abbie_'s Reviews (1.79k)

I’ve now read two short story collections this year which intertwine a novella with short stories - so it’ll go novella vignette, short story, novella vignette, short story etc. In Casey Plett’s A Dream of a Woman, I thought it worked better because we jumped around different times in the MC’s life. But with Brandon Taylor’s, a few of the vignettes just picked up where the previous one had left off, so why not just keep them together as a continuous novella? 🤔

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Anyway, structure concerns aside, I enjoyed this queer short story collection a lot as I was reading it, but I feel like a fair few of the stories will not be particularly memorable in a few months’ time. The first vignette of the novella was stunning, a young scientist getting back on his feet after a suicide attempt experiences two surprising interaction at a potluck - Taylor evokes a lot of emotion and writes chemistry well. But the more stories we got with Lionel, Charles and Sophie, the less I liked the latter two and wanted to shake Lionel to wake up and see that he deserves better 😭

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Some of the stories are brutal, dealing with heavy themes like illness, internalised homophobia, and toxic masculinity. I found the ones dealing with illness to be the most compelling - Mass and What Made Them Made You. Mass especially, as I also enjoyed the exploration of brotherhood and how our relationships with siblings shift as we get older. Anne of Cleeves was also a surprisingly touching story I wasn’t expecting, featuring a woman who came out as a lesbian later in life (🙋‍♀️) and is adapting to dating women and owning her sexuality.

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I think I enjoyed Real Life more, but still glad I got round to this one!

I’ve read quite a few books this year that focus on domestic violence towards women and girls (Tomorrow I Become a Woman, Too Much Lip, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House) and of these I think The Bread the Devil Knead is the one best written. You can’t really say ‘favourite’ with such harrowing reads, but of the books tackling these topics I’ve read lately, Allen-Agostini has penned the most memorable.

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Written entirely in Trinidadian Creole, the book is narrated by Alethea, a 40-year-old manager of a clothing boutique who usually fends off friendships from other women. Her live-in boyfriend Leo beats her regularly, and Allie is fiercely determined to keep her affairs private. But when a woman is murdered by her lover in front of Allie’s shop and a chance encounter reunites her with her adopted brother, Allie is forced to reassess her life.

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Allen-Agostini makes use of past and present chapters so we get a well-rounded view of all the events that have shaped Allie’s life. And please be warned that these events are some of the toughest you will read about - childhood r*pe, inc*st, physical abuse. Allie’s voice is so distinct and enjoyable (not in content!!) to read that you cannot help but root for her. I loved that after years of not allowing anyone into her interior life, she starts to open up to female friendships. Her relationship with her brother Colin was also a welcome relief from the trauma of her life.

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I think it’s obvious that the author is also a stand-up comedian, because despite the heaviness of the content, there’s a lightness to it through Allie’s humour. The ending is also incredibly cathartic, so although I’d recommend this one with caution, just know that there is some hope at the end!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!

I often struggle with books written before the 1990s to be honest, but January was originally written in Spanish in the 50s and this translation by Maureen O’Shaughnessy and Frances Riddle is 10/10! I still had one or two struggles with the pacing and subtlety (I don’t like to be knocked over the head with themes but I also don’t like feeling like I’m grasping in the dark), but overall I was impressed by this 20th century offering from Argentina!

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I was surprised to initially learn that January had been written in the 50s, as it deals with themes of r*pe and abortion in a way that feels much more modern. A 16-year-old farm girl, Nefer, is r*ped and subsequently falls pregnant, and this short book follows her moral dilemma as she tries to hide her pregnancy from her family and decides whether or not to try for a backstreet abortion. Apparently this book blew open discussion around abortion and women’s rights in Argentina when it was first published, so I’m glad English-speaking readers will get to experience this groundbreaking novella!

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In few words, Gallardo exposes the sexist and hypocritical workings of a Catholic society, men who take what they want from women but then shame and shun them for what the men have caused.

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I didn’t really care for the subplot of Nefer’s infatuation with another man, and that did take up a fair amount of space given it’s only just over 100 pages. I would also recommend sitting down with it and reading it through in one sitting - I did not do this and I feel like the emotional impact was somewhat weakened by reading it over two days!

Another challenging read in translation, but this one more rewarding than yesterday’s review. The Love of Singular Men is a tragic story of two boys who enjoy two weeks of tenderness and newfound love, only to have their idyll shattered by a brutal act of violence. Now in his 50s, Camilo, the narrator looks back on those two weeks with Cosme, alternating these flashbacks with intense present-day sections which see him adjusting to an unexpected father role.

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I can see why James Young won a prize for this translation, as the book plays around a lot with things like tenses, surely making it a challenge to translate and put across the same intentions. With some passages it’s difficult to tell whether or not an event actually happened, or if the narrator’s imagination is running away. This book is short but a lot of themes are packed into it: queerness, sexual awakening, disability, racism, poverty, corrupt regimes… it’s a lot, and while I might have liked some expansion in parts, it also doesn’t feel like the author didn’t do these topics justice.

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While reading, I was already aware that the author had died by apparent suicide, not even 30. There’s a line in this book where someone claims they are ‘not long for this world anyway’ and that honestly broke my heart.

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Tragic thought the book and context may be, there is a lot of tenderness in this novel. Stolen moments between Camilo and Cosme, unexpected but welcome acceptance young boys intent on proving their masculinity, and a chaotic but amazing chapter where the author lists hundreds of real people’s first loves. He put out a call for people to tell him the names of the first person they fell in love with via an online survey, and then included them in this book. It was stunning!

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I’m sure a lot of this went over my head and would benefit from a rereading, but really a gorgeous and devastating book.

Thanks to the publisher for my free review copy!

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this one, an Argentinean novel set in the 40s and 70s told in three distinct parts. The first is the narrator’s grandmother relaying her first sexual impulses to her grandson (weird), which she felt towards a boy who later went on to become a military leader in the dictatorship. The second section tells of a plot to assassinate this leader and his entourage. Then the third section is back to the grandmother in present day, telling her grandson about the day his father was taken by the regime, over an extremely confusing game of cards which dominates the narrative.

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I am all for being challenged by a novel, but I don’t love it when it starts to feel like work 😩 Also the first section made me feel very icky. It was just too much focus on this grandmother’s first experiences with masturbation, aged 13 or so mind you. It didn’t feel like lecherous but I was just very aware that a man had written this, and within the story a grandmother was telling this to her grandson? Very, very odd.

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The second section was better. It had an urgency and I enjoy a political backdrop. But this was the shortest section and then we’re back with the grandmother and grandson. While she’s telling him a different story, they’re playing a game called Truco. The rules are explained at the end but let me tell you that did not make it any clearer. I kept getting pulled out of the story with the constant play updates.

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Overall, bit of a miss for me this one!

What a sumptuous read! Ross reads this one herself and it’s fabulous, the rhythms of it are perfect for audio even if sometimes the ‘plot’ and large cast of characters isn’t. We’re dropped into the rich and fantastical world of Popisho (the US title) where everyone is born with cors, a magical ability that ranges from sniffing out lies to changing the colour of objects to healing. Plot is less important than atmosphere here, but essentially its centre is two people who were destined for each other but married other people. It’s hilarious, bawdy, rich and ribald, and definitely one I can see myself revisiting in print!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!

Family Meal by Bryan Washington is one of those beautiful, terrible books that make every other book on your TBR seem so unappealing once you finish it. I hated to leave behind Cam and TJ and Noel, they all felt like friends by the end despite the book only being a scant 300 pages. I’ve read all of Washington’s work up to this point and I think he’s just going from strength to strength!

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His third book (second novel) centres around Cam who is dealing with losing the love of his life. He returns to Houston from LA, finds work in a struggling gay bar and ends up face to face with his childhood best friend TJ. Cam and TJ’s chequered past is slowly revealed, and my word is this book messy. But we love a bit of mess, don’t we?? I was obsessed with Cam and TJ’s friendship, the intensity, the familiarity, the occasionally-cruel banter of childhood friends. Their friendship is a much-needed balm to Cam’s self-destructive behaviours (TW for disordered eating), which are very difficult to read about.

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Midway through the book the perspectives shift and we hear from other characters, though mainly TJ. At first I was surprised by this choice, as I had anticipated being in Cam’s head the whole way through. But I quickly warmed to the other POVs and I thought it was a brilliant decision so we could view the relationships centred in the book from both sides. TJ allowed Washington to explore more themes through the eyes of a plus-size, pos, queer mixed race man.

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Family Meal is gloriously messy, tender without being saccharine, a simultaneous ode to friendship and exploration of grief. Highly recommend! 

My fourth book by Andrea Levy was Every Light in the House Burnin’, and while it was perhaps a little simplistic, I still enjoyed it and I think it would be a great one to give to your teens to get started with fiction that explores race and racism in the UK!
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It’s semi-autobiographical with two timelines, following Angela as she grows up on a council estate in London in the 60s, and then later as she helps her mother look after her terminally ill father. It’s bleak at times, casual and cruel racism from neighbours and classmates, ageing & illness, an occasionally abusive father, but there are also some moments of levity. Levy has a warm, easy wit which affords the book some lightness while never seeming out of place among the more serious themes.
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I liked both timelines, but I think older Angela’s pipped it for me. Levy writes with great tenderness about the struggles of watching a parent age and succumb to the indignities of illness, reverting to a childlike state which sees roles reversed. We see nurses and doctors who don’t always carry out their duty of care, sometimes due to overworking and understaffing, and sometimes due to systemic racism.
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I also appreciated how Levy shows the generational differences between Angela and her parents. They don’t really like to talk about their move to the UK from Jamaica, and when faced with everyday racism from the white people on their estate, her parents prefer to shrug it off, keep their heads down and truck on. For Angela, this makes the casual cruelty from her ‘friends’ sting all the more. She can’t understand why her friend refuses to eat the food she eats every day, or why she tells Angela ‘she is her friend but not in front of the other kids’, and her parents don’t want to explain.
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Moving and warm, but not without the occasional gut-punch! 

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!

I had so much fun (relatively speaking, this is a pretty melancholy collection) reading the newest Jhumpa Lahiri collection on the back of Interpreter of Maladies last month! It was fascinating to see how her style has developed, especially as Roman Stories were initially written in Italian and translated into English by the author and Todd Portnowitz. I had my fingers crossed that there’d be an author/translator note at the end where she talks about the process of translating her own work as a bilingual author, but alas, there wasn’t one 😭 Maybe there will be in the finished copy!

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The themes of this collection are both similar and different to Interpreter of Maladies. It’s a more cohesive collection because all the stories are set in Rome and focus on people either born and raised in Rome or who have made Rome their home later on. I loved all the reflection on what makes a place a home, who gets to call a place home in some (bigoted) people’s eyes, and basically just Rome as a city. It’s not somewhere I’ve been but from this collection I’m thinking it’s a gorgeous city filled with history but it can also be quite unforgiving. There’s a lot of stories that centre around being a ‘foreigner’ living in Rome, and I thought they all brought something different to the table. Sometimes with themed collections you can feel like you’re being hit over the head with the ~message~ but not so here.

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The book is split into three sections, with 4 stories, then sort of interlinked vignettes, then 4 more stories. Looking back at my buddy read comments I left for Nadia @the.storygraph, it seems the first set of stories and the vignettes made the biggest impression on me! I especially loved the vignettes as it was interesting to see Rome through the eyes of such a varied group of people, based around one particular set of steps. I think my favourite story (and definitely the saddest of the lot) was Well-Lit House, where a man finds himself homeless after rightwing protestors and rising xenophobia force his family out of their flat.

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Overall, super cohesive collection, most of stories pack an emotional punch, and the writing feels clear and fresh in translation! I’m dying to know whether she thinks in English, then translates into Italian or what. I think this *might* be talked about in In Other Words so I’ll have to check that out!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free eARC in exchange for a review!

I’ve read 8 of Annie Ernaux’s books by now and I love her work. I love how she makes the intimate and personal universal, I love how exact she is with her memories, while at the same time acknowledging that memory is fallible. Happening, I Remain in Darkness, The Years, A Frozen Woman, A Girl’s Place, magnifique 😚 Shame… didn’t do it for me 😭

The first line had me thinking I was in for another Ernaux treat - ‘My father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June, in the early afternoon.’ Following this gut-punch of a first line, she goes on to dissect the social and cultural milieu of the year this event occurred. This is sort of like what she does with The Years, except there’s none of the intimacy. I found myself bored and drifting during explanations of her town’s social hierarchy and her Catholic school’s strict rules. I perked up a little when she began to weave in how shame began to taint certain aspects and events of her life during this time, but by this point the 92-page book was practically over.

Tanya Leslie has, as usual, done a marvellous job with the translation - it’s just that the content itself was a little dull 😅 If you’re new to Ernaux, I’d recommend Happening or A Girl’s Story instead as a place to start!