Emma Types Stuff

Sometimes I don't want to write a review of a book, simply because I don't feel up to the intellectual task of doing so. I've written of my insecurities around reading and reviewing literary work before , and once again I stand nervously on edge of literary criticism, feeling as dumb as a box of rocks.  But I read Earthlings [Sayaka Murata] and need talk about it.    Convenience Store Woman  was one of the books that  helped me out of my reading slump and considering that it was one of my earliest reviews, and my whole reading outlook has changed since then, Earthlings offers a lot of opportunity for reflection. All I knew going in was that it was more divisive than Convenience Store Woman . I'd seen comments suggesting this book dials the strangeness up to eleven, but even I was caught off guard by the graphic horror hidden beneath the artfully cutesy cover.  [Please note that this review will discuss some of those events, which include sexual abuse and ex...

One of the absolute joys in life is finding appreciation for something you didn't previously 'get'. For me, short story collections are that thing.  Whilst I have no issues reading short stories in general, collections and anthologies used to defeat me. I found them more exhausting than novels, much in the same way tapas can be more filling than a large meal. But after trialling a method of reading multiple collections and once, hopping between them as the mood struck, I have become an anthology devotee.  And so we come onto my Spring challenge. I actually intended to post this at the start of April, and keep it updated as I went, but life took a bit of a turn and so I chose to read the books and round them up later.  I had expected the books I chose to take the majority of the month, but a combination of three short page lengths and four very easy reads meant I was done in less than two weeks. See what I read below... The Collections The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by ...

Here I am reviewing a sports novel... who'd have thought it?  I have a soft spot for the extremely-hyped Taylor Jenkins Reid. I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo because a colleague (clearly tuned in to my queerness) gave me the copy they'd just finished with a knowing ' this seems up your street '. And whilst I was dubious (novels about celebrity are not my thing) they were proven correct. I loved it.  Likewise I enjoyed Daisy Jones and the Six which, though not as good, was a fun evening's audiobook listen. I decided to put Taylor Jenkins Reid in the category of an author I wouldn't go out of my way for, but would probably read if a book came my way via the library, or a sale.  Which is how Carrie Soto is Back arrived in my lap. I snagged it for 99p and then ignored it for over a year, because... a tennis novel? Really?!  Believe it or not, I have form with tennis romances, with a friend of mine having written a particularly popular one. This was my j...

And so we return to my very occasional series , 'books with the same vibe', in which I compare and contrast two books that for one reason or another, have a great deal in common in subject matter, theme, and marketing style. In this case it's The Lighthouse Witches [CJ Cooke] and The Lamplighters [Emma Stonex] which I read back in 2022. Both are female-focused stories about a group of people who vanish from a lighthouse, and both books switch between the current day and the past to tell their stories, and between multiple POVs.  People going missing from lighthouses is a common trope, following the real life Flannan Isle mystery , with The Lamplighters being a retelling of that story in a new era, and The Lighthouse Witches certainly taking some inspiration from it.  Naturally the covers both prominently feature lighthouses, with my preference being the night-sky reds of The Lamplighters over The Lighthouse Witches lovely but rather misleading design. I was under the impres...

If you have read this novel already and are now worrying about my personal character and how dangerous I may or may not be... never fear. It was only sometimes like looking inside my own head. Definitely not the bit at the end where things got freaky.  But even then I sort of got it.  If you haven't read it and are now confused... well... that's sort of the Motherthing experience. It's literary (not my favourite) but also somewhat campy, suburban horror (one of my faves). It's about grief and mother issues, and... hoo boy can I relate there.  Motherthing is the story of Abby, who prides herself on being one of the children from broken homes who made it. She has a good life and is wildly, desperately in love with her husband. Their conversation in the opening scene, as they await bad news at the hospital, shows two people who are exactly on each other's wavelength. They are supportive and playful, and even in their darkest moments they can ' yes and ' each...

I tell myself that I don't fall for BookTube hype, but I totally do. Case-in-point, the fact that I immediately loaned Penance [Eliza Clark] after watching one glowing review for it.  A 'true-crime' novel set on the night of Brexit, with an unreliable narrator? Sign me up.  Fortunately, it more-or-less lives up to several positive reviews I've since seen, though I think claims that it's got something truly deep to say about true-crime are wildly overstated. Is it a gripping, thought-provoking novel? Yes. Deep?  . ..Meh.    Penance is written in the style of a non-fiction true-crime novel. On the night of the Brexit referendum in 2016, three teenage girls kidnap and torture another girl, and then set a beach hut on fire to try and destroy the body. A journalist shamed in the infamous phone-hacking scandal then sees his opportunity to write a book about a crime largely overlooked by media. We are told at the beginning that book is controversial, featuring inaccura...

Very occasionally you can read a book that you don't enjoy, and think is terrible, and still not hate it. For me that is usually because there is some other emotional factor involved, which is the case with The Maidens [Alex Michaelides].  I bought it knowing that the reviews were lacklustre, but I was willing to read a comically pretentious Dark Academia thriller for a bit of fun. I popped it on as an audiobook during a deeply upsetting family crisis, which involved hours of driving and a solid day of cleaning in terrible circumstances. I didn't need anything clever, I needed something easy to follow and distracting while I was scraping years of filth off a kitchen floor and bursting into tears at random moments.   So it was only when I had a few moments to myself, much later, that I was able to go 'oh wait, it really was awful.'  The book follows Mariana, a fantastically wealthy group therapist, who is in deep mourning for her husband. She is guardian to her niece,...

Hey there,  Small Town Love Interest in a Holiday Movie , mind if I call you Small Town for short?  I know life isn't easy for you. Good flannel shirts aren't cheap, stubble takes maintenance, and you are no doubt extremely busy with your successful coffee shop/bakery and the single-fathering/reading to sick children/rescuing kittens you do on the side. Plus all that wood-chopping and cookie-making really eats into your Netflix time. You didn't ask for a feisty blonde/redhead to come from the city and bring back memories of your teenage heartbreak and/or put you out of business.  You probably wanted to watch TV this Christmas, not pretend to be engaged to a stranger for reasons that, let's face it, even you aren't clear about.   When are you going to get some time to yourself, Small Town ? After the big happy ending? Whilst navigating a new relationship you've committed to far too early? Will you both be the same person once the Christmas Tree comes down and t...

I'm genuinely not sure where I heard about The Cherry Robbers [Sarai Walker].  In my head, I assumed some BookTuber had mentioned it and I have a vague recollection of adding it to my wishlist, in a half-hearted ' probably never get around to it ' way. People were talking about it, I assumed, which is why I knew the cover well enough to pick it up while dashing through an entire warehouse of books .  It's only as I finished it and breathlessly looked around to see other people's thoughts that I discovered... no one is talking about it. A big queer gothic novel with literary elements and a gorgeous cover and there are (at time of writing) maybe three mentions of it on YouTube? I honestly feel gaslighted.  As such, you probably don't know the premise of this book, which is a queer coming of age story set in the fifties. Sylvia, an elderly, reclusive artist, deals with the unwelcome resurfacing of a life she has long forgotten - when she called Iris, and was one of...

I didn't read this book because it had queer content. Honest. In fact, I had no idea. I had only heard buzz about it and needed a book to fulfil the 'modern history' prompt for History Girl Summer. Couple that with the feeling of connection to the Aberfan disaster that every UK person has, I was sold.  What I wasn't expecting was for this book to (partially) tell a story I'd been yearning for my entire adult life.  A Terrible Kindness [Jo Browning Wroe] is about the impact of the Aberfan disaster on a man's life. The real-life disaster happened when a small Welsh village was devastated by a half-million tonne man-made avalanche. It primarily struck the village's school, leading to the death of one-hundred-and-sixteen children and twenty-eight adults.  In the aftermath, nearby undertakers are begged to come and assist with the body-identification and embalming process, and though it's a job more suited to those with disaster experience, newly-gra...

Normally I open my reviews with a quick explanation of why I picked up the book in the first place, but in this case the question is:  why wouldn't I? Death of a Bookseller is clearly designed to be a buzzy thriller for people who like books and want something slightly twisted to read on the beach. It is to book-loving millennials what The Girl on the Train was to wine moms and Gone Girl was to wives.   Death of a Bookseller [Alice Slater] follows two employees at a Walthamstow branch of Spines (an obvious Waterstones expy). Roach, a serial killer-loving goth living in a world of 'normies', becomes immediately obsessed with Laura, a bougie (and dear god you will become familiar with that word), seemingly put-together hipster who has just joined the branch. Rebuffed by the true-crime hating Laura at every turn, Roach discovers Laura's connection to a famous serial killer and begins a campaign of stalking that pushes Laura ever closer to the edge.  This has garnered...

Hey, want to read something about Roald Dahl that isn't tedious debate about his books being re-written by the 'wokist blob'? You may not be alone!  Maybe you aren't defending the problematic nature of some of Dahl's material, but also still have fondness for books that defined thousands - if not millions - of childhoods? Maybe, as a mature adult, you can admit that while he had some nasty beliefs, his life wasn't always a picnic? Maybe you are crazy enough to hold the simultaneous ideas that children shouldn't be taught that ugly = evil but that the idea of blowing up a mean old lady with household products is hilarious for the average six year old? Maybe you feel like a normal person about it all.  We're all just  tired.  Anyway, if you are one of these crazy fools who see in shades of grey, this is the article for you.  I've put together a book rec list inspired by popular Dahl novels, trying my best to match the themes and tone of those books. S...

I, like so many women, am a true crime junkie. A guilty one, who examines the injustices, prejudice and copaganda inherent in so much of it... but that doesn't stop me stuffing my face with popcorn while I ingest human misery for entertainment.  You are welcome to judge me. I judge myself. I've always liked crime fiction but I only started watching true crime in the months following my dad's (perfectly natural) death. It involved no thinking and there was something about seeing the very worst of humanity that made my own simple pain less extreme.  Notes on an Execution [Danya Kukafka] is sold as a story that examines our fascination with serial killers. Instead of seeking answers from an ultimately pathetic individual, it's a book that tells the stories of the women around him as the clock counts down to his execution. It aims to refocus on the victims, rather than his whacked out theories, and to examine the sick, invasive interest so many have in serial killers as a s...