Book review: When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

If you're white, you've probably seen yourself in books your whole life. But as a British Pakistani Muslim, it's rare for me to truly find a character I can point at and say: "That person, I share their experiences."

No more, because Sandhya Menon has written When Dimple Met Rishi, a - if we're searching for a quick pitch - YA arranged marriage rom com.

And reading When Dimple Met Rishi was one of the best, most joyful reading experiences of my life. It starts with the cover (and I know you shouldn't judge), which depicts a brown girl, smiling widely, wearing henna and a kurta, and sipping an iced coffee. It's joyful.

Here's a book about a brown girl, and she's not oppressed, and it's not about terrorism or struggles with religion or culture. Instead, it's a book about a brown girl with slightly overprotective parents, who get on her nerves sometimes. It's a book about a brown girl with big dreams doing everything she can to make them come true. It's a book about a brown girl navigating friendships. And it's a book about a brown girl falling in love with a guy she never expected to like.

Book review: Precocious by Joanna Barnard

We're all vultures of a sort, and there are few things that demonstrate our need to know everything and tear everything apart and form an opinion than news stories about teenagers having relationships with their teachers,

In Joanna Barnard's Precocious we join the teenager in the affair as an adult. Thirty years old, Fiona Palmer is married when she bumps into Henry Morgan, the man she had a relationship with when she was 14, again. Fiona still feels a pull towards Henry, even all these years later, and is willing to put everything on the line for him. But who is really in control of their relationship now? And who was in control when the pair first embarked on their affair? 

Comic book review: Captain America - The Chosen by David Morrell andMitch Breitweiser

If you know me, even a little bit, you probably know that I am a huge fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In fact, I'm a full-on MCU fangirl.

But I've still never read a Marvel comic book, until now. I randomly picked a few Marvel comic books at the library, choosing based on title, look and plot, and the first one I delved into was Captain America - The Chosen.

Captain America lies dying in a bunker in Washington D.C. while in Afghanistan a young soldier, Corporal James Newman, is bone tired, missing his wife and baby, and ready to give up. When his convoy gets involved in a battle in an Afghan village, Newman is helped by Captain America. Or is he?

As a first comic book, I think this was a pretty good one. The first thing I noticed (obviously) were Mitch Breitweiser's gorgeous illustrations, and the colouring of the whole series. Set primarily in battle-scarred Afghanistan, there's a real sense of the way the colour is leached out of Newman's world in every panel. Everyone and everything is brown and yellow, covered in dust; even the American flag in the first panels of the first chapter is seen through a haze of sand.

Review: The May Bride by Suzannah Dunn

The reign and life of King Henry VIII always provides great fodder for books, television and film, and Suzannah Dunn taps into that fascination for her novel, The May Bride.

Not that Henry VIII makes much of an appearance in The May Bride - this is firmly a book about Jane Seymour and her life in the years before she went to court. When she is 15, Jane's brother brings home his new wife Katherine Filliol. Older than Jane and more wild than anyone in the Seymour family, Jane finds herself drawn into an intense friendship with Katherine which burns brightly for one summer, before fading out. Two years later, Katherine's husband makes an accusation against his wife that will change the Seymours forever, and that will inform the way Jane acts when she becomes part of the court of Catherine of Aragon.

Written by an older, wiser, Jane who is about to marry Henry VIII, it is clear from the beginning of The May Bride that something truly terrible has happened to the Seymour family, and that Katherine is at the centre of whatever went wrong. From almost the very beginning of the first chapter, we see Jane blaming herself for not having seen Katherine properly. Dunn's book is not about revealing what Katherine has done as much as it is about Jane coming to terms with her role in what happened, and the guilt she feels. As the book progressed, I found myself more fascinated with Jane's actions and reactions than by finding out what Katherine's role was, perhaps partially because I could guess the gist of Katherine's deed from close to the beginning of the novel.

Where Dunn's book really shines is in the portrayal of the friendship between Jane and Katherine. As an impressionable 15-year-old, Jane is enamoured with Katherine. It might be difficult for anyone living in the 21st century to imagine such a relationship forming, but it's easy to understand Jane's feelings when you consider how isolated she was and how normal the Seymours' existence was until Katherine arrived like a whirlwind.

The May Bride is a slow burn book, which builds to its central revelation gradually, and then crests slowly downward, and into more familiar territory to those of us who learnt about Henry VIII's wives at school - but this is a book that puts women in the centre, and marginalises the famous king, although his relationship with Jane hangs over the entire novel. Dunn gives a voice to Jane, and, although we never hear from her directly, to Katherine as well, who despite her bravery and brightness is the person most without a voice in the novel.

Dunn's novel is all fiction, but it's based on real events, and is an interesting take and filling of the gaps on a story we think we know the most important part of. Reading The May Bride made me realise that it wasn't Jane's marriage to Henry that was fascinating, it was her past that made her the woman she was.

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

Film review: Gone Girl, starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike

Here's a bold claim for you - Gone Girl is one of the two best film adaptations of a book I have ever seen. The other is The Godfather. That's how good I think David Fincher's film of Gillian Flynn's hit novel is.

Partially, that's because Flynn herself wrote the screenplay, which remains as taut, twisted and terrifying as the book (more on the book later). And partly it's because everything about the film, from the acting to the settings to the music, are utterly en pointe while being unsettling at the same time.

Ben Affleck is a revelation as Nick Dunne, whose wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) goes missing on their fifth anniversary. Faced with no body but a whole heap of evidence, Nick soon finds himself going from pitied husband to perceived murderer, especially once Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) finds Amy's diary, which shows a woman in fear of her husband. Every action Nick takes, every word he says, and every look he gives are put under a microscope and Nick comes out of it looking like bacterium. This is the best I've ever seen Affleck (Gigli what?), who creates a Nick who is more pitiable than he is unlikeable.

And Pike, wow. From the moment she appears onscreen - an opening shot of her guileless, perfect face, huge eyes staring straight at you - she's utterly captivating. As Nick falls in love with her, so do we. There is something just perfect about Amy, who lives up to the Amazing Amy moniker from the books her mother and father created. To say anymore would be a spoiler for those who know nothing about the plot, but goodness, someone give Pike a shiny statuette of some sort.

And now to the book. Flynn's Gone Girl has a narrative structure that is split between the present and the past, and the film sticks to that and it works. For the present, we have Nick and a host of other characters, for the past we have Amy and her diary entries. Amy's diary entries could have been awkward translated into the screen, but instead they work as a seamless bridge into learning about the couple's past, and the intimate insight the diary entries offer leaves you feeling distinctly uneasy.

In fact, everything about Gone Girl makes you feel slightly uneasy. In the present, Amy and Nick's house is too perfect and devoid of all feeling, and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's score underlines the spookiness in some of the films most important scenes. Fincher's direction is spot on - the distance shots reflect the slightly off nature of the whole plot, the beats of silence heighten tension, the violence is, well, violent yet restrained.

Gone Girl is very, very faithful to the book. Of course things had to be changed and some aspects left out, but what I loved best about the book is right there on the screen, as is the stuff that made me frustrated (yet made me love the book all the more). Book lovers will be stunned at how accurate the film is, those who haven't read the book will want to do so afterwards.

Some general observations:

-Gone Girl is funny. The comic timing of every one of the actors is spot on, and even in the midst of the darkest scenes there were lines and facial expressions that had the audience I saw the film with laughing out loud. Proper belly laughs.

-This is not a film for the squeamish. There was one moment that reminded me of THAT scene in Stephen King's Misery, and I had to cover my eyes, and while I made it through the most gruesome scene in the film just fine, my neighbour had her head down and eyes shut in order to survive.

-Gone Girl's supporting cast is brilliant. Pike and Affleck are the stars, but Neil Patrick Harris as Amy's creepy ex is good at making the audience uncomfortable without saying a word; Tyler Perry's flashy lawyer Tanner Bolt adds a sense of glamour and likeability to the film (and provides the biggest laugh for the most honest observation of the film); Carrie Coon as Nick's sister Margo is loyal and lovely and oh so tragic; and Dickens' detective is just awesome and no nonsense.

-Ben Affleck is huge in this film. Apparently he was in the midst of training for his role as Batman while this was being filmed, and it shows. His shoulders are distracting, but his sheer size really works for this role.

I could go on and on, but I'll end with this. My viewing of Gone Girl was informed by the book, and I wasn't disappointed for even a second - this is the best film I've seen this year and I know when I reread the book I'll picture Affleck and Pike in the lead roles, because they're perfect. But I do envy anyone who is going in to Gone Girl with no knowledge of how it is all supposed to pan out - to see it without expectations and be blown away regardless would be a treat.