TOP 5 BOOKS I READ WHILE IN QUARANTINE

For the last 48 days, New Zealand has been in lockdown in order to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Like most Kiwis who found themselves abruptly homebound for the foreseeable future, on the first day of quarantine I set a lofty list of goals for myself to achieve; however, three days in, I fell into an acute depression and abandoned the list for less ambitious pursuits, such as rewatching Brooklyn Nine-Nine for the tenth time, lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling, and cutting my own bangs. The one productive thing I managed to accomplish is particularly on-brand for me: I read 23 books while in self-isolation, and I thought it would be fun to review the five that I enjoyed the most. 

5. A Good Neighbourhood by Therese Anne Fowler 

(TW: Sexual abuse, suicide) 

A Good Neighbourhood is a story about two families — the Alston-Holts and the Whitmans — who become neighbours when the Whitmans move to the tight-knit North Carolina suburb in which the Alston-Holts have lived all their lives. Brad Whitman, breadwinner of the Whitman clan, made a fortune by building an HVAC empire and cares little for the environmental impact made by the mansion he has built; Valerie Alston-Holt, a professor of forestry and ecology, is devastated when the magnificent oak tree in her backyard begins to die as its root structure is decimated by the construction next door. She files a lawsuit against Brad that sparks a vicious turf-war, the flames of which are fanned even further by the blossoming romance between Valerie’s son, Xavier, and Brad’s step-daughter, Juniper. 

I did not expect to be so captivated by this novel, and to be fair, the beginning was pretty slow, but it was worth persevering for the incredible last 20% of the book. When it comes to stories about racism, sexism, and classism, I’ve come to expect a certain message and formula that are repeated over and over again in books, so most novels that tackle these hot-topic issues fail to impress me as they’re telling me what I already know. A Good Neighbourhood broke the chain: it’s an excellent portrayal of racism and white/male privilege that managed to incense me so acutely that I had to put the book down multiple times in order to rein in my fury. I was particularly taken by the emphasis this book placed on the ways that the criminal justice system in the United States serves white interests while failing people of colour, notably black men. In the engrossing final act of the novel, a wrongful conviction takes place because a white man is feeling jealous and spiteful, and it was infuriating to witness the way white men get away with whatever they please due to gross racial bias in the criminal justice system. As reported by the NAACP, African Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of white people, while in 2009, 64% of juveniles prosecuted as adults were African American (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, 2020; Cooper, 2019). These shocking and vile statistics illustrate the message of racial injustice that A Good Neighbourhood depicts. This novel will make your blood boil, but in the best way: the way that makes you want to get out on the streets and make radical change. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants more insight into the racism and white privilege that remain pervasive in the criminal justice system to this day! (Gina Linetti voice: 🎵 raacism, raacism, raaaaciiiiismmmmm…. 🎵)

4. My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing 

Gone Girl meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith meets How To Get Away With Murder in My Lovely Wife, a chilling thriller about a husband and wife who begin kidnapping and murdering young women in order to spice up their increasingly boring marriage. Everything is going well and they have managed to get away with three murders — one premeditated, two unplanned — and are planning their fourth when our nameless protagonist realises that something is amiss, that his wife’s depravity may extend deeper than he knew, and that they may no longer be on quite the same page about how far they are willing to go — if they were even on the same page in the first place.

My Lovely Wife is edge-of-your-seat entertaining from the moment it begins. The ominous premise is undeniably intriguing, and the novel delivered accordingly on all accounts, producing a story so compulsive and compelling that I finished it in a single day. The main characters are completely psychopathic, experiencing little to no empathy for their victims or remorse for their actions unless there are unexpected consequences, and that’s what makes them so fascinating: I couldn’t help sympathising with the nameless protagonist despite his murderous tendencies. The details of the plot are exquisitely mapped out, and keep you guessing at every turn. You’ll be questioning who and what you can trust constantly and changing your mind every other page, because Downing’s detached main character is both a villain and a victim, forcing you to empathise with the kind of person you would normally abhor. I would love to give an academic analysis of this book as I did for the previous book on this list, but honestly, there’s nothing particularly academic to discuss. My Lovely Wife is pure, unapologetic entertainment that will have you gasping out loud at every plot twist and whispering, “Oh, that’s so fucked,” to yourself at every gruesome detail, and I delighted in every nasty minute of it. If you love thrillers like I do, this is a unique — and uniquely twisted — take on the genre that you will not be able to put down.  

3. Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane  

Ask Again, Yes is a slow-burning family drama about two families, the Gleesons and the Stanhopes, whose breadwinners, Francis and Brian respectively, are partners in the NYPD and who live next door to each other in upstate New York in the early 1980s. We follow three generations of the two families,  starting with the two rookie cops and ending with their grandchildren, but the story ultimately circles around Kate, Francis Gleeson’s youngest daughter, and Peter, Brian Stanhope’s only son, whose childhood friendship grows into a star-crossed romance after a violent tragedy sends the families spinning in opposite directions. 

The premise of Ask Again, Yes instantly reminded me of Celeste Ng, which is high praise: I will read anything that Celeste Ng writes. I loved that this book didn’t rely heavily on plot — although the plot that is present is breath-taking in its suspense and devastation — but instead focused on developing the characters and creating rich, complex lives and personalities for each of them. Despite the ensemble cast of multiple extended families, by the end of the novel, you feel as if you know everyone intimately, and you care about them and their relationships more than you reasonably should, considering that they are fictional. It’s great to be able to spend so many years with these characters, because they don’t feel like characters; they feel like real people whom you are watching change and grow and learn from their mistakes. Kate and Peter are the centrepiece of the novel, and the A-plot concentrates on the development of their relationship throughout the years and the ripple effect that the novel’s defining tragedy has on the rest of their lives; however, I felt a particular kinship with Peter’s mother, Anne, an Irish immigrant whose unstable emotional state is generally misunderstood throughout the majority of the book. She remains undiagnosed throughout the novel (although I suspect bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder), but her wild mood swings and erratic behaviour force an irreparable wedge between the two families that she struggles, in later years, to dig out. To me, Anne represents the novel’s major themes of forgiveness and acceptance. The inciting incident and ensuing tragedy are undeniably Anne’s fault, but as the years pass and time dulls the razor-edged memory, it becomes possible to forgive her crime and acknowledge that she isn’t the black-and-white villain she is perceived to be; she’s a troubled woman who wasn’t getting the help she needed. She cannot be completely exonerated of her transgression, but she can, eventually, be forgiven, and I loved that this novel gave us enough time to watch as time filed down the edges of traumatic childhood memories, allowing compassion to slowly seep in. If you’re interested in family dramas, or you’re hunting for novels that are along the lines of the inimitable Celeste Ng, Ask Again, Yes is not one to miss. 

2. Lock Every Door by Riley Sager 

In Lock Every Door, Jules Larsen can’t catch a break: she’s just broken up with her boyfriend, can’t get a job, and is feeling generally sorry for herself, when an opportunity too good to pass up falls into her lap: an ad promising $12,000 in return for three months apartment-sitting an enormous studio in the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan’s highest-profile and most enigmatic apartment building. The rules of the job seem harmless enough: no visitors, no nights spent away from the apartment, and no disturbing the Bartholomew’s other residents, all of whom are rich and extremely elusive. Jules eagerly accepts the offer, and when her downstairs neighbour, Ingrid, expresses concerns about the previous apartment sitter before Jules and says that the dark history and rumours surrounding the building are beginning to frighten her, Jules brushes her off as just another eccentric resident. The next day, however, Ingrid has disappeared without a trace, and Jules begins to suspect that Ingrid was onto something, and everything at the Bartholomew really is not as it seems. 

Lock Every Door was a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. I read it all in one day and was completely ensnared by its riveting plot and suspenseful mystery — and seriously, the suspense was unbearable in the best possible way. The anxiety and dread that I experienced while reading were painful, and at times I was so on edge that unexpected noises in my bedroom would startle me. We know from page one that something is horribly wrong —  the prologue begins with Jules waking up in a hospital and begging not to be sent back to the Bartholomew — but we don’t learn exactly what terrible things are taking place for another 300 pages, and are left to speculate and hypothesise as Sager slowly lets details slip, without ever revealing enough for you to figure out the truth until he’s ready for you to learn it. The details of the mystery were dished out at a tantalising pace that kept you both well-fed but still needing more, and they were clever enough that I was able to pick up on them without knowing how or why they fit into the story. And yet considering what ended up happening in the final act, I didn’t find this book melodramatic at all. Frightening, yes; a little bit unhinged, absolutely, but melodrama was never present; indeed the climax, while certainly out of left field, had the perfect tone considering the preceding suspense, and was incredibly original, too — I’ve never read anything that compares to the wonderfully weird plot twist at the end of this book. Overall, Lock Every Door was an immensely satisfying read: I was spooked but not too scared to sleep, I was intrigued but not completely lost, and the ending wraps everything up nicely instead of leaving loose ends for me to tie up myself, which I much prefer to open endings. I can’t speak more highly of this book, and it’s a close contender for the best book I read while in quarantine. It has a fantastic mystery, a compellingly spooky and Gothic atmosphere, and an ending so imaginative that I cannot stop thinking about it. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a thriller with a strong mystery element, as well as everyone who loves haunted house stories: the Bartholomew may not be literally haunted, but its dark history is haunting as hell. 

1. The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter (TW: Rape)

The Good Daughter is a crime fiction thriller about two sisters, Sam and Charlie Quinn, whose childhood is violently blown apart by a terrifying attack on their family home in Pikeville, Georgia. Their father, Rusty, is a defense attorney whose notoriety as the man who will defend anybody no matter their crime makes him the subject of many targeted attacks, the worst of which is the novel’s inciting incident and leaves his wife murdered, his eldest daughter crippled, and his youngest daughter emotionally scarred. Twenty-eight years later, Charlie has followed in Rusty’s footsteps and become a lawyer herself. When she finds herself in the middle of a school shooting, she becomes the prime witness in a court case that reminds her painfully of her tragic past, and old leads come unburied as she investigates what would motivate a naive teenage girl to commit cold-blooded murder in a middle school hallway.  

God, I loved this book. Like the other two thrillers on this list, it’s completely gripping from the opening line, but in a different way to nasty My Lovely Wife or suspenseful Lock Every Door. The Good Daughter is not in a rush to reach its climax, but nor is it meandering: it sets a steady pace that is maintained throughout the novel and sets the perfect tone for the kind of story that unfolds. Despite the brutality that takes place, nothing is sensationalised; in fact, you could tell me that this book is true-crime non-fiction and I wouldn’t be that surprised. Yet despite the professional detachment with which the violence is viewed, this book still has so much heart, and makes you feel intensely for each character. Similar to Ask Again, Yes, this book asks us to consider scenarios from multiple points of view and empathise with people whom we would normally regard with utter contempt. An impressionable teen girl who brings a gun to school, a defense attorney who has helped some disreputable men go free because he believes everyone believes to be represented in the courtroom, a man who committed murder against his better judgment; perhaps these crimes cannot be forgiven (and in some cases, they most definitely should not be forgiven), but it is important to set our emotions aside and fight to find the truth. Additionally, Sam and Charlie Quinn are fascinating women with whom I loved spending time, and their troubled dynamic felt truly authentic considering their nightmarish adolescence. Both women screw up and regularly make questionable decisions that they later come to regret, but ultimately, they’re fighting for what they think is right and what they can justify doing, just like their father, and it’s their fallibility and humanity that make them so compelling to read. Crime fiction with female lead characters who both kick ass in the courtroom is quite possibly my new favourite genre in thrillers, and Karin Slaughter (and her amazingly apt surname) has quickly become an author from whom I will read anything. If you enjoy legal thrillers, I cannot stress how fantastic The Good Daughter is, and highly recommend that you read it. 

Thank you for reading. Kia kaha x

WORKS CITED

• Cooper, K. J. (2019, March 12). Despite law on racial disparities, black teens are overly tried as adults. Retrieved from https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/despite-law-racial-disparities-black-teens-are-overly-tried-adults#stream/0.  
• National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. (2020). Criminal Justice Fact Sheet. Retrieved from https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/.  

FIFTY SHADES DARKER by E. L. James (2012)

“I will be nothing without him, nothing but a shadow — all the light eclipsed." — Anastasia Steele

“‘I’ve lived in a bubble for years with nothing affecting me and not having to justify myself to anyone’.” — Christian Grey

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Last October, I read Fifty Shades Darker, a spectacle I have been anticipating since I picked it up in a secondhand bookstore and read the hilarious opening line: “I have survived Day Three Post-Christian” (James, 2012, p.5). Resuming where Fifty Shades of Grey left off, the second novel in the inexplicably best-selling trilogy sees our unlikely heroes, Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, rekindling their relationship and navigating the uncharted territory of vanilla sex. I thought that this sequel might make minor improvements to the quality of the writing and the storytelling that we’d seen so far, but alas: Fifty Shades Darker is just as bad as Fifty Shades of Grey, and I’m excited to explain why. 

The biggest change this book makes to the Fifty Shades world is Christian and Ana’s departure from BDSM, a controversial move considering the BDSM element is what made the series so infamous. The end of book one shows Christian unleashing the full extent of his “kinky fuckery” on Ana, after which she decides she will never be able to satiate his needs and breaks up with him. In Fifty Shades Darker, Ana and Christian realise they cannot live without each other and agree to resume their relationship on the condition that Christian revokes BDSM. This is the beginning of what deteriorates into an even more toxic relationship than what we witnessed in Fifty Shades of Grey; on top of reforming Christian’s sexual preferences, Ana also endeavours to discover why Christian is “fifty shades of fucked up”. Book one touches on the reason for Christian’s participation in BDSM: he was molested as a teenager, so “in order to regain the control he relinquished [...] Christian uses his money, charm, and dashing good looks to coerce hapless women into becoming his own submissives” (Tribble, 2018). In Fifty Shades Darker, we learn that Christian was also abused as a child by his mother’s boyfriend. This cocktail is the provided justification for Christian’s psychopathic behaviour, and to the rational reader, it is clear that he requires extensive therapy (and potentially medical incarceration). Ana, however, believes she can fix him, an opinion supported by Christian’s therapist, Dr. Flynn, who tells Ana that in the limited time she has known Christian, she has made more progress than Dr. Flynn has in the last two years. It is incredible to me that Dr. Flynn has managed to keep his job for so long if an unqualified 21-year-old can achieve more in two months than he can in two years, but more to the point: it troubles me that Ana supposedly possesses the capability to fix Christian when his damage clearly extends far deeper than Ana’s level of psychotherapeutic expertise should be able to dig. Perhaps the evidence indicates success, but Ana is not receiving anything legitimate in return for what she is investing emotionally. We’re meant to interpret this book as a turning of the tables as Ana claims more control in the relationship, but in reality, Christian continues to manipulate her, dropping BDSM out of the equation but maintaining the rest of his psychopathic behaviours.

Christian reaches a new level of controlling in Fifty Shades Darker. In chapter one alone, Christian gives Ana three days to recover from their breakup before returning to harass her by delivering a bouquet of roses to her home, following up with an email to make sure she received this generous gift — “How did he get my email address?”, Ana wonders idly, as if this isn’t terrifying (James, 2012, p.8). In the same email, Christian manipulates Ana into accepting a lift to her friend José’s photography exhibit; upon arriving to collect her, the first thing out of Christian’s mouth is “When did you last eat?”, followed closely by a sensual comment about ‘keeping her in her place’ as he buckles her seatbelt for her and a derisive criticism of her decision to wear high heels to a formal event (ibid, p.13). At the exhibit, he buys every portrait of Ana so that no one else will be able “[ogle her] in the privacy of their home”, before insisting that they leave the exhibit after only 30 minutes so he can have her to himself (ibid, p.24). And you think that’s bad? Christian outdoes himself in chapter three: upon realising that Ana’s boss, Jack Hyde, is interested in her, Christian buys the company for which they work to keep tabs on him after specifically promising not to interfere in Ana’s career, telling her that even if she decides to leave the company, he will buy the next company too! Although Ana is initially furious, she eventually concludes that massive invasions of privacy are just the way that Christian shows love. That, and transferring $24,000 into her bank account — “‘How do you know my account number?’”, she asks, to which Christian creepily replies, “‘I know everything about you, Anastasia’” (ibid, p.89). 

The word “love” is a frequent substitute for more apt descriptions, such as “lust, [...] need, pity, and validation” (Dominic Noble, 2018). Ana claims to love Christian, but her love primarily manifests as gratitude that a man as sexy as Christian finds her attractive: “This man — God’s gift to women — loves me” (James, 2012, p.205). She leaves him not because his violent sexual tendencies are too much, but because she thinks her fear of physical pain is unreasonable. When Christian promises to give up BDSM on her behalf, Ana bemoans her inability to conform to his needs, both to Christian — “you’re prepared to do all this for me. I’m the one who is undeserving, and I’m just sorry that I can’t do all those things for you” — and to Dr. Flynn — “‘I just don’t know if I’m enough. To fulfil his needs’” (ibid, p.37, 411). In contrast, the affirmations Christian affords Ana are “exclusively in relation to himself: ‘you make me feel like I don’t need the anger anymore, you make me want to live a normal life’” (Dominic Noble, 2018). Their relationship revolves around Fixing Christian, and Ana derives the majority of her self-worth from the success she has in this endeavour. Yet this success is not enough: Ana still requires constant reassurance that she is good for, and good enough for, Christian. Perhaps the most profound quote in this book reverberates unintentionally throughout the story: after unloading her worries of inadequacy on Dr. Flynn, the doctor responds, “Is that what you need from me? Reassurance?”, a question that neatly sums up the nature of Ana’s relationship with Christian: she depends not on his love, but on the affirmation of the fact that she is loveable (James, 2012, p.411). 

Fifty Shades Darker ends on a happy note: the deluded couple are engaged after a whirlwind two-month courtship during which they both readily confess to hardly knowing each other, with Ana rapturously announcing that they “have so far to go, but [they] are made for each other. [They] are meant to be” (ibid, p.531). Where do the happy couple go from here? Presumably childbirth, given that this is a ripoff of the Twilight saga and that’s what happens in Breaking Dawn, but I’ll have to wait until I read Fifty Shades Freed to know for sure. Jack Hyde is looming ominously in the background, and I am supremely unexcited to see what crazy shit he gets up to after Christian fires him. All in all, Fifty Shades Darker was just as poorly written and alarmingly abusive as its predecessor, and I can’t wait for the third and final book in this God-awful series to be exactly as fucking horrible.

WORKS CITED

• Dominic Noble. (2018, February 23). Fifty Slightly Darker Shades of Physical and Emotional Abuse, a book review by The Dom [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIADkp-eL_4.  
• James, E. L. (2012). Fifty Shades Darker. London, Great Britain: Arrow Books.
• Tribble, S. (2018, May 3). Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James (2012). Retrieved from https://thesepapertowns.blogspot.com/2018/05/fifty-shades-of-grey-by-el-james-2012.html

FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2019

In 2019, I read a total of 100 books. Some of them were good; some of them were bad. One of them was Fifty Shades Darker, which was terrible (full review to come). Most of them, however, elicited nothing more than a ‘meh’ from me. They weren’t awful, but they weren’t awesome, either: they were middling, unmemorable, unobtrusive and unimpressive. I tallied up all the ratings I gave this year, and 41 of the books I read in 2019 received only 3 stars; that means that nearly half of the books I read were average at best. This was a pretty depressing proportion when it came to drafting up my list of favourites for this year’s blog post, but I think I’ve pulled together a list that accurately represents the authors and the styles that consistently work for me, which will hopefully help me finetune my next decade of reading. Without further ado, here are my favourite books that I read in 2019. 

8.  Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

I don’t think I can make a favourites list for 2019 without at least mentioning Wayward Son. This book was probably one of my most anticipated releases of all time (Harry Potter notwithstanding) owing to the fact that Fangirl and Carry On, its counterpart and predecessor respectively, are two of my all-time favourite books. Carry On is a fantasy novel about a young mage named Simon Snow and his arch-nemesis, Tyrannus “Baz” Basilton Grimm-Pitch, in their final year at Watford School of Magicks. Wayward Son is the long-awaited sequel about what happens to the hero after he’s finished saving the world. Simon is in a depressive funk after losing both his magic and his purpose, so his boyfriend and best friend, Baz and Penelope, decide to take him on a road trip through the American West. He needs a change of scenery, they declare; but what they don’t anticipate is that a change of scenery is the least they’re going to encounter. 

Although this book wasn’t perfect, Simon and Baz hold such a special place in my heart that I had no choice but to include it on this list. It was so fun and exciting to spend more time with these characters and in this world, but I did miss Watford an awful lot; part of what I love so dearly about Carry On is the world of Watford, particularly the integration of Rowell’s unique magic system into the story. We still got that magic outside of Watford, but I was feeling rather reminiscent for the Watfordian context while reading, and I’m glad that it seems like we’ll be returning to Watford in book three (although the cliffhanger ending was a real son of a bitch). Of course, Simon and Baz were the aspect of the book I was most looking forward too, but I have mixed feelings about it. Is it possible to both love and hate something simultaneously? Because I both love and hate the tension in Simon and Baz’s relationship. I’m a hopeless romantic. We did the angst thing in Carry On; now that they’re together, I was looking forward to some happy boyfriend behaviour, and Rainbow Rowell did NOT deliver. Their relationship is really on the rocks, and it stressed me the hell out. Overall, I don’t think this book is as strong or as charming as Carry On,  but it was still really enjoyable, and I loved getting to spend time with Simon and Baz again. Rainbow Rowell has a knack for characters and character work that makes you feel all warm and cozy on the inside, and I am gagging to get my hands on book three and enjoy even more Simon and Baz. 

7. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

The problem I have with Leigh Bardugo is that although I have read six of her eight full-length novels, I only enjoyed two of them — but the two I enjoyed were my favourite books of last year. Happily, Ninth House was a similarly rousing success. The novel’s protagonist is Alex Stern, a young woman who has been offered a full ride to Yale, on the condition that she joins a group named Lethe, which is tasked with monitoring the occult activities of Yale’s secret societies. Laced with magic and supernatural intrigue, the story takes a dark turn when a young woman is murdered on campus — and Alex suspects that the societies are involved. 

I heard mixed reviews of Ninth House before going into it. I heard that it was underwhelming, that it was excessively graphic and violent, that it was disturbing, horrifying, and disgusting — so I wasn’t expecting to actually kind of love it. One of my favourite things about this book is how feminist it is, without presenting itself as an actively-feminist book. Not that there’s anything wrong with actively-feminist literature, but I think the subtlety Bardugo employed in Ninth House worked well with the dark, broody tone of the novel, allowing the paranormal/supernatural elements of the story to control the narrative. I also really enjoyed the characters, especially the protagonist, Alex. Many of the unflattering reviews of this book complain that Darlington, one of the side characters, carried the weight of the story, which I find confusing; am I the only person who noticed how interesting and complex Alex is? Her backstory is fascinating and unfolds excruciatingly but tantalisingly slowly throughout the novel, her relationships with the other characters ring with truth and authenticity, and her general demeanour and attitude were a great combination of badass and absolutely, utterly normal. She’s got badass energy, but she also feels realistically human and fallible, which makes her easy to connect with and like. Now, I think it’s important to mention that Ninth House will definitely not be for everyone — to be honest, I was extremely surprised that I ended up enjoying it as much as I did, because it is a very dark and fucked-up book. If you are considering reading it, do proceed with caution and make sure to check out the content/trigger warnings which can be found on Goodreads; this definitely isn’t a book for the faint of heart. That being said, Ninth House was a great book that I am stoked to have enjoyed as much as I did, and I can’t wait to read book two. 

6. Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the year was the fact that I enjoyed Call Down the Hawk as much as I did. In 2018, Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle was high on my list of favourites of the year, but one of the few criticisms I did have was that Ronan and his dream sequences were my least favourite aspect of the series. Naturally, when Stiefvater announced a second series about these characters and set in this world, I was thrilled — until I learned that Ronan and his dream sequences were going to be the centre around which this new series revolved. Still, I have great faith in Maggie, so I decided to give Call Down the Hawk a chance, and hot damn, am I glad that I did. It’s hard to give a synopsis of this book, but it mainly follows Ronan Lynch, a vicious young man with the ability to bring objects out of his dreams; Hennessey, another dreamer whose dreams are being plagued by a dark, evil entity that is slowly killing her, dream by precious dream; Jordan, a talented art forger and one of the many copies of herself that Hennessey has brought back from her dreams; and Carmen Farooq-Lane, who has joined an organisation that is hunting and killing dreamers in order to prevent the end of the world. 

I really enjoyed this book, and I am hugely surprised by this fact. In The Raven Cycle, I found Ronan abrasive and unlikeable, but now that he’s dating Adam, my heart does not have enough room for the amount of love I feel for him. Having a boyfriend hasn’t made Ronan any less sharp-edged in terms of his exterior attitude, but for me, it softened his edges a bit, made him more endearing and empathetic, easier to connect to and love. Ronan and Adam are so cute together, and I’m really hoping to see lots more of their relationship in future books, because it made me really happy. (Also, Adam got into Harvard?! I’m so proud of my son!) The plot of this book is also really great, although ‘plot’ maybe too strong a word; certainly the novel had a narrative, but it was so much more focused on developing old characters and introducing new ones that I often lost track of where the plot was going. Fortunately, the character development was so good that the novel’s slight plotless-ness didn’t bother me at all. Spending more time with Ronan’s brothers, Declan and Matthew, was a treat that also ended up pushing the story forward in fascinating and completely unexpected directions, and Hennessey and Jordan were an unexpectedly enjoyable addition to the world. I missed Gansey and Blue, and was disappointed (although not surprised) that we didn’t get to spend much time with Adam, but overall, I was impressed to find that Ronan doesn’t need his raven boys to tell an interesting and emotionally rewarding story; he can do it all on his own. 

5. Dig by A. S. King [full review]

I’ve already reviewed Dig in full, so I’ll keep this summary short. It’s a hard book to synopsise, but essentially, it’s about an extended family in Pennsylvania whose matriarch, Marla Hemmings, refuses to share any of the money in her and her husband’s seven-figure bank account so that her children and grandchildren will learn to thrive on their own. That’s the basis of the plot, but there’s so much more that the book is about: it’s about racism, about family, about selfishness and greed, but more than that, it’s about surviving by any means necessary. It’s certainly one of King’s most abstract novels to date, but this by no means made it worse than her other published works; in fact, it simply made it all the more fascinating. 

To be frank, Dig is weird. It’s weird and strange and confusing and not always especially coherent, but that’s the A. S. King trademark, and it’s the thing I have loved about all of her novels so far, Dig included. This book is fantastic, beautifully written and completely impossible to understand. I had no idea what was going on the whole time, but I also understood it intimately and innately, as if the meaning was being pulled straight out of my subconscious, but the part of my subconscious that only makes sense in a dream. When I’m trying to guess what A. S. King books ‘mean’, I never feel like I’m getting it right. But that’s what makes her books so special: they are so open to interpretation. The author’s influence doesn’t dominate the meaning of the book, so although I know that King’s young adult writing won’t be for everyone, I do also think that it’s flexible in terms of who can enjoy it and what they can take away from it. One criticism I do have is that I found it hard to connect with any of the characters, partly because the page-time was divided between so many of them, and partly because they sometimes became so lost in metaphor that it became difficult to reconcile them as a person as opposed to an abstract idea. Still, in my eyes, King can do no wrong, and if you’re a fan of magical realism or books that don’t make reading an easy time, I would highly recommend that you give Dig a try.  

4. The Year We Fell From Space by Amy Sarig King

The fact that A. S. King has made this list twice (albeit under a different version of her name) is no surprise: she’s such a talent that she deserves to take up two spots. The Year We Fell From Space is the first of King’s middle grade novels that I have read, and I love it dearly. It’s about a young girl named Liberty whose parents are getting a divorce, and what takes place in the year that follows their decision to separate. It’s a really sweet and comprehensible story about divorce and mental health, and I think it has value for both its target audience and older readers, too. 

The Year We Fell From Space is definitely King’s most coherent book, which makes sense, since it’s middle grade. I’ve never read an A. S. King book with a plot that was so easy to understand — that is, a plot that doesn’t rely heavily on magical realism — and it was so enjoyable to be able to understand this book without having to do heaps of legwork to make sense of it. I also think that this is a really important read, and that it’s going to help a lot of kids who are going through a divorce or who are starting to learn about mental health for the first time, whether because they are having problems or because someone they love is struggling. I’ve never read, or really even heard of, a book for young readers about depression, and I think this one is going to be a valuable resource for many people. The detailed information that King provides about the hereditary nature of depression, the different types of depression (e.g. chronic vs situational), and the symptoms of depression are all given in a comprehensive and empathetic way; no child who reads this book is going to feel ashamed of the fact that they may suffer from this mental illness. I also really love the characters, especially Liberty, her little sister Gilly, and their mother. Liberty is a lovely main character with whom it was a joy to spend time. Gilly is so sweet and charming and funny, and their mum is such a badass — I really admired her repertoire of outdoor skills and knowledge. Overall, this book was a smashing success; unsurprisingly, King has written another spectacular novel that tackles difficult issues in a unique and interesting way. This is easily one of my favourite books she’s ever written.  

3. Nevermoor and Wundersmith by Jessica Townsend

This is technically two books, but I am reviewing them together. Harry Potter meets The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in the Nevermoor series, Jessica Townsend’s gloriously inventive debut about a young girl named Morrigan Crow who is whisked away from her loveless home into the new and fantastical world of Nevermoor. In Nevermoor, Morrigan must compete in a series of difficult trials in order to earn entrance into the elite Wundrous Society. Think the Triwizard Tournament, but less deadly (but with about the same number of dragons). In Wundersmith, she begins her first year as a member of the Society and begins the process of understanding her unique and dangerous talent: the ability to accumulate and control Wunder (which is kind of like an energy source, or something? I don’t really get it, but I like it nonetheless). 

I have literally no criticisms of this series. It’s fresh, it’s fun, it’s fast-paced, and it has the Harry Potter-ish charm of being enjoyable for both its target demographic and those who outgrew said demographic over a decade ago. One of my favourite aspects of this book is that the characters are so vibrant and vividly rendered. When it comes to quirky characters, I’m more than a little fussy; if the quirkiness is too forced, I immediately disengage, but the eccentricity of the characters in the Nevermoor series is done just right. Each personality is distinct, unique, and utterly weird, and every character is unforgettable, from their outlandish names to their oddball idiosyncrasies and characteristics. Another thing I thoroughly enjoyed is the world. Debut fantasy novels fall under significant pressure to establish the setting and the context in which the story takes place, including establishing the general time period of the story and how much technology the people have. Nevermoor, I feel, does a marvelous job of this, bringing to life an exciting, coloursal, whimsical, steampunk-ish world, somewhat Victorian in terms of time period but without the stuffiness attributed to other Victorian writing. The reader is provided a clear image of what the world is supposed to look like and how the characters operate within it. Overall, Nevermoor was an astonishingly entertaining debut novel, and Wundersmith was an equally fantastic sequel. I can go either way on enjoying middle grade that I didn’t first read as a middle grader myself, but Nevermoor and Wundersmith were a definite success.

2. Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

Again, this is technically two books that I am reviewing together. As an English degree graduate, I feel somewhat of an obligation to elect deep, thought-provoking literary fiction to the top spots on these yearly lists, but then I read books like Heartstopper, and my conviction goes completely out the window. Heartstopper is Alice Oseman’s ongoing webcomic which has been adapted into two graphic novels so far, with the third due for release in February next year. It follows Charlie Spring and Nick Nelson, two boys who meet at their all-boys high school and slowly fall in love. It is EXTREMELY CUTE and made me EXTREMELY HAPPY. The art style is adorable, the characters are unbelievably endearing, and overall, I am completely and utterly obsessed.

When I started reading volume 1 of Heartstopper, I was expecting to enjoy it, but I usually struggle to connect with graphic novels because they’re so short and quick that it feels like I don’t have time to get invested. Therefore, I was surprised to find myself falling head over heels for Nick and Charlie and devouring their story like it was my first full meal in weeks. The thing about Heartstopper is that the best thing about it is how absolutely adorable it is. This series is so precious. The art style is a huge contributor to that; yes, the romance between Nick and Charlie is incredibly moving and sweet, but the art styles really enhances the cuteness of the thing. The way that this series stole my heart snuck up on me. One minute I was enjoying it, having a good time squealing over how cute it is, and then suddenly, overnight, I was completely in love and had to get my hands on my own copy pronto. Hearttstopper is unbelievably charming and sweet. It’s a simple story, which is why it’s so amazing that it managed to endear itself to me so completely; it’s a cut-and-dry love story, but there’s something about it that tugs at your heartstrings in a really special way. A book doesn’t have to be extremely complex in order for you to engage/connect with it; sometimes, a beautiful love story between two loveable characters is all that is needed to capture your readers’ hearts and send them tumbling, head over heels, in love. 

1. Educated by Tara Westover [full review]

I read this book in February, and knew the moment I finished it that no other book I read this year was going to be able to top it. This incredible memoir is one of the most engrossing books I have ever read. It’s the story of Tara Westover, a young woman who grew up in a Mormon survivalist family and whose unconventional upbringing is the subject of her powerful and moving memoir that I have recommended to countless friends, family, and customers in the last year. As I wrote in my full review, Educated is more than just a memoir; it is a deeply self-exploratory piece of writing, and its author is an extraordinary woman whose empathy and introspection add a compellingly personable level to her already fascinating story. 

I think the most remarkable thing about Educated, and the thing that struck me the most, was the fact that Westover wasn’t just recounting her story; she clearly used the process of writing this memoir to analyse and accept the circumstances of her childhood, to find clarity and closure in her trauma. From receiving a non-committal homeschool education until she was 17 years old to receiving an MPhil and a PhD in intellectual history from Cambridge and Harvard respectively, Westover goes on a powerful journey both literally as she describes the events of her life, and intellectually/spiritually as she enters the wider world and discovers that her family’s radical interpretation of Mormonism is a far cry from the actual doctrine of the religion. She writes beautifully and poetically, with incredible discipline and an absorbing grasp of metaphor and descriptive language, about the extreme conditions of her childhood and the great deal of suffering she underwent in order to emancipate herself from her family’s stranglehold on her ideology and develop her own voice and sense of self. I would truly recommend this memoir to anyone with even a mild amount of interest: I promise that you will not be disappointed by this moving and engrossing book. 

Sorry this is so late! x