elouisedouglas's Reviews (721)

 Subtitled “How to do female”, this book is a collection of wisdom - all the things that Brand wishes she’d known, all the things she’s learnt and the things she hopes for the future. 

Chapters included “What no-one tells you about the female body”, “You are not what you wear” and “Staying sane”, and all were delivered in typical Jo Brand style - acerbic, witty and forthright, but full of bloody good advice. 

I just love Jo Brand, her no nonsense personality on TV has always drawn me in, and I was glad to see that it was just the same in this book. I chose to listen to the audio book mainly because it was narrated by the author and it was fabulous - almost like getting a few hours of punchy advice from your wise older sister. 

Kind of like an introduction to feminism, I think this book would be perfect for older teenagers - she covers a wide range of topics and it’s the perfect jumping board for diving in deeper on those that interest you most. I’ve seen a lot of reviews that suggest the book is a bit shallow, but that makes sense when you consider the target audience. And honestly, I thought it was a perfect introduction to feminism and owning your own space. 

I would definitely recommend this to the older girls at my youth group - it’s delivered in Brand’s signature style, so if you’re not a fan of how she speaks on TV, it’s probably not for you, but it was filled with personal insights of Jo’s life, with her humour running through it too to give light to the darker topics.

 I’ve had this book queued up to read for what feels like ages - the author came to speak to our church at our virtual church weekend away back in 2020 when he was writing it and I went to the virtual launch on zoom when it happened last year. 

As it turned out, leaving the book a little while to read was just what I needed, as the book seemed to bring itself to the top of my reading list at the exact moment that it could be of most help. 

The book is (obviously) about the spaces between - the transition times in which we have left one season of stability but not arrived at the next. The author describes 5 different types of these spaces - it might be that we’re in exile or in the wilderness, in the storm or in the pit, or simply in a time of waiting. 

He explores these spaces in careful detail and with a strong biblical underpinning, giving us the resources we need to navigate through the uncertain times with faith and hope. 

I highlighted so many quotes as I was reading - the first of them within the first 1% of the book: 

I feel like this is how I’ve been living since the pandemic started. Everything is so difficult in day-to-day life, that in the areas where I have control, I’ve been following that path of least resistance to give myself respite from the world outside.
 
This has led (many times) to me feeling a sort of disconnection, like I’m merely doing what’s expected of me and going through the motions rather than living life with God. And this quote brought this into complete clarity for me:
 

As I mentioned before, this book deals with 5 different types of liminal spaces, and this book is certainly the kind of book that I will come back to at different times in my life - each chapter will show new insights I’m sure as those spaces become relevant to my life.
 

 After all the hype I’ve heard about Dear Evan Hansen over the past couple of years, I think it’s fair to say that it was unlikely to live up to expectations. But unfortunately I have to say I found this book quite disappointing. 

Despite all the hype, I wasn’t actually that familiar with what the plot would be (if I’m honest I’m more familiar with the songs!), but I found Evan’s character to be fairly annoying and extremely self centered and I couldn’t bring myself to feel any empathy for him at all. 

Basically, he writes a letter to himself which gets confused for someone else’s suicide note and he’s drawn into Connor’s family’s story of grief. He could get himself out of all the trouble by just telling the truth but he doesn’t. 

And things spiral pretty quickly - there’s a viral website, he’s suddenly popular and getting more attention than he could ever imagine, and the girl of his dreams has finally noticed him. Unfortunately, said girl happens to be Connor’s sister. And the less said about that, the better. 

The blurb of the book was: 

Maybe I’m just too old and cynical - it is a young adult novel after all. But this one just wasn’t for me.
 

I was recommended this book by my line manager as something that might be a good read as I started my new role as a team lead. It’s only a short book at around 150 pages, and consists of a series of articles that were originally posted on the Harvard Business Review website and have been adapted for book form. 

Covering topics such as resolving conflict, stressful conversations, dealing with difficult people or mean colleagues, passive aggressive or stressed people, each chapter was small but mighty. 

Each chapter contained at least one case study of a situation related to the topic (with names changed of course) which really helped bring both the situation and the solution to life. 

Although written for an american audience, most of the material translated well for a UK setting - but as with all business books like these, it’s up to you to pick and choose which tips will work for you and which are better left ignored. 

Not all the chapters are relevant to me right now, but I have left lots of sticky notes through the book and I can definitely see it being the kind of book I come back to in certain times of stress. 

Absolutely fabulous - bought for me by a friend and fellow greyhound owner. The book is fabulously illustrated with greyhound specific terms like flappity-puffing and glopping (if you know, you know). 

The perfect gift for any greyhound lover, sure to make you laugh out loud and bring forth plenty of ‘that’s just like mine!’

 Unfortunately, like the first book in this Duology, this book was a book of two halves for me. I started reading it in September, and have only just finished reading it now in December.

The first half felt soooooo slow for me and I just wasn’t feeling any compulsion to keep reading, but I wanted to finish this year without a big list of half-finished books so I forced myself to pick this back up, and somewhere just after half way I became thoroughly gripped and read the rest in two days.

After the ending of the last book (which was completely unexpected), I was so happy to be back with Kaz and his gang, recovering from their successful mission but reeling from their lack of money. And so starts a new scheme to get the money they were promised.

What I did love in this book is that we learn more of the back-stories of each of the characters and I felt like I was growing to love each of them by the time the book drew to a close. Even Kaz, the supposed meanest of the lot became someone I was rooting for to get the happiness I thought he deserved (despite all his scheming and killing).

The book was full of twists and turns and unlike other books in this genre, I wasn’t able to predict anything that was going to happen, and towards the end that meant I had my heart in my mouth a few times as things seemed to be unravelling. But of course, Kaz is always a few plans ahead of everyone else.

Having read the Shadow and Bone trilogy and now this duology, I hope I get to read the King of Scars duology soon. Although I’ve found these last two books slow to get going I’ve really enjoyed them once I’ve persisted, so I think I just need to persist more in future! 

An audio-book narrated by Stephen Fry? Glorious!

Matt Haig takes on this story of a young boy called Nikolas who finds himself on a wild adventure with his mouse friend Mika for a companion, and ends up blossoming into someone quite familiar.

We start the book as Nikolas’ father leaves him to go on a quest to find the Elves. He leaves Nikolas with his mean and spiteful aunt who makes Nikolas sleep outside, and serves him a quite unthinkably mean meal.

So Nikolas decides to head off to find his father, and on his adventure he will find that his father isn’t what he was looking for at all. A story full of magic and a young boy who truly believes in it, after all “An impossibility is just a possibility you don’t understand yet”.

Although it was quite clear where the book would end up, it was a truly magical tale, excellently narrated so it felt like you were on the journey with Nikolas. Full of excitement, peril and pure magic, I thought it was great.

Only a 4 hour listen, so I imagine it would be quite a short read – and I’d love to read it as I imagine it has some beautiful illustrations. It’s just a shame I don’t have Sky so I can’t watch the movie adaptation! 

I’ve come to the realisation that my favourite kind of audio books are auto-biographies, particularly when they’re read by the author. I don’t know what drew me to this one, I think it was partly because Anita is from Bradford, and partly the picture on the front cover where she looks so joyous. 

Coming myself from Pudsey (between Bradford and Leeds), I felt on the same page as Anita as she described her local area as she grew up, and when she referred to Harrogate as the posh part of Yorkshire, I knew she was my kind of person. My opinion could have changed when she described how people she knew would pretend to be from Leeds and ‘how bad does Bradford have to be if you’re going to pretend you’re from Leeds. How rude! I’ll let her off though because this book was marvellous. 

If you’re expecting an easy read, then this book will surprise you. Anita describes growing up in a Punjabi family in Yorkshire – too brown for the people outside her home but too white for those inside it. She describes the tough times she had growing up as a girl and an outsider. She also delves into her family history and we find out about how her family came to the UK and the struggles that they had along the way. She also talks more recently about how she started her career and how she made it to Countryfile, where I know her from best. 

Anita talks with absolute sincerity and warmth about the childhood that shaped her and how it made her become who she is now. Speaking with depth and insight about not being the right sort of girl and talking to her younger self about the lessons she wishes she could have taught herself, the book was a real page-turner (metaphorically), and having it narrated by the author herself was just the icing on top of the cake. 

If you like biographies with a little more than just a life story, then this is one for you. 

 I bought this book from the bookstall at a recent New Wine women’s day. The cover immediately stood out to me, and then when I read the blurb it felt like it was talking directly to me. 

“Many of us ache for relationship with God, yet feel distant and disconnected from him. As if he’s more of an idea we believe in our head than a person we relate to. But God has a name: Yahweh”. 

It stuck a chord with how I’ve been feeling for a while so it was an immediate purchase. I then proceeded to read the whole book in one go on the train from London to Leeds. The writing style was so natural that it was almost like having a conversation and I felt myself utterly absorbed in the book, barely aware that I was even turning pages. 

The book takes a line by line approach of looking at Exodus 34: 6-8:

“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped.” 

It looks at how knowing that God has a name leads you to a deeper understanding of who He is – trustworthy and unchanging. He looks at what makes God (capital G) different from the other gods in the Bible and other religions. Because of this, it would be a great introduction for new Christians – it’s not patronising in any way but truly eye opening. 

I found the book enlightening and extremely personal, like it was written directly for me. Quotes like “Here’s the truth that cuts across the universe: we become like what we worship” and “Here’s the problem, we usually end up with a God who looks an awful lot like us”. 

As I said before, I loved the tone of this book, it was very accessible and complex points are explained in a way that makes them understandable. Whether you’re a Christian or not, this book isn’t dry or complicated, it’s human and relatable. 

This isn’t the first book I’ve read by Comer, and it definitely won’t be my last, I just love his style. 

 When this book came out in hardback last year, I waited eagerly but patiently for the paperback release (to complete my collection of Milly’s paperbacks). And what a perfect time of year to read it. Not only is it the perfect Christmas book, but I also happened to read most of it over the weekend where we ended up in a temporary winter wonderland with 3 days of snow (and as the plot of this book played out in real life at the Tan Hill pub). 

I don’t think I could ever not love a book by Milly – she writes the most beautiful romantic fiction filled with real characters who you can actually relate to (not just blonde leggy 20-somethings from London/New York as seem to be most romance characters). 

And the characters in this book might just be my favourite yet. Six characters are all driving close to Christmas when a freak snowstorm seems them stranded in a village pub together to wait for the snow to retreat and the roads to be driveable. There’s no-one else in the pub (and seemingly not in the village either), but the pub is fully stocked with all the food and drink they could need to get them through a Christmas together. 

So together in the pub we have Bridge and Luke – soon to be ex-husband-and-wife. They were supposed to be meeting to sign their divorce papers and being stuck together seems like their idea of a nightmare, especially for Bridge who can’t stand the sight of Luke and the fact he seems to have moved on from their marriage. 

We also have Jack and Mary. Jack owns a factory that produces scones and he is on the way to an important business meeting with his assistant Mary. Mary has been in love with Jack for four years and this could be a great opportunity for her – but Jack doesn’t seem to notice her as a woman, just as the person who sorts his diary. And he can’t seem to disconnect from work for even two minutes. 

And finally we have Charlie and Robin. They were on their way to Scotland for a snow-filled holiday with all the trimmings. Being stuck in a village pub hardly seems like a good substitute, but it seems like it might be all they ever needed, no matter what they are going through. 

And over the time that they’re stuck in the pub together, we see each of the characters growing and changing – in ways we might expect, but also with some very unexpected twists. 

Often when reading a book with a series of characters, it’s very easy to have a couple of characters that you don’t get on with, but I found all six to be intriguing and flawed, but beautiful in their own ways. 

I won’t give away any spoilers, but I truly feel like this was a magical book, filled with the heart and soul of Christmas – a perfect read for this time of year. I was lost in the book for a weekend and it was just what I needed – thanks Milly for yet another fabulous read!