Amelia

This officially could not have gone any worse had I tried. Having lived in London for four years, you’d think I would know how to do something as simple as making a dinner reservation. Maybe it was the paralysing fear at the thought of spending a full weekend with my dad, stepmother and little brother that’s to blame? All I know is: I fucked up.

I love my family. I do. But having them around for several days in a row is...draining. Whenever I’m with them it’s like I need to slip into the skin of the woman they think I am in order to avoid arguments. Their motto is: ‘Just be as normal as possible’. That goes for everything, especially their taste in food. These three have the culinary palate of toddlers — I wish I was exaggerating, but one time Lydia and I went for lunch and the least adventurous item on the menu was a pesto penne with sun-dried tomatoes, which she regarded with a similar expression as when their cat brought a dead mouse inside — so I knew that wherever we would go for dinner would have to be safe. It was my dad who suggested the Hard Rock Cafe. He had been there before and you can’t really go wrong with burgers and fries. So, I reserved a table at the Hard Rock Cafe. Or rather: I reserved a table at a Hard Rock Cafe.

As we were making our way here I noticed that, despite Google Maps telling me that we were only three minutes away, the streets looked nothing like the ones near Hyde Park Corner, where the OG Hard Rock Cafe is famously located. It dawned on me that I had booked the wrong branch. This would not have been so bad if the place I did book had the same casual, laid-back vibe we so desperately needed to make this evening go smoothly. Instead, I had booked the restaurant at the Hard Rock Hotel. Forget the pub-style dark brown tables, cosy booths, nostalgic and lived-in vibes. Think gigantic open space, light shiny flooring, upscale, luxury, and everything else my family is not.

The second we walked in, we stood out as if Bob the Builder had walked into the Ritz for afternoon tea. There was confusion on everyone’s faces including mine, I’m sure, but I tried to act like all was well. We were then led to a table right in front of a large stage, and that brings us to this moment. Since then, I’ve been sitting here with my eyes frozen on the menu, trying to think of ways I can disappear, fake my own abduction and never face my family again.

‘Are you sure this is the right place?’, my dad has asked me three times now. I don’t want to admit my mistake, so I somehow find myself trying to gaslight this man into thinking this is exactly the same place he has visited before, like the difference isn’t really fucking obvious. The waiter comes and we order our food: three burgers with fries and a steak for my brother. The waiter asks how they want their meat — well done, of course — and I don’t want to order mine medium-rare because that would be enough for them to accuse me of ‘wanting to be fancy about everything’, so I ask for the same.

God, my dad and Lydia look so uncomfortable. This is all my fault. How am I meant to sit through an entire dinner of this when I want the shiny tiles of this posh ass place to open up and swallow me whole? Wait. What’s happening? Oh fucking fuck. A woman in a shiny red dress just came on stage. Please tell me she’s not about to...? No. No no no no no no n-

Rachel, Off-West End performer
Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game

Daniel

This is not the restaurant I remember visiting. I guess Amelia wanted to come here instead. She likes posh things, my daughter. Always wanting to be fancy. I don’t care for all of that faff. But despite all that, we’re very close. She would never tell me, but I know she secretly looks up to me and that makes me proud. I’m just happy to spend some time together as a family, even under the circumstances. I could really do without the singing though, if that’s how you can describe this wailing. I don’t know this song but it sounds like it’s from some kind of musical. I love music, but musicals? Not for me. The Hard Rock Cafe I remember had screens that played music videos of Depeche Mode and U2, that sort of thing. Now they are geniuses. Damn, this woman is howling like a banshee. Amelia is singing along enthusiastically, so at least she’s having a good time.

Lydia hasn’t looked at me once since we sat down. In fact, she has barely looked at me all weekend. Not to mention she hasn’t touched me in the past six months. If only we could have a normal, adult conversation. I don’t think Amelia or Mason suspect anything.

Mason

How long can I wait before I ask mum if I can go on my iPad? I’m bored.

Rachel, Off-West End performer
Don’t tell me not to live
Just sit and putter
Life’s candy and the sun’s
A ball of butter
Don’t bring around a cloud
To rain on my parade

Amelia

In a futile attempt to pretend that I’m having a wonderful time I’m actually singing along to these songs now, just to give myself something to do that isn’t praying for sudden death to release me from this excruciating meal. At this point we would need to shout to be heard. Not that that matters because we haven’t said more than ‘What are we doing tomorrow?’ and ‘Mason, eat your steak’. Lydia hasn’t spoken at all. She’s usually someone who is fine with everything and happy to go along with things — you’d have to be in order to live with my dad for over 24 years — but now she actually seems upset. My brother is not helping the already ice cold vibes by refusing to eat, which is causing dad to shoot him stern looks.

It’s not that my father is a bad man. He’s just your typical straight middle-aged white guy. Whenever I’m around him, there are some topics I want to avoid at all costs. Unfortunately, they happen to be the same ones he loves to bring up. The typical stuff: Feminism. Gender. World leaders. So yes, safe to say I only let him see certain parts of me. By doing that though, I’m afraid that I have given him the false impression that we’re a lot closer than we actually are.

Wow, this woman is really going for it. I love musical theatre, but there’s a time and a place and if this woman had any idea of what she was doing to me, to us, to this already disastrous evening, she would grab the sequinned train that’s adorning her dress and get off that stage to ease my torment.

Rachel, Off-West End performer
And still I dream he’ll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed

Lydia

This is torture. Self-inflicted? Perhaps. After all, I still decided to go on this trip after what happened, so now I have to sit here like the idiot I am and pretend that everything’s perfect. I don’t want Amelia or Mason to think anything bad about their father. If only they knew, though.

It’s not like people didn’t try to tell me. During our 24-year relationship I would occasionally receive messages from women. Or from those women’s husbands. And then there was the time Amelia’s mother texted me to say that Daniel was ‘doing the same thing to me that he did to her’. That’s how she said it. Sending me that message must have felt so vindicating. After all, what he did to her, he did with me. But their marriage had been a disaster from the beginning, hadn’t it? They had Amelia when they were twenty. When we met, Daniel was twenty-three and I was nineteen. We were all so young.

All I saw back then was this sweet, funny, gorgeous man in a miserable relationship. His wife was impossible to live with, he told me. She was jealous and moody and had pushed him away. I believed him. If he left her, he and I could be happy, I had thought. And then he did leave her and we were happy. I was happy because I had a nice house, earned good money, had a wonderful son and believed that I was loved by this wonderful man. He was happy because he had a wife who did all the cooking and cleaning and never complained and was stupid enough not to see that he was fucking everything that moved within a five mile radius.

Every time I confronted him with yet another rumour, he knew exactly what to say: Those husbands were jealous. Those women were in love with him. They were all insane. And I believed him again, because I wanted to. But then one day six months ago, Daniel left his phone on the kitchen counter. It beeped, and something told me to look. The message was from an unsaved number, but it was very clear that the sender and Daniel were, well, acquainted, to say the very least. The language was vile. I don’t want to repeat it. I went through his phone and found several other conversations. Different women, but the same story.

And what did I do? Oh, I did nothing. I didn’t confront him when he came downstairs. I didn’t throw the phone at his face. I didn’t flinch. I pretended that everything was normal. I’m not sure why exactly. I think I felt numb. The gravity of the situation, the fact that I had spent the past two decades of my life living a lie, hadn’t fully hit me yet.

Once I had seen those texts I did tell a couple of friends. Guess what? Nobody was surprised. The father of my only child had a bit of a reputation around town. It was basically a running joke that everyone had known about for years. Well, clearly not everyone. Then again, I hadn’t wanted to see it, had I?

So I kept quiet, and then before I knew it, six months had passed and it was time to go visit Amelia. So here I find myself in this restaurant that looks like it’s more fitting to receive members of the royal family than the four of us — Daniel dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt, me in my knee-length dress, Mason in shorts and his Lionel Messi t-shirt, and Amelia in a skirt with sunflowers on it and a white shirt with a collar that almost reaches her belly button. Is she embarrassed to be seen here with us? The woman on stage is on her fifth song already and she seems to have zero intention of stopping any time soon. I don’t really mind it. If anything, it fills the silence a little.

Daniel

Has anyone ever gone out for a meal and thought: ‘You know what would make this experience so much better? Live music, preferably loud enough to pierce my eardrums’? It’s actually really working on my nerves now. And Mason kept refusing to eat his steak, so I just swapped our plates so he can finish my burger.

I don’t understand why Lydia has been acting so childish. She could just tell me if something’s wrong. I’m the one trying to have a mature conversation here. Or does she know something? No, that’s impossible. She believes me when I tell her not to listen to rumours. Look, Lydia and I have been together for what, twenty-something years? That early passion disappears, I realise that. But I have needs. Recently it’s like I’ve had to beg to get some attention from my own wife.

It was the same with Amelia’s mother. I tried to keep my family together, I really did, but when you’re a young man and your wife’s a frigid bitch and gorgeous women are throwing themselves at you, what are you meant to do? I’m a good man. I provide for my family and I love my children. I just need to feel wanted. Is that so unreasonable? I’ve been very patient and understanding, but there’s only so much a man can take. How am I the bad guy here?

If only she would talk to me so that I can find out if she’s seen or heard anything. I’m sure I can explain it and it will be okay again. Fuck, this steak is like trying to cut through a car tire with a spoon.

Rachel, Off-West End performer
How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?
In truths that she learned
Or in times that he cried?
In bridges he burned
Or the way that she died?
Measure in love
Seasons of love

Lydia

He’s trying to make eye-contact again. I don’t want to look at this man. Every day since that moment in the kitchen I’ve been telling myself that today will be the day I will tell him what I know. He can tell something is wrong, of course. I can barely be in the same room with him and letting him touch me is completely off the table. I can’t see that ever changing. But I’ve known Amelia since she was three and I’ve seen how her parents’ divorce and the custody battle that followed affected her. I don’t want that for my son.

How dare he sit there like this saint of a father. Earlier today Mason asked if we could go to the big Nike store so he can get new trainers. I said no, he already has far too many. Daniel of course, wanting to get cool dad points in case this entire mess explodes so he can manipulate my son against me, said yes. These burgers were served with a steak knife through them for decoration and I’m starting to feel like, considering how I can feel my blood boiling more and more with every second I have to sit here, that those knives may have been a mistake. Then again, if I don’t want to traumatise my son with a messy divorce, slitting his father’s throat in front of him is probably even less ideal.

Mason

I want new trainers. Maybe I can get dad to get me two pairs.

Amelia

Pleasepleaseplease let this be over soon so I can go home, change names and phone numbers and never contact my family again.

Lydia

I need to end this. I simply cannot spend one more day pretending.

Daniel

How difficult can it be to just have a normal evening with my family without all this drama?

Mason

Why is everyone so angry about this steak?

Talia

The family are watching me again. They’ve been listening so intently the entire night. Guys, I’m nailing this.

[Author’s note: The Hard Rock Cafe location that this piece is based on no longer exists today. Considering it inspired stories like this, that’s only fair.]

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But then the guy who was managing the book stand enthusiastically started pitching Villa Coco to me and at the same time, David Sedaris himself also came over. It all got a little overwhelming, so I caved. It then turned out that Andrew Sean Greer was the support act that night (is this the term if it’s a book reading and not a concert?) and that during the book signing afterwards, they let everyone who had purchased Villa Coco skip the queue. This made me highly unpopular with everyone else in line, but any discomfort I felt at being escorted to the front soon melted away at being greeted by both authors.

Moral of the story is that sometimes a book will let you know when the right moment to buy it has arrived, and when that happens, who are you to refuse? Here are the books I crossed paths with last month!

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Rating: 4.5/5
Format: audio

This has to be one of the most enjoyable books I’ve ever consumed. My friend Tim told me he was listening to this and it sounded so fascinating, so I immediately joined him and then became the annoying friend who finished it first. You would have had to delete all my audiobook apps and hidden my headphones for me to stop listening to this.

It’s a story within a story and it’s done in the most satisfying way. In present day London, editor Susan finds herself in a strange situation: The most famous author of the publishing house she works for, their absolute cash cow, has died under strange circumstances and the last chapter of his latest manuscript is missing. And then you dive into that manuscript which is also a murder mystery, but this one is very Agatha Christie so the vibes are entirely different. It’s so well done that you completely forget that the manuscript story is fiction and that the real story is taking place outside of that, but then of course the present day story is fiction as well so actually neither of them are real, but they both feel so real!!

Read, listen, absorb this now. It’s SO GOOD and it’s the first in a series!

The Grapevine by Kate Kemp
Rating: 4/5
Format: ebook

Living in a small town where everyone knows (or think they know) each other’s business? Hell on earth. Reading about life in a small village where everyone knows (or think they know) each other’s business? Heavenly.

The tea in this book is so piping hot. It’s set in 70s Australia and all the characters live on the same street. When one of them is murdered, 12-year-old Tammy tries to find out what happened. Big The List of Suspicious Things vibes! The interesting thing here is that you find out who’s involved from the first page, but that doesn’t make the tension any less. As more and more secrets were exposed, I was gobbling it all up. It’s a bit too neatly wrapped up in the end, but I had such a good time with this.

Sleep by Honor Jones
Rating: 3.25/5
Format: audio

The premise really spoke to me: a dual timeline that on the one hand follows Margaret as a young girl who experiences a traumatic event, and on the other hand shows Margaret as an adult with children of her own, trying to break cycles and still navigating those same difficult family dynamics. This book is quiet and soft in how it portrays pain so there are no big displays of emotion or confrontations. Part of me liked this because it made it seem realistic, but unfortunately that meant it also didn’t go beyond the surface. I wanted to know more about how Margaret was feeling or what she was thinking. If it hadn’t been so short I probably would have stopped listening.

This is more of a general point, but does anyone else absolutely despise when audiobook narrators put on a child’s voice, specifically in scenes where a child is throwing a tantrum? It just fills me with an unnatural amount of rage. I listened to another book a few months ago, and in that story there was a point where a child was refusing to eat their dinner. She kept screaming bloody murder while the mum was trying to reason with her and the audiobook narrator was just wailing in my ears in the most infuriating high-pitched voice. Suddenly, the father in the book stood up and roared at the child to sit down and shut up. From the plot it was obvious that he was the bad guy and that you were supposed to feel like his reaction was completely out of proportion, but I felt nothing but deep satisfaction at someone finally telling that child to stop.

In Sleep, whenever we spend time with one of the main character’s children she’s flying off the handle or not listening to anything her mother tells her, which makes it difficult as a reader to feel any sort of connection with that child. Especially when it’s an audiobook so every time the child speaks you’re wincing because of the shrill voice you’re being subjected to.

Sunset by Jessie Cave
Rating: 3.75/5
Format: physical

We follow Ruth, a young woman who’s trying to make sense of her life after her sister, who was also her main source of stability and comfort, unexpectedly died when the two were on holiday.

Jessie Cave captures the messiness, confusion, anger and devastation of grief in a phenomenal way. About a third into this Ruth had already started feeling like someone who could easily be my friend or co-worker, that’s how real she felt. This was a beautiful read, but it was a bit too long for me. I know the point of the story is very much how our main character feels aimless and is going through the motions, but the reading experience got a little repetitive after a while. Still, I think for anyone who is going through similar things, this book can feel like a hug from someone who understands.

Saturday Requiem by Nicci French (Frieda Klein series #6)
Rating: 4/5
Format: physical

There’s absolutely nothing I can say about this series anymore that I haven’t said about the previous five parts. I do think story-wise I preferred some of the others over this one, but still very very enjoyable. Awwww, there’s only two left now! :( I think I want to save them for autumn.

Getting Away by Kate Sawyer
Rating: 3/5
Format: audio

The only way this can be read is during the summer, preferably on holiday. It’s a novel that follows one family for 100 years, but you only spend time with them when they’re on vacation. As the characters get older and go through social change, you also see how they cope with several family secrets.

I wanted a read that would give me all the summer vibes and that’s what I got. Interesting concept as well! I am starting to suspect that perhaps I don’t love novels with bigger time jumps. In this one, the children in one chapter were adults the next with a new generation of children of their own, which made it difficult for me to really connect to any of them apart from Elizabeth and Margaret, who are the heart of the story. All the other characters I kept getting confused.

Despite this seeming like a lighthearted summer read very big, serious things happen, but they’re basically not discussed at all. I think the most interesting aspect of this book is how the world changes around this family (e.g., the first holiday being a day trip to the beach paid for by an employer vs 100 years later when one of the characters is a travel blogger), but some of that went over my head because I kept focusing on how so many things were just brushed over.

The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji
Rating: DNF
Format: audio

One of the coolest cover I’ve ever seen, but for some reason I just couldn’t get into this story. One day I paused it and just didn’t put it back on. Not sure if it was the book or if it was simply the wrong time for me to read this.

My Friends by Fredrik Backman (translated from the Danish by Neil Smith)
Rating: DNF
Format: audio

There is no way this is meant to be a book for adults? I’ve read several of Backman’s books and the writing has always felt very young adult to me, but that was absolutely fine. I enjoyed them. With his previous work I also didn’t mind his very unique writing style, but man, with this one he just cranked it up to the highest level and I just couldn’t.

The one word I would use to describe this is overwritten. Every single sentence is an attempt at either a funny joke (if you find fart jokes funny, that is), or some incredibly profound insight. I found myself rolling my eyes every ten seconds.

The Land and its People by David Sedaris
Rating: 4.75/5
Format: physical

The man. The myth. The GOAT of essay writing. My personal idol David Sedaris does it again. Not quite five stars purely because I read his previous collection right before this and loved that a little bit more, but is that even fair because that’s just him getting beaten by his own genius?

For anyone who thinks that they wouldn’t enjoy essays (why are you on Substack?), I think the term sometimes makes people think of dry think pieces you would read in highbrow magazines, but this is the furthest thing from that. In a weird way the people in Sedaris’ life feel so familiar to me now that his books might as well be one big fiction series. I will be reading and go ‘Oh haha, that’s such a Gretchen thing to say!’ about someone who is real but who I’ve never met. I’m still processing the part in this collection where he casually mentions that he walked 91,000 steps in one day. Like…what?

And that’s a wrap on July’s wrap-up! What have your favourite reads been so far this summer? Also, if you end up buying one of these books via the links in this post (not sure why you would be inspired to get the ones I rated quite low but maybe our tastes are very different and you use these posts so you can avoid the ones I love and read the ones I don’t?) you support my favourite independent bookshop Gay’s the Word, and I get 10%. Look at me being a book influencer?!

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The medium also claimed that I had stomach issues. When my grandmother told her that, as far as she was aware I didn’t, she was adamant. She was absolutely sure of it and if I hadn’t noticed anything yet I soon would, making me worry about having undetected stomach cancer for years to come.

Still, my grandmother and I were intrigued and we wanted to hear more, so we booked a private session at the woman’s house. My grandmother had lost her father a couple of years prior, and although the man had been in his mid-eighties, she hadn’t been able to cope with it. I had suffered a loss of my own, one that to my teenage mind and body felt all-consuming: The boy I had been in love with since I was 11 years old had moved away and cut off all contact with friends and family. I was in the throes of heartbreak, and thanks to the naiveté and feelings of grandeur reserved only for teenagers, I was convinced that because we were so obviously meant to be together, it was up to me to bring him back and make everything right again.

My grandmother made me promise not to tell my grandfather about our excursion, as the incredibly logical and sceptical man would not be particularly thrilled about her forking over hundreds of euros in the hopes of hearing a message from the great beyond. He’s probably reading this right now, though.

I remember us being welcomed into the medium’s apartment, which looked relatively normal. The time the medium and my grandmother engaged in smalltalk, I spent looking for clues that this was the home of a woman who could speak to the dead, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. No crystal ball, not even a beaded curtain. A tad disappointing, if I’m honest.

My grandmother was up first. She showed the medium pictures of her favourite brother. ‘I feel pressure here,’ the medium said, putting a hand on the back of her head. We didn’t know what that was about. ‘Okay, what about here,’ she said, her hand on her chest this time, ‘Does that make sense?’ My grandmother and I nodded enthusiastically. Yes, he had undergone complicated heart surgery! Yay!

Suddenly the medium started flapping her hands about like she was swatting away flies. ‘Wow wow wow! Do I really need to tell her that?’, she asked seemingly nobody. Clearly she got confirmation that she should indeed convey the message, because she started informing my grandmother of some intimate details of her brother’s marriage and sex life, making his wife sound like an absolute tyrant who was essentially using her husband as a sex slave. My grandmother needed no convincing. ‘Yes, that makes perfect sense,’ she said.

Then, the topic turned to my grandmother’s family in general. My grandmother was one of five siblings, and there weren’t two of them who didn’t have a decade-long falling-out with each other on at least one occasion. When my great-grandparents died and their (very modest) inheritance was up for grabs, what followed was a battle worthy of its own TV show, with alliances between the siblings shifting on an almost weekly basis, a physical fight at the cemetery during the funeral, one brother sticking a note to their father’s grave that read, ‘You’re a filthy thief!’ and that same man going to the police to press charges against my grandmother for trying to hit him with her car when leaving the cemetery. Let the record state that I wholeheartedly believe that my grandmother claimed she was innocent.

With all of this in mind, it’s perhaps no surprise that when the medium casually informed my grandmother that her brothers had all gotten together to curse her with the help of some ancient magic, she accepted that like it was the only logical explanation and like it was almost a little silly that she hadn’t reached this conclusion herself. ‘This is so obviously the reason why I’ve had all this terrible misfortune these past couple of years,’ she exclaimed. At this point she hadn’t gone to work in two decades, lived in a gorgeous house, spent most of her time dilly-dallying, and was married to a man who, without ever complaining, sustained both her smoking and her shopping addiction — each of those amounting to numbers that could clear a small country’s debt — so I have never been clear on exactly what terrible misfortune she was referring to. The medium offered to get rid of the curse, but that would require the help of a mysterious third party (a witch? A voodoo priestess?). No concrete actions were agreed upon, and it was time to move on to me.

Still in the trenches of despair, I had brought another picture of the boy I had been in love with for years. She told me again that I would not end up with him, that he was a mess and that I deserved better. She said that there were people ‘out there’ looking out for me. Nobody I had been close to had died at this point so I wondered who the hell she was talking about, but she couldn’t tell me. She then went on to tell me that I would marry a tall blonde man and we would have two daughters together. ‘One of them will be like you, dancing around the living room with a hairbrush for a microphone.’ I started sobbing then. I wasn’t entirely convinced of any of this, but I so desperately needed someone to tell me that I would be alright.

She then added that I had to love my body, because I was perfect the way I was and I wouldn’t be myself if I tried to change it too much. I’m not sure what brought this on, and in the moment I was rather embarrassed, as there was nothing worse to me than the fact that I was fat being discussed or even acknowledged. In a strange way though, the medium made me feel hopeful in that moment.

Looking back now, my grandmother’s reading was quite brutal compared to mine. Maybe she felt sorry for me because I was young. Maybe she could see what we both wanted to get out of this the most; my grandmother wanted someone to confirm her suffering in this family saga, and I wanted to hear that this pain wouldn’t last forever. I can’t remember exactly how much she charged, but it definitely would have paid for a few months of therapy for both of us. You could argue that would have been more beneficial in the long run, but would that have made for as interesting a story? Exactly.

Weeks later, my grandmother received a call from the medium. She and one of her friends had gotten rid of the curse and if my grandmother could now kindly send her 500 euros, please. My grandmother was appalled. I don’t know if it was because by then she had come to her senses or because she hadn’t officially agreed to this curse removal and its price tag. Maybe she had grown fond of it and didn’t want it removed. Either way, she told the medium no and that’s the last we ever heard of this scamming, body-positive queen. Maybe she cursed my grandmother again that same day.

As for her prophecies: I never saw the boy again and he’s now dead, so I suppose she was right that I wouldn’t end up with him. I would go on to starve myself a few more times before finally learning that my body was not the problem, but I love my fat body now and have long accepted that I’m not meant to be thin, so she was right about that too. As for my blonde husband and two blonde children though, my boyfriend is a black man and with every year I’m more convinced that I don’t want children, so that one is not looking so promising. The only blonde girl who will be dancing around the living room with a hairbrush as a microphone is this author.

Thank you so much for reading. Want to read more of my work? You can share and subscribe for free. Showing some love really helps! If you’re feeling especially generous you can tip me as little as £1 by clicking on the tip jar, which will go towards essentials (iced coffee for me to keep writing, and treats for my cats).

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Loved one by Aisha Muharrar
Rating: 3.5/5
Format: audio

When Julia’s best friend unexpectedly dies, there are a lot of unanswered questions that she now wants to try and find answers to. This mission takes her to London where she gets to know Gabe’s most recent ex-girlfriend. The book explores the idea that when someone dies, two people can mourn a completely different person. The narrator of this audiobook was excellent and it was quite funny as well, but I found myself wanting a bit more depth. I would recommend it as an entertaining read, but don’t expect something incredibly profound.

Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie (a Miss Marple novel)
Rating: 4/5
Format: audio

My audiobook app calls this one part 4 of the Miss Marple series, but then halfway through I discovered that it’s actually the 12th and last one in the series, so I panicked, but then I learnt that this is the book that was published last but that it should actually be read as the fourth book anyway?! It’s enough to drive a person mad! Luckily these stories can easily be enjoyed separately, so I will try my best to not overthink this too much.

This book delivers what you expect from an Agatha Christie: immaculate vibes, a lovable main character and a strong, satisfying plot. They’re just the perfect stories if you want to be entertained.

Discontent by Beatriz Serrano (translated from the Spanish by Maya Faye Lethem)
Rating: 3.75/5
Format: audio

Completely unrelated to the fact that a few of my co-workers read my Substack: I did not find this book about a woman in the corporate world who hates everything about that environment painfully relatable at all. This has no plot whatsoever but the audiobook is only five hours long, so it was perfect to binge. I loved the sharp and hilarious observations and although it was a little too unhinged for me towards the end, I had a great time with this. If you’ve ever felt drained and disgusted by a job or just the idea of having to work for the majority of the time, specifically in the corporate world, you’ll appreciate this. Not that I’ve ever felt that way, of course.

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Rating: 4.75/5
Format: physical

Don’t say I don’t bring you book recs that you’ve never heard of. This hidden gem is one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in a long time. Sometimes a hype is a hype for a reason. Yes, this is about a tradwife influencer who wakes up in the life she has been fetishising online, but it’s about so much more. Main character Natalie is despicable, unhinged, and it’s so juicy to be in her mind. I kept going from feeling sorry for her to feeling horrified. There are moments where you cannot help but agree with what she’s saying, only to later feel ashamed that you were ever on her side.

This was a book club pick (picked by me) and most members didn’t like the ending, when for me it was the best part of the whole thing and probably the only way it could have ended. This book made me clutch my pearls, laugh, cry, and for days afterwards I was just desperate to talk to someone about it. The only reason I cannot give this five stars is because I didn’t have the five-star feeling — you know when you just cannot wait until you can continue reading? — until the last third of the book. I do think that’s mainly because I read it during a hectic time where my reading sessions were interrupted a lot. If you ask me, which you are because you’re reading this, this is the book of the year for a reason.

Hunger & Thirst by Claire Fuller
Rating: 4.5/5
Format: audio

I think the last time a book made me feel genuinely frightened was when I read the Fear Street books as a child. I was listening to this book in my bedroom and I was scared to walk to my living room. And I didn’t even go into this expecting it to be scary! By the time I got to the end of the book I had learnt that I had to listen to this in public in broad daylight, but that just meant people gave me strange looks because I was sitting on a bench with my eyes wide open and my jaw on the floor.

This book starts with a group of teenagers including protagonist Ursula. She’s growing up in the care system, which added an interesting layer to the story. Ursula starts a friendship with the rebellious Sue, but when Sue’s boyfriend Vincent offers Ursula a place to live, things start to go very wrong. I think it’s best to go into this without knowing too much so that you can be scared shitless like I was. Think haunted house, gothic vibes, troubled teenagers and past and present timelines. And great writing, too!

Gunk by Saba Sams
Rating: 2.75/5
Format: physical

This audiobook was very short, otherwise I would have probably stopped listening. It’s not that this book was bad per se, but there’s a lot of telling instead of showing. The main character retells scenes that could have been quite meaningful if we could have watched them play out instead of a one-sentence summary. But mainly I should have learnt from Margo’s Got Money Troubles that I’m way too judgemental about very messy people having children.

Writers & Lovers by Lily King
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: ebook

My first Lily King! The protagonist is an aspiring writer in Boston who is living her everyday life, so Lily King would have to royally fuck up for me to not like this. Happy to say I did like this a lot. You know I love books about people living their everyday lives. I also thoroughly enjoyed the little observations and the depiction of grief, how it’s this underlying thing that is always there. Now I can finally read Lily King’s latest: Heart the Lover!

On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle (translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland)
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: ebook

And to think I initially didn’t want to read this! Time travel or any time-related shenanigans are my least favourite thing to read about; It just doesn’t make sense and raises too many questions. But then my friend Tim convinced me to read this by telling me how it explores the mundanity and purpose of everyday life. If there’s one thing I love to read about, it’s boring lives! This is far from boring though. It’s thought-provoking and terrifying in its repetition, although there’s also something cosy in its predicability. I’m still wondering how on earth this story will last seven books, but I had a fantastic time.

Friday on My Mind by Nicci French (Frieda Klein series #5)
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: physical

I purchased this book about eight years ago when I went skiing with my grandparents in Austria. I was in one of those bookshops where they have one shelf dedicated to books in English and the selection is limited to a Stephen King, a Jane Austen and a Jojo Moyes. A friend had recommended Nicci French to me a few weeks before that trip and this one was the only one they had over there. So I picked it up, completely unaware that this was part of a series. Luckily I would fall in love with that series years later and I could finally read it.

This fifth instalment is quite different from the previous four in that this time, our main character Frieda is on the run from the police because she’s suspected of a murder she didn’t commit! The overall plot is definitely getting more intense now. I loved this one because of how it highlighted Frieda’s friendships and how far they were willing to go to protect her. This series is sooooooooooo good. I can’t believe I’m over halfway :(

Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris
Rating: 5/5
Format: physical

The only reason I don’t read David Sedaris’ work every week of my life is because he’s my number one inspiration as a writer and I often purposefully avoid him to not be confronted with the fact that someone can actually write like that. As the kids would say, he’s the GOAT of personal essay writing.

There’s one essay in this collection called A Better Place. It’s about the death of his father and the difficult relationship he had with him. That piece made me simultaneously howl with laughter and sob because of how tender and stunning the writing was, to the point that anyone who saw me must have thought I was having a mental breakdown. And maybe I was, but only David Sedaris can make that feel like a wonderful experience.

Let me know your summer reads pleaaaaaaaase!

‘Is London my home?’, I asked myself although I already knew the answer. Last weekend my friend Tim asked me where I would move to if I ever had to leave the UK. I gave him several answers. Berlin, which will always have a special place in my heart. I adore Dublin. Boston, if only it were in another country. I’ve always loved The Netherlands, and in Amsterdam people in hospitality refuse to speak Dutch to me even if I just heard them speak it to their co-workers, so it wouldn’t even feel like I was close to home.

There are many cities that sound lovely to live in. It would have to be a city; I love knowing that I’m surrounded by people who are all living their own lives filled with joy, heartbreak and wild dreams, our homes stacked on top of each other like a game of Tetris if every piece cost half a million pounds and came with a shitty boiler. I would also simply go insane if I didn’t live within walking distance from at least two bookshops and a coffee shop.

But although part of me wants to know what it’s like to live in these other places, even at the thought of moving out of London I feel a sense of homesickness that I never experienced when I left Belgium. There are things that I miss. Friends, mostly. Now that some of them have children, the passing of time hits me like a ton of bricks every time I see them. It breaks my heart that if I only spend time with those babies every six months or so, they have no idea who I am anymore. I also miss how I could visit someone in another city and it took me less time than it now takes me to go to East London. And despite the distance between us being the best thing for my overall wellbeing, I do miss being able to visit family when I want to. Being from a family of predominantly teen pregnancies — late teens and times were different, but still — meant that for almost 30 years of my life my grandparents were young and seemed immortal. They were mistaken for my parents all the time, how was I meant to entertain the thought that they would not always be there? Now two of them are not well and I wonder how many more times I will be able to see them before they forget who I am. Not unlike those friends’ babies, actually.

I moved about a year before Brexit made moving to the UK almost impossible. I had naively thought that, as a member of the EU, there would always be ways to do it without too much hassle. Now I know several people from EU countries who have lived here for years and have to go back. Our situations are almost identical, I’m just lucky I moved a year before they did. This made me realise I want to start the process to obtain British citizenship so I have that extra layer of security lest the fascists try to revoke people’s settled status. Moving to London was my biggest dream since I was a child and if I had waited a year longer, it easily could have never been possible.

In my teens and early twenties I wanted to be mistaken for a British person so badly. Having lived here for seven years now, I’ve become very okay with not being British. Although I have now come to appreciate things about the Brits I didn’t even know back then: I love their humour. I love how they give everything cute ridiculous names such as cozzie lives, holibobs or platty joobs. I love how they can’t correctly use an apostrophe to save their lives. Marks & Spencer is the best store to ever exist and the risk of having to live without their picky bits (another British gem of a phrase) is reason enough to get that citizenship.

I don’t have a stereotypical Flemish accent — I would never open my mouth again if I did — but I no longer mind that I don’t sound entirely British. I speak several languages and if you can hear that, that’s fine. I’m proud of that. It’s also so nice to speak a language most people don’t understand. Although don’t assume that nobody else speaks it, a lesson a group of Flemish people in Greece who were mocking my tattoos learnt the hard way.

I’m proud to be Belgian now. In moments like this past week when the Red Devils made the orange tyrant their little bitch and the entire world was cheering us on, I feel truly happy to be part of that weird, wonderful place. Growing up there I loved to say that living anywhere else would be better. I’m now convinced that Belgium is probably one of the best countries to live in. Taxes are absolutely criminal, but apart from that, we’re pretty fucking lucky. My friends and family members still look at me in utter shock every time I remind them that, no, my employer does not pay for my commute into work, and neither is it common to get paid 13 months per year or for your salary to automatically be adapted according to indexation. Then again, supermarkets also don’t close at 6pm, so who’s the real winner here?

It’s possible to know you’ve made the right decision and still mourn the life you’ve left behind. Part of me will always exist somewhere else, but the UK is my home. When I’ve been in Belgium for a couple of days and the Eurostar rolls into St Pancras station, I exhale. The UK has given me friends, a boyfriend, cats, a home, work, and the sense that I truly belong somewhere. Earlier this week I was on my way back from watching a famous Hollywood actress in a play, and my route home took me past Big Ben, The London Eye and all these landmarks that some people dream their whole lives of seeing. I will never get used to that feeling. And as I got off the bus there it was, glowing with pride and LED lights — my local Marks & Spencer Foodhall. At 9pm on a Tuesday, beckoning me in.

Thank you so much for reading. Want to read more of my work? You can share and subscribe for free. Showing some love really helps! If you’re feeling especially generous you can tip me as little as £1 by clicking on the tip jar, which will go towards essentials (iced coffee for me to keep writing, and treats for my cats).

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Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Rating: 4.75/5
Format: audio

Hello, police? I would like to report a crime. Because how DARE this book give me the impression that it would be a nice summer read and then, before I knew it, had me sobbing in the middle of Clapham Common? This is the surprise of the year already. In the best way. I wasn’t expecting to love it this much and now I regret not reading it physically because the writing was stunning (even though the narration by Sex Education‘s Patricia Alison was gorgeous as well).

The concept is essentially: if The Subway by Chappell Roan was a book. The story follows British Erica and French Laure throughout their lives, from the first meeting on the steps of the Sacré Coeur, through every messy stage of life. This book proved that when I say I’m not a romance reader, what I mean is that I don’t gravitate towards the romance genre and its tropes. But man, I love a good love story like this one.

That said, my favourite thing about this wasn’t even the story between the main characters. What got me was the friendship between the characters. I refuse to believe that these people are not real, because after reading this book I feel like I’ve been a part of their friend group for decades. My go-to recommendation at the moment!

The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine
Rating: DNF at 30%
Format: ebook

The premise sounded fascinating: a group of boys assault a girl in their friend group, and everything that follows is told from the parents’ perspectives. I just really didn’t vibe with this writing style. There are a lot of different perspectives but you never know which one you’re in, which meant that after 30% I still had no idea what was going on, and I didn’t care to stick around. Call me basic, but I like knowing whose POV I’m reading before I’m halfway through said chapter.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Rating: 4/5
Format: physical

As I’m editing this, it was announced only earlier today that this is the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. If my corners of BookTube and BookTok are anything to go by, it was also the clear fan favourite.

Sybil is a woman in her seventies, and we learn about her life, secrets, regrets and feelings through a series of letters written by her, or send to her. What I liked: the writing style, how real the story felt, and the ending. This book is good and I would recommend it. It’s just that, because of all the glowing reviews and its place on the Women’s Prize shortlist, my expectations were humongous. I went into it expecting to be blown away, and that didn’t happen. First of all, I often found it difficult to empathise with Sybil. I liked how realistically flawed she was, but there were moments when she didn’t seem to care how deeply her actions hurt those around her.

Sybil receives letters from several existing authors, and sometimes those letters get deeply personal. This gave me the same feeling as when I read Second Best, which has a chapter where Daniel Radcliffe shares very intimate details about his private life. I just find it strange to put words in the mouths of public figures who are either still alive or died very recently.

Lastly, and this is me being nitpicky but it has to be said: there are references to Flanders — which was fun! — but certain events were described which, while common in the U.S., are not a thing in Belgium at all. Also, I didn’t question the main character’s last name, Van Antwerp, until it was explained that that was her Flemish husband’s last name. So is ‘Van Antwerp’ supposed to be ‘Van Antwerpen’ anglicised? That’s not explained. And while the latter could be an existing last name in Flanders, it seems very on the nose. Like, I know that cities as a last name are a thing, but having one Flemish character in your book and then naming them after the biggest city in Flanders just feels a little...lazy? That whole aspect of the story felt like Gilmore Girls when Lorelai and Rory say they took a train from England to Ireland.

I know I’m being very critical, but now that it actually won the Women’s Prize, I just don’t think it’s on the same level in terms of unique concept and flawless execution as some previous winners. I have yet to come across someone who doesn’t give this five stars though, so I’m happy to accept I’m the outlier here.

The Ending Writes Itself by Evelyn Clarke
Rating: 3.5/5
Format: audio

Well, if you don’t want to see your hopes of ever being a published author evaporate with every chapter, avoid this. On the other hand, I love books about the art of writing itself and the publishing process, so that was my favourite thing about this book.

A group of authors get invited to the house of one of the most successful authors alive. At least they think he’s alive, until they get there and they’re told (not a spoiler) that he’s actually very dead. The reason for their being there becomes clear: the writer who comes up with the best ending to Arthur Fletch’s last novel, wins a publishing deal and a life-changing amount of money.

This is very much a modern-day Agatha Christie. It’s a nice one to consume as an audiobook. Very fast-paced and fun but maybe a tad too unserious for me.

Thursday’s Child by Nicci French (Frieda Klein series #4)
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: physical

Me and my girl Frieda still going strong. It’s so strange that I wasn’t even that impressed with the first book in this series and now I need to physically stop myself just reading all of them back to back. I think it just became a million times better once I started to get to know and care about these characters.

In this instalment we — literally and figuratively — visit Frieda’s past, which added a whole new layer to the character we’ve gotten to know. Like I’ve said previously, this is not a crime series for you if you want to be on the edge of your seat. The suspense is definitely always there, but there’s also a lot of dialogue, many walks through London, and people doing everyday things. If you know me, you know that that’s right up my alley! People being brutally murdered and Frieda having to find the killer before they find her is fine and all, but Frieda making a cup of tea, going for a stroll or writing down notes about her therapy sessions? Now that’s the good stuff.

Then Why Ask Me to Come? by Risa Wataya (translated from the Japanese by Yuki Tejima)
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: physical

This was a present from a friend. With its 40-something pages it’s more like a short story and there’s not a whole lot to say, but it was great! Asshole husband meets his wife’s friends for dinner and is surprised to find the whole thing was orchestrated with the sole purpose of confronting him with his behaviour. We see everything through his eyes, which is...interesting. It was also quite funny and the physical copy is STUNNING.

The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende (translated from the Spanish by Francis Riddle)
DNF at 50%
Format: physical

The second book I didn’t finish this month, and for almost the same reason — the writing style. We follow several characters thought some of the most traumatic events a person can go through, but the entire time I felt like I was reading the characters’ Wikipedia pages. There is very little dialogue or direct quotes, which created an amount of distance the plot just could not bridge. I didn’t feel emotionally connected at all.

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #5)
Rating: 5/5
Format: physical

One of my goals this year was to finish the first five Percy Jackson books, so, tick! Am I judging this series objectively? Probably not. They’re my boyfriend’s favourite books and he got me this set as a present, so I’m already emotionally invested. But the books are genuinely so good as well. It’s my first time reading these and it’s probably the closest I can get to the feeling of reading Harry Potter as a teenager. There are so many more after these initial five. I want to get to them all, but that will probably take me another couple of years.

That’s it for the month of May! I’m really craving another five-star read, so please let me know if you have any recommendations! What are you currently reading?

G.

Feedback from a new member — I came for exercises in movement, not boundary setting

Hi team,

I hope you’re well. This past weekend I went to the XXX branch in London for the first time. I had bought a 3-day pass so I could try the gym and see if I wanted to officially join. For me, the aim from the very beginning was to just explore new ways of working out in a pressure-free manner. I wanted to move my body and ease into the concept of going to the gym.

Upon entering, I was greeted with a quote that said that this gym is ‘for everybody, and for every body.’ LOVE that. As a fat person, going to the gym can already be a bit nerve-racking, and the reason I chose [name gym brand] is because they preach inclusivity and feature people of all sizes in their content.

One of the trainers introduced himself and told me that we can look at my goals together and work on a personalised programme. I said: ‘Thank you but no, I’m just here to do my own thing’. I understand that this more personal approach is offered since it’s what other people might be looking for, but it’s just not for me. I started my session and was surprised and pleased to discover that I really enjoyed it! The best part about this was the absolute absence of pressure, goals or focus on weight loss. It felt great to just move. I was having a blast.

When I attempted a trip to the drinking fountain, however, I was approached by a second man. He told me that he heard from his colleague that I was new. I felt a bit uncomfortable with the idea of being watched and discussed, but I didn’t think much of it. He then also started that whole spiel: What are my goals? Do I want to work together? Again, I made it clear I was there to do my own thing and that I would reach out if I needed anything. When I wanted to leave the gym, that same man was standing by the exit and brought this up again: Am I considering joining? What do I want to achieve? A little more firmly this time, I said that I will approach them if I want to, but that I’m currently not interested.

Cut to my second session two days later. I was still very much getting to know all the equipment, but I was having a wonderful time just moving my body and experiencing the gym the way I wanted to — on my own. I started with some cardio and then went to try a few of the weight machines. As I was wrapping up my session, yet another man approached. He introduced himself and told me that he noticed I ‘was going from machine to machine’. Once again, I didn’t love the idea that I was being watched by people who were waiting for the right moment to approach (all three of them men, which I will assume is a coincidence). Also, I’m not sure what’s wrong with doing a few sets on one machine and then moving on to try another one, especially on my second day when the whole reason I’m there is to check out the different equipment. Is that not what I paid for?

I, once again rather directly, told him that I was there to get to know the machines and do my own thing. At this point, I didn’t want to be rude but I wanted to make it very clear to this man that I preferred to be left alone. ‘Oh, I love it, completely understand’, he said, but then proceeded in a way that made it clear he did not, in fact, understand. ‘I want you to do this in the right way, so we can work together on your goals. Do you take protein?’ When I said no, he tutted and told me I should. I’m struggling to understand what signal I have given this person to imply that this advice was in any way welcome. Also, unless I’m misusing a machine to the point where I’m about to injure myself, I’ll decide what ‘the right way’ is for me.

A bit tired of having to explain myself, I told him again that I don’t have goals apart from going to the gym and doing.my.own.thing. This man still wasn’t getting it, because at this point he looked at the leg press I’d been using and asked me ‘Is this the weight you have been doing this with?’, referring to the orange pin I had placed next to the 18kg mark. ‘You can do much more than that’, he said. As someone who hasn’t set foot in a gym in more than 15 years and was using this machine for the first time, I was very happy with these 18kg, so I told him to not shame me. He then said that he would show me I could do better, and he told me to get back on the machine. It’s only after I said no to this that he finally understood that I was not his ideal audience, and left.

I’ve now been to this gym twice and I have already had to be very direct with three men. Again, I’m sure that the fact that it was all male trainers who were so pushy is a coincidence. I completely understand that the trainers are there to work with people one-on-one, but not everyone wants this. And for those people, going to the gym should not be such an exercise in boundary setting.

I had to really stand my ground to not end up in a situation I wasn’t comfortable with, and it shouldn’t be like that. It’s fine to offer your services, but when someone is clearly not interested, leave them alone. The third guy especially took it too far. I appreciate that the trainers probably mean well and act based on the assumption that new gym-goers are there for very specific goals and that they want to see visible results, but again, that’s not the case for everyone. I don’t want to feel judged for trying different machines, for the weights I use or for whether or not I take protein by a complete stranger I did not employ or request in any way.

For a gym that is proud of being a space for ‘everybody and every body’, it would be nice to keep in mind that one approach does not fit all. In fact, I cannot help but wonder if my size is the reason they went in extra hard because they — quite literally — saw a big opportunity.

If I don’t end up getting a membership, it will be because of this and this alone, because the rest of my experience has been wonderful. Not everyone is there to lose weight or build muscles that make The Rock look like a strand of cooked spaghetti. Some people, in particular the plus-sized-queens amongst us, simply want to overcome the hurdle of working out in public and the nervousness that already comes with going to the gym without being asked ‘what our goals are’ every five minutes. Actually, my biggest goal at the gym is fast becoming having some peace and quiet and not being shamed for my 18kg leg presses, thank you. I don’t want to have to worry about this when I’m using the machines that I paid to use.

I don’t know if there’s any way that, once a person has already made it clear that they’re not interested in personal training or unsolicited advice, a note can be made to leave them be, because I do not want to have similar interactions with every single trainer. I can hardly believe I’m the only person who doesn’t like this approach, but many people would unfortunately feel comfortable enough to set boundaries. To those people it might be off-putting to the point that they just don’t return, as would have been the case for me not too long ago. Apart from wearing a t-shirt that says ‘NO! Leave me alone’, I’m not sure how I can make this any more clear. Please share this with the XXX branch specifically because I would love to return to the gym, but I want to be able to enjoy it on my terms.

Thank you in advance,

Gladys

Thank you so much for reading. Want to read more of my work? You can share and subscribe for free. Showing some love really helps! If you’re feeling especially generous you can tip me as little as £1 by clicking on the tip jar, which will go towards essentials (iced coffee for me to keep writing, and treats for my cats).

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Highway Thirteen by Fiona McFarlane
Rating: 4/5
Format: ebook

This is a collection of stories about ordinary people who, at first glance, have nothing to do with each other. But they’re all connected by something dark: the actions of one serial killer. From the couple that lived next-door to the murderer’s childhood home to acquaintances on the other side of the world, the collection shows how, when an event like this happens, so many lives are impacted beyond just the victims and their close families.

The stories were easy and entertaining to read and so I went through this rather quickly, but it still left an impression. Mainly because of the unique way the characters in the stories were linked. I will happily read more by this author.

Waiting for Wednesday by Nicci French (Frieda Klein series #3)
Rating: 4/5
Format: physical

Like I said in last month’s wrap-up, I am LOVING these books. I liked part two a tiiiny bit more than this third one, but this entire series feels like watching a good old detective show.

These are not the type of crime novels that have you on the edge of your seat the entire time, but if you want to get sucked into a solid story with flawed but lovable characters, eerie vibes and many long walks through London that the main character takes you on, I would 100% recommend this. I truly care about these people now and I want to find out what happens to them (dare I say I’m even shipping two of them a little bit?!)

I just picked up the fourth book from my local library, which will be the perfect reward after my reading deprivation week!

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
Rating: 3.75/5
Format: ebook

When this got picked as a book club read, I believe it was the first book since I had joined the club that I had never heard of. The premise did sound interesting though: Brothers Odie and Albert are the only white orphans in a Native-American boarding school. The children all live in horrific conditions, and when Odie is pushed to the point of no return, him and his friends embark on a journey to find home.

This was an engaging read that, at times, reminded me of Betty by Tiffany McDaniel in that both are about children who, although they are surrounded by darkness and ugliness, still remain kind and loving towards others as they try to find a place where they belong. I did very much prefer the first half and the ending was too neat and surreal for me, but I’m happy I read this. It’s also a (loose) retelling of The Odyssey, which I didn’t realise at first but it was fun to try to figure out what each chapter or character was based on.

Colony by Annika Norlin (translated from the Swedish by Alice E. Olsson)
Rating: DNF at 40%
Format: audio

When I started reading this I wrote in my notes: ‘I’m immediately locked in!’ I then took a six-week break from it for no reason whatsoever and after that I felt zero motivation to continue, so guess I wasn’t that locked in after all.

The main character is a woman in the corporate world who is on the verge of a burnout. When she decides to escape to the forest, she discovers a group of people who all seem to live together in an unconventional way. She starts observing them and becomes more and more fascinated.

I’m not sure exactly where it went wrong, but I was just...bored. This book is very slow paced which I usually don’t mind, but after 40% not a single thing had happened in the main storyline. It was all just backstory of the characters and how they became part of this group, but when you haven’t even properly met those characters in the 'now’ yet, it’s difficult to care about their backstory. This is apparently ‘The biggest Swedish literary phenomenon since Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove’ though, so it was probably just not the right one for me at this time.

The Mad Wife by Meagan Church
Rating: 3.5/5
Format: audio

If you like the vibes in Don’t Worry Darling or The Stepford Wives, this is the book for you. I asked my boyfriend to pick my next audiobook and he went with this because he thought it would be a darker version of Meet The Newmans. He could not have been more correct.

Set in the 1950s, housewife Lulu lives a perfectly happy life with her husband and son. At first glance, at least. Because it immediately becomes clear that something’s very off. When new neighbours move in across the street, it’s not long before things reach a boiling point.

At some point this started to feel a bit like a thriller, which I didn’t expect initially, but very much enjoyed. I also loved the little nods to Sylvia Plath. As for the plot, I will say that I think the audiobook narrator gave some things away in how she performed certain characters. This meant I guessed the plot twists very early on. The book also lost me a bit towards the end because I wasn’t exactly sure where it was going, nor was there a solution to some deeper issues that I feel like shouldn’t have been brushed aside the way they were. That’s a shame because the author clearly wanted to share an important message.

The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai — Detective Kosuke Kindaichi #1)
Rating: 3.25/5
Format: physical

I attempted another Japanese translation. If you’ve read previous wrap-ups, you know those haven’t always been a success to say the very least. I went in a bit nervous that this would be another cosy story that I just wouldn’t vibe with, but it went better than expected.

When a couple gets brutally murdered the night of their wedding, investigators are stumped. This seems to be a typical ‘locked room mystery’ with no sign of how the killer could have gotten in or out. An unlikely character is asked to come solve the case.

I enjoyed how meta the writing was, although it was almost too unserious for me, for example when the narrator goes: ‘Notice how I worded the clue on page XX like this instead of like this? Clever, right? I got that from Agatha Christie.’ I also kept focusing on how emotionally detached the characters seemed? People’s family member gets murdered, yet they all just engage in normal conversation the next morning without any mention whatsoever of the emotional impact this has on them. I did some googling and apparently this clinical writing style is normal for crime novels of that time so that the puzzle can take centre stage — even the aforementioned Agatha does it! — but I still thought it was quite extreme here.

The solution was very far-fetched in my opinion, but I still had a nice time reading it.

At the Table by Claire Powell
Rating: 3.5/5
Format: audio

When Nicole and Jamie’s parents announce that they’re separating, this completely upends everyone’s daily lives. We then follow the four family members together and separately through how they navigate all of these changes. The story is set in London and includes many delicious mundane details such as, on one occasion, an M&S shopping list. You know I love nothing more than reading about characters’ day-to-day, especially if they live in London.

The reason that this wasn’t a bigger win for me is that out of the four main characters, I deeply disliked three of them. Everyone apart from my girl Linda sucks. And while I didn’t mind the rather abrupt ending, I do think that it leaves several issues unresolved.

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: physical

The other octopus book. There is so much commotion around Remarkably Bright Creatures (also on my TBR!) but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone mention this. In this science-fiction novel, commercial fishing vessels are controlled by AI and use human slaves, researchers discover octopuses who seem to have created a way of communicating with humans, and one hacker is tasked with breaking into the brain of the world’s first — and only — sentient android.

I have to be honest: this takes a while to get into. For the first 50 pages I had absolutely no idea what was going on and I even considered giving up. BUT THEN. Once the story takes off, it reads like a thriller. I flew through these pages. The book is so incredibly topical, with explorations around what consciousness means, why humans create to the point of self-destruction and what responsibility we have towards those creations.

I’m so happy I stuck with it and didn’t DNF. You need to be patient going in, but you get more than rewarded. I will never be able to look at an octopus the same way again.

London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: audio

I read a review that said ‘Don’t start this when you’re still planning on doing anything else that day’, and that says it all, really. This is the story of Zac Brettler, a 19-year-old who jumped off the balcony of a luxury apartment building in London. Zac’s parents discover that their son has been pretending to be the son of a Russian oligarch, and they start looking for the truth of how Zac ended up in that apartment.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author and I just could.not.stop.listening. I had never heard of this case, but I was completely engrossed, especially knowing that it all took place in a building I’ve walked past hundreds of times. The author also provides so much wider context and paints the historical and political picture, all essential to truly understand how this all happened. If you like true crime documentaries or podcasts, this has the same addicting quality whilst also offering some top-notch investigative journalism. His other book, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, is next on my list.

This was April’s reading wrap-up! I can already tell you that May will probably be an extremely short one, as we’re halfway true the month and I’ve finished one book! Reading Deprivation Week and all that. But did I fill that spare time with more writing?? That remains to be seen!

G.

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1. Overheard in a bookshop in Hampstead

The owner and a customer, both of them men, are talking about books they’ve loved recently. They’re calling the works ‘brilliant’ and ‘written by a genius author’. The authors they’re referring to are ALL WOMEN. ❤️‍🔥

2. Overheard in a small shop with home decor and greeting cards

‘Hello. I’m looking for a card that says ‘My condolences’, but they all say ‘My sympathy’. Why is that?’

• ‘Oh, do they? looks at a couple of the offending cards I guess they do.’

‘I just really don’t think ‘sympathy’ is the right word here. Someone died!’

• ‘No, you’re right… nowadays people just want to use the easiest possible word, right? Ha ha.’

‘CON-DO-LENCE. Three syllables. It REALLY isn’t that difficult.’

3. Overheard at the nail salon

‘I immediately knew my partner was going to propose because in our ten years together he had never planned as much as a day out, let alone a weekend away. So when he put a trip abroad in my calendar, I knew it had to be a proposal.’

[The bar really is in hell. The gag was that it turned out to NOT be a proposal, but a trip the woman’s best friend’s boyfriend had planned to celebrate both women’s birthdays that weekend. Putting the dates in her calendar had been her partner’s only contribution. In fact, the only reason he had committed to this getaway was because he thought it was her 30th birthday. It was her 31st.]

4. Overheard at the nail salon #2 (Belgravia edition)

A ten-year old girl is getting her nails done as a birthday treat. She’s there with her mum and her mum’s friend. When asked where she wants to go for lunch — ‘We can go wherever you want darling, it’s your special day’ — she opts for sushi.

[What 10 year old’s favourite food is sushi? This Belgravia clientele is clearly not the same as in my regular South London branch.]

5. Spotted on Instagram

I come across a deeply personal Instagram post. One comment says:

‘Here’s a warm, thoughtful answer you can give back — straightforward, heartfelt and without the fluff
Thank you for sharing something so personal and painful with such honesty and courage. I can only imagine how difficult this has been, and I hope you know you’re surrounded by so much love and support. Be gentle with yourself and take all the time and space you need to heal.’

[Pro tip: If you insist on letting AI take over your human interactions and destroy your brain cells, make sure you keep one so you at least remember to delete the brief.]

6. Overheard at Gail’s

Australian man at the table next to me gets a phone call:

‘Heyyyyy man. What’s up? I’m in — pauses for effect — The Big Smoke! [makes a hand gesture like a magician]
…

‘I said I’m in The.Big.Smoke’ [with slightly less conviction]
…

‘Bro, the big smo–London. I’m in London.’

7. Overheard in Hampstead Heath

Glorious spring day. A man and a woman, each walking their dog, are in the middle of an altercation.

Woman: Get away from me!

Man: Yeah yeah, whatever.

Woman: I better not catch you or your dog here again or next time I do, I will fuck up your no-lip-face even more.

[Ahhhh, the great outdoors.]

8. On Leicester Square

I get approached by three men.

Man 1: Excuse me! My friend wants to say something to you but he doesn’t speak English.

Me: Okay?

Man 2: *Says something in another language*

Man 1 translates: Where did you get that?

Me, already regretting this: What?

*Man 1 looks at Man 2 expectedly*

Man 2: *Says something in another language*

Man 1: That beautiful smile.

[Reader, I hadn’t smiled once. Not even a little bit.]

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G.

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Whenever people say that they’re looking for recommendations because they don’t have anything to read, I’m almost envious of that problem. On top of having what would basically qualify as my own library at home and a chock-full Kindle, my wish list is 300 titles long and anytime I walk into a bookshop or open social media, more gets added. And then there’s all the new releases… So many books, so little time, so let’s stop wasting any more of it on this smalltalk and get into the actual books!

Odyssey by Stephen Fry
Rating: 5/5
Format: physical

The phenomenal last part of Stephen Fry’s Greek mythology series. Was this ever going to be anything else than five stars? I will be forever grateful to Stephen Fry for showing us the world of Greek myths in such a wonderful, hilarious and juicy way.

Whether you know nothing about mythology and you just want fascinating stories, or you’re already very familiar with the myths but you want to revisit them in a new way, these books are truly for everyone. The whole series feels like a reality TV show of the biggest and messiest family you’ve ever encountered. I will keep going back to these retellings again and again.

Meet the Newmans by Jennifer Niven
Rating: 4/5
Format: audio

Speaking of a reality TV show –I swear I didn’t even plan that!– if you love retro vibes and you’re in the mood for an entertaining read with major Taylor Jenkins-Reid vibes, Meet The Newmans is a great option. The Newman family is the most famous family on TV, with millions of people watching their shenanigans every week. But is the picture just as perfect after the cameras have stopped running? When patriarch Del is unable to write the show’s grand finale, wife Dinah and her two sons get the opportunity to make their mark. Dinah also strikes up an unlikely friendship with feminist journalist Juliet, and as it turns out, the two women can learn more from each other than just how to write a decent script.

I cried a little at the end. The characters felt very real and I enjoyed spending time with them. My one critique is that the social issues in the book were clearly written through a 2026 lens with the goal to be as inclusive as possible, rather than through the eyes of a middle-aged American housewife in the 60s who is taking her first wobbly steps in the world of feminism. But hey, if ‘too progressive’ is the biggest issue, I’m not complaining.

Pet by Catherine Chidgey
Rating : 4.25/5
Format: ebook

When Justine and her classmates get a new teacher, everyone wants to be the glamorous woman’s favourite. As the children’s fascination with their teacher grows, more and more things start going wrong in the classroom. Friendships get put to the test, and Justine needs to decide how far she’s willing to go.

The TENSION in this book. It’s described as a thriller, but rather than shocking plot twists it’s more a constant feeling of unease. The way cruelty between children is portrayed is fantastic. Reading this as an adult through the eyes of children means that you know more about the situation they are in than they do, which is so uncomfortable in the best way. I immediately went and bought some more ebooks by this author because I want to know what else she can do!

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
Rating: 4/5
Format: ebook

This short story collection is truly something else. It’s disturbing, absurd, hilarious, terrifying and uncomfortably relatable. Every story focuses on a person who feels in some way rejected for who they are, from a self-proclaimed feminist who gets frustrated that his allyship isn’t getting him laid, to a woman who spirals after she has sex with her friend, to a tech bro who thinks that wanting to start your own master race is just innovative entrepreneuring.

How one person came up with all this is truly beyond me. I will have to reread to completely grasp it, because my brain was fried after this experience. One story in particular felt like every single sentence was a hot take that was worthy of an entire debate, so you need to really lock in.

Some stories are more extreme than others and I don’t mean that I was able to relate to every story – I would hate to be in the same room as anyone who did. But if you read this and claim that you’ve never had any of these thoughts…I simply don’t believe you. If you’re anything like me and you used to perform mental gymnastics worthy of a gold medal every time you had an unrequited crush, you’ll understand what I mean. And that’s the brilliance of this book, because it shows how these godawful freaks were just normal people who felt like they didn’t belong, who spent too much time online and not nearly enough time reflecting, and who finally snapped.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: physical

I will never get over the fact that the idea for this book was sparked by a bet between friends during a weekend away. Imagine: you’re a teenage girl who goes to Geneva with some friends, and when one of them suggests you all write a scary story, you accidentally invent an entire genre. What a brag. Then again, we’re talking about a woman whose favourite spot to ‘hang out’ with her married lover was her mother’s grave, and who later kept her dead husband’s heart in a drawer for the rest of her life, so I suppose it’s not that surprising. Mary Shelley truly is the OG goth.

This was my second time reading Frankenstein, because it was a book club pick in March. I mean, what is there to say about this? You all know the plot. Or maybe it’s interesting to mention that I read the original text that was written in 1818 and that there’s another, revised version Mary Shelley wrote in 1831 in which she made significant changes to the story, which I think is a shame. I very much prefer the original and I think she should have just let the haters be. I love the framed narrative style Shelley uses to add another layer of mystique, and even more than 200 years later there are still so many topics in this book that make for great discussions even today.

Tuesday’s Gone by Nicci French (Frieda Klein series #2)
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: audio

When I read book one of the beloved Frieda Klein series that had been recommended to me several times, I was a little disappointed. I immediately loved Frieda, this psychotherapist who sticks her nose in other people’s business and by doing so helps the police solve murder investigations, but the plot in Blue Monday felt a little far-fetched. I still wanted to continue the series though, and I’m so glad I did.

Book two (and spoiler: book three as well) worked so much better for me! I’m now also familiar with the characters and I care so much about them. This truly feels like a good old detective show with a flawed cast you cannot help but root for, as well as interesting cases to keep you hooked. But on top of all of that, my absolute favourite thing about this series is how it portrays London. Frieda goes on these long walks through the city and it makes me so happy when I’m able to recognise the places that are mentioned. I need to stop myself from completely abandoning my spring TBR and just reading the rest of this series.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
Rating: 5/5
Format: physical

Describing a book by saying that the location was its own separate character is such a cliche, but it’s truly never been more true than in Wild Dark Shore. I adored this. It’s about a father and his three children that live on a remote island. Not too long ago the island was used as a research base, but due to the rising sea levels the family are now the only people left. That is until a woman washes ashore. She has secrets, but so does the family. There is this constant sense that danger is imminent because of the dynamic between these five people, only emphasised by the deeper, underlying danger of this island slowly being swallowed by the ocean. Apart from the mystery element, there is also so much heart. I wanted to take the children and all of the animals and wrap them up in soft blankets and never let anything bad happen to them. This book isn’t perfect, but my god, it’s stunning.

It has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and I can only say: damn right. This was the five star read I needed to remind me why I’m so grateful to be a reader. RUN to the nearest bookshop.

A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot
Rating: 4.5/5
Format: physical

As I’m sure is the case for many women, both the unimaginable horrors of this case and the indescribable bravery of Gisèle Pelicot had a profound impact on me. This memoir gives you a glimpse into Gisèle’s life during the trial, but also tells her full story. She explains her upbringing and what her marriage was like, which helps you understand why she made some of the choices she made.

This is a story of how a family was torn apart by tragedy, but also one of hope. I am so in awe of how much Gisèle still believes in love and human connection. What a woman. I read the physical book but I sampled a little bit of the audio as it’s narrated by the icon that is Emma Thompson, so I would 100% recommend listening to it as well.

The Barbecue at No. 9 by Jennie Godfrey
Rating: 4/5
Format: physical

Jennie Godfrey‘s first novel, The List of Suspicious Things, was one of my two favourite books of 2024. Its only contender was Rebecca, so that is saying something. Obviously I couldn’t wait to read this.

Once again, Jennie managed to create a cast of characters that you cannot help but like. I also love books in a domestic setting, so this story of a neighbourhood barbecue on the day of the 1985 Live Aid event ticked that box for sure. At first glance these neighbours have little in common apart from their address, but throughout the day they slowly find their way to each other. Told from four people’s perspectives, we find out what has brought them to that moment.

Unfortunately – and I know I’m extra critical because I adored her debut novel so much – this didn’t quite blow me away. First of all, Live Aid is mentioned in the blurb as the big hook of the story, but I was left wondering why it was included at all. It had no significance and it wasn’t clear what the barbecue had to do with the event, which a character highlights by asking that exact question, which goes unanswered. Was that the point? I don’t know, I would have liked for it to have a bigger part in the story than just to provide the chapter titles. Secondly, the whole thing felt a little bit more rushed. I think with a bit more time and more editing this could have been so much better.

This is just me assuming things, but since I’m already seeing book three being teased, I really hope that this author doesn’t fall victim to the curse of a very successful debut novel that comes with the pressure to deliver the next several books within a deadline that gets increasingly shorter. This might have nothing to do with why I like this book less, but I just hope that the writing and the stories still get the time to grow until they’re as good as they possibly can be.

And there we have it! What have you recently read that you loved or didn’t love? Like I said, I don’t exactly need to add more to my TBR, but let me know any recommendations anyway!

Thank you so much for reading. Want to read more of my work? You can subscribe for free. Showing some love really helps! If you’re feeling especially generous you can tip me as little as £1 by clicking on the tip jar, which will go towards essentials (iced coffee for me to keep writing, and treats for my cats).

G.

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Another thing that happened this week is that I started The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron: the self-help book for creatives in the form of a 12-week programme, written in the 90s and still incredibly successful. I can see why. Sure, it’s a tad woo-woo and I could do without the religious bits, but in the first few chapters alone I’ve already come across several concepts that clearly served as inspiration for other, more recently written books.

The Artist’s Way is filled with some serious tough love that has already made me feel personally attacked a few times. Example: ‘Stop comparing your draft against the finished masterwork of other artists.’ As someone who writes half a page and then completely abandons it because the writing is not to the same standard as a published novel that took years, several rounds of edits and an entire team to perfect, I need to hear these things. As for practical stuff, there are weekly tasks to complete and two main, overarching principles: Morning Pages and Artist Dates. How does any of this relate to the first paragraph of this essay? Bear with me, we’ll get there.

Professional dilly-dallying

The idea of Morning Pages is that, every day, you write three pages as a stream of consciousness, without overthinking. The idea is to clear your mind of everything that might be blocking you creatively. Although I struggle with the ‘no overthinking’ part because I’m constantly wondering if my pages are interesting or well written enough (Julia anticipated that writers in particular would have this issue… she’s good!), I’m already seeing the benefits. Even on days when I literally start my pages with ‘I don’t know what to write about’, by the end of the first page I’m writing about something I didn’t even know was on my mind.

Artist Dates are pockets of time that you carve out where you take your ‘artist self’ on a date. This can be a long walk in nature, a trip to a museum, an evening of puzzling, whatever you want. If the goal of Morning Pages is to let everything out (exhaling), Artist Dates are there to get inspired (inhaling). So I get to do fun things by myself and I can feel smug about it because rather than just aimless dilly-dallying it’s now an essential part of a creative programme? Julia, you don’t have to tell me twice.

And so the Maisie Peters concert unexpectedly ended up being my first official Artist Date. I had a great time, felt very inspired and ended up spending more on merch than on the ticket. What can I say? I love a good merch stand. It was just a wonderful night, surrounded by women complimenting each other and celebrating girlhood. One woman gave me a little floral envelope with a stamp in it and a note that said ‘Hope you enjoy the show!’ Come on, how adorable. I left feeling completely recharged.

Small venues just hit different

The next day I was doing my Morning Pages, and I was writing about how much I love those more intimate crowds. Smaller tours leave more room for spontaneity and for the artist to just have fun. They can switch up the setlist, do things a little differently, or ring some musician friends to see if anyone wants to come join them on stage for a song or two. Don’t get me wrong, I love a big production like The Eras Tour or the Florence + The Machine show I went to last month, but everything is a lot more carefully planned, from the choreo, to the chats in between songs, to the setlist.

There are pros and cons to both, but when Maisie Peters brought out both Paris Paloma and Sophie Ellis-Bextor as surprise acts and at the end of the show all those women were dancing around on stage together, there was this feeling in the air of pure, unadulterated joy. You could just tell that they were having the most fantastic time together with the audience, and in small venues like this one you truly feel like you’re all sharing that moment. During Maisie’s set I was also standing next to the support act, who had joined the crowd to have a good time herself. I’m sure most musicians wouldn’t say no to selling out the O2 or Wembley Stadium, but I think there’s something beautiful in having a smaller fandom that supports you and buys tickets to your show and doesn’t care that not everyone knows who you are or that your song is not in the top 10.

My own worst saboteur

As per usual, my Morning Pages eventually turned to the topic of writing itself. It had taken less than two days of doing The Artist’s Way to highlight my biggest creative blocker: fear of failure and the idea that writing has to be all-or-nothing. I’m somehow fine with writing essays like this, but the second I start working on a fictional story or a bigger project, it’s like there’s an imaginary person looking over my shoulder, criticising every idea I have. I’ve barely hit the keys on the keyboard to form the words, and the voice is already telling me that the idea is bad, that a good author would never write a sentence like that, and that nobody would like the finished product anyway, so why even try?

I struggle to write just for the sake of writing. That’s unfortunate, because it’s only through doing that, that I can become better at it. As much as I tell myself that it’s about the process and not the product, I am terrified of writing something I love, sharing it with the world, and realising that nobody cares or that nobody likes it. What’s the point in finishing a novel if it won’t get me nominated for the Booker Prize? I’m exaggerating, but only slightly. So there I was, once again analysing those fears and insecurities (honestly, if I spent half as much time writing as I spend talking about writing, I may have already been an award-winning author by now).

The fear of being seen trying

BUT WAIT, I thought. Didn’t I just say how much I loved seeing Maisie Peters have the time of her life sharing her work with a smaller audience? The playfulness and spontaneity? How much more free that looked? When it comes to consuming someone else’s work I’m happy to be part of something that feels small and intimate, so why, when it comes to my own work, do I tell myself it’s almost not worth sharing anything because it won’t be critically acclaimed anyway? Why does it feel so all or nothing?

It’s not that it doesn’t mean anything when one person tells me they love my writing. Quite the opposite. Nothing makes me feel better than when someone connects to my words. Someone once told me that reading my essays was their favourite ten minutes of me-time, and I’ve never forgotten that compliment. It’s more that I’m terrified to be seen trying to do something, failing, and disappointing those people and myself. But what’s so wrong with being seen trying? Isn’t trying in itself already an act of bravery? And if you try and have fun at the same time, who cares that it’s not perfect? Well, clearly I do, but I want to change that.

I want to embrace the joy of creating

Maybe I don’t need to win the Booker Prize. Maybe I don’t need the literary equivalent of selling out Wembley. Maybe I can aim for Koko in Camden, where a handful of people just want to have a good time and, even if it’s not the biggest event of the year, people just want to absorb someone’s work because it makes them feel something.

Of course I’m not comparing myself to Maisie Peters, someone who is touring the world and is releasing her third album soon, not to mention that she actually HAS played Wembley Stadium… let’s not point out the very obvious holes in this metaphor. My point is that her concert made me realise how much joy there can be in creating and sharing what you love, regardless of the size of the audience or commercial success.

Writing this feels a little vulnerable. It seems arrogant to say that I think the reason I’m so scared of taking my writing seriously and actually finishing a novel or a short story collection is that I would want it to do well, and I’m scared of how I would feel if it didn’t. But putting that into words also feels like a breakthrough, and I suspect that this fear of being seen trying is something many people experience. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having ambitious goals, but I also need to fully embrace the joy of creating just for the sake of it, trying new things that will sometimes work and sometimes won’t, without immediately setting unrealistic expectations around the finished product.

It’s a work in progress, so no big conclusions or life lessons here. Except maybe that Morning Pages actually work?! We’ll have to see how the rest of the programme goes, but I can honestly say that I’ve read a significant amount of self-help books for writers and that none of them have had any kind of impact whatsoever, so it’s pretty wild that I’ve already felt a little bit of a shift after only a week of this. Maybe after the 12 weeks I will be so creatively unblocked that I will actually write the bestselling novel that will allow me to quit my job and win prizes and Sally Rooney will ask me what my secret is to being the literary voice of my generation and...I’m doing it again, aren’t I?

Thank you so much for reading. Want to read more of my work? You can subscribe for free. Showing some love really helps! If you’re feeling especially generous you can tip me as little as £1 by clicking on the tip jar, which will go towards essentials (iced coffee for me to keep writing, and treats for my cats).

G.

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Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder #2)
Rating: 4/5
Format: audio

The year started out well enough. Like I’ve said before, Holly Jackson is one of my favourite crime writers. Several of her books had me on the edge of my seat, and the first book in the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy was one of those, even though I did have some issues with the juvenile language that didn’t suit the heavy subject matter. With this sequel, I once again was invested in the characters and impressed with the clever plot, and although the series is still clearly aimed towards young adults, she dropped the childish language. Holly Jackson is so good at creating characters that feel real and that I care about. This series in particular made me feel like I was solving murders alongside main character Pip.

I enjoyed this second book so much that when I finished it, I immediately pressed play on the third and final book in the series.

As Good as Dead by Holly Jackson (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder #3)
Rating: 3.25/5
Format: audio

And that’s where Holly Jackson’s streak of four or more stars ended. This one seems to have fallen victim to the idea that a final instalment needs to be bigger and wilder. Less would have been so much more, both length-wise and plot-wise. First of all, this was way too long. The denouement happens halfway through and I was flabbergasted to see that I still had eight hours left in the audiobook, which turned out to be about six too many. Did the author have a word count to reach?

Additionally, some of the main character’s actions seemed so unlike the person we’d gotten to know for the past two books. I’m aware that this is a story about a teenage girl who solves murders, but even with that in mind it got too unbelievable. This book isn’t bad per se and I would still recommend the series as a whole, but it doesn’t meet the standard I’ve come to expect of Holly Jackson.

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
Rating: 3.5/5
Format: physical

Oh man. This is the third book by R.F. Kuang I have read and when I heard this premise, I pre-ordered faster than you can say ‘Hell is other people’. Two Cambridge scholars who travel to hell to bring their mentor back from the dead because they need a recommendation? I was practically salivating like Cerberus would at a rotisserie chicken. Okay, I’ve hereby exhausted the underworld references. What I’m trying to say is that this was finally going to be my five star R.F. Kuang.

Here’s the issue I have with this author: I think that R.F. Kuang is a genius, but R.F. Kuang seems to think that everyone else is an idiot. This woman has less faith in her readers to think for themselves than I have in DPD to deliver my cat food to the correct building. And it’s such a shame, because I truly believe she could write a masterpiece if she stopped over-explaining everything. Babel is her most impressive book I’ve read so far, but it had the same problem, with its countless footnotes in which she addressed the reader directly to remind them who the goodies and the baddies are, like that wasn’t already overly obvious on every page.

During the first hundred pages of Katabasis, I was bored as, well, hell. Literally, in this case. These characters travel to hell and the whole enterprise feels about as high-stakes as a trip to the Co-op around the corner. I understand that this is an academia novel and not a fantasy one, but I still expected something to happen.

All that being said, I was once again extremely impressed with the magic system she created, and I enjoyed the themes the book addresses. Also, the last part is strangely life-affirming. Because of those reasons, it managed to redeem itself. I will still pick up R.F. Kuang’s next book, because I believe in her. I’m just waiting for her to reciprocate.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
Rating: 3.75/5
Format: physical

I bought this in a shop called Mr B’s Emporium in Bath in March 2020. If that date doesn’t ring a bell, I can tell you that it wasn’t the best time to be on a trip. When I arrived, the hotel receptionist was joking about how hotels in other countries had already closed. He guaranteed that they wouldn’t. 48 hours later the UK went into lockdown and I drove home early. But hey, at least I got to experience the lovely shop that is Mr B’s.

Not sure why I didn’t get around to reading this until almost six years later, but here we are. A woman is contacted by an old friend with an interesting proposal: Does she want to come work for her and become her stepchildren’s nanny? One small thing: The children burst into flames at the smallest inconvenience.

I enjoyed this! The concept is so unique and I was invested in the story and the main character. I do think it could have gone further. It actually gets unexpectedly sad and serious sometimes, but those topics are not explored as much as I would have liked. Then again, maybe you shouldn’t expect a super deep read from a book with an absurd premise like this.

The Fate of Mary Rose by Caroline Blackwood
Rating: 3.75/5
Format: ebook

This was beyond bleak, but the scene setting and the unsettling vibes were so well done. The main character is an insufferable man who feels like he got trapped into marriage and who cares very little about his wife and daughter. Through him we learn how his wife is obsessed with their child, who for some reason is extremely apathetic. He finds being around them both so unbearable that he spends the majority of his time living somewhere else. When a local child is found murdered, his wife Cressida becomes hyperfixated on the case and things get out of hand.

This is one of the most unreliable narrations I’ve read in a while. We only get the husband’s point of view and because he’s such an arsehole and he’s barely involved in his wife and child’s lives, the story we’re told feels unbelievable and highly suspicious. I constantly found myself wanting to hear from Cressida, but it adds to the uncomfortable feeling that we don’t. I want to read more of this author for sure!

The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Rating: 3/5
Format: audio

This was never going to be a big win for me. I knew that going in. But when it was chosen as a book club pick I did want to see what all the fuss was about. I get why people like this, and for the first half, so did I! I love books that mostly take place in one location, so it was fun to read about this woman who goes to a fancy hotel only to discover that she’s the only hotel guest who is not there for ‘the wedding’. I was having a great time listening to it.

Until the story became a lot more romcom-y and I started rolling my eyes at regular intervals. It became too predictable, too on the nose, and the ending was too neat. Once again, the romance plot was by far the least interesting part of the story for me. I still get why other people like it though. If you’re the kind of reader who loves it when characters say things like ‘I thought I would never see him look at anyone like that again…until he met you’, you will eat this up.

As more of a general comment: I think people are too generous with endorsements that promise that a book is ‘outrageously funny’ or ‘laugh-out-loud funny’. It’s a very bold statement and you’re setting an expectation that very few books can live up to.

The Woman in the Cabin by Becca Day
Rating: 2/5
Format: audio

Crime can be quite hit-or-miss for me, and baby, this was a miss. I’m not claiming I know exactly how I would behave if I was being held captive by an insane man who was convinced that I was his loving wife, but this woman is so frustratingly passive. She does absolutely nothing for the longest time. She finally has a plan that she then randomly abandons, after which she decides to do nothing for another six months. She knows her situation will get more and more difficult and yet she waits and waits. It annoyed me too much to take anything else seriously. Not that there was much else to take seriously, because the plot twists are so far-fetched that the whole thing just became absurd.

All Fours by Miranda July
Rating: 2.5/5
Format: ebook

One of the most divisive books of the past 18 months. I had initially decided that I would let this pass me by because I suspected it wouldn’t be for me, but there was just no escaping it. I kept seeing it everywhere and eventually one of my book clubs picked it. Okay Miranda, I’ll play ball.

Our unnamed main character goes on a road trip to New York. Only she never gets there. Not even 30 minutes into her drive she ends up in a local motel where she decides to stay for weeks. This book’s saving grace is the writing, which I actually thought was very good. For the first 50-or-so pages, I was enjoying it a lot. Unfortunately, my initial gut feeling turned out to be correct.

So many people have praised this book, and it was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. I don’t get it. The American members of our book club called it ‘a book full of California problems that could never be written in Britain, which they meant as a compliment to Britain since they (and the rest of the book club) absolutely hated it. I definitely agree with the last part. If this was written by a British author it would be self-depracating. Funny. In on the joke. It wouldn’t say things like ‘I just HAD to cheat on my husband to satisfy my journeying soul. It was a matter of life or death’ without a hint of irony.

Maybe a story about a woman who is breaking free from society’s expectations would have worked better if the woman in question wasn’t already extremely privileged and already lived a relatively unconventional life. And you know what, maybe I am a prude, but I don’t think cheating is the empowering feminist move these kinds of books seem to expect us to think it is. This character had zero remorse, became so self-obsessed that the thought of having to pay attention to her child for an hour became unbearable, and yet she never has to face any consequences.

All Fours tried to do so many different things but didn’t commit to any of them. If you want to show us a person who goes off the rails, okay, but then I want to be clutching my pearls on every page. Apart from a couple of explicit scenes, the main character spends the majority of the book pining and being heartbroken. What’s so liberating about that? I just didn’t get what the point of any of it was.

Homesick by Silvia Saunders
Rating: 4/5
Format: audio

Hi, my name is Gladys and I like reading about women who live their most mundane, everyday lives. The main character is getting ready to go to work? I’m intrigued. Their mother sends them a text? I’m all ears. They get home and put a pizza in the oven? Tell me more. They’re scrolling through social media before bed and judging everyone’s posts? I’m obsessed.

There’s something about characters who just live life in their cosy flats in a big city. It makes me feel so grateful that I’m just living life in my own cosy flat in a big city. This does for me what a romance novel does for other people. A love story, but about women living their everyday lives, preferably in London. This novel also explores the question of what ‘home’ means on a deeper level. And it was funny! Not outrageously, but still. I wanted to be friends with Mara, and I loooved her mum.

Something that threw me off in the beginning was how short the chapters were. The audiobook has 186(!) chapters. Many of them were less than a minute long, which I assume on paper is only a few sentences. And every time we jumped to a completely different scene or day, so it took a while to get properly invested. Another (very random) thing I noticed is that the main character said things about her boyfriend like ‘I kissed him on his little lips’, ‘I wanted him to hug me with his little arms’ and ‘He looked like a little husband’. Is this a regional thing? The boyfriend in question was a grown man. I was confused.

The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations about a Triple Murder Trial by Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein
Rating: 3.5/5
Format: audio

Three authors follow the trial of one of Australia’s biggest murder cases in recent history. Not only do they share everything they observe, but they also have interesting discussions around how ethical it is to report on a case like this.

The audiobook is less than five hours long, and as it’s actual (re-)recorded conversations between the women, I think audio is the best format. However I do wonder if a book was the best way to share these conversations. If I hadn’t already listened to several podcast episodes on this case, this book would have seemed very random. You do get all the necessary information, but kind of sprinkled throughout. Maybe a podcast where the case is laid out first and then they go into the trial and their observations would have made more sense. But if you do know the case, it’s an interesting addition!

A Training School for Elephants by Sophy Roberts
Rating: 4/5
Format: physical

Belgium’s colonial history and the cruelty Leopold II inflicted on what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a topic I don’t know nearly enough about. Let’s just say it wasn’t something many teachers or media channels were excited to talk about when I was growing up. I thought this book could be a good way for me to learn more. In the 1870s, Leopold II had the idea to transport elephants from Asia to Africa and to set up a training school for elephants in order to use them to exploit the continent even further. Travel writer Sophy Roberts follows the journey of those elephants all these years later, speaking to locals about the impact this has had on them.

I’m very happy I read this. Placing the elephants at the centre of this story was an excellent choice, as was Sophy Roberts adding her own experiences of following that same route. It turned what could have been a matter-of-fact and information-heavy book into a compelling narrative. I love this blend of travel writing and history, so now I’m looking for more books in this genre!

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: physical & audio

The highest rated book on this list is 179 years old. What an interesting mix we have here. I wonder what Charlotte Brontë would think of All Fours?

This was my first time reading Jane Eyre (don’t tell my university professors because this was probably on a reading list at some point) and I decided to consume it in a format I had previously reserved for the dulcet tones of Sir Stephen Fry and Sir David Attenborough: reading the physical book, but having the audiobook play at the same time. For old-timey novels, this is a game changer. I cannot tell you how many classics I’ve read but barely understood because I kept having to reread sentences and eventually I just gave up even trying to know what was going on. Wuthering Heights is a great example of this. But having someone narrate the story helped me understand everything so much better. In this age of consuming a lot of content in a short amount of time, it can be a great brain exercise to sit with a classic for a few weeks.

When I finished this, I felt like I was saying goodbye to someone I had been on a journey with. Jane Eyre is a loveable character and considering when she was written, she’s fierce! The meta writing style where she directly addresses the reader? Fantastic. The level of theatrics? Perfect. The lengths the author goes to to make sure that we’re all aware how unattractive and actually just plain ugly these characters are? Admirable. There is so much symbolism in this book and it’s one of those that you can read twenty times and you would notice something new every time.

While I don’t think we can blame a book that was published in 1847 for not having a more feminist ending (which I have seen people on social media mention) there are certain elements that don’t work as well as they perhaps did back then. There’s several instances where the characters are talking in circles and have the same back-and-forth conversation days in a row, which gets a bit boring and makes characters that we’re meant to like seem like they have zero respect for Jane’s boundaries. And of course our idea about what is considered romantic has changed, so we would consider some of Mr Rochester’s behaviour icky to say the least.

But overall, this was such a great reading experience. The next classic I want to tackle is Middlemarch, although ever since I found out that the legendary Aimee Lou Wood narrates the audiobook of Wuthering Heights, I’ve been so excited to get to that one as well.

Half his Age by Jennette McCurdy
Rating: 2.75/5
Format: audio

I technically finished this in March, but I’m really hopeful that next month’s wrap-up will be more positive, so rating-wise it fits better in this one. Like many others, I adored Jennete McCurdy’s memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died. Her first work of fiction didn’t hit the same. At all.

This is about Waldo, a 17-year-old who becomes infatuated with her 40-year-old married teacher who then grooms her. Let me start by saying what I think was done very well: The way their power dynamic was portrayed. How he made it seem she was in control and that he was a victim of his circumstances and not just a man preying on children. The book also showed how immature Waldo’s idea of their relationship was. She had clearly never thought about what real life with him would look like after the initial crush, because, well, she’s a teenager.

My biggest gripe with this book was, sadly, the writing. You know when you start to notice something and it becomes completely impossible to not focus on it? The author had this way of conveying an idea by repeating it three times. Let me illustrate:

‘He apologises for being such a mess last night and I tell him it’s alright. That I understand. That it’s been a lot. that it’s been hard.’

‘It’ll be fine. Better than fine. This is good.’

‘This is my opportunity to pursue my own wants. My own dreams. My own needs.’

‘I drop my phone into my lap. Repelled by it. Repelled by him. Repelled by his neediness.’

‘A thing. A smaller thing. A more manageable thing.’

‘It’s a long stream. A hardy stream. A juicy stream.’ (Yes, this is about pee)

‘A wave of recognition. Of peace. Of freedom.’

These are just a couple of the many, many examples. It was constant. I found myself begging her to try and describe something in a different way. A nicer way. A less infuriating way.

I’ve realised that I don’t like it when language is crass just for the sake of it and when characters do gross things for no apparent reason. And I hate the phrase ‘taking a leak’. I also don’t mind an explicit sex scene but there were a LOT of them and seeing as the characters are 17 and 40…I didn’t love that.

I watched an interview where Jennette McCurdy talks about how this story is heavily based on her own experience. That’s completely fine. However, when you’re someone who has shared a lot of their childhood and personal life and you then create a fictional character, there needs to be a bit of distance between yourself and said character for the audience to see them as a separate, fleshed-out person who isn’t just you with a different name. From Waldo’s relationship with her parents, to her passions, to the way she looked, everything sounded almost exactly like what we know about the author.

What didn’t help matters one bit is that the audiobook was narrated by Jennette McCurdy as well (who, by the way, spoke so unbelievably fast that it sounded like I was listening at x2 speed). But would the physical book have worked better? No, I read an excerpt and the three-word sentences would have annoyed me even more. At some point Waldo says of her own writing that she doesn’t like flowery prose. She wants writing that’s to the point with short, clear sentences. Yeah babes, we can tell.

And there we have it! I actually feel a bit bad being so negative about books because I know that these authors still worked very hard on them. They still achieved something I haven’t, which is to write and publish a book in the first place. But I think just like with anything else we consume, it’s okay to have spaces where we share why we liked or didn’t like something. And sometimes I just need to know I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get the hype around a book.

We’re now almost a week into March and I don’t want to jinx it, but I’ve definitely been reading some bangers already! Please let me know your favourite or least favourite reads of the year so far.

Thank you so much for reading. Want to read more of my work? You can subscribe for free. Showing some love really helps! If you’re feeling especially generous you can tip me as little as £1 by clicking on the tip jar, which will go towards essentials (iced coffee for me to keep writing, and treats for my cats).

G.

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The lady clearly had been talking to me for a couple of seconds, but as I had my headphones on the sound had been muffled, most likely by a podcast episode about a gruesome murder. I removed my headphones and gave the woman my full attention. She lived across the road from me, she said, and she often sees me walking past her house. She then told me that she likes to crochet and that she has recently made a cardigan that she would love me to have. ‘It’s a bit out there, so I figure it would be perfect for you.’

Me, completely unprepared for an interaction like this, stammer something about how I would love to see this cardigan. Before I know what’s happening she has whipped out a pen and is writing her phone number on my bag (my paper M&S bag, not my actual purse). ‘I know this must seem a bit weird, but I promise you I’m not a stalker’ she says, before she turns around and leaves. I guess this is exactly what a stalker would say.

Once home, I wasn’t sure what to do. It felt a bit strange to message someone Hey, just wanted to enquire about that free stuff you mentioned. On the other hand, she wanted me to message, right? I eventually sent a message but didn’t hear back, so I assumed she had just changed her mind and I forgot about it.

That was until a few weeks later when I was on my way home and ran into her (not at M&S, although to be honest I probably was on my way back from there). ‘Oh Gladys!’, she shouted, ‘Wait two minutes!’ and with that she ran into her house. When she came back out it was not with one, but with two cardigans.

I hadn’t really known what to expect, but I was shocked. They were SO gorgeous and the quality looked incredible. I told her that I couldn’t possibly accept these and that I would be more than happy to pay, but she didn’t want to hear any of it. ‘Just drop them off at the charity shop if you don’t wear them.’ Not wear them? Lady, I will be LIVING in these.

I remember that the day she approached me at M&S I had been having a shitty day, which completely changed after that interaction. Sometimes it feels like, when you need it the most, you will make an unexpected connection with someone that reminds you that sometimes, people are just good. Every time I look at these cardigans I think about wholesome it is that this woman, Trish, just likes to make stuff and wants to share her craft with people. She could be making a small fortune selling these on Etsy, which I told her, but that didn’t seem to interest her. She said she prefers to just donate them to charity shops or give them to people.

On a larger scale, everything seems pretty shit right now. So I try even more to focus on those small, human moments that show us that people can be wholesome and kind and wonderful. The woman at the bar who waited until the woman at the table next to her was by herself to go over and tell her that she was way too gorgeous and fantastic to put up with her boring AF date who hadn’t asked her a single question and had been talking about crypto for over an hour. The man who once paid for my groceries when I realised at the till that I had forgotten my wallet and started panicking, and who told me not to worry about it and to just do something nice for someone else to pay it forward. The woman last week who walked past me and who I shared a ‘game recognises game’ smile with because we both had outrageous outfits on and we both looked great (I guess Trish wasn’t wrong when she described my style as ‘out there’, but it caught her eye and now I have two stunning cardigans, so I’m not complaining).

Thank you so much for reading. Want to read more of my work? You can subscribe for free. Showing some love really helps! If you’re feeling especially generous you can tip me as little as £1 by clicking on the tip jar, which will go towards essentials (iced coffee for me to keep writing, and treats for my cats).

G.

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In terms of numbers, 2025 was my best reading year EVER. I consumed 110 books, 68 of those were physical or digital, 42 audiobooks. Towards September my number of completed books dropped significantly. That’s because I took a long break from audiobooks (apart from when I forced myself to finish Second Best …here’s how that went). When I eventually tried audio again, I had one attempt that went badly, and one that I very much enjoyed. There’s a lot of titles to get through, so let’s get right into it!

The Carnivorous Carnival by Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events #9)
Rating: 4.5/5
Format: physical

Nine down, four to go. I don’t know how the hell this happened, but I started this series four years ago. FOUR YEARS. How has it taken me that long to read nine children’s books? I didn’t want to devour all of them at once so I spread them out, but I think I overdid it a little. I hereby promise that I will finish this series in 2026. I remain the biggest fan though. These books are dark, witty, and Count Olaf is such a good villain. Everyone should read this!

The Battle of The Labyrinth by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #4)
Rating: 5/5
Format: physical

Another series, because why not? I also looked up when I read the first book in this series: January 2024. So almost two years for five books. Not bad. Rick Riordan has a lot of books though, and I want to get to his other series as well, so maybe I should step up the pace a little. I only have one book left in the Olympians series, which has been the most delicious experience. These books continue to entertain, and this is the first one that also made me quite emotional. I wish that I had read them as a child because I would have loved this world so much. I’ve mentioned this a million times but as someone who never learnt about Greek mythology in school but is still so fascinated by it, books like this are fantastic.

I have a TBR jar per season that I usually pick my next read from, and when I let my boyfriend pick he took out the slip of paper and jokingly said: ‘Let it be Percy Jackson.’ Reader, it WAS Percy Jackson! Considering there were 45 book titles in that jar, we were both impressed. As you can tell from this anecdote, I live a very wild and exciting life.

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum (translated from the Korean by Shanna Tan)
Rating: DNF
Format: physical

I had already bought this book before I finally accepted this uncomfortable fact: Although this genre has some of the most beautiful covers out there, it’s really not for me. I’m talking about those books translated from the Japanese or Korean, with cosy-looking covers that usually have a cat on them, that are set in bookshops, restaurants, photography studios or coffee bars, and that are about characters reliving memories or reminiscing about their lives. Walk into your nearest bookshop and you will see what I mean. There are hundreds of them and although some are global sensations while others are less known, they all pretty much seem the same to me.

I have the same gripe with every book in this genre I’ve read: The writing style is so plain, matter-of-fact and distant that it makes it impossible for me to feel any connection to the story or its characters. For a while there I wondered if this was a translation issue, because the language was so simple that I genuinely felt like I was reading stories written at elementary level. Maybe Japanese or Korean are languages that are so rich and seeped in culture and linguistic nuances that it’s almost impossible to translate them? Then again, I have since read other translated books in different genres (e.g. Butter by Asako Yuzuki) and didn’t feel that way at all with those, so it has to be a genre thing as well.

Anyway, I quickly realised that I was having yet another disappointing experience and I now have more than enough proof that I should stay clear of these books, no matter how cute the covers are.

The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place by Kate Summerscale
Rating: 3.75/5
Format: ebook

When I saw that this was on the Women’s Prize of Fiction shortlist, I was intrigued. I had heard about this case on several podcasts and was interested in a deep dive. The story starts with bodies that are discovered in the walls of a house, and is then told from the perspective of a tabloid reporter and a crime writer. This was very well-researched and although there was a lot of detail I didn’t get bored, which I think is an achievement for an information-heavy book like this.

I do have to say that I don’t entirely understand why it was on the Women’s Prize shortlist. I don’t think it did something particularly new or unique. All in all an interesting read though! I learnt a lot about the justice system in Britain in the 50s as well. I think this also would have been good as an audiobook.

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Hartman (translated from the French by Ros Schwartz)
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: physical

Finally, the moment had arrived. I read the book that, thirty years after its publication, became a phenomenon thanks to BookTok. The (Belgian!) author Jacqueline Harpman died in 2012 and it’s lovely how an app that didn’t even exist back then has made this book so famous that her other novels are now being translated and reprinted. Social media can be great sometimes!

I was nervous because of the massive hype around this book, but I can happily say that I completely understand why it had its resurgence, especially in this day and age. This story really is one of a kind. I think it’s best to go in completely blind. The weeks after I finished it I kept thinking about all the questions this book raises: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be a woman? How do people live together when there are no societal rules to dictate how to behave? You can read this in a day, but it will stay with you for so much longer.

Stag Dance by Torrey Peters
Rating: 2/5
Format: physical

I bought my copy of this at Gay’s The Word, one of my favourite London bookshops. The bookseller was so excited and promised me that I would ‘fly through this’. For the first two stories I agreed, but then it completely lost me.

Stories one, two and four in the collection were okay, but the third story is more than 150 pages long and takes up more than half of the book’s total length. Unfortunately, that was the story I liked the least. By far. I ended up skimming through it because I wanted to finish it for a book club, but I could not care less and didn’t even understand what was going on. These stories are about the trans experience, so I understand that to some extent I maybe didn’t get certain things, but it was a bit of a miss for me. The book club’s general consensus was also that the language was too crass and that the book talked about women in a slightly icky way. That being said, I still want to read this author’s other book, Detransition Baby, which I will hopefully enjoy more.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Rating: 4.5/5
Format: physical

The most common way that I had heard this book described was ‘no plot, all vibes’, so naturally that’s what I expected going in. Well, the vibes are simply immaculate, but there’s also definitely a plot in The Night Circus, and a good and engaging one at that! The circus appears randomly and is only open at night. We meet the people who run the circus, those who work there, and those who visit. The main story revolves around two people who have been chosen for a special competition, although neither of them know exactly what that means.

The aesthetic, the mood, the settings…I gobbled it all up. The author makes you feel as if you’re experiencing The Night Circus with all of your senses. It’s been a while since I read a book that made me want to be part of that world like that. That doesn’t mean that everything in this book is rainbows and sunshine; there is some darker stuff too, but it all just works so well. You do get a lot of characters thrown at you for the first couple of pages and it takes a while to get to know them, but I actually found it very easy to follow. This is escapism at its finest.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
Rating: DNF
Format: audio

I should have known this wouldn’t be for me, but several BookTubers whose reading taste is very similar to mine loved this, so I decided to give it a go. This book is about a young woman who gets pregnant with her married professor’s child, decides to keep the baby, doesn’t spend a single minute of that pregnancy thinking about how she – a broke student with no support network who lives in a flatshare with other students – will afford said baby, where she will live, or who will take care of the baby while she’s at work. Once the baby has arrived she is absolutely shocked that things don’t magically work out, and as a result she gets angry at everyone else for not putting their own lives on hold to fix her problems.

I’m too judgemental for this. I had zero empathy for this girl and although the audiobook was charmingly narrated by Elle Fanning, I gave up around 15% because the amount of times that this main character was shocked by the logical consequences of the massive, life-changing decision that she had actively made herself, got me too heated. I didn’t even get to the part where she starts an OnlyFans.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Rating: 4.25/5
Format: physical

I watched this movie a couple of months ago and enjoyed it so much more than I expected, so I decided to finally dust off the book that had been on my shelves for a good minute. The premise is simple: Four retired people solve murders together. This is soooooo British, and I love it. This is what I want from a cosy crime. It’s not scary at all, but the plot is entertaining and there is depth to it. Anything that shows older people live lives filled with friendships, needs, wants and passions is a win in my book. The characters are all so incredibly likeable and honestly, I would move into Coopers Chase tomorrow if I could.

Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater
Rating: 4/5
Format: audio

A bookseller becomes obsessed with the latest addition to the team. This was recommended to me by my friend Hanne – who is also a bookseller, but of the non-stalkery kind – and wow, this got so much more intense than I expected. It’s probably no surprise that I love a good bookshop, so the parts I enjoyed the most about this were actually the day-to-day goings on in the shop where all the characters worked. The book even goes into how they categorise books and how the shop intends on making profit. Wow, am I making this sound like the most boring crime book in history? It’s actually really fun. The chapters are short and the dual POV kept me engaged. A large part of it is also just the characters living their day-to-day lives, and you KNOW that’s my jam.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Rating: 3.25/5
Format: ebook

This was amusing and sometimes even scary, but after also reading Witchcraft for Wayward Girls and My Best Friend’s Exorcism this year I’m used to a bit more from Grady Hendrix. This is about a woman and her estranged brother who need to empty and sell their parents’ house after both they unexpectedly died, but to their surprise – but not to yours because it’s literally in the title – the house is haunted.

I like that Grady Hendrix’ novels always have emotional elements to them, but this one left me with questions that I felt were important to have answers to. Also, I know he writes horror novels that always have a certain level of pizzazz, but I almost found this one too unserious. It’s definitely a good read if you want to be entertained and maybe if you’ve read other books by this author already, but if you want to get to know his work I would recommend the two titles above a lot more.

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez (translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell)
Rating: 3.75/5
Format: physical

With its 724 pages, this bad boy was my longest read of the year. I actually did this as a buddy read with my friend Tim. I was familiar with Mariana Enriquez’ short stories and this novel definitely has a similar vibe: The supernatural, body horror and Argentina’s political history are all elements that show up here as well. But we also follow a father and a son on their journey. This story reveals itself little by little, so I would recommend going in blind here as well.

I find it difficult to rate this book. It’s unlike any novel I have ever read and the horror aspect is executed very well. At no point was I bored, which is impressive for a book of this length. But I do think that for a book to be this long the payoff needs to be worthy, and I’m not sure that’s the case here. I kept waiting for things to kick off and that never really happened. I’m very happy I read this and I will continue to read Enriquez’ work. It’s certainly a book I won’t forget very easily. It’s not perfect, but I would recommend it.

Advent by Gunnar Gunnarsson (translated from the Danish by Philip Roughton)
Rating: 3.75/5
Format: physical

I did some bookshopping the weekend before Christmas and suddenly saw this everywhere, so I had to pick it up. I’ve been on the lookout for some more stories set in Iceland, so this was perfect. This short little book was originally published in 1936. It’s about a man who leaves his home every Advent Sunday, with his dog and ram by his side, to go rescue sheep that haven’t made it back home yet. I have since learnt that people call this ‘the Nordic Christmas Carol’, which is funny considering the next book on this list. Take this as a very early recommendation to read next Christmas, because this is a very heartwarming tale about a human’s relationship with nature and with animals.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Rating: 4/5
Format: ebook

I watched the Muppet’s version first, so I thought it was time to also give the arguably inferior version by Charles Dickens a go. As someone who studied English literature I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that this was the first Dickens I’ve ever read. We had to read Hard Times at uni, but I think I got bored very early on and nicked someone’s summary of the plot. Weird how little I actually read during my studies. Today, I would devour all the books on that reading list. But I digress. I think I’ll have to give longer novels by Dickens another chance, because I very much enjoyed A Christmas Carol. The message is timeless. Another quick one you can read in one sitting, perfect if you want a Christmas-themed story and you want to get a short book in to reach those reading goals.

Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent
Rating: 5/5
Format: physical

As someone whose biggest travel dream it is to go to Iceland, this book is probably the closest I have come to actually visiting. I know now that Hannah Kent is a fiction writer, but I didn’t know the first thing about her when I picked this up. ‘A love letter to Iceland’ is how this memoir was described and that was all the convincing I needed. This made me cry and when I finished it I felt the need to hug it for a while. This is so precious. Hannah Kent tells the story of how as a teenager, she decided to go live abroad for a year. When she was told she was going to Iceland, she didn’t know a single thing about it. Years later, the country and its people are an intrinsic part of who she is. The writing is so vivid and I just felt like I was there with her. Read this if you want a story about friendship, found family and what it means to call a place ‘home’.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’ Donoghue
Rating: 3.75/5
Format: audio

My first Caroline O’ Donoghue! At the core of this, despite all the chaos and messiness that comes with being a young person in a small town, is a love story. Just not in the way you expect. I did not expect this to go where it did at all, but I had a great time. This book is very, very Irish. I loved that about it. I didn’t find the novel ‘brilliantly funny’, which several blurbs promised, and some events seemed to play into some unfortunate stereotypes, but overall a great read, especially on audio because the Irish accent is a nice bonus.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’ Farrell
Rating: 4.75/5
Format: physical

I had initially planned to save this as a summer read, but then it got picked for one of my book clubs. This is a historical fiction that is based on the life of Lucrezia de’ Medici, girl who became duchess at a very young age and died within the first year of her marriage. The official cause of death was a fever, but there have always been rumours that she was killed.

The premise spoke to me, but I was hesitant going into this: Because the story is set in the 16^th century I was worried that the writing would be dense. I had flashbacks of my attempts at reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Although I definitely want to give that series another chance, I really struggled with the writing style. This, however, is super accessible. I loved this book. The author brought Lucrezia to life in such a real and human way, and gave her a voice that got lost in history. This will definitely be a reread. I was convinced that this was going to be a five star until the very end, but I docked a point for the ending.

My top 3 books of 2025

I had an excellent reading year, but there were three that stood out to me. After picking Rebecca as one of my two favourites of 2024 and my constant fangirling over this author nobody will be surprised that another du Maurier made it into my top three. The other two books are by authors I hadn’t read anything of before. One of them is mentioned in this post, the other one I read earlier this year but I remember finishing it and having only one thought: Books like this make me so grateful to be a reader.

Please let me know if you’ve read any of the books in this wrap-up and tell me your favourite read of 2025!

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G.

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If the past year has taught me anything, it’s that there’s no point in coming up with New Year’s resolutions that are unattainable and don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I’m also very aware that the year starts with the least inspiring or motivating month of the year and that it would make so much more sense to have a fresh start in March. That being said, it’s just fun to think about what you want the coming year to look like. I enjoy the ‘ins and outs’ trend that started last year (or was it two years ago? Honestly, who the fuck knows, at this point it may have been 2008). I also like to have a word of the year to reflect the overall vibe I want to focus on.

A humble start

My 2026 started with me once again getting deeply humbled by my own lack of practical skills. I had been seeing a lot of people junk journalling, and I decided that I wanted to start the new year with a junk journal as well. Now, I’ve known myself long enough to realise that I had to lower my expectations. There was no way that anything created by my two hands could look even remotely like the colourful, charming and inspiring collages the girls post on socials. But hey, I thought, it’s just a way to collect nice pictures, stickers, receipts and other stuff to memorialise the bigger and smaller events in my life. It won’t look perfect, but it will still be cute.

It went wrong on page one. I wanted to write ‘Christmas 2025’ and somehow managed to misspell that. Several more spelling errors followed. Now I’m usually quite alright at spelling, but for some reason when it comes to writing by hand, it’s like my hands don’t do what my brain tells them. I think this is partly because I barely write by hand anymore so I’ve lost the skill, and it also must have something to do with me being hyperaware that I have atrocious handwriting, so every time I have to write something that has to look pretty, I get unbelievably stressed. If anyone ever wanted to torture me, all they would have to do is make me write birthday cards. I’ll probably misspell the person’s name on the envelope.

But no matter, we move. On page two and three, three coloured pens died on me, every time in the middle of a word. Not ideal, but come on, I can do this. Then on the fourth page, another coloured pen EXPLODED so I got purple dye all over the page, my hands and my jumper. It was like my stationery was mocking me for thinking I could ever be crafty like the TikTok girlies. I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider tossing the whole bloody journal in the bin, but it’s the year of the horse, so I told myself to get back on it and continue. The result is five pages of journalling that look like an entire kindergarten vomited on them, but I did it. And anyway, it’s called JUNK journalling, so it doesn’t have to look like something that belongs in a museum. I’m hoping this was the start of a ‘done, not perfect’ mentality I will further develop as the year progresses.

Word of the year

My word of the year is connection. Connection with my body, with friends and family, with strangers and with nature. This past year, I have often felt scared and disgusted by the many ways in which we’re losing connection. I hear the words ‘AI’ and ‘Chat GPT’ more times in a day than I would want to hear them in a lifetime, many people can’t watch a movie anymore without being on their phones, and it feels like the majority of the people you talk to wish they could increase the speed of the conversation by x2 like they do with everything else they consume.

Yesterday I saw a comment on a deeply personal Instagram post that started with ‘Here’s a clean, warm answer you can give back – straightforward, heartfelt and without the fluff’. The commenter had clearly entered the caption into Chat GPT and had asked it to write a suitable comment and copy-pasted it, but forgotten to take out the instructions. I just can’t believe that we’ve gotten to this point. So yes, my word of the year was a no-brainer. Connection with the world around me and away from devices.

Not even a day after I decided on this word I saw , author of my favourite book of 2024, post that she also has a 2026 word. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s ‘connection’ as well! For half a second I thought Oh no, does that mean my word of the year is basic?! before giving myself a stern ‘get over yourself’. This only shows that more people are craving the same thing right now, which is a good thing! Maybe I should add ‘less ego’ to my ‘2026 outs’.

2026 ins

• An overall more positive mindset.

• Stimulating my brain by learning/personal curriculums.

• Trying mindfulness.

• Enjoying tv shows and movies without looking for reviews and strangers’ opinions because the internet thinks everything is shit anyway.

• Nurturing relationships with friends and family.

• Substack (posting as well as connecting with others).

• Dentist appointments and health check-ups.

• Reading more books from my physical TBR than the amount of new books I buy.

• Practicing kindness towards strangers.

• Critical reading (taking my time with a book and debriefing afterwards).

• Starting projects that scare me.

• Mindful spending.

• More (political) activism.

• Being offline.

• Moving my body – taking care of my older self.

• Doing things even if they’re messy and imperfect (like junk journalling!)

2026 outs

• Being on my phone while watching a movie or tv show.

• Buying too much food that goes to waste (nobody needs four bags of easy peelers in the fridge).

• Opening Instagram first thing in the morning.

• Worshipping celebrities.

• Not going for enough walks.

• Putting things off.

Do you have a word for 2026? Or ins and outs? I want to hear them! I wish you a 2026 without any goals or tracker but with good vibes, good books or movies, delicious food and (offline!) connection.

G. xxx

I am now nearing the end of the show and I have some thoughts, so here they are. This post is nothing more than an excuse for me to rant. If you’re the kind of person who gets way too invested in fictional characters, this is for you. If you’re the kind of person who says things like ‘calm down, it’s just a TV show’, this is definitely NOT for you. Also, there will obviously be massive spoilers.

Why I was impressed

Going in, I knew next to nothing about Gilmore Girls. I knew that the show is set in a small fictional town and that the whole series is strongly associated with autumn, which is why I decided to start it during that season. From the aesthetic alone it’s clear why Gilmore Girls is considered a comfort show by many people who watched it when it originally aired. Stars Hollow feels like a magical place that is protected from the rest of the world’s uglier, scarier things. The events that the town somehow hosts on an almost weekly basis are about as high-stake as it gets. There’s no denying that the vibes are immaculate.

The show is a lot more than just vibes though, and after only a couple of episodes I had to admit that it was exceeding my expectations. What stood out to me was how well a fractured parent-child relationship was being portrayed. Unlike in many other comedy shows, issues didn’t magically get solved by the end of every episode. The friction between Lorelai and her parents was not just used as comic relief. It was clear that something had been broken long before we were ever invited to watch this family. Most of the time I could understand both sides’ perspectives and I genuinely felt for all parties involved. There were scenes in those earlier seasons that made me cry because of how realistically and beautifully this topic was handled.

And then…

A few seasons in, something changed. As more and more drama got added, a lot of the nuance that I loved so much got lost. I went from completely understanding why people find this show comforting and heartwarming, to feeling like I was watching 40 minutes of rage bait every episode.

The main reason I’ve identified so far is that, for a show that is supposed to be cosy and uplifting, there are too many characters who I find completely insufferable. Not in a ‘oh haha they’re being so annoying’ kind of way, but in a ‘these people are questionable at best and cruel at worst’ kind-of-way. My patience with some of these characters is wearing thinner than those scarves Rory and Lorelai wear. To illustrate this, I have organised the following section per character. Obviously this is very subjective so please do let me know whether you do or don’t agree. I would love to discuss!

Immaculate vibes, infuriating characters

DISCLAIMER: There’s the obvious criticism around how well jokes have aged etc, but as this show was written in the early 2000s I’ve decided to not get into all of that because the same could be said about every other show of that time. Just know that the gay jokes, Luke’s crashout over a woman breastfeeding in his diner, the Gilmores’ fatphobic comments and the lack of LGBTQIA+ representation have not escaped me, but I have to pick my battles, okay?! I will even try to ignore the Sookie & Jackson vasectomy situation. What I find impossible to let slide, however, is the storyline of a teenage Paris ‘dating’ the college professor who could have been her grandfather. I’m not exaggerating when I say that that is one of the most upsetting things I have ever seen on TV. Even twenty years ago I do not understand how that ever got the green light.

CHRISTOPHER
Let’s get this absolute swine out of the way first. One thing we can hopefully all agree on is that Christopher is the worst. He’s obviously the antagonist of the story, but was he meant to be THIS bad? Part of me thinks maybe not because of how many times they dragged him back up from the deadbeat dad swamp he should have stayed in. Nothing baffles me more than how everyone keeps giving this man credit. Throughout his daughter’s entire childhood his biggest contribution was a weekly five-minute phone call, yet everyone still welcomes him with open arms? It would be one thing if Lorelai just didn’t want to badmouth Rory’s dad, but she also actively still wants to make it work with him? Why? Give me one good quality this man has? Also, why does Emily want the two of them together so badly? I get the whole ‘good breeding’ thing, but I struggle to see how it would look good to her social circle if her daughter got back with the broke ass loser who got her pregnant at sixteen and has yet to spend a day of his life actually showing up for his child?

If Christopher has even the tiniest bit of respect towards his child and her mother he would leave Lorelai alone, but he can’t even do that. This man clearly cares more about Lorelai than about his child, and it’s so offensive how okay everyone seems with that.

SOOKIE
Sookie is alright and in many ways too nice for the Gilmores (Lorelai giving her concert tickets away to those ungrateful children who then left in the middle of the show? Unforgivable) but she should have never been the co-owner of that inn. Sookie has zero sense of responsibility and that would piss me off beyond belief. I’m okay with her overall, but she comes across as very selfish at times. That being said, I appreciate how she gives us some plus-size representation and how her weight is never the butt of the joke.

MICHEL
Michel better be employee of the month every single month. He works his little Canadian booty off in that Dragonfly and deserves so much more credit from Sookie and Lorelai. He’s obviously judgemental and has zero tolerance towards, well, anything, but I find him hilarious and he’s one of the very few characters who never annoy me.

EMILY
The biggest tragedy of the show is what happened to Emily’s character. In the earlier seasons I found myself agreeing with her a lot of the time. Yes, she was too focused on appearance and status, but I could also understand her point of view and it was hard to not feel for her because it was obvious that the troubled relationship with her daughter caused her pain.

That was until our girl entered her villain era and made me think that she should be grateful her daughter is the most forgiving person on the planet. The writers probably felt like they had to take the issues between Lorelai and Emily to another level to avoid it becoming repetitive or boring, but I hate that they did it in a way that made the whole situation a lot more black and white, right vs wrong. Emily starts doing terrible things without a single ounce of remorse. I see people on social media saying that, as they got older, they started to relate to Emily more and more. That’s exactly how I felt for the first three seasons or so, and I even passionately defended Emily to friends. But how can you still be on her side after what she does to Lorelai and Luke? Or after she tries to humiliate her daughter in front of Logan? It becomes more and more difficult to explain her behaviour as her wanting the best for everyone, because a lot of it is just mean and inexcusable.

I still enjoy watching Emily’s scenes because of Kelly Bishop’s incredible performance, and purely based on one-liners and style, she’s the most interesting character. But come on, Emily. I was rooting for you.

RICHARD
I do have a soft spot for Richard. He’s not as mean as Emily and he seems at least a little bit more capable of seeing his daughter as an equal and as an adult who makes her own decisions, but he also has an ugly side that will occasionally show itself. I was shocked when he betrayed his business partner Jason for a man who treated him like shit? WHAT WAS THAT?! I fully expected Richard to have an underlying reason for doing that, but it’s just never mentioned again. I love how much he and Emily love each other, but him meeting up with Pennilyn Lott in secret for years? Not cool, Richard. Not cool at all.

LUKE
Without this man, I don’t think I would still be watching. He’s by far the best character in every single way. He’s funny, sweet, selfless, good-hearted and if anyone in this show can actually be called a comfort character, it’s probably Luke. Sure, he’s grumpy, but who can blame him when you look at the sort of people he’s constantly surrounded by. I LOVE him.

Luke is too good for the majority of the people around him, including Lorelai. I’m sorry, but if you hide the fact that you spent the night drinking with your piece of shit ex who has never been there for the daughter that I basically helped raise more than he ever did, you then tell me I’ve got nothing to worry about because you and him are 100% platonic and in the past and nothing will ever happen between the two of you again, and then the second we have a little tiff you go and MARRY this guy? Prepare to make your own goddamn coffee for the rest of your life because my diner will not only become cellphone-free, but also Gilmore-free.

JESS
Had I watched Gilmore Girls as a teenager, I would have probably loved Jess. As someone who is now closer to Lorelai’s age however, this little boy has made me clutch my pearls several times. Of course I could see that he was a broken teenager who had been completely abandoned, and he was quite witty and funny to watch sometimes, but I couldn’t get over how he spoke to people and how he treated the one adult who actually cared about him.

That being said, Jess has some impressive character growth, and as the show progressed I was shocked to hear myself say that he eventually became my favourite of Rory’s love interests (even if that’s just because he’s the only one who doesn’t cheat on his wife with her).

LORELAI
The character I’m the most conflicted about. In many ways, I like her. Lorelai has strong principles and she’s not afraid to choose the difficult way if that means she can keep her integrity. She deserves the utmost respect for the way she built her own life and I wish that I had a tenth of her work ethic. It’s admirable to say the least how she raised her child by herself and how she became completely independent at such a young age.

The problem is that Lorelai is also VERY entitled. She thinks that she can do whatever she wants because she’s cute and funny, whether that’s using Luke’s diner and truck whenever she feels like it, telling paying customers of the diner to leave because they’re sitting at her favourite table, or, according to Jason, talking through an entire movie screening and annoying everyone else in the room. I’m aware that this is meant to be endearing, but I know I would be done with her behaviour very quickly. She gives me the ick a little bit.

While I admire her principles, her pride and stubbornness have almost put herself and her child at risk more than once. Like when she refused to ask her parents for money when their house was becoming unliveable. Or when she didn’t want Rory to do the Yale interview because ‘She’s going to Harvard!!!’. I took the liberty of Googling Harvard’s admission rate, which is currently around 3.5%. Although the odds were probably a tiiiiny bit higher back then, I still think you have to be delulu to not think that it may be a good idea for your child to have a backup option. People would kill to have family connections at a university like Yale, but no, Lorelai would rather endanger her daughter’s future than see that interview for what it is, which is an incredible opportunity.

Richard shouldn’t have tricked Rory into doing the interview, but him telling Lorelai to get real and that just because she thinks her daughter is special doesn’t mean the rest of the world will, was one of the most satisfying moments. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lorelai’s parenting leads to an insufferable child who thinks she will always get her way because she’s mummy’s special girl and doesn’t know how to handle any sort of criticism whatsoever. OH WAIT. But we’re not there yet. I’m saving the best for last.

It’s also interesting how the fact that Lorelai and Rory eat trash all the time, have never cooked a meal at home, never eat a vegetable and are both addicted to coffee, is considered funny. I guess it’s only funny because they’re both super thin, otherwise they would be read to filth for the exact same lifestyle.

PARIS
A QUEEN. Paris is smart, funny and knows that she will have to work hard to achieve her goals because being smart and cute is not always enough in the real world. I will never forgive Harvard for rejecting Paris and admitting Rory. Paris is such a pleasure to watch — at least when she’s not being groomed by an old pervert. Paris is to Rory what Michel is to Lorelai: the funnier and much less annoying person in her life to push back when needed.

DEAN
Next.

LANE
Most of Rory’s friends are a million times more likeable and interesting than her, and Lane is no exception. She’s just so cool! I hate how dirty they did her with the ending she got. After everything she had to overcome, she deserved to make her dreams a reality.

LOGAN
Considering his family and the social circles he moves in, not as much of a dick as you would expect. I actually find Logan quite likeable, but the people he surrounds himself with and his taste in women are off-putting. Also, he cheats on his wife, so fuck him.

JACKSON
A man-child who throws a tantrum when he doesn’t get his way. There are several times where instead of communicating like an adult, he just sulks. Those are the only memories I have of him, so I feel very ‘meh’ about him.

KIRK
I’m not saying I would want him near me 24/7, but Kirk is one of the characters I like the most (although that isn’t saying much because when it comes to finding truly likeable characters in Stars Hollow, it’s slim pickings). But I vibe with Kirk. He means well and one thing about him: he’s up for anything. Sometimes the others are a bit mean to him unnecessarily.

TAYLOR
If we needed any more proof that Luke is an actual saint, the fact that he hasn’t single-handedly sent this man to hospital is nothing short of a miracle. Taylor Doose deserves to get the shit kicked out of him. He’s one of the characters who I suspect wasn’t supposed to be as hated as he ended up being — at least in my household. He was probably supposed to be fussy and pedantic in a funny way where you cannot help but like him, but…no.

Taylor is genuinely cruel at times and seems to think that he can control everyone’s lives. He actively sabotages people’s projects because he can, he does not care about endangering people’s livelihoods, he bullies a teenage girl for starting university on the day he expects her to do free labour that he had just assumed she would do without speaking to her first, and he sees people’s heartbreak something to exploit for his own pleasure. I loved watching him get humbled in the town elections because honestly Taylor, what did you expect after acting like a tyrant all these years? What a terrible, terrible person.

MISS PATTY & BABETTE
Iconic duo. Out of all the characters these two are the ones I wish I could meet and have a gossip session with. I just know they secretly talk so much shit about the Gilmores.

RORY
One thing I did not expect when I started watching the show, was that I was about to meet the most insufferable character that has ever disgraced my screen. My god, where do we even start?

Rory has what her mother never had: a supportive parent who lets her be who she wants to be, but also the money and privilege that comes with being a Gilmore. She has the best of both worlds, gets everything thrown in her lap and still manages to make an absolute mess of her life.

Throughout the entire show we constantly hear how smart, talented and special Rory is, but all I can see is a bland, self-important spoiled brat who can’t handle anyone giving her criticism or telling her no. After all this time I have yet to see her fantastic writing skills, or a single reason why all of these boys lose their minds over her. I can’t believe how she cheated on Dean with Jess, wasn’t planning on telling Dean but still felt like she had the right to be angry at Jess for dating other people even though she was doing the same thing, then dating Jess only because Dean had finally had enough of her tomfoolery, only to then want Dean again the second he’s MARRIED because *cue pouty face* ‘He was my Dean first’.

When Lorelai tells her that she doesn’t love the idea of her only child being a homewrecker, Rory is so displeased that she fucks off to Europe and ghosts her mother for months. Again, luckily Lorelai is extremely forgiving, although this is also partly on her for acting more like Rory’s bestie than like her mother.

The rage I felt when Lindsay’s mother confronted Rory in the town square and she’s just standing there with her pouty face, all innocent and angelic like she was the victim. And it would be one thing if having an affair with Dean was a teenage mistake and she actually has some character growth, but no. She is still repeating the exact same behaviour as an adult. She doesn’t want to marry Logan because she doesn’t want to be a wife, but she’s a-okay with being his mistress once he’s married to someone else :))))

I knew that she would drop out of Yale, but I assumed that it would happen after receiving some truly brutal criticism. Imagine my complete and utter shock when I watched that episode and realised that all it took for this girl to abandon her entire life goal was someone basically telling her that she should take a little more initiative? And again, Lorelai doesn’t think that her dropping out of university after that one comment is reasonable, so Rory goes and manipulates her grandparents to get her way and breaks her mother’s heart in the process. I hate this girl.

The right time and place

Based on conversations I’ve had with Gilmore Girls fans (one friend starts from episode one every single autumn), the main reason why they love it so much is the memories they have attached to it, like coming home from school and watching with their mums. That’s obviously a very different experience than someone in their thirties watching it for the first time.

To me, Love, Actually is the best romantic comedy ever made and Mean Girls is a masterpiece. When I showed my boyfriend both movies for the first time, he just didn’t get it. Just like me with Gilmore Girls, he approached those movies with none of the nostalgic feelings but with all of the 2025 ideas of what is good TV, what is acceptable, what is problematic, and so on.

The books, shows and movies that we fell in love with usually captured a specific time and place, in this case the early 2000s. Gilmore Girls fans who revisit the show can easily remember how they felt when they watched it in the early 2000s. Watching this for the first time in 2025 and trying to look at it through a 2000s lens just doesn’t hit the same.

The countless reboots and sequels that we’re continuously bombarded with are also attempts to bring that nostalgia back, but by doing the opposite: instead of expecting the audience to go back in time, they plonk the characters that we loved decades ago in the here and now and expect them to have caught up with us. In 99.9% of cases (and from what I’ve heard the Gilmore Girls sequel is no exception here) it just doesn’t work. The result is often painfully bad because they try too hard to create that feeling of nostalgia that cannot be forced, or the magic that happens when a show and its audience meet at the right time is simply not there anymore.

Gilmore Girls is not a show that I will put on to lift my spirits and it will not be one I watch annually. I probably missed that train years ago. And you know what? That’s okay. I’m still having a good time watching it. If nothing else, it’s a nice opportunity to shout at my TV and get some frustrations out.

Thank you so much for reading. Want to read more of my work? You can subscribe for free. Showing some love really helps! If you’re feeling especially generous you can tip me as little as £1 by clicking on the tip jar, which will go towards essentials (iced coffee for me to keep writing, and treats for my cats).

G.

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Sandwich by Catherine Newman

Rating: 3.75/5
Format: ebook

This is the first book I read on my holiday in Crete. After finishing Betty by Tiffany McDaniel on the plane, I wanted something a little more lighthearted. The main thing I remember about Sandwich is that it was funnier, but also deeper than I expected. We follow Rocky and her family on their annual family holiday to Cape Cod. A lot has happened over the years, and Rocky has to navigate the changes in the relationship she has with her children, partner, parents, and with her own body. As she sees the world around her change, old secrets resurface.

I enjoyed this portrayal of a menopausal woman and how it made me think about what it means to be a woman, a mother, a daughter and a wife all at the same time. I’m always here for stories about mundane lives, and especially those of people in their forties, fifties or older. It didn’t rock my world, but it was good! I definitely want to read more by this author.

The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson

Rating: 4.25/5
Format: ebook

On to the second holiday read. When I say I want a page-turning thriller that I just cannot wait to finish, this is what I mean. I also loved Holly Jackson’s Five Survive and I enjoyed A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. This story starts out as the beginning of a true crime documentary, which immediately pulled me in. And for the subject of the murder docu to then…you know…show up alive…I was HOOKED (this is not a spoiler, it’s literally in the title).

Although this book was also written for a YA audience, that didn’t bother me as much as with A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, where I did find the writing too childish at times (the main character’s idea of swearing was saying ‘holy pepperoni!’ which, babes, you’re solving a brutal murder, you can say ‘shit’). Content-wise however, Holly Jackson’s books don’t feel childish at all, and I love that she doesn’t hold back and is’nt afraid to go dark in YA books.

Sunstruck by William Rayfet Hunter

Rating: 3.75/5
Format: ebook

This is the last book I read in Crete. If Saltburn was a book it would basically be this one, minus the bathtub, period blood and grave scenes (thank goodness). The main character here is black, which added another layer to the whole non-priviledged-kid-meets-priviledged-kid-and-gets-swept-up-in-the-glamorous-lifestyle story. I would definitely recommend this for fans of Call Me By Your Name or the aforementioned Saltburn. I didn’t rate this higher because it did take me a good couple of weeks to finish the last part, which is very long for me. And although there may have been other factors at play here, I just wasn’t extremely excited to continue reading.

The characters spend about half the book in a sweltering hot holiday environment to then return back to reality in London, so starting it towards the end of a sweltering hot holiday with the return flight to London creeping closer and closer, made for a great reading experience.

Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier

Rating: 4.75/5
Format: physical

Another Daphne du Maurier, because of course. And another win, because of course. How does she do this?! This is probably the most romantic novel of hers I’ve read so far and if you know anything about my reading tastes you know that I am NOT a romance reader. However, this book managed to be about so much more than that. Our main character is stuck in her day-to-day and rediscovers her passion and lust for life because of an irresistible pirate who, I have to say, was surprisingly respectful and almost woke for a novel that was published in the forties.

Du Maurier’s writing and ability to set a scene and create atmosphere is just unparalleled and that is proven here once again. I REALLY need to read The Birds!

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Rating: 3.25/5
Format: physical

I was so so so excited about this. A novel about the rise of Nazi Germany narrated by death? Count me in. Many people call this one of their favourite books of all time and I’m gutted that that is not the case for me. There’s nothing wrong with the story per se. I liked that the entire story takes place in one small town, there were some very beautiful moments and it was easy to get through, but I think I’ve read too many similar books that simply do it better. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, to name just one.

Again, death being the narrator is probably the most exciting thing about this story, but I also found the writing a bit too simplistic and childish, which is interesting considering this apparently wasn’t meant to be a YA novel. I would never assume that this was written for adults. I’m happy I finally read it, but I’m not as blown away as I had hoped.

Second Best by David Foenkinos

Rating: 2/5
Format: audio
Translated from the French by Megan Jones

You almost get chosen to play the main character in the most successful franchise of the 21st century, but at the last minute another young boy gets picked. How do you go through life forever knowing that you were almost Harry Potter?

‘You wallow in self-pity for the rest of your miserable life’, according to this book. The premise of this sounded so interesting, but towards the end of August I had only 55 minutes left in the audiobook and it took me two months to motivate myself enough to press play again. The first part was interesting enough: It goes into the process behind publishing the books, the decision to turn them into films and the audition process. The weird thing about this is that I often felt like I was reading a memoir of someone who actually witnessed all these conversations, while the story is entirely fictional. There’s parts of the book where people who exist in real life were sharing personal things and pouring their hearts out to these fictional characters. It almost felt wrong to read because you know these conversations never happened. I’ve since thought about this more and asked myself why that made me uncomfortable when I would be fine with people like Oscar Wilde or Virginia Woolf being a fictional character in a book. I think the difference is that those people have been dead for a while and have more of a historical figure status, whereas in this case those people are still very much alive. I don’t know, it just felt weird and almost intrusive.

Not even that far into the book I stopped feeling sorry for the main character and started thinking that he should just get his shit together. Missing out on an opportunity like that and not being able to process that is completely understandable as a child, but by the time he was a 30-year-old-man it was still controlling his entire life and relationships and he had made zero progress? Honestly, get over yourself. I’m not sure what the point of this book was.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Rating: 4/5
Format: ebook

Another one that had been on my TBR for the longest time. In the first place this novel is about grief, but the thing I kept going back to as I was reading is the idea that in a household with several children, every sibling has different parents.

The death of the eldest and favourite child disrupts the family, and their grief was portrayed in such an intimate way that it almost felt like you were witnessing something you weren’t supposed to. I thought this was a great read, but I also had one big gripe with it, which is that both parents were so unlikeable and borderline abusive towards their children that I found it difficult to have any sympathy for them. Luckily the siblings made up for this, and the relationships between them was the novel’s biggest strength.

Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel (translated by Rosalind Harvey)

Rating: 4/5
Format: Physical

I read this for one of my book clubs, but I had already bought it months before it got picked. I find those Fitzcerraldo editions so irresistible and I need to stop myself from buying all of them, but this was one that immediately stood out to me. The first couple of pages almost shocked me in the best way. The main character shares some piping hot takes about motherhood and women’s decision to (not) become a mother, and I decided that if the rest of the book continued along that vein that it would be a clear five star read. For example:

There’s some more extreme ones that I won’t share as they could potentially be triggering, and I didn’t even always agree with the main character’s opinions, but I just loved reading about a woman who had such strong views on this topic and wasn’t afraid to share them.

The book then took quite a different turn and the plot became a lot more about the main character’s friend and her baby, but that wasn’t necessarily an issue. That storyline was also great, albeit heartbreaking. There are some things I would have liked to see differently, mainly the ending. And a couple of things also felt too on the nose. That being said, it’s a book that will stay with me for a long time.

What are you reading at the moment? Let me know!

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Carrion Crow by Heather Parry

Rating: 4
Format: Audio

I love a gothic novel, I love stories set in a dirty and gritty London, and I don’t mind some body horror. The fact that this book is based on a true story makes it even better, although it’s almost impossible to imagine that this is real. I usually don’t like books that are too ‘trippy’, where the narrator is so unreliable that you eventually have no idea what’s going on anymore. Here though, I didn’t mind it so much. It made sense. The reason this isn’t a five star for me is because it’s a multiple POV with a dual timeline, and I was a lot less invested in one of the POVs/timelines. Because we already knew so much about that character in the ‘now’ and none of it was good, it was difficult to have any kind of empathy or even care what happened in the past. But overall a good and quick read, and it works great as an audiobook!

Salt Slow by Julia Armfield

Rating: 4
Format: Physical

I love short stories, but I’m still wondering how to best consume them. If anyone has any tips or wants to share how they approach short story collections, let me know! Basically my problem is that I tend to read a lot of them in one sitting and therefore not allow myself the time to absorb them or reflect on what I’ve read. I feel like I should leave more time between each one, but on the other hand I like that I can read short stories quite quickly.

This particular collection I enjoyed while I was reading it, but I have to admit that even right afterwards I already struggled to remember them. Like I just said, I don’t mind a bit of body horror, but with these dark types of short stories I often feel like I’m missing the point or the meaning? To be honest, I feel that way with most short stories, but I usually just enjoy them for the vibes. Is that just me?

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

Rating: 4.75
Format: Physical

Grady Hendrix has two of the best book covers I have ever seen: this one and Horrorstör. With this cover, this title and the endorsement ‘If The Exorcist had been authored by Tina Fey’, not buying this would have been criminal. Every single page of this book is delicious. The vibes were immaculate. I’m aware that this story sounds like a wild ride, and it is, but it was also surprisingly moving? The thread throughout all of the insanity in this book is how powerful teenage friendship is.

I’ve now read this book as well as Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix, and it’s impressive how well he writes about the lives and experiences of teenage girls. This could have easily gone very, very wrong, but he does a great me!

The Holiday by T.M. Logan

Rating: 3.5
Format: Audio

My third T.M. Logan this year. He’s the perfect author if you just want a good crime story. This one, however, is my least favourite of the three. It was still entertaining enough, but it wasn’t at all scary. There’s basically no actual suspense until the last fifth of the book, everything else is just this group of old friends on holiday refusing to have a proper conversation, which would have prevented the majority of their issues. So if you like your thrillers to have high stakes from the very beginning, give this one a miss. It was a good holiday read though, which makes sense considering the title and all.

Chlorine by Jade Song

Rating: 3
Format: Audio

This is one for the weird girl fiction lovers, and to be honest, I don’t think I am one. There were a couple of things I did like about this: I was interested in the portrayal of competitive swimming and how the pressure on the main character slowly becomes too much. I also liked the body horror (starting to sense a theme here), the sapphic romance and the mythological references. But like I said, this book was a tad too weird and speculative for me. I don’t mind books where I have to suspend my disbelief a little bit, but then it has to be clear that the world the story is set in is a world where those things make sense. When a story is completely realistic and seems to take place in ‘our world’ with our ideas of what is possible and what isn’t and THEN it goes completely off the rails, you lose me. It also wasn’t clear enough to me what exactly happened in the end. Fans of Mona Awad would probably enjoy this, but I don’t consider myself part of that group either, so here we are.

Pan by Michael Clune

Rating: 3.5
Format: Physical

A very spontaneous purchase, and the cover definitely had something to do with it. My friend Tim was here in London and when we came across this, he told me he had heard great things about it. It wasn’t on my radar at all, but a coming-of-age story with elements of Greek mythology? Who am I to say no? We both picked it up and started reading it together.

This started out strong. My favourite thing about this was the writing. I loved the observations the main character made and the wonderful descriptions and metaphors. My least favourite thing was that this story got trippy and weird as well. And look, I didn’t expect that a teenage boy who is dealing with crippling anxiety and starts imagining that the god Pan regularly takes over his body and mind would be the most rational read. It was more that a large chunk of this book is this character hanging out with a group of people, and none of them behave in a way that I found believable or realistic in any way. Interestingly enough, the writer apparently wrote this book and these characters based on a period in his own life, so either this man moved in some wild circles, or my youth was just exceptionally boring.

I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNicol

Rating: 4.25
Format: Audio

This book almost made me want to visit Paris again. And if you know anything about me, you know that that’s a big deal. Glynnis MacNicol tells the story of how she went to Paris for six weeks towards the end of the pandemic, the men she met up with, the conversations she had with friends, and whether or not the life she is living is groundbreaking, or if it’s just that we don’t often hear about the lives of single, child-free women in their forties who live life free of societal expectations.

I don’t know the answer to this, but what I do know is that this story of a woman who goes to Paris for six weeks just because she feels like it, enjoys the pleasures and nightmares of online dating, has some pretty wild sex and hangs out with her other single and child-free friends, was extra interesting to me because the author was forty-six and has simply lived life a little bit more than the women in their twenties and thirties who you normally get these kinds of travel/dating memoirs from.

How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

Rating: 3.5
Format: Audio

Oh man. I started listening to this and I was immediately hooked. ‘Why am I hearing so many bad things about this book?’, I thought. ‘This is great!’ I was enjoying myself with this absolutely insufferable but hilarious character. In between killing her entire family she still finds the time to judge everyone she comes into contact with, often resulting in the funniest observations that were either things I had thought as well but would never say out loud, or that I felt were aimed at me. At one point she starts destroying people who name a particular poem as their favourite poem because, according to her, people who like this poem don’t know any other poem but they want to seem smart and intellectual and like they’re into poetry. I may or may not have this poem tattooed on my body because, at the time, I 100% did want to seem smart and intellectual and like I was into poetry when I don’t know the first thing about it. So even though I was being called out by this book, I was having a great time. The longer I listened, the less I could imagine why anyone would give this such a low rating.

AND THEN the last 10% of the book ruins everything. Why oh why oh why the author thought that this was the best ending for this is completely and utterly beyond me. I hated that last part so much that I did something I am normally completely against: I increased the speed of the audio. Ugh. I don’t want to think about this anymore.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Rating: 4
Format: Audio

My second Taylor Jenkins Reid after The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. It’s obvious that Taylor Jenkins Reid spent a long time researching this and I loved learning about NASA and what the characters’ experience was like being one of the only female astronauts in the 80s. In fact I would have liked it if the book would have focused even more on the day-to-day at NASA. As per usual the romance plotline didn’t interest me as much, which is probably why this story didn’t turn me into a sobbing wreck the way it did for many other readers. If anything, the relationship that made me the most emotional was the one between main character Joan and her niece.

I think the fact that I listened to this is part of the reasons why I enjoyed it, though. Books like this are perfect in audio format: easy to follow and quick chapters that keep you engaged. Taylor Jenkins Reid seems like a great author to read during the summer or on holiday, so maybe I can finally try Daisy Jones next summer.

Betty by Tiffany McDaniel

Rating: 4
Format: eBook

The writing: gorgeous. The plot: probably contains some of the most disturbing things I’ve ever read. The thing with this book is that if I hadn’t found out completely by accident that this is based on the life of the author’s mother, I would have accused Tiffany McDaniel of A Little Life’ing it and adding an unrealistic amount of drama that becomes difficult for a reader to take seriously. But no, as it turns out this actually happened. This is the story about a Cherokee family in 50s Ohio that is haunted by pain, intolerance and grief, yet Betty and her siblings build their own little world through storytelling and nature.

I don’t know if I would recommend this because it is extremely bleak, but if you’re in a good headspace and you want to read something that will stick with you, why not?

Thank you so much for reading. Want to read more of my work? You can subscribe for free. Showing some love really helps! If you’re feeling especially generous you can tip me as little as £1 by clicking on the tip jar, which will go towards essentials (iced coffee for me to keep writing, and treats for my cats).

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I’m going on holiday in a few weeks and I’m so curious to see how much I end up reading there. It’s a proper relaxing holiday at a resort, something I haven’t done in over ten years. I do want to spend time reading and writing, but I also have to be careful that I don’t put pressure on myself to finish all the titles I have already selected for this vacation. I often need to remind myself that reading is meant to be a hobby. I don’t have anything to prove. If only I felt this stressed about getting more writing done instead of reading…

Anyway, here are my July reads and what I thought of them! Let me know if you’ve read any of these and what you thought, or which one you’re curious about. There won’t be massive spoilers and I don’t really focus on explaining the premise every time because, well, that info is already widely available. What isn’t widely available is my thoughts and feelings about these books (which is a good thing), so in order to find that out, you specifically needed to come here. Which you did. Right, now that we’re literally and figuratively on the same page, let’s get started:

The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke

Rating: 4.5
Format: ebook

My favourite YouTuber Leena Norms recommended this book, and oh my, am I happy I read it. The Story of a Heart is the heartbreaking but hopeful true story of how a little girl called Kyra is fatally injured in a car crash. Her family immediately decides that Kyra would have wanted to be an organ donor – a decision that saves the life of several people including Max, a boy who has spent the past year in hospital waiting for a donor heart.

The book follows the heart every step of the way, which means you get unique insight into how the organ donation process works. There’s also a bit of history around how heart transplants came about, which was fascinating. For example: For a long time people were extremely reluctant to approve of heart transplants as a concept because of the belief that the heart contained the human soul, something that is still reflected in many of our everyday expressions (being heartbroken, knowing something in your heart…). I also knew next to nothing about what happens to a person after they’ve received a donor heart. In Kyra and Max’s story the parents actually end up meeting afterwards, which doesn’t usually happen but it added a very human and powerful layer to the story. This won the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction and although I haven’t read the other titles that were nominated, I do think this is such an important story that rightfully won. In today’s social and political climate, it serves as a hopeful reminder that most people want to help each other.

Thirst Trap by Grainne O’Hare

Rating: 3
Format: audio

I’ve heard people compare this book to Derry Girls. I find this baffling because, apart from the fact that both stories are set in Northern Ireland, there is not a single thing the two have in common. This could be compared to Derry Girls if the Derry Girls were in their thirties, all had drug and alcohol addictions, had sex with each other’s boyfriends, and died. Maybe I missed that episode?

This book wasn’t bad per se. I did like how it explored grief in a friend group and as an audiobook it was entertaining enough (to be honest I think the narrator’s accent made me like it a bit more than I would have otherwise), but I had issues with it. This story is about women in their early thirties who live in a city and navigate everyday life. So you would think that I – a woman in her early thirties who lives in a city and is navigating everyday life – would be the target audience or would at least be able to somewhat relate. Not in the slightest. First of all, two of the three main characters felt so similar that I kept mixing them up. I’m currently trying to think of one difference between them and the only thing I can think of is that one is sleeping with her landlord while the other is sleeping with her boss. Apart from that they’re the exact same person.

Secondly, this book is 90% women doing cocaine, including on one occasion in the middle of the day when they’re tidying their house and they stumble across a bag of the devil’s dust. Instead of saving it for their next night out (which was never more than 12 hours away anyway because even though these women are in their thirties and have fulltime jobs they go on a bender every.single.night) they decide to just use it right then and there in the middle of their cleaning sesh. What to me seemed like quite worrisome behaviour is portrayed as the typical shenanigans of 30-something-women. I will say it made me feel great about my own life.

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes (translated by Ann Goldstein from the Italian)

Rating: 4
Format: physical

The main character’s life felt both completely unrelatable to me, and also very real. Set in postwar Italy, Valeria is a housewife who is taken for granted by her husband and children. So much is expected of her, yet she expects nothing in return. When she decides to start a diary, she almost feels like she is doing something illegal. Through today’s lens, the guilt she feels simply for doing something so little for herself was almost difficult to take seriously, yet the book’s message also feels timeless. Of course the idea that women, especially mothers, feel invisible even though they are the ones who keep everyone around them functioning as well as emotionally supported is not as outdated as it should be. It felt to me like this main character was screaming on the inside but appeared completely voiceless on the outside. I enjoyed how so much was shown in the smallest, most everyday details.

The Hostile Hospital (A Series of Unfortunate Events 8) by Lemony Snicket

Rating: 4.25
Format: physical

I’m still slowly making my way through the A Series of Unfortunate Events series. I was shocked to see I read the first book almost four years ago?! I’ve really been taking my time, especially if you consider that these books are such quick reads I could have probably finished all thirteen of them in less than a week. But I don’t want it to be over. I love these books so much. The dark humour, the word play…it’s just all so unlike anything else I’ve read. This was not my favourite of the series so far hence why it didn’t get five stars, but that means nothing because it was still fantastic. 

The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark

Rating: 3.5
Format: physical

Earlier this year Penguin released their Archive 90 Collection: a selection of stories from the past 90 years reprinted in small white books that fit in your back pocket. Booksellers immediately started putting all 90 titles on display, so obviously I had to get one. Okay, two. Okaaaaay I bought three. Oh my God fine I’ve bought six so far. What was I meant to do when they look so darn cute?

I obviously went with the classics such as Oscar Wilde and Mary Shelley, but I was also intrigued by The Driver’s Seat, even though I had never heard of it. Interestingly I have since come across it in other books. You know when you’ve never heard of a specific thing and then once you’ve become aware of its existence you hear and see it everywhere? That’s currently happening to me with Muriel Spark. I enjoyed this novella even though I had absolutely no idea what was going on the entire time. I liked the concept of this quirky woman who is making her mark on the world in very odd ways, and how the story starts referring to the ending quite early on, but you have no idea how it will get there. However, it was a little bit forgettable.

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell

Rating: 3.75
Format: audio

I once went on a date that lasted for eight hours (!) and during those eight long hours, the guy managed to talk about himself the entire time and not ask me a single question. Don’t ask me why I stayed for that long, that’s another story. I have since learnt that this is something many women experience when they’re on dates with men.

In Wordslut, Amanda Montell offers an explanation. She found that for most women the goal of engaging in conversation is for them to bond and all leave feeling like they were equal participants, whereas men (perhaps subconsciously) speak to establish hierarchy and come out on top. If you’re lucky enough to not be attracted to men but unlucky enough to work in corporate, I’m sure this sounds at least a little bit familiar.

Although I found some chapters a bit obvious, the book does discuss some very interesting aspects of language, such as why using filler words like ‘I think’, ‘kind of’ or ‘like’ (which is more stereotypically linked to how women speak) does not mean the speaker is less confident. It actually means the speaker is trying to engage their audience more and offer opportunities for others to also share their thoughts. It’s just that as a society we consider how men speak the standard and we think that, if women want to be taken seriously, they need to adapt, instead of asking ourselves if maybe the way women do it is better? There’s also a chapter about why the ‘vocal fry’ doesn’t deserve the hate it gets. Although it was interesting to learn about, it unfortunately hasn’t made me more tolerant towards it. The vocal fry still drives me bananaaaaaaaaas.

Troy by Stephen Fry

Rating: 5
Format: physical

Stephen Fry is to Greek Mythology what David Attenborough is to nature: there couldn’t possibly be a better person to educate the general public about this topic in an accessible but riveting way. Reading Fry’s mythology books feels like having a friend spill the HOTTEST tea about the most messed-up, dramatic, iconic family members or co-workers. How could this be any less than five stars? Next in the series is Odyssey! 

Losing You by Nicci French

Rating: 4
Format: audio

The second Nicci French I ever consumed. Earlier this year I listened to the first book in the Frieda Klein series, and although several people have told me that that series is Nicci French’s best work, I didn’t love it as much as I had hoped. I did like this a bit more, maybe also because the audiobook is narrated by Adjoa Andoh, aka Lady Danbury in Bridgerton! The story is set on a tiny island and takes place over a single day, which made me want to listen to it all in one go as well. I’ve been dabbling into the crime genre a little bit more recently and I’m having a good time so far! Of course you cannot judge a crime novel on the same things as a literary fiction novel, so I try to not pay too much attention to the writing (unless it’s plain bad like in the case of a certain crime writer whose books are absolutely everywhere and why these books are such a hype is an absolute enigma to me). Instead I judge based on if it succeeded in keeping me engaged and on edge, which this story did!

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

Rating: 2.5
Format: audio

The book with the lowest rating on this list. I just think the title implies something else than what it actually is? I mean sure, it does explore the question of whether or not there is a test that accurately detects psychopathy, but I expected the book to go deeper into psychopathy itself. Instead, some of the chapters didn’t feel particularly relevant. Quite a large chunk of the book is about the author just vibing with a couple of Scientology members who try to convince the author (not without success, it seemed) that all psychiatrists are quacks. Why Scientology members were consulted as experts on these topics I’m still not sure. There are a handful of interesting anecdotes, but I often found myself wondering where this book was going and what the point was. It just all felt a bit random.

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

Rating: 4
Format: audio

This one pleasantly surprised me! I didn’t think I would enjoy it as much as I did. There is a romance storyline in this book that, if you know anything about my reading tastes, you know I couldn’t possibly have cared less about. However, I liked hearing about all the office drama. I could have listened to the main character reading and sending snarky emails all day long. The side characters are fleshed out well so I also found myself caring about what happened to them as well.

I do have to mention one thing that annoyed me about the writing: every few pages there was a variant of the phrase ‘My heart dropped/soared/sank…’ or ‘Relief hit me/washed over me…’ to the point that I genuinely wonder how editors or proofreaders didn’t pick up on things like this. I don’t know if it was as noticeable on paper, but as an audiobook it was the same phrase every few minutes, and after a while every time I heard it, my heart sank.

The Names by Florence Knapp

Rating: 4
Format: ebook

I read this for a book club that I joined a couple of months ago, and when I started reading I didn’t realise how heavy the themes in this book were. Domestic violence is a big part of this story, which meant that I was on edge the entire time. I’m fine reading about almost anything and for me it was a good way to try and learn more, but if this topic is a trigger I would not recommend going anywhere near this book.

Without going into too much detail, a couple of the women in my book club have experience working with victims of domestic violence and they said it’s very realistically portrayed in this book, which made it an insightful read. Especially for a debut novel, this was impressive. There’s so many little symbols and small things that returned at a later point in the story. I will say that one or two things happened that maybe felt like a bit of an odd choice, but overall I think this was great.

Want by Gillian Anderson

Rating: 3.25
Format: physical

I remember seeing Gillian Anderson’s post on social media in which she asked women to write to her with their sexual fantasies. This book is the collection of these anonymous confessions. I remember being immediately intrigued by this concept, but now I’m not sure if a book was the correct format for this. Outside of a handful of stories that stood out, the large majority was women fantasising about feeling loved, getting attention from their partners and accepting their bodies, which isn’t exactly arousing or entertaining, rather pretty fucking depressing. Unfortunately it started to feel quite repetitive. Where were all the women who wrote the fanfiction I used to read? Now those were some stories. 

Outline by Rachel Cusk

Rating: 4.5
Format: physical

Rachel Cusk has been sitting on my bookshelves for years. Well, not Rachel herself, but several of her books. I decided to start with Outline, the first one in a trilogy, because it’s set in Greece during the summer and I’m currently preparing for my summer holiday to Greece. Sometimes a small coincidence like this is all you need to decide that this is the time. I loved it! This past weekend my friend Tim actually asked me if I had read any of Rachel Cusk’s books, and I proudly told him I had just finished Outline. ‘Apparently nothing happens in it?’, he asked. ‘I know, that’s why I love it!’

This book is literally just the main character spending some time in Athens to teach a course, and speaking to people there. Ten of those conversations make up the book. That’s it. I thought it was lovely. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I just adore reading about people's boring everyday lives. The main character’s thoughts and observations were so clever and wonderful. It’s an amazing book that can be read in a day!

The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan

Rating: 3.5
Format: audio

This is maybe one I should have read with my eyes instead of as an audiobook. The Right to Sex is a collection of different essays around society’s definitions of sex, gender and consent. The author poses some very important and complex questions, and as with many things there is not always a clear answer. There were essays around preference and attraction and when that turns into discrimination, how we can achieve sexual freedom whilst at the same time protecting people from everything that’s wrong with the porn industry, how someone should be punished for sexual assault… I did lose my focus a bit here and there because not every essay was as engaging. While some essays almost got a tad too academical for me, others felt a bit basic. Like I said, maybe this one would have worked better in a different format.

Have you read any of these books? What were your favourite reads of July?

Thank you so much for reading. Want to read more of my work? You can subscribe for free. Showing some love really helps! If you’re feeling especially generous you can tip me as little as £1 by clicking on the tip jar, which will go towards essentials (iced coffee for me to keep writing, and treats for my cats).

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Did I like this or do I want to be someone who liked it?

The opposite has happened too. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is a book many people love, and if you asked me I would tell you I was one of them. Yet another recent look at my Goodreads showed me that I only gave it three stars, which for me is very much the equivalent of ‘there’s nothing to actively hate about this but I’m disappointed’. Do I just want to be someone who likes The Song of Achilles when I apparently thought it was average at best?

I love that reading is so personal and that one person can absolutely loathe someone else’s favourite book, but this highlights to me how much our feelings also depend on when we read it, who we are when we read it, how much we want to like it or not like it because of external influences, and many other factors.

I’ve read books that I didn’t like and then I talked about how much I didn’t like it with so many people to the point that me hating that book almost became a personality trait. Realistically, the book probably isn’t even that bad. But because time has passed there’s more distance now and I have started associating the book with my rants about how much it sucks than with the content itself. Again, the opposite happens too: I’m scared to read books that I have recommended to countless people. What if I discover I actually don’t like them anymore?

In my late teens and early twenties I basically did not read, so when I started reading again I had to find out what my tastes were as an adult. Around that time the only form of long texts I had been consuming were fanfiction, so I thought all I had to do was find books that were similar to the fanfiction I liked, right? That’s how I ended up with a pile of romance books only to realise soon after that I hate romance as a genre. During that time when I had no idea what I liked I also read a couple of books that I rated quite highly, but looking back I simply hadn’t read much else yet so I had no idea what a good book looked like.

Judging a book by its rating?

When you’re in the bookshop and you’re considering buying a book, do you look at the rating it has on Goodreads or a similar platform? I do, and if it’s lower than 3.7 my interest in it drastically decreases. Maybe that’s a shame, because lord knows there are books with a lower rating that I would love, just like there are books that have a 4.5 rating that make me think those people must have read a different text because their taste in books cannot possibly be this awful. But my current book wish list stands at 290, so I need some way to filter the ones I add to that.

I know many people have stopped giving books a rating, and I get why. Of course the entire system is highly subjective. Not just the books themselves and what people judge them by, but also what one individual considers a low/high score is different compared to someone else. I recently heard a booktuber say that when they give three stars they think the book is good and that they would recommend it to friends. To me, three stars is not good at all. That’s a six out of ten, which in school means you only just passed? 

On top of that, it’s so difficult to put books of a different genre on the same level by giving them the same score. How can I compare a very information-heavy non-fiction book to a thriller with very average writing but a plot that kept me up at night, or to a novel where nothing happens plot-wise but that is filled with breathtaking prose? They all serve such different needs.

All of that being said, I do still give my books stars, mainly as a reminder to myself. I like to go back and see what I thought about it back then, even if that sometimes makes me go‘...wtf was I thinking?’ It’s also interesting to see if my rating changes the second or third time I read a book. I rate my books on Fable instead of Goodreads now because there I can give 0.5 or even 0.25 stars and I love it. I use those half stars all the time! There is SUCH a big difference between a 3 and a 4 star book.

Anyway, this post was just me overthinking this for absolutely no reason. Please let me know if you recognise this: Are there books that you liked when you read them but you think you would hate them now, or the other way around?

G.

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