The Madwoman Upstairs By Catherine Lowell

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) via Netgalley included.  You can read my full disclosure policy here.

Samantha Whipple is the last remaining descendent of the Brontë family, a connection she isn’t exactly thrilled about. Following the death of her father, it falls on Samantha to protect the Brontë legacy. A legacy the world assumes includes a grand inheritance, an abundance of diaries, paintings, letters, and early novel drafts passed down from the Brontë family. Samantha has never seen this alleged estate; to her it is as fictional as the Brontë novels themselves.

Everything changes when Samantha moves to the UK to attend Oxford. Objects from her past start turning up in mysterious circumstances, novels belonging to her father that should have been destroyed in the fire that killed him. Samantha soon finds herself on a scavenger hunt, where her only clues are hidden in the pages of the Brontë novels.

Things I like about The Madwoman Upstairs; the literary theory that is dotted throughout the story. The discussions about the role of the reader versus the author in interpreting literature are fascinating and thought-provoking. I could happily have read many more of these.

Things I dislike about The Madwoman Upstairs; I’ve never been to Oxford, but this reads like a one dimensional portrayal of the place written by an author who hasn’t been there either. Yes, we’re supposed to be experiencing things through Samantha’s eyes as she explores Oxford for the first time but this is all surface level stuff. There is nothing to make you feel like you are actually there.

The relationship between Samantha and her professor, Dr. James Orville III, is frustrating in the extreme. It’s also damaging. It’s emotionally abusive, except we’re not supposed to see it like that because it’s romantic. Their relationship is very Brontë-esque, but that’s not an ideal to strive for.

There is no denying The Madwoman Upstairs is a page-turner. A frustrating one, but a page-turner nonetheless.

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Nowhere Girl By Susan Strecker

Nowhere Girl by Susan Strecker. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) via Netgalley included. You can read my full disclosure policy here.

When Cady (Cadence) was in high school her identical twin Savannah was murdered. Now Cady is a bestselling crime novelist, who spends her time researching and interviewing killers. With each interview Cady hopes to better understand what happened to her sister and how the murderer has never been caught.

Despite Savannah’s death, the bond between the sisters has never fully been broken and Savannah still comes to Cady via dreams. Cady is sure that Savannah is trying to help her find the truth about Savannah’s death and catch a killer. However, the clues Savannah sends don’t fully add up and it’s not until Cady is researching her latest book that things begin to fall into place.

Things I like about Nowhere Girl; the sense of loss and the inability of Cady and her brother to fully move on without knowing what happened to Savannah was woven into the story really well. Cady’s actions, in particular, may not always seem rational but you understood the drive behind them.

Things I didn’t like about Nowhere Girl; the ending. I saw elements of it, but not all of it, coming. After getting sucked into Cady’s need to find Savannah’s killer it felt like a letdown.

Overall, Nowhere Girl is a well written page turner with an ending that I suspect will divide opinion. Or I could be entirely on my own by disliking the ending. That’s the beauty of books; everyone has different opinions about them.

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It’s Not Me, It’s You By Mhairi McFarlane

Life is going well for Delia Moss, until it isn’t. She proposes to her boyfriend, he says yes but doesn’t exactly seem enthusiastic about it. Delia soon discovers why. He has been sleeping with someone else.

Heartbroken and unsure whether the relationship is salvageable, Delia decides to move to London. For how long she isn’t sure, but it’s time to get out of Newcastle and figure out exactly what she wants from her life.

Things I like about the book; it’s littered with moments of humour that genuinely made me laugh out loud.

Things I didn’t like about the book; I didn’t like any of the characters, not one of them. I didn’t find Delia relatable at all, more than once I wanted to shake her while asking “what the hell did you think you was going to happen?” or “how did you not realise that sooner?” These questions aren’t about the break-up, but much of what Delia does afterwards.

So much of how you read a book depends on your connection to the characters. In It’s Not Me, It’s You we’re supposed to want the best Delia honestly, though, I really didn’t care who she ended up with or how her the situation with her job panned out.

Maybe I expected too much from It’s Not Me, It’s You, but various people told me this was different from your average “chick lit” novel. It all became a bit predictable for me. It’s Not Me, It’s You is well written, it just didn’t capture my attention.

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Find Her By Lisa Gardner

Find Her by Lisa Gardner. Advance Reader Copy (ARC), from Headline, via Bookbridgr included. You can read my full disclosure policy here.

Flora Dane was kidnapped and kept captive for 472 days before she was found. Much of that time was spent in a wooden coffin. Flora has spent the five years since her release readjusting to her life. This isn’t easy because everything has changed. Flora isn’t the same person she was before she disappeared. She is a survivor.

Flora knows that the world is full of predators and she is determined to do everything she can to stop them. When she disappears for the second time Detective D.D. Warren is left asking whether, this time, Flora is a victim or a vigilante.

What happens over the course of almost 400 pages is an emotional roller-coaster of a chilling, creepy and twisted tale. The claustrophobia, the fear, the physical and psychological damage felt by kidnapping victims is laid bare.

What lengths will a victim go to in order to survive? What lengths will a survivor go to in order to ensure no-one else has to endure what they did? Can Detective Warren and her colleagues connect the pieces and find Flora and the other missing women before it’s too late?

Find Her is the eighth book in Lisa Gardner’s Detective D.D. Warren series, but they work as standalone novels. Find Her is a tense, well paced, disturbing and compelling read.

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Hot Feminist by Polly Vernon

Hot Feminist by Polly Vernon. Advance Reader Copy (ARC), from Hodder & Stoughton, via Bookbridgr included. You can read my full disclosure policy here.

Hot Feminist written by journalist Polly Vernon is part memoir, part fashion guide and part wannabe guide to modern feminism. Polly Vernon’s main premise is that it’s possible to be a feminist and be interested in how you look. It is possible to be feminine and a feminist. But we knew that already, right?

Hot feminism is a version of feminism, in which women believe it is possible to be a feminist while also displaying femininity, being sex positive and doing things that previous generations of feminism were seen not to be in favour of. Sound familiar? That’s because there is little new here, hot feminism is basically lipstick feminism or stiletto feminism by another name. A name Polly Vernon feels more comfortable with.

From the outset Vernon makes clear that she has no time for the smaller issues that modern day feminism spends its time on. She has no time for call-out culture and online rage just for the sake of it. To her feminism is about the gender pay gap, the number of girls and women being raped and sexually assaulted and the growing attempts by the anti-choice movement to limit the right to legal and safe abortion. Everything else is just noise.

I agree that these are three vital issues for feminism, but I’m not sure everything else can be dismissed. Rape culture is real, prevalent and needs to be tackled. Rape culture is the reason why society spends so much time blaming women and excusing men for violence.

Unlike Vernon,  I can’t switch off the knock on effects of everyday things (jokes, TV shows etc.) that feed into a notion that violence against women is normal. Can it be infuriating? Yes. Can it be draining? Yes. But that doesn’t mean we should stop striving to do better.

I also don’t think every act of calling someone out for problematic things they’ve said or done is outrage for the sake of it. We learn by listening to others. We learn by hearing other people’s experiences. Even women have different experiences based on their race, sexuality and/or socio-economic background.

Is social media always the most conducive environment for discussions about intersectionality? No. Again, that doesn’t mean we should stop trying to do better though.

Hot Feminist reminded me of reading Be Awesome: Modern Life for Modern Ladies by Hadley Freeman, they’re both style over substance. There were moments in them that made laugh and moments that had me nodding my head in agreement, but they barely scratch the surface of what feminism is and there is hardly an intersection in sight.

While I agree with Polly Vernon’s underlying theme that we should all be a little bit kinder to ourselves and to others, overall Hot Feminist left me feeling a bit flat and frustrated. It is a very singular view of feminism, a view that I can’t wholly subscribe to.

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All the Rage By Courtney Summers

All the Rage by Courtney Summers. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) via Netgalley included. You can read my full disclosure policy here.

Romy Grey is doing her best to simply get through the days. Romy has been raped. She has also been branded a liar by almost everyone in town. School is unbearable. Her escape is her job at a diner outside of town, where no one really knows her.

When something happens after a big party, the town is left in shock and Romy must decide whether to stay silent about her past or speak up and do her best to fight.

But just because something starts out sweet doesn’t mean it won’t push itself so far past anything you could call sweet anymore. And if it all starts like this, how do you see what’s coming?

All the Rage by Courtney Summers deftly deals with the issues of consent, rape culture, victim blaming, the politics of teenage girls and ultimately what happens when an entire town turns a blind eye.

It is aptly titled. I was left shaking with rage when I finished it and I know Romy Grey is someone I’ll find myself thinking about for a long time to come.

Like Asking for It by Louise O’Neill, All the Rage may not be an easy read subject wise, but it is a necessary one. Go read it and make sure every teenager you know reads it as well. The conversations it will start are essential.

I am often asked why I read Young Action Fiction and books like All the Rage are why. It’s a powerful look at serious issues affecting the lives of young girls and women. That it’s aimed at young people makes it all the better.

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Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking By Susan Cain

There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.

I first watched Susan Cain’s The Power of Introverts TED Talk a few years ago and have re-watched it many times since. It played a significant part in my acceptance of being an introvert and dealing with everything that entails. As a result, I was really looking forward to reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.

Quiet is an in-depth look at how society undervalues introverts. Cain argues that introverts are necessary and should be encouraged instead of being forced into activities and rolls that are geared towards extroverts. Combining facts, statistics and case studies Cain shows that people can be successful in their own field because of their introversion and not in spite of it.

I liked the book and would recommend it to introverts as well as extroverts, but I didn’t find it as engaging as Cain’s TED Talk. I found the writing a bit too dense. There is so much information in these pages that some of it could easily get lost, which is a shame because it’s an important read.

Quiet is definitely a book to savour. I needed time to digest the information in each chapter and reflect on it.

Don’t think of introversion as something that needs to be cured.

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The Versions Of Us by Laura Barnett

because he is old enough now to know happiness for what it is: brief and fleeting, not a state to strive for, to seek to live in, but to catch when it comes, and to hold on to for as long as you can.

The Versions Of Us by Laura Barnett is a story about fate and love. What if the moment two people meet never actually happens? Will their paths cross further down the line?

Barnett takes these questions and weaves them through three alternative narratives for Eva and Jim. If you’re thinking of Sliding Doors, you’re on the right track.

Eva meets Jim when her bicycle wheel is punctured by a nail. Jim, a passer-by, offers to fix it. They go for a drink. They fall in love. Eva breaks up with her boyfriend, David, and she and Jim eventually get married.

Eva’s bicycle narrowly misses the nail. Eva and Jim never meet. Eva marries her boyfriend, David.

Eva’s bicycle wheel is punctured by a nail. Jim offers to fix it. They go for a drink. There’s a connection between them, but Eva does what she thinks is the right thing and marries David, her boyfriend.

Throughout the alternate stories Barnett skilfully focuses on the mundane, the domestic and the little things that make sustaining long-term relationships difficult. On the surface not a lot happens, but this is a complex novel and it soon becomes obvious that sometimes the little things are the most important things.

The Versions Of Us is a book best read in the physical form. I read the Kindle edition and found not being able to flick back and forth, when I needed to remind myself which timeline I was in, incredibly frustrating.

Despite struggling to keep track of timelines toward the end, I enjoyed The Versions Of Us, I’m just not sure I’d read it a second time.

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This Is Where It Ends By Marieke Nijkamp

This Is Where It Ends by Marueke Nijkamp is published on January 5th. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) via Netgalley included. You can read my full disclosure policy here.

Told through the eyes of four students This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp is an unflinching look at what it’s like to be caught up in a high school shooting. As the tagline states, everyone has a reason to fear the boy with the gun.

The lives of Autumn, Claire, Sylv, and Tomas are already intertwined but there is no escaping their connections once Tyler Browne starts shooting. Their lives and the lives of the wider community will be changed beyond recognition by his actions.

Spanning 54 minutes, This Is Where It Ends is both fast paced and never ending, which is how I imagine being caught in a traumatic situation feels. Every moment feels like a lifetime, yet things are actually happening quite quickly.

We never see things from Tyler’s point of view. As destruction and devastation is going on around them various characters try to understand what lead to this point, but we never really learn the truth.

I respect this; I read it as Nijkamp’s way of showing that we don’t get to understand the reasons why something so awful happens. Sometimes there’s a concrete reason. Sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes the real reason is never truly known or understood. Sometimes all we are left with is a bunch of speculation and what ifs.

Nijkamp’s storytelling is simplistic yet powerful, she doesn’t shy away from difficult topics or diverse characters. Here we have LGBTQ+ characters, people of colour and people with chronic illnesses. This may seem like a lot when written down as a list, but that’s because these characters are so often missing from other stories. Some characters work better than others, just because for me some were better developed than others.

There is no doubt that some people will view This Is Where It Ends as a controversial book. I think it’s a compelling and necessary read.

Best Books of 2015

I made a conscious decision to read more books written by women this year, so it’s hardly surprising that my best books of 2015 list is comprised solely of women.

I’ve read and enjoyed many books, both fiction and non-fiction, but these six affected me the most. Some made me laugh. Some made me cry. Some did both. They all made me think. They all made me want to seek out people who had read them so we could discuss the stories at length. They are all books I know I will re-read and that’s the sign of a great book for me.

Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume

Sara Baume’s debut novel is about one man and his dog, except it is about so much more than that. It’s a haunting look at loneliness, isolation and ageing in our society. Spill Simmer Falter Wither broke my heart in the best possible way.

One by Sarah Crossan

I don’t read books out loud, but I would make an exception for One by Sarah Crossan. Written in glorious free verse this tale of conjoined twins, Grace and Tippi, is a moving look at sisterhood, friendship, love and identity.

About Sisterland by Martina Devlin

In Sisterland women and men live separate lives. Every woman has their role within Sisterland and men are necessary only for hard labour and breeding. But when your thoughts and emotions are tightly controlled just how perfect can this world be? About Sisterland explores the devastating effects of extremism and Martina Devlin’s words will stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page.

Blackout: Remembering The Things I Drank To Forget by Sarah Hepola

Blackout by Sarah Hepola affected me in ways I wasn’t fully expecting. I finished reading it a few weeks ago and I’m still thinking about it. Hepola’s memoir is the story of a woman who realised that she should probably have stopped drinking long before she actually did. It balances humour with honesty making for a compelling read.

Tender by Belinda McKeon

Tender is an exploration of friendship, youth, love, obsession and sexuality. Catherine Reilly and James Flynn are my favourite characters of the year. I don’t always agree with their actions, but I want to spend time with them. Belinda McKeon’s writing manages to be both raw and nuanced.

Asking For It by Louise O’Neill

Everyone needs to read Asking For It, particularly teenage boys and girls. Louise O’Neill painfully and skilfully explores the aftermath of a gang rape in the age of social media. It may be a difficult read, subject wise, but it is essential. The conversations it will lead to about consent, rape culture and victim blaming are extremely important.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

I was doing my little stand-up shtick, the one I did for pretty girls, so they’d like me quickly and wouldn’t try too hard to actually get to know me beyond my role as wisecracking Cameron the orphan.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth tells the story of Cameron Post, a 12 year-old who lives in a small town in Montana. Cameron’s relationship with her best friend Irene becomes more than friendship, leaving Cameron feeling confused and excited. When her parents are killed in a car crash Cameron’s first thought is that at least they won’t find out that their daughter is gay.

Divided into three parts; Summer 1989, High School 1991-1992 and God’s Promise 1992-1993, we follow Cameron as she explores her sexuality, falls in love and faces the consequences of being from an ultraconservative community.

Those consequences are being sent to God’s Promise by her aunt Ruth. God’s Promise is a religious conversion camp that is supposed to “cure” Cameron and its other attendants of their homosexuality.

I found the depiction of the religious conversion camp the most uncomfortable aspect to read. So called gay conversion therapy is a dangerous practice that is detrimental to LGBTQ* people. There are no two ways about it. You cannot simply pray away the gay.

Cameron and the friends she makes know the camp is bullshit, but they still have to survive there. So they construct facades to convince their “counsellors” they are making progress in realising the error of their ways. When something happens to one of the camp attendants everyone is shaken to the core.

Overall, The Miseducation of Cameron Post felt like a short story that had been extended. There were whole pages that didn’t add anything to the progression of the story. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all well written but it dragged on and as a result I didn’t connect with Cameron as much as I would have liked.

Upon reading the acknowledgements I discovered that Danforth had originally devised the idea as a short story. I think I would have preferred it to remain in that format.

Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker

Advance Reader Copy (eARC) via Netgalley included.  Yu can read my full disclosure policy here.

There was such a fog around me that I felt like I had entered a Whitesnake video.

Dear Mr. You is not your typical Hollywood memoir. It is a brilliantly crafted literary memoir written in letter form to the men who have helped shape Mary-Louise Parker’s life.

The men in these letters include her grandfather, her father, an oyster picker, the doctor who saved her life, and a taxi driver. There is even an apology to NASA.

The fragmented and almost stream of consciousness glimpses at certain periods in Parker’s life add up to a beautiful, compassionate, humorous, thoughtful, intimate, heartbreaking and complex look at how our experiences affect us, positively and negatively.

Dear Mr. You is a deeply personal book. A book that offers great insight into Mary-Louise Parker the person, rather than the actress we think we know because we’ve seen her perform. If you are looking for celebrity gossip and behind the scenes stories you won’t find them here.

Mary-Louise Parker can write and Dear Mr. You is glorious. I only wish there were some Dear Ms. You letters included. Maybe there will be a second memoir. Whatever Mary-Louise Parker has planned next I’m looking forward to reading it.

Am I Normal Yet? by Holly Bourne

So much is lost when you lose yourself. Not just your pride, or your hope. But worse things, things that affect others. Like your ability to help them when they need you, to notice when they’re hurting.

Evie is sixteen and desperately wants to be normal. She is almost off her medication and is finally making new friends at a college where no one knows her past. She is no longer known as the girl who went crazy. Having a boyfriend would be the final step in being a normal teenager, right?

Things I loved about the book; the insight into mental illness, treatment (both medication and counselling) and relapse. There were times when I felt like I was inside Evie’s mind as OCD and the related anxiety took hold.

The explorations of female friendships and the feminist discussion and strands throughout the novel were excellently done without ever feeling like a lecture. Yes, there are times when research is quoted but it feels like something that the characters would do rather than the author’s voice taking over.

“Everyone’s on the cliff edge of normal. Everyone finds life an utter nightmare sometimes, and there’s no ‘normal’ way of dealing with it.” Sarah sighed. “There is no normal, Evelyn. There’s only what’s normal to you. You’re chasing a ghost.”

Things I didn’t like about the book; my only fault with Am I Normal Yet? is that the initial discussion between Evie, Amber and Lottie about periods focuses on the idea periods are the only thing that make you a woman. In a novel so full of feminism, both in practice and in theory, the lack of awareness about the experiences of trans* people jarred with me.

Overall, Am I Normal Yet? is the kind of novel I wish I’d read when I was a teenager and I’m looking forward to the remainder of the trilogy.

Places I Stopped On The Way Home by Meg Fee

I am the stumbling, stubborn belief that one word becomes two and one foot in front of the other. I am every man who has ever hurt me, and the promise we’ve only got to get it right once. I am all that has yet to happen and the hope that it’ll be worth the wait.

One of the reasons I love blogs so much is that they have led me to discover some brilliant writing by women. Places I Stopped On The Way Home by Meg Fee is one such example. I stumbled across Meg’s blog, the wild and wily ways of a Brunette “Bombshell”, last year and felt compelled to read the entire blog. When Meg announced that she had published an ebook the decision to purchase it was a no-brainer.

Places I Stopped On The Way Home is a collection of essays about Meg’s time in New York and the men who have affected her life; some for the better, some for the worse, but all of them taught her something about herself.

I read Places I Stopped On The Way Home in one sitting, but it won’t be my last. These are essays I will return to. These are essays that made me feel like I was there, like I was standing in Meg’s shoes. I laughed. I cried. I felt frustrated. I felt butterflies in my stomach. I felt hope.

In the age of blogs, social media and the personal essay Places I Stopped On The Way Home gets the balance between personal and private right. It doesn’t feel like oversharing because it isn’t. It is full of beauty, vulnerability, questioning, love, realisation and acceptance.

Places I Stopped On The Way Home may be one woman’s outlook on life, but it will leave you wanting to make the most of yours.

The Book of Brave by Laura Jane Williams

You’re not fucking up like you think you are.

As soon as I heard about The Book of Brave by Laura Jane Williams I knew I had to read it. Laura’s blog, Superlatively Rude, is one of my favourites and I’m always on the lookout for more essays and non-fiction.

Laura Jane Williams is all about living her life to the fullest, something that has taken her to Austria, Russia, Malaysia, Bali, Thailand, India and Italy. She has learned a lot along the way and focuses on doing the things that scare her. No matter how small those things are.

The Book of Brave is not a self-help book. The Book of Brave is not a how-to guide. The Book of Brave is a reflection on how Laura Jane Williams decided to make the most of her life and work on liking herself.

There is no “good” and “bad”. It all just is. You just are. We all just are.

There may be times when things don’t go according to plan. These are the times when you need to stop and re-evaluate what you want from life. Sometimes you’ll make mistakes; the important thing is that you learn from them.

The thing that stuck with me most from The Book of Brave is the idea that you need to stop beating yourself up for the things you’ve done in the past. There is nothing you can do to change them. You can try your best to fix it, but they may not be fixable. Either way, there is no going back so you need to focus on the person you are now.

This may not sound like a radical notion, but Laura’s honesty enables you to look at this almost simple idea with fresh eyes. Being kind to yourself often sounds easier than it actually is. It can take time and practice. So start today.

The Book of Brave won’t tell you how to improve your own life, but it will make you more determined to ask the right questions and figure it out for yourself. And who couldn’t do with some extra motivation?

The Determined Heart: The Tale of Mary Shelley and Her Frankenstein by Antoinette May

Advance Reader Copy (eARC) via Netgalley included. You can read my full disclosure policy here.

The daughter of political philosopher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley’s (née Godwin) life was bound to be an intriguing one. To describe her life as unconventional would be an understatement.

What Antoinette May does with The Determined Heart: The Tale of Mary Shelley and Her Frankenstein is take the details of Shelley’s life and weave them as a fictional narrative that hooks the reader from the beginning.

From a young age it is clear that Mary Godwin’s life will be entwined with that of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, even though Wollstonecraft is dead. Her daughter is clearly intelligent, talented and outspoken like her mother.

When William Godwin remarries, Mary finds herself in constant conflict with her stepmother and stepsister. Life is not as Mary would have hoped, but her father’s standing means that she is introduced to an endless array of talented, interesting and often times eccentric people.

One of those people is Percy Bysshe Shelley, whom she falls in love with. He feels the same and despite Bysshe’s marital status they run away together, taking Mary’s stepsister along with them.

This is a story of love; a story of obsession, a story of betrayal, a story of redemption, a story of loss and coping with loss, a story of regret, a story of marriage, love affairs and the validity of marriage. This is a story about inspiration and creativity. This is the story of how Mary Shelley came to write Frankenstein.

Life is not always easy for Mary and Bysshe. They have been ostracised and face financial crisis on numerous occasions. Bysshe also begins an affair with Claire, Mary’s stepsister.

Throughout this time they forge friendships with people like Lord Byron and plan to leave their mark on the world.

Shelley’s life is shaped by love. Love for her mother. Love for her father. Love for Bysshe. It is also shaped by loss; loss of her mother, separation from her family, the deaths of three children and the eventual loss of Bysshe.

All the while Shelley is gathering inspiration from things she has seen, read and been told. Inspiration that, prompted by Lord Byron’s suggestion that each of their group write a ghost story, would become Frankenstein a novel that is still read and loved today.

This is a story well told, May does a good job of bringing Mary Shelley et al to life. I would recommend this book to two types of people; those who are interested in historical fiction in general and those who wish to learn more about Mary Shelley and how she came to write Frankenstein, progressing the genre of science-fiction, but are not fans of non-fiction.

Asking For It by Louise O’Neill

They are all innocent until proven guilty. But not me. I am a liar until I am proven honest.”

Asking For It, Louise O’Neill’s second novel, tells the story of Emma O’Donovan a secondary school student living in small town Ireland. Emma and her friends like to have a good time. This includes nights out, with pre drinks while they are getting ready and being in constant competition with each other to be seen as the prettiest.

Following a party, Emma wakes up on her doorstep with little memory of what happened or how she got home. She can’t explain where the bruises came from. She remembers going to the party, the drinks, flirting and taking pills but after that everything is blank.

A Facebook page soon appears full of photographs showing, in graphic detail, what went on at the party. No one will talk her, choosing to whisper behind her back instead. But Emma didn’t allow those photos to be taken, did she?

Emma’s life is turned upside down as she pieces together the events of that night and tries to come to terms with what happened to her and the reactions of her family, friends and the wider community.

While obviously based on the Steubenville and Maryville cases there are elements of this novel that will strike particular chords with readers in Ireland.

The sharing of images on social media and the media coverage that follows made me think of “Slane Girl”. The actions of the parish priest are reminiscent of Fr Sean Sheehy, who was among a group of people who shook hands with Danny Foley following his conviction for sexual assault. Communities rallying around men accused of sexual assault and rape is an all too common occurrence even when those men have been found guilty.

These aren’t the actions of people from an Ireland of old. They all happened in the last 6 years. This is the world we live in. This is the world that O’Neill skilfully and painfully explores.

Emma may not be as likeable a person as we expect a victim to be, but that is kind of the point. Why do we expect victims of rape or sexual assault to be a certain way? Why do victims have to be likeable? Is there anything that Emma could possibly have done to deserve what happened to her? Of course there isn’t and these questions shouldn’t be questions at all.

Yet, we all know that when it comes to sexual assault and rape questions about what the victim was wearing, drinking, doing and whether they were “asking for it” happen. It often happens in the very place that people turn to for justice, our court system. Is it any wonder that so many women don’t report when they have been sexually assaulted or raped?

It would be easy for O’Neill to give us the satisfying ending we so desperately want. But the ending you want isn’t always the ending you need and O’Neill has already shown us, with her debut novel Only Ever Yours, that she is the master of endings that are necessary.

I was left shaking with rage when I finished Asking For It and 3 weeks later I am still thinking about Emma O’Donovan. I wonder how she is doing and whether she has found some sense of peace since the conclusion of the novel.

More importantly, I wonder how all the Emmas of the world are coping. Do they blame themselves? Do they have someone or somewhere to turn for support? Do they have someone to reassure them that it is definitely not their fault? Do they know that they are not alone?

Asking For It may be difficult to read, subject wise, but it is essential. When you’ve read it make sure everyone you know reads it too, especially teenagers. The resulting conversations about consent, rape culture and victim blaming are extremely important.

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

“MINDS ARE UNIQUE. They go wrong in unique ways. My mind went wrong in a slightly different way to how other minds go wrong. Our experience overlaps with other people’s, but it is never exactly the same experience.”

I first came across Matt Haig on Twitter via some articles he wrote about living with depression, I then read The Humans and loved it and was looking forward to reading Reasons to Stay Alive.

Reasons to Stay Alive is part memoir, part self-help book with some analysis of depression, suicide statistics and the science behind medication thrown in. This genre hopping sometimes works, at other times it doesn’t. 

Things I liked about the book; it’s an easy read, I finished it in a few hours. There are plenty of lines and passages that I will re-read numerous times. I’ve never used the highlight function, on my Kindle, so much for an individual book.

Things I found problematic about the book; some of the language Haig uses, especially when he continuously describes himself as “a depressive”. While it is a personal choice for Haig, for me the term implies that a person is no more than their illness. And we are so much more.

I don’t describe myself as arthritic or a Coeliac either. I have arthritis and Coeliac Disease, just like I sometimes have depression rather than I am a depressive.

Haig mentions his diagnosis without much discussion about the process of being diagnosed, the doctors he saw and the treatments he tried.

Apart from stating the medication he was prescribed didn’t work and put him off trying other ones and that he has never tried Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), I got the impression that self-care was the only route he chose in the end. I could be mistaken and perhaps the talking he writes about included counselling and doctors, but he only really mentions talking to family in the book.

I understand that medication doesn’t work for everybody. As Haig says himself, people’s minds go wrong in different ways and what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another.

For some; medication is essential in order for them to function on a daily basis, for others it is needed for a time in order to get them to a stage where they are able for to try some form of counselling.

Self-care on its own doesn’t work for everyone either. Sometimes people reach the point where other interventions are necessary. And this book seems very much rooted in self-care.

“There is no standard normal. Normal is subjective. There are seven billion versions of normal on this planet.”

Alcohol obviously had some effect on Haig’s anxiety and depression. The extent of its role was unclear, to me, because the details are patchy in places.

My initial understanding was that Haig identified as an alcoholic and his avoidance of alcohol would be a lifelong one. In later chapters, however, he mentions that after years of not drinking at all he now drinks alcohol every so often.

I found this interesting, but I felt like I missed the step where his relationship with alcohol changed. I would have liked to see this aspect of Haig’s life explored more. Was his abstaining for so long a result of anxiety about what might happen rather than having a problem with alcohol?

It is possible that there are things Haig didn’t want to share with the reader and that’s completely understandable. After all, even in the sharing of personal stories there are experiences which are private. There is a difference between the two and at its heart Reasons to Stay Alive is Matt Haig’s personal story. It does lead to some gaps in the narrative though.

Despite my issues with it, I enjoyed reading Reasons to Stay Alive and I’m glad Haig wrote it. If only to remind people that they are not alone in feeling this way.

Although, I do think it serves as a conversation starter about the wider issues of mental health. How we view it, how we treat it and how different people cope with mental ill-health.

Broken Grace by E.C. Diskin

Advance Reader Copy (ARC) via Netgalley included. You can read my full disclosure policy here.

Imagine waking up with no memory. You’ve been in a car crash, but more than just having no memory of the crash you can’t remember any personal details about your life.

Now imagine being told that your boyfriend is dead. Worse, he was murdered and since you don’t know what you were doing prior to the crash you are a suspect.

Welcome to Grace’s world. A place full of half truths, as she tries to piece her life back together and figure out whether she is capable of murder.

“We could all kill someone, couldn’t we?”

I wasn’t sure about Broken Grace to begin with, it felt a bit predictable. Not helped by the clichéd relationship between the two police officers investigating the murder. You know, the rookie cop comes up against an older partner who automatically thinks he knows better simply because he has been around longer.

Thankfully things kicked up a notch about a third of the way in and that unexpected turn I was hoping for made its appearance.

From then on I was gripped by the story. As flashes of Grace’s memory return she tries to match them with what she has been told by the people around her, especially her sister. But things aren’t always what they seem.

You may or may not see the ending coming. I’ll admit to predicting some, but not all, of it.

Over all, it was a decent mystery that won me round despite my initial misgivings.

One by Sarah Crossan

Advance Reader Copy (ARC) via Netgalley included. You can read my full disclosure policy here.

One by Sarah Crossan is the story of conjoined twins, Grace and Tippi.

At 16 Grace and Tippi are about to start a new school. This will be their first time attending school as they have been homeschooled up until now, but the funds have run out.

How will they cope with their new world? Will they make friends? How can they assert their individuality when they are seen as one by so many people? And when something happens that could change their lives forever what will they decide to do?

Written in free verse and told through the eyes of Grace, One* is a moving look at sisterhood, friendship, love and identity.

The use of free verse is glorious; Crossan has a way with words that left me speechless more than once and had me rereading passages in awe.

It is beautifully written, evocative and at times heartbreaking. One is an excellent reminder of how brilliant YA can be and it’s one of my favourite books of the year.