Rachel´s Random Resources: The Nurse by Valerie Keogh

 

I am happy to return to an author whose thriller I reviewed later last year was hard to remember. Valerie Keogh is back on my blog with a very interesting thriller which is also an introspection into how frustration and bullying may for ever distort someone else´s life. There is no excuse for bad behaviors, definitely, as doing good or bad is in the end a personal decision, but at least it offers important possible explanations for everyday reactions.

The Nurse is a moderately paced thriller, built around the personality of Lissa McColl, a nurse underestimated at work, with a history of bullying. Her background and personal history is extensively explained in the first part, which although lacking in action and twists - except the thrilling opening ´I was then when I made the decision to kill Jemma´ -, it offers an overview of her personality.

The second part introduces us to her current life and this was by far my favorite, as it is unexpected until the very end and packed with unexpected directions of events and an even unexpected end. However, the two parts of the story complete each other, two perfectly matched halves of the same story.

The Nurse is a book to remember with a main character which is carefully built. Keogh, a nurse herself, introduced a controversial yet relatable thriller persona with a psychologically complex storyline.

For me, Keogh is definitely an author I would love to read more soon.

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Book Review: Bunny by Mona Awad

 ´They liken me to Woolf, to Borges, their praise as lavish as their handbags´.

Hilarious and daring, Bunny by Mona Awad is a Gothic story about an MFA (which is Master of Fine Arts) went wild. I´ve heard good and bad about this book, but since Cursed Bunny I have a secret curiosity about writings featuring this apparently innocent animals. A creative mind can do everything about them, and the sky is only the limit.

Samantha, a socially outcast with a lot of imagination, got suddenly accepted in a group of successful girls, calling each other Bunny and intensively focused on their literary assignments. They are everything Samatha is not right now: rich - although we are not shared too much about their families - pink elegant, love cupcakes, drive fancy cars and do have enough time to think about weird experiments. After all, they are expected to be creative and test the limits of their own power and imagination, as well as to refuse stereotypes of all kinds - assuming the risk of becoming stereotypical themselves. 

The writing is really creative - after all, Awad herself is teaching creative writing - and the ideas are daring: how far creativity should go, and how far - away from reason and common sense - creative vibe can take you. Also, it´s ironically featuring the bourgeois limitations of the domain, showing that one cannot run aimlessly for an art beyond art unless completely loosing ground of oneself.

Personally, I would have be more curious to find out more about those Bunnies, their lives, secrets and failures, and projecting them perfectly slim as characters does not help the story. Samatha, on the other hand, is portrayed in all her insecurities and particularly loved how the details of her personal life - the crook father, the deceased mother - are entering the story in a very smooth unexpected way, exactly when those details were more needed.

Somehow, I´ve expected more about this story, as it alternates between very bold episodes and wandering along the imagination maze which are wondrously crafted and symbolical but don´t advance the story at all. It´s like a beautiful intermezzo ending up abruptly.

Mona Awad is definitely an author I can´t wait to read more about. Bunny is a challenge of imagination and a defy of the bourgeois MFA system, but somehow I felt I needed a different take or direction.

Rating: 3.5 stars

 

A Follower Story

 

Work was way too overwhelming last weeks, therefore I spent most of my reading time going through my list of English books tours and eventually some French authors. Therefore, I still have a lot to catch up with the list of German authors I want to discover this year.

My latest reading from my German TBR is by an author that is often in the media those days for his latest published novel: Eugen Ruge. However, I still have to catch up with his older books: Follower - in English in the original German edition. Ruge, mathematician by education, is the son of the famous DDR historian Wolfgang Ruge. Although his family history is inpiring some of his books, this is not the case of Follower which is a dystopian novel set in 2055.

I usually do have issues to imagine things set in the future, but in the case of this novel, everything looks like today, highly digitalised and with an online world taking over the reality. I´ve wrote several times about this quasi obsession of German mentality in denouncing the e-control threatening our everyday lives and this book is not different. It´s like a local canon for fiction. Ruge, who despite his elitist communist family background escaped the Socialist dictatorship to the West in the last years of the DDR, may be concerned by the possible raise of a new dictatorship, beyond borders and languages.

In the world of 2055 there are no nations, just business conglomerates. The language of this world is ´overpolitically´ correct, although the main man character Nio Schulz keep thinking as a mysoginistic man in his midlife crisis (a frequent topic in novel written by German men authors, I wonder why) - he just went 39 as we get to know him.

Mathematically, there are ´14 sentences about a fictional oncle´, that do set the chapters and the thread of action. Nio Schulz is disappearing as the work of his own fiction and the search for him and his efforts of disappearing in the folders of the fictional reality. 

I personally liked the writing, a recommended read to anyone looking to improve their ´hoch´ German, but the story itself either annoyed me - all the critics against the political corectness and the ´crisis of the white/hetero man´ sounds so cliché - and the story although well elaborated, totally displeased me.

I would probably give this author a next chance, with his family inspired novels, but as for now, I betetr skip any dystopian story, unless it is one of those everyone is saying only good things about.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Random Things Tours: Zero Days by Ruth Ware

 

An adrenaline-fuelled thriller by bestseller author Ruth Ware, Zero Days is less mystery and a lot of action, with an entincing - for me, that´s for sure - cybersecurity inspiration. 

Jack and Gabe do work together to test liabilities of security systems. As she discovers Gabe dead with her being considered the main suspect, Jack is starting her own race for finding the reason and the person who killed her husband. And what a race it is, running against time, for her life and for the truth. This may also mean testing the limits of her trust into other people. 

For any cyber nerd, the topics explored are worth a try, and Ware is managing pretty well the terminology in the context, which gives credibility to the crime story as such. This adds authenticity and strength to the ambiance of the novel, in addition to the very active set of events.

I was particularly pleased by Jack, a courageous cyber fighter, with a strong character, although sometimes I felt like she needs a bit of more time to figure out things. The plot may not be very elaborated, but the action itself takes over and the twists are introduced at the right time for taking the story in the right direction. 

In subtext though, the reader could be shared some thoughts too about over use technology and the risks of allowing too much cyberworld into our everyday life, without taking though a too radical pessimistic direction.

For nerds with a feeling for thrillers, Zero Days is a recommended read, especially if looking for outstanding women characters.

Also, I wish someone will turn this book into a movie too.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own 

Rachel´s Random Resources: The Silent Friend by Alison Stockham

 

Two friends, two women happen to live one near the other, one longing to finally find an accepting and warm family. One terrible secret and an imprisoned husband. Do the untold secrets may affect this strong bond? Should this friendship be submitted to the test of truth?

Although that I was very interested in the original story of The Silent Friend, the second book of Alison Stockham, the moral questioning and the dilemma were by far my most favorite parts of reading this book.´Friendships are so rare nowadays, especially genuine friendships, but what exactly lay hidden in everyone´s soul and particularly past.

But definitely, The Silent Friend has more than one entincing topic, and the thriller red thread is equally important, as it is also the complex construction of the story. The pace suits the different layers of the action, allowing the different elements of surprise to be introduced and further develop. 

It is a book that resonates with everyone interested in discovering a bit more about human friendship and an active invitation to thriller reading, a perfect activity if your summer plans include spending some quality time at the beach or in a park in the company of a book-friend.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: The Dive by Sara Ochs

 

As a dedicated traveler, in love with discovering new corners of Paradise, and sun soaked worlds, any book set in a surrounding which reminds me of my former life - as for now - as a travel writer and globetrotter is definitely an invitation to take a break from my busy life and dive into the pages of the book. But I love a good written thriller plot, with relating characters, preferably hiding some secrets in their heavy backpacking. The paradise can be translated in many ways, and for me it is definitely one of its sounding names.

Set on a party island in Thailand - been there, done that - The Dive by Sara Ochs is a travel-inspired debut thriller. Ochs herself may know a bit more than the average tourist about traveling the world, but also about the hardships of the expat life. The characters in The Dive seem to be inspired by her experiences, hopefully without the crime trails. 

A much awaited scuba diving trip leaded by instructor Cass ends up on a tragic note, as one of her students is dead and another injured. Is one of the classmates the criminal? And, if yes,which one?

I love a thriller that dives into the ocean of questions, challenging the reader to ask question after question with no happy ending in sight. The details are disclosed very slowly leaving enough time for the mysteries of the characters themselves to settle. It involves a lot of introspection and deep knowledge of human weaknesses and limitations.

The Dive by Sara Ochs announces a great thriller writer and I am very curious what her next novel will reveal. Hopefully, it keeps the travel and thriller mix.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

The Ungrateful Refugee

 

A refugee herself, having to flee Iran as a child, with her mother and brother, persecuted as Christian converts, Dina Nayeri offers more than a memorialistic story about what does it mean to be an immigrant. In The Ungrateful Refugee she is definitely sharing her story and her own memories of being a child, a girl, in the Islamic Republic, but she also adds stories of other refugees, going through more dramatic challenges. 

There will never be enough stories about what does it mean and especially feel to be a refugee. But besides the stories themselves, there are many angles that we rarely take into account when we hear or analyse them: for instance, how the narrative is re-written over and over again, either to fit some specific expectations or the self-representation of the refugees themselves. And, most specifically, what is left behind from this stories, and why?

When one wants/desire to start anew, the narrative is rewritten to suit this desire, to encourage the change or when the plan succeeds, to fit into the new life. At what extent the identities are rewritten completely and how does it affect the mental and intellectual state of the refugee him or herself? What is truth and dare in their stories?

The stories shared by Nayeri, including her own, are rarely easy, and it took me more time than usual to finish this book. Refugees are here to stay and our world will never turn into a perfectly safe, free and democratic place. We need to accept and acknowledge refugee stories, the way they are, not how we expect them to fit our narrative. The Ungrateful Refugee may help us to be better humans in this respect.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Short Stories by Ottessa Moshfegh

My newest read by Ottessa Moshfegh is a collection of short stories featuring inadapted outwordly characters not trying to fit into the narrative. But who is there to define the normality? And what about us, the average, being blinded to believe that everyone actually fits a certain drawer on the neat shelf of life?

Homesick for Another World has, in my opinion, a richer writing potential than her previous books. Her novels feature a character, that takes over the whole story, not allowing other characters to grow in its shadows. Instead, the short stories although they may be built around one specific character, they nevertheless fit into a landscape and interact with other people/characters, mostly outsider to the accepted narrative.

If we look with fresh eyes around our immediate reality, we may discover that in fact, indeed, being human often does not have to do with what is expected to be human. There are lonely people, people longing for another world, never succeeding in their life, emotional and sentimental failures - in love, by auditions, in their marriages. It always depends where are you looking for. And some people may be just destroyed when forced to operate in a normal - capitalistic - environment. Maybe there is something more to a life struggling to answer other people and society´s expectations, isn´t it?

Another difference with the novels by her I´ve read until now is the ethnic diversity of the characters. However, they all operate within the American context, and many of them do have body fat problems - from the easthetical point of view. 

The style is precise and focused as usual, recreating scenes where the characters are let in. Nothing is out of place in the story, except the people themselves, longing for another world.

Rating: 4 stars

Random Things Tours: You Can´t See Me by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir translated by Victoria Cribb

 

Extended families of all sorts do offer an unlimited source of amazement and dark secrets. Especially in times of crisis, under the unexpected duress of dramatic external events. From this point of view, the premises of You Can´t See Me by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb, published by Orenda Books are an excellent.

This was my second encounter with this Icelandic author, the book being part of the Forbidden Iceland series.

A rich family reunites in a fancy resort. The conflict between different generations is clear, but maybe stronger than the age-related worldviews is the personal conflict between the new and old members of the family. And as the tension seems to slowly increase in the fancy resort, there is a corpse and police intervenes to investigate. The best occasion to allow more secrets and inimities to reveal.

As an orchestra conductor, the author allows a concert of points of view, shared by most of the characters of the book. Instead of creating a cacophony it offers a magistral display of the human nature, with all its weaknesses. However, it amplifies the mystery and the doubts about the possible outcome.

I am a big admirer of writers creating a story out of an everyday life situation - family conflicts, minus the corpse, obviously - and Ægisdóttir is definitely a crafted master in her own way. I loved how the story - universal, translatable all over the world - was given a local Made in Iceland flavor, which makes the reading experience even more powerful and unforgettable.

I can only expect more installments from the Forbidden Iceland, as I am becoming more and more fascinated with this society, one Icelandic Noir book at a time. 

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: A Stranger in Baghdad by Elizabeth Loudon

 

A book about surviving conflicting loyalties and longing in the 20th century shifting sands of Iraq history, A Stranger in Baghdad by Elizabeth Loudon is a well researched impressive debut novel. 

Moving from Britain to Iraq at the beginning of the century for love, Diane switches the comfort of her family, opening up her destiny to a new world. But love rarely suffices, and being a foreigner in a new country is far from being easy, especially when the loyalties in the region are dramatically changing. And they keep changing until our current times.

Her own family, especially the children growing up in Iraq in a bi-racial family, will reflect the diverse identities of Iraq and the author creates both the conflict and the family and social loyalties in a very elaborated and realistic way. I particularly appreciated the portrayal of the human interactions, without taking sides, both in terms of human and political terms. It allows the reader to take his or her own sides, and better understand the characters.

The descriptions of both places and historical encounters do create the right context for the story, build its authenticity. I also loved how the story has its own dosis of suspense, surprise, and some intelligence games that makes the reading even more eventful.

A story about living between two worlds, without condescending Orientalist takes, A Stranger in Baghdad shows that there are so many intelligent ways to write about the Middle East. I can only long for more and more such intellectually honest takes. 

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Rachel´s Random Resources: The Alibi by Evie Hunter

An abusive womanizer, a manipulative friend. Scott Jesop is unreliable and unpredictable, selfish and hunting his new victim with no concerns about morality and honor. As he keeps bullying and threatening his old employee Leone who - dared! - to left him, he needs the help of his friend and business partner Hugo Rossiter. But for a long time already, Hugo has enough of him and it´s ready to make a change. Together with Leone, they have a smart plan that may teach Scott a lesson.

The Alibi by Evie Hunter is relatable and follows a slow pace, good enough to make you curious about what can happen next. It allows to build the ambiance to better know the characters and carefully follow their next moves. All during the book I felt that I should be perfectly focused in order to understand and follow what the characters do plan to do, mostly to each other. I wish I can find out more about the personal histories of the characters though as it may have helped to understand the motivation behind their decisions.

For someone looking for a thrilling book of revenge, to be tasted cold, under the sun umbrella while taking a rest from the wild life, The Alibi by Evie Hunter is a recommended read. It keeps you awake but also reveals some bits of knowledge about human nature and its motivations.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: One by Eve Smith

I rarelly read a book twice within a very short amount of time, but some books are more special than the others and may request knowledge and sensibilities unseen before. An ecological thriller sent in a dystopian timeline, One by Eve Smith published by Orenda Books was one of my most challenging reads of the year, not only because I am pretty new to the ecological thriller genre.

One is set in a Britain of the future, implementing with a strong hand the policy of one child. Kai, an employee of the Ministry of Population randomly discover that there may be a secret sibling whose search reveals a journey through human psyche and human behavior. Apparently, no matter how far in time we may arrive, the human nature with its weaknesses may remain always the same.

What fascinated me in the case of One is the inquisitive questioning of the limits of politics, no matter what is the aim in sight. The one child policy is aimed to counter the devastating effects of the ecological crisis, but how far a state could go in their citizens´ life in order to allow the survival of the world? When exactly suspending the citizens´ rights and freedoms is the only way left to the state to intervene? Decades ago, for different reasons, China implemented a similar one child policy, through a dramatic state intervention into people´s private lives. 

Conspiracy, corruption, ecological thriller, dystopian disfunctionalities, there are so many elements that makes One unique, both in terms of topics and approaches. I could not compare this book with anything I´ve read before, but I would definitely love to read more by Eve Smith and explore more of her books that seems to use motives of contemporary politics into literary projections.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: Heal Your Body and Mind with Yin Yoga by Miranda Mattig Kumar

 

In the last three years, I started to take much more care of my body than ever before. The reminder that I am not only made of ideas, but of a fragile body that needs to be taken into account took me some time to acknowledge but my life definitely changed for good. Although I am still far from being fully aware of my physical limitation and acting accordingly, those days I am spending a significant amount of time taking a break from fighting all the time against myself. 

Therefore, my growing interest in trying various methods and pathways to bring together both mind and body, particularly through more sport and activities, but also through meditation and various body massage sessions. Healing takes times and may occur in the most unexpected places.

My relationship with Yoga was not always smoothly, as my mental perception of the techniques was often contradicted by the hard work required by the various postures. Too much stress for me sometimes. However, after reading Heal Your Body and Mind with Yin Yoga by certified yoga therapeut based in Geneva Miranda Mattig Kumar I realize that my problem may be that I couldn´t find until now a good trainer to guide my movements step by step.

The book offers detailed directions for different poses, accompanied by easy explanations and images explaining the effect of various exercises for the body. Many of them can be practiced at home, and the QR Codes inside the book provide direct access to useful videos for your journey of building a healthy body and mind. I tried at home some of the postures and at least for now, it worked very well. They suit the busy lifestyle of someone who may need some time only for her- or himself, to offer to the body a well deserved interior state of wellness. 

A recommended book for anyone starting their journey to connect mind and body.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: The Bleeding by Johana Gustawsson translated by David Warriner

 

Being a historian myself, I am very much inclined to avoid historical novels of any kind, because the researcher part of my brain would be always keen to discover the mishaps and inaccuracies. Still, I love crime novels, whenever they happen(ed) therefore, I can silence the overcritical historian sometimes, for the sake of the a good read.

My lucky choice this time was The Bleeding by French-´Queen of Gothic and Noir´ - Johana Gustawsson, translated into English by David Warriner published last year by Orenda Books (long time no book reviews from one of my favorite English edition houses, but it will get better soon, I promise).

Three women, three historical periods of time. A mystery crossing centuries. There is a ritual and  inter-generational secrecy, a dark power and a quest for truth. From Belle Epoque Paris to Québec after the war and in our times, the stories of three women are connecting dark secrets from old times. And there is the quest for the mystery key, that detective Maxine decided to answer the riddle of a ritualistic crime.

The Bleeding may be dark sometimes but it is definitely a Gothic novel tying together three women experiences at the limit of the reality and existential survival. It keeps the reader in constant suspense and under the pressure of unexpected new terrific details. It is not only a journey through history, including women histories, but also a story about occult and dark rituals, and no matter how limited interest I have in real life for such procedures, the literary rendition is done with contextual care and precision.

A special note, as usual when well deserved, to the cover which is as entincing as the women stories hidden under the covers.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Rachel´s Random Resources: Love Quest by Camilla Issey

 

It´s summer and it is time to fall in love...Or at least to consider various falling in love scenarios. Even if you are not ready to start some new relationship right now, reading about other possible relationships may help you. At least, to figure out how to find the next time something much much better than ever before.

For the adventurous at heart, Love Quest by Camilla Isley may be the perfect source of inspiration this summer season. Set in Thailand, it is build around the love-to-hate story between a charming travel photographer, Winter Knowles, and a very attractive archeologist, Dr. Logan Spencer. Their destinies are locked in the quest for a lost city of gold, therefore, professional interests are supposed to prevail, no matter how much enmity exists between the two. 

I really liked about the book how it takes an eternal motive - enemies turned lovers - into a Romantic adventure out of the ordinary. It has a pinch of Indiana Jones and some open physical attraction hints. One may predict how it would end, but we can still take a chance to get surprised about how things are actually going to happen.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Book Review: The Perfect Wife by JP Delaney

´Tim was obsessed by the idea that AI interactions should be lifelike´.

I will always be a geek by heart therefore, when I am not reading, I may be for sure busy trying to figure out some cyber-related riddles. Sometimes my brain is also busy with maths, my lifelong passion, I rarely talk about. Thus, finding novels - particularly crime novels - resonating with my particular interests is a pleasant event, for which I prepare accordingly, ready to dedicate an important amount of time to enjoy the moment.

The Perfect Wife by JP Delaney sounded like my kind of reading challenge. Set in the world of start-ups, featuring a courageous entrepreneur, that was so much in love with his late wife, that he created a robot version of her - with feelings, minus eating, drinking, sexual contact. Thus, a bit of love story as well. But as the layers of an onion, once the story advances, things prove to be completely different as they were assumed to: the wife that disappeared may have been in fact killed by Tim himself, who is himself a sociopath mysoginist. His wife may have set up her own death, trying to escape the abusive marriage as well as probably the recent autism diagnosis of their son, Danny. And the robot herself may develop an attachment to Tim, but also is trying to find out what happened to her human correspondent. 

The mystery and crime novel is eventful, with twists without end until the story finishes. The story is told on multiple voices, which adds more diverse points of view, therefore, the expectation of different red threads, although not all of them are going somewhere. Also, the portrayal of autism is very empathic and scientifically and pedagogically relatable.

My biggest - geekish - shortcoming has to do with the robot herself. The limits of her thinking and the ways in which memories - initially, gathered from social media interactions - are built, how far in the past and most importantly, its neuronal connections, especially those allowing to create human-like attachments. Without this understanding, the whole conundrum of the robot herself is completelly missing the point and therefore it downgrades the geek/robot story itself.

The Perfect Wife started on a good premise for me, but in the end did not answered many of my specific questions therefore soon after, my excitement turned in sheer irritation as it could not answer questions important for the overall understanding of the story.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Rachel´s Random Resources: The Secret of Villa Alba by Louise Douglas

 

Following a dual time story, The Secret of Villa Alba by Louise Douglas, recently published by Bollwood is a dual-time story of betrayal, mystery and family secrets set in Italy. 

Back in 1968, months after a devastating earthquake in Sicily, Irene Borgata, Enzo´s young wife, disappeared without a trace during a short while as he went out to ask for help for fixing his suddenly broken car. Decades back, a popular true crime journalist accused Enzo of killing his wife, and his daughter, Maddi, hires a childhood detective friend to find out the truth. But surprisingly, there are so many secrets that were deeply hidden and detective April may be assigned the difficult task to witness them all.

The Secret of Villa Alba is that kind of story that you cannot resist not follow until the end, not because it is very complex and eventful, but due to its human relevance. The characters and the situations portrayed may be fully relatable and therefore, following the thread is a chance to understand more about human nature itself.

In addition to the thriller-crime background, my favorite part was to delve into the ambiance of the story, The surroundings are created with such a high detail and attention that the reader may find breathing and living in the Italian world, although only from the comfort of one´s home.

A recomended smart read if you are looking to enjoy a bookish weekend.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: The Three of Us by Ore Agbaje-Williams

There is a lot to be written and said about the literature and art work in general produced during the lockdown. Although it took me a bit of time to find out those right brilliant works created under the pressure of the pandemic, little by little, the hidden creative gems are revealing themselves.

My latest pleasant reading created during lockdown is The Three of Us by British-Nigerian author Ore Agbaje-Williams. 

Witty, dark, humorous, hilarious. The Three of Us is the story of three characters, out of which two love to hate each other. A husband, a wife and her best friend, Temi. A best friend who is sure that the husband is not her best choice. A husband that would do everything possible to get the Temi out of her wife´story. Caught between love and loyalty, the wife herself may play the Switzerland, but does not want to push any of them out of her life.

Although some episodes are extreme, the story is highly relatable and I had at least once such encounter myself, with a good girl friend that deeply hated the man I was with at a time, feeling myself sandwitched between two different set of loyalties. Thus, my loyalties are completely with the wife. #Teamwife

Each of the two characters are assigned a chapter and their own voices, with Temi the last to be given the chance to explain herself. It is not necessarily a missed opportunity, but sometimes I felt that I would have love to just follow a story in its unfolding dynamics, with interactions and stories happening then and there, instead of us being told about them. 

On the other hand, this 3-part vision made me think the book can be nicely turned into a theatre play, but also into a movie in, why not, three episodes. Hope someone will really have such an idea. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the blog tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena

Irritated that his extramarital affair come to an end against his will, William Wooler arrives a bit earlier home, only to find out his 9-year old daughter Avery is unexpectedly at home. They do have an argument and shortly after, the girl went missing. The police is starting an investigation and as the proceedings advance, dark secrets are about to surge.

Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena is an intricated maze of betrayal and lies, rolling from one page to another as a snowball threatening to destroy everything in its way. Everyone ends up by suspecting everyone else, but there is at least one person who knows the truth.

Lapena is inducing a feeling of emergency and fear, particularly by building the story around the disappearing of a child, which is a highly sensitive topic. The reader is more empathic and on alert in such cases, and following the threads of the story and the lies makes the experience even more dramatic. Narrowing the options to the neighbourhood amplifies the claustrophobic feeling of running through a labyrinth of smoked mirrors. 

My only regret is that somehow, on the way to finding the truth, one may completely forget about the characters and their depth, as what they are doing and what they are hiding feels more relevant than their complexity.

For readers of domestic suspense, Everyone Here is Lying is a good challenge. Personally, I tried every chapter at a time to guess the ending, but in the end I was far from the truth. It´s a mind game and a challenge that may not put the reader in the most comfortable situation, nevertheless a real pleasure for the thriller-hungry mind.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: Afro-Saxon. Homecoming Memories of a Black Boy at Eton by Dillibe Onyeama

Everyone dreams about education at the top British universities, but those who actually made it there may have a completely different experience. Particularly if you had the chance to face the lowest racism and discrimination.

Afro-Saxon. Homecoming Memories of a Black Boy at Eton by late Dillibe Onyeama was the first black person to ever finish Britain´s most prestigious and expensive private school. But he had to pay the price of colonial trauma. From an educated family from Nigeria, with his father himself finishing Oxford, he spend four years of his young life - between 1965 and 1969 - being the victim and target of racist slurs and horrendous physical treatment. Some may say that those were the times and physical punishment was somehow part of many other educational systems around the world, but the memoir makes it clear the clear racial target of his ´special treatment´. There are the dark ages of education, if one understands by this also the horrendous racist policies unshameful used on an everyday basis.

Read with our nowadays educational and human sensibilities, the cruel stories shared by Dillibe Oneyeama are hard to cope with sometimes. But from the historical point of view, there are relevant as testimonies as the colonial credo they were based upon.

For anyone trying to better understand what being black in Britain may be, this book is a direct testimony. A warning that no matter your race, one should never stand injustice and racism, even if it is wrapped under the colourful papers of a place like Eton.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Mean by Myriam Gurba

Since I ever discovered Myriam Gurba, I am back over and over again, captivated by her dark humour and emotionally cinematic prose. After her short stories, I was intellectually delighted to delve into her memoir of coming out of age and sexual abuse, Mean, that I had access to in the audiobook format, read by the author. 

In 1990, she was assaulted by a man who ended up killing one of his victims. The experience not only redefined the rest of her life, but also her ways to react to life, her feelings and trust. Between horror and humor, she rebuilds her own identity process - half chicana, as her attacker - and childhood in America. 

Mean is proofreading memory in a particular way. It is the memory who is creating the memoir, or rather the need of it. And as in her short stories, the power of words re-enacts the stories.

I am looking forward to discover soon her new collection of short stories. coming up at the beginning of this September, Creep. 

Rating: 3.5 stars