Book review: Good Hope Road by Sarita Mandanna

It would be entirely too simple to say that Sarita Mandanna's Good Hope Road is a book about the First World War and its aftermath.

Rather, it's a story about fatherhood and family, about how there are some things we never, ever get over, about how love is enduring, and about how society can let down those who sacrifice most for it.

In 1914, privileged New Englander James Stonebridge and Louisiana native Obadaiah Nelson meet when they both volunteer with the French Legion. Years later, James lives on his apple farm with his grown son Jim, who is falling in love. James is a stranger to his son, who was just a young boy when his father left for war. It is only when James decides to join the Bonus Marches in Washington that Jim slowly begins to realise there is more to his father than the dour, often drunk, uncommunicative man that he appears to be.

Good Hope Road flicks back and forth between the First World War and the present as it stands for Jim, and the narration switches between James' First World War diaries, Obadaiah's story told in the first person, and the third person present. The three different threads create a layered story, and although they may seem like they may not come together at first, Mandanna deftly weaves a spell that brings all three to a moving conclusion.

Book review: Headscarves and Hymens - Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution by Mona Eltahawy

I thought I already had enough anger in my body at all the injustices done to women around the world, but while reading Mona Altahawy's Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, I discovered that at 5ft 2ins my body can hold a lot more rage than I thought.

Eltahawy wrote an essay after being sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square while covering the Egyptian Revolution, an essay titled Why They Hate Us that ticked off quite a few people. Now, in this book, she expands on the topic of that essay, taking a deeper look at how the Middle East is largely home to societies built on sexism and misogyny, and how men use religion to control women's rights, women's minds and women's bodies.

Headscarves and Hymens mixes the intensely personal - Eltahawy's experience of getting groped while on Hajj and her struggle with deciding to lose her virginity are among the stories included - with statistics and stories of women she has met. This is part autobiography, part investigative report, part call to arms. All come together to form a heartbreaking look at a group of people treated as second class citizens just because of their gender. I say heartbreaking, because there are stories in this book that made me shut my eyes after reading them, hoping that because I couldn't see the words on the page, the horror of what they described would go away.

Book review: The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett

Some love stories are meant to be told over and over again, and Laura Barnett takes that and twists it slightly for her debut novel The Versions of Us.

Eva and Jim meet at Cambridge in 1958 when she swerves on her bike to avoid a dog. That remains the same in each of their lives, but what happens afterwards changes in the three versions of their lives, together and apart, that Barnett tells. Through marriage, divorce, children, affairs, jobs and more, we follow Eva and Jim from that first meeting in 1958 through to the present day - in three different versions.

The Versions of Us is easily described as One Day meets Sliding Doors, but that would be simplifying how intricately plotted and told this novel is. Barnett almost (I have read a very early proof on which there is a tiny bit of work to be done) seamlessly weaves together three stories, connected by major milestones - birthdays, deaths etc - but otherwise completely different. Barnett takes the small things that make a life and uses them to create three rich worlds.