4.5 Stars

The Empress of Salt and Fortune was an unexpectedly delightful short story. The book felt like a historical saga set in the realms of Ancient China with a twist of fantasy and a feminist mantra. It tells the story of a young royal from up north who is sent to the capital to become Empress. From there she is exiled upon the birth of a male heir and she must learn to survive through careful planning and her wits.

The story is cleverly recounted through the memory of her handmaiden Rabbit who was sold to the Emperor for five baskets of dye. Rabbit recounts the story to a cleric girl and her bird who collate stories for the history books. By this point Rabbit is an old woman and each section of her story told unravels a new plot point and a new moral message to the story.

The book manages to combine elements of mystery, magic, fantasy, history and feminism in a beautifully short story. It focused on the female friendship between the Empress and her servant, on the talents and intelligence of the Empress, and the relevance and power of history. It whisked me away to the courts and deception of an Ancient China style setting. It was clever and well thought through, and I would absolutely love to read more by this author. 100% recommend this!

The Heartsick Diaspora is a collection of short stories that focuses on exploring the Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese diaspora in cities around the world. The book covers themes of culture, identity, social divisions, family, loss and more.
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Each individual story had strong themes and a good storyline which made for a strong overall collection. The stories were also set across a range of time periods from WWII to more present day which I really liked. I think sometimes short story collections can be dominated by one or two more interesting stories, however, for the most part I found all of these stories to be moving and well-written.
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Personal favourites were The Coffin Maker and Rap of the Tiger Mother. In The Coffin Maker one man searches for his sister who has been taken as a comfort woman during WWII. In this story, he talks about the loss of his sister, but also about finding love. This is a clever story that looks at history, colonial relationships, love and family in more subtle ways. In the Tiger Mother, this is all about one single mum's experience of raising her son and the battle between mothers to ensure their child is seen as the best in the school. This one had more humour to it as it explored ideas of motherhood, and attitudes to education and schooling.
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Overall I really enjoyed these short stories as they felt lyrical, emotive and I felt deeply absorbed in each setting despite how short they were.

The Flatshare is a book that everyone seems to be raving about and I can see why. The book was fun and light-hearted. Beth O'Leary has been proclaimed the next Jojo Moyes, and I can see why as her writing style was very similar. Although that was a bit of a downside for me as I don't really like Jojo Moyes. Having said that I really enjoyed the main characters Leon and Tiffy and the relationship they developed in post-it-notes across the novel.

The premise of the book is that Leon needs some extra cash and as a palliative care nurse he works night shifts. So he decides to rent out his flat and most importantly his bed for when he's away. Tiffy is getting out of a terrible relationship and low on cash, so she takes a chance on Leon's ad. The rule when she takes the flat is that she never actually meets Leon and is always gone during the scheduled hours that Leon gets the flat. I found the development of their friendship through post-its endearing and I was quickly skimming through the pages to see how their relationship progressed.

I thought O'Leary handled some interesting secondary themes of abusive relationships and the justice system with care in the background to fill out the novel a little more beyond the main romance. The characters had depth and the secondary characters were just about interesting enough to offer a little bit more to the novel. I also liked that there was a strong focus on friendship, on building trust and setting boundaries in the novel. Beth O'Leary outlined healthy, normal relationships with limited extra drama and that was really what sold me the novel unlike Jojo Moyes books.

The Flatshare is almost certainly a fun read and I would definitely recommend to other contemporary romance fans. It's likely I'll pick up another Beth O'Leary book in the future as this one was enjoyable.

★★★☆☆

Parental Guidance by Avery Flynn was exactly the kind of fun and flirty read I've been in need of. This was a quick read, and was full of fun. The premise is that hockey star Caleb has been caught up in a scandal about his team-mates misbehaving and he needs to give the media a new, better storyline. His mum's solution is to take over his dating life with a new dating app, Bramble. The Bramble app allows parents to pick their children's date and then they do a talk-show catch-up following the series of dates with parents and the couple to see how it's going. Caleb gets matched with Zara whose father and best friend, Gemma think is in desperate need of some time away from work. The two aren't looking for love, but as you may expect, things take an unexpected turn for them.

I really liked Zara, she was fun, straight-talking and she was an interesting character. She's a miniaturist artist, an unusual occupation to say the least, with a larger than life part great-Dane dog Anchovy. I also really liked Caleb who was kind, caring and a dashingly handsome love-interest. They're not the most memorable of main characters, but they're the fun kind that you can enjoy reading about when you pick up the book.

This book didn't have a lot of drama, and focused on the humour, Caleb and Zara's relationship and the development of their friendship. I really enjoyed that it was not an angsty romance as sometimes it just feels like writers add that in for the sake of a plot twist. I would say that I wish there'd been a little more focus on the hockey and the sports, as I always like to get a bit more of team-ethos, sports-vibes from my sports romances. However, I did really enjoy this book and at just under 300 pages, it's a very quick and easy read!

The Gendered Brain was this month's @femi.books book club pick. I have to say I wouldn't have ordinarily picked up this book if it hadn't been for the book club as although it sounds interesting it's not my usual read. Not everyone picked up the book this month for various reasons given the current climate. I would say the book it a little dense and required some googling, but overall it was really informative and interesting. This is why I'd say it might not be the easiest of reads at the moment but I would recommend if you're interested in feminism and science pick it up.
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Rippon excelled at unpicking how scientific studies are put together. She highlights how they can get distorted by the media, how they can be misleading based on the number of individuals in the study, whether humans or animals are used and the types of questions asked. Rippon does her best to make it accessible to the common reader. I discussed with my boyfriend who has a background in science and he explained the difficulty in making science studies accessible and this made me realise how well Rippon does.
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Rippon made some fascinating points about gender. The ones I found particularly poignant were her arguments about PMS and how it has been connected (particularly in the West) with negative emotions and most surveys focus on the negative emotions. She unpicks the arguments around whether a male and female brain exists. One main argument is that men are better at spatial tasks, however, she points out that brain plasticity can change. If people play video games, build with Lego and various other tasks they can increase their spatial awareness and abilities. She argues it isn't based on gender. There were lots of points that she unpicks really well.
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There were a few chapters towards the end that felt a little repetitive and I would not say this book was a quick read. However, I tabbed it up and had several lengthy discussions with my boyfriend and do think this offers a lot of insight into society, the brain and gender. She also concludes that whilst sex can be important, it doesn't need to be the whole focus.

This is a particular favourite in the series for the background progression.

A Room of One's Own ★★★★

This was my first Virginia Woolf book and I am certain it will not be my last. A Room of One's Own is an interesting piece that looks at sex inequality and is an incredibly feminist piece for it's time. Virginia Woolf highlights the struggles to be a female writer and the requirements of money, time and space in order to become a writer that young women do not have.

Her words were enchanting and beautifully written as I became engrossed in A Room of One's Own from start to finish. What surprised me the most was how relevant this book still felt and how relatable elements of it still were, which in some ways is incredibly sad. Woolf's writing was insightful, smart and thought-provoking.

There is little I can add that has already been said about Virginia Woolf, I will only share one of my favourite quotations from the book.

Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the salve of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband.

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Three Guineas★★★

Following on from A Room of One's Own I was a little disappointed in Three Guineas as the structure was three very large chapters that looked at a reason to give a guinea in each. Woolf continued and built upon the themes of A Room of One's Own, but the book did not feel as succinct and interesting as the first book.

I found myself honestly a little bored towards the end and like the book was dragging, although I think part of this could have been the mood I was in when finishing the book. Despite my disappointment, I know I would still like to read more Virginia Woolf books even if the follow on to A Room of One's Own was less memorable.

★★★★★

I took them all away, and if ever there was a time I needed distraction, this was it. In complete desolation, I looked at the world above. I watched the sky as it turned from silver to grey to the colour of rain. Even the clouds tried to look the other way.
Sometimes, I imagined how everything appeared above those clouds, knowing without question that the sun was blond, and the endless atmosphere was a giant blue eye.
They were French, they were Jews, and they were you.

The Book Thief broke my heart. I have always and will always find books about World War II, about the Holocaust and about painful periods of history deeply moving. I think part of this comes from being an emotional person and partly from the time I have spent studying the history, reading the individual stories, visiting the museums, reading the various books about the atrocities of the past. The Holocaust in particular is a subject that I spent a whole semester studying and read books and watched films that unsettled me and will never be removed from my brain. It is a subject that Markus Zusak handled with care and with compassion. He focused on the subject without dealing directly with every single atrocity and that made this book so clever.

I know many people have previously read this book and have fallen in love, and I am very late to the game. However, I would echo what those before me have said by saying that Zusak has a way with words. The writing was enchanting and emotional. This book is over 500 pages long and at no point did it feel like a chore or a slog. I loved the interwoven snippets of dictionary definitions, handwritten stories and drawings, and conversations. The characters Liesel, Rudy, Hans and Max (especially) wormed their way into my heart and took a little piece of me with them when the book ended. This is almost certainly the kind of book that will stay with you long after reading.

I cried at many points during this book; at the cruelty of life, at the cruelty of humanity and the pain that death was able to narrate. The fact that this book was told by Death and the way in which Death explored his feelings about the senseless and continuous loss of life throughout the book only made me tear up more. It was particularly profound as Death had his own moral compass, his own compassion and care for the souls he was taking. The way Zusak brought death to life and humanised him was what really made this book so powerful to me.

I am glad I finally got to read this book, so thankful for Zusak for writing such a beautiful piece and I am sure it will stay with me for a long time to come.

This book officially broke my heart a little bit and I actually loved it way more than I did the first time. Honestly think it's one of my new favourites in the series. 3 stars to 5 stars?!

The Beast of Beswick is probably one of my favourite Beauty and the Beast style retellings and historical-fiction romance books I've read. The premise is that Astrid and Isobel, who after the death of their parents, are under the guardianship of their uncle. Only their uncle is greedy and seeking a marriage for the young 16-year-old Isobel to a horrid Lord Beaumont. Astrid as the older sister, only four months away from her majority and controlling her inheritance is desperate to save her sister and seeks out the Duke of Beswick. The Duke Of Beswick is known as 'The Beast' after his fighting during the war left him hideously scarred. The Duke is of significant peerage to help her overturn her uncle and the devious Lord Beaumont's plans and save her sister.

Obviously the focus of the novel is on the relationship between Astrid and the Duke of Beswick, Thane. However, Astrid absolutely stole my heart. She was fun, she was intelligent, she was witty, she was sarcastic and she was courageous. This book was incredibly feminist for the setting as Astrid challenged gender stereotypes, challenged Thane on his beliefs and was driven by her love of her sister. I also found that Thane was an incredibly forward-thinking Duke and supported all of Astrid's feminist ideals. There were obvious instances of him as the Duke and her husband telling her not to do things, but Astrid never bowed to his demands and he respected her for that.

I absolutely adored the development of their relationship which was a slow burner to begin with and then was absolutely electric. It made my tummy feel all tingly as there was a definite spark between the two which I really felt from reading it.

Overall, I really enjoyed this retelling and this will firmly be a favourite historical romance. I look forward to the next instalment, which is not a retelling, but follows the marriage of Astrid's sister Isobel. I will definitely be looking to read more by Amalie Howard, although I do feel like this one had a special place in my heart because of my love for Beauty and the Beast.