For the Kindle books I bought this month, I started out with So Luck by Dawn O'Porter. I've been after getting my hands on this for a while, but I don't buy hardbacks anymore and I was going to buy it in paperback, but then it was on offer for 99p on Kindle throughout August! I also bought Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon, which, again, I've been after for a while now. I also picked up Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney - I've got Normal People but I haven't read it yet, but I figured I'd pick this one up to go along with it.
Then I picked up the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith (which consists of The Cuckoo's Calling, The Silkworm, Career of Evil & Lethal White). Now, I'm really torn about this, because it wasn't until after I'd bought them and started reading them that I realised that Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling who I find very questionable as a human being and is not someone I aspire to support. I hate the fact that I'm enjoying The Cuckoo's Calling so much. I'm trying to focus on the characters and the plot rather than letting the author sway my judgement BUT I don't think I would have picked this series up had I known it was Rowling behind them.
Then, to keep in the theme of what's going on in the world, I picked up Lockdown by Peter May. I also picked up The Familiars by Stacey Halls which I used to see quite a lot of on bookstagram. The last two Kindle books I picked up were Ten Little Words by Leah Mercer and Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones. Both of these just sold me on the blurb alone and I'm excited to give them a go.
Onto the physical books now, and I picked up City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert which, honestly, I haven't heard too many great things about, but we shall see! Then, because this book is literally everywhere and has gathered quite the cult following, I picked up Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.
Now, I know I said I don't buy hardbacks anymore, but I did pick up The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy which might just be the most beautiful book I own. The illustrations are stunning and this is probably the book I've been most excited to have in my collection in a long time.
And finally, I took a trip into Waterstones for the first time in six months (?!?!?!?!?) and picked up three books that caught my eye. They are Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce, The Catch by T.M. Logan and In the Full Light of the Sun by Clare Clark.
And that's all the books I picked up this month! This has got to be the most books I've bought in a single month in a very long time, but I'm excited for each and every one!
I got a new Kindle! My old Kindle was about 8 years old and on its last legs. It served me very well and brought me many books of pleasure, but it started to not hold its battery very well and the touch sensor wasn't as great as it once was, so my husband surprised me with a new one which I am incredibly grateful for. He got me the 10th generation Kindle Paperwhite in the sage green colour (which is my favourite colour!) along with the matching case. I absolutely love it and it's currently all I use as I'm so obsessed with it!
Getting my health kick back. I have struggled with my weight since I was about seventeen. I gained a lot of weight and then lost it, then I had a baby and never really lost the baby weight. That was almost three years ago now and I woke up early one day at the beginning of this month and something in me just said today is the day we start loosing weight. I live right next to a river and so I've been going on daily "powerwalks" around the river - nothing major, just a 30 minute speed walk on my lunchbreak and I've been absolutely loving it. I've also cut out treats and unhealthy food on weekdays and instead have a little treat on a weekend. So far I've lost around 10lbs this month and I really feel like this time I'm doing it for good. I'm not excessively dieting (I hate that word), I'm simply just making better food choices on a daily basis and it's been so good not only for my physical health but for my mental health as well!
Starting my Christmas shopping! Sorry to everyone who hates to use the C word before December, but I'm the type of person who like to have my Christmas shopping done before November! My daughter's birthday is at the end of November, so a lot of the toys I've bought will be split between her birthday and Christmas, but I've also started buying for my parents and my Nanna too. If it gets to October and I haven't started Christmas shopping, I genuinely start to worry, so the sooner I start, the better!
Author: Millie Johnson
Pages: 464
Publisher: Pocket
Publication date: 1st January 2007
Genre: fiction
Trigger warnings; sexual abuse, emotional spousal abuse, assisted suicide, incest.
About the book
Three South Yorkshire friends, all on the cusp of 40, fall pregnant at the same time following a visit to an ancient fertility symbol.
For Helen, it's a dream come true, although her husband is not as thrilled about it as she had hoped. Not only wrestling with painful ghosts of the past, Helen has to deal with the fact that her outwardly perfect marriage is crumbling before her eyes.
For Janey, it is an unmitigated disaster as she has just been offered the career break of a life-time. And she has no idea either how it could possibly have happened, seeing as she and her ecstatic husband George were always so careful over contraception.
For Elizabeth, it is mind-numbing, because she knows people like her shouldn't have children. Damaged by her dysfunctional childhood and emotionally lost, she not only has to contend with carrying a child she doubts she can ever love, but she also has to deal with the return to her life of a man whose love she must deny herself.
Review
I've got this thing in which if I own all of an author's books, then I need to start off reading their first ever published book, kinda to see where it all began. I guess my brain thinks that if there's any place to pick up an author's book, the beginning is a logical place to start, so this is exactly what I did with The Yorkshire Pudding Club by Millie Johnson. I've got every single one of her books sitting on my shelves but until now, I haven't delved too much into them. I did the exact same thing with Jane Fallon's books as well as Carole Matthews.
To begin with, this book was first published in 2007, which makes it 13 years old and therefore runs the risk of feeling outdated, however, I found this wasn't the case at all and it read like it would if it were published only a few years ago. I even found the bits about pregnancy still extremely relevant and I guess not much has changed in terms of medical side of pregnancy - as someone who has had a baby only a few years ago, I found myself reading about these women and their experiences very relatable and not at all outdated or old. I guess that could be a downside of this book though; it's only really interesting if you have been, currently are, or are wanting to be pregnant.
What I really appreciated about this book more than anything else, is that it shows the not-so-glamourous side of pregnancy, and I don't just mean the physical side effects of morning sickness and fatigue. This is a book that explores the mental and emotional side of pregnancy; Elizabeth is not sure she is ready to be a mother and is scared she might not love her baby. Janey is a career-driven woman and is struggling to come to terms with the fact that it's a possibility she might not now have that option, and Helen, who has always wanted a baby, is in a very unhappy marriage that is portrayed to the rest of the world as perfect. I really welcomed this premise as it's fair to say that I myself did not have a great experience with pregnancy, both mentally and physically, and I wish it was something more people would talk about, but that's a whole other discussion.
The book was a little slow at first in establishing all three women and their situations but in hindsight, it meant that I cared more about these characters and I wanted happy endings for all of them. I think all three women were really well developed and each had their own distinct personality. I've heard a few people say they struggled to get to grips with these characters because they were all a bit 'same-y' but personally I didn't have a problem with that. Yes, all three women are pregnant and therefore going through the same thing at the same time, but all three are different enough in themselves so that I didn't get confused with who's who. It's a testament to Johnson; I imagine writing about three characters who are all of a similar age and going through a huge lifestyle change at the same time and yet still managing to give them their own distinct personality must not be an easy task, but she pulled it off perfectly.
There are also some huge subject matters thrown in this book, which you can probably guess from the trigger warnings. This book was nowhere near as fluffy and light as I thought it would be. Compared to a lot of the other women's fiction (is that what we're calling it now?) this one is much deeper and tackles a lot of difficult subjects. I don't want to spoil anything, but I think Elizabeth's story is the one that was written and executed the best. Elizabeth's story is one that came full circle for me, and so was Helen's looking back, however, there was a lot of loose ends that just weren't tied up in this book, and whilst it doesn't matter too much, I still would have liked to have had that closure.
There is also a lot of Yorkshire slang in this book and I've heard a lot of people say they had to stop and look up what certain words meant. I'm not too far outside of Yorkshire/Leeds/Barnsley where this book is set, so I was familiar with some of them, but even I had to look up some of the dialect used in this book, which is fine and didn't interfere with my enjoyment of this book at all, but I imagine if your outside of this area, or even outside of the UK, you might have to stop and look up certain words a lot more than I did as there is a lot of them.
I really enjoyed this book and like I mentioned above, it wasn't overly fluffy which I actually prefer and appreciate. For a book that's nearly 14 years old, it's still very relevant and at times funny and at other times it's heartbreaking. I loved Johnson's writing style; it was captivating and left me wanting to read more. Her character development is spot on and I will definitely be picking up more of her books in the not too distant future.
Verdict: ★★★
Toffee by Sarah Crossan
Ever since I read Clap When You Land, I've been wanting to read more books written in verse and this one has been sat on my shelf for a while now!
The story follows Allison who has run away from home and ends up hiding out in the shed of what she believes to be an abandoned house. The house, however, isn't empty and belongs to an elderly woman named Marla who is suffering with dementia. Marla mistakes Allison for an old friend from her past called Toffee, but as their bond grows and Allison discoveres just how much Marla needs a real friend, she begins to question herself and ask herself - where is home? And what is a family?
This sounds like a beautiful, character-driven story that I will most probably cry at. I've heard nothing but amazing things about this book and I can't wait to pick it up and give it a go.
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
I recently read Clap When You Land by Acevedo and really enjoyed it and I've had With the Fire on High sat on my bookshelf for ages now and I really want to pick it up sooner rather than later.
This follows a 17-year old girl called Emoni, who, ever since she fell pregnant, has had to make tough decisions in order to to what needs to be done for her daughter and grandmother. Emoni has a passion for cooking and wants to be a chef more than anything else, but there are rules she has to play by - all the rules everyone expects her to play by - and she believes this dream of hers to become a professional cook is near impossible, but when Emoni starts cooking, her only real choice is to let her talent break free.
I've not read a tonne of reviews on this book because I want to know as little as possible going into it, but it sounds exactly like my kind of book and I'm excited to see if it's just as good as Clap When You Land.
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
I'm really trying to build up my collection of non-fiction books and this is a book that I bought not too long ago because I was instantly intrigued by the premise and when I asked on Instagram a couple of weeks ago for people's non-fiction book recommendations, this is one that came up quite a lot!
This book, which was almost a decade in the making, is Taddeo's debut book and focuses on three American women - Lina, Maggie and Sloane - and their sex lives; each woman has their own story to tell and each has a very different sex life which is documented throughout this book.
I've heard very mixed reviews on this book though. Whilst it has came highly recommended to me, I've also read that some people have been disappointed by it. Most of the complaints I have read have came in the form of this not reading as a non-fiction and the lack of analysis on the three women's sex lives. I have been told that the enjoyment of this books depends on your mindset going into it; if you're looking for less of an analytical review of these women and their sexual experiences and more of a juicy, exciting insight into other people's sex lives, then this is the one for you.
I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes
I am an absolute sucker for anything that Lizzy Hadfield recommends and in one of her recent vlogs she talked about I Am Pilgrim and I was pretty much sold.
The book follows a mysterious undercover detective called Pilgrim who has led a very questionable career. We follow Pilgrim from New York, who embarks on a mission that leads him to dealing with gruesome and complicated cases. But whilst he is on this case, will his past catch up to him and what will become of his life after the mission he is about to undertake?
I don't often want to read a thriller, but this one sounds exciting and full of adventure. It's a hefty book at almost 900 pages but I've been really into longer books lately and this one sounds like it will read quite quickly!
So there we have it, four books that I'm looking to pick up over the next few months! What's on everyone's TBR list?
Author: Mitch Albom
Pages: 210
Publisher: Warner
Publication date: 1997
Genre: non-fiction
About the book
Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.
Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you?
Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying of ALS - or motor neurone disease - Mitch visited Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final 'class': lessons in how to live.
Review
This is one of those books that has both insanely good and utterly terrible reviews and I was a bit unsure going into it what I would make of it but I tried to keep an open mind as possible.
This book really does raise the big questions in life despite not being a very long book. It's also quite lightly written and easy to read; it's essentially about a middle-aged man reconnecting with his old college professor who is dying from ALS. It deals with some important questions that myself, and probably everybody else I know, more likely than not, doesn't consider thinking about all that often.
A lot of the negative reviews I have read on this book is due to people complaining about the lack of original wisdom and also the lack of depth. Now, this book was originally published in 1997, which makes it over 20 years old. I'm not entirely sure if critiquing this book based on lack of originality is both fair or accurate given its age, and I imagine if you read this when it was first published, it probably would have been a different reading experience altogether.
Don't get me wrong, did I think this was omg best book everrrrr? No. But I also didn't hate it either. In fact, I can appreciate what it was trying to convey and get across to the reader. There was meaning and inspiration in this book that I think everyone can 'get' something from, but I'm also glad the book wasn't longer than it was. Not so much in a way that I couldn't wait for the book to end, more so because this book is very poetically quotable without being overly deep and complex, and I think if it was any longer than what it is, it would have been a tad too much and a bit tedious.
It's a funny scenario; what a lot of people critique this book for, I actually preferred. The book is small and simply written and the dialogue is touching and can be appreciated by pretty much anyone but it's also not overly drawn out.
Personally, my biggest drawback for this book is that Morrie is almost flawless. Now, this book is non-fiction and perhaps the author wanted to only write positively about his old college professor, but Morrie is almost too perfect and I would have liked to hear some stories about the times Morrie acted imperfectly (because let's face it, he's human) and the lessons he learned from behaving this way. I think reading about Morrie's flaws would have bumped this review up a notch for me and gave the book an interesting perspective and something the readers could relate to.
For me, this book wasn't five-star incredible, but it was thought provoking and I appreciated it whilst reading it.
Verdict: ★★★
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