entirely different medium. Honestly, I would have never have purchased this book for myself; I had all the misgivings that David Mitchell (side note: I have no idea why I haven't read any of his novels yet, as he writes brilliantly) outlines in his terrific introduction to the collection:

A book of lyrics is a strange beast. Readers who know the songs become ‘bearers' as the brain belts out a speeded-up version of the familiar recording, while those readers unfamiliar with the lyrics are confronted by text presented in a poetry format, but which is avowedly not poetry. Poetry is a solo art form: most lyrics need to leave room for, and craft an affinity with, music - just as lines in a screenplay must be sparse enough to allow for an actor's interpretation. Even in instances where lyrics could pass for poetry to the unwary, lyrics on the page are still a boat in dry-dock, removed from the elements that buoy them and determine their velocity. (p.xi)

One more step to the top of the cityWhere just a couple of pigeons are livingUp on the angel's shouldersI don't know if I'm closer to Heaven butIt looks like Hell down thereThese streets have never beenPaved with goldWelcome to the loneliest city inThe world (p.6)

I should be crying but I just can't let it show / I should be hoping but I can't stop thinking

What could he do? / Should have been a father' / But he never even made it to his twenties / What a waste

We were working secretly for the militaryOur experiment in sound was nearly ready to beginWe only know in theory what we are doingMusic made for pleasure, music made to thrillIt was music we were making here untilThey told us all they wantedWas a sound that could kill someone from a distanceSo we go ahead and the meters are over in the redIt's a mistake in the making (p.64)

I've been doing it for years, my goal is moving nearIt says ‘Look, I'm over here', then it up and disappearSome say that knowledge is something sat in your lapSome say that knowledge is oh-oh-oh-ohI want to be a lawyer, I want to be a scholarBut I really can't be bothered, ooh justGimme it quick, gimme it, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme (p.34)

are

Cathy Newman will be well known to any Brit as a presenter on Channel 4 News. She's a wonderful storyteller, knows how to present a lot of information in an engaging manner, and you can feel her enthusiasm for the topic, women across British history, buzzing through the pages.

For an in depth analysis of history and the lives of these women, this is not your book. The book is structured with fairly long chapters, but within in theses chapters names fly by and are mentioned, perhaps, only in passing, and no more than a few paragraphs are dedicated to a single woman. At times it felt like a long list of anecdotes, rather than anything building to a larger conclusion. That's not to say that Newman bring up any of her own opinions or build any conclusions (the section on Thatcher was particularly good and well argued, as well as the discussion of the wars' impact, or lack thereof, on women's role in society, the links between historical events and today's headlines on the gender pay gap, and I was pleased to see intersectionality discussed, however briefly), but as a starting point to inspire and direct readers into learning more about many fascinating historical figures this book does remarkably well. Personally, I am excited to learn more about these fabulous women I was introduced to reading this book:
- Cicely Saunders, a nurse best known for her role in the 1960s improving palliative and hospice care, who “tore up existing rules dictating the frequency with which patients could be given painkillers. Her mantra was: ‘Constant pain needs constant control.'” (p.265).
- Dina St Johnston, a computer programmer who in the 1950s noted the computing industry was limiting their potential customers of computers by going along with the assumption that “no one but a science department or a technical firm employing their own programs would want one.” (p.228)
- Stella Browne, who campaigned for the access to safe abortion in the early 20th century.
- Flora Sandes, who became a soldier in the Serbian army and was “promoted to the rank of Sergeant Major and awarded one of Serbias highest military honours” (p.85), when she was wounded by a grenade in 1916.
- Mary Seacole, a contemporary of Florence Nightengale, but far less known.

Recommended for an accessible and enjoyable overview of a massive topic.

The publisher gets -1000 points for including a comment from Piers Morgan on the blurb, however.

I read John Boyne's [b:The Heart's Invisible Furies 33630235 The Heart's Invisible Furies John Boyne https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1545283225s/33630235.jpg 51438471] in January this year and it is still, in late December, my book of the year. Now, I have just finished A History of Loneliness and it's clear I have found a new favourite author. You know that feeling when you start reading a book by a writer you love, trust even? That's the overwhelming feeling I had starting this, knowing I was in for something rather special. It's entirely different to the remarkably uplifting Furies, with only some very small glimpses of Boyne's fantastic sense of humour. Overall A History of Loneliness is much, much more tragic. No, more than that. It's an angry book. I felt overwhelming angry by the end of this book. I don't want to say much about how the story develops, and particularly my feelings on, because this book is most certainly a must-read in my eyes. Boyne's decision to tell this story from such a perspective was a master stroke. It's certainly a very pessimistic outlook on not just the country of Ireland, but human beings as a whole, and the complacency that allows evil to thrive. What surprises me, however, is how well Boyne understands humankind; he writes with such incredible insight and, suddenly, such a culture that allows horrific crimes against others, prejudice to difference and the complicity from the individual to the nation to just let this happen all makes sense. Yes, it's beyond tragic and sickening, but it makes sense. Boyne writes characters that are painfully believable. Their flaws are often unforgivable, but bitterly understandable. And yes, this review is very vague, I am purposely trying to give very little away. I'm just so pleased this book ended up being just as powerful as Furies. It shook me to my core.

I feel like such a cynic for not enjoying this, but I just could not stomach the cheese, especially towards the end. Bah-humbug. Plus, Joe, the protagonist, was such an irritating Nice Guy™ (or “failed Romantic”, as Ironmonger put it), hero-boy. Ugh. This was the right time of year to attempt this book, but I guess I wasn't the right kind of reader...

This book should be required reading in every single British school.

I was impressed not only is by how wonderfully comprehensive and impeccably argued the book is, but how fantastically presented Eddo-Lodge's arguments were. She has a magnificent writing style that is both easy to read and understand, while remaining assertive and provocative. If you can't grasp the injustices laid bare here, then I don't know what to tell you.

The chapter on the history of racism and slavery in Britain will be a huge wake up call to many, because it's true we never talk about this.

While the black British story is starved of oxygen, the US struggle against racism is globalised into the story of the struggle against racism that we should look to for inspiration—eclipsing the black British story so much that we convince ourselves that Britain has never had a problem with race.We need to stop lying to ourselves, and we need to stop lying to each other. To assume that there was no civil rights movement in the UK is not just untrue, it does a disservice to our black history, leaving gaping holes where the story of progress should be. Black Britain deserves a context.

The mess we are living is a deliberate one. If it was created by people, it can be dismantled by people, and it can be rebuilt in a way that serves all, rather than a selfish, hoarding few. [...] [Feminism] needs to recognise that disabled people aren't inherently defective, but rather that non-disabled people have failed at creating a physical world that serves all. [...] Feminism needs to demand a world in which racist history is acknowledged and accounted for, in which reparations are distributed, in which race is completely deconstructed.

[...] After a lifetime of embodying difference, I have no desire to be equal. I want to deconstruct the structural power of a system that marked me out as different. I don't wish to be assimilated into the status quo. I want to be liberated from all negative assumptions that my characteristics bring. The onus is not on me to change. Instead, it's the world around me.

I picked this up hoping for a good haunted house story, and I kept reading for what turned out to be an tense and nuanced domestic drama. Not what I was expecting in the slightest, but all the better for it. Imagine a ghost story, if the “ghosts” are modern day anxieties as a twenty-or-thirty something: the housing crisis, the expense of living in London, providing for a family, making a house “yours”, settling with someone or somewhere, finding yourself or your purpose...Eleanor and Richard are a thity-something married couple with two young daughters. They buy a Victorian terrace in London, falling apart and in need of some TLC, which they hope to transform into their dream home, all the while adding to its value. The purchase, however, stretches their finances to the limit, leading to them taking a lodger, twenty-something Zoe.Strange happenings and unfortunate events mean that none of the residents feel immediately comfortable in their new home. Both Eleanor and Zoe begin to suffer from strange symptoms, and we see, although they never discuss their suspicions with each other, that both begin to believe the suspect the house of being behind it all; the house seemingly drains their energy, causes Eleanor's weakness and intolerable headaches, and Zoe is terrified by her night terrors. I found the course of Eleanor's unexplained illness particularly chilling. I myself have an invisible illness and I found Murray-Browne's descriptions of Eleanor's desperate attempts to keep pushing forward, despite how awful she was feeling, very true to life. Not that I've ever believed my illness to be caused by an unfriendly ghost or a building's “bad energy”, but other than that I could see many parallels between Eleanor's and my own past experiences, and that certainly heightened this part of the novel's emotional impact for me.In terms of the paranormal element, I loved how subtle the execution was. I am coming to realise that these are my favourite kind of “ghost” stories, where the author carefully treads the line between the supernatural and the utterly ordinary, the real and the possibly unreal. It's what I loved so much about [b:The Little Stranger 7406744 The Little Stranger Sarah Waters https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1261770810s/7406744.jpg 5769396], another measured and impeccably ambiguous ghost story I read earlier in the year, although of course set in an entirely different time and place to this one. I can certainly see the similarities to Murray-Browne's work though, especially in how she leaves the reader guessing, never quite sure if there is a rational explanation, that the ghost is a mere figure of the imagination and of the anxieties wrecking the minds of the house's inhabitants... I can see how this ambiguity could frustrate some fans of the horror/paranormal genre, but to me it was just another bonus. This book's ideal reader would also need to be interested in domestic family and romantic dramas, as that is the focus of the majority of the plot. All three of the main characters are fairly unlikable and make one questionable decision after the next, but I loved how fleshed out and deep their backstories were. This is more a book for those who enjoy character studies, than those who are after a plot-driven and twisty paranormal mystery. Personally, I loved it, and it was probably one of my favourite surprises of the year.

2.5 stars. Shame, as it started so strongly and I love these kind of family sagas, but I ultimately feel disappointed and like the book didn't live up to its premise. The Immortalists has four perspectives of the four siblings in a single family, told one after each other, and, therefore, ends up feeling rather disjointed. In my opinion, Simon and Varya's were the two stronger stories, but suffered from feeling...emotionally manipulative? Simon's, in particular, was predictable beyond belief once it had got going; you've heard this story told better a million times before, and I worry that lessened its impact, even though thinking back it might still be my favourite of the four sections. At least Varya's story was original! Klara and Daniel's stories, on the other hand, felt forced and ridiculous... Their stories' endings, especially, seemed lazy. I couldn't fully believe in the characters at that point. In short, I think The Immortalists definitely suffered from a flaw common in books with multiple perspectives and just so much going on; some of its elements worked better than others, and I'm not convinced it all worked together.

This is exactly what I was after: a concise and easy to follow summary of the Troubles. I was born in the 90s and I've always felt that this was massive gap in my knowledge; I've grown up knowing how huge the impact of the Troubles have been and still are, but never feeling I had any understanding of it all. Too young to remember it at all, and too old (it seems) to have been told much about or informed in other ways. So I turned to this book, hoping for an informative introduction. In some ways, it's left me with more questions than answers, but the fact that I feel prepared to go on and learn more, rather than utterly overwhelmed by such a complicated period of history, is to this book's credit. As the authors say in their introduction, they sacrificed a lot detail to create this succinct and brief overview (complete with a massive chronology at the end of the book). I can tell a lot of background history was skipped over and the book also does not read as smooth or narrative based, instead feeling at times like a long, draining list of many deaths, destruction and terror. However, I think this all allowed the authors to clearly outline the many players, motivations and shifting alliances. Any more detail or divergence from the straight summery and I don't think the general reader could take it all in. I am determined to read further though, myself, and I would recommend this book to others as a starting point.