Tag: bookish

If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura

This had been sitting on my shelf for a while, and I started reading it when I wanted a comfort read while my own cat Mara was unwell (though thankfully she has recovered).

When the 30 year old narrator finds out he has a terminal illness and only days to live, he receives a visit from the devil who offers to trade one extra day of life for everything the narrator is willing to live without. It seems like an easy trade but the story considers what life would be like without mobile phones, films and cats to name just a few things the devil makes disappear in order to extend the narrator’s life – though apparently even the devil draws the line at a world without chocolate. Every time the devil removes something from the world, the narrator is left considering the impact it had on his life and how much we take for granted everyday.

If Cats Disappeared From the World is a short, strange but poignant and thought-provoking story about love, grief, family, regrets, dying and cats. Unfortunately I found it hard to connect with the narrator, and I preferred The Travelling Cat Chronicles (reviewed here), which covers similar themes, though this is still worth reading. Take Care, and have a lovely week. X

Sounds Like Me by Sara Bareilles

After The Fifth Season, I was in the mood for something a bit more light-hearted to read. I’ve been a fan of Sara Bareilles’ music since my then fiance-now husband suggested one of her songs for our first dance, and I was intrigued to learn she’d written a book.

Sounds Like Me isn’t a typical celebrity memoir full of love affairs and feuds, but it’s written with humility and humour, and provides insight into the experiences that shaped Sara as a musician and person from her parents’ divorce and being bullied about her weight at school, finding her love of music and theatre to her first love and inevitable heartbreak, a year studying in Italy, recording and touring, right up to writing the Broadway musical Waitress.

It’s a short book comprising of eight essays based around eight of her songs, though one aspect that did disappoint me was that most of the songs she picked as the basis of the chapters in this book were from her earlier recordings with no songs from Kaleidoscope Heart and only one from The Blessed Unrest, although she does include one from Waitress.

I started reading this thinking it would be a little stopgap between other reads, but I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. Sounds Like Me is a quick and entertaining read, filling in the background of one of my favourite musicians that made me want to listen to her songs with fresh insight, though it did leave me wanting to know more.

My reading often dips in the summer when longer, lighter evenings encourage me to spend more time outside being active, but back under partial lockdown for a couple of weeks and on the cusp of autumn, I’m looking forward to cosy evenings catching up on my TBR shelf. Take care, and have a lovely week. X

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

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The Fifth Season is the first book in The Broken Earth Trilogy and it’s the kind of gripping story that swept me along before I had the foggiest idea what it was about.

Set in a dystopian future, The Fifth Season follows three protagonists, Essun, Damaya and Syenite, all members of a race of humans called orogenes with the ability to control seismic activity. Essun, who has been living in hiding, is searching for her husband after he murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Damaya is taken to an organisation known as Fulcrum to be trained in how to control her abilities and serve the human population, while Syenite is an ambitious and talented orogene sent on a mission by the Fulcrum, frustrated but resigned to the injustices and unfairness of the world she lives in.

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Each perspective is unique and intriguing, and how the characters intersect with one another adds another level of mystery and suspense. When the characters and timelines finally coalesce at the end, it sets the scene for the next part of the trilogy which I’m looking forward to reading.

The world building is brilliant, though the brutal dehumanisation, exploitation and subjugation of the orogenes is uncomfortable reading in places, and I wasn’t suprised to learn that it was inspired by the real history of slavery and the oppression of black people. The Fifth Season is a thought-provoking, absorbing and original read. Have a lovely week. X

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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Gods of Jade and Shadow was one of a few books that I bought to help get myself out of my lockdown reading slump. Set in Mexico during the 1920’s, the story follows a young woman called Casiopea who happens to be the downtrodden member of a wealthy family, until one day she frees the ancient Mayan God of Death, Hun-Kamé, who has been imprisoned in a locked chest in her grandfather’s bedroom.

Casiopea agrees to accompany Hun-Kamé around Mexico as he attempts to restore himself to full power, and it’s a race against time as while he exists in mortal form, he draws strength from her, draining her like a battery. Their quest to retrieve Hun-Kamé’s essence (his eye, ear, finger and jade necklace) takes them across Mexico encountering all manner of ghosts, demons, witches and other supernatural beings before the final confrontation in the underworld, Xiabalba, itself, it’s delightfully sinister and macabre in places.

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Hun-Kamé and his treacherous twin, Vucub-Kamé pit Casiopea and her cousin, Martin, against each other as they battle for supremacy over the underworld; it’s an interesting dynamic as all four characters’ positions were determined by chance as firstborn Hun-Kamé became the ruler of Xibalba with his younger twin destined to serve him, while Martin is the heir to their grandfather’s fortune soley because of his gender with Casiopea assigned to a position of servitude.

Given that Gods of Jade and Shadow is just over 300 pages in length, I found it slow to start and if not for my 100 page rule I might have given up before it started to get interesting, I also thought the romantic subplot felt flat and predictable, however, I found the setting and Mayan mythology a refreshing change, and the final test of the champions and the ending itself were particularly satisfying. Have a lovely week. X

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge

Following the Black Lives Matter protests around the world, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race was widely recommended, and I was drawn to it because it offers a British perspective on race relations.

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The book starts with history, describing the British role in the slave trade, the whitewashing of the World Wars, decades of police brutality and racial profiling, the election of the first black MPs in 1987 (including Diane Abbot), the Brixton riots and many other significant events leading up to the present day. It’s as fascinating as it is disturbing, British history is often ugly and violent but necessary to understanding racism and discrimination in the U.K.

Eddo-Lodge argues that racism is more insidious than abusive language or flag waving nationalist mobs marching, it’s the influence of people (predominantly white male) in positions of power to impact the life chances and circumstances of others. Very few white people will openly admit to being racist, yet many become defensive when confronted with evidence of white privilege.

It’s uncomfortable reading in places, the way that readers and viewers assume fictional characters are white unless otherwise described (as the furore caused when a black actress was cast as Hermoine Granger in the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, or when there was a rumour that a black actor was being considered as the new James Bond demonstrate), the backlash against intersectional feminism (black women are doubly discriminated against by being both black and female), how racism and class intersect with the idea that “white working class” are a marginalised minority that deserve support and special consideration, and how many white people ignore or accept discrimination and racism instead of challenging it.

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race is well-researched, thought-provoking, and a great place to start learning about systemic racism and how to be actively anti-racist. Take care, and have a lovely week. X

Peaches for Monsieur le Curé by Joanne Harris

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I enjoyed The Lollipop Shoes (reviewed here) so much that I dove straight back into the third installment of the Chocolat series. Peaches for Monsieur le Curé is set eight years after Chocolat (reviewed here) when Vianne recieves a letter from a deceased friend in Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, she decides to return to the village with her daughters. Vianne finds Lansquenet has changed dramatically in the intervening years with an influx of Muslim immigrants, and the atmosphere in the village is tense as the French villagers clash with the newcomers.

Like Chocolat, the narrative switches between Vianne and her old adversary, the village priest, Francis Reynaud, who finds himself under suspicion from both his own congregation and the Muslim community when a school for Muslim girls burns down.

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Unlike Chocolat and The Lollipop Shoes, which had a certain timelessness, I suspect Peaches for Monsieur le Curé will be easier to place in time as it reflects the real-world political tensions and suspicions between Muslim immigrants and the native French. Lansquenet is as rife with secrets and discord as ever, yet there is reason and tolerance, as well as prejudice and hypocrisy on both sides of the conflict.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find Peaches for Monsieur le Curé quite as charming or captivating as its predecessors but I did enjoy returning to Lansquenet-sous-Tannes and it had enough suspense and mystery to keep me guessing until the end. Take care, and have a lovely week. X

 

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

As a child who loved to play outside and help my parents in the garden, The Secret Garden thoroughly captured my imagination and was one of my childhood favourites, I recently found myself reaching for my old, crinkled and faded copy again when I was in the mood for some comfort-reading.

The Secret Garden follows nine-year-old Mary Lennox who is orphaned during an outbreak of cholera in India and sent to live with her uncle in Yorkshire. Mary is left to amuse herself exploring Misselthwaite Manor and the grounds where she finds a walled garden that has been locked and forgotten about for ten years.

I’ve always loved that Mary starts the story as a disagreeable, impudent and stubborn child, so different from other heroines in children’s stories, which makes her transformation into a lively, determined and cheerful child all the more remarkable, and mirrors the rejuvenation of the secret garden itself.

Along the way Mary befriends the kind but plain-spoken Martha, the grumpy yet sentimental gardener Ben Weatherstaff, animal-charming Dickon, and her cousin Colin who undergoes his own journey of healing and growth alongside Mary’s.

The Secret Garden is a lovely story of friendship, life and nature that captures the joy of nurturing a garden, and the curiosity and sense of wonder that comes so naturally to children. In the era of TV, social media and smartphones, the underlying message championing the value of nature and spending time outside for health and well-being seems as relevant now as it did when it was published in 1911. Have a lovely week. X

The Thief of Always by Clive Barker

I’ve been reading in fits and starts since my daughter was born, a few pages here or a chapter there during her feeds and naps, but this was such a short, gripping story that I read it in a couple of sittings.

Ten year old Harvey Swick is bored, when one dreary February day he’s visited by a strange creature called Rictus who invites him to visit the mysterious Mr Hood’s Holiday House.

One by one, Harvey meets Mr Hood’s servants, kindly Mrs Griffin and her cats, as well as the mysterious “brood” of siblings Rictus, Jive, Marr, and Carna, each of them performing a different role for their master and threatening in their own way, though Hood himself remains hidden.

Mr Hood’s house is a wondrous place where there are four seasons in one day everyday, spring mornings turn into summer afternoons with Halloween every evening and Christmas every night.

Yet things take a sinister turn when a Halloween trick goes too far, and Harvey and the other children realise that they’re prisoners in Hood’s world of illusions.

This is a thrilling and sinister children’s horror story that reminds us to live in the present and not to wish our lives away – a pertinent message during lockdown when it feels like life is on hold. Have a lovely week. X

The Lost Plot by Genevieve Cogman

The Lost Plot is the fourth book in the Invisible Library series following the librarian Irene Winters in the battle between the forces of chaos and order.

Shortly after The Lost Plot begins, Irene is approached by a dragon with a request to acquire a specific version of a text, a request that threatens the Library’s neutrality between the dragons and the fae, and Irene finds herself caught between two rival factions of feuding dragons.

One of the aspects I love most about this series are the locations and this one was set in an alternate 1920’s New York complete with speakeasy’s, prohibition and gangs.

The pace of The Lost Plot trots along and there were enough shady deals, betrayals, shoot-outs and librarian duels to keep me hooked until the end. As an added bonus the slow burn romance between Irene and her assistant Kai finally starts to heat up.

I’m generally reluctant to commit to long-running series, but the Invisible Library books are so original, fun and easy to read with such endearing characters that I’m always happy to find out what Irene and her allies are up to. Have a lovely week. X

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

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Although I read a lot of fantasy, I’ve outgrown most of the stories about dragons, dwarves and elves, but one aspect that continues to draw me in is ordinary characters who find themselves caught up in epic events and I have a particular soft-spot for rogues and underdogs. Six of Crows kept getting recommended to me based on other books I’ve enjoyed and I regret waiting so long to read it because it was exactly the type of character driven fantasy adventure that I love.

Six of Crows follows a group of teenage thieves, misfits, orphans and runaways lead by the criminal prodigy, Kaz Brekker. Kaz and his handpicked team are hired by the merchant Jan Van Eck for a high risk, high reward heist: break into an impenetrable military stronghold to rescue a hostage – preventing chaos and war in the process.

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For a young adult novel, this was a little darker than I expected containing descriptions of torture and references to sexual exploitation, but it also ticks all the boxes for diversity with a cast made of different races as well as LGBTQ and disabled characters.

Six of Crows contains plenty of unexpected twists, action and suspense, romantic pining and humour, it’s a thrilling roller-coaster ride of a story that ends on a cliffhanger, and I can’t wait to find out how the final part of this duology resolves itself. Have a lovely week. X