wordsofclover's Reviews (2.16k)

Princess Anya has a problem. Her older sister's latest suitor has been turned into a frog by their evil step-stepfather, and she has made a Sister Promise to save him. Now Anya is on a special quest with the frog prince, a royal magical dog, a half boy/ half newt and an otter turned human to make a magical lip balm, turn the frog back into a prince and save her kingdom from her evil step family.

This was very fun and whimsical, and I thoroughly enjoyed the silliness of this romp of an adventure. I'd highly recommend the audiobook of this as it was a delight to read and the narrator was really good with voices and different accents.

I loved Princess Anya - she is very much not a damsel in distress and was such a great female character, particularly a young one who knows her own mind and is great at taking charge of a situation. The play on different fairytale tropes and stories was very fun in this one such as Beware the Giant, and Snow White (the wizard) and the Seven Dwarves. I also highly enjoyed the glimpse we got at the coven of witches.

I obviously very much loved the Royal Dogs, and I would like one very much or would like to promote Roci and Dezzie to be my Royal Dogs. 

In 1974, Kostas and Defne are teenagers on the opposite sides of conflict in Cyrus - Kostas is Greek, and Defne is Turkish but the two love each other and are determined to find a way to be together. In 2010, London, the pair's daughter Ada is struggling in school as well as with grief and loneliness. Over the course of a winter holiday, she comes to know her family a bit better with the arrival of her Aunt Meryem, and learns why the fig tree in her garden is a very special tree indeed.

This book dives back and forth between two timelines, bridged by chapters from the fig tree's perspective whose narration is warm and omnipresent, a loving guardian of a family broken by despair, grief and a traumatic history. I learned a lot about the conflict in Cyrpus during this tale, and I'm ashamed to say I was very ignorant of this before reading. But the horrors and tragedy of the time became very real for me, and I'm glad to have learned about it and know more about the tragic history of a very beautiful country.

While this book is easy reading, and there were some great passages in this around family, culture and food, I do also think there were some parts that felt very skimmed over and light, and I would have liked more time dedicated to them overall. It felt a little bit like the author had so much to say but only a certain number of pages to say it. It felt there was room for this book to be bulked out and for storylines to be given the time they deserved from Defne's struggles with mental health and addiciton, as well as the loss of baby Yiorgos. There were times the book read like YA rather than adult, as some of the harder topics weren't delved into deeper which I think did a slight disservice to the readers who were already reading a book full of tough topics and history.

I would have liked a whole part dedicated to Aunt Meryem who was a shining light in this book with her funny sayings, her healing through food look on life and her desire to break away from a duller life and wear the bright clothes she wanted to. So many metaphors for life came from Meryem's story and she could be a main character all on her own.

There was also lots of potential for a greater storyline with Ada's troubles in school and the viral video on social media. This definitely felt like it fizzled out and I thought there was going to be more in it.

Overall though, this book was a pleasant read overall. Out of all the characters I loved and connected to Kostas the most thanks to his gentle nature and his determination to help and preserve nature which honestly just swelled my heart. Maybe it's an unpopular opinion but I thought he deserved better than the lot he was given as I found Defne from the start very hard to warm up to. I felt for her struggles but I just didn't really like her.

I quite enjoyed the fig tree's chapters. There was something lovely and warm about them - like a mother hen watching her chicks grow and thrive. There was a wisdom but also a vulnerability there too and parts of it reminded me of one of my favourite passages in Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell when we follow a flea make its way to England. I love reading from the point of view of nature - it's so much nicer and simpler than that of the human mind, and ten times purer.

I'd be surprised if this one wins the Womens Prize 2022 but it was a nice book to pick up, and I'd recommend it to others. I actually think it would be a great plane or holiday read. 

24-year-old Allegra Bird has the perfect routine to her daily life. She lives in the garage extension of a wealthy family - rent cheap on the assumption she will babysit whenever they need her, and every day she starts her morning with a coffee and Belgian waffle before starting her beat as a parking enforcement officer. But there's a reason Allegra moved from her small Kerry town, away from her beloved dad, to a seaside suburb in Dublin but she hasn't built up the courage yet to fulfil her mission. When a man angry at his parking ticket berates her one day, he says something that shakes Allegra to the core and she starts a new project to surround herself with the type of people she wants to learn from but in the process she learns more about herself.

CW: Self harm

This book surprised me in how much I ended up enjoying it by the end (genuine tears in my eyes/lump in my throat at some bits at the end!). I think I was being a bit snobby thinking this was going to be fine, but nothing amazing and while it wasn't the best book I've read this year, I thoroughly enjoyed the story and Allegra's journey.

While not specifically stated on page, it definitely reads like Allegra could be neurodivergent- she isn't always the best socially in terms of understanding social cues and etiquettes and the best thing to say, and she also likes order and routine, and if these are messed up, she can get very upset. I felt for Allegra as she sought to understand the '5 people in your life' saying, and how she reached out to those she admired in the desire to learn from them.

I was iffy about Tristan developing a close relationship with Allegra at first, considering how he had acted towards her but I actually grew to really like their friendship and how we leaned more about Tristan, his 'Rooster' identity and how he was striving to be more, and how Allegra helped him do this.

I loved the father-daughter relationship in this too and Allegra's bond with Pops was just so, so lovely though I'm biased as I am also very close to my dad so I love reading similar. Sometimes a girl just needs her dad, and it was this type of scene near the end that brought me to tears. Pops was a wonderful character, odd in his own way exactly like Allegra but totally accepting of the type of person she was.

There were moments in this that were hard to read due to a myriad of reasons from Allegra's experience of self harm when she was younger, to even the awkward and second hand embarrassment a reader could feel when she was committing a social faux pas. I loved Allegra's job as a still life model, and this control over her body, and the way she was able to see parts of herself in others work was just so interesting to read.

I'd definitely recommend this book, and would also recommend the audiobook if people had access to it as it was a great listen.