elouisedouglas's Reviews (721)

Wow. All I can say is that I wish I’d read this book way before now. I’ve been struggling a bit with my mental health this year and if I’d read this book in January/February, I may have had a much easier time of it.

Part an autobiography of Matt Haig’s own experiences. and part advice on how to cope with mental health problems like depression and anxiety, I genuinely think that everyone should read this book.

As well as a story of how the author learned to live with depression and anxiety, like the blurb says, it’s also “an upbeat, joyous and very funny exploration of how to live better, love better, read better and feel more. “

It made me realise that a lot of the things I’ve been feeling over the past year (and have felt embarassed to talk about) are not unique to myself and that talking shouldn’t be scary, but also that it could have been much much worse and I’ve been quite lucky.

I don’t really know how to say more about this, so I think I’ll just finish by sharing my favourite quotes and just urge you to read this book yourself, before you need to read it, or before it’s too late.

“You need to feel life’s terror to feel it’s wonder – would I change the way I am?”

"Understand, for instance, that having a sad thought, even having a continual succession of sad thoughts, is not the same as being a sad person. You can walk through a storm and feel the wind but you know you are not the wind."

"Maybe love is just about finding the person you can be your weird self with."

"You can be a depressive and be happy, just as you can be a sober alcoholic. It doesn’t always have an obvious cause."

Seriously, pick up this book now. You won’t regret it.

Posted on: https://emmaloui.se/2019/12/26/matt-haig-reasons-to-stay-alive/

Oh. Em. Gee. This book was filed in the children’s book section of my library app, so I didn’t quite expect what was coming. Not an easy read, for sure, but definitely one that was worth reading. I started this when I got into bed at 10.30pm on boxing day and basically stayed awake til after 2pm because I simply couldn’t put it down.

We start the book with a ship capsizing in the middle of the ocean and a boy struggling to get to the surface. Then no sooner has it started, we rewind back to the beginning of the story.

Shif is an ordinary boy of 14. He lives with his mum and his little sister, he goes to school (favourite subject is maths), and he loves playing chess with his best friend Bini. But when his mum realises he’s about to be taken away to do his mandatory military service, and that because his dad has already been ‘disappeared’ by the government, the chances are that they will do the same for him, they hatch a plan for Shif and Bini to be smuggled from the country.

But the night before Shif and Bini are due to leave, the soldiers come for them and bundle them away to a prison in the middle of the desert. I say prison, it’s basically a shipping container – no windows, no air, a bucket for a toilet. Roasting hot during the day, and freezing cold during the night.

When Shif and Bini get inside, they realise that their new cell-mates have been there for a long time, and the likelihood is that they won’t be leaving either. But their cell-mates have been waiting for a new arrival for a while. They know that they will never leave, but they don’t want their stories to be lost, to die unknown in the middle of nowhere.

So they hatch a plan to help Shif and Bini escape from the prison, but that’s only the start of the nightmare for the poor boys.

Heart-breakingly written in first person, the perspective only served to amplify the horrors of what was happening. I couldn’t help but think of the 14 year olds in the youth group I lead and I could hardly bear to imagine them in a situation like this.

I was honestly in shock for a large proportion of this book, it was so brutal and raw and completely unexpected for a book that was in the children’s section. I’d say it’s definitely more young adult than children’s, the topics may be quite hard to understand for a smaller child, even though I think it’s important we all realise the reality of what’s happening across the world.

Posted on: https://emmaloui.se/2019/12/26/ele-fountain-boy-87/

“When we are not afraid to talk about our beliefs, our conversations are richer as a result.”

So is the basis for this thought-provoking book by Krish Kandiah.

Each chapter presents two opposing viewpoints of Christianity vs Atheism for example “Christians are boring / Atheists are fun”. Each one is split into four sections: Collision, Collusion, Contention and Collaboration, exploring different sides to the chapter subject. And what I really liked was that each chapter ended with some discussion questions. I didn’t read this as part of a group, so I just used them as pointers to make me think, but it would be great as part of a reading group.

Filled with personal insights and anecdotes, I found this book really very helpful. I once spent an hour on a train next to a very vocal atheist who was unwilling to listen to anything I said, and had a list of prepared arguments as to why God couldn’t possibly exist. Had I read this book before, I would have been better armed for that conversation.

As well as making me think about the fact that we have “more in common”, the book also challenged some behaviours that we’re all guilty of, and as Christians, maybe should be trying to avoid.

I find myself spending far more time thinking about how I can increase my own personal pleasure than I do thinking about those around me. I am ashamed to say that I am more often inclined to be keeping up with the Joneses, than keeping up with Jesus. “What would the Joneses do?” is often higher on my happiness agenda than “What would Jesus do?”.

I’d recommend this book to anyone, newly Christian or lifelong, whether you speak regularly to atheists or not. I picked up so much from this book that will stay with me and I think most people will be able to do the same.

Posted on: https://emmaloui.se/2019/12/30/krish-kandiah-faitheism/

I went to see Heathers last year when it was in the west end – mainly because one of my favourite actresses (Carrie Hope Fletcher) was in it, but it turned out to be one of the best musicals I’ve seen – and completely not what I expected.

While I was there, I picked up this script as a memento of what I’d seen, and today I spent a fabulous couple of hours reading through the script while listening to the soundtrack. It brought back all the memories of being in that theatre and watching it live – I wish I could go back and do it again!

I’ve not watched the film yet, but if you’ve seen the film I’ve heard that the musical is quite different. The songs are so catchy though, it was impossible to read the script without singing along.

Unfortunately, the themes and the language are a bit too ‘grown-up’ for my youth group ages, so it’s not something we’d ever be able to do with them and the script book will go unused, but it will sure bring back some fabulous memories each time I read it!

Posted on: https://emmaloui.se/2019/12/29/kevin-murphy-laurence-okeefe-heathers-the-musical/

Utterly captivating, I can 100% see why this book won the Waterstones book of the year prize. As the author says in the introduction, you could pick this book up and open it at any page at random and it would still work, but reading it through as a story totally worked for me too.

I think I sped through this book so quickly because every page was short, simple, but complete gold. When I started reading, I started taking pictures of the pages that spoke to my heart, thinking I could print them out and put them around my dressing table, but it quickly became apparent that there were just too many pages to do this for – instead, I will be revisiting this book again and again.

Some of the pages are illustrated with line drawings, some are coloured in, but all are beautiful. And the lovely handwritten font really made this book feel so special. If I could afford it, I’d buy a copy of this for everyone I know.

This truly might be my favourite book I’ve read this year, and read on the penultimate day of the year – huge thanks to my little brother who bought me it for Christmas.

Posted on: https://emmaloui.se/2019/12/30/charlie-mackesy-the-boy-the-mole-the-fox-and-the-horse/

New year, new me? Nope. In typical Louise fashion, I spent new year’s day sick on the sofa instead of at my brother in law’s new years party. The only consolation? This delightful book which completely transported me away from my living room and into Georgina’s world.

Georgina doesn’t seem to be having the best luck – she’s just lost her job through no fault of her own, she’s just walked in on her boyfriend in bed with another woman, and to top it all, her family are about as supportive as a ten year old bra.

But when she gets set up with a gig tending bar at a wake, she figures it’s at least good money. What she doesn’t bargain on is that the owner of the bar would be none other than Lucas, her teenage love.

But he doesn’t seem to recognise her, and she’s tormented by it. As a teenager, their love was secret but deep. Broken only when Lucas saw her leave the prom with another boy on what was supposed to be their special night (she has reasons, he just didn’t stick around to hear them). So why doesn’t he recognise her? And why does he seem so grumpy towards her?

It doesn’t sound like it would be the most uplifting book, but Georgina was such a funny character – able to find the fun in what were absurdly terrible situations. And her cast of friends were perfect. We even start to see glimpses of loveliness in her otherwise stand-offish family.

Mixed in with the absolute comedy were also moments of true vulnerability and raw emotion, which brought me close to tears. And the ending (although not how I expected it) was superb.

The thing that I loved the most was that Georgina wasn’t a hopeless, brainless, desperate character. In fact, quite the opposite. Headstrong and wise, and not one to take crap from her slimy ex boyfriend.

The perfect book to start a year of renewed reading passion, I’m so glad this caught my eye in Waterstones. Whoever said “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” clearly never went book shopping between Christmas and New Year and needed to escape from the hordes as soon as possible – but it seems to have worked out pretty well on this occasion!

Posted on: https://emmaloui.se/2020/01/01/mhairi-mcfarlane-dont-you-forget-about-me/

First book of the year and my dreams have been destroyed. Just kidding, kinda. I always had a dream that I’d open a bookshop, but I’d always imagined it as a dream to be surrounded by books and book-loving people.

I’d never really considered the customers though, and after reading Shaun’s diary, I’m not sure it’s such a dream anymore.

This book is the diary of the owner of The Book Shop in Wigtown (Galloway in Scotland), and he’s not backwards in coming forwards – it’s a very honest diary. From his coworkers to customers, no-one escapes from Shaun’s witty but acerbic sense of humour.

I’d also never realised how much driving around the country is involved in owning a second hand bookshop – Shaun’s diary also details the places he goes to look at books that people want to sell to him – let’s just say that some people really overestimate what their books may be worth.

Other things that this book opened my eyes to include how badly Amazon treats second-hand book sellers. I guess I should really have known, but I never really thought about it. It’s so convenient to just buy that book from Amazon that it never really occurred to me what effect it would be having on other people’s livelihoods.

It’s a shame that there’s no second-hand bookshops near where I live, but from now on I’ll definitely be making more of an effort to seek them out when I’m on my travels, and The Book Shop is now at the top of my list.

Apart from the fact that my dreams have been lightly crushed, this book was warm and funny and a really interesting insight into the life of a bookshop. Great book for my first of 2019.

Posted on: http://emmaloui.se/2019/01/03/shaun-bythell-the-diary-of-a-bookseller/

For New Year’s Eve, my husband had the crazy idea that we’d welcome in the new year in Scarborough, and this was the book we picked to keep us company for the 3+ hour round trip.

It made the drive go so much more quickly, we were in stitches at many points during the book. But the book wasn’t all funny, and at times was quite a heart-rending look into what growing up and becoming a comedian looked like for Romesh – it hasn’t all been sunshine and daisies by any stretch of the imagination.

I love audio books when they’re read by the author as they feel so much more authentic and that was definitely the case for this book. At the start of the book, Romesh warned that he often goes off on a tangent, and then a tangent from the tangent, and hearing this in his voice made this so much better – less crazy and more natural. I think if I’d read this as a book instead of listening as an audio book, I’d probably have found myself getting lost, but not so much with the audio.

I thought I knew a lot about Romesh having seen multiple TV programmes that he featured in, but there was a lot to learn from here and I definitely see Romesh in a new light now.

Posted on: https://emmaloui.se/2020/01/03/romesh-ranganathan-straight-outta-crawley/

http://louiser89.com/2015/03/26/review-jane-austen-pride-and-prejudice/

‘Reading’ this book as an audio book was such a good choice – except for the fact that I found myself laughing to myself like a loon on my morning walks. Partly because some of the stories in the book were so funny, but partly because all I could think about was how awkward it must have been to record the audio version with sound engineers and other people looking on.

I read another Unmumsy book last year, and while I’m not the target demographic (not a mum), there were so many parts that were relatable and made me want to nod along in agreement. But also many parts that I feel like I should remember for when the book becomes more relatable in future – if some of the stories haven’t scared me off when I remember them without the humorous element in the front of my mind!

I know there’s been a trend of more parenting books coming out over the last few years, but I do truly think this one is fab – having seen the author’s posts on Instagram, it felt so real.

Posted on: https://emmaloui.se/2020/01/21/sarah-turner-the-unmumsy-mum-diaries/