What a pile of nonsense.

If there's a point to this book, I missed it entirely.

This book has two tracks.

The first is listing the brand name of every single item of clothing the cast is wearing on any given day.

The second is graphic murder scenes that only a lunatic can come up with.

I was going to give this two stars but seeing as I'll probably never be able to eat brie again, I'm downgrading to one.

Wow, this certainly took some unexpected turns!

I haven't read a domestic thriller for ages and the ones I have read have felt disappointing after Gone Girl. In my opinion, He Said / She Said definitely holds its own in the genre.

The build up during the first three quarters of the book is slow but intense and then bang, that last quarter could cause whiplash.

Fat phobia. We don't need this in books being published in this decade. Every character comments on calories, being over weight, commenting on other people's weight. Gym culture, denying food. Its toxic. We don't need it.

I know this book is ultimately fluff but I've seen fluff do better.

If you are weight conscious, believe men have feelings or have lost someone to cancer, this probably isn't going to be for you.

The writing style here is very dry and feels very academic. That said, the case studies and examples did hold my attention, probably because it felt more like a story.

I would listen to a podcast or a TED talk on this topic and I think that's where I head next.

I did takeaway a lot from it but at times it felt like a struggle and it took me a long time to get through because this isn't a format that engages me.

It starts as an English assignment to write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain, he died young just like her sister.

From there Laurel writes to a host of dead celebrities from Amy Winehouse to Heath Ledger and its through these letters we learn about Laurels dysfunctional family, her sister May and the events that led to May's sudden death.

This novel is narrated entirely by Leon. He's nine when we meet him and he's already had a few short stays in foster care.

Leon's life is unstable, always has been, but things really escalate when his baby brother Jake is born.

Leon's Dad is Black, Jake's Dad is white. Neither Father is present. Leon's mum will not get out of bed. There's race riots in the streets.

This is a story of big hearts in a broken society.

This is a collection of short stories featuring many characters which have appeared in Kit De Waal's full length novels.

I didn't realise this until now so while I enjoyed some of these short stories, I think I should have read at least one full lenght novel prior.

So now I shall read My Name is Leon to give some of these short stories context.

Three stars. As with all collections, some I enjoyed more than others.

Just less than 60 pages this is Lemn Sissay's play adaptation of Benjamin Zephaniah's novel.

Refugee Boy tells the story of a family holding both Ethiopian and Eritrean nationalities and their refugee status in the UK.

I would love to see this on stage. While I know a bit about the war between the two countries (which i have to credit to the Asylum Speakers podcast), this play has given me a bit more insight and I need to know more.

I think this is the first play I've read.

Having read My Name is Why by the same author, I wanted to get further insight into how he found his parents. This little 40 page play did just that.

Having now read this, it reminds me that happy ever afters come in all shapes and sizes.

If you've read My Name is Why, I would say there is a benefit to picking this up.

Five stars.

According to the tag line, this is the most chilling and unpredictable thriller of 2016 - good choice for Halloween .
Wrong.
From the blurb I was also expecting a lot of social media elements (which I love in books!), but no, there's a few mentions but no real visuals of the socials.
Do I feel let down by this book? Yes, however I can push my expectations aside and admit, if you're looking for silly horror then this is pretty decent.

From reading the blurb I thought I was going into a fast paced page turner with an explosive plot line and unforgettable characters.

But nope, no explosions here.

Inspired by real events, this is the story of a Black teenage girl sexual assaulted by police officers.

This book clearly wants to tackle some big issues, but for me the author didn't do that.

Great idea but an emotionless execution.

Featuring many of the documents from social services in their original form along with Lemn's narrative of how each event translated into his childhood mind, we enter a world where a Black baby boy was put in the care of a white couple.

It's a troubling read. Lemn did not know where he came from, he did not know the name on his birth certificate. His birth mother was portrayed negatively, His developing years were unstable and unpredictable.

I was recently in a bookshop and I asked the owners for book recommendations on Grief. Turns out they are also on first name terms with Grief having lost their child.

They said to me, if there's one book we think everyone should read, it would be this one.

There's a lot of stigma around adults reading children's books but I don't subscribe to any of that nonsense.

I'm so glad this book exists for children and adults alike.

We meet Annie in the last weeks of her life. She hasn't had it easy, losing her sister in her twenties, spending decades in an abusive marriage, then the diagnosis with a expiry date.
When we meet Henrietta, she's started a new job with the Life Stories Project. She has a handbook which will guide her through the process of writing the memoirs of those facing their last weeks.
This is a slow paced mystery which is strangely compelling

There was too many plot holes in this for me to really enjoy it. The timeline didn't make sense, the crime was too glossed over to ever feel real and the conclusion was eye rolling.

I also have an issue with people crying 'soft tears', what does this even mean?

I'm not sure if this was meant to come across as humorous or maybe its satire, French is a comedian as all, but either way it didn't work for me.

I love the way Robin Hobb writes, her sentences are cozy which is something considering how brutal her plots are.

There's a lot being said here about women. How society and tradition tie our hands both in the present day and in our futures.

Loved the liveships, how they come to be, how they operate, how they are sustained. Paragon is a great liveship and I'm incredibly interested in where his story line is going.

Published in 1965, this book is dry, beyond detailed and dithers all over the place. I dont need a detailed description of the lead detectives cat or the history of every prisoner on death row during the time period. What a load of babble.

The actual murders, motive and subsequent court case was interesting but I could have done myself a favour and just read the Wikipedia page.

Sorry Truman, you need a good edit in my opinion.

Meet February, Charlie, and Austin. Through these three main characters we enter a school for the hearing impaired. We meet hearing families with deaf kids, deaf families with a hearing kids. Families that can accept deafness, and those that cannot.

We learn about the history of sign language, the racism, the culture. We learn about how people navigate a world that is silent.

I won't forget this book.

Fantastic

I'm not sure these twelve short stories meet the brief. The cover and blurb gives me BDSM vibes, but there's no consent or even CNC play in a lot of these. There's a lot of abuse, manipulation, power play but none of it seems consensual. I'm really not sure what this collection wants to be.

Two stars.

Short story collaboration between Lee Child and Joseph Finder.

Jack Reacher versus Nick Heller.

I didn't mind this short story, for 27 pages it fitted a lot in. Was entertaining enough.

Three stars.

First chapter - Excellent, felt energised, ready to dive into what felt like a fun book.

Chapters 2-39 - Realised I understood less than 3% of this book. Slogged through.

Epilogue - Felt as fun as chapter one, just a shame the wrap up was on something I didn't understand.

I feel bad for all cats hindered by this novel.

Two stars - shame on me.

"And all of a sudden I understood. All of a sudden I got it. Why Rose was in the urn on the Mantlepiece. Why Dad found it too hard to sprinkle her into the sea. Why he gave her cake on birthdays, and why he fastened her seat belt, and why he hung a stocking by the urn on Christmas Eve. It was too hard to let go. He loved her too much to say goodbye."

Five stars. Amazing book.

Book 18.5 in the Jack Reacher series and I'm just not into these short stories at all.

They just don't add anything to the overall plot or the characters. It's hard to understand the point of them which makes them feel like a money grab.

While this is one of the better written ones, I already know its not going to be memorable.

Two stars.

We've all watched X Factory, The Voice, Pop Stars along with many other 'reality' shows like Big Brother, I'm a Celebrity get me out of here etc etc, so you know Chart Throb. You're familiar with the setup, you know the judges, so let's go behind the scenes.

Alongside my love of reality TV, there's something that sits in my peripheral vision that's uncomfortable, and Elton zeroed in on that.

This will change the way I watch a reality show.

We have two main characters, Robin and Edwin. One has magical powers, and the other not so much.
The way the magic system worked around the string game Cats Cradle was very clever and I liked how we learnt about the magic system at the same time one of our main characters did, it felt very natural.
I do love an author who can pull off a decent sex scene and there's steam coming off the pages here.

What an incredible story.

Saroo was five years old when he got separated from his elder brother at a busy train station in India. He didn't know his surname, his mother's name or even the town where he lived.

From there Saroo eventually ended up in Australia after being adopted overseas.

Amazingly, decades later he found his birth mother.

Clover's sister was given at least five, probably ten years to live after battling breast cancer. Ten days later, she was dead.
This is Clover's experience of the first year after her sisters death.
Sibling grief doesn't get a lot of airplay, Clover sharing her experience of the loss of her sister means a great deal.
Thank you Clover for sharing your broken heart, memories and raw emotion with us.

The idea of reliving your life over and over again until its perfect and the consequences of the small changes you make each time and their butterfly effect is interesting to me, however I didn't love the reading experience as much as I anticipated.

At points I loved this, at others I was confused as it gets to the stage where there's so many variations of the same life that I couldn't keep a handle on what happened when.

We meet Mae on her first day in her new job at the Circle. We sit with her on training sessions, as her desk acquires more screens, as her responsibilities increase.

We watch as Mae integrates with her new company culture, we watch as her new job becomes a lifestyle and the destruction that causes her, her family and the world.

This is a compelling read but it's also horrifying and uncomfortable.

Book 17.5 in the Jack Reacher series and probably the short story I've enjoyed the most so far.

I love the full length novels but these short stories feel like a cash grab, they don't add value or even feel like a Reacher book.

While Reacher does not feel 17 in this book and reads like a full grown man in his 40's, I did enjoy this one and it felt like it could fit within the Reacher Canon.

Three stars.

Since the blow up around American Dirt there's been so many conversations around who can and should tell whose stories. Here in Yellowface we delve right into it while getting a behind the scenes look at the publishing industry.

From the draft novel, to the editors, the sensitivity readers. The release date, the Goodreads reviews, the twitter trolls.

I'm on the hype train for this book, it's very meta and feels like a exposè.

This is an unsuccessful dual timeline.

While the earlier timeline is fairly interesting, the characters are weak and make stupid decisions throughout, the latter timelime is ridiculous and you have to wonder how this author views women as while they are a little bit more clever, they are shallow and literally only care about playing truth or dare (these woman are in their 30's).

I don't see the point of this book.

While this book is handling some pretty heavy topics, the language in this book is musical. This was a joy to read.

The whole narrative is written just how Adunni, a fourteen year old Nigerian girl, speaks.

A hard-hitting look at the cultural aspects of Nigeria, the treatment of young girls, and the class system.

May all girls find their louding voices.

Five stars.

Ian Fleming, I'm pretty sure that women have never smelt like a combination of freshly mown hay and sweet pepper, I can not even imagine what that smells like. That's some imagination!

This book is of course filled with the usual racism and misogyny found in the previous books but that aside there's something compelling about these, the ridiculousness of the plot I guess is enough to keep me turning those pages.

I've never watched the film all the way through but this book captivated me, I could barely put it down.

John Coffey, like the drink but spelt differently, you may be fictional but to me, you are a legend.

I cried reading this, as always King reels both you mind and heart into his stories.

Rosie is a run down wife who's dream is fish and chips on a bench in a drizzly little town no one has heard of. When her husbands leaves, it all gets increasingly more miserable. She felt so flat that I couldn't help but feel like her husband should leave, she has no drive or motivation.

It's a shame there wasn't more exploration around feelings and mental health, and what could have been an opportunity for some body positivity was swept away

And that's a wrap.

I loved Me Before You and I was sceptical if this needed to be a trilogy. Having finished book three I wish it was a quartet. I need another book, I'm not ready for this to be over.

I recently said, I hope when this wraps up everyone is in their right places, and they are.

Its been a journey Louisa Clark. You in your bee striped tights have made me smile on many griefy days.

Just live well. Just live.

This book is a mood. If the world is overwhelming and you want to curl up under a blanket with some wholesome characters who will warm your heart while dealing with the worst life can offer, this is the cast I'd recommend for you.

Four stars.

I'm so done with this author. I've read a few of hers now and they don't work for me. In fact I'd go as far as to say, what a load of rubbish.

There's so many romances in this book and they are all as flat as a pancake.

The main romance between Caro and Alec is ridiculous. There's no chemistry here and even less romance, both characters felt one dimensional and weren't fleshed out at all.

One star.

The characters here are well fleshed out, real, flawed, raw. The plot moves along at a steady pace but above all this book has atmosphere. You can feel the vibe of this book.

Not as all what I was expecting in the best way. I'm officially on the hype train.

Five stars.

This is a difficult memoir to get through but I'm glad I did. It's an auto five stars from me, I don't rate memoirs, I'm not here to evaluate anyone's life.

As for the title, I'm glad my Mom died .... me too girl, it was rough to read, real rough.

My experience of grief in the last 16 months has been messy, unpredictable and life has stripped by back to its dirtiest, rawest form. This prose here is full of flowers, blissfully idyllic, meandering down country lanes filled with butterflies which made it unrelatable.

Unfortunately the only take away for me was how the alphabet once included &.

Your mileage is going to vary here relating to your own grief experience.

Fourth and final book in the Bridget Jones series although this is far better placed as book three as it throws the timeline out to read this one last.

I really enjoyed this, it's very visual and I could see the film in my mind. I laughed a lot, the humor really came through on the page.

Am glad to have finished this series off.

Four stars.

Third and final book in the Swell Valley trilogy.

I really enjoyed this one and feel like it's a good wrap up to the trilogy. I liked where everyone left off and even though I'll miss these characters, they are all now in the right place, happy.

Tilly Bagshawe once again hasn't disappointed in what I rely on her for, the frivolous lives of old and new money merged together to create a cast I can adsorbe myself in.

Four stars.

Definitely one of the better Jack Reacher short stories in my opinion. Whereas a lot of them so far have felt pointless to the overall larger plot, this one fits in well to the back story.

It's always nice to see Reacher in uniform and see snippets of his military days and this book delivered that.

Three stars.

I loved this, which is odd for someone who loves character development. There's no development here, Elizabeth Zott is the same woman on page one as she on the last and it's perfect!

Also love the grief representation, its not poked or prodded, it's just there, from beginning to end , carried daily as so many of us do every day.

Loved loved loved this book!

It pains me to say it as I know Stephen has said this is his most personal novel, but this is my least favourite so far.

I could not connect with Lisey, her sisters, her dead husband. I can get on board with most wacko ideas Stephens throws into his books but Boo'ya Moon and the bad gunky didn't sweep me away.

There was a massive disconnect between me and this book sadly.

It hurts that I didn't like this one. Ugh.

I really enjoyed reading these short essays by women writing about their vaginas. The woman who have been raped and abused to the women experiencing pleasure for the first time and the women who don't have a relationship with their vaginas at all. There's an array for women here putting their vulnerabilities on page.

I'll high five anyone who puts themselves out there, these women get five stars from me.

Book 15.5 in the Jack Reacher series and I really don't understand the value of these slotted in short stories.

I love Jack, he's a solid five star read in the full length novels but these short stories have no point and neither do they add to the back story.

In this one we meet Jack as a fifteen year old. Jack didn't read fifteen to me, at times he felt super childish, and others an adult.

Did Lee Child actually write these?

We meet our characters just before the coup. The years when Russia and America are fighting for the affections of the Afghan people, investing money, building universities, outdoing each other like toddlers.

This book made me think, do I see articles along the lines of children in war in the media and the answer is sadly no.

I went into this book not knowing a lot and I think you should also, but prepare yourself, this is not an easy read.