'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett
This is one of my all-time favourite films so I thought it was about time I read the book that inspired it. I'm glad that I did since, like most books, it was far better than the film. I loved that the different sections were written like the characters would talk with Aibileen's sayings and Minny's blunt attitudes. It's a truly beautiful story and I can't think of a single flaw in the writing or the story.
10/10
'Shanghai Girls' by Lisa See
I'm not sure what attracted me to this book in the first place. I hadn't had it recommended to me in any way. I just saw the cover and read the blurb then decided it would be the perfect book to transport me to another time/part of the world. I wasn't wrong. This is the story of two sisters in Shanghai during the war who go from being wealthy model girls to poverty stricken runaways from the Japanese bombings at the time. It is a tremendous story which I would recommend to anyone looking for something different that is set in history without too much of the history coming into it.
10/10
'A Year of Losing the Dating Game' by Samantha Bye
I read this on recommendation of a colleague as it was actually written by someone we work with. It's a short book but I can honestly say that I couldn't put it down. It's the tale of a single women in the modern dating world with references to Tinder and one night stands. It's a very honest and true representation of what it's like to meet people in this day and age so it turned out to be quite a refreshing read. Moreover, it made me more grateful than ever that I've found someone as wonderful as Fraser and that it was before the invention of Tinder too.
10/10
'The Almost Moon' by Alice Sebold
This was a random download onto my Kindle years ago on the basis that I'd enjoyed The Lovely Bones a few years back. I decided to read this without looking at the blurb so dived straight into a story without knowing a thing about it. I won't lie to you, it's not a lighthearted story. In fact, it's about a woman murdering her agoraphobic and dementia-stricken mother by suffocating her with a towel and follows the 24 hours after this happens. There are lots of flashbacks to her childhood which help to shape the background of what led her to take such an action. Ultimately, you end up questioning whether or not her actions were justified. I like any book that inspires you to question your own moral compass so would thoroughly recommend as a result.
10/10
'When You Are Engulfed in Flames' by David Sedaris
After the heavy read above, I decided that something light would be good across the summer and picked up this book. It's a collection of short stories or 'essays' by David Sedaris capturing various anecdotes from his own life. I don't think I've ever laughed out loud because of a book as hard as I did while reading this. It is so well written with such perfect comedic timing that I ended up looking for interviews with David Sedaris on YouTube once I'd finished it just to see if he was as witty in person (I was not disappointed).
10/10
'Lucky' by Alice Sebold
I then decided that I could manage another heavy read and went for this auto-biographical memoir from Alice herself where she describes her experience of being raped. The story starts with the event itself and then follows her recovery afterwards and the years following as she works with the police to capture and convict her rapist. It explores the experiences of a raped girl in the justice system of the time and how (shockingly) the attitudes towards rape victims haven't seemed to change in the 20 years since the book was published and the 40-odd years since the attack happened. I think that this is a very important read for anyone. Alice Sebold strikes the perfect balance between humour (as a coping mechanism afterwards) and the grave seriousness of the event itself.
10/10
'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel
I can appreciate that I am years behind the curve on this one, but again it was a case of seeing the film first (thanks, Channel 4) before deciding that I had to see the film. The book was more incredible than the film and was another one that I was hooked by almost instantly. My only complaint was that I hated the Canadian author character. I think this was a leftover from the film where the very English Rafe Spall tried to do a Canadian accent which felt like nails on a chalkboard to me. I couldn't shake this image even when reading the book. However, those parts are minimal and (again) it was a book that led me to question myself and my own beliefs which I loved.
10/10
'Before I Go To Sleep' by SJ Watson
This was another random Kindle download which I really enjoyed reading. It's about a woman who loses her memory each night when she goes to sleep (self-explanatory from the title) but there's a thriller element in that she slowly starts to discover (by keeping a journal) that she's being lied to each day. The story is about her discovery of what is truth and I really enjoyed the character's journey through the book. I was delighted to see that they'd made this into a film but the key element - the journal - had been turned into a video diary which I thought was a bit shit. I've yet to see the film and may decide not to given how much I enjoyed the book.
10/10
'Eat Pray Love' by Elizabeth Gilbert
Again, I'm late to the curve with this one and it was another book read as a result of my enjoyment of the film (Julia Roberts can sell me anything). I loved this book, I really did. I wasn't expecting much from it but actually it contains a lot of wisdom without being overly preachy. Some of the jokes were a bit flat in places but overall there were some very good lessons to be learned from her experiences and I found these very useful when trying to overcome some stress at work towards the end of the year so would definitely recommend this.
10/10
'The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake' by Aimee Bender
This is the story of a young girl who can taste the emotions of the people making the food she eats. It sounds like a load of bollocks but actually the story is quite enjoyable as it follows the dysfunction in her family as well as a young girl trying to find her place in the world. However, I can't fully enjoy this book because the author has decided to remove the inverted commas from the writing so that there's no indication when someone is speaking. She said that this was an 'aesthetic' choice but I really don't like it. It makes it really difficult to read for me because you'll be halfway through a paragraph before realising that the character is actually speaking the lines rather than it being her internal monologue. Apparently blurring the inner and outer monologues is the point of doing this but I really didn't like it and it made the book difficult to read for me. For that reason, it will be the only book that I mark at less than 10/10 this year.
6/10
I hope that this has been useful to some of you when looking for a new book to read. I can't wait to get my teeth into some new novels next year and see where these take me. I don't think I'll be able to get through quite as many but I'll certainly try. Please leave any book recommendations in the comments below for me to take a look through as well :-)
Tabitha
Xx
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