Haven't They Grown by Sophie Hannah - Review
Sunday, May 30, 2021
You Should See Me In A Crown by Leah Johnson - Review
Thursday, May 27, 2021
Where did I get it? It was a Christmas present from my friend Lucinda. She read it and loved it and wanted me to read it too.
What's it about? Liz Lighty is a senior in high school in a small town called Campbell, in Indiana. She wants to go to Pennington University and become a haematologist, but to do that she needs a scholarship for college. She applies for a musical scholarship, but right at the beginning, she learns she didn't get it. She doesn't want to tell her grandparents - who are raising Liz and her brother Robbie after the death of their mother from Sickle Cell Disease - so she and her friends come up with a plan.
Prom is a Big Deal in Campbell, and each year, whoever gets crowned prom queen wins a $10,000 scholarship. Liz has never been on the inside at school - she's too poor, and she's black, in a town that is mostly rich and mostly white - so she's convinced she can't win, but she thinks she has to try. Her friends - Gabi, Britt and Stone - become her campaign managers. They take control of her look, her social media, and more. Gabi in particular takes this very seriously, and eventually she and Liz argue over what she's doing. But in the meantime, Liz is avoiding Rachel Collins, a shoe in for prom queen, and trying to work out her friendship with Jordan Jennings. She and Jordan used to be friends, but after a falling out at the beginning of high school, they've barely spoken since. But now they're thrown together and Liz finds herself wanting to be friends.
And then there's Mack. She's new at school and joins the school band, where Liz plays clarinet. She's also running for prom queen. Liz likes girls and is out to her friends and family, but it's in a very low key way. She doesn't think it's safe enough to be out at school, and she's sure that if she was, she would have no chance of becoming prom queen. But she and Mack have real chemistry, and start dating.
I liked the book and I loved the romance with Mack. I liked Liz's rejuvenated friendship with Jordan, who was a sweetheart. I liked some of the rivalry stuff, and I liked how awful (and racist and homophobic) Rachel was. I thought that the end could have gone either way - either Liz won or she didn't - which I think is good writing.
I'd definitely read something else by Leah!
What age range is it for? 14+
Are any main characters LGBTQ+? Yes, obviously! I don't think Liz explicitly labels her sexuality as lesbian or gay or bisexual, but she definitely likes girls and is under the queer umbrella. Mack is similar.
Are any main characters people of colour? Yes, Liz and her brother Robbie - who also has Sickle Cell Disease, which affects mostly people of colour - are black. Jordan is too, but as I say it's a majority white town which affects how Liz fits in.
Are any main characters disabled either mentally or physically? Liz has anxiety and she sometimes has panic attacks. She has methods to help herself cope with them, which I thought were put across really well, and which would probably help a reader if they were suffering from panic too! It's very well written
Is there any sex stuff? No
Are drugs mentioned or used? No
Is there any talk of death? Yes, there's some mentions of the death of Liz's mother, and a little bit about Robbie's sickness too. It's not graphic.
Are there swear words? A couple
What criticisms do I have? I would have liked to see more about Liz's friendships with Gabi, Britt and Stone. They remain quite unknown, and when Gabi and Liz do fall out, I thought they should have hashed it out a bit more. I would have liked just a bit more expansion here.
I've seen other reviews that said they thought the book was a bit too much of a fairy tale. I disagree. I think there are proper hard bits in it, and I also truly believe that queer girls deserve all the fairy tale endings in the world.
Would I recommend the book? Yes, one hundred percent.
Why did I choose to read it at this point in life? I've been wanting to get to it since Christmas!
What do I think of the cover? It's cute. Liz ends up using the crown as a motif for her campaign, which I really liked.
What other books is
it like? It reminded me of With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo.
How many stars? Four out of five.
Where is the book
going now? I'll definitely keep it!
The Mother in Law by Sally Hepworth - Review
Sunday, May 23, 2021
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart - Review
Thursday, May 20, 2021
I heard of Shuggie Bain when it won the Booker Prize last year, and immediately thought I would like to read it. Every now and then I like to read prize winners to see what all the buzz is about. Last time I did it was Girl, Woman, Other, which I ended up loving, and I feel the same way about this. I requested it from the library and it came in really quickly. I've been doing that a bit in the past few weeks, and I'm imoressed with how easy it is. The library staff are working really hard to make books accessible and safe for us.
So! Shuggie Bain is the titular character, named Hugh after his dad, Big Shug. At the beginning of the novel Shuggies is fifteen and living by himself in a bedsit. He works in a supermarket.
Next, we're back ten years previously when Shuggie is five and living in a tenement in Sighthill in Glasgow with his mother, father, brother, sister, grandma and grandad. His parents, Agnes and Shug, had an affair and left their first spouses for each other. Agnes is an alcoholic. Shug is abusive and generally an awful person. Shuggie was born and everyone is squashed into Lizzie and Wullie's three bedroomed flat.
Shug then moves the family out to Pithead, an ex mining community west of Glasgow/in the west? I'm not sure exactly. They have a ground floor flat, but only two bedrooms, meaning the kids will still have to share a bedroom. Shug leaves the family, leaving Agnes for the dispatcher at his work, a taxi business. The family doesn't see him again, really.
Catherine, the eldest child and only daughter, leaves the family to get married young, cutting all ties with her mother. Leek, the middle child, dreams of going to art college but ends up on a Youth Training Scheme instead. He and his mother are antagonistic towards each other for most of the book.
And then there's Shuggie. He is hopelessly devoted to his mother, despite how neglectful she is. She 'keep herself nice' even though she drinks all the money away, and is never seen without her glamourous clothes and make up, all bought on tick from the catalogue. Everyone agrees Shuggie is 'not right' in the head. He read as autistic to me, I have to say. I wanted him to succeed, but I also wanted him to be loved and safe, and mostly he was neither.
That isn't to say that Agnes is hard to like. She isn't. She's been let down by everyone in her life - including her parents. One of the most shocking parts of the book is something that happened between her parents that is never explained or put right, but which I found terrible. She fears everyone will leave her and so she drives them away before they have chance to hurt her. At one point she stops drinking and gets a job and I was rooting for her the whole time, but sadly a stupid man got in the way and she relapses.
This is a whole saga of a book. It is so big in scope and the width of the storytelling is amazing. I loved it, I really did. Five out of five.
F.O.X.E.S by M A Bennett - Review
Sunday, May 16, 2021
Where did I get it? I got it as a present from my mum and stepdad for Christmas - I asked for it as I've read the other two in the series.
You can read my review for STAGS here and my review for DOGS here.
What's it about? We're back with Greer and Shafeen and Nel. The book starts just after the end of DOGS, when Greer has been found guilty of murdering Henry at the end of book 1, and has been branded on her thumb with an M, saying she is a manslayer. However, in hospital, she is convinced she had a visit from Henry and that he is alive. She can't convince Nel and Shafeen though. So all three of them decide to go to Henry's family's London house to ask his parents.
Cumberland Place backs on to Regent's Park and is absolutely huge. Henry's parents. Rollo and Caro, are there, along with their faithful butler, Bates. Caro keeps talking about Henry in the present tense, as if he is still alive, and at night she comes into his bedroom - where Greer is staying - while sleepwalking.
Then Ty, who was introduced in DOGS, tells Greer and co to look into 'foxes'. They can't get hold of her after that, but it seems like everywhere they turn, there's a fox. There are foxes on the walls in Greer and Shafeen's bedrooms, and Rollo is a member of the House of Lords and is trying to overturn the ban on fox hunting with dogs. It's just before Christmas and he is convinced he will be able to hold a fox hunt at Longcross on Boxing Day, as is tradition. He takes Shafeen under his wing and takes all three of them to the STAGS club in parliament.
However, all three are uneasy, mostly for the reasons that they don't fit in amongst the privileged students at STAGS in the first place. They begin to believe that actually the hunt will be a Ty hunt - so they must go to Longcross to save her.
I thought that this book would be the final in the series, but I was almost three quarters of the way through and not much had happened, and at the end there's a definitey cliffhanger - there HAS to be at least one more book in the series, right?! I can't believe there won't be more to Greer's story. I'm excited to see what happens!
I really enjoyed the book BECAUSE not a lot happens. There's a proper middle book feel to it, and lots of chatting, and lots of Greer, Shafeen and Nel doing ridiculous posh things. I couldn't believe how things unfolded and how deep the Order went. I love this series.
What age range is it for? 15+
Are any main characters LGBTQ+? No
Are any main characters people of colour? Yes, Shafeen is Indian and this difference is shown a few times, I like this subplot
Are any main characters disabled either mentally or physically? I think Greer has some PTSD going on, and Caro definitely does.
Is there any sex stuff? No
Are drugs mentioned or used? No I don't think so.
Is there any talk of death? Yes, but it's not graphic
Are there swear words? No
What criticisms do I have? Almost none! I was quite surprised at how little happened, but then I'm happy because there must be another book to read!
Would I recommend the book? Yes. Start at the beginning if you haven't read them all. It's a good series.
Why did I choose to read it at this point in life? I just really wanted to read it soon!
What do I think of the cover? It's great, it is a bit darker than the other two but still fits in with the theme.
What other books is
it like? The other two!
How many stars? Five out of five
Where is the book going now? I'll keep it - I really hope to meet M A Bennett one day and get her to sign my copies of her books!
The Catch by T M Logan - Review
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
I read The Holiday by T M Logan last year, and I'd been seeing people in a book group I'm in raving about The Catch, so I got it on my ereader and read it in just one day. That's not because it's very good, but it is compelling and I did want to know what happened. Like in The Holiday, most people in this book are terrible humans with too many privileges who do not deserve your sympathy.
The book starts when Ed, aged nearly fifty, is sitting in his back garden (where he just happens to have a badminton court) watching his daughter Abbie play her new boyfriend, Ryan. Abbie is around 24 and Ryan is a decade older than her. Abbie lives with her parents. Ed is very unsure of Ryan, suspecting that there's something 'off' about him, some kind of deadness about the eyes. At the end of the afternoon, Abbie and Ryan reveal that not only are they engaged, but they are going to get married in just five weeks' time.
On paper Ryan seems perfect - he got a first class degree from Manchester University, he served five years in the army including two tours of Afghanistan, and he volunteers in a hospice because his mother died of cancer and he wants to give something back. But Ed still doesn't trust him. Claire, his wife, tells him to not be so stupid, and says he'll upset Abbie if he carries on behaving irrationally.
Ed decides that he must move fast and begins leaving work early to stalk Ryan. He puts a GPS tracker on Ryan's car and finds out that Ryan a) visits a 'dodgy' house on a 'dodgy' estate on the outskirts of Nottingham, visits a red light area, and also doesn't visit Manchester every second Sunday of the month like he says he does. He still can't find any concrete proof, so he hires a private investigator to do the work for him. He also begins to suspect that things aren't right at home - the cat is skittish, there seems to be eau de cologne in the air, and he can't find things.
The first half of the book shows Ed spiralling, and the reader does believe him and he does find out some dodgy things about Ryan. The second half of the book got stupid and unbelievable and I didn't enjoy it. I'm giving this three out of five.
Things To Do Before the End of the World by Emily Barr - Blog Tour and Review
Saturday, May 8, 2021
The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson - Review
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Fabulosa! The Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language by Paul Baker - Review
Sunday, May 2, 2021