This explores the lost art of convalescence: that gradual period of recovery after illness or injury where the body regains strength through rest and care.
I was struck by the idea that the placebo is the most tested “drug” in science — and honestly, I wasn‘t surprised to learn how powerful it can be. And I liked the historical detail about how hospitals used to be built so patients could look out at greenery rather than concrete car parks.

This is a deep dive into the notorious Hotel Kerobakan jail in Bali. I didn‘t realise Gordon Ramsay‘s brother had done a stint here, and not knowing much about it beforehand, I found that section pretty interesting.

The more I read though, the more I felt the author has a gender bias. Women are described in a very derogatory way, while men are painted as hard done by. It doesn‘t sit comfortably with me.

This book has a lot to say about women, weight, food, appetite, and guilt. I‘m not going to pretend I understood every nuance — my insight into Japanese culture, especially around womanhood, is limited — but when I translate the themes into a Western context, I can see what the author is getting at.

We follow our main protagonist Emily who works for a women's advocacy centre and through her eyes we drill into the Me Too movement.
Theres a lot of sexual assault squeezed into these pages and while it feels like a lot, having now finished the novel, the characters are swirling around my head. Who is a victim, who gave consent and can those things be one and the same. Are women complicit in rape culture when they accept money for silence?

William wasn't an only child for the first weeks of his life but after his sister died and his parents went silent, William became invisible.
Julia is the eldest of four sisters. She's from a loud chaotic family. She motivated, driven and was born ready to control the narrative.
Wasn't an easy read, but a worthwhile one. From the authors writing style, to character building and depth to digging into all that makes us human. I'm here for it.

This is beautifully written and is very visual. You can smell the marsh through the descriptions.

The characters really shine. Tate, Mabel and Jumpin really stood out as a fully fleshed supporting cast and gave the story so much depth in terms of location and time period.

I really enjoyed this. My only irritation was the ending. The last chapter covered, a time hop would have been tighter in my opinion but overall I enjoyed it.

With some depth this could have been awesome, there was so many missed opportunities here. There's no exploration of feelings to how Claire feels to find herself two hundred years in the past or of her feelings on being parted from Frank. There's no exploration of struggle between adapting to an earlier time without modern day conveniences.

It could have been epic but it was average and not worth the 849 page count.

This is a companion novel to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry which I read many years ago. This is Queenie' story.

Here we meet Queenie in the hospice on the last days of her life as she learns that Harold is walking the length of England to see her.

While I don't think this adds anything to the original novel, it is a cute companion if you are wanting more from the characters.

These are a few of the highlights for me.
I'm not sure ill be eating ice cream or Pringles again. That deep dive is a lot to stomach. As many experts have said, its not food, its an industrially produced edible substance.
The same gums that are in my deodorant and toothpaste are in my philadelphia cheese makes me want to vomit.
And many many more. This book is packed with information on all the big brands that stock our kitchen cupboards.

I could literally copy and paste my review from The Girl on Train as my feelings and rating are the same. This author is so overhyped in my opinion.

I was hoping to see some growth in the author but nope, the writing is still basic and the plot holes are glaring.

This is the blandest thriller. The characters, the plot, the twist - all meh. Even the setting, which could be a character in its own right, was like a piece of dry toast.

I'm no Donald Trump fun but faced between him and you, from the Middle East perspective that I have, it was always going to be better the devil you know.

You're a puppet for Israel.

This book of quotes about empowerment and leadership is laughable.

Shearwater, an island between Tasmania and the Antarctica is home to 4 people, until a woman washes up on the shore barely alive.
As the tides get higher, the moody skies and angry waves take on a character of their own all the while providing an atmospheric backdrop for a plot that literally had me on the edge of my sofa with my heart hammering in my chest.
I went into this book knowing nothing, and so should you.

Women's Prize Winner 2015.

This book is split into two halves without chapters.

In one half of the book we are following a painter from the 1460's. In the other half we are following a sixteen year old girl grieving her mother around the 1960's. Depending on which version of the book you pick up, will depend on who you meet first.

It all feels a bit strange to me.

Terribly written and terribly edited, we follow our main protagonist Kathryn as she realises her boyfriend of a couple of months has been dating two other women. From there the Ex Girlfriend Murder Club is formed.

Listening to Kathryn's mother talk in stereotypical broken English was just uncomfortable and very lazy representation.

However it was so stupid, I had fun with it.

Meet Feyre, the youngest daughters to a failed merchant. The families survival depends purely on Feyre and then she is taken away from her family by a faerie as punishment. During the first two hundred and fifty pages we watch as Feyre continuously goes back and forth to if she is escaping or not. Round and round we go.
I do not understand the hype around this book.

We follow our main protagonist Tova who is 70 years old. Her husband has recently died, her son three decades before. Night after night she mops the floors of the local aquarium.

Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus, has been held captive in the aquarium for the last four years and has knowledge of Tova's son.

We can only snuggle up and watch how this story unfolds.

Im ugly crying, this was such a nice read.

This book has really blown my mind and I know this review is going to be a struggle to really sum up how much this has made me think.

I didn't think id given much thought to hair texture but now reading this book, I realise how indoctrinated I am into 'hair just be sleek and straight to be acceptable' system.

I love this book and as a white woman with type 2A hair, I have a lot of soul searching to do in terms of how information view my hair.

Womens Prize Winner 1996 - The first ever women's prize.

We meet our protagonist Cathy when she is around fifteen. She lives with her brother Rob, their Grandfather and their Irish nanny, Kate.

Along with Cathy and Rob, we dont know why their parents left. We can only watch as they live with the reality of this and as their relationship grows closer, complicated, taboo.

This book is written beautifully however the ending is very odd.

I really enjoyed this. I loved how realistic the characters felt, the banter and humour between characters was fun. The quest was exciting and just the right pace, I didn't feel any lag. The setting was awesome, I love anything set in the Middle East generally and I loved how history and place was woven into this.

I dont read an awful lot of fantasy but this one is super assessable.

We follow Jessie our main protagonist as she is handcuffed to the bed during a weekend away with her husband.

This book really digs into trauma and especially how childhood trauma can show up in our future and adult relationships when suppressed.

This is an awesome character study while keeping you on the edge of your seat (and grossing you out in true King style).

Im just not a fan of this author. Her character dialogue is juvenile, basic. This is a adults fiction book with fully grown adults as characters and honestly there's better dialogue out there in YA.
There's also a lot of personal rants in here. The whole rant about fish and sanitary towels is one example of how information is shoe horned into the narrative. Its awkward.
And there's no trust of the reader. A good author will show not tell.

The author focuses on a small group of Brazilians with a lot of influence in the industry. At this stage we know a fair bit on this topic however I was surprised about the use of surf boards (or blow boards as they call them) and paragliding equipment. Inventive.
I dont think there's anything new being revealed here however it was gripping enough, a decent read.

Our protagonist here is Peggy and she is a bindery girl at the local Press. Peggy lives with her twin sister on a narrow boat surrounded by books. Complete books, damaged books, parts of books and odd pages on every surface.
Peggy has always loved books. She has longed for more, to study, but obligations, class, society and circumstance have held her in her place. When the men are drafted into war, the lives of women begin to change.

While this book picks up pretty much soon after the end of Cerulean Sea, we get the back story of Authur here. We get to see why he runs the orphanage for magical children and these six children.

It was awesome to get back with these characters, especially Lucy and Talia.

While I think there's an argument that this could be shorter and the pacing is a little up and down, I wasn't mad about it. I could happily spend more time with this cast.

The one thing I'll always say about David Nicholls is that he really knows how to capture Britishness.

We follow our two main characters, Marnie and Michael, on a walking expedition, and while it's pretty obvious from the beginning what the outcome will be, it was a cute journey to get there.

This is an easy read that dilly dallies along at a nice pace, and the scenery, along with the atmosphere, is pretty visual.

The book follows Elsa who lives on the great plains with her family and zones into the migrant experience of this particular environmental disaster.
I didn't know about the dust bowl and while I didn't feel any real bond with the characters, I was really interested in the events in both Texas and the migration to California. The government's response, action and the Communist movement really did draw me in.

Set during the 1960s, we follow four women who formed a book club. We see snippets of their lives with their families alongside their frustration with the times. Their inability to open bank accounts, get contraception, or have any career ambition.

While all these things are important, I didn't personally feel that this book was bringing anything new to the table.

We are following our 9 year old protagonist Tricia as she is lost in the woods and it's her love for Tom Gordon, a famous baseball player, that pulls her through the ordeal.

Does Tricia read like a 9 year old girl? No. Does Tricia read like a 30 year old man? Yes. Am I mad about it? Not really no.

Im also not into baseball at all but again, I wasn't mad about it.

Not his best but far from terrible.

This is a novel ish memoir documenting Chris's absolute obsession with Dick and her how husband almost becomes an accomplice in this obsession.
The gender flipping narratives and focusing on the female gaze was interesting but far too academic.
This is one of those high brow books that some like to call literature and you need a degree to understand which is fundamentally my issue with feminism, it's not accessible to everyone.

From the first chapter I felt connected to our main character Nell. She is in her forties, a past full of misadventure and failed relationships and is now renting a room from Edward.
There's a lot of humor here, and compassion too. I loved her friendships with both her immediate friendship group but also her developing friendship with Cricket, a woman in her eighties, recently widowed.
There's fun, there's trauma, there's grief, there's community

I can't get over how big of a project writing this book must have been. It should be unrealistic and full of plot holes but I'm not finding anything obvious. It would have been so easy to trip up in the backwards and forwards and yet the author didn't. This is an incredible piece of work.

And the deaths and the griefs and the anticipatory griefs and the anticipatory deaths. I feel like I've been through a lot reading this.

Excellent book.

Set in London we follow Kesta who has chained her husband, Tim, to the radiator in the spare room. He has recently been bitten by a zombie and has turned into the undead. If the authorities find out about him, he will be killed. Kesta hopes she can keep him a secret until a cure is developed.
There's so much to think about here in Kesta's actions and how far she went to keep Tim alive. Her exhaustion, grief and motivation really came alive on page

I knew a few things going into this novel.

I knew it was a Vietnamese boy writing a letter to his mother who could not read.

I knew the writing had been described as beautiful.

Both things turned out to be true.

I was surprised by the events and stories told in this book, and I think you're at an advantage not knowing too much before reading it.

Book three in The Last Binding trilogy.

I wish I had stopped at book one in this series to be honest as I really enjoyed that one. However book two and three havent absorbed me in quite the same way.

There's some incredible steamy scenes in this, there's no doubt this author is a master in the bedroom but that aside, I didn't love this.

This is set in Poland very close to the border of the Czech Republic, and our main protagonist is a woman in her senior years. She hates her name and disregards most others as inappropriate, is massively into astrology, and flies the flag for animal rights. She is generally perceived as a batty old woman.

On the whole, I did like this. It does require more work from the reader than I'd typically give to the genre, but that's not a bad thing.

This book was written for me and all conspirators globally. Whether it's who replaced Avril Lavigne, Were Furbies spying on us or did aliens build the pyramids, I'm all in. I LOVE a conspiracy.

Add to that TikToks, Internet sleuths and secret symbols, I'm in my element.

Then the sister loss / grief representation - chef's kiss. This is never well portrayed in a thriller, yet they smashed it here.

I LOVED THIS BOOK!

This story begins and ends in the Gold Coast of Africa. It starts with two sisters who knew of each other but never met. It ends with distant cousins that met but didn't know the connection.

Any book that contains a family tree is intimidating to me, but it was misplaced. This book is a beaut. You will need to refer to the family tree throughout but it enhances the reading experience. Its well worth the effort.

Set in Glasgow in the early eighties we meet Angus and Big Shug who have a volatile relationship fulled with anger, deceit and cheap larger.

Shuggie is the youngest of Angus and Big Shug's children.

I wanted to pull Shuggie from every page and remove him entirely from the situation. This character is a kid that could keep me up at night with worry.

Parts of this book I really enjoyed. Her birth in Bangkok and her parents personalities I found really interesting. The chapters in Cambodia I was totally absorbed by as the descriptions reminded me of my own trip.

However, on the whole I feel I'm not clever enough for this as I just didn't get the points she was making. The time hopping was distracting and her recounted discussion with her friends were too academic for me to grasp.

Meet our main protagonist Victor. His father is a machine, his best friend's are a vacuum and a sadistic robotic nurse. They live in a forest, surrounded by nature, peacefully, until the Terrible Dogfish comes and kidnaps Dad.

From there we meet a travelling coachman and his mysterious wonders from the past on route to the City of Electric Dreams to seek help from the blue faries to rescue Dad.

Set in Belfast, we meet our three protagonists a year after Lydia has died. Harley, Maggie and Róise still live in the same house share, the fourth bedroom door remains closed.
The days are filled with day jobs and hangovers. The evenings full of coke, cheap wine and complicated sex.
This is a really decent debut. This Irish are known for their story telling and this author doesn't disappoint.

Set in New Zealand in 1985, we follow our protagonist, Alix, aged 10 through her family summer holiday.
When Alix meets 11 year old Kahu and learns that a 9 year old girl named Charlotte was lost at sea a few summers ago, the quest begins to find her.

I loved the portrayal of summer friendships and complicated family dynamics all mixed in with sunburn, underage shenanigans, and long summer days.
I dont read enough books set in this region.

Book one was a real page turner and I'm happy to say that the momentum continued.

We continue to follow Ana in a world split into two. Two societies, one country. Those with mental health issues are segregated, medicated and regulated while the 'Pures' live a life of luxury and freedom.

This was a decent conclusion on the overall plot and while it felt very surface level, I think the author made her point well.

The fat phobia in these books is awful. Fat bodies are described in the most horrendous way. Double chin feature everywhere.

These are a feminists nightmare. The way these women project themselves, how the think about men and how they literally stomp all over other women is disgusting.

And don't even get me started on the flippant way domestic violence is handled.

This is utter trash, yet it's a four stars from me!

Here we follow Sarah, her elder sister left when she was in her teens, never to be seen again. It's decades later when she gets the call that her sister is dead, found on a compound, part of a cult, and leaves behind three children.

This is split into two timelines, one where we follow Sarah navigating these three ophaned children. The other, her elder sister and children in their cult life.

I was far more interested in the present day.

We follow our only protagonist Maya as she sits in a police interview describing her life in recent years. She been held in a garden by a man she calls The Gardener, she has tattooed wings on her back and she is covered in cuts and bruises.

In places this was a real pager turner, in others a slow pulse. I do think it lacked a second perspective, it would have been good to have chapters from the Gardener also.

Through the eyes of three women we follow the lives of those living on an estate in Sevenoaks, UK.

Like is fairly uneventful on the estate, just the usual neighbourly gossip. Until a big cat shows up.

I was really into this. It's a fabulous page turner, the characters felt alive and I genuinely felt I knew them. It's a very entertaining read.

Marguerite, a New Zealander, married a bedouin back in the seventies and lived with him in his cave raising their three children.
This was such an insight and very refreshing to read such an energetic and positive memoir from the region.

It was also interesting as the bedouin were telling me about their clashes in recent years with the authorities who have pushed them from their caves to housing units and how they have commercialised Petra.

Jayne and Barbara (Bunny) aren't particularly close sisters. Bunny runs away as a teen, she keeps in touch here and there but nothing is consistent. Then she repears years later with 3 children in tow which she abandons with Jayne.
Bunny is sad, broken, unstable. Jayne is put together., solid, reliable.
And without meaning too, with the best intentions, between them they are going to create 6 messed up children.
I couldn't put this book down.

A destination thriller set is Abu Dhabi - I was excited to read this however the most exciting part turned out to be getting to the final pages.
Can we please stop putting in sexual assault references that do nothing for the story. It does not advance the story in any way.
And, aren't we bored of the unreliable unstable female narrative now? It's been done over and over again and it becoming insulting.