Tag Archives: book review

Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey

Posted by Kate W in Non-fiction and tagged with , , , , , ,

Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey made lots of ‘best of 2020′ lists, and I find it hard to pass by a memoir that garners so much praise.

Natasha describes the events leading to her mother’s violent death, and how her experience of grief and trauma has shaped her work (Trethewey is a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet).

Three decades is a long time to get to know the contours of loss, to become intimate with one’s own bereavement. You get used to it. Most days it is a distant thing, always on the horizon, sailing toward me with it’s difficult cargo. Continue reading →

Make it Scream, Make it Burn by Leslie Jamison

Posted by Kate W in Non-fiction and tagged with , , , , , , ,

There were stories in Leslie Jamison’s first essay collection, The Empathy Exams, that I still think about more than five years after reading them. And it’s remarkable how regularly I refer others to particular essays written by Jamison. I suspect it will be the same with her latest collection, Make it Scream, Make it Burn.

So which particular essays will I be pressing on people, and why? Continue reading →

The Mother Fault by Kate Mildenhall

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Is there a sub-genre of dystopian fiction called ‘it-could-happen-within-a-decade-dsytopian-and-that’s-why-it’s-terrifying’? If so, it’s my favourite sub-genre. And we can file The Mother Fault by Kate Mildenhall there.

Without revealing too much of the story, it’s about a woman named Mim, whose husband Ben is missing. Everyone wants to find Ben, particularly The Department (the all-seeing government body who has fitted the entire population with a universal tracking chip in the palm of their hand to keep them ‘safe’). When Ben can’t be tracked, Mim is questioned; made to surrender her passport and those of their children, Essie and Sam; and is threatened with being taken into ‘care’ at the notorious BestLife (which is essentially a branded detention centre). Mim goes on a risky quest to find Ben. Continue reading →

Can You Ever Forgive Me? by Lee Israel

Posted by Kate W in Non-fiction and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Who isn’t intrigued by a literary scandal? As I type, a few pop to mind – Helen Demidenko, James Frey, and whether Harper Lee ever wanted Go Set a Watchman to be published. But I’d never heard of Lee Israel – best-selling author and ‘literary forger’. She fesses up to her criminal activity in her memoir, Can You Ever Forgive Me? (and yes, let’s park the fact that she profited from writing a memoir about her crime).

I had never known anything but ‘up’ in my career, had never received even one of those formatted no-thank-you slips that successful writers look back upon with triumphant jocularity. Continue reading →

Infinite Splendours by Sofie Laguna

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Afraid I need to retract what I said very recently about being okay with Sofie Laguna telling the same story over and over.

Laguna’s latest novel, Infinite Splendours, sticks to her formula of following the life of a traumatised child. In this case, it is a boy named Lawrence who is groomed and raped by his uncle. The story jumps forward decades, and we revisit Lawrence at different points in his life – at each he is disconnected, struggling to form relationships, and severely damaged. Continue reading →

The Morbids by Ewa Ramsey

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with , , , , , ,

I’ve heard of death dinner parties and coffin clubs, but a support group that talks about death-related anxiety was new to me – welcome to The Morbids by Ewa Ramsey.

The central character is twenty-something Caitlin, who is convinced she’s going to die.

Just over the horizon. Murder. Multiple organ failure. All the days, disappearing.

Caitlin had been living a ‘normal’ adult life – climbing the career ladder and planning travel with her best friend. A car accident left her believing that she was alive by ‘mistake’, and her life quickly unraveled – failed relationships; self-medicating with alcohol; and a ‘dead-end’ job as a waitress. Her weekly meetings with her support group, the Morbids, keeps her afloat. Continue reading →

Drawing a Line Under 2020 Reading – Part 1

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

These books deserve thorough reviews but I also really want to be done with 2020. So, for the sake of completeness, quick reviews of the books I read in November and December last year – Continue reading →