Here's what I thought of what I read this month, while travelling through Berlin, Prague, Frankfurt and Luxembourg. It's been busy in the best, bookish way. Let me know if you've read any of these, and what you thought of them!
The Life Diet by Laura Jane Williams (4/5)
This was released on the exact day I needed it most, I'm talking the everything going wrong kind of day. It's funny, reassuring, and motivational. Laura shares her approach to curating a balanced, joyful life with realistic advice. Creating boundaries, money management, habits, looking after your future self. I'd still recommend her book: Ice cream For Breakfast, but this acts as a great sample of what you'll find in there.
'Don't do what you love, do what you have to do with love.'
'Nothing good comes from faking it - permit yourself to want what you want. Permit others. Chase what you want, need, desire...'
'Choosing where to spend your fucks.'
Expectation by Anna Hope (4/5)
This follows three twenty-somethings from university life to their thirties, where each is struggling with their lives for different reasons: underwhelming careers, regrets, failing IVF, uncertain marriages. This captures some universally recognisable feelings and presents some flawed, real characters. Anna writes beautifully and creates a bittersweet, nostalgic tone.
Growing Things And Other Stories by Paul Tremblay (3/5)
An eerie, unsettling, ambiguous, apocalyptic short story collection. I really liked this! It reminded me of Emma Donoghue's Room in its powerful simplicity. Not a genre I'm usually drawn to, but would definitely recommend.
'Merry draws green lines on the front door. The lines are long and thick and she draws small leaves on the ends. She's never seen the growing things, but it's what she imagines.'
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (4/5)
The hype worried me with this one, but thankfully it was worth it. This is much more fast-paced than The Handmaid's Tale and is very plot driven. I just love that this book has had so many people discussing the world of Gilead and are finding it empowering.
'The future doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes'.
Lost in The Spanish Quarter by Heddi Goodrich (4/5)
This is a love story set in the 90s in Naples. Two students struggle with longing for freedom and escape whilst being torn by tradition and impossible Italian in-laws. The narrator, Heddi, is untangling her relationship with Naples, the concept of home, and with romantic attachment. Her partner, Pietro is reassuring, predictable, comforting - everything that the future isn't. Emails sent years later are spread throughout the novel, piecing together their story. I loved how Heddi's writing transports us to Italy, though it gets a little repetitive at times.
This is a love story set in the 90s in Naples. Two students struggle with longing for freedom and escape whilst being torn by tradition and impossible Italian in-laws. The narrator, Heddi, is untangling her relationship with Naples, the concept of home, and with romantic attachment. Her partner, Pietro is reassuring, predictable, comforting - everything that the future isn't. Emails sent years later are spread throughout the novel, piecing together their story. I loved how Heddi's writing transports us to Italy, though it gets a little repetitive at times.
‘Don’t forgive me, don’t answer, don’t be sad. Be happy, have babies, write books, make mixed tapes, take pictures… it’s how I always love to think of you. And now and then, if you can and if you want to, remember me.’
'Desire isn't written in the future but in history'.
‘Century after century nothing in Naples ever really changed. And I was beginning to sense that the strange sadness that was perhaps uniquely Neapolitan might just be the knowledge that, no matter what, life goes on.’
This is about the conversations women have together in private, about decisions, regrets, guilt, motherhood etc. I found the first half of this a little slow and hard to get into, but the second half had me hooked. Some really shocking, wonderful sentences in this. Out in January, 2020.
‘There is, below the surface of every conversation in which intimacies are shared, an erotic current. Sometimes this current is so hot it all but boils and other times it’s barely lukewarm, hardly noticeable, but always the current is present, if only you plunge your hands just an inch or two farther down in the water’.
