I adore a young adult novel that is well written, well thought out and makes me think – Burned did all of that and more. This novel is written in free verse which, at first, can feel daunting, but is a refreshing way to have a story told. Communicated in first person we really get inside the protagonists head, we understand her motivations on an intimate level, we relate to her drive and her desperation. Pattyn’s story is not lost in verse, if anything it […]
Toxic
Louise O’Neill is an accomplished Young Adult writer with two award winning novels under her belt, Almost Love is her first foray in Adult fiction. ( Her third YA book; a feminist re-telling of the little mermaid – The Surface Breaks is due out in May 2018 ) Almost Love follows Sarah Fitzpatrick in both her past and present. Then: In a toxic and manipulative relationship with Matthew and now: In the present day, Sarah can be found mistreating her current boyfriend Oisín and longing […]
Dewey #813.08 Short Story Collections
Writing short stories takes a special kind of author, one who cam compress language to its densest form, one who can masterfully piece together a believable story arc in just a few pages – They need to be precise in their delivery and they need to capture the attention of their reader quickly. Single serving fiction, a short story, is the perfect for for our digital age. I first discovered my passion for short stories at University – In my first year I had a […]
To love, honor and obey. . .
Tayari Jones’ An American Marriage is at its heart an exploration of loyalty, of marriage and of love. Jones writes in such a sublime way it is hard not to get utterly lost in her world, to let her characters dictate when you eat, sleep and breathe. An American Marriage is the story of Celestial and Roy; the embodiment of an upwardly mobile couple, as the cover tells us, the American dream. The opening chapters of Jones’ narrative lay out the state of our protagonists […]
I confess I’m addicted to stationery. . .
I’ll start this post with a confession, I am guilty. 100% guilty. Guilty of being an absolute stationery addict – I geek out over a new color highlighter, a unused pristine notebook, when I discovered washi tape I thought my life was complete. . . but just don’t get me started on fountain pens, because I’ll never stop. I’m not sure where my fascination with stationery started, school lists perhaps? But now I guess I’m one of those who like to think that a new […]
The Wrong Girl?
Ellies Oneill’s The Right Girl reads like a fairly standard chick-lit novel, its frivilous, whimsical and a little fluffy. BUT, it has the most fascinating under current – it raises interesting questions about our digital identities and our relationship with privacy. Two years prior Freya, our protagonaist, was a waitress with little or no direction in life, no hope of a partner and no money in the bank. Freya then signed up for the lifestyle app BBest – designed to streamline her life. She surrendered […]
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