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in the lead for my favourite reading spot of 2022, gonna be a tough one to beat!

#boonwurrungcountry taken in Walkerville, Victoria, Australia by @team.bookworm

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5 years ago

The Truth About Her / Jacqueline Maley

An audiobook read, what I thought would be the premise of this book gripped me from the start, but that premise soon changed and I ultimately halfheartedly completed it.

The Truth About Her is narrated by journalist and single mum, Suze Hamilton, whose already exhaustingly (and unnecessarily, tbh) complicated life takes a turn for the worse after she breaks a story about a cancer-faking influencer/wellness blogger (sound familiar?) and gets busted sleeping with her married boss.

While this was well written and featured some clever lines and observations particularly about motherhood, I found it difficult to get past the multitude of poor decisions Suze made, with seemingly little self-awareness and character growth. It also relied so heavily on tropes that none of the characters felt very original – the hipster artist/barista, the chubby but assertive feminist, the Gold Coast bogan, the snobby, overbearing Vaucluse doctor’s wife. This was kind of like a Sally Hepworth x Liane Moriarty mashup, that dragged on a bit too long with plotlines circling and recircling with little real development made. If it hadn’t have been an audiobook, I likely would have put it down for something else.

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#thetruthabouther taken in Naarm by @team.bookworm

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3

5 years ago

Assembly / Natasha Brown

“Generations of sacrifice; hard work and harder living. So much suffered, so much forfeited, so much–for this opportunity. For my life. And I’ve tried, tried living up to it. But after years of struggling, fighting against the current, I’m ready to slow my arms. Stop kicking. Breathe the water in. I’m exhausted. Perhaps it’s time to end this story.”

A short book with a lot to say, Assembly was a solid dissection and evisceration of capitalism, misogyny, racism, class and the fundamentally fucked up society we live in.

Presented through the perspective of an unnamed narrator, a young, upwardly mobile Black British woman deeply entrenched in corporate life and an unsatisfying relationship with a generationally wealthy white man, Assembly is disjointed, fragmented and often confusing, but – oh my, so compelling. One of those books where you know with each reread (as it’s totally worthy of one) more and more will fall into place.

Unnerving, uncomfortable, and quite remarkable.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#assembly taken in Naarm by @team.bookworm

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5 years ago

Islands of Abandonment / Cal Flyn

Do you know who sure is glad that I’ve finished this book? Lachie. Because whilst reading it I would turn to him every five seconds and excitedly and breathlessly exclaim “oh my god! Did you know [insert wild nature fact here]?!”

Scottish investigative journalist, Cal Flyn, has written an absolutely exquisite book with such a unique focus. Each chapter of the book is dedicated to a specific location – some, like Chernobyl, you’ve likely heard of, others such as the Usambara Mountains of Tanzania, you’re probably unfamiliar with. What all of these places have in common is that, following massively detrimental human destruction, they have been abandoned and left to return to their wild selves, often flourishing in ways significantly different to how they were prior to interference, whether that be a heavily mined area becoming a sanctuary for hunted animals or rare plants and butterflies popping up amongst areas wracked by deadly gases.

There is no doubt that humans as a species have damaged the earth beyond repair and the multitudes that have been lost may never be regained. Islands of Abandonment offered some glimmer of hope and the knowledge that the earth will reclaim eventually, both now and long after we are gone (there’s not so much hope in that statement for us, however).

This book was equal parts utterly fascinating and chillingly terrifying (Flyn’s night spent on a threadbare mattress in a ramshackle house - the sole human on Swona Island, accompanied only by a roaming pack of wild cows – and hearing thumps in the night – turned my blood cold). She does not sugarcoat the reality of the shitstorm we have gotten ourselves into, yet encourages us to keep fighting – the silver lining being that even if all our attempts fail, life will rise again from the ashes. We just won’t be here to see it.

I can’t wait to see what Cal Flyn does next.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#islandsofabandonment taken in Naarm by @team.bookworm

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5 years ago

Small Bodies of Water / Nina Mingya Powles

After reading and thoroughly enjoying Nina Mingya Powles earlier collection of food-memoir writing, Tiny Moons, I knew I would adore dipping (get it?) in and out of this one as well.

After what has well and truly been a summer of many swims for me (and a handful of tubing-related mishaps), Small Bodies of Water was exactly what I needed to further chase the obsession, making for perfect reading after a river, beach or pool (they’ll do in a pinch) session. Powles’ ode to placing yourself into water and flailing about traverses the globe, with stories of childhoods spent in the tranquil swimming pools of Borneo, to navigating wild and rugged New Zealand coastlines and bitter morning swims negotiating the early winter chill of Hampstead Heath Ladies Pond.

Small Bodies of Water went beyond swimming, with Powles, who is Malaysian-Chinese and Pākehā, exploring the complex feelings that come with being trapped between cultures and between worlds, simple reminders of all that you miss, a redefinition of home as people, places, memories, in particular leaning on food and nature as manifestations of comfort, connection and reflection.

I really appreciate Powles’ writing style – generous, poetic, a little bit obsessive (you can totally tell she totally deep dives into random topics and learns everything there is to know), and soothing. A real summer holiday winner.

Question for you - what is your favourite kind of body of water to swim in? I’ve popped in a few photos of my best swims so far this summer!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#smallbodiesofwater taken in Naarm by @team.bookworm

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2

5 years ago

How We Love: Notes on a Life / Clementine Ford

A solid departure from Clementine Ford’s two earlier books, this collection of essays navigates the many ways in which we love – as children, parents, lovers – requited and unrequited – and friends. Ford’s writing is always engaging, and the vulnerability, sincerity and honesty of How We Love was truly a study in fearlessness through memoir.

This is a collection of relatable as fuck stories about everything from growing up awkward and ‘quirky’ and leaving a string of unrequited crushes in your wake to navigating the shitstorm that is newborn motherhood. Lach and I listened to this together on a long road trip, and I don’t know about him but I had to do the “just looking intensely out the window” thing a few times while I had a little cry.

A really beautiful, hopeful read.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#howwelove taken in Naarm by @team.bookworm

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3

5 years ago

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America / Clint Smith

"What would it take—what does it take—for you to confront a false history even if it means shattering the stories you have been told throughout your life? Even if it means having to fundamentally reexamine who you are and who your family has been? Just because something is difficult to accept doesn’t mean you should refuse to accept it. Just because someone tells you a story doesn’t make that story true."

Clint Smith can write. While I’ve flipped through and enjoyed his poetry in the past, the way he has approached historical writing absolutely floored me.

How the Word is Passed shines a light on the legacy of slavery in modern-day America, extremely successfully bridging the gap between scholarly, extensively researched writing and personal reflection. Smith takes an ethnographic approach, traveling to sites of historical importance such as the plantations of the South, Angola Prison, Blandford Cemetery and New York City, partaking in interviews and posing challenging questions to everyone from Confederate flag flying patriots to tour guides working at historical sites. He writes of his experiences and the lives of his ancestors with such beautiful eloquence, structure and attention to detail.

An incredibly impactful, vivid and important work, breaking through the whitewashed history we have all absorbed, amplifying the immense work that must yet be done. One of the best books I have ever read.

"It was as a teacher that I first began to fully account for the way the history of this country shaped the landscape of my students' communities...I tried to write the sort of book that I would have wanted to teach them."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#howthewordispassed taken in Naarm by @team.bookworm

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2

5 years ago

Animal / Lisa Taddeo

Taddeo’s Three Women was a standout book for me when I read it a few years back. It was such a deeply intimate text, raw and honest in a way that felt deeply sincere, and I couldn’t help but empathise with the women who had so frankly shared their stories, shared what had been done by them and to them.

I was pretty taken aback to find that I didn’t feel the same way about Animal, Taddeo’s latest (fictional) effort. Animal’s narrator, Joan, is….hard work, and I get that, we’re not meant to like her. She’s dishonest, scheming, ‘not like other girls’ and, as she herself declares, ‘depraved’. As Joan packs up her life in New York to move to Los Angeles, she leaves a string of devastation and heartbreak in her wake, and seemingly plans to do the same in her new home. Look, I don’t mind a despicable main character and I don’t have to love the protagonist to love the book, but I struggled with Joan. Hers was a character so reminiscent of the tropes scattered through the Bret Easton Ellis novels I read in my youth (during my edgy-literature phase), that I felt a lot of her persona was there in an attempt to be transgressive and horrifying rather than honest.

Animal covered a pretty vast array of intense issues – exploitation, abuse, trauma – and the resultant experience of female rage and disconnection; there was a lot of room for the kind of upfront and frank discourse I saw in Three Women, rather than the shock-a-minute experience that Animal was.

This was an exhausting, taxing book that read a lot like a game of trigger warning bingo. What did I miss that everyone else got?

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#animal taken in Naarm by @team.bookworm

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5 years ago

Unsettled Ground / Claire Fuller

Commencing with an unexpected death, Claire Fuller’s story of Julius and Jeanie, 51-year old twins who have lived their entire lives sheltering under their mother’s care until her untimely passing, was as unsettling as its title.

Set in modern times in a small English village, Julius and Jeanie are left absolutely floundering when confronted with a life on their own. In a stunningly short period of time they exit the security and day-to-day repetition of the secluded life they once knew, finding themselves in debt, without a home and with seemingly zero prospects available to save them from their fate.

The slow, shocking unravelling of Unsettled Ground brought forth some pretty strong emotions within me that are hard to pinpoint – at times I was having a little giggle and a page later, bleakness overwhelmed, darkness ensued. The characters, so incredibly multifaceted and complex, also had the power to make me feel a weird blend of sympathy, disappointment, compassion and fury.

Unsettled Ground was such a unique tale of marginalisation, resilience and betrayal, leaving me with a lot to digest and playing on my mind for days to come (in that satisfying “what the fuck did I just read?” kinda way). This was also a bookclub read, and I thoroughly recommend it as one – there’s a lot to discuss, and a particularly fascinating one for the armchair psychologists amongst us.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#unsettledground taken in Naarm by @team.bookworm

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4

5 years ago

The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish / Katya Apekina

I’m not quite sure how or why this book entered my periphery, but bloody hell, I’m glad it did.

Katya Apekina’s protagonists are sisters; 16-year old Edie and 14-year old Mae, who are sent from Louisiana to live with their estranged father in New York after their mother’s suicide attempt. Despite being largely absent from their lives, the girls’ father, a well-known activist, academic and writer, is enthusiastic to embrace them as family, with Mae fervently echoing his feelings whilst Edie longs to be back with her mother. The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish is told through various first person accounts, voicing many characters – I find this storytelling vehicle often gets messy and confusing, but it worked so very well here, lent complexity and allowed this multi-layered story to start fitting together and making sense.

For a book that started off slowly and relatively innocently, it got really dark, really quickly as truths unfolded and true natures are revealed – this has been described as a ‘contemporary gothic’ and it certainly fits that bill. A clever, insightful and frankly quite devastating exploration of mental illness and trauma, extreme familial dysfunction and sisterhood.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#thedeeperthewatertheuglierthefish taken in Naarm by @team.bookworm

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3

5 years ago

Yearbook / Seth Rogen

Absolutely despo for this little palate cleanser after the first two rough reads I began my year with, I remembered that I had the audiobook of Seth Rogen’s autobiographical Yearbook ready to roll. I’ve harboured a not-so-secret crush on Seth Rogen for near on a decade (longer in fact – I watched A LOT of Freaks & Geeks in my twenties and absolutely have a thing for funny nerds), so I was very much looking forward to this one and losing myself in Seth laughing at his own jokes…and I got exactly what I wanted. I mean I pretty much launch into a spontaneous cackle as soon I hear Seth’s voice at the best of times anyway.

What a bloody delight this was! Seth regaled me with tales of his Jewish boyhood, his many drug fuelled adventures, and his observations of fame – including stories about Nicolas Cage, Tom Cruise and Kanye West that I can’t actually believe made it to print. Don’t expect this to be overly personal or introspective, it’s not, but if you’re looking for the perfect roadtrip or snack break listen or something to dive into when you’re having an utterly shitful day, may I present Yearbook. And if you like getting high, then this book is 100% for you.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#yearbook taken in Naarm by @team.bookworm

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7

5 years ago

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir / Alex Marzano-Lesnevich

During my teen years, you’d be hard pressed to find a true crime book that I wouldn’t enthusiastically devour. I wasn’t fussy, if I found it for $2 at the opshop, I’d be elbow deep in it mere minutes later. For a good chunk of time there, it was all I read. As I matured, so did my tastes in this very fraught genre. I now shy away from the schlock, the gore, and the often inherent misogyny present in so many books of that nature, which unfortunately encompasses far too many of them.

Every now and then something crosses my path that reignites that old spark, and does it well. The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir was just that. Young, enthusiastic budding lawyer, Marzano-Lesnevich spends their summer working with an organisation defending men accused of murder who are facing the death penalty. During their time there, they comes across the case of child murderer, Ricky Langley, and their examination of his crime brings stark reminders of Marzano-Lesnevich’s own childhood and the torments that existed within in.

This was quite a remarkable feat – half memoir, half true crime thriller, incredibly introspective, empathetic, raw and sincere. Marzano-Lesnevich’s reflection of their own dysfunctional upbringing has sharp similarities and contrasts with that of Langley’s, and the way the tales are woven, coming together and moving apart, was pretty damn masterful and compelling, invoking sympathy when least expected.

A discomforting yet worthy read, but certainly one that needs to be accompanied by content warnings regarding child abuse and murder; it’s a heavy one.

To end – I would love further recommendations of quality true crime reads for the discerning bookworm – any suggestions?

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

#thefactofabody taken in Naarm by @team.bookworm

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5 years ago