I cried. I actually cried at this book. This is going to sound really cheesy, but this spoke to me on so many levels… Letters to the Lost is about confronting your own demons, about facing loss, dealing with family problems, friendship, and love. It is a beautiful young adult contemporary that deals with so many issues. …
Evening’s Land by Pauline West is the kind of book that you have to read closely and with an open mind as there are plot lines that are very far-fetched and moments in the book where something doesn’t quite fit. It was an interesting read due to being mainly after life after death and questioning that, but I felt like there was too much going on at the same time. …
I’m at a loss for words. I am here, sitting in bed and I have no clue what to write. This book blew my mind. After reading Remember Remember by Sue Whitaker, I knew that I could expect a brilliant story but I was not expecting that. At all. That was magnificent. It was perfection.
If someone told me that I wouldn’t enjoy a book about diving then I would have just laughed in their face and told them they didn’t know what they were on about. I love swimming, I love the water. My parents always joked that I was a fish. Water is my affinity.
The Art of Not Breathing is about free-diving: an extreme sport where you dive underwater for as long as possible, and to do this, you have to learn how to hold your breath for a long time. The main character is this book manages four minutes.
You’ve probably gathered from the title that this blog post is not about books or bookish things… It’s about me, and the struggle that I have faced for seven years. I decided to share this with you to show you that you’re not alone. I wanted to speak out and help raise awareness of mental health and for years now, I’ve been trying to battle the stigma that has surrounded it.
So here we go… Here’s my story:
Studying English and Media at my university has opened my eyes to a whole different section of literature that I never thought I would enjoy: short stories. Not just any old short story though, short stories that have a deeper meaning and a through close reading, you can take a lot away from it.
An eating disorder can ruin someone’s mentality, it can ruin their body, their life. It destroys everything. But that’s how the outsider’s see it. The person actually going through an eating disorder thinks the exact opposite and that’s what Wintergirls explores.
Wintergirls is the first book I have ever read that is solely focused on an eating disorder and the harsh reality of living with it, of not actually accepting the fact that you do have an eating disorder, of not seeing how beautiful you really are.
Cassie and Lia did everything together, including staying thin. But then Cassie died. Now the voice in Lia’s head is telling her to stay strong. Lose more. Weigh less.
Is she strong enough to fight it?
This is the first book that I have ever read by Laurie Halse Anderson and after having a taste of her writing style, I am in love.
Wintergirls was gritty, it was dark and upsetting. But without it being those three things, the portrayal of anorexia throughout the book wouldn’t have been true. Anderson doesn’t sugar coat it, she doesn’t glorify it, she tells it how it is. We are constantly in the mind of Lia and we are constantly hearing her telling herself that she’s fat, ugly and stupid.
It is deeply upsetting but it is an incredible story. It is a story of fighting life, of fighting those around you, of fighting your mental state and fighting until the end.
The story opens with Lia being told that her best friend, Cassie died. Throughout Wintergirls, Lia is constantly putting on a front about how she isn’t upset that Cassie is dead but secretly, she is seeing Cassie’s ghost everywhere she goes.
We learn about their friendship and we are shown how parents can react in different ways to their child’s mental illness – it shows how to not support your children (Lia’s parents and step-mother were not supportive at all and it made me so so angry!)
I cannot stress enough how wonderful this book is. The writing, the characters, the ending… The ending made me cry, it made me close the book and reflect of what Lia went through, of what her parents went through.
If you know someone who is suffering with an eating disorder but you don’t know how to deal with it, read this book. It is so eye-opening.
Wintergirls made me uncomfortable, very uncomfortable but Anderson wanted it to make you feel like that, she wants us to know the horrible truth of what some boys, girls, men and women go through. It is a brilliant book to read.
Warning: contains triggers for eating disorders, depression, anxiety and self harm
When I was given the list of books that I had to read for my English and Media course at university, I let out a groan. Whenever I think of study texts for anything, whether it was at school, college or university, I always think that they’re going to be boring.
I was proved wrong when I studied To Kill a Mockingbird at Secondary School, I was wrong when I also studied An Inspector Calls and The Woman in Black there. I was proved wrong when I studied The Time Machine in college (even though I was proved right when we were also given Hard Times by Charles Dickens!) and now I’m at university. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Great Expectations, I didn’t really enjoy To The Lighthouse and now Affinity by Sarah Waters.
Is this book going to go against the stereotypical texts of studying or not?
An upper-class woman recovering from a suicide attempt, Margaret Prior has begun visiting the women’s ward of Millbank prison, Victorian London’s grimmest jail, as part of her rehabilitative charity work.
Amongst Millbank’s murderers and common thieves, Margaret finds herself increasingly fascinated by on apparently innocent inmate, the enigmatic spiritualist Selina Dawes. Selina was imprisoned after a séance she was conducting went horribly awry, leaving an elderly matron dead and a young woman deeply disturbed.
Although initially skeptical of Selina’s gifts, Margaret is soon drawn into a twilight world of ghosts and shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions
When I read the blurb of this book, I had to admit, it sounded rather different than any university book that I was expecting. A feminist, gothic, Victorian-era book. Sounds pretty good right?
It was.
It really was.
Although this book was slow to start off with, I found myself becoming hooked. I have never read about women’s jails (or gaols – as they are written in Affinity) before and I found the subject intriguing.
The whole premise of this book was fascinating: a ‘lady’ that has tried to commit suicide, women’s jails, spirit mediums and an LGBT theme.
Sarah Waters writes her characters with such depth that, when I was reading the parts of Margaret, I felt like I was actually her walking through Millbank jail, I felt like I was her when she would go and talk to Selina Dawes. I was sucked right into her world and couldn’t seem to find myself getting out of it.
That ending though?!!! The last 50 pages were probably one of the best sections of literature that I’ve ever read. (Not THE best, ONE of the best – nothing can ever beat To Kill a Mockingbird). I have no one to talk about this book with as no one that I know has read it. I need to rant and rave about what happened at the end because it was so darn good! When I finished the book, I think I was sat on my bed in disbelief for about an hour, trying to take everything in that I had just read.
Just wow.
I cannot wait to study this book in more depth at university. I can’t wait to read more work by Sarah Waters. This book is a strong five out of five and I definitely recommend this book to everyone. I think this is a must-read book.
You what drew me to this book in Waterstones? No, not the fact that it was on the stand labelled ‘Zoella’s Book Club‘. It was the amazing cover which was designed by Rachel Vale (everyone, please give her a round of applause for she is so talented!)
I turned the book over and gave the blurb a quick read. Finally! A book about friendships and the struggles that they go through.
Caddy and Rosie have always been inseparable. But that was before Suzanne. Now Caddy wants to be more than just the quiet one. She wants something to happen.
I was brave…
Suzanne is trying to escape her past and be someone different. Someone free.
She was reckless…
But sometimes downward spirals have a momentum of their own.
We were trouble…
And no one can break your heart like a best friend.
Whilst I was reading this book, I stated on my Goodreads that “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this book.” That was whilst I was on page 45. Now that I have finished it and I’ve had time to reflect, I can say that my opinion has only slightly changed.
It is true, Beautiful Broken Things was like a breath of fresh air. There was no unconditional love and a boy and a girl feeling like they couldn’t breathe without each other. This book was purely about three girls overcoming obstacles in their friendships and about trying to save one another.
First things first, I think using Caddy as the narrator was completely wrong. She describes herself as “dull” in the book and I completely agree, she was dull. I wish the book had been written from Rosie’s perspective – that would have been much more interesting.
The character of Caddy (or Cadnam, which is her real name. By the way, who even calls their kid Cadnam? That’s just mean) is selfish, childlike and annoying. There’s a whole scene to do with Coronation Street and trigger warnings that – every time I think about – get me really really angry. Sometimes, I just wanted to scream at her to stop talking. However, I can see why Barnard chose Caddy to be the voice throughout the book. Most of the books plots happen between Suzanne and Caddy.
I loved the character of Suzanne. I felt like she was the character that had the most depth – not because of what happened to her, but because she was the character that was written the best, the character that was most real (again, not because of what happened to her.)
You know what I love most about this book? It’s that it’s relateable. My best friend and I have been best friends for nearly ten years and every time either of us gets close to another person, we instantly get jealous and we’re like “back off, she’s my best friend.” And this is what the beginning of Beautiful Broken Things is like.
There are some dark moments in this book but I think Barnard talks about them with great depth and doesn’t shy away from anything, she doesn’t skim over what happens. She writes about it in a matter-of-fact way that is definitely needed for this book.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I would definitely read it again. I love the whole premise of the book and I loved the character of Suzanne. The only thing that let this book down was Caddy. I just didn’t like her character at all. But once you get past the teenage horribleness of her character, there’s a very very good book.
Warning: this book contains scenes of physical/emotional abuse
I walked into Waterstones one day and all I could see were copies of this book piled everywhere. I must have picked up the book about ten times, read the blurb and put it back down. It sounded good – it really did – but I don’t like reading about upper-class characters. They just annoy me.
As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve.
But Ani has a secret.
There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.
The question remains: will breaking her silence destroy all that she has worked for—or, will it at long last, set Ani free?
This book infuriated, moved, bored and captured me all at the same time – how that is possible, I will never know.
The character of TifAni FaNelli – or Ani, as she is known throughout the book – is a stuck-up snob that I absolutely hated. (Oh, and her name is pronounced Ahhh-neeee) She seriously got on my every last nerve and I was seriously tempted to not even finish the book, but I decided to carry on because I wanted to know what this big secret of hers was.
Luckiest Girl Alive is told from two different timelines. You have the present-day timeline where Ani is going through the motions of planning her lavish wedding and also filming a documentary about ‘that disaster’. Then, you have the timeline where she’s TifAni – her younger self (14 years old) and you see slowly over the course of the book Knoll building up the outrageous things that happen to TifAni whilst she’s at that younger age.
You could argue that the things that she goes through whilst she’s younger make her this cold-hearted, world-hating woman. However, because she’s this cold character for nearly all of the book, I couldn’t bring myself to connect with her so when I found out what happened to her when she was younger, sure I felt slight sympathy, I felt angry that she had to go through that but I wasn’t deeply moved.
(It sounds really bad and I feel horrible for even saying that I hardly felt sympathy for her but I hated the character that much!)
I preferred the younger timeline because it was really nice to see Ani when she was young. Knoll also showed the side of high school that everyone fears: the cliques, the popular girls, the bullies, the peer pressure, the humiliation. TifAni went through things that no child should ever have to go through at school or in life in general. The moment that moved me the most was the ‘shorts incident’. If you’ve read the book, you’ll know what I’m on about. I felt horrified, I felt mortified for her and I just wanted to give her hug.
The things that frustrated me the most about this book was Ani’s mother (OH MY LIFE! SHE WAS A MONSTER!) and the ending: WHAT HAPPENED TO ANDREW?!
This book did have a lot of suspense throughout, otherwise I wouldn’t have finished the book. I think having the younger timeline helped this book massively. If Luckiest Girl Alive didn’t hav14-year-old TifAni, then I would have given this book one star.
I do recommend this book purely for that younger narrative and even if you do hate the snobbiness of Ani, please stick it out because the secret that she has will shock you and leave your mouth hanging.