‘Washington Black’ by Esi Edugyan | Manbooker Longlist 2018

disclaimer: this review may contain spoilers

welcome back to my reading corner, today I’m writing this blog post from my mobile so i apologise for the lack of capitalisation in places. today I’m going to be reviewing Washington Black by Esi Edugyan as a part of my manbooker long list series. i was really looking forward to a read that was going to bring me out of my slump i could feel coming on after reading and thoroughly disliking The Long Take. this book didn’t really do what i wanted it to, i ended up giving it a reluctant 2 out of 5 stars.

the story follows the eponymous George Washington Black who is born and raised on a slave plantation in Barbados. the plot begins to kick off when the Wilde family buy over the plantation and the slave master’s brother Christopher happens to meet ‘Wash’ at a dinner. Christopher (Titch) is an inventor and an abolitionist who is working on building a flying machine. he decides he needs someone to assist him with the construction of his ‘ cloud-cutter’ and decides Wash is the best choice.

for me, this novel was lacking in plot despite the fact that it is characterised as an adventure story. i felt as though things were unravelling quite nicely at the beginning of the book but after Titch disappears in the Arctic after searching for his father, things began to slow down and rapidly go downhill.

a recurring character in the novel is Big Kit, a woman who acts as Wash’s mother figure on the plantation. we can see that they have a very fraught relationship that gains most of its nuance from Kit’s own personal weaknesses. about two thirds of the way through the book, it is revealed that Big Kit is Wash’s biological mother and this felt extremely contrived and cheesy.

nothing in this book left me feeling compelled to read it, i gave it 2 stars because i felt it had a lot of potential and the beginning of the book was really intriguing. i could go on and talk further about each of the plot points that i felt were weak but i don’t want to spend much more time thinking about this book. it was incredibly dry and boring.

i think this book, unfortunately, could be featured on the short list or potentially win. it is definitely not one of the best books on the list and i feel so uninspired after reading it.

have you read Washington Black? are you reading any of the manbooker long list books? let me know.

keep reading

– a

‘The Long Take’ by Robin Robinson | The Manbooker Longlist 2018

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Disclaimer: This review may contain spoilers.

Welcome back to my reading corner and to another instalment in the Manbooker series I am doing on my blog. Today I will be reviewing The Long Take by Robin Robertson who, surprisingly, upon Googling has a repertoire of vegan non-fiction books alongside his works of poetry. Before I go on much further, I must say that I absolutely despised this book and just could not figure out what people have been enjoying about it. This led to a rather disappointing 1 star rating for me which is so uncommon for me to give out. This was reminiscent for me of Sing, Unburied, Sing which was another hyped book for a literary prize that I just could not stand.

The interesting thing about this book is that it is written as a long form poem with vignettes interspersed throughout of a first person narrative reflecting on the war, and a narrative from the future with excerpts from letters he has sent. The poem is written in the third person perspective and follows a young man named Walker who is Canadian born but has moved to New York, and then saunters from place to place in San Francisco and around California after the war. It is made clear from the start that Walker struggles with PTSD after seeing many of his friends and colleagues shot dead on the battlefields and this is something he continues to battle in his day to day life living in a loud and busy city.

The structure of this book fell completely flat for me, I felt as though Robinson was sticking to what he knew by making this book a long form poem. All it did was make it seem overly stylised and pretentious because the language wasn’t particularly poetic, and the sentence structure wasn’t exactly mind blowing either. The book could have easily been a standard work of prose and still have conveyed the same message that this ‘poem’ did. There was so much excess added to the ongoing narrative that I personally felt did not need to be there.

The book claimed to be about the rising popularity of film noir during a time of social anxiety in the States. While cinema definitely featured prominently I expected there to be more of a focus on the themes of film noir, and for the poem to potentially have a somewhat suspenseful narrative weaved throughout it to mimic these types of movies, but that did not happen. What Robinson chose to do was focus more on the social issues in America at that time, which sadly are still so relevant today. The main social problem that was highlighted was homelessness, poverty, and addiction with a special focus on skid row in L.A. and the destitution that many people faced post-war. While this is a massively poignant topic to delve into, it felt as though Robinson barely scraped the surface and for a large chunk of the book in the middle, we don’t hear from his homeless friend Billy at all. He also painted a highly unrealistic picture of homelessness and unemployment when the main character Walker, having no experience at all is able to walk into a newspaper office and land himself a regular job as a reporter.

There is an ongoing undercurrent throughout the poem of the emerging violence and people’s obsessions with homicide that began with a special mention to the Black Dahlia case which popularised crime reporting and unsolved murders. We see multiple times throughout the book people are found murdered and even in one gruesome scene, Walker himself witnesses someone stabbed to death in an alley, mistaking it for a young couple in the throws of passion at the beginning. This shows the parallels between society and culture as a whole with the violence and gore that happened in the war. But MY GOD, the war. Nothing bores me quite as much as depictions and in depth descriptions of war and battlefields and there was A LOT of that in this book. Far too much. Towards the end of the book I personally felt like I was trudging through it to finish it, there was nothing that was keeping me engaged with the book or any of the characters in it.

Robinson focuses towards the end of the book on a particular moment in America where many houses that homeless people were taking shelter in were being destroyed and uses this as a way to also demonstrate the dissolution of his protagonist’s mental health. At the end of the book in the ‘epilogue’ Robinson added some statistics to show how the urban renewal at this time dramatically and unfairly impacted the homeless communities at the time.

I felt that overall, this book was overly ambitious for what it actually ended up achieving which was a tepid and off-the-mark book about a lot of important issues being mashed up and added in any which way. I could not get on with the writing style and just found the continual name dropping of streets and areas (literally every SINGLE sentence nearly had a street name or location mentioned) to be ridiculous and unrealistic. Nobody thinks in terms of which street they are on as their ongoing narrative. I am glad to be seeing the back of this book.

Do I think this book should win the prize? No, absolutely not. I would rather Snap won. Do I think it could win the prize? Sadly, yes. I feel like this book is a DREAM for all the literary bros who love to be pretentious and self important. I hope that it doesn’t win and I hope the other works of fiction on this list are better and that none are worse than this.

I would NOT recommend this book and I don’t think I’ll be picking up any more of Robertson’s work.

Have you read The Long Take? What did you think of it? Do you think I’m missing out on something? Let me know in the comments.

Keep reading,

– A

‘Sabrina’ by Nick Drnaso Review | The Manbooker Longlist 2018

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Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers.

Welcome back to my reading corner and to another instalment of my reviews for the Manbooker long list, four of the books I reserved at the library came in so look forward to reviews for The Long Take, In Our Mad and Furious City, and Washington Black coming soon.

I rated this book 4 stars on Goodreads after completion, it was honestly a fantastic and engrossing read that I finished in one sitting. The story follows the kidnapping and murder of the young woman Sabrina Gallo told by the experiences of the people who surrounded her when she was alive. On one hand we have her family’s experience personified by her sister, Sandra, who doesn’t feature too prominently in the novel but we can see from the glimpses we get of her the intense pain and suffering that is brought upon her and her family from this random act of cruelty. We also see the pain and suffering brought to her boyfriend, Teddy, and his friend Calvin who kindly opens his house to him as a safe place to stay while Calvin battles his own demons: namely divorce.

The artwork in this book was simplistic but I didn’t feel like anything was left out despite the simplicity of the images and the characters. I enjoyed the muted palette for the colour scheme of the art. The artwork is very reminiscent of The King of the Hill in terms of the line work; there was also a nice almost gender neutrality to most of the characters in the novel, the female characters weren’t stereotypically ‘feminine’ or drawn with ridiculous, unrealistic features. I don’t typically read graphic novels but I found this to be very accessible despite the fact that I have little to no experience with the genre. This was so easy to read that I read it within a couple of hours in the one sitting without feeling short changed at all by what the pages contained. The book itself is only 203 pages long but it is a HUGE book with a hardcover so it’s not ideal for transportation, it’s definitely a book to keep at home. Due to the fact it’s a fairly impractical book, I’m glad I could easily finish it within the one sitting as I constantly have a book on hand and I don’t enjoy reading multiple books at once.

It is made clear fairly soon into the book who Sabrina’s killer is and how she died, this is not the focus for Drnaso, Sabrina’s story is merely a vehicle to drive home a more poignant and, at times, horrifying element of 21st century reporting and conspiracy theories. Teddy comes across a podcast where the host discusses the shadow government, crisis actors, and doomsday. As a reader, it is clear to see how readily Teddy is drawn into this rhetoric put forth by the presenter. How he preys on Teddy’s every fears; and also confirms that life isn’t that bad. It is believed that conspiracy theories are construed as a way for us to process the horrors that happen every day, sometimes it’s easier for us to be in denial about what happened and it’s clear to see that Teddy is taking some form of comfort listening to the rants on his radio.

In an age of fake news, Drnaso portrays the mundanity and sensationalism of day to day news articles on Facebook and social media. He shows how human kind are feeding ourselves empty information as a way to entertain ourselves and escape from our workdays. It was with scary accuracy that Drnaso did a strip showing different headlines on a website to draw attention to how ridiculous the news in circulation on the internet can become.

Due to Calvin and Sandra being close to the victim of the crime they are both targeted by conspiracy theorists who decide to try to get the ‘truth’ out of them whatever the consequences, this leads to death threats and worse for both of the characters. This again highlights the dangers of the internet and the electronic age, how people can access your home address if they want to, they can find your e-mail address and use information against you to try to blackmail you.

The murderer, Timmy Yancey, is also an example of the internet not being a safe place. How he was clearly an at risk person for being radicalised in a sense by the conspiracy theorists he sought comfort in, how he was blocked from multiple discussion boards and nobody intervened to check in on him or help him. Sabrina also showed how disconnected people can become from true human horror when it is separated from them by a screen, we see this through the popularity of the video of Sabrina being murdered and even more so when Calvin decides to download it, despite the fact that he knows his friend would not want him to watch it.

The only reason this is not a 5 star read for me is because I felt there was something slightly lacking in the conclusion, I don’t know what would have brought it up to a 5 but there was something slightly confusing about the last couple of pages for me however there was a definitive conclusion for most of the characters which was nice to have that wrapped up.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and found it utterly compulsive. I think if you have never read a graphic novel before that you will enjoy this one and according to Goodreads this is a follow up from another novel Beverly so there is more content by this author/artist. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more of his work, if not for more cartoon cats within his stories.

Do I think this will win the Manbooker prize? Probably not. Do I think it could get to the short list? Possibly. This is definitely one to look out for, I would recommend it to most readers. Despite the fact the novel is mostly centred around a character in the armed forces in America, I surprisingly didn’t find it as noxious as the idea of that plot device sounds.

Have you read Sabrina? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments.

Keep reading,

– A

The Bookshelf Tag

Welcome back to my reading corner, today I’m going to be answering the questions for the bookshelf tag. I saw Steve Donoghue do this tag (which can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp1ySwvoSIk) and since I got some new bookshelves recently I was excited to jump on the bandwagon.

How many bookshelves do you have?

I have two bookshelf units and six individual shelves.

How many books do you have?

I only counted the physical books on my shelves (not including the academic books at the bottom right hand side), I have 93 physical books on my shelves but I own Kindle books and audiobooks and I’ve also got other books in circulation among friends and family so that’s definitely not a definitive answer.

What’s the oldest book on your shelves?

The oldest book I have on my shelves is a leather bound edition of poems and essays by Oscar Wilde that I found in a vegan restaurant’s free library section. It was published in the 60s and is absolutely gorgeous.

What’s the newest book on your shelves?

I bought three books on the one day that are all equally as new. I got Tin Man by Sarah Winman; Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang; and The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay.

What’s the longest book on your shelves?

The Vintage edition of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, it comes in at a whopping 963 pages.

What’s the shortest book on your shelves?

The Penguin edition of No One Writes to the Colonel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez with only 69 pages.

What is the predominant genre?

The genre that appears most is literary fiction and classics (including modern classics) come as a close second.

Have you done a bookshelf tour?

No, I don’t think that would work on a blog.

Go to a random number generator and put in the number of books you have and select the book corresponding to the number that comes up and talk about it a bit.

The number I got was 62 out of 93 and the book that corresponds to that is, Scott Pilgrim, Volume 1: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley. I haven’t read any of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels but my little brother has and had recommended them to me so I have the first one on my shelves to remind me to read it.

Do you have any decorations on your shelves?

Yes, my partner always gets me cute little soft toys and bought me a particularly lovely little Pop figure of Bubbles from Powerpuff Girls. As my book collection grows I imagine the number of decorations will decrease.

Thanks for reading!

– A

Autumn 2018 TBR

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Welcome back to my reading corner; as autumn approaches I am getting more and more excited for cosy reading nights with candles and a cup of tea with a good read. I am planning to work my way through the Manbooker long list throughout the coming months but in between those I will also be reading other books. With the shift in seasons I am trying to shift my books towards topics and settings that seem more autumnal to me.

I have added 15 books to this TBR, this is by no means exactly what I will read up until the winter (note: there will also be a Halloween themed TBR coming in October) but it will give you a rough idea of what I’ll be aiming to pick up. I will do monthly wrap ups as well to show what I have read during the month.

The Child by Fiona Barton

Genre: Thriller

Plot: This book centres around 3 women who are all connected by a past experience that is brought up again through a newspaper article. The blurb says, “The child’s story will be told.”

The Bad Mother by Amanda Brooke

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Genre: Thriller

Plot: This books follows a new mother, Lucy, who is continually forgetting small things and becomes increasingly worried about it. Her husband reminds her she is a bad mother but there is more to it.

Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon

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Genre: I would say this is contemporary fiction however as it was long listed for the Women’s Prize for fiction I guess it could also come under literary fiction.

Plot: This book follows 84 year old Elsie who is living in a nursing home in her old age, someone from her past reappears in her life and this leads her to thinking back over her past and the potential threat this person poses to her now.

Note: I look forward to reading this, as I only have a few books from the Women’s Prize long list I haven’t read. I have heard great things about this book and I can’t wait to get stuck in soon.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

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Genre: Non-fiction (true crime)

Plot: This is Truman Capote’s take on a case that happened in America where he tries to recreate and piece together the events leading up to the murder. I don’t know much about the case so I am looking forward to learning about this.

Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling by Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen

Genre: Women’s fiction

Plot: This has been dubbed as a similar idea to Bridget Jones, I first heard about this on What Page Are You On? podcast and found it to be intriguing. I don’t know much about this book going in to it but I am looking forward to reading it as it promises to be funny and light-hearted.

Elmet by Fiona Mozley

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Genre: Literary fiction

Plot: I think this book follows a family who live off-grid. I have heard some really great things about this book and, of course, it’s another one off of the Women’s Prize list that I had not yet read.

Skin Deep by Liz Nugent

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Genre: Thriller

Plot: This book follows a woman’s journey after she comes home from a party to find a decomposing body in her house. This promises to be full of problematic female characters who are dislikable and I am here for that.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

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Genre: Classic literature

Plot: This is a re-read for me after reading it years ago for English. It follows the goings on on a farm and is a critical look at communism and class systems.

Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

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Genre: Thriller

Plot: This book is about a couple who seem perfect from the outside but behind closed doors there is much more to it. I read B.A. Paris’s other book Bring Me Back and was severely unimpressed but I have heard a lot of really positive buzz about this book and I really enjoy domestic thrillers.

The Awkward Age by Francesca Segal

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Genre: I think this is literary fiction.

Plot: This follows a modern day family where the teenage daughter does not like her mum’s new partner and begins to seek comfort in her partner’s teenage son. I don’t know a lot about this, but saw someone I really like’s (@smokintofu on Instagram) review on this and was intrigued.

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

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Genre: Classic literature

Plot: I started reading this a couple of years ago but set it down because, at the time, I was in a huge reading slump. This book is set in early 20th century New York and follows Lily who is furiously trying to resist being married off into the upper classes of the New York limelight.

My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal

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Genre: Literary fiction

Plot: This book is set in the 80s and follows 9 year old Leon who is struggling with the fact he has been placed in a foster home. I have wanted to read this for a while and have de Waal’s second book The Trick to Time but I want to read her debut first.

Tin Man by Sarah Winman

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Genre: Literary fiction (?)

Plot: This book follows the story of two boys who have a close relationship but then their friendship is threatened when a girl comes into their lives.

Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang

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Genre: Literary fiction

Plot: This is a short story collection focusing on the story of immigrants who I believe live in the same building in the 90s. I’ve heard really good things about this and I also would really like to read more short story collections.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

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Genre: Historical fiction

Plot: This book is narrated by Death during WW2 and follows the story of a young girl living in Germany who steals books. I’ve seen the movie before but not read the book.

General Thoughts

There are a lot of thrillers on my TBR but I feel like this will lend itself to cosy reading nights in autumn, I’m looking forward to reading more thrillers over the next few months. Technically autumn doesn’t start until the 23rd of September and doesn’t end until the 21st of December so I have quite a while to work on this TBR.

I will do an update on how I got on with this TBR when it comes to the end of autumn and, of course, during the month of October there will be more horror fiction and true crime books.

Please let me know if you’ve read any of these books and what you thought of them.

Keep reading,

– A

The Top 10 Least Popular Books on My TBR According to Goodreads

Welcome to my reading corner, today’s post is going to be a list and discussion on the top 10 least popular books on my to be read pile according to Goodreads. I watched The Wandering Reader do this on YouTube and thought it was a good idea. Here is the link to her video if you would like to see her top 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBINVYRjFrE.

1. Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion by John H. Elliott

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Rating: 0.00

Description: This is a non-fiction book that takes a comparative look at the history of the fight for independence in Scotland and Catalan and how these are similar.

Why I think it has such a low rating: This book doesn’t have any ratings yet on Goodreads, I’m not sure if it has actually been published yet, but I will be keeping my eyes peeled for any reviews on it to see if it is worth reading.

Will I still read it anyway?: Because I study Spanish language and culture, and part of my degree also looks specifically at Scottish independence, I probably will read this book as it touches on a subject I’m genuinely deeply interested in.

2. Biomimicry in Organisations: Second Edition With Biomimicry Exercises by Fausto Tazzi

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Rating: 2.67

Description: The blurb for this book is ambiguous but this is yet again another non-fiction book which outlines how to organise your company to be in line with the planet and to run as things would in nature, hence ‘biomimicry’.

Why I think it has such a low rating: This had only a few reviews but I think the reason why this is such a poorly rated book is because the concept is completely abstract and this isn’t the original edition of the book which I believe is slightly more popular than this one with the additional exercises.

Will I read it anyway?: Probably not. I think I added this to my TBR list after seeing a story on @bezerowastegirl ‘s Instagram story where she was recommending books about sustainability and the environment. After reading the reviews and the blurb of this book, it doesn’t really seem like something I will actually enjoy reading. I think I’ll pass.

3. Angel Catbird, Volume 1 by Margaret Atwood

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Rating: 2.78

Description: This is Margaret Atwood’s foray into graphic novels which follows a superhero who has the DNA of a cat and an owl.

Why I think it has such a low rating: I mean… the DNA of a cat and an owl.

Will I read it anyway?: I possibly will because I would really like to read all of Atwood’s works despite the fact that this has the potential to be awful.

5. The Blazing World by Margaret Cavandish

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Rating: 2.9

Description: This is hailed as the first sci-fi novel written by a woman and centres around a woman who is kidnapped but finds herself in an alternate reality to the one she knows.

Why I think it has such a low rating: I think this book is quite obscure but I don’t know enough about it to comment on why it has a low rating.

Will I read it anyway?: Yes, I probably will because it intrigues me that it was such a groundbreaking novel for women.

6. Eat My Heart Out by Zoe Pilger

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Rating: 2.78

Description: This book centres around a young woman who has had her heart broken, then she meets someone who completely changes her life. This promises to be a feminist novel focusing on female friendships.

Why I think this has such a low rating: I think this is genre fiction and has potential to be very flimsy.

Will I read it anyway?: Probably not, but it’ll stay on my TBR just in case.

7. Not Working by Lisa Owens

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Rating: 3.04

Description: This seems quite bog standard contemporary women’s fiction, it follows a woman who has quit her job in order to find herself.

Why I think this has such a low rating: Similarly to Eat My Heart Out this is genre fiction and follows a plot that seems done to death in chick flicks and chick-lit.

Will I read it anyway?: Maybe, I’m not overly enamoured by the plot and I can’t remember why I even put it on my TBR list at this point.

8. Peach by Emma Glass

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Rating: 3.13

Description: This story follows a young woman coming to terms with an assault she has recently gone through.

Why I think this has such a low rating: I honestly don’t know, I suppose it is going to deal with sensitive material and potentially was polarising for readers.

Will I read it anyway?: Yes, I think the plot sounds interesting and the cover is gorgeous.

9. The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips

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Rating: 3.22

Description: A dystopian novel following a woman who accepts a new job offer for a mysterious position that begins to absorb her personal life.

Why I think this has such a low rating: I think that dystopian fiction has to be a) believable, and b) well-written. Books that are plot based often feel rushed and aren’t necessarily written very well. An example of this is The Power by Naomi Alderman.

Will I read it anyway?: I’m going to look out to see if anyone I follow brings this up and if I hear any good reviews on it I will give it a go.

10. The Pink Hotel by Anna Stothard

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Rating: 3.22

Description: A 17 year old girl has to fly from London to LA for her mother’s funeral and this leads on to a road trip all over LA experimenting.

Why I think this has such a low rating: I don’t know, all I’ve heard has been really positive about this book.

Will I read it anyway?: Yes, this sounds right up my alley.

Overall, a Goodreads rating doesn’t weigh on my decision to read a book or not. A lot of the books I love and are among my favourites are ones that have received polarising reviews and have been controversial. The only book on this list I am going to remove from my Goodreads shelf is Biomimicry in Organisations by Fausto Tazzi because it just does not sound like something I would enjoy, at all.

This was a good exercise to do, I often forget what I’ve added to my TBR list and it’s interesting to see which books are the least liked on my shelves.

Thanks for reading. Please comment and let me know if you have read any of these books and what your thoughts are on them.

Keep reading,

– A

‘Snap’ by Belinda Bauer Review | Manbooker Longlist 2018

Disclaimer: this review contains spoilers.

Welcome back to Amy’s reading corner. Today’s post marks the beginning of a series I am going to do where I review all of the books that have been long listed for the Manbooker prize in 2018. I have reserved all of them at my local library and I’m actively looking for them at reduced prices because I absolutely refuse to pay more than £3.00 for a book on my Kindle and as I’m a student, buying 13 hardback new releases isn’t financially viable for me. Hopefully the library won’t take too long to get ahold of them for me as I’m particularly excited about this year’s long list.

This book was a solid 3 star read in my opinion, it was definitely a gripping and suspenseful story but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its problems and PLENTY of plot holes which I will discuss in further detail. The story follows 14 year old Jack who is trying to deal with the death of his mother and keep his two younger sisters alive with no other adults in their home. He is able to do this through breaking and entering and has become known to the local police as the ‘Goldilocks’ burglar as he has been eating and stealing the food in the fridges of these homes he breaks into and often sleeping in their beds. There are two other storylines running alongside Jack’s – the policemen who are trying to solve the case of the ‘Goldilocks’ thief and pregnant Catherine While who has had a disturbing break in herself.

Let’s get into the things I enjoyed about this book: I found that Bauer did a really good job creating characters who are 3 dimensional that we are able to empathise with and understand their actions, even if they don’t always do the right thing. Often in thrillers there seems to be a lot of behaviours that are just unlikely and outlandish, I found for the majority of this book that this was not the case. Bauer was able to make these characters leap off the pages, from the small, cunning Jack to the gruff and brusque DCI Marvel. I even found myself feeling bad for DS Reynolds at times, even though he was evidently supposed to be an annoying, pedantic character in the police force. Through Mrs Reynold’s actions where she hid Jack from the police that were looking for him to the eventual release of Jack from police custody, Bauer captures the inherent kindness that can be found in the most unlikely of places.

This book was a true page turner and there was nothing about it that made it particularly difficult to read, the language was fairly basic. The chapters were nice and short and there was a lot of fast paced dialogue between the characters within the book which kept the plot and action going smoothly. My personal favourite character had to be little Merry with her obsession with vampires and her unlikely pet tortoise, Donald. It was humorous that a 4 year old child would be reading It by Stephen King, I found that little detail to be really endearing. My problems with this book came mainly towards the end of it; overall the pacing was well done, it felt as though the story unravelled naturally and nothing felt forced… until a point. The final quarter of the book felt rushed for me and left me with so many questions, I am now going to outline my qualms in the following paragraphs.

I don’t have any problems with authors who write problematic characters to make a functioning point in a novel, my problem arises when there is gratuitous use of inappropriate nastiness i.e. racism, sexism, ableism, etc. A moment in this book that left me stunned took place during a scene between Catherine and her husband, Adam, after she has had her break in and been threatened. Adam senses that something isn’t right and this is their conversation:

“You sure you’re OK?”

She made herself smile. “I’ll miss you, that’s all. With the baby coming so soon, I’m just, you know…”

“Hysterical?” he suggested.

“Well,” she shrugged, “I am a woman.”

“True,” he nodded wisely, and they both laughed.

As this book is written by a woman, it just seems utterly bizarre to me that she would write this part of dialogue between a man and wife. Nothing about this is funny to me, it’s just downright offensive. I normally can overlook things like this in books but because it was so casually added into a conversation of two of the ‘normal’ people in the book i.e. people who hadn’t been pegged as being misogynistic or backwards, I found this troublesome.

At the end of reading Snap I was left with more questions than when I went into it. First of all, why did the mother leave her children alone in the car at the hard shoulder? Why didn’t she drive her car further towards the payphone? Why did she get in Adam’s car? Why did Adam choose to prey on her? What was the connection with all the pregnant women? What happened to Adam at the end? Did he die, or did Catherine hand him in? Why did VC run from the police if she was seemingly innocent? Was she connected with Eileen’s murder? What was the need for her to keep such a cryptic record of her customers? What happened with Joy? Is she OK?

A lot of the things that happened towards the end of the book seemed to rely on all of the readers just accepting these unlikely things happening. First of all, Jack’s dad has disappeared for 3 years and for the majority of the book we assume that he has made a new life for himself elsewhere and then all of a sudden, he turns out to be the homeless man that Jack has had a previous encounter with. What?! And Jack only seems to care about him when he needs an adult in the house because he is having legal problems. As Jack is written to be a character who cares deeply for his two younger sisters who are both traumatised and impacted by their father disappearing on them, I don’t think it’s believable that Jack wouldn’t have tried to convince him to come home.

Another element of this book which, again, just seemed to be completely out of the realms of possibility was the deep trust Marvel had in Jack despite the fact he didn’t know him. Why would he let an underage teenager break into the van of someone he genuinely suspected had ties to an unsolved murder case? That made no sense to me.

Overall, this book was good but really that’s all that can be said for it. I’m not sure why this was chosen to be on the Manbooker long list, it seems incongruous compared to the other titles that have been selected this year. It felt rushed and probably could have done with multiple extra drafts before being released, it has been a long time since I have left a novel feeling so confused as to what had actually happened. There was no great plot twist in this book, it was fairly clear from the get go who the culprit was and overall, a slightly disappointing read on reflection.

Do I recommend this? If you’re a fan of thrillers, yes. If you want to read the Manbooker long list this year, yes. If you’re looking for a book that will knock your socks off, no. If you’re looking for a book of Manbooker standard, no. If you’re looking for the next big thing, no.

I cannot see this winning the Manbooker or proceeding on to the short list. My prediction is this will be knocked off before the next round.

Let me know if you have read this book, or if there are any books on the Manbooker long list you’d particularly like me to review.

Keep reading,

-A

The Reading Habits Tag

To christen this blog I am going to be filling out my own answers to the reading habits tag, I heard the women at What Page Are You On? podcast do an episode on this and I’ve also seen numerous people on booktube do this and thought it sounded a lot of fun. I also think it’s the perfect way to introduce myself as a reader.

Questions:

Do you have a certain place at home for reading?

I will typically read either in bed or on my comfy, vintage reading chair I have in my bedroom but I also like to read on the couch in my living room. My favourite place is my bed but I always feel guilty lying in bed during the day reading because it feels a little lazy.

Bookmark or random piece of paper?

I have been so much better at remembering to use a bookmark recently, I used to dog ear my books for a very long time but I found the cutest little magnetic cat bookmarks at Waterstones and decided that I needed them and I haven’t looked back since.

Can you just stop reading or do you have to stop after a chapter/certain amount of pages?

I can stop reading at any point during a book, however if I’m going to bed I prefer to try to end my reading session at a natural pause in the book, like a chapter break.

Do you eat or drink while reading?

Yes, all the time. I love drinking tea while reading, I find eating a little bit distracting but it doesn’t stop me from doing it.

Multi-tasking: music or television while reading?

Absolutely not. I want complete silence and no distractions when I’m reading. I can read in most conditions but ideally I’d rather not have anything on in the background. I’m often stuck listening to my partner’s video games while I’m trying to read.

One book at a time or several at once?

I prefer one book at once but if I’m doing a buddy read then I will read more than one book at a time so that I don’t rush ahead on the book.

Reading at home or everywhere?

I like reading at mine or my partner’s house but I also read on my commute to and from work/university. It honestly doesn’t matter, if I have spare time and nothing else to do, I will read regardless of location.

Do you read ahead or even skip pages?

As an adult, I have to say I don’t do either of these but when I was younger (a child) I used to get so impatient that I would always run ahead in books to get to the main action and skip the bits I deemed as boring.

Breaking the spine or keeping it like new?

There is nothing better than breaking the spine on a fresh book.

Do you write in your books?

Not normally, but if there is something that I find particularly poignant and I feel the desire to highlight or annotate it, I will.

I really enjoyed answering the questions in this tag and I look forward to doing more of them. What would you like to see on this blog? I’m planning on doing reviews mostly and maybe some more tags if I see any other ones that take my fancy.

Welcome to the reading corner,

– A