Where I write about what I read (or watched).
- ‘Our Wives Under The Sea’, a poetic but unnerving literary horrorI once saw this book described as a ‘literary horror’ in a Goodreads review online, and immediately thought that no other phrase aptly described the kind of story this is. Our Wives Under The Sea is author Julia Armfield’s debut novel, coming after her critically acclaimed collection of short stories…More
- ‘Luster’, a sharp and strange debut about an artist, her boyfriend, and his wifeLuster, which is author Raven Leilani’s debut novel, follows Edie – a twenty-three year old Black artist struggling to survive on her painfully low salary at a publishing house in New York. She avoids the many men she’s had sex with at the office, including her ex-boyfriend Mark, and comes…More
- ‘I Who Have Never Known Men’, a Haunting Memoir of SortsI Who Have Never Known Men is the first book by Belgian author Jacqueline Harpman (1929-2012) to be translated into English (2018). Originally published in French in 1995 under the title Moi qui n’ai pas connu les hommes, this is an incredibly profound dystopian science-fiction novel that I was utterly…More
- ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’, all that glitters isn’t gold in this Old Hollywood taleThe Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo seems to have taken the internet by storm recently, a few years since its 2017 release. Its cover, a bronze woman in an elegant emerald-green dress and a short crop of bright blonde hair, is practically engrained in my brain. For several months before…More
- Charlotte McConaghy’s debut ‘Migrations’ depicts one woman’s devastatingly beautiful journeyMigrations is Australian author Charlotte McConaghy’s debut novel, and it is an incredibly emotive and beautifully-written tale of journeys, both necessary and dangerous, both human and animalistic. I came across Migrations on the increasingly influential platform that is BookTok, a particular side of TikTok dedicated to the world of books.…More