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amyvl93's reviews
902 reviews
Girls in Tears by Jacqueline Wilson
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Coming to the end of my re-read ahead of picking up Think Again and this is definitely my least favourite of the bunch. This final original instalment picks up with Ellie still utterly obsessed with Russell who shows himself to be a real piece of work in this book; meanwhile the friendship that has propelled the series gets pulled at the seams and does make me wonder what could be keeping Nadine, Magda and Ellie together given they barely seem to like each other at times. The ending felt both overly neat and very frustrating - I'm hopefully that Think Again will take us back to a little more charm and relatability than this.
Think Again by Jacqueline Wilson
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I was beyond excited when it was announced that Jacqueline Wilson would be releasing her first novel for adults this year - and especially when it was announced that it would be picking up with Ellie, Magda and Nadine from her Girls series. My re-read of the series in advance of Think Again had me interested to see how their friendship would build and be stronger in their adulthood, and how they were all getting on decades later - unfortunately, Think Again didn't really answer too much of this.
We're back with Ellie, who is now 40 and working as an art teacher and illustrator, having been a single Mum to her daughter Lotte, whose off to university. Her friendship with Magda, now dating an older man with kids and trying to fit in with the Joneses, and Nadine, a model (?) who is yet to settle down, feels very on the periphery of this book. The main focus is Ellie's chance meeting with Alice, a woman at her local swimming pool who agrees to help her with a graphic novel, and her reconnecting with Gary aka Mr Windsor the Art Teacher.
Ellie still feels very much like her 13-year-old self which on the one hand was instantly nostalgic, and on the other felt a little bit stuck in time. I know I'm not 40, but I definitely felt that Ellie was overly mature in terms of both her vocabulary and way of engaging with the world - I don't know many 40-year-olds who are clueless when it comes to things like mobiles and the internet. In keeping with her younger self, she still feels a bit judgey of other people's choices which whilst true for a teenager felt a little tiresome as an adult.
As pure nostalgia bait I can't bring myself to give this too low a rating, I did find it super readable and I think there were some plotlines that were handled well (view spoiler), and it was nice to revisit some of the characters as adults - Russell turns out how you expect, and Eggs is a pleasant surprise. However, if this is the start of another new series I'm hoping for some better endings and editors.
We're back with Ellie, who is now 40 and working as an art teacher and illustrator, having been a single Mum to her daughter Lotte, whose off to university. Her friendship with Magda, now dating an older man with kids and trying to fit in with the Joneses, and Nadine, a model (?) who is yet to settle down, feels very on the periphery of this book. The main focus is Ellie's chance meeting with Alice, a woman at her local swimming pool who agrees to help her with a graphic novel, and her reconnecting with Gary aka Mr Windsor the Art Teacher.
Ellie still feels very much like her 13-year-old self which on the one hand was instantly nostalgic, and on the other felt a little bit stuck in time. I know I'm not 40, but I definitely felt that Ellie was overly mature in terms of both her vocabulary and way of engaging with the world - I don't know many 40-year-olds who are clueless when it comes to things like mobiles and the internet. In keeping with her younger self, she still feels a bit judgey of other people's choices which whilst true for a teenager felt a little tiresome as an adult.
As pure nostalgia bait I can't bring myself to give this too low a rating, I did find it super readable and I think there were some plotlines that were handled well (view spoiler), and it was nice to revisit some of the characters as adults - Russell turns out how you expect, and Eggs is a pleasant surprise. However, if this is the start of another new series I'm hoping for some better endings and editors.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fatphobia and Sexual violence
Minor: Eating disorder, Homophobia, Abortion, and Death of parent
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Maybe I need to stop believing in internet hype quite so hard. Beartown and Fredrik Backman's books generally are so beloved online that I went into this fully expecting it to be a total slamdunk. However, whilst I found Beartown undeniably engaging it didn't hit the heights that I hoped it to.
The novel follows the community of Beartown in Sweden, a small town which has been left behind by economic changes and so puts their entire belief in the future on the shoulders of the teenage hockey team whose success in their upcoming tournament, they believe, will lead to investment and success for the town. We therefore have numerous perspectives that we dive into, from the star hockey player to his coach to the owner of the team to other players and students in the town. Backman does a great job at making Beartown feel like a very vivid and populated town - the sense of place was excellent.
The plot of the novel really kicks off when there is an incident of rape (this is important to know I think going into the novel) and the town divides into those who believe the victim, and those who think the perpetrator's future is more important than the truth- and people who fall somewhere in between. Backman does a good, if infuriating, job at capturing exactly how a town like Beartown would respond to such news.
However, what worked less well for me was Backman's quite heavy-handed lesson signalling that happened within chapters, or random sentences that I think were supposed to give us a sense of group think but I found a little grating, especially as we dipped into some quite serious topics. I also disliked...most of the characters in the novel, which is fine as we don't need likeable protagonists, but having been sold this book on its 'lovable' cast of characters I found that slightly baffling.
A good read, but I won't be reading the rest of the series.
The novel follows the community of Beartown in Sweden, a small town which has been left behind by economic changes and so puts their entire belief in the future on the shoulders of the teenage hockey team whose success in their upcoming tournament, they believe, will lead to investment and success for the town. We therefore have numerous perspectives that we dive into, from the star hockey player to his coach to the owner of the team to other players and students in the town. Backman does a great job at making Beartown feel like a very vivid and populated town - the sense of place was excellent.
The plot of the novel really kicks off when there is an incident of rape (this is important to know I think going into the novel) and the town divides into those who believe the victim, and those who think the perpetrator's future is more important than the truth- and people who fall somewhere in between. Backman does a good, if infuriating, job at capturing exactly how a town like Beartown would respond to such news.
However, what worked less well for me was Backman's quite heavy-handed lesson signalling that happened within chapters, or random sentences that I think were supposed to give us a sense of group think but I found a little grating, especially as we dipped into some quite serious topics. I also disliked...most of the characters in the novel, which is fine as we don't need likeable protagonists, but having been sold this book on its 'lovable' cast of characters I found that slightly baffling.
A good read, but I won't be reading the rest of the series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Rape, and Violence
Moderate: Gun violence, Homophobia, Racism, and Grief
Minor: Alcoholism
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This novel was everywhere last year and so I was excited to be picking up this novel at last; and was left having had a good reading experience but not one that I think will stay with me in the way that I wanted it to.
Bright Young Women is a fictionalised look at the final murders and arrest of Ted Bundy, told from the perspective of women whose lives were changed forever by him - one, Pamela - the president of the sorority shaken by the murders of their friends and the other, Ruth, who is learning to find herself and her identity away from her overbearing mother after the death of her father.
Knoll clearly has a message that she wants to share through this novel - which is that a fascination with serial killers and the rise of true crime risks further magnifying and amplifying men who were not that special, and whose stories shield those of the people whose lives they have either ended or affected forever. Bundy goes unnamed within the text, and his smart suaveness that we've come to hear as a given from numerous stories about him is consistently disrupted through the pages of this novel.
However, Bundy is not the only man who comes out poorly within this novel. There are bad boyfriends, journalists who see the potential of a career gain as of greater importance than reporting the truth, police forces who want to take the most straightforward way out and members of the judicial system who struggle to see a charming man as anything other than a potential victim. Knoll is excellent at building this just pile-up of male incompetence throughout the novel, in direct contrast to the women who are coming together to support each other and never let the truth go. Knoll also brings to life the pain of women with bright lights and lives ahead of them being cut short which are usually buried in our considerations of true crime narratives.
I did feel that there was a lot going on within the pages of this novel though, and did feel like there were opportunities for it to be tighter. The fictionalisation also didn't necessarily always work for me, it was slightly distracting knowing we were talking about a real man but that the women in the story were largely creations. Whilst I'm sure this was out of respect for the real victims, it felt that the narrative was almost saying that their real stories were not of interest enough for a novel to be created about them. I would have almost preferred Knoll to create an entirely fictitious scenario, with nods to Bundy, instead.
Bright Young Women is a fictionalised look at the final murders and arrest of Ted Bundy, told from the perspective of women whose lives were changed forever by him - one, Pamela - the president of the sorority shaken by the murders of their friends and the other, Ruth, who is learning to find herself and her identity away from her overbearing mother after the death of her father.
Knoll clearly has a message that she wants to share through this novel - which is that a fascination with serial killers and the rise of true crime risks further magnifying and amplifying men who were not that special, and whose stories shield those of the people whose lives they have either ended or affected forever. Bundy goes unnamed within the text, and his smart suaveness that we've come to hear as a given from numerous stories about him is consistently disrupted through the pages of this novel.
However, Bundy is not the only man who comes out poorly within this novel. There are bad boyfriends, journalists who see the potential of a career gain as of greater importance than reporting the truth, police forces who want to take the most straightforward way out and members of the judicial system who struggle to see a charming man as anything other than a potential victim. Knoll is excellent at building this just pile-up of male incompetence throughout the novel, in direct contrast to the women who are coming together to support each other and never let the truth go. Knoll also brings to life the pain of women with bright lights and lives ahead of them being cut short which are usually buried in our considerations of true crime narratives.
I did feel that there was a lot going on within the pages of this novel though, and did feel like there were opportunities for it to be tighter. The fictionalisation also didn't necessarily always work for me, it was slightly distracting knowing we were talking about a real man but that the women in the story were largely creations. Whilst I'm sure this was out of respect for the real victims, it felt that the narrative was almost saying that their real stories were not of interest enough for a novel to be created about them. I would have almost preferred Knoll to create an entirely fictitious scenario, with nods to Bundy, instead.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Murder
Moderate: Homophobia, Sexism, Violence, and Grief
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
dark
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Family sagas are my jam and so The Bee Sting was destined to be enjoyable for me. Set in a small Irish town, we follow the Barnes family. One time minor celebs of the town due to them running the local care dealership and repair shop, the recession is starting to disrupt their lives and sends the family into a tailspin.
We have Cass, a teenage overachiever in thrall to her best friend Elaine even where this may lead her astray; PJ, her younger brother who finds more comfort in online communities than in person; Imelda, their mother desperate for a life unlike the one she had growing up and Dickie, their father whose secrets will soon pitch them all into disaster.
Paul Murray did an excellent job of crafting characters that felt entirely believable, especially his teenage characters who were complicated, and likeable and unlikeable all at once. I found the mirroring of the past throughout the novel to be really interesting - we see our young people coming dangerously close to repeating the mistakes of their parents, and then maybe not. The setting that the novel takes place in also again felt very well drawn - I really got a sense of the place and the community through the (many) pages of this book.
It is a bit of a brick of a novel, and there were definitely times were it felt like the text could have been trimmed without losing any of the nuances of the novel; we spend perhaps too much time in flashbacks when he point of the sequences had already been very well established. However, I was engaged enough with the characters that I didn't want to put the book down. The ending is ambiguous, if that's something that is a dealbreaker, but it did make me say 'oh my God' out loud. Really enjoyed.
We have Cass, a teenage overachiever in thrall to her best friend Elaine even where this may lead her astray; PJ, her younger brother who finds more comfort in online communities than in person; Imelda, their mother desperate for a life unlike the one she had growing up and Dickie, their father whose secrets will soon pitch them all into disaster.
Paul Murray did an excellent job of crafting characters that felt entirely believable, especially his teenage characters who were complicated, and likeable and unlikeable all at once. I found the mirroring of the past throughout the novel to be really interesting - we see our young people coming dangerously close to repeating the mistakes of their parents, and then maybe not. The setting that the novel takes place in also again felt very well drawn - I really got a sense of the place and the community through the (many) pages of this book.
It is a bit of a brick of a novel, and there were definitely times were it felt like the text could have been trimmed without losing any of the nuances of the novel; we spend perhaps too much time in flashbacks when he point of the sequences had already been very well established. However, I was engaged enough with the characters that I didn't want to put the book down. The ending is ambiguous, if that's something that is a dealbreaker, but it did make me say 'oh my God' out loud. Really enjoyed.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Rape, and Violence
Minor: Pedophilia
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
adventurous
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
After seeing some of the less than glowing reviews of Harlem Shuffle I was a little wary of picking it up, but I found this to be such an enjoyable read. Ray Carney is a furniture salesman and occasional middleman for crooks but ultimately just wants to provide a good life for his wife and family, and prove himself to his snooty in-laws, who see him as the wrong kind of man for their daughter. When his cousin Freddie gets involved in a break-in and shares his name with the mobster who ran the job, Ray is thrown closer into the underbelly of Harlem.
I just really sank into this - Whitehead's writing is just first class and I found Ray to be a protagonist I liked spending time with. All of the characters in these pages felt well developed, and largely avoided being stereotypes of their employment or character. There were times when the novel felt a little long-winded, but I generally let myself go on the journey. It is not a fast-paced thriller that you may expect seeing the word 'heist' but there are certainly action scenes within the pages of this novel; many of which were almost cinematic in their writing.
Harlem in the 1960s is also not a place or a time that I know a lot about, so I loved Whitehead's love letter to the area, romanticising it in some ways but always undercutting it with realism about what it meant to live in this area of the city and this time. There are references to real world events, but these never feel heavy handed or pointed within the text.
I really liked this one and will be picking up the rest of the trilogy.
I just really sank into this - Whitehead's writing is just first class and I found Ray to be a protagonist I liked spending time with. All of the characters in these pages felt well developed, and largely avoided being stereotypes of their employment or character. There were times when the novel felt a little long-winded, but I generally let myself go on the journey. It is not a fast-paced thriller that you may expect seeing the word 'heist' but there are certainly action scenes within the pages of this novel; many of which were almost cinematic in their writing.
Harlem in the 1960s is also not a place or a time that I know a lot about, so I loved Whitehead's love letter to the area, romanticising it in some ways but always undercutting it with realism about what it meant to live in this area of the city and this time. There are references to real world events, but these never feel heavy handed or pointed within the text.
I really liked this one and will be picking up the rest of the trilogy.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Racism, Violence, Grief, and Murder
Minor: Police brutality and Antisemitism
Home Stretch by Graham Norton
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I wasn't sure what to expect from my first Graham Norton novel and I found Home Stretch to be a really pleasant surprise. The novel follows Connor, who in the 1980s is one of the three young people who walked away from a car crash which killed three others, on the eve of their wedding day. As the driver of the car, he flees his small Irish small town wrecked with grief to find a new life - first
to England and then to New York in search of a new life. But the past soon catches up with him.
I really felt that Norton's sense of place was great - both in the small Irish town but also as Connor moves to various cities as he ages. Everywhere felt well drawn, as did the majority of the support characters. Connor as a main character felt a bit disconnected; but that may well be the point, given he is haunted by his own past. We also spend time with his sister, who remains behind and marries one of the survivors of the crash, discovering the challenges of traditional married life. She is a more complicated character who I did find interesting to spend time with, even when she made some questionable decisions.
Home Stretch also deals with the experience of being gay in the 1980s and 1990s - and particularly when it is something that contributes to shame. In addition to his action in the car crash, Connor spends many years anxious about his identity - until he finds his found family in London and New York and is able to live a life free of guilt. It is one that felt particularly personal coming from Norton, and was a perspective that I valued hearing.
Things do end a little too neatly for my liking, but this was a really great surprise and I'd definitely pick up a future Norton book if I was after a quick read in the future.
to England and then to New York in search of a new life. But the past soon catches up with him.
I really felt that Norton's sense of place was great - both in the small Irish town but also as Connor moves to various cities as he ages. Everywhere felt well drawn, as did the majority of the support characters. Connor as a main character felt a bit disconnected; but that may well be the point, given he is haunted by his own past. We also spend time with his sister, who remains behind and marries one of the survivors of the crash, discovering the challenges of traditional married life. She is a more complicated character who I did find interesting to spend time with, even when she made some questionable decisions.
Home Stretch also deals with the experience of being gay in the 1980s and 1990s - and particularly when it is something that contributes to shame. In addition to his action in the car crash, Connor spends many years anxious about his identity - until he finds his found family in London and New York and is able to live a life free of guilt. It is one that felt particularly personal coming from Norton, and was a perspective that I valued hearing.
Things do end a little too neatly for my liking, but this was a really great surprise and I'd definitely pick up a future Norton book if I was after a quick read in the future.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Sexual assault, and Grief
The Switch by Beth O'Leary
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I wasn't as much of a fan as I wanted to be of <i>The Wake-Up Call</i> so I was a little nervous going into The Switch which has been sat on my shelf for a long time. However, it did win me over more than my first.
This novel follows Leena, a young woman reeling from the death of her sister who is forced to take two months off from her high-flying consulting career and Eileen, her grandmother who despite throwing herself into every community activity going still feels lonely after her husband left her. The two women decide to swap houses, and lives, for a period - Leena returning to the small village where her sister died and her mother still lives, and Eileen to the fashionable East London flat Leena shares with her housemates.
What really made The Switch shine for me was the cast of characters that O'Leary populated the novel with. The inhabitants of the Yorkshire village that Eileen lives in all leap from the page, in turn comedic and also people you come to love; likewise Leena's housemates and building mates that Eileen encounters all feel really well realised.
This novel is however tropey as all get out featuring; grumpy Londoners and talk of how grim the city is, rubbish corporate boyfriend, hot local villager, career woman questioning her career etc etc. This meant I wasn't that engaged in Leena's story as it was the one that fell the most victim to this. Also despite the reader being told repeatedly that she is very smart - she makes some very daft judgements in this novel including towards her grieving mother that I think the plot would have us excuse. I must preferred spending time with Eileen, whose narrative was sparser on the tropes.
All in all, this was a cute light read but it hasn't moved O'Leary to my must read pile yet.
This novel follows Leena, a young woman reeling from the death of her sister who is forced to take two months off from her high-flying consulting career and Eileen, her grandmother who despite throwing herself into every community activity going still feels lonely after her husband left her. The two women decide to swap houses, and lives, for a period - Leena returning to the small village where her sister died and her mother still lives, and Eileen to the fashionable East London flat Leena shares with her housemates.
What really made The Switch shine for me was the cast of characters that O'Leary populated the novel with. The inhabitants of the Yorkshire village that Eileen lives in all leap from the page, in turn comedic and also people you come to love; likewise Leena's housemates and building mates that Eileen encounters all feel really well realised.
This novel is however tropey as all get out featuring; grumpy Londoners and talk of how grim the city is, rubbish corporate boyfriend, hot local villager, career woman questioning her career etc etc. This meant I wasn't that engaged in Leena's story as it was the one that fell the most victim to this. Also despite the reader being told repeatedly that she is very smart - she makes some very daft judgements in this novel including towards her grieving mother that I think the plot would have us excuse. I must preferred spending time with Eileen, whose narrative was sparser on the tropes.
All in all, this was a cute light read but it hasn't moved O'Leary to my must read pile yet.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Infidelity, and Grief
Girls Out Late by Jacqueline Wilson
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2024 Reread: So, I have been quite enjoying revisiting these novels ahead of the release of Think Again, and this is the first one I have not enjoyed rereading. In this installment, Ellie gets herself an actual real life boyfriend after they lock eyes over their sketchbooks. Meanwhile, Nadine has run-ins with her toxic ex-boyfriend earlier in the series, and Magda has a crush on their teacher. There are some...bizarre plot turns in this book, and Ellie's usual charm is a bit absent as she becomes truly obsessed with her boyfriend. Nadine probably has the most interesting storyline in reckoning with her previous experience but this is largely sidelined. A bit of a miss unfortunately!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fatphobia and Sexual harassment
This Lovely City by Louise Hare
emotional
funny
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This Lovely City takes place in London in the 1950s, in the years after the Second World War and the arrival of the Windrush. Our protagonists are Lawrie, a young man from Jamaica who is convinced to come to the UK by his late brother's friend, a postman-turned-jazz musician and Evie, the (literal) girl next door, who is mixed race and being raised by her single white mother.
When Lawrie discovers the body of a mixed-race baby apparently drowned on his way home from work, the police and wider community suspicion lands on the growing Black community in South London.
The immediate post-war years don't always get covered in fiction, the bleakness does not lend itself to fiction, and I found that Hare vividly bought to life the sense of just...grey that seemed to haunt the London of this story, especially through Lawrie's eyes. This makes the scenes of snatched joy - warm summer flashbacks, successful jazz concerts - bounce off the page much more.
Hare's focus on the experience of the Windrush arrivals was also interesting, I had next to no awareness of the process they went through on arrival, of having to sleep in shelters and, despite the request for labour, struggle they had finding work due to the blatant racism of war-torn England.
Another strength of Hare's, for the most part, was her portrayal of the 'chosen family' of fellow musicians that Lawrie has within his community - I really liked their interactions and different responses to the increasing police pressure on them and their peers. Similarly, I liked Evie's relationship with her friend Delia.
There were times, however, when it felt like This Lovely City couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be - a historical portrait of the Windrush experience with a side of romance or a crime thriller. I found the latter to be increasingly uninteresting, and the reveal that we get felt a bit unbelievable, even for all that character's flaws. This meant that at times I wasn't compelled to pick it up, just because I wasn't sure what narrative I was really reading.
All in all, this is a good read - it ends neatly and I think shines a light on a generation that did an awful lot for this country with very little thanks.
When Lawrie discovers the body of a mixed-race baby apparently drowned on his way home from work, the police and wider community suspicion lands on the growing Black community in South London.
The immediate post-war years don't always get covered in fiction, the bleakness does not lend itself to fiction, and I found that Hare vividly bought to life the sense of just...grey that seemed to haunt the London of this story, especially through Lawrie's eyes. This makes the scenes of snatched joy - warm summer flashbacks, successful jazz concerts - bounce off the page much more.
Hare's focus on the experience of the Windrush arrivals was also interesting, I had next to no awareness of the process they went through on arrival, of having to sleep in shelters and, despite the request for labour, struggle they had finding work due to the blatant racism of war-torn England.
Another strength of Hare's, for the most part, was her portrayal of the 'chosen family' of fellow musicians that Lawrie has within his community - I really liked their interactions and different responses to the increasing police pressure on them and their peers. Similarly, I liked Evie's relationship with her friend Delia.
There were times, however, when it felt like This Lovely City couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be - a historical portrait of the Windrush experience with a side of romance or a crime thriller. I found the latter to be increasingly uninteresting, and the reveal that we get felt a bit unbelievable, even for all that character's flaws. This meant that at times I wasn't compelled to pick it up, just because I wasn't sure what narrative I was really reading.
All in all, this is a good read - it ends neatly and I think shines a light on a generation that did an awful lot for this country with very little thanks.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Police brutality
Moderate: Child death, Domestic abuse, Grief, and Murder