freddie's reviews
295 reviews

Vanessa was sexually abused by her teacher in her teenage years but she does not accept it as abuse because she believes she voluntarily contributed to that relationship. This novel highlights quite well the gap between how we see Vanessa's reality vs how she herself sees it. But I think the writing in this book is a bit monotonous and boring.

Majella's life as a 20-something chip shop employee living together with her alcoholic mother in a fictional small post-Troubles Northern Ireland town of Aghybogey is quite unremarkable, except that her grandmother has just recently been killed and everyone in town knows about it. We also learn that her father is missing, possibly related to his involvement in the conflicts during The Troubles. This novel excels in highlighting the awkwardness and tedium that Majella faces in her daily life.

This book leaves me deeply unsatisfied. It's about a series of experience related to queerness of an American teacher living in Bulgaria told in different vignettes. I find Bulgaria to be badly and lazily represented. The narrator claims that he has some sense of belonging in Bulgaria and yet he comes across as some foreigner who scoffs at Bulgaria's "backwardness" whenever possible. And then there's the gay angst aspect - I love gay angst books but, really, there's more "angst" than "gay" in here. I feel that it lacks surgical, nuanced descriptions of being gay (or part of the LGBTQ) in Bulgaria.

The novel's exposition is quite boring but the book gains momentum starting from the halfway point of the first chapter. As the story takes place during the time of the Spanish flu, reading this during the time of COVID feels weirdly apt. Julia, assigned to the Maternity/Fever ward, is a no-nonsense nurse but is actually quite caring. She also has a shell-shocked brother. Because of staff shortage at the hospital, she is assigned a poor orphan young woman to be her volunteer runner and she later works with a lady doctor who happens to be a political activist on the run from the police (actual historical figure Kathleen Lynn). The entire story feels like an inspiring / empowering sort of Hallmark movie (not a bad thing). I like how the ending further ties Julia symbolically to her brother.

The book starts okay, but gradually becomes more interesting as I get to know more about Eleanor and her past. I appreciate the depictions of mental health - particularly when it comes to her obsessive infatuation (we need more hero characters doing that, not just villains). Love the random darndest things that Eleanor blurts out too.

I like that this book highlights loneliness of human existence very well, and posits that part of that loneliness stems from our own failing in proper communication. It is bleak, which is also nice. The main characters are so caught up in their own illusion / perception that they fail to see what's missing. For me there's little change in character development and the characters feel relatively flat throughout.

A visceral book. The main characters are the different personalities that reside within the main "human" character Ada, who appears to have DID. The different personalities are interpreted as gods living within a human vessel - I find it really fun to read. Trauma, abuse, mental health issues - plenty of nasty stuff to unpack but they are all written sensibly.

While the book has interesting ideas about women's bodies and lives in a deeply patriarchal society, this novel reads more like a poem rather than a prose narrative. Characters feel amorphous and blend into one another. POVs jump erratically. There is no sense of what really happens, only the idea of something happening. This does not feel like a satisfying read.

2.5/5 Fred of lower-class background wins a large sum of money, feels he can do anything he wants, and he does the most sensible thing - abduct Miranda of upper-class background whom he has been obsessed with. What's lovely about this book: the dance of power and control between the captor and the captive and how it revolves heavily around the class differences of the two. What's less lovely: it's difficult to read this book without wanting to give Fred Cleggs some good smacking at each turn. Is it bad that I want to hit a fictional character in a book review?

This book starts out very strong, introducing Sascha, an angry teenager whose mother was killed by her abusive stepfather. So Sascha plans to kill him once he's out of prison. But then the story fizzles away with a series of implausible events. There's a major side plot that I think this book could do away with.