Book Review: Gabriela Garcia - Of Women and Salt (published in 2021)

 

I enjoyed my time with this short story collection by GABRIELA GARCIA. I like it when all stories intertwine and kind of come together by the end. 

The author has given every single woman their own distinct voice, which makes the read surprising and refreshing throughout. We start in the Cuba in the past, in a cigar factory, which I think is immediately my favourite story because it brings back memories of my trip to the country. Then we move from Cuba to present-day USA and we skip backwards and forwards in time and through different countries. 

The subject matter is hard-hitting because it deals with migration and displaced families, but because it's all done from the point-of-view of the women living through it it never becomes overtly dramatic. 

The audiobook narrator has done a good job giving all the women their voices. 

Many thanks to the publisher Picador and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy!

3.5 stars

Book Review: Nicholas Sparks - The Wish (published in 2021)

 

I've never read a novel by NICHOLAS SPARKS, but I'm incredibly familiar with his heartbreaking stories. I've seen every single movie that has come out. THE NOTEBOOK, SAFE HAVEN and THE CHOICE are ones I rewatch regularly. 

When the opportunity presented itself to pick up an early copy of his latest books, I decided to go for it. I'm happy I did, because I loved my time with THE WISH. 

The story is about Maggie, a 16-year-old who finds herself pregnant after a night with a stranger. She is shipped off to Ocracoke on the East Coast of the US, as far away from her parents and friends in Seattle. There she stays with her aunt Linda, and she meets Bryce. A young man with wild ambitions who offers to tutor her. 

We cut back and forth between Maggie now, where she receives devastating medical news and Maggie then. 

A lot of the fun of this novel was in getting to know the characters. Everyone, including the Bryce's pupper, became alive on the page. I couldn't wait to find out how the story would conclude. I had many guesses, and many of them were correct. That didn't mean I was fully invested & inthralled in the expert storytelling on the pages of this book. 

I laughed when Maggie laughed, I cried when she cried. 

I secretly can't wait to see who will be cast for the movie, but for now I'm really happy I checked the book out first. 

Many thanks to the publisher Little Brown Book Group UK and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy!

Book Review: Lexie Elliott - How to Kill Your Best Friend (published in 2021)

 

This novel has a lot of the elements I love in my thrillers. It has a strong cast of characters who are wel fleshed out. It has a concise plot and clear mystery elements which trip you up as you go. 

It was a bit more predictable than I wanted it to be though. I never guess the outcome of a novel, because it doesn't even occur to me to ever guess what will happen. In this case I guess it around the 25% mark and I was correct. That's a bit of a pity, but that's not were the thrill is alway so it doesn't matter to much. 

The story is about a group of best friends who reunite for their best friend's funeral at a luxury resort where she lived with her husband. The whole group are swimmers and the two girls left Georgie and Bron miss their swimming buddy. 

The way she has passed is very strange and they can't help but investigate a little bit while they're on the island. 

I like how the story unfolds and how we get to meet all the characters. I have a really good picture of what Georgie, Bron, Adam, Duncan, Jem and even Lissa (who has passed) are like. I feel like I know them. 

The ending felt a bit muddled and too slow, but the last scenes blew my mind. I will 100% read LEXIE ELLIOTT's other novels, because if she serves more of this - I'm there for it!

Many thanks to the publisher Atlantic Books and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy!

Book Review: A.S. King - Switch (published in 2021)

I was surprised by how easily I understood what was written and in general how easy it was to be swept away by the writing in this book. I'm not normally one to like "experimental" writing like this. I prefer an author who writes like a real person does, rather than a poetic interpretation. 

That having been said, A.S. KING does a great job in making her writing incredibly accessible. The narrative flows like poetry on the pages, but it remains understandable. 

Tru Beck is a teenager in a world where time has stopped. This happened a few days after her mother left her father and her father lost her job. She's been trying to deal with this new reality for over nine months, and everyone around her has slowly settled in to the fact that there is no such thing as time anymore. 

There's a switch in her house but she doesn't know what it does, because her father has constructed boxes around it to protect the switch. Not only that, the layout of her house shifts around at the whims of her father as well. 

There's quite a lot going on in this short novel. A lot of topics are addressed, but the message always remains clear. The parallel that teenagers kind of have to deal with a similar situation today (in COVID times) makes the overall meaning of this book even stronger. 

I would certainly recommend this novel even if you're not a fan of magical realism or poetical writing, I think you might still enjoy it.

Many thanks to the publisher Text Publishing and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy! 

4 stars

Book Review: Sebastian Fitzek - The Soul Breaker (Translated in 2021)

 

In my opinion, this novel is trying to do a bit too much. I was thrilled but also confused and sometimes a little bit bored which isn't the greatest combination in a suspenseful thriller. 

SEBASTIAN FITZEK has written and published this book back in 2008 in German. It has now been translated to English. I think that's a clever call, because it's essentially a good book, about a topic I've not seen in thrillers very often. 

The story is about the Soul Breaker. A serial "killer" who doesn't kill their victims. They paralyse their victim leaving them stuck in their own body. They have a note in their hand. Then one day a man shows up in a remote clinic with no memory of his past and who he is. Then due to bad weather, the clinic becomes shut off from the world and when a woman ends up paralysed in the bath tub with a note in her hand, it's very likely the Soul Breaker in in there with them. 

There's a bit of a story in a story narrative which I liked. The main story is read by students who are participating in a psychology trial. This give the story a bit more of a twist. In the end though, I was left wanting more and at the same time less. 

The last thirty or so pages are dedicated to explaining everything that happened. I didn't think that was necessary. Also, the scenes inside the clinic became a bit confusing at times. 

All-in-all I enjoyed myself and I'm curious to read more of Fitzek's more recent work. 

Many thanks to the publisher Head of Zeus and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy!

Book Review: Megan Abbott - The Turnout (published in 2021)

 

I have seen that MEGAN ABBOTT has a tendency to gather both negative and positive reviews for her books. I have never read her previous releases so THE TURNOUT is my first foray into her writing. 

I can tell why this book has mixed reviews. The way she has constructed the novel will work for some people but not for all. It didn't work for me. 

There were parts I did enjoy/was horrified by. The language is dark. I got a grim feeling from everything on these pages. It's incredibly tense, even though it's hard to tell (until the ending) why it would be. I don't know much about ballet, but the way Abbott tackles the challenges of this "sport" gave me a good idea about it. I will never look at those shoes in the same way. 

The novel is about two sisters Marie and Dara who have inherited a ballet school from their parents with they run with Charlie who was kind of part of their family since a young age. We follow Dara who has married Charlie and who is struggling with her slightly more enigmatic sister Marie. One day there's a fire in one of the ballet studios, right before the school starts their rehearsals for The Nut Cracker, which is when everything starts to unravel. 

I'm in the middle of renovating an apartment, so I was horrified by some of the scenes in this novel when the contractor Derek starts working on the project. That's beside the point though. 

Like I mentioned the novel is taut with suspense and dread, but at the same time I felt it didn't really deliver. I feel that Abbott creates a distance between the reader and Dara, which results in the shrugging of shoulders when we reach the ending. 

In summary, I did enjoy the language and in a way the writing style but the fact that it didn't deliver means it fell flat for me. I don't think this book will stick with me. If you enjoy slow-burning novels that centre on family dynamics and deal with ballet, you might really like this. Don't just take my word for it, do check out different reviews if you're in doubt. 

Book Review: Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - The Doll (translated in 2021)

 

I had a hard time deciding on my rating for THE DOLL. There are elements to this novel I adored and there are plenty of things I did not enjoy so much. It's a hard book to recommend to others, that's for sure. 

The story is about a mother and daughter who find a destroyed doll in the ocean. The child wants to take the doll home even though it's an unsightly thing. The mother reluctantly agrees. Not soon after the mother dies. 

Years later a boy contacts the authorities about the fact that he was abused by a guardian from the state. This gets immediate attention. Huldar, a police office and Freyja, a child psychologist have to work together to interview all the kids that the accused was a guardian for. In the trail they find out that the little girl who spoke out as a witness in the case, is the same girl who found the doll on the bottom of the ocean. Could this be related? 

It's a slow-burning thriller. I don't think this book is over 400 pages, but it felt much longer. That having been said, Yrsa's writing style really works for me. The way she describes scenes and thoughts of characters are so incredibly realistic I really enjoyed myself. I can tell she's an incredibly adept writer. I liked how things, like the snake in Freyja's apartment, made a comeback in the most interesting ways. 

I did actually expect a bit of a more horrific thriller. The start is pretty rough and the ending is as well, everything in between is a bit more like a police procedural where witnesses are interviewed and wit is sharpened. I wish it would've been more terrifying. 

The way the author ties everything together in the end once again shows her superior writing skills. I don't know if I really liked the ending though, but I think that's a matter of taste. 

All-in-all, I liked the way the novel was written. I even liked the qualities of the characters, they felt real. I liked the plot, up until the ending. It was just a bit too slow in my opinion, and not horrific and terrifying enough. I will look for future and past releases of this author though. 

Many thanks to the publisher Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy!