Wednesday 21 December 2016

What I've Been Reading Recently

The Girl Who Saved Christmas*
Matt Haig
Rating: **
A Boy Called Christmas (released last year) was as festive as it gets, providing a wonderfully heart-warming origin story for Father Christmas. This follow-up focuses on the deliberately Dickensian story of London chimney sweep Amelia, orphaned at Christmas and condemned to the workhouse. As saccharine sweet as a candy cane, this is a sequel that doesn't quite live up to the promise of the first book. I enjoyed the cameo by Charles Dickens but, overall, I'd stick with the original unless you have small children of your acquaintance with whom to share this story. 

Murder Under The Christmas Tree
Assorted authors
Rating: ****
Murder Under The Christmas Tree does what it says on the tin: a collection of festive crime short stories by authors as diverse as Ian Rankin, Margery Allingham and Ellis Peters. If you're a connoisseur of vintage crime you may already be familiar with some of the older pieces, such as the Lord Peter Whimsey story, but overall this was a lovely read: entirely unchallenging (in a good way) and as cosy as a log fire.

Let Them Eat Chaos*
Kate Tempest
Rating: ****
A polemic in poem form, in Let Them Eat Chaos Tempest examines the isolation and alienation of modern life via seven characters who live on the same London street. Taking in everything from Brexit to the refugee crisis, austerity, climate change, and the failures of neoliberal capitalism (which makes it sounds a bleak read), it is also exceedingly entertaining and begs to be read aloud; in fact, Tempest has written a foreword to this effect and it is is also available as an album. A powerfully moving call to arms that I know I will revisit when trying to process the events of 2016.

This Song Will Save Your Life
Leila Sales
Rating: *****
Elise is an outsider - when she's not being ignored at school, she's being laughed at - and this leads her to self-harm. And then, on one of her nightly walks around town, unable to sleep, she stumbles upon an underground indie club night. She makes friends (the fat- and slut-positive Vicky is one of my favourite book characters of 2016), she falls for an unsuitable boy, and she finds her salvation in DJing. There was so much in This Song Will Save Your Life that reminded me of being a teenager and I think a lot of people who were indie weirdos at school will feel the same. Is the plot completely perfect? Well, probably you can't become a hotshot indie DJ with a few weeks of practice, no. But I loved it regardless.

Dangerous Women*
Roxane Gay
Rating: *****
Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist is one of my favourite of the recent crop of feminist essay collections, so I leapt at the chance to read Dangerous Women before its January release. A short story collection, its recurring themes - race, gender, abuse and violence against women - make this a sometimes tough but always necessary read. Each story unfolded slowly and carefully: never did I feel that they were rushed, nor were they overlong. I came away feeling enriched by the glimpses of the characters lives and their resilience. Without a doubt my favourite short story collection since Jhumpa Lahiri's very different but equally superlative Interpreter Of Maladies.

* This book was kindly provided by the publishers via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

14 comments:

  1. I definitely like the sound of Murder Under the Christmas Tree.. one for next year I think. I really enjoyed A Boy Called Christmas and have The Girl on my TBR pile for the next few days - I was looking forward to it but after reading your review I'm not so sure!

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    1. Oh no, I'm sorry! I was really looking forward to it, too: maybe if you go in with lowered expectations you'll enjoy it more?!

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  2. OOoh, I want to read lots of these, esp the murder under the Christmas tree AND the first one!!

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    1. You would LOVE Murder Under The Christmas Tree

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  3. This Song Will Save Your Life sounds so good!

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  4. I definitely want to read This Song will Save your Life!

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    1. I think you'll really enjoy it, we seem to have similar tastes in YA.

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  5. I really like the sound of Let Them Eat Chaos. Saving this post as per usual x

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    1. I'm not really a poetry fan - it's usually too dense and intellectual for me - but Tempest's work is properly brilliant.

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  6. Right, more books added to my 'must download list - i'll be starting with 'This song will save your life' and working from there! I love these posts! x

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  7. I'm just working my way through the A Boy Called Christmas audiobook at the moment (a little late for the festive period, I know) and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Although, I might have to go back a little since I fell asleep in it last night haha.

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    1. It's such a cute story isn't it? I was so sad that this new one wasn't as good.

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