Best books of 2015

So many books, so little time. Luckily, I did have time to read these 12 brilliant books, my favourites of the year...

Book review: All the Rage by Courtney Summers

I have struggled and struggled with this review - I started writing it weeks and weeks ago (months actually) and I've written and rewritten paragraphs, deleted sentences and whole sections, and given up many a time only to come back a few days or weeks later.

Because how do you review such a brilliant and brutal book like Courtney Summers' All the Rage?

Romy Grey wouldn't stand out from any other teenagers in her town if it wasn't for the fact that she accused the sheriff's son Kellan Turner of raping her. No one believed her, so now Romy takes refuge at her after school job in a diner where no one knows about her past. When a girl from her school goes missing, Romy suspects she knows what has happened, and she has to decide whether to take action to help, at the risk of becoming even more of an outcast.

Consent, justice and memory are all dealt with by Summers in All the Rage. We meet the tough, prickly, fierce Romy, and root for her from beginning to end. Her every word and action shows someone who has survived and who is still fighting in small ways, even though she may think she's hiding away. Just getting up, going to school, going to work, interacting with people is a huge battle for Romy, but she does it.

A promise to read more ethnically diverse writers

Here's why I love books - they can take you to different lands, introduce you to different types of people, teach you about things you never knew. Books are diverse, and I love them for it.

So I was more than a little embarrassed to discover how undiverse the books I've read this year are when it comes to the ethnicity of their authors (there are lots of other kinds of diversity which are also missing in publishing, but I want to focus on ethnic diversity because it's of particular personal interest to me). I put together a list of my top summer reads for 2015, and all the authors on it were white. I didn't do this on purpose, and I only realised afterwards, once I'd read a critical piece about a best of summer reading list compiled by a newspaper. No one called me out on the lack of diversity of my list, but they should have.

The inner monologue you have when you're getting a massage

"My back is killing me, and my shoulder. I should get a massage. This is going to great, I deserve a treat.

"Massage day tomorrow! Wait, are my legs properly waxed? I should make sure. What if I've missed a bit?

"What should I wear? I don't want to look like a slob, but I want to be comfortable.

"Should I moisturise before I go? I mean, the masseuse will use massage oil, but I don't want her thinking I'm an adult who has never met a tub of body butter in her life.

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 Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

In Jamaica in 1976 a group of gunmen stormed Bob Marley's house, and although the singer survived, the men were never caught.

This incident forms the centre point of Marlon James' stunning A Brief History of Seven Killings. In the novel, James fictionalises the build up to the shooting, and its long reaching aftermath, as seen through the eyes of gangsters, journalists, politicians, the CIA and more.

A Brief History of Seven Killings isn't at all brief - my paperback edition is 686 pages - but it never feels like a long novel, and it was never a chore to read. It did take me a while, around 80 pages, to get used to the voices and the rhythms of the characters, especially the gang members who use words and phrases I was unfamiliar with but whose meaning I quickly guessed. Once I made a bit of headway with the book, it was easy going, and I flew through it, especially the last 300-400 pages.

James is brilliant at building to the shooting of Marley, who is referred to as The Singer throughout the book, giving him an almost mythical quality. The shooting is almost mythical as well. I knew it was coming, and I just wanted to get there, but I also really enjoyed the build up and spending time with all the different characters whose world I had never been exposed to before. A Brief History of Seven Killings is told in first person with chapters alternating through a roster of characters, all with extraordinary stories and opinions and motives for doing what they do.