My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

38819868.jpg

RATING: ★★★★★

Hello everyone,

if you are still on this blog, you need some kind of award for sticking with me while not updating. It’s been over a year and it’s truly been the most crazy year of my life.

However, I missed book blogging and I’ve had some great ideas for new things to do with this blog. All will be revealed in due time, but I decided that there is no better way to get back into than by reading some of the books on the Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist. Throughout my two years of barely posting, I’ve kept reading and now I want to share my thoughts with you again!

Today, the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019 will be revealed, so it seemed like the perfect time to discuss my favourite of the shortlisted novels with you! So lets delve right in with My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite.

My Sister, the Serial Killer is the story of Korede and Ayoola. They are sisters (as revealed in the title) and the novel starts with Ayoola calling Korede to help her get rid of her dead boyfriend’s body. This is the third time Ayoola has called a boyfriend and that Korede has been summoned to help. When Ayoola starts dating the guy that Korede has a crush on, Korede gets confused about where her allegiance lays and struggles with trying to prevent her sister from killing her crush.

When I heard about this novel from the Women’s Prize longlist, I immediately bought it and finished it all within the same day. Literary awards are great opportunities for people to get to know new books and I loved that this was a book that I had never heard of, yet that seemed so perfect for me.

Korede is our narrator and I connected to her right away. She’s incredibly loyal to her sister, but also wants to protect the man she loves. Her voice is unique and I could truly connect with her, even though she is far from perfect. Ayoola has a great arc, from a character that you can’t really understand - because Korede doesn’t understand her - to someone you can also connect with, but again she keeps her flaws. I enjoyed how this isn’t a redemption story, but just an investigation into two sisters with very different personalities that somehow have to connect due to their biological situation.

I saw on Goodreads that many people complained about the sparse writing style of Braithwaite, so I feel like it’s worth the mention. The chapters are short in this book and you can easily read it in one day. This book is not a book for someone who wants to read pages of description. The story takes place in Nigeria and though that is important for the cultural context of the characters, we don’t see much of Nigeria. I didn’t mind this, because I believe this is a character novel - one that focuses on how family members interact with each other.

Personally, I enjoyed that the book left a lot of things open. You don’t need to tell me every single detail of every room or even every single emotion a character feels. Due to the amazing writing, I felt connected to Korede and I could fill in some of the blanks myself - I actually really enjoyed doing that.

For me, this is the kind of book that should win the Women’s Prize for Fiction. It is innovative in its writing style and explores a pretty uncommon subject in an unique way. I don’t know how these awards are chosen, but I think that My Sister, the Serial Killer has a pretty good chance of winning.

Some of my 2018 reading!

Well hello to 2018!

Like a month late. As usual, life has taken all my time away from blogging, but I've read such amazing books lately that I had to fill you all in on at least these two!

smallgreatthings.jpg

Small Great Things - Jodi Picoult

My first book of the year was Jodi Picoult's Small Great Things, which was released last year and has been getting rave reviews since. I love Picoult's writing and always enjoy how she plays with different perspectives on social issues.

Small Great Things starts with Ruth, an African-American labor and delivery nurse. One day she goes to attend to a new-born baby. One of the parents of the baby is Turk and he is a white supremacist who does not want Ruth to touch his baby. Ruth is removed from the care of the child, but she is forced to keep an eye on him when all the other nurses are called away during an emergency. During this time with Ruth, the baby suddenly dies and Turk blames Ruth and sues her. Even though Ruth is innocent, it seems like everyone, including all her friends, are against her suddenly.

The topic of this novel is extremely timely, considering the political climate America is currently in. I have had no desire previously to learn the perspective of a white supremacist, but Picoult makes the whole story engaging enough that I was even interested in Turk. The great thing is that she never tries to make Turk "nice" or "understandable" - he is clearly in the wrong throughout the novel, but she allows his story to stand on its own and to let the reader into the head of someone we all try to avoid.

Small Great Things isn't always an easy read, but it's an important one. If you want to start this year with thinking about our society, and how we respond to certain situations, this book is a great start. As a white woman, this novel showed me how we can be racist, even if we are so convinced we are not, and how to be better allies in the fight for equality.

daphne.jpg

Daphne - Justine Picardie

Okay, confession time: I've been in a Daphne du Maurier stanning mood. Ever since I've read Rebecca, I've loved her writing, but lately I just can't stop. I'm reading Mary Anne right now and read My Cousin Rachel last year (spoiler alert: it was fantastic). Justine Picardie wrote a novel about Daphne's research into Branwell Bronte, the brother of the famous Bronte sisters. When I read the summary of this novel, I knew I'd get my fix of Daphne and the Brother siblings.

Similar to Small Great Things, this novel has different narratives as well. There is Daphne du Maurier's narrative as she is trying to write a Branwell biography, while dealing with the infidelity and mental breakdown of her husband. She writes to Bronte scholar J.A. Symington and we follow his story of how he is struggling with old age and how he lost all the respect of his fellow Bronte researchers. And then there is a current story of a young PHD student living in Hampstead, near Daphne's childhood home, who is trying to write a thesis about the Bronte sisters. Her story does not only interact with the same research as Daphne was doing, but she is markedly never named and is married to an older man who still has traces of his ex-wife all over the house.

This modern story immediately makes a reader think of Rebecca and Wuthering Heights. Picardie is amazing at throwing in literary references that make readers think of all the other books they've read. My TBR has grown considerably while reading this novel, but I have to say that the plot of the book is a spoiler for Rebecca, so I suggest not reading this until you have read Rebecca, or have seen the movie.

Though the plot is often difficult, Picardie guides the reader through it with ease. It was so easy to read and I could really lose myself in all the different narratives. Obviously, since I've been on a Daphne du Maurier binge, I preferred her story the best, but the other narratives only enhance her story.

If you want to get motivated about your studies or learn more about Daphne and Branwell Bronte, I'd highly suggest this book. On my reading list for this month is The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte, written by Daphne du Maurier. Now that I've seen the process behind this novel, there is no way I can't pick it up.

 

Have you read any of these? Did you like them? Let me know in the comments!

Hopefully soon there will be a post about the amazing YA i've read so far in 2018!

Turtles All The Way Down - John Green

RATING: ★★★★★

I think every post can start now with an 'oops, sorry I've been gone for so long' excuse, but it is getting old.

I can say that I'm finally settled in America and that I'm enjoying one of the massive perks of living here; getting new books on their (usually early) American release date. One example is John Green's Turtles All the Way Down, a book I've been anticipating since its announcement and I finished in one-go yesterday.

John Green needs no introduction. He is the God of YA writing, our beacon of bright light in troubled times and the one author that we KNOW will break our hearts, yet we all rush to the bookstore to buy his books.

Turtles All the Way Down is the story of Aza, a sixteen-year old who just can't escape the thoughts in her head. As always with Green, there is an amazing cast of friends in this novel: Daisy, the best friend who is the complete opposite of Aza and Davis, a millionaire kid whose father mysteriously disappears (aka flees prosecution) at the start of the novel. And as always with Green's novels, the parents play a significant role. While a lot of YA authors shy away from parental interference, Aza's mother is an amazing character who plays a key role in this novel.

The most admirable thing about Turtles All the Way Down is that John Green doesn't avoid spending long chunks of text in Aza's head. This is always a risky move, making the story move slow and not giving the reader much context about the environment we are in. But it works in this novel. Aza's head is a fascinating, but dark place and I had to put my book down to take a little break at times. Her thoughts are so all-consuming and somehow Green manages to express that perfectly through his writing. Her all-consuming thoughts became my all-consuming thoughts and I became Aza. I knew how she'd respond. I knew and it made me feel for her so much more.

Turtles All the Way Down touches upon a lot of YA tropes, and then gives them the realistic twist I've been waiting for. Not every hot guy is the one. Not every relationship or friendship can fix you. You don't always need to be fixed. John Green explores all of this in a way that's both hopeful and dark at times. 

This is not an easy read, but an important one. I couldn't put this book down, because I felt like I was becoming Aza. I'm not in a position to determine who this novel is triggering for, but I can imagine it can be triggering for quite some people. While I love this novel and highly recommend it, I also recommend everyone who recognises themselves in Aza to do research whether this novel is right for you. 

The long-awaited John Green novel isn't for everyone, but it is amazing and I can't wait to see all the dialogue it will open up about anxiety, grieve and friendships.

The Names They Gave Us - Emery Lord

RATING: ★★★★★

I've read When World Collide before and I absolutely loved Emery Lord's way of writing and the complex characters she creates. The Names They Gave Us is no exception to that, with the main character Lucy stealing my heart from the very first page.

Lucy's summer before senior year of high school is unlike any she has had before - her mother has been diagnosed, for the second time, with cancer. However, unlike the first time when Lucy wouldn't leave her mother's side, this time her mother wants her to be a counsellor at Daybreak, a summer camp for troubled children. While Lucy initially doesn't want to do this, she does it for her mother, and discovers a lot about her own troubles through working with the kids.

A lot of reviewers bring up the faith aspect of The Names They Gave Us and yes, this is a book mostly about faith. I wouldn't even say religion, even though Lucy's father is a pastor and she helps her parents at church champ most summers of her life. While Lucy starts off very religious, her mother's reoccurring cancer makes her question everything she thought she knew. This book really cycles her person belief system and how to find the strength to overcome your worst nightmare. I actually thought this aspect was refreshing, since there aren't many YA novels that focus on religion, faith and inner spirituality. Emery Lord approached this topic in an open-minded way that I think can be really helpful for a lot of teenagers. 

The only thing I have to say negatively about this book is just a frustration at the ending. EMERY LORD, WHAT DID YOU DO? I won't say anymore, but be warned: the ending will leave you wanting more. In the best way possible, because it's hard to let Lucy go.

And even if you're not religious or too interested in faith, this book is a five star. Like I said, Lucy is so engaging, and as always with Emery Lord, there is a swoon-worthy boy in Henry who will make your heart skip a beat. It's filled with summer, friends, helping, swimming, music, dancing, basically anything a summer should be, contrasted with the harsh reality of the day-to-day life of Lucy and her family. I can't recommend this enough if you want to end your summer both laughing and crying. 

July Wrap-up!

July is finally over! I know I've been missing from the blog a little bit (a lot of bit), but I'm still gearing up for my move to Boston later this month!

However, I've been reading a ton in July and they've all been amazing books - ranging from YA to contemporary releases to classics! I wanted to share the love so here's a quick overview of what I've read this month!

The Names They Gave Us - Emery Lord

Emery Lord is officially an auto-buy author for me now! After When We Collided, one of my favourite novels from last year, she wrote another stunner with The Names You Gave Us. I won't give too much away - since I have a review finished and lined up for later this week - but I can't stop recommending this novel.

The Names They Gave Us is the story of Lucy and the summer before her senior year. Right before the summer starts, Lucy finds out that her mom's cancer has returned and her mother urges her to spend this summer not with her parents at the church camp they organise, but at Daybreak, a camp for troubled children. At the time Lucy believes her mother needs her most, she follows her mother's wishes anyway and finds herself as a counsellor for third graders. As usual with Emery Lord, this novel includes all the feels and swoon worthy crushes, while also being extremely realistic about life and the difficulties teenagers have to figure out their place in it.

The Roanoke Girls - Amy Engel (release date: 10 August)

This is an e-book that I received from Netgalley, and as always I want to thank them and the publisher, in this case Hodder & Stoughton. This in no way influences my review/opinion of the novel.

The Roanoke Girls is a difficult novel to review. I did love it, but I feel obliged to mention that the novel might be triggering for a lot of people. I want to keep my review spoiler-free, as always, however I suggest this review if you want more spoiler-y information about the potential triggers. 

So a while ago I got an e-mail in my inbox about the Roanoke Girls and I immediately knew I had to read it. The Roanoke Girls are the girls that seem to have it all: they are beautiful, intelligent and live in the gorgeous Roanoke house. Except, something is off about them. All the girls seem to mysteriously disappear or die at a young age. The only ones left living with the matriarch and patriarch of Roanoke are two granddaughters: Lane and Allegra. Allegra grew up in the mansion with her grandparents, while Lane moves there at fourteen after her mother commits suicide. While there, Lane starts to slowly unravel why all the Roanoke Girls disappear and she runs too - until a decade later when Allegra disappears and she has to help find her.

The Roanoke Girls is as thrilling as everyone says it is. While it is not scary in a typical way, it messes with your mind and with what you think is going on in the Roanoke family. A lot of controversy has been mentioned about this novel and the dark twists and turns in it. I can agree that at times it feels like Amy Engel is throwing certain things in because it sells nowadays. However, overall this novel really worked me. I like to be heart broken by a novel. I like them to be dark and depressing. If you don't like these things, I'd steer you far away from The Roanoke Girls. 

Amy Engel's writing was great in this novel - simple, yet extremely effective. We alternate between Lane's first visit to Roanoke and her coming back years later to help find Allegra. Both these stories slowly intertwine so that we get a clearer picture of what the Roanoke secret is and what might have happened to Allegra. I do wish we knew more about Lane and Allegra's mothers, as well as their sisters. While the mystery of their deaths/disappearances was quite prominent, their personalities and stories seemed to fade into the background. I think another hundred pages would have made this novel perfect for me, but I'd still highly recommend this for any thrill seeker this summer.

The Outsiders - S.E. Hilton

From an upcoming release to a book that everyone seems to already know and love: The Outsiders by S.E. Hilton. I know this is an insanely popular classic, especially amongst YA lovers like myself, but I must admit that I knew little to nothing about this novel until I read it. 

Ponyboy (yes, that's really the narrator's name) is a greaser in 1960s Oklahoma. He sees the world as two groups; the greasers like himself and the socs, who have money and basically run the world, or at least Ponyboy's neighbourhood. Ponyboy and his greaser friends constantly get in trouble with the socs and vice versa until eventually one night an argument takes a very dark turn that changes the lives of all greasers and socs.

I couldn't believe the hype of this novel when I started reading it. I even tweeted after 20 pages asking if anything ever happens in The Outsiders. And then the real story started. While the arguing between the socs and the greasers might seem, and often is, juvenile, the story takes a crazy unpredictable turn that raises the stakes for all the main characters. While I don't want to go too in depth about the spoiler, since I also want to discuss it in an upcoming Book and Tea Talk video, it really made this book one of my favourites ever in the span of a few pages.

This is one of those classics that I highly recommend for people who want to start reading classics, but don't know where to start. My Penguin edition is only 136 pages and S.E. Hilton's writing is accessible no matter what you've read before. Though I take offence in the claim that this is the first YA novel (Did everyone forget about The Catcher in the Rye???!!!), I do think this is a great transition from YA to classics.

The Lauras - Sara Taylor

The Lauras is another book I received from Netgalley, and I am grateful to them and the publisher Random House. This does not influence my review/opinion of the novel.

I'm not sure how I ended up with The Lauras on Netgalley. It's honestly one of those books that I just suddenly had and couldn't remember why it appealed to me in the first place. So I started The Lauras with a completely open mind and kept that for the whole crazy roller coaster ride this book took me on.

Alex's mother wakes her up one night, puts her in the car and drives her away from her father and family home. With no explanation given, Alex suddenly lives in motel rooms and eats junk food every day, while her mother focuses on getting them further and further away from their home. Where are they going? That's not clear to Alex, but she slowly figures out that they're following a trail of Lauras. Her mother has met several Lauras in her life - all different, but equally important, and she wants to revisit some of them and takes Alex along for the ride.

I have complicated feelings about this novel. It was original in the premise of a journey that basically consisted of people instead of places and I also really enjoyed the focus on the mother - daughter relationship. Alex is a young teen when they leave and basically grows up in the car with her mother, which leads to the expected trouble in communication. I think this combination of a mother going through a crisis and a daughter going through puberty is not explored often and I throughly enjoyed the ups and downs of their connection.

However, Sara Taylor's writing didn't really do it for me. I felt like Alex, who is the narrator, told me a lot. She told me about her background and her family and I didn't really get to see any of it in the way she communicated with other people or reacted to situations. The pieces of her mother's journey are not really puzzled together, but consist of her mother just telling her things. I wish there was a little more nuance in this novel in the way characters could show the reader how they feel instead of just telling them, which made the story feel juvenile at certain points.

There were also certain scenes that, like with The Roanoke Girls, seemed to be put in there to shock for the sake of shock. They didn't really push the character or plot forward enough and the traumatic aftereffect seemed smaller than I would expect. I would have liked to have seen more character development from certain things Alex experiences.

Taking all that in though, I still really enjoyed The Lauras. It's an original book and over time Alex really grew on me. Hopefully other authors will see how complex and beautiful mother and daughter can be together and they will write other novels focussing on it too.

All That Man Is - David Szalay

 

RATING: ★★★☆☆

allthatmanis.jpg

Manhood in novels. It seems to be the topic of choice for authors throughout the centuries.

During my MA English, I learned that the true first English novel, a story that was published and marketed in book form and didn't have an oral story tradition, is Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe in 1719. Others say the first English novel is The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan from 1678. Many people agree that the first Spanish novel is Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, which was published in parts, but can be originated back to 1605.

What is noticeable about these choices, besides the fact that it is hard to pinpoint the start of the novel or to trace a clear evolution, is not only their male authors, but the male narrators. Not only are they narrators, they also exist in the novel's title and their journey, physically, religiously and mentally, dominate the narrative of the novels. 

This tradition didn't stop in the 18th century. This year I've been making a conscious effort to read more classic novels and have discovered how more prominent male authors/narrators are in literature. I've read Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Victor Hugo, Oscar Wilde, and many other authors that are not only men, but also centralise the male experience. Somehow the emotions of men are more valid in the world of classic literature. I know that Virginia Woolf exists (and is a wonderful author), that Mary Shelley started the genre of science fiction (which some people like to contest, but I'd refer to this great article as proof that really science fiction was invented by a woman). But overall, the male authors seem to outweigh the female ones.

In this climate, that is only slowly changing because of the rise of feminism and the path cleared by woman who impacted literature (J.K. Rowling for example), David Szalay wrote All That Man Is. To say I was curiously nervous about this book is an understatement. The title is brazen and clear: this is the story about men. I didn't want to read another homage to manhood, but I think manhood in this day and age is extremely complicated. I see men my age struggle with their place in the world and uncomfortable with how their fathers expect them to be and how liberated they could be. Feminism, often deemed as the devil, could help them embrace all aspects from themselves, but unfortunately, the idea of traditional manhood prevents some men from embracing the concept. 

What is being a man? How are you a good man? When do you fail?

All That Man Is portrays manhood in its 21st century form with all those questions in the background. Instead of the romanticised men portrayed by F. Scott Fitzgerald or the world conquering brute men of Hemingway, David Szalay presents nine extremely different men with their beauty and faults. We start with a teenager and end the novel with an older man. All man are travelling, or are at least away from home and from the conventions of manhood they were raised to know. 

Personally, I disliked all nine men. While they ranged in my dislike, all of them seemed entitled and made me roll my eyes at some point. They all mansplain. They all want sympathy for something. They all put up a front and push people out to seem cool. Halfway through this novel, I was annoyed and aggravated and I couldn't believe David Szalay wrote a book, a successful one too!, about men being entitled brats in different parts of Europe. 

And then it clicked - in the last chapter. It's not like the last man in the novel was more sympathetic than the other ones. I just suddenly realised what David Szalay was trying to do with this novel. Though these characters are flawed, some seriously flawed, they are so incredibly realistic. The fact that I felt emotion for each of them shows the skill in the writing. The fact that I didn't like them just shows that, truthfully, I just don't like that many people.

The nine stories, though sometimes seeming incoherent, all have to do with time and growing up. These men all struggle with manhood in different ways and though I might find that struggle annoying at times, it is valid. I missed a voice of reason for these characters, but who has a voice of reason when you're travelling? In the end I could appreciate that David Szalay didn't become the voice of reason; didn't judge his characters for anything, but just let them be.

This novel shows the complexity of manhood in the 21st century beautifully. Was it perfect? No. As I mentioned, the nine stories sometimes seemed too detached to be in a novel together and honestly, I think nine short stories is also pushing it to get the point across that David Szalay wanted to get across. I read this book a few weeks ago and I must admit, I don't remember the name of a single male narrator. Not one. But that's also not the point. The point is their journey, and I do remember that. Their point is that they are real and you'll feel everything you can while reading this book. It is flawed, just like the characters are, and just like manhood is, but it is also thoroughly enjoyable and a fascinating look at our current world.