REVIEW: Looker by Laura Sims

When you’re life is falling apart its easy to covet what other people have. The unnamed narrator of Laura Sim’s Looker is slowly losing control of her carefully constructed world. Multiple IVF treatments have failed and its taken its toll on her marriage. Her husband has left her, reconciliation seems unlikely, and he wants his cat back. Alone in the flat they once shared she has to face the empty room that was supposed to be a nursery, and the reality that she doesn’t fit into her neighbourhood in the way that she would like to.

REVIEW: The Guilty Feminist by Deborah Francis-White

Like with any new thing that emerged anytime after 2010, I wasn’t immediately taken with podcasts. In fact, I think it’s only in the last month or so, or if I’ve being honest, the last few days, that I’ve become a podcast convert. Naturally that means I have been gorging obsessively on The High Low and The Guilt Feminist.

REVIEW: A Conjuring of Light by V E Schwab

It’s been a while since I finished A Gathering of Shadows, and in a way I’m glad it took me so long to get around to reading the final instalment of V E Schwab’s Shades of Magic trilogy, because I’ve really enjoyed living in this world and I didn’t want the story to come to an end. But it has, and as with the previous two books, I was completely taken in.

REVIEW: How Do You Like Me Now? by Holly Bourne

Ever written a witty tweet and wondered why it hasn’t gotten as many likes as you hoped? Ever posted a picture on Instagram and pretended that you didn’t take three hundred photos from eighteen different angles before you found the one that you thought looked half-decent but not like you were trying? Ever put on a falsely chipper tone to write a Facebook status when all you want to do is curl up and pretend the world doesn’t exist? Welcome to life online, welcome to being a millennial, welcome to How Do You Like Me Now?

REVIEW: Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

Audiobooks are both a blessing and a curse. I love them because it means I get to squeeze books into parts of my day that it wouldn’t be possible to read in. But I find it hard to pick a book that I know I can stay with, because as it turns out, my attention span is awful and a stray leaf in a breeze is enough to distract me for a good chapter. I sometimes take months to choose a new audiobook, while my Audible credits pile up, and even when I’ve picked my next one I’m never entirely sure whether I’ve made the right choice.

Review: Heartstopper Volume 1 by Alice Oseman

I haven’t read that many graphic novels, which on reflection seems ridiculous, as a person who loves the way that art and images can tell stories. Through most of my last year of university I was pretty obsessed with photographs. I was an art student who wrote on the side. So I’m glad I read the first volume of Heartstopper, because it reminded me of how much a picture can say.

REVIEW: A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee (or my first audiobook)

I am massively behind the times. I know there’s a point in your life when technology does something crazy and you decide it’s too much and then you lie down and let society advance without you, but I think I may have given up a little prematurely. It’s like I’m not even trying to keep up which, given my inherent laziness, seems unsurprising, but this year has been a revelation. I am still a fan of DVDs and CDs, you’ll never be able to pry my hands away from those shiny technicolour discs, but I have decided to be more open to trying new things that for a long time I have labelled ‘Absolutely not’.

REVIEWS: Reading Round-Up

I’ve been a bit behind in my reviews recently so I thought I’d do a round-up of all the books I’ve read and what I thought about them. If I don’t write my review of a book before I start on the next one I find that the details get a little hazy, in order to make room for the new story. I am the world’s worst note-taker as well, and abandon them completely once I’m past the halfway point. So here are some short, snappy reviews of the books I’ve read:

REVIEW: Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

I know very little about love. Most of the time I feel like I know very little about anything. I don’t know if I’ll ever have a career, or be able to afford my own home, or have a long-term relationship. Being a millennial seems to be largely about trying to figure it all out and when you’ve think you have someone’s gone and moved the goal posts. The comforting thing about reading Dolly Alderton’s memoir Everything I Know About Love is that I’m not alone in feeling this.It’s a memoir that covers a broad spectrum of topics, from friendships to relationships, from the perfect mac and cheese to Rod Stewart themed parties, from grief to hope.

REVIEWS: Release by Patrick Ness

Adam is preparing for Enzo’s leaving party and he has mixed feelings about it. They’ve drifted apart but Adam can’t forget what they once were to each other, no matter what Enzo says. For Adam their relationship was more than just messing around and he suspects it was the same for Enzo too, but now Enzo is moving away and any possibility that they might restart what was so abruptly finished seems less and less likely.