I seem to have fallen behind (given up) on book reviews on here. As with many things I do tend to go through phases with this blog. And then I find unpublished posts just sitting there, like this: The past few weeks has seen me take on two debut novels with girl in the title: Riley Sager's – Final Girls, and Emma Cline’s – The Girls. Sager's book is … [Read more...]
Booker Challenge 2016: Virginia Reeves – Work Like Any Other
“As a whole man – full up of his past and his choices and his actions – she wanted nothing to do with him” Virginia Reeves’ electrifying debut (pun intended) Work Like Any Other is one of those strangely seductive novels that at first glance you would not expect to find so engaging. The book's protagonist is Roscoe T. Martin. He lives on a farm with his wife Marie and … [Read more...]
Booker Challenge 2016: Paul Beatty – The Sellout
"That's the problem with history, we like to think it's a book – that we can turn the page and move the fuck on. But history isn't the paper it's printed on. It's memory, and memory is time, emotions, and song. History is the things that stay with you." Where to start with The Sellout. A satire on racism in America, and a story of one man's battle to put his home town back … [Read more...]
Booker Challenge 2016: Ottessa Moshfegh – Eileen
EILEEN Ottessa Moshfegh “In a week, I would run away from home and never go back. This is the story of how I disappeared.” The narrator, of Ottessa Moshfegh's book, the titular Eileen, is looking back on a pivotal week in her life. The specific period in question is the week running up to Christmas fifty years earlier (1964). Presented in day-long chapters, we slowly … [Read more...]
Booker Challenge 2016: Wyl Menmuir – The Many
The Many Wyl Menmuir Pub: Salt When Timothy Buchannan arrives in a small Cornish fishing village to do up an abandoned house for him and his wife Lauren to live in, it immediately upsets the equilibrium of the village. It forces the locals to think about the previous owner of the house - Perran, a man who had died ten years before. To the villagers, Perran had almost … [Read more...]