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Published: 2014, Picador Genre: Fiction Themes: family, race, abuse, friendship My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤ I have given this book three out of five even though it probably deserves more.  The writing is quite inspired in places, and I think some people would really love the original style of this book, but I found it took me a while to get into it.   I suppose this book is out of my comfort zone, and there is a strange unsettling quality to it, which readers will either embrace or pull away from, as it combines beautiful writing with the utmost cruelty.   The main character is a girl named Boy whose childhood is filled with episodes of violent physical abuse at the hands of her father who is the local rat-catcher.  Her mother died when she was born, so there is no-where else to go, and in the end she is around college age before she flees from her home and takes a night bus to Flax Hill at the end of the route.  She is free at last, but she has no money...

  Published: 2019, Oneworld Genre: Fiction Themes: America, miscarriage of justice, marriage, family values My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤ I read this book in great chunks as I couldn't bring myself to put it down.  It is a roller coaster of a story that carries you through great highs and then down into deep dark tunnels of injustice and despair.  The characters and their families are so beautifully described through their thoughts, words and deeds that you could almost be watching the events unfold in front of you rather than reading them from the page. Roy and Celestial are newlyweds who have the world at their feet, as they have both been to college, and are now brimming with ideas to make the most of their future life together.  Their closest friend is Andre, who lived next door to Celestial when they were children, and came to know Roy when they attended the same college.  Andre and Celestial are so close that they could be brother and sister, and she co...

  Published: 2014, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd Genre: Fiction Themes: marriage, travel in Europe, relationships, teenage years My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ Us by David Nicholls is a nice comfortable read.  To anyone who has been married for a while, and had anything to do with raising teenage boys, the whole thing will have a very familiar ring to it.   It is the kind of book that would be perfect to take on holiday, as the style of writing flows so easily that you can sit reading for an hour or so without feeling you have had to put any effort in.   The book is about a likeable couple (Connie and Douglas) who have been married for almost twenty five years and have had two children.  Their first, Jane, died soon after birth and then they had Albie a few years afterwards. When the story begins Albie is 17, and will soon be leaving home, and Connie is wondering where this leaves her and whether she wants to stay married to Douglas.  Many authors have exa...

  Published: First in US in 2008 then in UK 2016 by Bloomsbury Genre: Fiction Themes: Mississippi Gulf Coast, family, drug culture, employment issues My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤ The style of writing in Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward is as hard and unyielding as a sheet of steel.  It forces us to look closely at a lifestyle that most of us will never experience, but is a true representation of how it is to live in some communities of the American South. Christophe and Joshua are twin brothers who have been raised by their grandmother Ma-mee after their single mother took off to try and find a better life in Atlanta.  They have had very little contact with either their mother or father, but the wider family of uncles and aunts has supported the boys as their grandmother gradually lost her sight to diabetes. After graduation the boys must look for work, but the only options available to them are fast food restaurants or heavy manual work down at the docks.  Joshua i...

  Published: 2015,  Pan MacMillan Genre: Fiction Themes: Loneliness, widowhood, advancing years, family, small-town America My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤ Our Souls at Night was Kent Haruf's final novel and I selected it to read because I very much enjoyed his earlier book, Plainsong (see link to review below).  Both the books are written in a very straightforward, plain style, and there are no wasted words, but somehow I felt I didn't engage with the book in quite the same way as I did with Plainsong.   The book is divided into very short chapters that are sometimes only two to three pages long, and the story is told mostly through the use of dialogue.  The two main characters, Addie and Louis, have lived and bought up their families in the small American town of Holt and, now widowed in later life, they find themselves alone.  Addie is fed up with spending lonely nights with no-one to talk to for comfort, so one day she calls at Louis's door and proposes ...

  Published: First in America in 1989, this GB edition published in 2013  by Granta Genre: Fiction Themes: teenage friendships, family dynamics, new relationships, school My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ This is a novel about a family break up in America where Jack's father leaves home to begin a new relationship with a man.  Looking at this story line in 2021, that is not very remarkable, but back in 1989 when the book was written, it must have been quite startling for a lot of people.   Jack is an only child approaching his sixteenth birthday, and when his father first leaves home he assumes it is because his parents can no longer live together as they argue so much.  It is only after a few months of being away that Jack's father takes him out on a boat for the day and explains that the man he is living with is not just a room-mate but a new partner.  Up until this point Jack had coped well with his parents' break up, and even accepted his Mother's new par...

  Published: 2013, Vintage Genre: Fiction Themes: Zimbabwe, shanty towns, childhood, america My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ The author, NoViolet Bulawayo, was born in Zimbabwe a year after independence from British colonial rule, and when she was eighteen she moved to Michigan in the United States.  She has used her own experiences to create this extraordinary novel that begins with a group of children living in a shanty town in Africa and ends in urban America.. The opening paragraph of the book introduces us to six children who are called; Bastard, Chipo, Godknows, Sbho, Stina and Darling.  They are all living in the Shanty town of Paradise, after being driven from their rightful homes by men with bulldozers, and we follow their eventful lives through the eyes of ten year old Darling.  The children are often left to make their own amusement and they make up games they can all play together, or head over to the town of Budapest to steal guavas from white people's garden...