The Weather Woman - Sally Gardner

 

61%

27.08.23

Objectively, this novel could have been better. The author admits in her acknowledgements that it wasn't planned out, and that much is clear - it ambles along with little conflict, pacing or plot and is about 100 pages too long. Such books are usually character driven but all the characters are blandly, uncomplicatedly nice except for the two pantomime villains. Modern concerns are awkwardly shoved in - everyone, with their early 19th-century sensibilities, immediately accepting and understanding neurodiversity, climate change, sexual freedom, and queer and trans characters. Yes, we get it, they're born in the 'wrong time'. But, somehow, for all these flaws, it was still an evocative and engaging read.

Confess - Colleen Hoover

39% 

19.07.23

"Hey, AI! Write me an overwrought romance featuring characters that describe their thoughts and actions in tedious detail but still create unnecessary tension by failing to communicate with each other. Ensure the woman is weak and weepy and needs to be saved by a man. Ensure that very little actually happens and that nobody behaves like real humans. Put that Hoover name on it and it'll sell millions!"

Little Wing - Freya North

 52%

13.06.23

This mostly seemed to be an advert for the Isle of Harris tourist board - apparently, it's practically perfect - but it was also a rather reactionary story about a fallen woman eventually getting her comeuppance and a couple of deeply uninteresting 30-somethings rediscovering themselves.

The Last Anniversary - Liane Moriarty

 63%

10.11.22

The first third or so of this was pitch-perfect - a balance of humour and pathos, with quirky characters to carry you through. But then it started to meander a bit, some points of view fell flat, the multiple story lines got slightly wearisome, many of the topics were a little problematic - but to its credit, not all the ends were tied by the last page.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

 

60%

08.03.22

No, not Victor Hugo. Now, that would be interesting. This, on the other hand, while diverting, was like an early Daisy Jones and the Six (by the same author) - the story of an alluring woman in a glamorous world reflected through the medium of the media. And, like that book, not as profound as it would like to be.

The Dictionary of Lost Words - Pip Williams

 48%

20.08.21

You'd think I'm the ideal audience for this novel - I've studied, lived and worked in Oxford and work with words now. But the story was so dull, the characters so two-dimensional, the dialogue so unlikely, and the author so keen to show off her conscientious research and ruminations on the nature of words that I just didn't care.

Note: I'm might also start keeping count of books where women become pregnant after having sex once. Spoiler: It's most books with unmarried female protagonists, especially when they're set in the past.

New label: pregnant first time

Madame Burova - Ruth Hogan

 

47%

25.07.21

This was so awkwardly written that I had to check it wasn't self-published. So much exposition, so much cliché, so many unnecessary characters, so little of the editing it desperately needed to give it some sort of focus and depth. I didn't actively dislike it; it just wasn't very good.

The Unforgetting - Rose Black

 

46%

07.06.21

Perhaps the barely literate style choice of omitting conjunctions and pronouns at the start of run-on sentences was to distract attention from the incoherent story and forgettable characters. So it was no surprise that it ended as if some pages were missing.