Bookstagram has enhanced my reading experience in many ways but one of the things it seems to have largely stolen from me is the joy of stumbling across a book I’ve never heard of (nor seen strewn across my instagram feed) and falling unexpectedly in love with it. It isn’t a criticism really, more an observation that usually a slew of you discover and fall in love with new titles before most of us have even learnt their names and I’d forgotten that feeling of being taken totally by surprise, going into a book with zero expectations and that thrill of finding an author with the skill to utterly silence the world around you from the first word to the last.

Perhaps one the advantages of my recent, boredom-induced Netgalley request binges is that I haven’t just been requesting those books I recognise from your posts, my free book gluttony has led me to a terrifying number of covers I don’t recognise, authors I’ve never heard of and titles that ring no bells. If even half of them are as good as How to Pronounce Knife, trying feebly to improve my reviewing score is going to be quite the journey.

I am perhaps not the best suited to judge a collection of short stories, I am struggling to think of more than a handful that I’ve read but, suitability issues aside, this is a stunning collection and debut from Souvankam Thammavongsa. Each story within the collection focuses on the experiences of Lao immigrants and refugees living in a never-named English speaking city but there isn’t the kind of sharp focus on pain and trauma we’ve come to expect from books clearly aimed at white audiences. These are quietly powerful tableaus of individuals, families, couples trying to make a life for themselves in a new place.

Each of the fourteen stories have a power and life of their own and the manner in which Souvankham manages to create such empathy and connection in just a handful of pages is utterly remarkable. Not only are each of the stories wonderful in themselves, they have been curated into a collection that sings like a perfectly crafted playlist. These could certainly be dipped in and out of, but there is true skill in the way these have been layered, with interlinking themes that weave in and out. Many of the narrators are children and a theme that appears time and time again and is particularly affecting is the heartbreaking necessity of immigrant children to protect their parents, whether it’s from the embarrassment of language constraints or the lash of a slur that hasn’t been understood.

Born herself in a refugee camp in Thailand, across 14 stories, Souvankam reminds us of the absolute, joyful necessity of engaging with own voice authored stories. This isn’t the ‘well-researched trauma porn’ we so often see from ‘well meaning’ white authors, it hasn't been written to elicit a specific emotional response from its (target white) audience, it’s a glance through a window, a flicker of understanding, a brush with empathy and it’s at times funny, touching, painful and evocative.

Highly recommending this one to anyone joining us on our #DoTheWorkBookClub journey. As of yet, I’ve struggled to find any OV reviews but I’m staying on the lookout so watch this space.

Check me out, being all brave. I’m glad I mustered up some courage because this book ended up being surprisingly readable and at no point did I feel inclined to shove it in the freezer where it couldn’t hurt me. Think Big Little Lies meets True Blood with just a dash of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

A group of Southern housewives find distraction, friendship and a shared love of true crime in their weekly book club until one evening, Patricia Campbell is viciously attacked by an elderly neighbour, bringing the neighbour’s handsome neighbour into their lives. James is well traveled and well read, and he makes Patricia feel things she hasn’t felt in years. But when children on the other side of town go missing, their deaths written off by local police, Patricia has reason to believe James Harris is more than he seems.

Overall, this was an enjoyable and mostly compelling read that gets rather let down by, among other things, a very slow, gaslighting focused chunk in the middle that both drags and infuriates. Hendrix has taken the very popular ‘trouble in white suburbia’ trope and spiced things up not only with a horrifying predator (and some genuinely quite scary scenes) but also surprised me by touching on issues of gender, race and gentrification. Unfortunately, in some ways these weren’t handled as well as they could have been. Hendrix does engage with the problematic nature of ‘the white saviour’ but doesn’t subvert it as successfully as I think he intended, something that really isn’t helped by his treatment of POC characters in general who exclusively fill the roles of either ‘help’ or ‘victim’ and possess very little agency throughout. Unsurprisingly, from what I can gather from people brave enough to read horror regularly, there’s also a disproportionate focus on ‘the female form’ so if you like boob and pube descriptions, you’ve definitely got a whole bunch of them to choose from.

Entertaining enough that I destroyed it within a few hours but not without its issues.

Trigger warnings for both sexual assault and domestic abuse.

Gosh, I loved this book and I can’t quite believe that I haven’t seen it plastered across my Bookstagram feed in the weeks before and weeks since its release on the 2nd of April.

Set in and around the Pizzeria Vesuvio, a small Italian restaurant owned by the enigmatic Tuli, You People focuses primarily on the characters of Nia, a mixed-race welsh teen fleeing a very unhealthy home environment and Shan, a Sri Lankan Tamil fleeing persecution and desperately trying to reconnect with his wife and son while living in constant fear of discovery and deportation.

Very much character driven and, in the end, posing far more questions that it ever answers, this isn’t a book you finish feeling content that all the threads of the story have been nicely and neatly wrapped up for your convenience. I think the, (in my opinion, unfairly) low Goodreads rating is a result of this not feeling like a ‘complete’ story, it’s more of a tableau, a very character-focused window into a London restaurant and the people who work there. It’s a fitting approach to a book that deals with themes such as immigration, morality and truth, issues that are ongoing, complex, shrouded in ‘fake news’ and rarely wrapped up with a comfortable ending.

I loved this book. Nikita Lalwani’s prose is beautiful, the characters are interesting, complex and vibrant and you really, truly feel the ‘buzz’ of the Pizzeria Vesuvio as you read. I particularly loved the huge question mark that hangs over the mysterious Tuli, the good samaritan who sometimes seems too good to be true.

A brief but beautiful split-narrative that shines a light on a version of London (and the UK) that many of us will never see. A must read for my fellow character-driven enthusiasts.

‘Men are sand castles made out of pebbles
and the bucket is patriarchy: if you remove it,
we fear we won't be able to hold ourselves
together, we pour in cement to fill the gaps
to make ourselves concrete constructions’

Written in verse, this is a stunning coming-of-age story set first in London and later in Brighton as Michael comes to terms with being Jamaican and Greek Cypriot and British as well as being both Black and gay. We begin with his early wish for a Barbie for Christmas, follow him through all the friendships, crushes and heartbreaks of school, journey with him to University and end with his very first drag performance, the emergence of The Black Flamingo.

The book deals with everything from gender identity, racism, internalised racism, racial microaggressions, sexuality, homophobia (most painfully from those closest to him who often say or do the wrong thing despite their good intentions) internalised homophobia and toxic masculinity. Laid out in a list like that, you’d perhaps expect quite a heavy read but, while it’s not without its heart-breaking moments and as much as it is poignant and powerful, it’s also so very full of heart and joy.

An utterly phenomenal book that I’ll be recommending to everyone and a definite addition to my forever shelf.