This Will Only Hurt a Little was another great read, although very emotional and raw at times. Busy Philips was entirely honest and exposed a lot about herself and her lifestyle in this memoir. I listened to the audiobook of this, which was relatively short at just over 7 hours and I believe that only enhanced the experience as Busy personally narrated the book and it made it easier to connect with her and her story.

I enjoyed the honesty and the emotion that went into Busy's story immensely. This didn't mean it was easy to read as she touched on a lot of traumatic and sensitive topics: rape, abortion, sexual relations, relationships, grief, body image, depression, anxiety and a plethora of other topics.

This memoir was refreshing because she exposed the problems in the movie industry. She spoke about being cast as the "overweight friend" when she was a size 8. As I discussed with a fellow instagram follower, this is problematic for two reasons. Why should a characters personality be reduced to their weight as a supposed "trait" and how can a size 8 ever be deemed overweight? This just shows the ridiculous standards and pressures placed on actors and actresses which presents such a bad image to the impressionable minds of the younger generation. Not only was she cast as the "overweight friend" but she was also dropped from a role after the network decided after having her baby her initial weight was too high, although she would likely lose lots of it throughout the filming and this could fit with her character arc.

However, the memoir I did think was problematic in places as Busy spoke about "not yet having a nanny" and having to go back to work a mere few days after having her daughter because she needed the money. This was because she was paying the mortgage on two houses after spending more than her means. For all of Busy's care and concerns with women's rights and highlighting the problems in the movie industry. She seemed a little too ignorant to the fact that she was both lucky to have the means to employ a nanny and have two homes. This sense of entitlement to having a nanny, which is entirely understandable given her career path and choices, just felt a little alienating as this feels like an extreme privilege given the cost of childcare.

Having said that Busy's brief discussions about grief as she spoke about her best friend losing her first love at a young age, which was entirely unexpected. She spoke about the heartache and the unfairness of losing a loved one when they were so young. She then spoke about her friendship with Michelle Williams and Heath Ledger, as she is goddaughter to their child. She spoke about the pain of finding out Heath was dead and the grief she experienced for her friend, but also for Michelle and her goddaughter. Having experienced my own loss last year, I found her discussion and emotive, yet brief, touch on grief very touching and something I could connect with. I think people have the tendency to brush over grief and hide our emotions, and this was the one aspect I can applaud Busy Philips on. She never shied away from her discussions about emotion.

Her narrative style for the audio was very good, she was very high-energy when she spoke about her teenage years which I think reflected the energy and vibrancy of youth. The emotion was thick in her voice when she spoke about her pain and traumas. She brought the style to life and at first I thought it was slightly irritating, I actually grew to really like it.

Overall an enjoyable listen and I'm definitely curious to see where Busy Philips goes in her career.

Educated by Tara Westover has been applauded and praised everywhere I have seen it, so I knew I had to pick the book up.

The book is a memoir written by Tara Westover about her life growing up with her survivalist parents who did not believe in formalised education, going to hospitals, taking medication and lived a life off the grid. Tara Westover's birth wasn't registered until she was 9 years old, and even then her parents could not agree upon a date of her birth. Throughout her childhood she had limited access to books, to healthcare, to people outside of her family; she lived with many brothers, one who was abusive to her. Eventually she managed to pass her ACT test and go to college, and eventually onto Cambridge to do her PhD by sheer resilience and internal strength.

"What a person knows about the past is limited and will always be limited to what they are told by others."

The book is an interesting look at how we learn, how we absorb information and knowledge from our family and our surroundings. However, I think some elements of this book should still be considered with scepticism despite how much I enjoyed and thought this book had so much to offer. Westover will have ultimately been influenced by her late entrance to education and her upbringing subconsciously. Therefore, whilst she may have attempted to challenge her bias and her thought processes; there will a level of bias she cannot remove, as she writes about her family that will have been guided by her emotions, her complex upbringing. This means whilst her thoughts are thoughtful and contemplative they cannot be considered to be the ultimate conclusion on the situation. This is not to dismiss the claims she makes about her family as it is clear there was abuse, neglect and hurt in her relationships. However, without viewpoints from all sides of her family, her viewpoint is driven by this estrangement, by the history of pain and abuse. I am always consciously aware of how the brain can block, alter, and subdue thoughts of those periods in a way you may not expect. I do think that Westover in places acknowledges that her memory may not always have been clear, especially when she was a child, but I think it's something to remember when considering the book. I think this is especially acute given the quote about history, and how our knowledge is limited by what we are told.

Despite this, Tara Westover has an outstanding and insightful exploration of how we learn, how we absorb knowledge and the intricacies of things we take for granted; as someone who has grown up going to school, in a loving family and with parents that provided me with a lot of enrichment when I was a child, it's easy how much I have overlooked my path in education. I knew that you need to use textbooks to pass exams, I knew how to read and write from being a child, I knew what the Holocaust was, I knew to wash my hands after going to the bathroom. So many things that I do on a daily basis, that I have never considered how the structures of education instilled these practices and the understanding in my brain.

"I could tolerate any form of cruelty but kindness."

Tara Westover's Educated was touching on a very deep level as she spoke about the pain of her life, and the fractious rift within her family now. Despite everything that had happened, her parents and siblings will still be her family and it is difficult to close off that interest, that connection to somebody who is part of your blood. I was entirely astounded by the depth and insightfulness that Westover continued to offer throughout the whole book. I initially struggled to connect with her voice (as I listened to the audiobook), however, as the book continued I became fully immersed in her story. I think for me there is great value in listening to someone's memoir told from their own voice. Overall, I was moved, inspired and driven to contemplation by this book and it will stick with me for sure.

Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World was the kind of book I wished I'd had as a child. Pénélope Bagieu fills this book with a diverse range of women and offers short snippets into their lives, achievements, and setbacks. This would have been so powerful to read as a young girl to see women in all roles in society, standing up for what they believed in and being successful in their own right. I still don't think we have enough female-led stories out there that encourage young girls to be whatever they can be. I'm very lucky that my parents always encouraged me to do whatever I wanted, and believed in me, although I think part of that was as a result of being an only child. This book was just so feminist and so great in the very basic messages it gave out, I honestly loved it.

From a historical perspective her short story snippets are not perfect, but I think with historical figures like these women there are always an element of interpretation, an element of undocumented history (in cases of the older figures) and elements of the unknown. I also think there are cases where you discuss women in the colonial period, and white women exploring Africa and to get a nuanced understanding of the negative consequences of that kind of history through a graphic novel is really hard. However, Bagieu accepts and caveats that this book is not supposed to be a full exploration of these women's lives and that she hopes it will encourage the readers to find more.

The elements I liked most about Bagieu's book was that these women were not always as they appeared. Some of them may have been movie-stars or famous figures but they also had brains and wits. These women managed to have other achievements that were not based on what people expected of them. Bagieu had inventors, scientists, warriors, movie-stars, everyday women. She also had women with disabilities, women of different ethnic groups, races, religions, sexuality and this level of diversity was heart-warming and inspiring. It offered a woman, that I hope most young girls could see something of themselves in. Furthermore, lots of these women I'd never heard of, and I really liked that there were these hidden stories of women I didn't know.

I enjoyed this book because of the inspiration it offers young girls, the fact that it showed women as strong, capable and successful. It was inspiring for me. The art style was fun and easy to read and I liked that I could read a few women's stories at a time and easily dip in and out of the book. I think the most powerful story for me was the story about Las Mariposas from the Dominican Republic. Four sister who opposed El Jefe, Rafael Trujillo. Their story was powerful and is now the reason we have the International Day of Violence Against women on November 25th. The day they were killed by El Jefe's government. I think it made a powerful statement.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book and I really want to get my own copy as I had a library edition.

Me by Elton John was a book I'm not sure I would have enjoyed so much had I not listened to Taron Egerton's fantastic narration. He brought Elton John's story to life and I was utterly immersed from start to finish. I actually quite like Elton John and have listened to a lot of his music in the forms of film soundtracks (Lion King), musicals (Lion King & Billy Elliot) and then many of his big singles. I've always thought of him as a very good guy, and I think this memoir was so interesting to see the side of Elton John as a drug/alcohol addict with an eating disorder.

The book covers all the big moments in Elton John's life. His childhood, his initial rise to fame, his coming-out, his stardom, his drug addiction and spiral downwards, rehab, civil partnership, children, near-death experience and final retirement. I felt like I got into the very heart of Elton John's life and all the core events in his life.

Elton didn't shy away from talking about himself at his worst moments; his temper tantrums, his drug addiction, his insane shopping habits (he bought a tram from Australia whilst he was high), his laziness (the fact he didn't get involved with his finances or didn't know how to use a washing machine at the age of 43). It was, as he said, important for him to talk about the sex and the drugs and not make the film or the book about his life PG as that was not a true reflection of his Rock & Roll lifestyle.

He also talked very touchingly about sad points in his life. The murder of John Lennon and the shock and sadness that came with this. The death of Freddie Mercury and the impacts that HIV/Aids had on his life. He spoke about being very lucky that he hadn't slept around more in the 70s or he would be dead. It was sad to think that the likes of Freddie Mercury died only a year before NRTIs came out. He talked about his friendship with Princess Diana and how they were very close, the impact her death had on him and his singing at her funeral. He spoke about how they had fallen out, and only made up shortly before her death with intentions to work more closely on AIDs projects, which never happened. It was clear that Elton John cared deeply about many people in his life, several of which died tragically. I thought this offered very poignant parts to the book that made it realistic and sad.

However, he was also shockingly funny as he spoke about his attempts to sabotage and joke with Rod Stewart at every opportunity. The imitations that Taron Egerton did of Freddie Mercury were incredibly funny, especially when he spoke about how Freddie used to imitate many other stars and was always gossiping. The extravagant stories he told about his time on drugs and the stories of Rock & Roll lifestyle all brought levity in the tone that Elton took, despite some of the context. It really weighted out the story well between the serious moments to have a more tongue-and-cheek, self-depreciating tone.

In terms of the audiobook version narrated by Taron Egerton I would 100% recommend. Taron Egerton brings a very easy tone that brings to life the funny moments, and is serious enough for the sad. I felt like he did a better job than Elton John's introduction and epilogue. Although I think it was really great to have the intro and epilogue narrated by Elton John himself. Taron Egerton was just so easy to listen to and this was probably one of the best audiobooks I've listened to.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would really recommend you pick up the audiobook if you choose to read it!

The Vegetarian by Han Kang translated into English by Deborah Smith was a thought-provoking and interesting read. This is not a book I would recommend to all as I feel like this is the kind of book you both have to be interested in and open-minded enough; to be able to fully consider Han Kang's nuanced approach to critiquing society. I have seen people describe it as strange, odd, disturbing and so on. However, the book at it's core is an exploration of societal expectations in South Korea. It examines the body, social attitudes, mental health and shame. Han Kang unpicks how social relationships are fraught with standards and expectations and how we shame that which we consider to be "other" or different. Therefore, the reason I do not want to label this book as strange, odd, disturbing, etc is because that would be to "other" this book. This book is clever, it's insightful and ultimately quite different to most books I've read.

She was no longer able to cope with all that her sister reminded her of. She'd been unable to forgive her for soaring alone over a boundary she herself could never bring herself to cross, unable to forgive that magnifiient irresponsibility that had enabled Yeong-hye to shuck off social constraints and leave her behind, still a prisoner. And before Yeong-hye had broken those bars, she'd never even known they were there.

The book follows Yeong-hye who is a married South Korean woman that after a dream-or better considered, a nightmare-decides to become vegetarian. Up until this point, Yeong-hye is perceived to be a fine submissive wife, who follows her husbands desires and is 'perfectly ordinary'. This is really the tipping point of the novel as we see how Yeong-hye's decision to become a vegetarian unsettles her marriage, her family dynamics and causes huge changes in her own life. This decision to become vegetarian is closely aligned with Yeong-hye's spiral into erratic behaviour and mental illness.

My main problem with the novel was that Yeong-hye's voice throughout was absent. The Vegetarian is her story and is about her life and choices and how cultural and social expectations in her family have weighed upon her. However, we never really hear her voice. The first chapter follows her husband, the second chapter follows her brother-in-law and the final chapter follows her sister. I think this was a powerful and purposeful style that Han Kang adopted to show that Yeong-hye's voices and choices were being overpowered by those around her. However, it did frustrate me a little as beyond the short dream scene interludes we never really understood Yeong-hye.

For me, the most powerful elements of this book were the focus on shame, mental health and women's position in South Korea. These themes were all interwoven with Yeong-hye's journey to becoming vegetarian. We saw how both her husband, father, brother and family expected her to obey their decisions about her diet and lifestyle, and when she refused their actions this was seen as very shameful and disrespectful. She was perceived by them to have no choices in her own actions and decisions. I thought it was interesting how Han Kang used this as a plot development point to really incite Yeong-hye's spiral into mental health issues. In the final chapter, In-Hye, Yeong-hye's sister really highlighted the pressures on women in South Korea and the pain that can cause. It really showed how submissive/innocent victims can suffer under the hands of others.

Only yeong-hye, docile and naive, had been unable to deflect their father's temper or put up any form of resistance. Instead, she had merely absorbed all her suffering, inside her, deep into the marrow of her bones. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, In-hye could see that the role that she had adopted back then of the hard-working, self-sacrificing eldest daughter had been a sign not of maturity but of cowardice. It had been a survival tactic.

Overall, I thought this book was powerful and thought-provoking. I will definitely be reading more by Han Kang.

The Chosen Ones was my first novel by Veronica Roth, and whilst I don't think it will be my last I have to say I was not blown away by the book as a whole. The Chosen Ones is Roth's first adult novel and she seems to be one of many YA authors breaking out into adult fantasy. Having also read the first adult novel by Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House this year, I preferred that much more. However, I feel like the two books were very different in style and set up, and shouldn't be compared directly. Nevertheless, I think The Chosen Ones as a series has potential.

The Chosen Ones is about a group of teenagers who defeated the Dark One, an evil guy who possessed magic that was destroying the world, over 10 years ago. This group of teenagers picked to battle him were known as The Chosen Ones. However, on the ten year anniversary of the death of the Dark One things change and the gang are forced to face new challenges. The gang is made up of Sloane, Matt, Ines, Albie and Esther. The main focus of the narrative follows Sloane who I actually found rather annoying; she was cast as an uber-bitch and she seemed to believe everyone hated her. I really disliked this antagonistic relationship she had with the group. I think this was one of the biggest problems I had with the novel; the main characters, as a whole were rather dull and unlikable. There wasn't really a group camaraderie that I expected from the group who had fought together 10 years ago and remained friends throughout that time. Despite finding Sloane annoying, she was one of the characters that had traits I could like, she followed her gut instincts, questioned everything and wasn't afraid to take action. Until we met Mox, who was a kind of sad but likeable secondary character, there wasn't really anybody else I liked. It's difficult to describe why I liked Mox without giving too much of the plot away, but Mox was one of the main redeeming qualities of the book for me.

Having said that the characters didn't sell me, the world building itself was actually really strong. Roth crafted a world of magic where there were magical artifacts, siphons to channel magic, alternative universes. There was a strong cross-over between magic and science-fiction which worked well in setting up an new fantasy world. It did have a bit of an end-of-the-world/dystopia-vibe to the setting which felt like a layover from Roth's other work. In addition to the actual world Roth created, she also regularly interspersed government reports and diary entries into the book. This offered a different viewpoint on past events and helped to build background and add authenticity to all the events. I actually really liked these reports and they offered a different viewpoint to the chain of events.

Overall, The Chosen Ones got stronger as the novel went along, but it wasn't until the last 40% where my interest was really captured. The first half of the novel felt a little slow as the world got set up and none of the characters besides Mox and occasionally Sloane were really likeable or that memorable by the end. I'd definitely be curious to see where Roth takes this series, but it won't be at the top of my reading list.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah is hands-down one of the best memoirs I have read and listened to, probably only second to Michelle Obama's Becoming. I was recommended this book by a friend after talking about my studies and interest in Apartheid South Africa. Trevor Noah recounts his childhood in South Africa and all the complexities of race, segregation, poverty, and violence that accompanied living in South Africa.

He offers a funny, yet insightful look into the politics and culture of South Africa and what it meant to be born in an era when having a white father and a black mother made his birth a crime. He spoke about the difficulties of being neither white nor black, he didn't fit into one group but this gave meant he could be both privileged and alienate. He became a polyglot and learnt many languages: Xhosa, Afrikaans, Zulu and English, Sotho, Tswana, Tsonga and German. It's clear that whilst Trevor Noah made light of many events in his childhood, like nearly being jumped because a group of black guys thought he was a white guy and being saved by his ability to speak their language, it is clear that South Africa was and remains a divided and difficult place to live. Noah highlights this through humour in an incredibly accessible and interesting way.

From listening to the memoir, it's clear that Trevor Noah is also exceptionally bright and observant. He cared deeply about his mother and has thought long and hard about his life to write this memoir. The relationship with his mum and his family was something I loved the most. The way he writes about his mum is wonderful as he talks about both the good and the bad, and it's clear he loved her very much. This is definitely where lots of the humour comes into the story as he imitates his mum. My favourite story was about the shit and the burning of his shit. This story made me laugh out loud and nearly cry from how ridiculous and funny. However, at the heart of the story again is a story about poverty, religion, culture and his family. It's really interesting and clever how Noah has crafted so many important topics into his humour.

In addition to showing how close he was to his mother, and how willing he was to sacrifice almost anything for her. He also highlighted one of the biggest problems in South Africa; domestic violence. His mother was shot by his step-father, and beaten and up until the point she was shot the police had done nothing to condemn his step-father's actions. Rape and violence against women is currently an endemic issue in South Africa and Noah's memoir highlighted only one case of how these issues remain untreated and undealt with. It has become so bad that vigilante justice has taken over in some communities to burn the rapists as the police will not take action (this is something Trevor doesn't talk about - but something that is important to know).

This memoir was incredibly funny, but also very moving. I loved Trevor talking about how he was a dorky and ugly teenager and it reminded me that even incredibly successful people were not necessarily loved in high school. This is probably going to be one of my favourite books of the year and I can't wait to go and find more Trevor Noah to watch and listen to. I would recommend this to everyone!

~ ★★★★ ~

Mythos is a retelling of all of the original stories about the Greek gods from the origination of Gaia and Uranus, to the creation of the Titans and the most famous Greek Gods - Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, Hera, Apollo, Ares, Hades, Poseidon, Hermes etc. Stephen Fry brings his own style and thoughts to each individual story adding life back into this thousand year old tales.

The audiobook version I would argue is the best way to 'read' this book as Stephen Fry narrates the book and his own personality comes across very strongly. He sets a great tone for the book, and brings the characters to life very well with his changes of tone and style. The audio version was also really good because I felt like the whole Greek gods were being brought to life right around me, and it really added to the reading experience.

As well as Mythos covering lots of the big, well-known Greek mythology tales it also covered some of the lesser known stories about Ecco the nymph, and Cupid and Psyche. These are not the 'heroes' of Greek stories that we always see in Hollywood and the media. However, these are the Greek tales that provide interesting insight into Greek culture - they tell us about the Greeks attitudes, the retribution and cruelty of the gods and how fickle they could be. As Stephen Fry points out, these stories about the Greek gods are really the biggest reflection upon the Greeks themselves as they show us much about what they believed and how they behaved by creating these gods that represented them.

This book was both fun and still very informative about Greek mythology. It is by no mean a gospel or historically accurate analysis - however, it pulls together all of the stories that one would need to know to get into Greek mythology. I would recommend this to Greek mythology lovers and those with no knowledge of Greek history/mythology as I think it can offer enjoyment for all.