When Diana accidentally starts teaching the new kid, Jesse, how to play the obvious game, she doesn’t realise that their relationship will strengthen until the secrets that she is so determined to keep hidden prevent her from realising she is not the only one hiding.

Rita Arens is not afraid to confront big topics and issues that are prevalent in today’s society. At the beginning of The Obvious Game we learn that Diana’s mother is recovering from breast cancer. It is easy to not notice all the other issues in Diana’s life because of this, but the beauty of this novel is that it encaptures how a situation is never fully created from one issue.

While this book has a lot of hard-hitting topics, including eating disorders, I didn’t find the style preachy or in any way openly commenting on them. Instead, the novel is simply a snap-shot of what life can be like for those struggling with similar issues. I personally loved this as it allowed me to fall into the world of Diana and, as it is told through her point of view, understand her decisions while feeling incapable of changing them, as the others in the book are.

I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants a slice of reality while retaining the light side of the struggles. I think anyone trying to understand eating disorders especially should pick this book up.
The only thing I didn’t love was the ending, as it felt a little too neat and tidy for a book based in reality as this one is. However, I am certainly looking forward to reading more by Arens.

[Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]

When the Doctor and Clara land on a planet neither the Doctor nor the Tardis recognize, it doesn’t take long for the Doctor to want to start exploring. But the more of the planet they see, the further into danger they seem to be. As they try to navigate traps that seem to be alive, they start finding messages, and Clara’s fear grows. Can the Doctor help her through her fears, and does he know more than he is letting on?


I would classify myself as a fan of Doctor Who, but I have never read any Doctor Who books before. I didn’t really know what to expect when I started reading Into the Nowhere but finished knowing I will definitely be seeking out more Doctor Who books to read.

As it is a narrative, there is more explanation of thoughts and feelings than in a television episode, yet the action keeps the story fast-paced and exciting. It didn’t feel all that different from watching an episode, which gave me my Doctor Who adrenaline fix that honestly I wasn’t expecting a book to be able to offer. My main issue was that, while obviously a reading speed is slower than watching, this particular book felt a little short; it was as if the author had rushed through it and missed a lot of potential in the process. As I said, this was the first Doctor Who book I’ve read, but I’m hoping that they don’t all leave me with this feeling of being cheated of a full story.

Most of the book seemed to be in Clara’s point of view, and it gave me a completely different view of the character. In Into the Nowhere, Clara’s fear is stated many times, and a large part of me felt this wasn’t the Clara I knew. I also wish that the author had focused on creating the feeling of fear, rather than telling the reader about it, as being told pulled me out of the world, meaning I wasn’t completely invested in it.

Overall, the book excited me to the possibilities of Doctor Who stories. The fact that, even though it is a different media, it can still create a world of intrigue and raised emotions is something I always look with Doctor Who, and for the most part the book delivered on this. However, I do hope this isn’t the best of what is available, as it seemed to be slightly off in the deliverance, meaning that I, as a reader, had to work harder to stay in the world, when that is something that I feel reader’s should feel without noticing until they finish a book.

This book wasn’t all bad, as I stated earlier, a pleasant surprise was that it gave me the Doctor Who fix I wasn’t expecting. Of course it may be my unfamiliarity with Doctor Who books that makes me unsure of this story in particular, but I will definitely be reading more, and hope they are all able to include the excitement and intrigue that Into the Nowhere did.

*Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s Claire struggles to stay independent and true to herself, despite not always knowing who she is or what she is doing. Along with her family she starts a memory book of pictures and fragments of her life, knowing that soon this will be all her family has of her. Her oldest daughter, Caitlin, has many problems of her own but Claire is determined to be there for her while she still can. Claire’s youngest daughter, Esther, only aged three, doesn’t understand why her mother can no longer read to her. And Claire’s husband, Greg, is left watching the woman he loves as she grows further and further away from him.

I am very lucky in that so far in my life I haven’t had any true experience with Alzheimer’s, and honestly I don’t know how I would cope if someone I loved were to begin forgetting everything they are. The Memory Book does not shy away from the harsh reality of what living with Alzheimer’s can do to a family, yet at the same time it is a heart-warming story of a loving family who all become closer because of their circumstances.

I have always been afraid of losing someone to Alzheimer’s, but reading this book has helped me to understand the disease more fully. I especially liked how most of the story was told from Claire’s point of view, meaning that the reader can know and feel the way she does. For me, this humanised the view I had of Alzheimer’s, making it less of an abstract idea and more of a reality, but one that still included hope. While I still hope never to have to experience this disease, I now feel that I would be able to survive it and I strongly recommend this book to anyone trying to deal with Alzheimer’s or those who want to understand it better.

The great thing about The Memory Book is that it is about a family, rather than about a disease. Even though everything is obviously over clouded by Claire’s struggle, the struggle of her daughter, Caitlin, is no less important. Between this and the memories each member of the family share, this book seemed to me to focus mainly on the mother daughter relationship – both between Claire and her daughters, and Claire and her mother. Yet somehow Rowan Coleman somehow manages to weave love stories in amongst everything else.

The Memory Book is a complex look at a family in a time of difficulty, and its focus is always on the characters, rather than the situations they find themselves in. I loved this book and will definitely be reading more by Rowan Coleman in the future. I would recommend this to anyone who wishes to read an uplifting tale of hope that includes a lot of unpalatable reality that no one can avoid completely.

[Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]