October Reads

Another month, another wee pile of good reads! I wish to reflect a wee bit first, but feel feel to skip down to the bookies if that’s why you’re here or your brain’s a bit full.  Scroll to the first photo to find that bit.   

This month’s books have eerily mostly followed the theme of trauma, with many focussing on how trauma can follow a person for a long time after a trigger. As a cancer survivor, this is something I can definitely relate to.  It’s very difficult when your brain tells you are finished but you feel like you are not done. I suppose there’s an end to treatment and that gives you a false sense that you can (to use a suitable booky metaphor) finish that chapter and just carry on. One of the most helpful things I’m learning to accept is that two years is actually still quite a short amount of time to process what has happened.

I suppose this happens for two main reasons: adapting to change and transitioning from treatment to physical and mental recovery. I could spend pages writing or even listing physical changes (it’s not just losing your hair – mine has grown back in pretty well and I actually love my wee messy bob), most of which would not have even occurred to me would happen. It’s things like having an armpit that has enough sensation to feel itchy but not enough to feel the benefits of a good scratch; living with constant pain and taking the right balance of meds to be comfortable and functional; never being able to wear an underwired bra again or finding one that fits; and putting sunscreen on every day. These physical changes also contribute to mental recovery: you need to figure out who you are again and you visit some very dark places on that path.

This challenge has been so important to me as I have been a reader my whole life: I was always with a book, most of my pocket-money pennies went on books and when I moved back from abroad with a single suitcase and rucksack, I threw away more clothes than books during the great clear-out. So re-learning to love something you have loved since forever is suddenly really hard:  there’s brainfog (ie remembering what page you are reading, what you’ve just read and where on earth you left your book), getting in a comfy position and being in a space mentally where you can switch off and do a thing just for you.  I started reading again last year and I did so on my iPad, setting up a ping to remind me to read and a goal to read a minute each day and so it’s so nice to look back and see how far I have come (and curling up with a book is a pretty good self-care activity) and see a glimpse of the me I used to know.

On to the good bit: the books!

The Interview – C.M. Ewan

Kate is invited for an interview and then finds herself locked in an office block 13 floors up with no way out. A recipe for a classic thriller (and quite honestly anything that makes interviews even worse is pretty impressive).

OK, so I really enjoyed this book until about halfway through then I lost interest. I found it quite repetitive and drawn out, and the twist was just not really worth it for that.  I’m sure others will like it as it has all the classic bits of a thriller:  the goody, the baddy, the back story, the motive, the escape attempts.

Without Merit – Colleen Hoover

Merit is a teenager with a dysfunctional family who is the talk of the town after a huge dispute between her father and the local Minister. One day, Merit decides to leave her family behind.

Colleen Hoover perfectly balances teen angst with depression and you really feel like you begin to understand Merit’s inner torment.  This story is also warm with bits that will make you smile.

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

A group of teenagers at an unorthodox school begin to question and piece together what happens after they graduate.  This book flicks between school and a few years down the line.

This book absolutely broke me. It’s written so gently and easily that you can almost miss key plotlines and it gets you right in the heart when you aren’t expecting it. I actually knew what this book was about before I read it, except the book is not about what it is about:  it’s about the main characters working out what’s going on.  If you want two pieces of advice about this book: 1.  Read it and 2: Do Not pre-Google.

Ginger and Me – Elissa Soave

Wendy is a nineteen year old lass who’s had a rough start, just doesn’t quite fit in and needs a helping hand to connect to others. Based in Uddingston, we learn about Wendy’s life – from her job as a bus driver, her aspirations to be a writer, her social worker and her newly acquired friends who she holds dear. She befriends a young girl called Ginger and you see how the two friends challenge and develop one another.

This is the debut novel by Elissa Soave and I can’t wait to read more.  She creates believable characters who you definitely know someone like, and you fall in love with while digging deep into cycles of poverty and past trauma. I will also be careful who I add on Twitter from now on.

The House We Grew Up In – Lisa Jewell

In a house in the Cotswolds, we meet the Bird family.  We first meet the Birds living under one roof steadily being filled with keepsake memories by their mum who is a hoarder then jumping forward we learn that the family are dreadfully fractured and the house has been left to ruin.  Like many of Lisa Jewell books, this novel jumps between the present and the past to explain what has happened.  This is a tale of unspoken trauma upon unspoken trauma.  

Previous readers of this blog will already know I’m a fan of Lisa Jewell and – I think like every time I’ve reviewed one of her books – this is my favourite so far. This is so much more than a book about hoarding – it is a book about how trauma lives with you for a long time, or forever, and how it can span across entire families with devastating consequences. This book will not be for everyone: one could cry the whole way through this, or be disgusted by the hoarding, or – like me – you can fall in love with the Birds and unpack this well crafted narrative.

The Paris Apartment – Lucy Foley

So I was feeling a bit weighed down after four unexpectedly harder reads so I needed a good wee murder mystery!  A sister visits her semi-estranged brother who lives in a gorgeous Parisian apartment. A murder subsequently occurs and you read the clues through the perspectives of the residents.

This book has a dangerously readable quality:  it has teeny chapters that if you are a fellow ‘just one more’ reader you will know what I’m talking about.  It’s got enough to keep you going all the way through, a story that is simple but complex at the same time and you get wee glimpse of life in Paris too.  I have bought another Lucy Foley book and hope it lives up to expectations!

Ooft, a long one this month!  Thanks for sticking with me.