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@zeyspages

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📍London
📚 short and thoughtful book reviews
💕 literary fiction, debuts, books by women
✍️ @womensprize Discoveries Scholar ‘24
🖊️ rep by @serenadams

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A couple weeks ago, I received this gorgeous package from @littlebrownbookgroup_uk with one of their 2027 titles, Unwanted Attention.

Unwanted Attention is about two sisters: Ferris, who seems to have it all, and Henley, who is struggling. When they both experience midlife implosions at the same time, they move back home and face their local community’s expectations.

For fans of books about mothers and daughters, failing and finding oneself, and cultural demands. Unwanted Attention is out April 2027 🍜

Thank you @littlebrownbookgroup_uk for sending me a proof copy!

(book gifted) by @zeyspages

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2 hours ago

A contemporary London romcom, The Project is about two women who decide to transform their annoying guy friend into the perfect man.

While I went into this expecting a classic romcom, I was surprised to find it more of an introspective read about a narrator’s feelings on modern day dating. Her reflections on friendships, relationships, and the city are very relatable to read about, and I think ultimately I enjoyed the novel more for these than for the overarching ’I can make him better’ storyline.

If you enjoy books that feel like a friend talking you through their dating life, then you’ll enjoy The Project! It has a very honest, unfiltered millennial feel to it, which I found to be unique.

Thank you @vintagebooks for my early copy of The Project 🍬

(book gifted) taken in London, United Kingdom by @zeyspages

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3 days ago

New Emily Henry let’s go!!

So excited to help reveal the title of EmHen’s 7th book, Modern Classic 🎥

April 2027 can’t come soon enough!!

Thank you @vikingbooksuk for asking me to take part in this, and @picturehousecrouchend for the perfect vibes 🍿 by @zeyspages

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7 days ago

My Vintage Collector’s Classics collection 🩵

These live in a special stack on my bedroom bookshelves. I love their cover illustrations, I love their marbled edges, and I love how special they feel.

I always get so excited when @vintagebooks announce beautiful new additions to this series. All the ones I have so far are blue themed, but I think I’m going to break the streak by getting Peter Pan next ⛵️

Which of these editions do you have / are thinking of treating yourself to?

(some books gifted) by @zeyspages

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8 days ago

Had the best time celebrating Rachel Cusk’s newest novel, Life of M, at @rejinapyo with @faberbooks last night!

Drinks, beautiful clothes, book chat, my new favourite cap, and a signed & dedicated copy of the book I’ve been thinking about since I read it. What more could a girl ask for?

A gazillion thanks to @faberbooks for the invite! by @zeyspages

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11 days ago

I’ve been craving more family sagas lately, and I think The Country of Others trilogy might be the perfect scratch to the itch.

The series follows three generations of the Belhaj family, from 1946 to 2016, across a newly independent Morocco and beyond. It draws on Leïla Slimani’s family history, and the books are about a Frenchwoman and a Moroccan soldier who fall in love, their children during the postcolonial era, and the subsequent generation navigating their own freedom and their family’s history.

I’ve had my eye on these books for a while, and I’m glad I waited - now that the final novel, I’ll Take the Fire, is out, I get to read all of them back to back to back!

Very grateful to @faberbooks for sending me a copy of these 🤍

Have you read any books from this trilogy?

(books gifted) by @zeyspages

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15 days ago

I’m so confused why this book isn’t everywhere on bookstagram! The Simp is about Raj, an unemployed actor who lies on his resume to become the PA for a famous Hollywood director and his wife. We are with Raj from this moment until his downfall.

I was HOOKED on this book from start to finish. It is such a minutely observed criticism of class, race, and the creative industries. No single character is fully likeable, not even our protagonist Raj - which is apt given the book tells us, right at the title, that it will have no hero.

Raj is still an extremely compelling character whose plight is all too relatable. He can be himself neither in India nor in the US because both places reject parts of him. So naturally, he acts. And when he can’t make money off acting, he transforms his own life and personality into one big act, increasingly losing the line between fact and fiction.

The novel is also set in the very specific period right after the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, when creative industries pretended that they valued diversity and promised more diverse projects, only to conveniently forget. Raj is attempting to become an actor right at this time, being offered ‘help’ that never seems to materialise into something real.

All in all a very fun, extremely stressful, and surprisingly touching book. Please read it!

Thank you so much @sceptrebooks for sending me an early copy of The Simp, which is now out.

(book gifted) by @zeyspages

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16 days ago

Scenes from yesterday’s Bad Words bouquet workshop 💐

This was honestly one of the most calming and aesthetically pleasing events I’ve ever been to. First we learned how to condition, spiral, and arrange our beautiful bouquets, and then we got to have a Q&A with Rioghanch Robinson to hear more about her process with Bad Words.

Bad Words is about a literary rivalry in New York, where the private feud between an author and a critic develops into an online spectacle that slowly leaves them second guessing everything they thought they knew about each other.

Thank you @harperfiction for inviting me to this beautiful event! I spent all of today admiring my bouquet 🥲

Bad Words is out on October 8th. I can’t wait to read it!

(gifted event) by @zeyspages

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20 days ago

Having once moved from a big city to a small American suburb, I knew I would find Country People fascinating. About a family adjusting to life after their move from California to a university town in Vermont, it is one of the cosiest books I’ve read.

Country People is the kind of novel where so much happens and nothing happens at the same time. It skilfully conveys the enchanting weirdness of small places where everyone knows each other and everyone has a story to share - and everyone is odd but also somehow realistic and endearing.

Being dropped in this eclectic cast of characters made me think about how monumental our own mundane lives feel to us. Because, by some magic, the Krzelewski family’s mundane lives also feel immensely captivating to read about - I would have read 500 more pages about them.

Life-affirming and funny not in a laugh-out-loud way but in the way that life just is, Country People really felt like escaping into a different reality. If that sounds like something you need right now, I’d say end of summer is probably the best time to read it. Plus, it reminded me of Nathan Hill’s Wellness, which I loved.

Thank you @johnmurrays for sending me an early copy of Country People!

(book gifted) by @zeyspages

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24 days ago

Perfect rainy day activity: making your own bookmark 🔖

Thank you @artisans.life for sending me a DIY bookmark craft kit. I’m not usually very crafty, but this was just the right amount of challenging and felt very therapeutic to do - and it’s extra special that it now gets to live in my books.

🌧️

(kit gifted) taken in London, United Kingdom by @zeyspages

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25 days ago

Six recommendations for the last six days of Women in Translation Month!

If you’re looking for one last book before the end of WITMonth, I’ve got some recommendations thanks to @scribneruk , who very kindly sent me a bundle for my August tbr and beyond.

Here’s why I would pick up each book:

💫Celestial Bodies for a coming-of-age family saga full of secrets
💫Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 for questions about misogyny and institutional oppression
💫Dinner at the Night Library for cosy fiction set among books
💫The History of Bees for interconnected stories from the past, present, and future
💫The Mermaid’s Tale for a story of dance and bodily autonomy
💫The Paris Trilogy for a woman’s life told in three semi-autobiographical stories

I love that my translated tbr is growing, and that I get to read and enjoy stories from around the world year-round! Have you read any of these novels, and which would you recommend first?

(contains gifted books) by @zeyspages

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a month ago

I love coming across a book that feels wholly unlike anything else I’ve read before. Beginning Middle End is an incredibly mesmerising novel with prose that feels almost fluid, and though it would be difficult to summarise its plot it in one sentence, the way it made me feel has stayed with me.

Set around a mother-daughter trip, the novel is told in bigger sections that are divided into numerous little mosaics of their own (apt given one of the main physical objects in the book is an ancient mosaic). The personal and the universal blend within themselves and into each other: we see mothers and daughters intermingled, observing one another, becoming one another, completing one another, just as we see words shared across cultures and times, changing shape and meaning and charge while somehow also retaining their origins.

The constant question, of course, is where things begin and where they end, and whether we can ever know. Mirrored against the myth of Proteus, the novel itself constantly shapeshifts and takes a loose form where all times exist at once. The more I read, the more I found myself losing track over what was real and what wasn’t - both in the book and in real life.

I was blown away by this book (and was surprised not to see it on the longlist!). Read if you enjoy stream-of-consciousness-like prose propelled by vivid narration, all set within an intense summery vibe.

Thank you so much @4thestatebooks for sending me an early copy of this one!

(book gifted) by @zeyspages

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a month ago