The end of the *decade* as we know it…
* This is a Big Catch Up post – see bottom of the page for details!
It’s hard to write this post now, in the midst of this 2020 pandemic, without a little bit of a foreboding gloom. Oh, how young we all were as we entered the new year, not having any clue what was about to hit us.
Ironically, I spent much of December in a similar stressful state as I was soon to face, albeit in a much more festive sense. The run-up to Christmas at work was hard. The constant darkness was even harder. When Christmas finally arrived I was thoroughly exhausted. Yet as is likely the way with many of us, we underestimate quite how tiring the time of year can be and overestimate just how much we can get done in that time.
My reading in December was somewhat all over the place. As I often find in times of high stress, things in life to start to slip, and my priorities are forced to shift. I chose sleep over reading a lot of the time.
It was needed, I think, but I am finding more and more that the less I read, the less well I feel overall. Does anyone else find that? Reading is soothing for the soul, and it can be easy to forget that sometimes…
The Last Day
By Andrew Hunter Murray
It is 2059, and the world has crashed. Forty years ago, a solar catastrophe began to slow the planet’s rotation to a stop. Now one half of the globe is permanently sunlit, the other half trapped in an endless night. The United States has colonized the southern half of Great Britain–lucky enough to find itself in the narrow habitable region left between frozen darkness and scorching sunlight–where both nations have managed to survive the ensuing chaos by isolating themselves from the rest of the world.
Ellen Hopper is a scientist living on a frostbitten rig in the cold Atlantic. She wants nothing more to do with her country after its slide into casual violence and brutal authoritarianism. Yet when two government officials arrive, demanding she return to London to see her dying college mentor, she accepts–and begins to unravel a secret that threatens not only the nation’s fragile balance, but the future of the whole human race.
As a great lover of sci-fi, I jumped at the chance to read this book when it popped up as an ARC. And it actually turned out to be one of the biggest surprises of 2019. I certainly had no idea what I was in for.
A global catastrophe. Struggling to survive. Uncertainty abounds. Sound familiar? Little did I know that we would soon get a taste of this in reality! In December, I happily read this story as a little escapist fiction believe it or not. I am partial to a bit of post-apocalyptic fiction, and The Last Day definitely lives up to the genre.
Viewed through the viewpoint of scientist Ellen she is sent back to the mainland unexpectedly and is soon thrown into a web of mystery and conspiracy. The story unfolds fast and fun, and by the end, you really feel like you’ve joined her on quite an intense experience!
This Is How You Lose the Time War
By Amal El-Mohtar and Max Goldstone
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading… Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.
Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.
For the first time in as long as I remember I DNF’d a book (‘Did Not Finish’). Inspired by others like the lovely Books Nest, I decided enough was enough. Life is too short to battle through books you’re not enjoying. There are just so many books to read, and so little time to read them all.
So, heading into December I was determined to be a little more ruthless and put down anything that wasn’t doing anything for me. If it feels like a chore, I’ll read it no more!
I was halfway through this highly praised book when I just hit a wall. I loved the concept of this book but it was far too flowery and poetic for me to make head or tails of. I’m sure that’s why so many people loved it and it was why I stuck it out for so long. But at the half-way mark, I realised it just wasn’t going to get any better for me and so I promptly moved on.
[I’ve given this book no star rating as I don’t feel that’s fair for a DNF]
The Elizabeth Tudor Conspiracy
By Alexandra Walsh
Was Elizabeth I really the last Tudor princess…?
THE ELIZABETH TUDOR CONSPIRACY is the second book in the Marquess House trilogy, a dual timeline conspiracy thriller with an ingenious twist on a well-known period of Tudor history.
After absolutely devouring the first in this series (read my review of The Catherine Howard Conspiracy here) I was majorly excited for the next instalment. Luckily, I was not disappointed as the quality writing from Walsh continues. Not only is this such a uniquely fun concept: Tudor history conspiracy, intertwined with a modern-day thriller. But it is done in such an excellently paced and engaging way.
After the twists and turns of the first book, I was cautiously optimistic with where the plot could go next. I shouldn’t have worried as there was still plenty left to explore!
My favourite part of Elizabeth is the Queen herself. The Tudor time period chapters were my favourite to read. By interweaving with the modern-day, the plot unfolded keeping the mystery going until the very end. I could honestly see it working really well as a TV show and I am beyond excited for the next (and sadly last) book to come out.
Girl, Woman, Other
By Bernardine Evaristo
Teeming with life and crackling with energy — a love song to modern Britain and black womanhood
Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.
Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible.
As the (joint) winner of the Man Booker Prize 2019, I was hoping for great things in Girl. As expected it lives up to the hype, although was a lot more gritty than I was expecting.
This isn’t a traditional novel: characters are introduced, we delve deep into their psyche, their lives, their hopes and dreams, and then… *poof* we’re onto the next character. It did feel quite jarring for some parts of the book, and there were definitely some women’s stories I connected with more than most.
The dipping in and out of time periods and locations was fun, and the huge variety of women was very interesting. No matter who you are coming to this book you will likely find a woman who you have not engaged with before. Certainly, for me, I found the majority of the women were outside of my ‘norm’, and so it was really great to have a chance to spend time with the stories I usually would never come across.
By the end, the characters’ worlds collide and we check in on them all one last time as we ‘zoom out’ and see how they are all interconnected. This was a really nice touch – even if I had lost track of who each woman was by the end! Juggling 12 unique intensely deep women and their stories were difficult, but an evocative experience that I’m glad I could read.
* This is a Big Catch Up post. Written in May 2020 as part of a lockdown project to get back into blogging. Currently, I’m ‘catching up’ with the last few months of reading round-ups, before launching into new content!
