abbie_'s reviews
1757 reviews

What I'd Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma

reflective sad fast-paced

2.5

Another audiobook which probably would have fared better in its rating had I found a print version instead. The narrative is super choppy and disconnected, moving back and forth in time and jumping around topics. All the short sections via audio meant it didn’t make a huge impression. I did like the concept, of a young woman grieving her twin and subsequently hyperfixating on some of history’s darkest moments like 9/11 and the holocaust. But would definitely have been more impactful as a print read. 

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

3.25

I keep unintentionally picking up books with very similar themes in quite close succession, and then the second one always ends up getting compared to the first and doesn’t quite match up. Natural Beauty’s contender was Rouge by Mona Awad which I read at the end of December. Both books deal with the wellness beauty trends, consumerism and western beauty standards which prey on young women of colour. The protagonist of Natural Beauty is Chinese-American, a former prodigy pianist now working at Holistik, a high end health & beauty store, to pay for her parents’ medical care. As she progresses further into the company, the darker side of Holistik is revealed.

Honestly I liked the book just fine, but it didn’t blow me away. Perhaps it would have worked better for me in print, but I also had issues with some of the supporting characters who just come and go, conveniently moving the plot along but not offering much else. The horror elements were really well written though - very creepy, icky, gross. 

White Hunger by Aki Ollikainen

dark sad medium-paced

2.0

Award for the most aptly titled book goes to… White Hunger, which is indeed mostly just descriptions of snow and how hungry people are. I suppose at a stretch it’s a bit more than that, but not much. It’s Finland, there’s famine, there’s a lot of barren wasteland covered in snow. It follows one desperate family as they travel towards St Petersburg where there’s supposedly food, braving the brutal terrain and begging for food wherever possible. But for the women there’s even more to be feared than just hunger and cold weather, as the men in this book seem to think access to a woman’s body is their right. There are some horrific rape scenes in these short pages, and I can’t say I thought they added a great deal. 

I do like a bleak book but I think this one was just on the wrong side of bleak for me. 

We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC of We Pretty Pieces of Flesh. I’m a sucker for fiction set in the North of England, and this book is joining the ranks of Jessica Andrews and Eliza Clark who are shining a light on the brutal, gritty aliveness of teenage girls in the north of England. This book broke my heart into a million pieces. It’s so fucking hard being a teenage girl, and at the same time absolutely euphoric. Brown perfectly captures the feeling of a night spent with your mates that feels like it’ll never end, never be anything but that summer night. I might not have had the same (drunken) experiences of Shaz, Rach and Kel, but that didn’t stop me connecting deeply with them. They are genuinely some of the best characters I’ve come across recently.

A lot of tough subjects are tackled in this book such as rape, sexual assault, chronic illness, so take care of yourself when reading. It does a brilliant job of portraying post-Brexit Britain (when the girls are now adults), especially in rundown towns and cities where pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is literally impossible.

It’s written throughout in Doncaster slang, which might be difficult for some readers to get to grips with at first, but just let the rhythm of it carry you away.

Just a gorgeous, heartbreaking coming-of-age novel about friendship and growing up in a world determined to keep young northern lasses beat down. One of my favourite books I’ve read in a while. 

You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World by Ada Limón

reflective fast-paced

3.0

‘Why should I be polite, when the world is on fire?’

I’m not sure if I’m optimistic or delusional when I keep on giving poetry collections a go, thinking that this time will be the time it DEFINITELY clicks. Reader, it did not click. Is my brain just not wired for poetry, am I not trying hard enough, or have I not found the right collection yet? 

There’s always a few lines in a collection, especially an anthology like this one which such a vast array of different poetic voices, which metaphorically stop me in my tracks. But never a full poem, or a full collection. I want so badly to be a poetry person!! 

I think my next steps will be to pinpoint the poems I liked most (Danez Smith’s comes to mind) and seek out their work for my next poetry foray. 

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

dark funny tense medium-paced

3.5

Hoooo boy this book is a LOT a lot, especially when listening to certain parts at 5am. Honestly I don’t know what effect listening to a graphic butchering scene at 5am has on the rest of your day… probably not a great one! Motherthing is most often described as darkly funny, and while it definitely delivered on the dark, only sometimes was the narrator funny. It’s basically just us watching Abby spiral as she tries to help her husband cope with the death of his overbearing mother, and also try to save her favourite patient (she’s a carer at an old folks’ home) from being moved to a worse care home. Chaos ensues. 

I saw another review that made me snort, saying ‘Abby doesn’t shut up about coolers’ and honestly so true and quite annoying. She also addresses herself a LOT, and my name is Abbie so that was a bit weird on audio tbh. BUT for the most part you do like her, as chaotic as she is - you’re not necessarily rooting for her (she does bad things), but you’re invested. She just wants to have her little baby and make her husband happy again 🤷‍♀️

Icky and gross, much like The Eyes are the Best Part which I read last month, although the protagonists go off the deep end for very different reasons. But I just felt a little ‘and what?’ by the end. Not fully satisfied. 

Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

This book started out really strong, Starla is headed back to her campy, rundown old town after spiralling into debt in Toronto. Back home, she’s not out, she’s back to living with her mother, and prospects are slim. But things start looking up when she has a hot and heavy encounter with her ex-classmate Tamara, now working as a stripper, and she bags a job as a night guard at the campsite. I knew the supernatural was going to play a part in this book from the get go, but I preferred all the normal, every day stuff. I didn’t mind the ghost when she arrived, but it was like I could take her or leave her. 

The novel’s strongest aspects are really with the characters’ real life issues. It gets really dark so prepare yourself - there’s child sexual abuse, mental illness, alcoholism, domestic abuse, institutional racism against Indigenous characters. It’s a lot, but I think Amber Dawn treats all the topics with sensitivity, while not shying away from the very real and very serious consequences. 

Definitely feels like a novel of two halves, one of which I preferred to the other. 

Bingo Love by Tee Franklin

emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

4.0

This was super cute, super sad, then super wholesome again! Hazel and Mari meet in the 1960s at bingo with their grandmothers and the connection is instant. But, as they put it, the world wasn’t ready for their kind of love, and they both end up marrying men. Their love for one another doesn’t fade though, until one day they spot each other across the bingo hall again.

I was reading a few reviews and they mentioned that the writing was quite superficial. I realised I did agree, but that also I didn’t really care that much! With a graphic novel it’s all in the art for me - and the illustrations are absolutely stunning! The emotion comes across beautifully, the colours are so vibrant, I just loved the style. 

If you’ve got an hour and want to swoon at some gorgeous, enduring queer love, definitely check out Bingo Love. 

A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gaafar

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

I’ve seen a few people whose reviews I trust enjoying this book lately, and I’m happy to report that I very much enjoyed it too! It’s desperately sad, so perhaps enjoyed isn’t quite the right word, but it’s immersive and engaging, with characters you root for. I did find part two, with Nyamakeem’s point of view, stronger than part one. Part one jumps around a few different perspectives, and I felt like Gaafar’s style got stronger when she honed in one just one character for 100 pages or so. 

Nyamakeem’s section is set a few decades earlier than parts one and three, and it was really enlightening about Sudan at that time. I know it’s not the same as reading a nonfiction book, but good historical fiction should always teach you a little something, I find. This book does what all my favourite historical fiction does - takes the entire political backdrop of a time period and weaves it into the lives of women. I love it when the political is told through the personal, and A Mouthful of Salt pulls it off so well. 

We Are Still Here!: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know by Traci Sorell

informative fast-paced

2.75

I do not feel like audio was the way to go for this book. The production team tried something and they fell short. But information/content-wise, it felt like a solid jumping-off point for a children’s book teaching kids about various Indigenous issues in the US.