What Happened That Summer - Laura Pearson

43%

15.04.26

I didn't hate this but it didn't work for me. The podcast-transcript format can work well but here it seemed like a gimmick instead of the standard third-person narrative it should have been. Factual errors spoilt the immersion (when it is 9am in the UK, it is not, and never has been, 5pm in LA). The '90s setting was not convincing. The romance was hard to take seriously. The 'twist' was obvious from early on but was still never properly explained. All these things, as I say too often, could have been solved with a proper edit.

Writers and Lovers - Lily King

48%

29.03.26

I'm sure the author thought she was writing deep 'n' meaningful lit fic but really it was a plotless story of a weak, self-involved woman who inexplicably attracted two men before her life accidentally came together without much input from her. Writers on writers on writers is never going to be particularly insightful.

Learning to Swim - Clare Chambers

61%

28.01.26

I could say exactly what I said about Back Trouble but this was slightly more memorable, with more vivid characters. I didn't like the anti-only-child rhetoric though!

Back Trouble - Clare Chambers

59%

23.10.25

Wry humour, sharp observation and a strong sense of place and time - yes, it's a Clare Chambers novel. I have a few to read and this was engaging and interestingly structured, if not ultimately memorable or profound.

Sweetness in the Skin - Ishi Robinson

59%

27.02.25

This was sweet in all sorts of ways, including the 'sour' and 'bitter' variety. Set in a a vivid 1990s Jamaica, this was strongly imagined and characterised, although the story was a little oddly paced, which made you less invested in what happened.

Ralph's Party - Lisa Jewell

46%

14.09.24

The 1990s seems like yesterday but this book has aged like a fax machine. Was it really so toxic then - both literally (so much smoking!) and metaphorically (so much unremarked sexism, sizism, racism)? It's also interesting to note that popular books were badly written with two-dimensional characters even then.

Factory Girls - Michelle Gallen

 55%

15.10.23

This won a prize for being funny but I didn't find any jokes amongst the misery of living with death and the threat of death in '90s small-town Northern Ireland. There also wasn't much of a plot. Which was a shame, because the protagonist was exactly the same age as me but I couldn't identify with her at all. The many inaccuracies about the Oxbridge entrance process at that time were also annoying - it was a small thing but noticing the errors ruined the immersion and veracity of what was otherwise a vivid account of a particular culture at a particular time.

This Time Tomorrow - Emma Straub

 

60%

09.07.23

Despite the quirky cover and the '13 going on 30' (or 16 going on 40) premise, this was solid literary fiction that interrogated all the big questions. Its knowing references to the 'Back to the Future' tropes prevented it getting too bogged down in its own dynamics, but it still lacked cohesion in many place - and the characters (which included New York) weren't particularly interesting. But, overall, a fun and thoughtful read.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin

 70%

04.02.23

It's been so long since I've read a book that actually lived up to the hype that this was like a long, refreshing drink. The characters weren't particularly likable, the style was a little leaden, something unlikely happened two-thirds through in order to inject some energy into the story... but somehow it all worked. Smart, complex, full of pop culture and high culture references - what relief to read a really good contemporary novel!

The Lamplighters - Emma Stonex

 

48%

09.10.22

Life on a lighthouse was dull and repetitive and a little dreamlike, just like this book. It was too lavishly descriptive for my taste, the characters too cold and similar, the magic realism and metaphorical flights of fancy too heavy handed. More 'hardgoing' than the 'gripping' and 'riveting' asserted on the cover.

Tin Man - Sarah Winman

 

60%

29.07.21

I'm all for relationship-based novels and beautifully written character studies - and this excelled at that - but I also expect something to actually happen in a story. There was no narrative tension to this at all, beyond 'bereaved man finds friend's diary, feels better' (spoiler!).

The Firm - John Grisham

 47%

04.07.21

If there were any keen readers of this blog, they'd know my opinion of Grisham's books is as exciting and unpredictable as his storylines (full of peaks and troughs). Unfortunately, this classic has dated badly over 30 years, crammed as it is with sexism, racism and tediously bickering alpha males, including the 'hero' himself, who I hoped would get eliminated by the mob but the plot didn't even make enough sense for that.

Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng

 

61%

17.01.21

On the one hand, this was intensely readable. On the other, best not to think too hard about the trite and frankly rather dull plot, unlikely characters and assorted moralising, or how it's become trendy to set novels in the 90s to stop mobile phones and the internet from ruining the story. 

Spencer's List - Lissa Evans

 66%

02.01.21

She's now known for her wartime epics (see here and here) but Evans' first novel is really just a collection of set pieces about likeable, linked characters. But it is brimming with her characteristic panache, painful pinpoint humour and the sudden powerful pathos that comes out of nowhere.