My Hot Friend by Sophie White

My Hot Friend by Sophie White. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links were used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

‘What am I like? She repeated silently.

What am I like? What am I like? 

It’s happening again. It’s not. It’s not.

It’s happening again. I’ll never be free of this.’

I started reading Sophie White’s latest novel, My Hot Friend when my pre-order arrived in May. I had to force myself to put it down and go to sleep. Yet, as the story progressed, my sense of dread and recognition grew, and I needed to walk away from the novel for a while. Contrary to how that sounds, I mean it as a compliment. White’s depiction of bipolar disorder is so realistic that watching Claire’s mental health spiral made me remember my hypomanic episodes. As much of them as are rememberable, anyway! 

I picked it up again because it’s this month’s Tired Mammy Book Club choice, and I am so glad I did because I loved it. It’s the best depiction of bipolar I’ve read in fiction. I nodded along as Claire second-guessed herself. Her inner monologue about whether she was keeping on top of her medication and getting enough sleep was so familiar. I understood the warped logic that had Claire insist that she was perfectly fine when it was increasingly obvious that she wasn’t. I felt Claire’s realisation that everything was not, in fact, okay deep in my bones. 

But what about the plot? Claire hasn’t heard from her friends in a while, and the group chat is suspiciously quiet, which can only mean one thing — they’ve set up a new WhatsApp group without her. Lexi co-hosts the popular Your Hot Friend podcast with her best friend Amanda — but between the semi-regular online cancellations and the increasing fame, is the podcast worth ruining their friendship? Joanne is struggling with the change in friendship dynamics since she had her son — neither her friends nor her boyfriend understands how lonely she is because she cannot simply drop everything for impromptu drinks anymore. 

As their lives intersect in ways that only Sophie White could make sound even remotely plausible, each woman must figure out which relationships are worth saving. I’ve focused on Claire’s storyline because it impacted me the most. But Lexi and Joanne are relatable characters even if their specific circumstances aren’t. 

Have I mentioned how hilarious My Hot Friend is? It shouldn’t be given much of the subject matter. But I appreciate that Sophie White handles difficult topics with dark humour. I had tears streaming down my face from laughing just as much as I did from the novel’s more devastating scenes. 

How do you sum up a book like My Hot Friend? With words that ordinarily wouldn’t make sense together. It is poignant. It is also heart-warming. It’s funny. It is also heartbreaking. Sophie White brilliantly examines female friendships, online culture, and mental illness. A must-read! 

Also, someone must make the “I’m sorry for what I did when I was manic” merch happen! I could do with more than a few apology cards and a t-shirt. 

My Hot Friend by Sophie White is published by Hachette Books Ireland, an imprint of Hachette Book Group. My Hot Friend is available in trade paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

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Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via NetGalley included. No affiliate links were used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

‘Put me out with the bins,’ he said, regularly. ‘When I die, put me out with the bins. I’ll be dead, so I won’t know any different. You’ll be crying your eyes out,’ and he would laugh and I’d laugh too because we both knew that I wouldn’t be crying my eyes out. I never cry. 

Sally Diamond does not understand why people are making a big deal out of her following her father’s instructions of putting him out with the bins when he died. Why would he say it if she wasn’t supposed to do it? From the blurb, we know that Sally’s actions lead to a police investigation and media coverage, leading to revelations that Sally was unprepared for. 

As we’ve come to expect from Nugent, Strange Sally Diamond questions whether the horrible and disturbing things people do result from nature or nurture. These questions are never fully answered because there are no easy explanations for why people do ‘monstrous’ things. As I read, I kept thinking about Dr Gwen Adshead’s excellent non-fiction book The Devil You Know: Encounters in Forensic Psychiatry, co-written with Eileen Horne, which is a nuanced look at why people commit certain crimes. 

I desperately wanted everything to turn out okay for Sally. This is Liz Nugent, so I wasn’t expecting everything to end wrapped in a pretty bow. The position Sally found herself in at the end felt realistic to me, given everything that happened. 

Two aspects of the story kept pulling me out of the narrative. One is easier than the other to discuss without giving too much of the plot away. Sally’s asexuality is presented as being solely due to the trauma she has experienced. It is possible to be asexual and have experienced trauma, just as it is possible to be straight or bisexual and have experienced trauma. My issue is that Sally’s asexuality defaults to the asexuality = a trauma response trope that, while I do not think was Nugent’s intention, fails to see asexuality as a sexuality in its own right. 

The other major stumbling block for me, and forgive me for being vague here, are the circumstances of how Sally ends up living where she does. More than once, I thought, ‘In 1980s Ireland, really?!’ I get that these events and the actions of people making that decision are supposed to be unprecedented and unorthodox, but I could not shake the shadow of Ireland’s long history of institutionalisation. 

But it’s fiction; I can hear you saying! Just because it is set in Ireland doesn’t mean it completely matches our reality. I get that, and I accept that this reaction says more about me than Nugent’s storytelling abilities. But the present-day section mentions the pandemic, adding to my confusion and frustration. In my review of Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh, I said that I didn’t know why the book affected me to the extent it did, allowing me to overlook things that ordinarily may give me pause. I equally do not understand why I got so hung up on this part of Strange Sally Diamond and couldn’t move past it. 

While this isn’t my favourite of Nugent’s novels, Strange Sally Diamond is a compelling and intensely disturbing psychological thriller examing the lasting impact of trauma. I read it in a couple of sittings, so if you are looking for a page-turner, Strange Sally Diamond is worth picking up. 

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent is published by Sandycove, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Strange Sally Diamond is available in hardback, trade paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

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Unsettled by Rosaleen McDonagh

Unsettled by Rosaleen McDonagh. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

‘These essays are not by an inspirational person. These essays are not by a supercrip. These essays don’t pathologise my Traveller ethnicity or my gender. There was no triumphant moment of overcoming the violence inflicted on me. Instead, these pieces embody a diverse experience of what it is to be Irish. There is no room for wanting to deny or overcome my impairment. There is no hiding my Traveller ethnicity. The opposite. This book finally allows me to take ownership of my fractured heart.’

Dr Rosaleen McDonagh is an Irish Traveller woman with a disability, an academic, a playwright, a columnist, an activist, and a member of Ireland’s affiliation of creative artists, Aosdána. From the introduction, Dr McDonagh sets the parameters for the following essays by telling us that ‘These are not essays by an inspirational person.’ Instead, McDonagh informs the reader that Unsettled embodies ‘a diverse experience of what it is to be Irish.’ 

In less than 130 pages, McDonagh covers a lot of ground in these hard-hitting essays examining her life through an intersectional lens. McDonagh’s experiences as a Traveller cannot be separated from her experiences as a woman. Her experiences as a Traveller woman cannot be divorced from her experiences as a disabled person. 

McDonagh’s writing is vivid and confronting. She does not shy away from discussing racism aimed at Travellers, ableism, sexism, abuse, dehumanisation, shame, and stigma. In telling her story, McDonagh explores the very nature of identity and bodily autonomy in a manner that does not always seek to answer the questions it poses, inviting us to take a closer look at our beliefs and assumptions about Traveller culture and disability culture. 

Unsettled is an uncompromising essay collection in which McDonagh refuses to sugar-coat her experiences for settled and non-disabled/able-bodied readers. It is a welcome and necessary addition to the growing voices reminding us that Ireland is often not as progressive as we like to think. 

Unsettled by Rosaleen McDonagh is published by Skein Press and is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

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Negative Space by Cristín Leach

Negative Space by Cristín Leach. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

‘I feel safe in nature. I feel safe in art. They both contain beginnings and endings. They both take me in and out. They both take me to the edge of my heart.’

Across eight essays, art critic Cristín Leach examines the ending of her marriage through the lens of art and writing and their role in her life. Negative Space is described by the publisher, Merrion Press, as ‘searingly intimate’, yet Leach is discerning in what she shares with the reader providing a masterclass in navigating the personal and the private in a public sphere.

‘Marriage is not an end point. It is not a destination any more than other major life events or even goals. Marriage is ever shifting and evolving, just like the people in it. Marriage is not fixed. And ours couldn’t be in the end.’

In September 2013, Leach developed tinnitus. In November 2014, she received a text informing her that her husband was having an affair. In 2015, Leach and her husband decided to end their marriage. I present these details chronologically, but Negative Space isn’t a linear memoir. 

Instead, it is structured around themes — writing, seeing, listening, sounding, sinking, breaking, healing, home — with the essays including excerpts from Leach’s notebooks, published art criticism, poetry, lyrics, and short fiction. Far from leaving the narrative difficult to follow, this layered and out-of-time approach adds to the richness of the reading experience. 

Negative Space is an intense, compelling, and considered exploration of what it means to build and rebuild a life. 

Negative Space by Cristín Leach is published by Merrion Press and is available in paperback and ebook formats.

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Happening by Annie Ernaux

Happening by Annie Ernaux. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Happening by Annie Ernaux, translated from the original French by Tanya Leslie, was the Abortion Book Club choice for June. It prompted me to finally read it because it has sat on my Kindle longer than I care to admit. When we discussed Ernaux’s short — under 100 pages — memoir about the illegal abortion she had in 1963, most of us said that while we appreciated the book, we weren’t sure enjoyable described the reading experience. Or whether we would recommend it to other people. By the end of the chat, we realised that we did enjoy reading it. And most of us would recommend it to people, with the caveat that it includes a graphic description of an abortion. 

I use ‘graphic’ as a neutral descriptor. Ernaux’s depiction of her abortion is neither sensationalist nor overwrought. The bluntness of Ernaux’s writing makes it affecting and powerful. ‘I wasn’t the least bit apprehensive about getting an abortion.’, Ernaux states, letting the reader know that this abortion would happen one way or another. Even though when she decided to have one, she did not yet know how to arrange one because it was illegal. Happening is a testament to the lengths women and pregnant people will go to when they need an abortion.  

I half-joked that after his comments about abortion not being a good thing, I was tempted to send a copy to Leo Varadkar and ask him to explain why this abortion was not a good thing for Annie Ernaux. I won’t, but I considered it! 

I loved how Ernaux interjects throughout the text to tell us about the process of writing Happening. We get the matter-of-fact telling of the story combined with a thought-provoking narration of the choices Ernaux made in deciding to write about having an abortion when it was illegal in France. 

Happening by Annie Ernaux, translated by Tanya Leslie, is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in the UK & Ireland and by Seven Stories Press elsewhere. Happenings is available in paperback and ebook formats.

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This Is Not About You: A Menmoir by Rosemary Mac Cabe

This Is Not About You: A Menmoir by Rosemary Mac Cabe. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

My physical copy of This Is Not About You hasn’t arrived yet. So, when the publisher, Unbound, emailed to say that the paperback copy I pledged for included the ebook, I downloaded it yesterday, thinking, ‘I’ll read a few chapters and then finish it during the week when the book turns up.’ Many hours later, stopping just long enough to make a sandwich, I inhaled each chapter finding myself at the end much quicker than I anticipated.

Described in the blurb as a menmoir about ‘dating and romance, or lack thereof – from one terrible man to the next’, Rosemary states in the opening chapter ‘, This book is not about them, though, not really. It’s about me: how I made and unmade myself for each of them.’  Mac Cabe sets the scene for an exploration of what it means to lose yourself, find yourself, lose yourself again, and find and rebuild yourself once more. Yes, the story is told through the lens of a series of relationships with men — some long-term, some short(ish)-term, and some not even reaching relationship status — but this is a story of self-discovery and what it means to be human, with all the messiness that entails. 

This Is Not About You is written with Mac Cabe’s characteristic warmth, humour, and vulnerability. It is as enjoyable as you’d expect if you are familiar with Rosemary’s work. But Mac Cabe’s writing style is so engaging that readers coming to her work for the first time will also be sucked into this entertaining tale of figuring out who the fuck you are. Which is at the heart of the memoir. 

It is almost cliche to say that a book made you ‘laugh and cry’, but This Is Not About You did. I laughed. I cried. I cringed. In examining these relationships, Rosemary holds a mirror up to herself as much as the men involved and has no qualms in admitting when she got things wrong or behaved in ways she wouldn’t if she got the chance to relive those moments. 

I marvelled at Rosemary's balance between sharing lighter dating moments and the more serious experiences that could not have been easy to write about. I also deeply appreciated the care Mac Cabe took in writing about the men involved and acknowledging that while these are her stories as she experienced them, she cannot know for sure how the men in question viewed things. This care is particularly evident during the chapter about Johnny and how his alcohol addiction affected their relationship and Rosemary’s relationships with her closest friends. 

Personal non-fiction and life writing are my favourite genres, so I read a lot of memoirs. This Is Not About You is among the best of them. It has earned a place in my favourite books of the year, so I’ll be raving about it again in my end-of-year wrap-up. 

This Is Not About You: A Menmoir by Rosemary Mac Cabe is published by Unbound and is available in paperback and ebook formats.

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All The Books I Read In May

This round-up includes some Advance Reader Copies (eARCs) from publishers via NetGalley. These books are marked with an *. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

It’s the last week in June, and I am only now writing about the books I read in May, which means that my brain has once again decided to do that annoying thing where I am capable of reading but unable to write coherent reviews or capable of writing reviews but unable to concentrate on reading. Life was much easier when I could do both of these things! 

I am still reading non-fiction more than fiction, so my 2023 goal of reading more fiction isn’t going well. 

You Are Not Alone by Cariad Lloyd

I have already reviewed You Are Not Alone, but the TL;DR version is that Cariad Lloyd has written a brilliant memoir meets grief manifesto that I want to press into the hands of everyone, whether you are grieving or not.

I read parts of it out loud to P, telling him this is my favourite grief book. This sounds weird, but I have read a lot of grief books, so I stand by my assessment!  I shouted, “fucking yes!” so forcefully while reading the sections on how grieving isn’t linear and the five stages of grief are lying to us that I startled Arwen (the dog!)

I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai

The blurb for I Have Some Questions For You* sounded right up my street, so I wanted to love it more than I did. While brilliantly written, the story tried to do too much, and Rebeca Makkai didn’t quite pull it off. 

When film professor and podcaster Bodie Kane is invited back to the boarding school she attended to teach podcasting, one of her students decides to reexamine the murder of Thalia Keith, Bodie’s classmate and one-time roommate. 

Told across two timelines, the present day and Bodie’s school days in the 1990s, I Have Some Questions For You grapples with some heavy themes, including the ethics of true crime as entertainment, the Me Too movement, cancel culture, and racial bias in the US criminal justice system. Makkai handles some of these themes better than others. 

The storyline I had the biggest issue with is challenging to discuss in detail because although it is a subplot, I don’t want to include spoilers. What I will say is that while there is a case to be made that the vagueness, lack of clarity or any real sense of resolution that I found so frustrating is an accurate portrayal of how these experiences play out in real life and on social media, I do not think Makkai gave this storyline the attention required for this conclusion to work. 

Again, on a sentence level, Makkai’s writing is beautiful. But by the end, I wasn’t invested in any of the characters or how the main story was resolved. 

Bleaker House by Nell Stevens

Bleaker House is one of many books that has been sitting untouched on my Kindle for a ridiculous amount of time. I found the story difficult to connect with when I tried to read it. So, I switched to listening to it on audio via Borrowbox and was immediately hooked.

When Nell Stevens gets to spend three months writing in a remote location, she chooses Bleaker Island in the Falklands. Stevens tells herself that three months of dedicated writing is plenty of time to complete her novel. She soon discovers that, for her, there is such a thing as too much solitude and isolation, which isn’t conducive to writing a novel. Instead, Bleaker House is a blend of memoir, travel writing, and fragments of the novel in progress.  

I adored Bleaker House so much that I have already listened to Mrs Gaskell & Me and have Briefly, A Delicious Life on my TBR for July. 

Where the Past Begins: Memory and Imagination by Amy Tan

Where the Past Begins is part memoir of Amy Tan’s childhood and life, especially her relationship with her mother, and part exploration of how she built a life as a writer. In the introduction, Tan states that she didn’t set out to write a memoir, but when her editor suggested she write an interim book between novels, Where the Past Begins emerged. 

While deeply moving in sections, the format of Where the Past Begins, which includes her mother’s letters, journal entries, and emails between Tan and her editor, did not work for me. It felt like two separate books, a memoir and a book about the craft of writing, smashed together. 

Pregnancy Test (Object Lessons) by Karen Weingarten

Pregnancy Test* by Karen Weingarten is an informative, accessible, and timely exploration of the history of the pregnancy test and its social and cultural impact on women’s reproductive lives. 

Charting the invention of the pregnancy test, its marketing, and its evolution to the at-home ‘pee on a stick’ tests that are ever-present today, Weingarten examines the pros and cons of pregnancy testing and why there is more nuance involved than we might think. Namely, while pregnancy tests give people who can become pregnant control over their reproductive lives, the invention of the pregnancy test also led to an increase in the medicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth. 

I won’t lie; even as someone heavily involved in reproductive rights activism, I hadn’t given the invention of the pregnancy test much thought. From the little I did know, I thought the descriptions of early pregnancy tests involving toads were exaggerations. They were not exaggerations!

I would recommend Pregnancy Test to anyone interested in reproductive rights, reproductive justice, and feminism, with the proviso that this book primarily focuses on the US and Canada, which Weingarten acknowledges throughout.

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You Are Not Alone by Cariad Lloyd

You Are Not Alone by Cariad Lloyd. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

“...WAIT A GRIEVING MINUTE — WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH GRIEF?

Yeah, exactly my bloody thought. This theory has nothing to do with grieving. It is about the dying.”

This book! I want to press a copy of You Are Not Alone into the hands of everyone, whether you are grieving or not. For griefsters (as grievers are affectionately called on the Griefcast), it’s a comforting hug from someone who is, as Cariad Lloyd describes herself, “a long-term member of ‘the club’.” For people who are not grieving, it’s an insightful examination of grief and all its messiness, the “grief-mess”, to use Lloyd’s words. 

As with her podcast Griefcast, Lloyd has created a space to hold people’s grief stories and experiences. A space full of warmth, grace, and humour. Cariad is a comedian, so I mean it when I say they are funnier than you’d expect discussions of grief to be! It is also a brilliantly written memoir meets grief manifesto. 

I loved hearing about Peter, Cariad’s dad, who died when she was fifteen. The snippets of conversations with people Lloyd interviewed on the Griefcast show the many ways people mourn and remember their loved ones. 

I read parts of it out loud to P, telling him this is my favourite grief book. This sounds weird, but I have read a lot of grief books, so I stand by my assessment!  I shouted, “fucking yes!” so forcefully while reading the sections on how grieving isn’t linear and the five stages of grief are lying to us that I startled Arwen (the dog!) 

Given the grief-mess it is understandable that we, as a society, want grief to come with rules, but as Lloyd emphasises, you are not doing grief wrong because there is no correct way to grieve. 

Grief is shit, and it changes you, but you will learn to live alongside it. Lloyd’s grief is different from mine, and my grief will be different from yours. In sharing our experiences, we remind each other that “you are not alone”. 

You Are Not Alone by Cariad Lloyd is published by Bloomsbury Tonic and is available in hardback, ebook, and audiobook format.

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All The Books I Read In April

This round-up includes some Advance Reader Copies (eARCs) from publishers via NetGalley. These books are marked with an *. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

My reading throughout April is best described as “I should read the books I already have on my Kindle.” Although, I switched between my Kindle and the audio versions on Borrowbox for a few of them.  

I’m still dealing with the health issues I mentioned in my March reads round-up, so the list of books I have started reading but have yet to finish has only gotten longer. Most of those unfinished books are fiction, which is why there is only non-fiction on this list. Another way of summing up my reading is, “I’m not doing great at my goal to read more fiction this year.”

Social Capital: Life online in the shadow of Ireland’s tech boom by Aoife Barry

I read Aoife Barry’s Social Capital in two sittings, stopping only to eat dinner; that’s how compelling it is. Blending her personal experiences online with reportage and cultural criticism, journalist Aoife Barry questions whether any of us, including social media companies, knew what we were in for when we logged onto the internet for the first time. 

I’ll have a longer review up soon. For now, I’ll say that Social Capital that it is great to see life online examined from an Irish perspective.

Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques

Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques is a masterclass in writing personal non-fiction while also unpicking the societal expectations that attempt to pigeonhole trans writers into only writing about their transition. 

Yes, this is a memoir about Jacques being a trans woman. It is also about her love of art, film, music, politics and football. These are the things that make Juliet Jacques, well, Juliet Jacques. In showing us the different aspects of her life, Jacques asks the reader to rethink what writing about identity, particularly for trans and non-binary people, can mean.

The Practice of Belonging: Six Lessons from Vibrant Communities to Combat Loneliness, Foster Diversity, and Cultivate Caring Relationships by Lisa Kentgen, PhD

Through her research, psychologist Lisa Kentgen identified six key characteristics of vibrant and healthy communities. They are; commitment to care, acceptance, diversity, skilful conflict resolution, bonding rituals, and hospitality. 

In examining and explaining each pillar to the reader, Kentgen profiles a different community that puts them into practice. The communities and groups profiled include a 500-member choir in Columbus, Ohio; a study circle to build connections between Native and non-Native people in a small town in South Dakota; and a tiny-home village for people who had been chronically houseless in Austin, Texas. 

For me, some of the profiles were stronger than others, but overall, The Practice of Belonging* is a fascinating look at the many ways of building and maintaining community. 

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo is a valuable primer on the racial landscape in the US. I would have taken more from this book had it not sat on my Kindle for so long because I have read more in-depth examinations of America’s history of racism since purchasing it. 

I’d still recommend it if you are looking for an entry-level text about racism, privilege, and anti-racism. 

Help! I'm Addicted: A Trans Girl's Self-Discovery and Recovery by Rhyannon Styles

In Help! I’m Addicted* writer and performer Rhyannon Styles uses her experience with alcohol and drug addiction as a starting point to explore the broader experiences of transgender and non-binary people concerning mental health, addiction, and recovery.

Throughout the book, we hear stories from trans and non-binary people about their struggles with addiction, recovery, and how, if at all, that intersected with their transition. For many people, including Styles, 12-step fellowships are crucial in their recovery. For others, 12-step programmes were not how they entered or maintained recovery. I appreciated the understanding that 12-step fellowships are not a prerequisite for everyone in recovery from addiction. This nuance is something we see more frequently in conversations about addiction, which is welcome. I am always here for more nuance in addiction-related conversations. 

While Help! I’m Addicted does not shy away from the complexities of addiction; it is a hopeful book.

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century edited by Alice Wong

Edited by Alice Wong, creator of the Disability Visibility Project, Disability Visibility is an anthology of essays by disabled people. In her introduction, Wong tells us that the stories shared do not seek to be a disability 101 or “to inspire or elicit empathy”. This collection is about showing disabled people “simply being in our own words, by our own accounts.” 

Although it does not seek to educate in the sense of explaining what disability is, Disability Visibility is an informative and insightful collection full of rage, hope, pride, recognition, and community. 

The standout essays for me are The Isolation of Being Deaf in Prison by Jeremy Woody, as told to Christie Thompson; Guide Dogs Don’t Lead Blind People. We Wander as One. by Haben Girma; Imposter Syndrome and Parenting with a Disability by Jessica Slice; Six Ways of Looking at Crip Time by Ellen Samuels; and The Beauty of Spaces Created for and by Disabled People by s.e. smith. 

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

I requested an advance copy of Crying in H Mart* by Michelle Zauner, from NetGalley, before its publication in 2021. That it has taken me years to finish reading is 100% down to my own experiences of grief. Truthfully, I needed a break from all the grief-related memoirs and non-fiction I had been mainlining since my dad died in 2019. 

Written with warmth, grace, humour, and tenderness, Zauner explores her life as the only Asian American person in her school, her relationship with her parents, her mother Chongmi being diagnosed with cancer, caring for her mother during this time, and the aftermath of her mother’s death. Zauner also shares with the reader her desire to connect more with her Korean heritage, how food provides that connection, her changing relationship with her father, and music's impact on her life. 

I wasn’t familiar with Japanese Breakfast, Zauner’s band, but that didn’t prevent me from connecting with Zauner’s beautifully crafted memoir about grief, family, food, and identity. I sobbed multiple times while listening, so I’d recommend having tissues handy. 

I am glad I decided to pick it up again, this time on audio, because Crying in H Mart is as exquisite as everyone says.

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The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality by Julie Sondra Decker

The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality by Julie Sondra Decker. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

April 6th is International Asexuality Day, the perfect time to review The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality by Julie Sondra Decker. I requested it on Borrowbox immediately after reading Claire Kane’s review on Instagram, and I am so glad I did. I switched between the audio and the ebook version.

Decker does a brilliant job of exploring asexuality in a way that is accessible to asexual people, people who think they may be asexual, and people who want to be better allies of the asexual/ace community.

While The Invisible Orientation is necessarily fact-heavy, it never feels too academic. Decker draws a clear line between our sex-focused society and the damaging and frankly bullshit idea that asexuality is not a sexual orientation, so there must be something medically wrong with asexual people. 

We are, rightfully, discussing the negative impact compulsory heterosexuality has on LGBTQIA+ people much more frequently these days, but compulsory sexuality isn’t spoken about nearly as often. I deeply appreciated the perspectives of the ace people quoted throughout the book. It’s given me a lot to think about in how I talk about sexuality and relationships and how we can be better allies to the Ace community. 

Books like this are so important, especially in the current climate. I found comfort and understanding in reading other people’s experiences of bisexuality, pansexuality, and m-spec orientations while figuring out my sexuality during my 20s. If even one person reading The Invisible Orientation finds recognition or understanding of their asexuality, especially if they haven’t previously had the language to describe their experiences, then Decker’s work is worth its weight in gold. And I already know more than one person will have that experience! 

The TL;DR version is that everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation, should read The Invisible Orientation. Next on my reading list is Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen. 

The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality by Julie Sondra Decker is published by Skyhorse and is available in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

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All The Books I Read in March

This round-up includes some Advance Reader Copies (eARCs) from publishers via NetGalley. These books are marked with an *. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

I’ve been dealing with annoying and time-consuming health issues, a knock-on effect of which is that my concentration has deserted me. While I finished five books in March, I started and abandoned many more. And I still have a pile of books I began in February but didn’t finish! This is not a comment on the quality of the books I picked up because I intend to return to them once this bout of brain fog lifts. 

Hysterical: Exploding the Myth of Gendered Emotions by Dr Pragya Agarwal

In Hysterical, Dr Pragya Agarwal, a behaviour and data scientist, unpicks the history of emotions and the persisting notion that women are more emotional than men. 

Most of the research cited is focused on cisgender women and cisgender men, which isn’t surprising. Dr Agarwal emphasises that trans women, trans men, and non-binary people’s experiences are sorely lacking from the science, research, and study of emotions from a gendered perspective. Where research includes trans and non-binary people, Dr Agarwal highlights this, which is a welcome addition to the text. 

If you have ever been told that you are ‘too loud’, ‘too much’, or ‘too emotional’, Hysterical reminds us that society hasn’t moved as far away from diagnosing women with hysteria as we like to think we have. 

I started listening to Hysterical on audio but needed to rewind parts more than once to understand the research thoroughly. I switched to my Kindle, which made reading it easier. 

The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality by Julie Sondra Decker

I downloaded The Invisible Orientation on audio from Borrowbox after reading Claire’s review on Instagram, and I am so glad I did. Julie Sondra Decker does a brilliant job of exploring asexuality in a way that is accessible to asexual people, people who think they may be asexual, and people who want to be better allies of the asexual/ace community. 

While The Invisible Orientation is necessarily fact-heavy, it never feels too academic. Decker draws a clear line between our sex-focused society and the damaging idea that asexuality is not a sexual orientation, so there is something medically wrong with asexual people. I particularly appreciated the perspectives of the ace people quoted throughout the book.

Foster by Claire Keegan

Foster is my second time reading Claire Keegan, and as with Small Things Like These, I wished Keegan wrote full-length novels instead of novellas. Again, Keegan’s decision to end the book where she does left me feeling disconnected from the story. 

Leaving the reader wanting more isn’t unusual, and I cannot fault Keegan’s writing, which is exquisite in its exploration of daily life. But the connection that many others felt with the story wasn’t there for me placing Foster in the ‘I liked but didn’t love’ category.

Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh

I’ll have a longer review of Cursed Bread* as soon as I figure out how to write about this evocative, atmospheric, and strange novel without giving too much of the plot away. Pacing issues aside, I adored this story of obsession inspired by a mass poisoning in the French town of Pont Saint-Esprit in the 1950s. 

Elodie is a character that will stay with me. And I’d happily read a version of this story told from Violet’s point of view. 

The Year of Miracles: Recipes About Love + Grief + Growing Things by Ella Risbridger

Last year I read and loved Ella Risbridger’s Midnight Chicken. I feel the same about The Year of Miracles, Risbridger’s cookbook memoir about slowly rebuilding your life while grieving. Risbridger writes beautifully about difficult experiences, and Elisa Cunningham’s illustrations are gorgeous. 

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The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

“If queerness is too much, then straightness is too little, the relational manifestation of lack.”

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality is a provocative title. Deliberately, so. Jane Ward’s examination of the pitfalls of straight culture is a twist on the all-too-common idea that it is a tragedy to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. What if heterosexuality has more problems than we’re willing to admit? 

I read this last month as research for an essay I’m writing (the same reason I read Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel), and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. It’s political. It’s queer. It’s feminist. It challenges the notion that LGBTQ+ people would automatically choose to be straight if they could.

“I am worried about straight people. And I am not the only one. Queer people have been concerned about straight culture for decades, not only for our own sake—because we fear homophobic violence or erasure of queer subculture—but also because straight culture’s impact on straight women often elicits our confusion and distress.”

Ward argues that heterosexuality has a misogyny problem because heterosexuality and misogyny are inextricably linked. Again, another provocative claim. We’ve all seen the headlines associated with studies showing that women in relationships with women have more and better orgasms than women in relationships with men. Or the studies showing that men benefit more from marriage than women in health, wealth, and overall happiness.

In exploring why this is the case, Ward accepts that direct comparisons between lesbian and straight relationships are not always available because “heterosexuality studies” is still in its infancy, meaning there is only a small body of research. 

Ward argues that straight men could learn something about embodying their love of women from women who love women (sapphics). That is, loving women starts with liking and respecting women.

While Ward references the LGBTQ+ community throughout, she often speaks of women as being straight or lesbian with little to no mention of bisexual, pansexual, and other m-spec women. Given that we, as bi+ people, have unique experiences with both queer culture and straight culture, this felt like a missed opportunity. 

I do not doubt that others will expand on Ward’s work, so I read this as the beginning of a thought-provoking and much-needed conversation rather than the final say. I’m not sure I agree with all of Ward’s conclusions, but I learned a lot from reading this and could understand why she reached those conclusions. 

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward is published by NYU Press and is available in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

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Floor Sample: A Creative Memoir by Julia Cameron

Floor Sample: A Creative Memoir by Julia Cameron. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

“Writing makes me a writer,” I tried out the simple truth.

Floor Sample is Julia Cameron’s memoir about addiction, mental illness, recovery, motherhood, and creativity. Cameron shares her descent into alcohol addiction, drug use, and the episodes of psychosis that led to her being hospitalised. She is also candid about her relationship breakdowns, her experience of motherhood and her changing relationship with her daughter, Domenica. 

Floor Sample grabs your attention from the first page and doesn’t let up as we see how, throughout it all, Cameron built a creative life for herself — something she teaches others to do in The Artist’s Way. Cameron is a prolific writer, teacher, poet, playwright, filmmaker, composer, and journalist. More than once, I wondered, “how does she find the time to do everything?” 

In reading the early chapters about their relationship, marriage, and divorce, I said, “how did I not know that Julia Cameron used to be married to Martin Scorsese?!” out loud multiple times. The story of their divorce is a wild ride, as is the impact their relationship had on Cameron’s career as a journalist. It’s almost twenty years since I did The Artist’s Way while taking a creative writing class in college. If their relationship was mentioned, I had forgotten about it, but it’s the kind of celebrity trivia I live for! 

Memoirs never cover everything about a person’s life, and I understand that the UK release of Floor Sample last year was a reissue of a book initially published in the early 2000s. But there is one aspect of Cameron’s story that I need to know how it ended, and googling hasn’t given me the answer. At his insistence and the urging of her publisher, Cameron consented to have her former husband, Mark Bryan, added as a co-author of The Artist’s Way so that he could go on speaking and book tours while she recovered from her breakdown. Cameron said, “I do not like this decision, but I tell myself that I am being paranoid about its possible repercussions.” Did he voluntarily remove his name afterwards, or what happened? 

Spirituality plays a huge role in Cameron’s sobriety and creativity, which means her work isn’t for everyone. I would have rolled my eyes a few years ago at this book. However, the older I get, and the longer I’m sober, the less inclined to judge individual people’s spirituality I’ve become.

I’ve dipped in and out of writing morning pages over the years but returned to it as a regular practice this year, so it was fascinating to read parts of Julia Cameron’s story alongside this rediscovery. 

Floor Sample: A Creative Memoir by Julia Cameron is published by Souvenir Press (in Europe) and TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House (in the US). Floor Sample is available in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

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No Choice: The Fall of Roe v. Wade and the Fight to Protect the Right to Abortion by Becca Andrews

No Choice: The Fall of Roe v. Wade and the Fight to Protect the Right to Abortion by Becca Andrews. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links were used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

No Choice: The Fall of Roe v. Wade and the Fight to Protect the Right to Abortion by Becca Andrews is an in-depth look at the history of abortion rights in America. Andrews uses her skill as a journalist to examine the fallout from the US Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and rolled back 50 years of abortion access. 

While the book’s focus is on abortion rights, Andrews is clear that these rights must be part of the broader reproductive justice framework. This is illustrated through interviews with people who have had abortions, abortion providers, and activists giving the reader a deep understanding of how reproductive justice isn't an abstract concept but profoundly impacts people's lives.

Andrews shows great care when writing about or telling people’s abortion stories, be they people she spoke to directly for the book or experiences shared elsewhere. This care is also evident when discussing Norma McCorvey, the ‘Jane Roe’ in the Roe v. Wade case, whose story is complex. McCorvey did not get the abortion she wanted. The landmark ruling came years after her daughter's birth and subsequent adoption. McCorvey later worked for anti-abortion organisations. Although, in an interview before her death, she was quoted as saying, “I took their money, and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say.” and “If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that’s no skin off my ass. That’s why they call it choice.”

No Choice will make you angry but also make you appreciate the continued work of activists, abortion funds, clinic escorts and clinic defenders. 

No Choice: The Fall of Roe v. Wade and the Fight to Protect the Right to Abortion by Becca Andrews is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group. No Choice is available in hardback, ebook, and audiobook format.

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The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-Thinking the Business of Bad News by Tamara Cherry

The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-Thinking the Business of Bad News by Tamara Cherry. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links were used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-Thinking the Business of Bad News by Tamara Cherry is a compelling examination of the trauma caused by media coverage of crimes to victims, their families, and the journalists involved. Cherry is a former crime reporter, so The Trauma Beat blends her experiences with research she has carried out since leaving journalism.

Given that Cherry is Canadian, the book is North America focused, but it’s also relevant on this side of the Atlantic. Throughout, Cherry shares her experiences on the job and is frank about the occasions she went too far to get the story. 

The Trauma Beat isn’t explicitly about true crime media and content, but it feels part of the broader conversation around exactly whose trauma is deemed newsworthy and why. In talking to survivors, victims of crime, and their families, Cherry shows that for many people dealing with the media meant re-traumatising themselves. 

While making a case for trauma-informed reporting, Cherry applies this to everyone involved. Yes, we should be asking what it is like to have a camera or microphone shoved in your face minutes after surviving a mass shooting. As our understanding of trauma grows, we should also ask about the lasting impact on the journalist holding the microphone.

I was reading this the week of the Creeslough explosion last year, and it changed how I viewed the news coverage of the unfolding tragedy. It has changed how I read, watch, and listen to all news. I doubt I’ll be the only reader affected by it in this way. 

The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-Thinking the Business of Bad News by Tamara Cherry is published on May 9th by ECW Press and is available in paperback and ebook format.

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Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos

Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

“People have always liked to read confessional work, and they often liked to denigrate it as well. It was a popular style, then it wasn’t, then it was again.”

Body Work by Melissa Febos isn’t a straightforward how-to-write memoir guide. But, Febos’ blend of memoir and cultural criticism is a master class in the art, craft, practicalities, and ethics of writing personal non-fiction. 

I read this last year, but I have been thinking of it again after reading literary agent Rachel Mills’ article in The Bookseller about whether the publishing industry does enough to protect authors who write memoirs. At under 200 pages, the four essays in Body Work examine the complexities of putting yourself on the page.

In Praise of Navel-Gazing is a defence of the very term regularly used to dismiss memoir and other forms of life writing, especially women’s writing, navel-gazing. Febos contends that “Navel-gazing is not for the faint of heart. The risk of honest self-appraisal requires bravery.” She also reminds us that men’s personal stories are usually not considered navel-gazing. 

Mind Fuck: Writing Better Sex explores the politics of desire, sexuality, gender, and how the patriarchy impacts how we write about sex. A writing exercise Febos gets her students to do is write about their sex life in five sentences. She then asks them to do this three more times without repeating anything. The aim is to show that (a) their writing gets better and (b) they won’t run out of ways to tell their stories. 

A Big Shitty Party: Six Parables of Writing About Other People is my standout essay of the collection. Febos shares what she has learned from different experiences of writing about other people in her work and how those people reacted. In some cases, Febos let them know beforehand. In others, she didn’t. In some cases, she obscured people’s identities. In others, she didn’t. It’s fascinating to see how Febos’ approach to this has evolved. I especially appreciated the acknowledgement that “The published word of a writer will last longer than that of any person who is not a public figure.” 

In The Return: The Art of Confession, Febos looks at the history of confessional writing, including the origins of the word confessional. Febos makes clear that memoir and personal non-fiction have always existed, there are times when it is more popular than others, but it isn’t going to disappear as an art form any time soon. 

While Febos has much to teach writers of personal non-fiction in its many forms, readers of the genre will also enjoy these essays. 

You can’t tell from the photo above that my copy is dog-eared, covered in sticky tabs, underlined paragraphs, and notes scribbled in the margins, which is how most of my Melissa Febos books end up. The exception is Girlhood which I read on my Kindle, but I ordered a physical copy to add notes while rereading. 

Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos is published by Catapult (in the US) and Manchester University Press (in Europe) and is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook format. 

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All the books I read in February

No Advance Reader Copies (eARCs) or affiliate links are used in this round-up. Read my full disclosure policy here.

I’m deep into rewatching Six Feet Under for the umpteenth time, so I didn’t read much this month. By my usual standards, I know five books a month is a lot for many people. 

Floor Sample: A Creative Memoir by Julia Cameron

Floor Sample is Julia Cameron’s memoir about addiction, mental illness, recovery, motherhood, and creativity. Cameron shares her descent into alcohol addiction, drug use, and the episodes of psychosis that led to her being hospitalised. She is also candid about her relationship breakdowns, her experience of motherhood and her changing relationship with her daughter, Domenica. 

Floor Sample grabs your attention from the first page and doesn’t let up as we see how, throughout it all, Cameron built a creative life for herself — something she teaches others to do in The Artist’s Way. Cameron is a prolific writer, teacher, poet, playwright, filmmaker, composer, and journalist. I kept thinking, “how does she find the time to do everything?”  

The Year of the Cat: A Love Story by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

On the surface, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s The Year of the Cat is about getting a kitten during the year of many pandemic-related lockdowns. It is also a tender, moving and beautifully written exploration of PTSD, family, motherhood, and the forced separation from our families and support networks that so many of us faced at the height of the pandemic. 

How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS by David France

It took me almost a year to listen to David France’s How to Survive a Plague, but only because it was a library audiobook I needed to return and check out multiple times. It is a brilliantly written history of the AIDS epidemic in the US. 

France combines the personal, the political and the scientific giving the reader a deep and lasting understanding of why it fell to gay and bisexual men, the broader LGBTQ+ community and grassroots activists to push the medical and public health establishment into taking AIDS seriously. 

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, the title of Jane Ward’s examination of the pitfalls of straight culture, is a play on the idea that it is a tragedy to queer. What if heterosexuality has more problems than we’re willing to admit? 

I read this as research for an essay I’m writing (the same reason I read Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel), and I genuinely think it has rearranged my brain. It’s queer. It’s feminist. It challenges the notion that queer people would choose to be straight if they could. Ward argues that straight men could learn a thing or two about embodying their love of women from queer women. 

While Ward references the LGBTQ+ community throughout, she often speaks of women as being straight or lesbian with little to no mention of bisexual, pansexual, and other m-spec women. Given that bi+ people have unique experiences with both queer culture and straight culture, this felt like a missed opportunity. I do not doubt that others will expand on Ward’s work, so I read this as the beginning of a much-needed conversation rather than the final say. 

Where I End by Sophie White

I’ve already reviewed Where I End, but the TL;DR version is that Sophie White has crafted a literary horror story that snakes its way into your brain and will not leave. It will take a truly exceptional book to beat this for my book of the year, a bold claim to make in February!   

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Where I End by Sophie White

Where I End by Sophie White. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

“My Mother.

At night, my mother creaks. The house creaks along with her.”

Good Jaysus! What the hell did I just read?! This review will be mainly about the unsettling vibes of Sophie White’s Where I End because discussing the plot would give too much away. But, also, if I explained the whole story, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

Aoileann lives on a remote island with her Móraí and her mother, who will not, or cannot, leave her bed. Having moved to the mainland, Aoileann's father, whom she calls Dada, visits once a month. The other islanders go out of their way to avoid Aoileann for reasons she does not fully understand because they have always reacted this way to her. 

When Rachel, an artist, arrives on the island with her newborn son, Aoileann sees the life she never had and a future she never dreamed of until now.

“My house. 

I don’t understand my house. It has never been explained to me. From the outside it is backwards. Circle it and you’ll see.”

If you’ve read more than one review of Where I End, you’ll have seen it repeatedly described as visceral, gruesome, chilling, unsettling, dark, twisted, and horrific. These are also my descriptions of the novel. It is a novel full of body horror. It is also full of psychological horror. It is bone-chillingly disturbing and made my skin crawl multiple times. 

None of this sounds appealing, yet I could not stop reading. I almost missed a meeting because I needed to see how it ended. On a sentence level, Sophie White has crafted a literary horror story that snakes its way into your brain and will not leave. These characters are fictional, but I desperately want to know how things turned out for them all following the novel’s conclusion. That’s how immersive this book is and how brilliant a writer Sophie White is. 

Where I End has surpassed Human Remains by Elizabeth Haynes for the title of the creepiest novel I have read, and I didn’t think anything could get more disturbing than Human Remains. 

Where I End by Sophie White is published by Tramp Press and is available in paperback and ebook format. 

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All the books I read in January

This round-up includes some Advance Reader Copies (eARCs) from publishers via NetGalley. These books are marked with an *. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

The one upside to January feeling like it crammed three months into the space of one is the amount of reading I did. 

I mentioned in my 2022 wrap-up that I was hoping to read more fiction this year, so I joined a few online book clubs, read-alongs, and buddy reads. 

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

This was the Tired Mammy Book Club pick for the month. Set in mid-70s Northern Ireland, Trespasses is an evocative novel centred on an illicit relationship between Cushla, a 20-something teacher, and Michael, an older married barrister. Cushla is Catholic, and Michael is Protestant, so his marital status isn’t the only complicated thing about their relationship. When not teaching, Cushla is either looking after her mother, an alcoholic, working alongside her brother in the family’s pub, or trying her best to help Davy, one of her students, and his family.

Louise Kennedy excels at writing about the quiet, often mundane, moments of daily life and the absurdity of what became the new normal during the Troubles. I liked but didn’t love this one. I didn’t connect with either Cushla or Michael in a way that meant I felt invested in their story. 

A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy

A Week in Winter was the Maeve Binchy Book Club book of the month. This felt more like a series of connected short stories than a novel, which I think is a testament to Binchy’s love of the short story. Each chapter focuses on a different character with a connection to Stoneybridge, on the west coast of Ireland, or a visitor to Stoneybridge’s newest hotel Stone House. A Week in Winter isn’t my favourite Maeve Binchy, but it is enjoyable.

Farewell Waltz by Milan Kundera

Where to start with this! I needed to remind myself that the absurdity was deliberate. I also needed to remind myself that the misogyny was deliberate. Knowing these things did not make reading it any more enjoyable. By the end, I was hate-reading it! 

That said, the Abortion Book Club discussion was worth it. I was relieved that I wasn't the only one hate-reading! Someone summed it up perfectly by saying that it was a terrible book to read but a great one to discuss. 

Next, we have the audiobooks that kept me company while walking Arwen, the dog! 

• I read In Search of Madness: A Psychiatrist’s Travels Through the History of Mental Illness by Brendan Kelly as research for an essay I’m writing. It was informative in parts and frustrating in others.

• More than once, during Group, Christie Tate joked about “if it sounds like I am in a cult” before describing either the actions of her therapist, Dr Rosen, or her actions following the homework Dr Rosen set. This says a lot about Dr Rosen’s unconventional methods, as the blurb describes them. I found myself calling his actions unethical multiple times. 

• How to be Alone by Lane Moore is a humourous collection of essays about trauma, complicated familial relationships, and mental illness, which sounds like a strange mix Moore pulls it off with aplomb. 

• Out of Office by Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Peterson combines their experiences of moving to a rural area and working remotely with an examination of the failings of office culture. Given they both live and work in America, it’s US-centric in its outlook. That health insurance is tied to employment in the US makes this outlook understandable. It was an interesting listen, but I’m not the book’s target audience! 

I am still playing catch-up with my NetGalley to-read shelf, so these books were advance copies when I downloaded them onto my Kindle but were all published by the time I read them.

No Choice by Becca Andrews*

No Choice* is an in-depth look at the history of abortion rights in America and an examination of the fallout from the US Supreme Court Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe V. Wade. Throughout the book, Andrews interviews people who have had abortions, abortion providers, and activists giving the reader a deep understanding of how reproductive justice isn't only an abstract concept but something that deeply impacts people's lives.

It will make you angry, but it will also make you appreciate the continued work of activists, abortion funds, clinic escorts and clinic defenders. A must-read! 

Obsessive Intrusive Magical Thinking by Marianne Eloise*

I’ve been a fan of Marianne Eloise’s journalism for a while, so I looked forward to reading her essay collection. It didn’t disappoint! Obsessive Intrusive Magical Thinking* brilliantly explores the intersection of Eloise’s experience with obsession, neurodivergence and disorder. Marianne is autistic, has ADHD, and was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. 

The standout essays were; Yesterday, Tomorrow and Fantasy, Everything is on Fire, City of Angels, Too Much Memento Mori, Do I Believe in Magic? Sort Of, and Help! The Gorgon Medusa Lives Behind My Fish Tank.

You Don’t Know What War Is by Yeva Skaliestska* 

At the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Yeva Skaliestska began keeping a diary. You Don’t Know What War Is* is that diary which details Yeva’s life in Ukraine with her grandmother, leaving their home and, ultimately, their country. An encounter with a Channel 4 news team and an interview about Yeva’s diary meant Yeva and her grandmother were supported as they escaped Ukraine to seek refuge in Ireland. 

Throughout the book, Yeva shares text messages from her school group chat, giving us a glimpse at her friends' experiences. They also share their hopes for the future at the end, which is moving. 

I read Zlata's Diary by Zlata Filipovic, about the Siege of Sarajevo, when it was published in the mid-90s. I was in primary school, and it is a reading experience that has stayed with me. I hope Yeva’s words have a similar impact on the young(er) people who read them. 

Now for the two non-fiction books that didn’t fit in the loose categories I’ve used for this wrap-up, so I’ve grouped them. 

• Sabotage: How to Silence Your Inner Critic and Get Out of Your Own Way by Emma Gannon is best described as a short pep-talk from a friend. A pep-talk where you know all the information beforehand, but hearing it from your friend allows your brain to absorb it better. 

• More research (for a different essay) but Mating in Captivity: How to keep desire and passion alive in long-term relationships by Esther Perel is a book I want everyone to read. It is thought-provoking and confronting, yet full of compassion and wisdom. Whether you are in a long-term relationship or not, it’s a book worth picking up. 

I didn’t finish Paper Cup by Karen Campbell, the January choice for the Another Chapter podcast read-along. The writing style wasn’t for me, but based on the group chat, I know I’m in the minority here. 

In solidarity with the HarperCollins Union, who are currently on strike, I haven’t included the two books I read published by HarperCollins. The union is asking book reviewers to hold their reviews until they receive a fair contract. You can find out more about the strike by following @hcpunion on Instagram.

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2022: A Year in Books

This round-up includes some Advance Reader Copies (eARCs) from publishers via Netgalley. These books are marked with an *. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Throughout the pandemic, I have been in one of two modes; capable of reading but unable to write coherent reviews or capable of writing reviews but unable to concentrate on reading. The two used to go hand in hand for me, but since early 2020 it’s like those two parts of my brain stopped talking to each other. Given that I enjoy writing about books, this is frustrating. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have noticed that I tend not to post for months and then share multiple book reviews in a row. Instead of my favourite books of the year, I thought I'd take you on a whistle-stop tour of what I’ve read (and abandoned) in 2022. Clare Egan’s 2021 list inspired this yearly round-up. 

I began the year the same way I begin most, trying and failing to clear my to-read shelf on Netgalley. Hopefully, 2023 will finally be the year I get my feedback ratio above 80%! 

Dear Reader by Cathy Rentzenbrink* is an ode to the power, joy, and comfort of reading written with a warmth and humour that makes it feel like you are simply chatting to Cathy over coffee about books. 

If anyone else wrote The Fell* I wouldn’t have picked it up, but Sarah Moss is one of my favourite authors, so I was intrigued to see how she’d handle a pandemic novel. It is a thought-provoking portrayal of the impact of the lockdowns and explores why people made the decisions they did. I loved it. 

I read Idol by Louise O’Neill* in two sittings with my heart in my mouth as we witness Samantha Miller’s life publicly unravel. The dynamic between Samantha and Lisa, both as teenagers and in the novel’s present, is frustrating due to O’Neill’s lack of engagement with how the central incident would be viewed or experienced through an LGBTQIA+ lens. The whole thing felt like a plot device dismissive of lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, and other m-spec (multi-spectrum or multiple-attraction spectrum) women’s experiences of sexual violence.

Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These* is set in New Ross in 1985, so it’s safe to say that most people in or from Ireland will immediately know where the plot is headed. Keegan is a talented writer who excels at describing the quiet moments of everyday life, but the ending didn’t have as profound an impact on me as it has had on others. 

Set during the first lockdown in Ireland, 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard* is a novel full of secrets. We know from the blurb that Gardaí find a decomposing body, but figuring out who the victim is and what happened isn’t going to be easy. I wasn’t a fan of this one, but it is difficult to discuss why without giving too much away. 

Breaking Point by Edel Coffey* is another one that’s difficult to talk about without spoiling the plot, but I’d describe it as a tense novel that isn’t quite a psychological thriller, but that’s the closest to a genre I can place it in. From the blurb, we know Dr Susannah Rice’s baby daughter dies following a tragic accident. An accident which sees Dr Sue charged with negligence. There were parts of this I liked. Other parts, including the ending, not so much. That said, I am looking forward to seeing what Edel Coffey publishes next. 

Bisexual Men Exist: A Handbook for Bisexual, Pansexual and M-Spec Men by Vaneet Mehta* looks at the issues that bi, pan, and m-spec men face. It is a well-researched dismantling of misconceptions about bisexuality and a celebration of m-spec identities. I read an advance copy, it’s out in January from Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 

The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-Thinking the Business of Bad News by Tamara Cherry* is an eye-opening examination of the trauma caused by media coverage of crimes to victims, their families, and the journalists involved. Cherry is a former crime reporter, so The Trauma Beat* blends her experiences with research she has carried out since leaving journalism. I read an advance copy, it’s out in May from ECW Press. 

Saying I enjoyed memoirs about grief sounds strange, but The Light Streamed Beneath It by Shawn Hitchins* and Totally Fine (And Other Lies I’ve Told Myself) by Tiffany Philippou* both captured the messiness of grief in ways that resonated with me. 

Rounding out my Netgalley reads are The Last Days by Ali Millar*, The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays by CJ Hauser* and The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye*. I’m planning longer reviews for these, but The Last Days* is a visceral memoir about Ali Millar’s life as a Jehovah’s Witness and her decision to leave. The Crane Wife* was a hit-and-miss read, but this collection has some great essays. In The Transgender Issue*, Shon Faye makes the case for trans liberation by deconstructing the arguments that deny trans and non-binary bodily autonomy. It’s a must-read. 

I abandoned a handful of books. Some I will return to; I just wasn’t in the right headspace. Others I have no intention of ever picking up again. 

• Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan; I love Megan Nolan’s writing style, so I’ll come back to this one.

• What It Feels Like For A Girl by Paris Lees; My Covid-addled brain struggled with the dialect in this. Now that the brain fog has lifted, it’s on my list for 2023. 

• The Vanishing Triangle: The Murdered Women Ireland Forgot by Claire McGowan; I was so frustrated by this book that I threw my Kindle down forcefully on the couch, which is the modern equivalent of flinging a book across the room. I won’t be giving this a second chance. 

• How To Do The Work by Dr Nicole LePera; The only good thing I have to say is that I am glad I got it from the library instead of buying it. 

I have a complicated relationship with audiobooks. No matter how hard I try, I cannot listen to fiction. Unless it is something I’ve already read multiple times, my brain refuses to retain fictional storylines consumed this way. I’m okay with non-fiction audiobooks, though. I’m guessing because my brain thinks of them as really long podcasts. 

Diagnosis: Solving the Most Baffling Medical Mysteries by Lisa Sanders, M.D. is a fascinating collection of patient experiences from Dr Sanders’ New York Times column as they search for diagnoses and treatment for their outside of the ‘norm’ symptoms. 

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell tells us that the language of cults is no longer solely used by cults. An enjoyable listen that will raise your blood pressure more than once, given how common this cultish behaviour has become. 

Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: How to Live a Creative Life, and Let Go of Your Fear is one of my go-to books when I’m feeling ‘meh’ with life. That Gilbert reads the audiobook herself made it extra comforting. 

The central question of The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson is, ‘What if everything we know about madness is wrong?’ While the answer isn’t easy, Ronson takes us on a compelling search. 

I wish Dr Julia Shaw’s Bi: The Hidden Culture, History and Science of Bisexuality was around when I was questioning my sexuality during my 20s. Using her expertise as a psychological scientist and her experience as a bisexual woman Dr Shaw encourages us to think more broadly about sexuality and informs (or reminds) us that bisexual, pansexual, and other m-spec people have always existed. 

When It Is Darkest: Why People Die by Suicide and What We Can Do to Prevent It by Rory O'Connor wasn’t an easy listen subject-wise, but I’m glad I stuck with it. 

There is a sentence in the introduction to Barry Cummins’ Missing: The Unsolved Cases of Ireland's Vanished Women and Children that I still think about months later, ‘Either a serial killer is responsible for many unsolved abductions and murders in Ireland, or a number of killers, who have so far evaded justice, could strike again.’

I’m sorry it took me so long to move Don’t Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri to the top of my to-be-read list. It’s an engaging examination of race, racism, colonialism, black oppression, the fetishisation of black women, and the struggle for black liberation told through the lens of black hair. 

I read a few books that were fine, but I wouldn't be in a hurry to recommend them. If you have absolutely nothing to read, then go ahead. Otherwise, focus on your to-be-read pile! 

• My Mother, Munchausen's and Me: A true story of betrayal and a shocking family secret by Helen Naylor

• Things That Helped: Essays by Jessica Friedmann

• Write It All Down: How to Put Your Life on the Page by Cathy Rentzenbrink

Like a lot of people, I spent much of the year recovering from Covid-19 (twice!) and the many viral and bacterial infections that settled on my chest, so I’ve grouped the books I read while sick. 

Jamie Varon’s Radically Content: Being Satisfied in an Endlessly Dissatisfied World felt like a much-needed pep talk from a friend. It is part memoir and part critique of the social conditioning that leads us, as a society, to always strive for the next milestone. Similarly, (Dis)Connected: How to Stay Human in an Online World by Emma Gannon was a pep-talk about changing how you think and live online. The TL;DR is that you don’t need to throw your phone in the sea, but we can all be more intentional about how we use social media.

Pacemaker by David Toms is a beautifully written memoir about chronic illness, walking, and how to live life while considering your body’s limitations. The prose is intimate, precise, and poetic. I underlined so many sentences and paragraphs that I might as well have highlighted the entire book!

Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence by Dr Gavin Francis is a meditation on recovery and convalescence that is an easy but informative read full of empathy, wisdom, and hope.

Jessica DeFino recommended Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less by James Hamblin. It’ll make you think differently about how many beauty products you purchase, and I learned a lot about the increasing research into the skin’s microbiome. 

Cookbook memoirs are a genre I didn’t know I needed until Sophie White’s Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown and Ella Risbridger’s Midnight Chicken (& Other Recipes Worth Living For) kept me sane while I was stuck in my bedroom during my second bout of Covid. P and I were both sick the first time, so I didn’t get the complete stay one-room experience until the second time. I didn’t cope well with it at all. 

Next, we have three books about sobriety. 

• Sunshine Warm Sober is the follow-up to Catherine Gray's The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober. Gray discusses life as she approaches a decade of being alcohol-free with the same honesty, grace, and humour as her debut memoir. It was interesting to see Gray share the things she would have done differently with The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober and how she thinks about alcohol, the alcohol industry and its hold on society has evolved. 

• We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life is the story of how and why Laura McKeon got sober. It is also the story of the times McKeon quit drinking and then relapsed. I appreciated McKeon's frankness about how her drinking affected her marriage and also how she raised her daughter. 

• In Not Drinking Tonight: A Guide to Creating a Sober Life You Love, therapist and 'retired party girl' Amanda White provides judgement-free advice on rethinking your relationship with alcohol. Not Drinking Tonight is centred around composite characters based on White's experiences with her therapy clients. I didn't get on with the format, but I can see it being valuable to people who are sober curious or early in their sobriety.

Sarah Manguso’s work was mentioned during a writing workshop I took in February, which I am grateful for because she soon joined my favourite authors' list. 300 Arguments is a collection of fragmented prose and poetry aphorisms. The Two Kinds of Decay is a stunning memoir about the autoimmune disease Manguso developed during her 20s and what it means to be chronically ill. 

Speaking of chronic illnesses, I read The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O'Rourke and What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo and was deeply moved by both of them. They both blend memoir with research and are welcome additions to the growing—and much-needed—body of work about what it means to be disabled or chronically ill. 

I’m calling this section non-fiction books that don’t fit anywhere else, so I’ve put them on this list! 

• Five Minute Therapy by psychotherapist Sarah Crosby is a gentle breakdown of attachment, boundaries, self-talk, triggers, and reparenting that provides a solid grounding in how each can affect our mental health.

• I was familiar with the CSI effect, where jurors expect forensic evidence in every case, but I was shocked to discover just how much forensic science is anything but scientific. In Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System, M. Chris Fabricant takes through the many failings of the US criminal justice system, including its reliance on forensic science and ‘expert witnesses’, and his work as an attorney with the Innocence Project to exonerate people who were wrongly convicted. 

• Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis is an excellent introduction to the case for prison abolition. Many of the online resources I found assumed people already understood prison abolition, which isn’t the case here, which I appreciated. 

• Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines of the Fight to Protect Abortion in America by Lauren Rankin charts the fight for abortion rights in America through the eyes of abortion clinic escorts, abortion clinic defenders, and grassroots activists and organisers. Bodies on the Line is a powerful tribute to the ordinary everyday people who continuously show up to ensure people access abortion care without facing intimidation from anti-abortion protesters. 

• We Will Not Cancel Us by adrienne maree brown is a critique of cancel culture from a ‘Black, queer, and feminist viewpoint’ (I’ve taken this from the blurb because it sums it up better than I could) that centres transformative justice. I want to press a copy into the hands of every activist and organiser I know.

• The Best American Essays is one of my favourite anthologies, and the 2022 edition, guest edited by Alexander Chee didn’t disappoint. 

Mar Grace writes the Monday Monday newsletter, which I look forward to reading each week so, naturally, I bought their books. How to Not Always Be Working: A Toolkit for Creativity and Radical Self-Care is part workbook and part advice manual. It wasn’t the right fit for me, purely because of how my life is structured, but I can see myself returning to some of the exercises in the future. On the other hand, Getting to Center: Pathways to Finding Yourself Within the Great Unknown is one of those books that came along at the perfect time and rearranged my brain in the best possible way.

My love affair with memoirs and essay collections continues. I’ve individual reviews of these planned, but I include them here so it doesn’t look like I read 13+ plus books in January.

• Bluets by Maggie Nelson

• The Instant by Amy Liptrot

• White Magic by Elissa Washuta

• Negative Space by Cristín Leach

• Unsettled by Rosaleen McDonagh

• Heretic: A Memoir by Jeanna Kadlec

• Rust Belt Femme by Raechel Anne Jolie

• All this happened, more or less by Jayne A. Quan

• The Madness: a memoir of war, fear and PTSD by Fergal Keane

• Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage by Heather Haverilesky

• Belabored: A Vindication of the Rights of Pregnant Women by Lyz Lenz

• Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos

• I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom

December saw me reading Christmas-themed books for the first time in years, thanks to the Maeve Binchy Book Club and the Tired Mammy Book Club on Instagram. This Year it Will be Different by Maeve Binchy was a short story collection with very little Christmas cheer and loads of Christmas misery. Catherine Walsh’s Holiday Romance was a fun, cosy, festive friends-to-lovers story full of Irish humour and wit that would make a good film. 

I re-read two books, Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney and Corpsing: My Body & Other Horror Shows by Sophie White. 

• Beautiful World, Where Are You was as much a delight on re-reading as it was the first time. 

• The essays in Corpsing will get under your skin in the way that only Sophie White’s writing can. Her writing is evocative, guttural, and unflinching. It’s one of the best essay collections I’ve read. 

I read 63 books, which surprised me, given the time I spent unable to concentrate due to Covid-19 related fatigue and brain fog. My reading is usually more evenly split between fiction and non-fiction, but non-fiction was more dominant last year. I’m looking forward to reading more novels.

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