elouisedouglas's Reviews (721)

Now this is more like what I wanted to get from my Audible subscription. After the last two books were not really suited to audio format (at least for me), this book was perfect. I’ve been a fan of Josh for a long time (I think it was about 9/10 years ago I first went to see him live), and I knew as soon as this was released that I wanted to read it.

Read by Josh, the audio format was perfect, like having a chat with a mate, or like listening to one of Josh’s gigs, it was familiar and comforting and made me openly laugh out loud many times on my morning dog walks.

The book is part auto-biography and part history of the 90’s through the TV that we watched (some popular, some not so much). It felt like a hefty dose of nostalgia for a different time, when TV was what we did rather than phones and social media and Netflix etc. 

Particular favourite chapters for me included Gladiators, Live and Kicking, Beadle’s About and Ceefax. If any of those chapter titles bring about a heady wave of nostalgia, this is the book for you. 

I’m a few years younger than Josh so some of the programs were before I was old enough to really watch them, but there was enough that I knew about and enough explanation of the rest that I loved the whole book.

I also loved the audiobook-only extras that included special interviews at the end of certain chapters (e.g. an interview with an actual Gladiator!), and the interview with James Acaster at the end which felt like a wonderful conversation between two friends. 

I just loved the potential for reminiscing in the 9 hours of listening and definitely recommend this to anyone who grew up in the 90’s.

I bought this book with my audible subscription after it had been on my Waterstones wish list for absolutely ages, but I slightly regret that decision now.

Not because the book was disappointing, in fact quite the opposite. The book was so good and there were so many times that the author said something that I wished I could have highlighted or noted but with an audiobook that’s impossible (especially if you’re reading while walking the dog). I wish I’d waited and bought this as a physical book so I could read and re-read the bits that spoke to me.

The book starts with Rachel asking the question ‘What does it mean that the Bible is inspired?’.

Each chapter starts with a re-telling of a story in the Bible which really brought it to life (and here actually is where the audio book came into its own, read by the author it really made the stories shine). I particularly liked the re-telling of Job as a live action role play, it really brought the story to life in human terms. 

Evans fills the book with stories of her own personal doubts and wrestles with the way the Bible is interpreted in different churches and denominations and those personal stories really help to bring the book to life, just as the way she re-tells the Bible stories bring them to life too.

I really want to buy this book as a physical copy now so that I can highlight to my heart’s content, this was so enlightening.

I had this book on my Christmas list this year as I absolutely love both Kate Bottley and Richard Coles. I’d not heard of Giles Fraser before reading this book, but now I think he’s great. 

What I didn’t realise when I asked for this book is that it is a transcript of a series of radio shows that the three vicars recorded together over the previous year (I guess I should probably have figured that out from the title…), but the fact that it was a transcription of a conversation meant that it felt really natural and friendly and as if you could have been there with them. 

Each section of the book is themed on a different topic; covering baptisms, weddings, funerals, Christmas and Easter. The Easter topic felt particularly poignant as it was recorded during the first part of Covid when the word was in complete turmoil. 

What was quite interesting was to hear the different opinions of each vicar and how they differed, their personalities shining through from the pages. And because it was a conversation, it didn’t feel like a competition , it felt very relaxed. 

The other bonus of it being a conversation rather than a carefully manuscripted and edited book was that the language used was approachable and personal and easy to understand, making this the perfect book for both experience Christians and those new to the faith. 

My only wish is that I had listened to the radio shows themselves as I think it would have been a wonderful thing to listen to rather than read – perhaps they’ll still be on iplayer. But I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in differing opinions on our Christian traditions.

Although I absolutely love this genre, this was a little unusual for me in that the main character was a man not a woman. I worried that this might make it less relatable, but Josh is such a likeable character that you can’t help but root for him the whole way through.

And boy does he need someone to root for him. We begin the book with Josh and his girlfriend on the London Eye on New Year’s Eve. What a perfectly romantic setting for a proposal, at least that’s what Josh thinks. 

What Josh does not expect is that his girlfriend will say no, then reveal she’s actually been cheating on him. Needless to say, the rest of the ride round the wheel is painful.

So instead of gaining a fiancé and celebrating the happiest night of his life, he loses his fiancé, his job and his home all in one fell swoop. 

Shortly after, Josh makes a decision that he will no longer make any major decisions himself. Instead, he will leave it up to the flip of a coin. 

We then follow Josh through many ups and downs as he leaves his fate to the coin. He takes it a lot more seriously than I would have been able to, which leads him into some awkward situations – eating fish and chips in your parents house, with your parents, with a girl you’ve just met on tinder is probably not the most auspicious start to a relationship…

Things start to look up for Josh when he meets the girl of his dreams while watching his friend running the London Marathon. The only problem is he loses track of her without even getting her name, and what follows is a charming chase around Europe to track her down.

I read this book in one sitting, it was like being lost in a movie – a gripping plot, extremely loveable characters and just generally well written, it was a fabulous way to spend a morning.

This was a book of two halves for me really. After reading the Shadow and Bone trilogy, I found the start of this book really slow to get going. I started reading it in June and got about 100 pages in before I just wasn’t feeling it and I put it down in favour of other books.

But then when I picked it back up last week, either the book just picked up or my brain was more in the mood for it but I was suddenly gripped and couldn’t stop reading – it was the kind of book I carried around in my handbag with me just in case I had a spare 5 minutes to read.

We’re in the same world as Shadow and Bone – the Grishaverse, but we’re not in the same timeline so things are familiar but very different.

We’re introduced to Kaz Brekker, the leader of a small gang in Ketterdam, the best gang in Ketterdam. He’s given the chance to pull off what might be the biggest heist in history, and it would make him more rich than he could ever dream.

But of course, it won’t be an easy mission, far from it. And Kaz can’t do it alone. He’ll need his gang with him, and a couple of others too – they’re what you could call a rag-tag bunch but if anyone can do it, they can.

Once I was gripped, I thought the book was amazing, so fast paced and I loved seeing the relationships build between the members of Kaz’s gang. 

What I do have to say though is that although I couldn’t have predicted what would happen at the end, I was so mad when I turned the last page. I had taken this book on holiday with me and not the sequel, and let’s just say that if you’re planning on reading this book, you should buy the sequel in advance because you’re going to want to carry straight on.

As soon as I saw this book announced I knew from the list of collaborating authors that it was going to be a must-read. And boy was I right.

A collection of stories about how God shows his faithfulness through women in the Bible, it was written by a group of women who came together in Nashville to write this book and record an accompanying album of matching songs.

Containing heartfelt personal stories alongside brilliant insight into the lives of these women of the Bible, some of whom I have read about many times before, others who were kinda new to me, I felt like each chapter opened my eyes to something new and revealed more to me about who God is.

For example, like Rahab:

I feel like I could share most of this book based on the highlights I have, there were so many parts that felt like they were speaking directly to me. And I can guess that this is the kind of book where I could read it again in a few years time and get an entirely different set of relatable quotes.

I’d recommend this book to everyone, although particularly women, to make you look at these marginalised characters in the Bible and make you realise that God had a plan for them just like he does for us, and that he can use the most unlikely circumstances to show his faithfulness again and again.

I have slightly mixed feelings about this book. I was so invested in Claire and Jamie after the end of book one, but starting this book with Claire back in the ‘present day’ made me wonder what we could possibly be about to read.

We start the book introduced to Roger, who ends up helping Claire and her daughter Brianna in their endeavours to do some ‘family research’, trying to figure out what happened to Jamie after Claire was no longer with him. I immediately assumed that Brianna was Jamie’s daughter, but there were many things throughout the book that left me wondering if that could be true.

We’re also introduced to what seems to be a potential romance between Roger and Brianna, but it doesn’t feel natural – very one sided on Roger’s part. We’ll see where it develops.

Back to the question of how in the world we were going to get back to Jamie. We end up there as Claire starts telling Brianna and Roger her story. Brianna doesn’t believe a word of it but we spend the next 700 pages being told the story in great detail.

I loved Claire and Jamie being back together again, it just felt right. The story was clearly well researched (although I don’t really know the history that well so for all I know it was incredibly far fetched). 

On the negative side, the story felt like it was a lot longer than it needed to be – at almost a thousand pages It was definitely a major time investment and could’ve probably have been a couple of hundred pages shorter without losing too much.

My other negative is the amount of non-consensual sex as part of the plot. It might have been very common at the time and therefore historically accurate, but it also made me feel a bit uncomfortable to be reading it – not all of it felt necessary to the plot.

What I did like was Claire being an active character and not just Jamie’s wife, and that Jamie was mostly happy for that to happen – although their relationship through this book was definitely not without ups and downs. They went through an awful lot together and the ending was pretty expected given what we knew from how the book started.. 

Back in modern times as Claire finishes telling the story to Roger and Brianna, and then we’re back to puzzling how or if Claire and Jamie could be reunited again…I guess we’ll find out in book 3!

 I was intrigued to read this book after picking it up on a whim in Waterstones. It’s described as an ‘accessible entry point into progressive feminist discussion’, which isn’t my usual reading material, but following these kinds of accounts on instagram made me want to give it a try. 

It covers topics such as body shaming, identity building, gender double standards and much much more. I was surprised to realise towards the end of the book that the author is quite young – she talks in the book as if she’s had a lot of personal experience (which she may well have), but it did feel to me like it was stretching to have a personal experience for every single chapter. 

The other thing that bothered me was that the author claimed to speak with authority on a very wide range of topics, including things like oppression of black women. Given the book has strong vibes of lifting people up and not dismissing lived experience, it felt very weird for a white woman to be writing on that topic – I feel like she could either have left that chapter out or collaborated with another author to bring a black voice into the conversation. 

It did bring me a bit of self reflection and the illustrations were great, but I did feel certain parts felt a bit patronising and I would have liked to hear from more voices – it felt like the kind of book that might better be served by having contributions from a range of authors. A great entry-level book though for people new to these kinds of topics. 

 

 I basically love everything that Carrie Hope Fletcher does, and I was very happy to get this book on Audible, so not only was it written by Carrie, it was narrated by her too. 

We start the book meeting Evie Snow. She has just passed away at age 82, but she finds that not only can she not get into heaven, she’s her 27 year old self again. Her soul is too heavy to get into heaven and she needs to deal with three of the secrets that have weighed her heart down through her life. 

We join Evie as she travels three times through the wall back into her present-day real life to see her family and find how they can help her pass through. We are also taken back in time to Evie’s earlier life and we watch her as she falls in love and struggles with the conflict of personal dreams and family pressure. 

I loved it, the characters, the way the story developed and the fact that I felt invested with the whole thing. Having it read by the author just added that extra to it which made it feel so personal. 

My only bug bear with the book was that I couldn’t tell when it was set and it confused me – I thought that 82 year old Evie was present day, but 27 year old Evie seemed to have today’s technologies but a family with the morals/ideas of a 1950’s family. 

Apart from that though, it was a lovely book, a nice escape from reality and a fab concept. And without spoilers, the ending was just perfect, even though I was very unsure of how it would end until I read it. 

 I’ve been wanting to read this book since we binge-watched the Netflix series over Christmas, so it’s been a long time coming! 

I bought this book from Waterstones a couple of weeks ago, and then on a trip to Costco I managed to get the next 4 books in the series super cheap, which was a bonus! 

I’m pleased to say that I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed the Netflix series – it was slightly less ‘raunchy’ in the book, but the storyline followed quite similarly. There were enough differences to keep me following, intrigued by what was going to happen next, but it was familiar enough that I really loved it. 

There was a scene in the Netflix series which troubled me, and I was sad to find out it was in the book too. Basically, the Duke has decided that he doesn’t want kids, but hasn’t told his wife. She decides to take matters into her own hands, and all I can say is that what happened felt borderline assault-y to me and it made me feel very uncomfortable, especially when it was made out to be his fault not hers. 

But the romance between Daphne and the Duke was just as lovely in the book as the series and it felt like a warm hug of a book. I can’t wait to start the second book and move on from the familiarity of the series to a new story.