So, I promised to share what I've been reading since the return of my reading mojo this summer. All the books I've finished so far have been excellent, so apologies if this turns into a bit of an "It's so good!" fest, but here goes.
First up, The Wonder by Emma Donoghue. I picked this up in Waterstones because I wanted The Essex Serpent and it was on buy-one-get-one-half-price, so obviously I needed another one. I loved Room, so although I didn't enjoy The Sealed Letter (another of Donoghue's historical novels), I thought I'd give this a go. I was staying with my best friend that weekend, not into the book I'd taken with me, so I started The Wonder that night... and then picked it up again in the morning, somehow breaking my terrible anxiety-induced reading slump (see my last post for ramblings on that). Which is strange, because of all the books to break a reading slump, this one kind of stagnated in the middle. However, the premise was intriguing enough to keep me going - Lib, a no-nonsense nurse who trained under Florence Nightingale, is summoned to a village in extremely rural and religious Ireland to try to ascertain whether a girl who appears to be starving herself but suffering no ill effects is a miracle or a liar. Of course, being a no-nonsense nurse, Lib is determined from the outset to prove that the girl is somehow getting some food into her, but as time goes on she begins to question her role in the situation. Although I think this is maybe laboured for a bit too long, the ending is certainly page-turningly gripping, so altogether a solid 3 stars.
Next, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. This is one I've had on the shelf for many years (I think it belongs to the aforementioned best friend) and I've seen some mixed reviews of it. Those who love it seem to really love it, and those who don't seem to be put off by the fact that it's written in an unusual way, (it's narrated by Death, who interjects little facts in various places and likes to repeat himself a lot). If you haven't heard about it by now, or seen the movie (which I haven't), it's about Liesel, a young German girl in World War Two. She isn't Jewish, her father isn't a soldier, she lives in a fairly ordinary town, and this was actually the thing I liked most about it - it offered a perspective on the war that you don't often get in books. Obviously the war and the Holocaust come to touch her life, but in small personal ways, so even though it's not told from her perspective, I really felt like I was experiencing it through her eyes. I quite enjoyed Death as the narrator, and the unusual literary devices, and by the end I really couldn't put it down, so 4 stars from me.
Then a more recently published pick - Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (another loan from my best friend, who is an excellent supplier of books!). I loved this. It's a tiny bit frustrating at first, as each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character in a different generation, and at the beginning I felt like I wasn't getting to find out the end of the story, but the point is that it's one long continuous story that plays out over the generations, and I loved seeing the differences as time passed. I also really appreciated the opportunity to find out more about the stories of Africans who weren't shipped to America as slaves, but who instead suffered under colonisation. This was a new perspective for me - a really interesting exploration of identity, and confrontation of the various different roles that the British played in African history, something that was really glossed over in our history lessons at school, which I think just perpetuates the issues. I'd like to read more books from diverse perspectives, and more people should read this - it's well-written, interesting and important, and I can't really recommend it more highly than that. 5 stars.
Finally for this post, To The Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey, chosen by my best friend for my birthday last year because we both loved The Snow Child. (As a result, I'm very lucky to have a beautiful hardback edition signed by the author.) It's about an expedition into the unexplored interior of Alaska in the late 1800s led by Colonel Allen Forrester, and about his wife Sophie, left behind at the barracks, all told through letters and journal entries. Like The Snow Child, there are wonderful and also really dark elements of magical realism in this, and although it's quite quiet (plenty of dramatic things happen, but because it's told in letters and journals, you're kind of one step removed from the drama), there came a point where I realised that I was really quite attached to these characters and wanted to know what happened to them. I read a significant portion of it for #cosyreadingnight, which is a fantastic concept invented by the Booktuber Lauren and the Books that I happened to discover was a thing on the morning before it took place, on a weekend when I had the house to myself and could therefore read for three blissful hours completely uninterrupted! The idea is that people cosy up with candles and snacks, follow the hashtag and read all at the same time, sharing what they're reading with each other. This sounds obvious, but how often do you set aside a whole evening just to read? Well, I'll be doing it a lot more often from now on! To The Bright Edge of the World was also a perfect choice because it's all about snow and ice, and there's nothing guaranteed to make me feel more cosy. Looking at my reading journal, I've given this 4 stars, but I might upgrade it to 5... it's not as important as Homegoing, but I really enjoyed it.
I've also finished two audiobooks recently, but I'll save those for another post. Currently I'm taking a break from historical fiction and reading Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver. (I did start The Girls by Emma Cline, which has come highly recommended by lots of people, but I just couldn't get into it.) How about you - what are you reading?
