Category Book Reviews
Review: Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
It’s been a long time since a book has affected me so deeply, in both a literary and personal sense. It’s going to be hard to fathom my reaction to Vonnegut’s words (ironically most probably echoing Vonnegut’s failure to fathom the war which is transparent through his words) but I’ll do my best. I lived […]
Review: Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
I don’t know if you can review a book you’ve read twice and you really love, but I’d nonetheless like to share my delight in re-reading one of my favourite Austen novels. I picked up this beautiful edition at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath in something of a Regency-induced dream and promptly decided that […]
Review: Uprooted, Naomi Novik
Agnieszka loves her village, set deep in a peaceful valley. But the nearby enchanted forest casts a shadow over her home. Many have been lost to the Wood and none return unchanged. The villagers depend on an ageless wizard, the Dragon, to protect them from the forest’s dark magic. However, his help comes at a […]
Review: The Woodlanders, Thomas Hardy
I embarked upon my fourth Hardy novel in the wake of another viewing of the wonderful Far from the Madding Crowd, hoping there might be a little happiness in it for its characters – praying for more Bathsheba than Tess. The Woodlanders is marvellously Hardy-esque and in that there is something comfortable and familiar. There is the usual […]
Review: How to be a Heroine, Samantha Ellis
The third book on my Summer Reading List. On a pilgrimage to Wuthering Heights, Samantha Ellis found herself arguing with her best friend about which heroine was best: Jane Eyre or Cathy Earnshaw. She was all for wild, passionate Cathy; but her friend found Cathy silly, a snob, while courageous Jane makes her own way. […]
Review: The Chimes, Anna Smaill
The second book in my Summer Reading List. A boy stands on the roadside on his way to London, alone in the rain. No memories, beyond what he can hold in his hands at any given moment. No directions, as written words have long since been forbidden. No parents – just a melody that tugs […]
Review: Reasons to Stay Alive, Matt Haig
The first book in my Summer Reading List. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FEEL TRULY ALIVE? Aged 24, Matt Haig’s world caved in. He could see no way to go on living. This is the true story of how he came through crisis, triumphed over an illness that almost destroyed him and learned to live […]
Review: The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She doesn’t believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure […]
Review: Burial Rites, Hannah Kent
Northern Iceland, 1829. A woman condemned to death for murdering her lover. A family forced to take her in. A priest tasked with absolving her. But all is not as it seems, and time is running out: winter is coming, and with it the execution date. Only she can know the truth. This is Agnes’s […]
Review: Room, Emma Donoghue
Jack is five. He lives with his Ma. They live in a single, locked room. They don’t have the key. Jack and Ma are prisoners. Room by Emma Donoghue is an extraordinarily powerful story of a mother and child kept in isolation, and the desire for, and price of, freedom. Room had been on my […]
Bethany Wren 