Book review: Not Working by Lisa Owens

Many people spend the majority of their waking time working, so you want a job where you're happy, and challenged, and where you feel like you're making a difference.

But what if your work just isn't living up to expectations? (If my boss is reading this, I love my job, we're not talking about me here.) If your work isn't working for you, if you don't have an answer to the question 'what do you do?', what, well, do you do?

In Lisa Owens' Not Working Claire Flannery quits her unsatisfying job, determined to grow as a person and ultimately find her calling. But instead of getting ever closer to finding out what it is she wants to do, Claire finds herself distracted with all the little and big things in life, from how to deal with an infestation of buddleia to a death in the family that leads to a breakdown of the relationship between Claire and her mother, to accepting her best friend's (seemingly personality free) new partner.

Everyone knows a Claire, or is a Claire, making Not Working a relatable read when it comes to the issue of work, and what we do (or don't do). Claire has free time, and freedom to pursue what she wants, which seems fine in theory. But when she is faced with friends who all seem to be happy and fulfilled with work, it's difficult for her to see the joy in her situation. It's a classic case of the grass being greener on the other side.

Book review: The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota

Refugee, migrant - two terms that are very politically charged, but how often do we think about the people behind these words?

Sunjeev Sahota's The Year of the Runaways is fiction, but its subject is something that hits the headlines in the real world with alarming regularity, although with little of the nuance displayed in Sahota's novel.

Tochi, Avtar and Randeep live in a cramped house in Sheffield. All are illegal immigrants from India, all spend their days working hard to make enough money to live, and all have very, very different stories, and reasons for seeking a better life in England. Born and brought up in London and seeking an escape of a different kind, Narinder finds her life tangled up with the three men in unexpected ways.

The Year of the Runaways very quickly identifies itself as one of those books that is going to grab you by your heart and not let go until the last page. It's emotional, heartbreaking, and about the best and worst of humanity. 

The book moves between present day Sheffield and the backgrounds of its three male protagonists, so we see what brought them to the city. In the present day the men work their fingers to the bone, live in horrendous conditions, and always have the fear of being caught by the authorities hanging over them. That they choose the existence they do shows how desperate they are, and makes you sympathise with them, and that's even before you learn about their lives in India.

Book review: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

If you go by social media, Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life is either the most amazing, emotional, poignant book ever written, or it's an ill constructed, ridiculous, far too long brick, and there is no in between.

Well, I'm here to say that I'm the in between. There are moments of A Little Life I think are sheer genius, where the beauty of Yanagihara's prose can't be denied, and then there are moments where I think the book is just full of holes.

A Little Life follows four friends - Jude, Willem, JB and Malcolm - in New York after they graduate. The novel quickly focuses its beams on Jude, who is a powerful, brilliant lawyer, but who is deeply affected by an awful childhood which has left him scarred in numerous ways. As Jude grows older, he becomes more and more unable to let the demons of his past go.

Yanagihara's novel is billed as the tale of four men, but really it's not. We soon lose sight of JB and Malcolm (especially Malcolm), who then only pop up occasionally, and often to serve a particular plot point before disappearing. Willem, who is far closer to Jude, continues to play a significant part in the book and in Jude's life, but I expected to be reading a book exploring male friendship, and what I actually read was a book about one man and how he connects, or not, with the people in his life.

Book review: The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink

I very rarely cry at books. I'll get sad, my heart will hurt, my eyes might tear up, but it takes a lot for those tears to actually spill over. So when I tell you that when I finished the last page of Cathy Rentzenbrink's The Last Act of Love to realise I had tears running down my face, it should clue you in to how powerful a memoir this is.

I should say at this juncture that I work with Cathy - I know her professionally, and consider her both a mentor and a friend. Beyond knowing the subject matter of the book, I didn't really know what to expect from The Last Act of Love. What I found was an intensely personal tale dealing with the universal subjects of love, family, and loss.

In the summer of 1990, Cathy's younger brother Matty was knocked down by a car, leaving him in a coma in hospital. Cathy and her parents willed him to survive, and he did. But at the time, Cathy and her family had no idea that survival might not have been the best option - Matty was left severely injured, unable to walk or speak or communicate fully. Every time he made progress, he suffered an epileptic fit, or something else that set him back. Eight years after his accident, Cathy and her parents were forced to make the hardest decision they would ever make.

Book review: In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

I don't think legend is too big a word to use when it comes to Judy Blume. The author is responsible for many of the books teenage girls (and probably some boys) grew up with, from my personal favourites Deenie and Here's to You, Rachel Robinson, through to Forever, much whispered about in school hallways.

Blume taught generations of teenage girls about growing up, but she has also turned her brand of insight to adult novels, of which In the Unlikely Event is her newest. It's not untrue to say that news of In the Unlikely Event's release was greeted with excitement by Blume's fans.

When Miri Ammerman was a 15-year-old living in Elizabeth, New Jersey, three planes fell from the sky within three months, leaving the town reeling. (It's worth saying here that three planes really did crash in Blume's hometown when she was growing up.) The crashes bring friends, families and strangers closer together, all trying to find a way to come to terms with the death that has come to their doorsteps.

In the Unlikely Event is classic Judy Blume - an intuitive look at the inner workings of teenage girls. Miri is in that period of her life where she's no longer a child and not yet an adult. But being confronted by so much death and danger means she has to grow up fast, and her family situation often sees her acting as the parent - Miri calls her mum Rusty and not mum, and Rusty is very much the antithesis of all the other mothers Miri knows.

The trauma of the multiple plane crashes looms large over the town of Elizabeth and they affect some residents more than others - Miri's best friend Natalie thinks a dead dancer from the first plane crash is speaking to her, Natalie's brother Steve finds himself unexpectedly grieving, while Miri's uncle Henry makes his name as a journalist on his coverage of the crashes, and Miri's boyfriend Mason becomes a hero to the town. Blume explores post traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders and more, which seem to be linked to the crashes in some ways, but in others are not. 

Because while this is a story about three plane crashes, it is just as much a novel about the day to day lives of the town's habitants. In between the crashes life goes on as normal, with affairs and secret relationships, squabbling families and schoolchildren who want to feel like they matter. There are teenagers trying to grow up, adults navigating life, and everyday problems rearing their ugly heads.

With so much death at the centre of the novel, In the Unlikely Event could easily leave you feeling despondent. But while it is a serious novel, it's also a novel about life, and the very thing that keeps us feeling alive - love. There is familial love, with Miri's unusual (for 1970s small-town New Jersey) family working together as a unit, and working as a contrast to Natalie's rather more conventional yet also more fractured family. And there is romantic love, with characters like Christina trying to find a way to balance her love life and her family life. And of course there is sex - Blume's characters use sex (with and without love involved) in a number of ways, but mainly to feel alive (even before the plane crash).

In the Unlikely Event is filled with tension and drama, and is a wonderful look at love, at how we respond to trauma, at becoming a grown up, and at living life to the fullest.

*In the Unlikely Event is out in the UK on June 4, 2015.

How I got this book: From the publisher, Picador. This did not affect my review.

Book review: Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler

Sometimes you pick up a book that is so well written and so beautiful, reading it warms your heart. Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler is definitely one of those books.

Henry, Lee, Kip and Ronny grew up together in small-town Wisconsin. They now lead very different lives, but their shared childhood keeps them bonded. The group all come together for a wedding, and rivalries surface, truths are told and friendships are put at risk.

Butler creates four layered characters, all of whom I absolutely loved for very different reasons. Together and apart, Henry, Lee, Kip and Ronny are sympathetic, likeable, full of depth and complicated in a way that male characters in books and television and film often aren't (at least in my experience).

Of course, while I loved all four characters, I definitely had a favourite - Lee. I think it was his vulnerability that really spoke to me, because even though he's a famous singer, travelling the world and revered by everyone, Lee, out of all of his friends, is the one who needs the most. He needs that connection to his hometown, he needs his friends, he needs love.

Shotgun Lovesongs is a wonderful love story between four friends. It's a great look at male friendship, and at the bonds that bind people together across years and many miles. It's tinged with nostalgia, of moments from a lifetime together. Reading Shotgun Lovesongs is a bit like sitting in a field on a warm summer evening - there's a slightly hazy edge to everything, and while there's a threat of a storm on the horizon, you feel welcomed and loved and safe. It might be a book just about friendship, but it's as addictive and all-consuming as any thriller or action film, and the stakes are much higher.

How I got this book: From the publisher, Picador. This did not affect my review.

Book review: Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood

Is talent, a gregarious personality and a way with words enough to make someone who is completely self-obsessed and occasionally violent attractive? I would say no, but Hadley, Fife, Martha and Mary - the four wives of Ernest Hemingway - might have had a slightly different answer.

In Mrs Hemingway, Naomi Wood paints a portrait of the four women who Hemingway married during his lifetime, although they were far from the only four women he had relationships with. Taking in Chicago in 1920, through a hazy, hot summer in the south of France in 1926, and visiting a number of locations and times before heading to autumn in Idaho in 1961, we meet fictionalised (although very well researched and based on reality) versions of Hadley, Fife, Martha and Mary before they know Hemingway, as they turn from lovers to wives, and as Ernest leaves them.

Wood's magic in Mrs Hemingway involves turning Fife, Martha and Mary - all of whom have affairs with Hemingway while he is married - into likeable characters. And Wood casts a further spell by making all four women sympathetic instead of pitiable. As a reader, I could so easily have spent the entire time I was reading wanting to shake all the women for being utterly stupid. Instead, thanks to Wood, I didn't think any of them were silly - they all deeply love Hemingway, in spite of clearly being able to see his faults. Each of them knows what they're getting when they get involved with him. Even Hadley, the first Mrs Hemingway, can see how her husband dazzles people.

Book review: Hotel Alpha by Mark Watson

Hotels are the ultimate fantasy residence, right? A place where someone else makes your bed and cleans up after you, where you can order food to your door any time of day or night, where you can meet people from all over the world without leaving the building, and where catering to your every whim is actually someone's job.

And that's why the setting for Mark Watson's Hotel Alpha is so appealing - a high-end London hotel that is at the centre of the world. Key to the world of the Hotel Alpha is Graham, the concierge at the hotel since its boisterous owner Howard first opened it, and Chas, Howard's blind adopted son who rarely leaves the hotel.

The book alternates between the perspectives of Graham and Chas, who seem initially like opposites. Graham is old and set in his ways, while Chas is young and enthusiastic about new tech. But really, both men's differences actually turn out to mask similarities. Chas may be physically blind, but Graham purposefully chooses not to see what is happening in front of him. Both men rely on other people to jolt them into living, both live by routines, both are stuck in a rut while the world around them moves ahead at a pace, and both men will do anything for Howard.

Book review: All This Has Nothing to do With Me by Monica Sabolo

If we've not been there ourselves, we've certainly had a friend be that person - the woman who analyses every word, every action, every glance that their current crush indulges in.

But seeing that kind of detail written down on the page, like it is in French author Monica Sabolo's All This Has Nothing to do With Me, makes that behaviour look a bit obsessive, and irrational at times.

In Sabolo's semi-autobiographical book we follow the relationship between MS, a journalist at a French magazine, and her new colleague XX, from its start to its painful end. Sabolo's book is not a straight narrative, it's interspersed with images, extracts from diaries and emails, and is told in three acts - the present, the past, and then back to the present again.

We meet MS as she meets XX, and finds him utterly gorgeous. What follows is her account of the pair's interactions - complete with photographs of all the lighters she has stolen from him, and notes about how many times they touch when they go out for after-work drinks. It's clear from the beginning that MS is way more into XX than he is into her, and her obsessive behaviour is cringe-worthy. I spent the first act laughing, feeling replacement embarrassment for MS, and thinking that I was reading an account of a 14-year-old girl's crush on a schoolboy.

Book review: All Involved by Ryan Gattis

Ryan Gattis couldn't have known that his second novel, All Involved, would be coming out at a time when America was once again in the midst of an explosive discourse about race relations, but maybe he suspected the circumstances for that discourse would materialise sooner rather than later, if his character Antonio Delgado is anything to go by.

In All Involved, Gattis' fictionalisation of six days during the 1992 riots in LA, Delgado, while high (he's always high) and on a joyride, reflects on LA's past history, realising that riots about race come round every 20 to 30 years. Delgado says the city is due another riot in 2022 or "before, I dunno". And while the epicentre wasn't LA and while the city-wide rioting of 1992 has mostly been replaced by angry protests, America is in uproar again following a series of cases of white police officers shooting dead black men, and not facing appropriate consequences for their actions.

Review: Mobile Library by David Whitehouse

I love books, so it stands to reason that I love books about books, like David Whitehouse's Mobile Library.

Twelve-year-old Bobby lives with his horrible dad and his dad's girlfriend, waiting for his mum to come home. Needing protection from the bullies at school, Bobby befriends Sonny, who is soon taken away from him. Just when he needs friendship and love the most, he meets Rosa and her mum Val, who is a cleaner in a mobile library. The books in the library provide Bobby with an escape, but he, Rosa and Val soon need to use the mobile library to physically escape, heading off on an adventure of the type you only read about in books.

Mobile Library is an absolutely charming book, full of flawed but loveable characters. Its central storyline is just one part of the book, Mobile Library is also an homage to great books and the escape they provide. Whitehouse's story is about the power of stories and about believing in the impossible (it might not always work out, but sometimes the impossible can come true).

Bobby is a wonderful protagonist, at once a sweet, hugely naive child and a wise old man, albeit not in age. He's appealing because he's a good kid dealt many bad hands, and when he finally finds people who appreciate him and love him unconditionally, you're genuinely happy for him. Val and Rosa provide Bobby with what is missing, and he also fills a gap in their lives, of brother, of friend, and of protector.