Review: Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Literary Fiction

Goodreads

Convenience Store Woman is the story of Miss Furukura, who has been working at the same convenience store for the past eighteen years. Her life has not changes since her twenties, and that is how she thrives: she knows what the store needs, the correct level of enthusiasm to greet costumers, and what to say when. But as she gets older, the pressure increases for her to get married, changes jobs or, preferably, both. When she meets a man at the store looking for a wife so he can comply to societal norms, she sees in him the perfect convenient relationship to also get friends and family to accept her. But this bitter, small-minded man will create chaos in her perfectly orderly life, and perhaps not for the best.

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Review: Dig, by A. S. King

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Young Adult, Literary Fiction

Goodreads

I first heard of this book from one of Ariel Bissett’s channel and was immediately drawn to the cover – then the synopsis sounded intriguing. I was not sure what to think of literary YA fiction, as it made me think of books like The Catcher in the Rye (which I dislike), but since then I heard a few more positive reviews about it and decided to pick it up.

The Shoveler, the Freak, CanIHelpYou?, Loretta the Flea-Circus Ring Mistress, and First-Class Malcolm. These are the five teenagers lost in the Hemmings family’s maze of tangled secrets. Only a generation removed from being simple Pennsylvania potato farmers, Gottfried and Marla Hemmings managed to trade digging spuds for developing subdivisions and now sit atop a seven-figure bank account, wealth they’ve declined to pass on to their adult children or their teenage grandchildren.

eARC: The Bride Test, by Helen Hoang

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Romance, Contemporary

Goodreads

I have received this book via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

In The Bride Test, Khai believes his autism makes him incapable of love and has never tried dating, and now that he’s 26, his mom decided it was time for him to marry. In Vietnam, Esme accepts a deal she never thought she would in her life: move to the United States for the Summer to try to seduce a handsome man she never met in her life into marrying her. Leaving her daughter Jade behind will be one of the most difficult things she’ll have to do, but this might be the break her family has been waiting for, and might give her a chance to find her father.

Review: Sadie, by Courtney Summers

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Young Adult Thriller, Mystery, Contemporary

Goodreads

When Sadie finds out her sister Mattie has been murdered, her world falls apart. There was precious little in her life to make it worth it, and now with Mattie gone, nothing will stop her from getting revenge on the man who killed her. Told in a podcast style as the journalist West McCray investigates and tells the story of Sadie and Mattie, its unique story-telling is great to listen to.

Sadie was a book I had both high and low expectations on: I’d heard the audiobook was amazing, but I hadn’t heard more on the blurb than that, so I hardly knew what the book was even about when I started it. It took me a good third of the book to really get into it – while the narration IS fantastic, Sadie’s character starts out as basically nothing but anger and thinking she’s super dangerous and is going to kill a man, but nothing in her really inspired me to believe she WAS dangerous or anything more than her anger. But as the book progresses, and her character gets fleshed out a lot more, along with the complicated, imperfect people in her life telling their sides of the story, my heart started aching for her, for all she went through and all she lost.

Review: The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Mystery

Goodreads

The Secret History is the story of Richard Papen, a student who finds himself charmed by the small group of professor Julian Morrow studying classics  at University. Slowly, Richard is consumed by their intensity and slips into their obsessions and betrayal.

I’ve been wanting to read this book for a while, and I’ve read so many mixed reviews I was terribly curious. I read If We Were Villains, which was compared a lot to this, so and which I enjoyed, but thought I’d enjoy it more if it had been an adult novel instead. After reading The Secret History, I definitely see the similarities and I’m quite glad I picked it up!

Review: The Unhoneymooners, by Christina Lauren

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Romance

Goodreads

The Unhoneymooners is the story of Olive, probably the unluckiest girl in the world. While her twin sister Amy wins prizes and giveaways and is planning her wedding basically for free, Olive has never had any luck in her career, love life or anything. To add to that, she is okay with her soon-to-be brother-in-law, but absolutely cannot stand his brother Ethan. When the buffet in the wedding Amy won for free gives everyone but Olive and Ethan really, really sick, Amy begs her to do this one thing for her: please take her free vacation in Maui, or the whole thing goes to waste. There is only one problem: Ethan is going, too, in place of his brother, and will pretend to be married to Olive. Could this be Olive’s change in luck or is it just another series of unfortunate events waiting to happen?

Review: Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Contemporary Fiction

Goodreads

Lost Children Archive tells the story of a family on a road trip across the United States during Summer. As they go through what might be the last trip they take as a family, heading towards the area known as Apacheria, where the father tries to capture the echoes of the last people to give in to the white invaders, while the mother works on a collection of sounds that will, hopefully, together tell the story of the refugee children that are lost.

On the surface, this book is about a family trip, and with gorgeous writing the author takes us through the hot days, the slow pace of the story mirroring, I think, the pacing of something that is already a memory, a Summer day from years ago. But the story is truly about family, refugees, history, how documenting is important and the different ways of documenting. Quite fascinating!

Review: Normal People, by Sally Rooney

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Contemporary Fiction

Goodreads

Normal People tells the story of Connell and Marianne, who go to school together and have a complex relationship – in school, they pretend they hardly know each other, but at home, they have a quiet friendship with underlying, barely disguised desire. It follows them throughout the years as their relationship changes, ends, starts, develops and constantly threatens to break.

If you have feelings and want them squashed into a sobbing mess, well, this is the book for you! Let Sally Rooney break your heart and she will quietly and brutally do so.

Review: Milkman, by Anna Burns

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Literary Fiction

Goodreads / Amazon

Milkman tells the story of an unnamed girl in an unnamed city, where the social rules to belonging are strict and don’t allow for straying too far. When the gets the unwanted attention of the Milkman and becomes the center of gossip in the city, she knows she’s in danger.

It took me several days to actually finish Milkman, because this gorgeous and witty book demands focus and can be dense to read at times. There isn’t a lot of dialogue going on and the paragraphs can be long, which by no means makes it a boring read at all, just a slower one if you’re used to, say, reading thrillers or other fast-paced stories. Although this was 350 pages long, it did feel more like 450-500 pages.

Review: The Pisces, by Melissa Broder

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Magical Realism, Erotica

Goodreads / Amazon

The Pisces is the most infamous book I’ve seen in a while, getting the same kind of reaction from people as did Fifty Shades of Grey when it came out – a snobbish dismissal and fascinated curiosity. When it came out, the only blurb I heard of was this was a book about fish sex. Then it made the longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and I heard people I really trusted saying that this book was amazing and to disregard its abysmal 3.23 rating on Goodreads. I am SO thankful for those people convincing me to read it! So shout-out to the Women’s Prize Squad: Hannah, Sarah, Callum, Steph and Rachel. Definitely check out their reviews, they’re amazing.