I'm not normally one for short story collections but I'd never read from Curtis Sittenfeld before and this seemed like a good way to sample their work.

And it was.

I really loved the writing style and will definitely be checking out the full length novels.

I enjoyed every story in the collection to varying degrees.

Stand outs would be A for Alone, White Women LOL and Patron Saints for Middle Age.

Book two in The Last Binding trilogy, and in this one, we are searching for the second object that forms part of the Last Contract.

I wish I'd learn from my mistakes and would read series without gaps. I read book one over a year ago, and it took me a fair few chapters to get back into this world.

I did, however, get back into it, and while I didn't love this adventure as much, it was a decent read, and it was nice to get to know Maud better.

Meet Emily who in her own words is as dopey as a potato. She has ditched her job as a Librarian in the US to go to Ireland and help her favorite author write the last book of her favorite childhood series.

Once in Ireland, Emily quickly meets the son of her favorite author and his bulging arms and deep eyes have her in full on giddy mode.

And so the romance begins

Average read.

I don't know what to say about this book. I've read five women's prize winners now and enjoyed them all, this is the first one that's disappointed me.

Or is it me?

This is described as a uncomfortable stream of consciousness but it feels like a word dump to me. Words at random dumped on a page and it didn't matter how much I concentrated, I had no idea what I was reading or what was going on.

It's a one star from me unfortunately.

Set in Sri Lanka we follow our protagonist Sashi from 1981 to 2009. She's sixteen when we met her, she has 4 brothers and the civil war between the Tamils and Sinhalese is brewing.

This book is brutal and unflinching as you'd expect war to be. The fact this is so recent, and still bubbling away makes this an important read.

Five stars. I couldn't look away.

We follow three children under the age of 13 who have witnessed the death of their mother at their fathers hands. They've been living with their grandparents since who have handled their traumas, the moods, the bed wetting, the fears along with daily life and life has slowly settled.

Then dad is released from prison.

This isn't a badly written book, it's just below standard to what I expect from this author.

Here we follow two main characters. Nick a young man with an addiction to Class A drugs and Henry, a middle aged therapist.

This book is a deep dive into the relationship between counsellor and client and how in many cases the lives of the trained are as equally messed up and toxic as those of their clients.

I think this book had real insight into these topics and has a good amount to say on it, however it was executed poorly in my opinion.

This is a short story collection featuring Vietnamese characters at home, abroad or returning home.

There are 8 stories in total, around 25 pages per story. I really loved this authors writing style so I'll definitely be checking out his full length novel The Sympathiser.

I'm not the best audience for short stories, I feel like I don't have enough time to get to know the characters and who they are.

Set in Syria during the uprising, we follow Salama, a girl in her late teens, battling day to day life under the Assad regime.

With the recent fall of Assad, this felt like a timely read.

I want to read these books to understand some of what's going on politically in Syria and to see the everyday person having to life under these circumstances. What does survival look like for someone whose country runs in their veins.

Fantastic book.

"It is a pity you hate women so much" I tell him "because you are going to spend the rest of your life pissing like one".

What a line!

One of the things I love about historical fiction is that it introduces you to people we should know and Martha Ballard is one of those people and while this book doesn't stick 100% to the facts, it's pretty close all in all.

I was drawn into this book straightaway and loved every page.

It's 2031, Siberia. The snow is melting and bodies are being recovered, bodies defrosting along with their viruses.

This was an interesting concept and one I hadn't thought of before (and I've listened to many podcasts on the amount of bodies currently resting on various mountains globally).

The format of this novel is also interesting. It's almost like short stories. Each chapter features a different perspective of the virus spreading.

We follow our main protagonist, Penelope, whose middle name is Elliot which she just doesn't understand as Elliot is typically a boys name. This bothers 'Pen' so much that she digs into her parents past and finds a guy called Elliot Lennox who is now a famous writer so she sets out to connect with him.

If this sounds flimsy to you, I can assure you that it reads flimsy to me also.

All in all, this was a miss for me.

Ugh. I hate to end my reading year this way but what is this book.
I was expecting to cycle from the US to Vietnam but actually there's a few planes being boarded here and while that's OK, it didn't make a very interesting journey.
This centres around a young man whose family left Vietnam for the United States after the war and his epic return to the fatherland.
While the story of the family is interesting, the journey is a bit of a flop.

This is my second book my Mellors and I really like her writing. She manages to create fully dimensional characters with deep flaws in very few words.
She can also create a visual flash of lightening, the type of lightening only two characters can create who are entirely wrong for each other. The heady passion and intensity that is equally addictive and toxic.
My favourite kind of love story.

At this stage we all know what Israel is however reading a first hand account by a young woman is incredibly emotional.
We hear on the news that Isreal controls the water, but reading how that effects everyday life hurts my heart.
We know Israel had no respect for human life.
I'm glad we have so many resources to continue to educate ourselves and the message is getting out, eyes are being opened.
it's short and another voice we need to amplify

This is exactly what the cover suggests, a fluffy Christmas romance full of cheer.

We follow our main character Callie who is spending her first Christmas as a singleton after her long term partner ditched her for someone more exciting.

This book is cute and it was great to read a romance where the female character is smart and doesn't make stupid errors to drive the plot forward.

This is everything a 2024 romance release should look like.

Set in Kuwait, this covers the Iraqi invasion and subsequent occupation while getting into the nitty gritty of the Sunni / Shi'a divisions.

I know about and have read about the Iraqi occupation before and this book built on that knowledge but this was my first deep dive into the two interpretations within Islam.

This has definitely pipped my interest into this topic and I would reread this book once I'm more educated on the subjects.

This book is beautifully written. Reading this you do feel like you are weightless as you float around the spacecraft observing earth.
And the descriptions of the earth are mind blowing. As we travelled over each country and each sunrise and sunset, I could picture them all vividly.
In a time when leaders are calling war on the defenceless over man made boarders, the dialogue around those lack of lines on the earth from outer space is poignant.

I love the format of this book. It's colourful, it's broken down into logical chapters and sub sections. It's easy to pick up and put down. It has an encyclopedia vibe about it. Most importantly, it's full of first hand experiences from women everywhere!

There's no denying Davina is good at rallying the troops, getting the motivation going and generally making us all feel better about the battle that is Menopausing.

Dang Thuy Tram was twenty four when she joined the Vietnam war as a doctor. This is her diary.

This is a first hand account of the war, written during the war which is a rare find and I was excited to read this. Unfortunately, the translation here really let's this diary down. There's be instead of he. Closed instead of close. And while you can use your common sense to rejig the words and sentances, it's makes a tiresome reading experience.

Safiya grew up under a strict Rastafari father and this is her memoir.

There has never been a single leader followed by all Rastafari which makes everything a little complicated. Each father is ruling his own kingdom and in Safiya's case, her environment was unstable, isolating and the fear of Babylon was real.

Safiya is an award winning poet and in her memoir each sentance is as beautiful as you'd expect, even when harrowing.

It was interesting reading this book this week. As Trump wins the US Election once again, it was a massive coincidence that this book written in 1993 has a plot line of a US president elected to "Make America Great Again".

I didn't love this book as much as I did the first one. I enjoy the diary entry format but the actual storyline and characters didn't grab me as much as book one.

I knew before picking this up that I probably wasn't going to be the target audience for this book however it's set in Dubai, a debut book by a Bangladeshi author.

We have two main characters, Sara and Zainab which read very similar which was tricky. Sara is our anti romantic and Zainab healing from a broken hearts.

It's always encouraging to see local authors getting published in the region, but this book isn't for me unfortunately.

I have no idea what this book is, it's full of everything and nothing
Everything:
Recipes, gardening, DIY projects, affairs, sexual assaults, promotions, sackings, legal cases, ambulances, secrets, lies, broken promises.
And absolutely nothing happens with any of it. It's all mentioned and fizzles out as fast as a sparkler on bonfire night.
And all around this nothing, we watch our main character bake.
A very odd book.

Set primarily in Multan, we follow our main character Ayesha navigate the pressures of a changing Pakistan. Ayesha is in her late twenties, unmarried and dating in a landscape where the elder generations enforce their traditions on a youth embracing new values. Highlighting violence against women and rape culture in a silent society will always get a high five from me.

However, this does feel like a book written by a man unfortunately.

There is no denying this book is full of plot holes. They are everywhere and they are glaring at you the entire time.

There's also no denying that our main protagonist, Kit the Carer, has zero common sense and you would worry leaving her in charge of a goldfish. Next door Bozo Kenny has more wisdom in him than Kit does.

However....

I couldn't put this down during daylight hours. I heard noises at night and at times felt pretty freaked out.

The US occupied Iraq from 2003 to 2011 under the pretense that they they were saving the world from weapons of mass destruction. We know now that the US obliged the UN experts to do their dirty work and only when they were certain there was no nuclear weapons in Iraq, they unleashed their military onto the Iraqi population for 8 long years.

With its cast of characters, this examines what drives a man living in a bedouin town into a human bomb.

When a man falls under a London Underground train and within hours his flat mate is water boarded with vodka, the local police CID are suspicious.

From there we follow a dark path to a man on a mission. A very dark mission.

As with most thrillers there's some plot holes on reflection but nothing too glaring to ruin the overall plot. On the whole this was gripping and I enjoyed the twists and turns.

We follow Kein whose job in the Vietnam war was to search for dead bodies in the jungle. In the years after the war ended, he would drink to excess and write down the things that kept him up at night. This is his story. It's jumbled and mostly out of chronological order which can be confusing however the last few pages address the issues.

This book is full of horrors. Pages full of broken dreams and broken spirits. Lost lives, lost souls.

This is as dry and long winded as you'd expect it to be (why would a politician use 5 words when they can use 50?), however Lammy is ultimately advocating for diversity and inclusion and I can get behind that (if he can get over his fat phobia - there's some odd weight comments floating around this book).

The Paris Wife is one of my favorite books. I'm not a fan of Hemmingways books, I'm obsessed with the women in his life.

Love & Ruin focuses on wife number 3. Martha Gellhorn, a woman considered one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century.

McLain creates a vibe that absorbs me fully. Smoked filled rooms, whiskey on the rocks, artistic types with deep feelings, daydreamers immersed in reality. Typewriters, affairs and hangovers.

The first timeline is set during the second world war. Operation Pied Piper has launched and all children living in London are to be sent to the countryside. As Hazel and her sister Flora board the train, they know their lives will change.

The second timeline is set in the 60's and for the last twenty years Hazel has though of her sister Flora every single day and what happened the day she lost her.

Got off to a good start but lost its way.

Our protagonist is a 12 year old boy who lives with his mum and younger brother in a little village in Vietnam while his Dad works away in the city.

This feels like a diary, his thoughts and feelings on day to day events. Through his thoughts we meet his friends and understand the society around him in what feels like an adventure.

I liked how this is tackling some big issues like domestic violence.

I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that door smut exists but regardless, it does, it's here and it's been getting some buzz.

I thought the personality of the door was quite entertaining. The overall plot was as you'd expect for a book like this, full of plot holes and eye rolls.

Will I be boarding the door smut hype train? Nope but no judgement here, I'm not here to yuck anyone's yum.

Set in the Sudan in the late eighteenth century, this was a real eye opener for me as I know nothing of Sudans history and next to nothing about the Ottoman empire.

While I've read alot on the slave trade in the Americas, I have never given much thought to that trade in the Middle East.

I didn't know how Egypt and Turkiye along with the British, had their noses poked into Sudan during this period and the impact of those occupations.

This is a book within a book. A true crime non fiction writern by an aging male journalist which gives us the lead up and behind the scenes of the night Joni, a teenager, is burnt alive by her classmates.
We've all read enough true crime books by now to understand that these are long drawn out dry affairs that never get rated well.
She set out to write a terrible true crime book to showcase that true crime novels are full of fabricated truths.

As all readers of American literature know, it all begins with a raft down the Mississipi River towards the unreliable promise of the free states and beyond.

This is James's version of his adventure with Huckleberry Finn.

I love how the author has really tied this into the Twain novel and that it gives another side to Huckleberry's story by giving James a voice without tearing it down. It's a fantastic companion novel.

Now translated into English, this book is credited as the first Vietnamese middle grade book to talk about tragedies like death.

On the whole I liked the situations it tackled, be nice to people, remember details about people, share the love etc etc. I think the handling of death and grief was a bit wishy washy leaning on the Be Strong mantras which I'm not personally a fan of for any age group but nice to see death represented.

As a grief advocate I loved this book. I liked how it handled grief, dismissed the clichés, didn't shy from the reality.

But mostly I loved the acknowledgement that sometimes, those witnessing death close up, aren't the ones throwing caution to the wind and living life to the max. That while you know personally that life can be short, it's frightening to live that way. Fantastic representation.

Our time is split between two women. Beth whose husband has just left her for a work colleague. And Olivia whose son died age 8. Their stories entwine 68% of the way into the book and only for a few pages.

I'm not sure what was the project of this book, what the author was aiming for. It's flat, leads nowhere and for a book about Autism, it doesn't educate or enlighten at all.

Compared to her other titles this is weak.

Split into three timelines we follow three women of the Weyward bloodline. Altha (1619), Violet (1942) and Kate (2019) and how their stories all entwine.

I went into this expecting strong witchy girl power vibes and in that respect the book feels like a fail to me however the storyline were enough to keep me going and while in a years time I know I won't remember this, at the time of reading it was decent enough.

I'm too old for these kinds of books. The insta love of people in their early twenties is a total eye roll at this point.

I couldn't get behind the characters, the plot or most importantly the domestic violence which in real life I'm an advocate for.

There's better books out there showcasing these tropes in my opinion however if a book gets people talking about serious issues then high five for that.

This book is primarily about Tom and Ming and their relationship. Tom's coming out. His first gay relationship with Ming. Ming's feelings of not quite being in the right body. The transition. The aftermath.

It's a gritty read, getting down to the rawness of love in all it's forms. Like a microscopic view of individual strands of relationships.

Love, loss, grief, hope runs with fluidity throughout the book. I've laughed and I've cried (alot).

This book is such fun!

Vera is 60 and owns a world famous tea shop, except its not world famous and in recent years her customers are dwindling.

When she goes to open her shop one morning and finds a dead body, Vera takes it into her own hands to investigate.

This trots along at a decent pace and Vera especially is well rounded and her one liners made me smile. All round the character development is decent.

Set in the early 1900's in Kenya & Tanzania, we witness the invasion of the Germans and later the British.

There were parts of this I was totally absorbed in, while some chapters I struggled through. Some characters were really well done and interesting, while others flat and didn't really have a role anywhere.

Now reaching the end, I really like this story (which has been a theme for me with this author's work).

The way this book is structured has really left me in awe. It's incredibly thoughtful.

Each chapter of this book is told from a different family member and in each chapter we hop forward in time a couple of years. We see snippets of the Israeli 6 day war on Egypt, Syria and Palestine. Iraq invading Kuwait. Israel bombing Lebanon. We see moments but it's in the gaps, what's unseen and unsaid that it's going to keep me awake tonight.

Meet the O'Briens. There's Rosie and Joe plus their four adult children. JJ, Patrick, Meghan and Katie. Each character is individual and vibrant, the sibling relationships are hilarious and heartbreaking, the parent / children dynamics are raw, real, relatable.

Genova took me on a journey of science with well thought out characters which is assessable to my non medically trained brain and all the while breaking my heart.

An exceptional book.

Set in Vietnam this centres those children. The children born to Vietnamese women and Americans soldiers.

This in my opinion is a successful dual timeline. One during the Viet Nam war and the interactions between local women and the soldiers. The second one 40 odd years after and those children (now adults) dealing with the consequences. I was equally invested in both timelines and both trotted along in a nice breezy pace.

Does this book want to be a fictional account of the Greek / Turkish civil war in Cyprus or a Natural World non fiction by David Attenborough? It's seems to be both.

We primarily follow a young couple in Cyprus during the civil war. Defne is Turkish, Kostas is Greek, a dangerous combination during those times. We also follow a Fig Tree who wants to harp on about the natural world in all it's elements over and over again.

Not for me.

It's hard to review this as a book because it does feel like my life. The first years anniversary of my sisters death is very fresh in my mind so if you'd asked me how I think I'd find the sisters on the one year anniversary, I'd have a pretty good idea.

Considering the author hasn't lost a sister, Mellors has a great insight into what life is like. The ramifications of losing a sister, the rippling effect into your entire life and existence.