Incendiary by Chris Cleave

My challenge: to read a book by an author with the same initials as me. Chris Cleave, you win! I've read and loved Little Bee, but Incendiary came with such an unusual description, it took me some time - and a little encouragement - to pick it up. I mean, a book about"a distraught woman who writes a letter to Osama bin Laden after her four-year-old son and her husband are killed in a suicide bomb attack at a soccer match in London"? What the...? I tentatively picked it up not at all sure what to expect.

This just proves that sometimes overthinking a book description does you no good. Sometimes you just have to actually pick up the book, read a few pages and find out for yourself what the fuss is all about. You can always abandon the fuss if it's not your cup of tea, but you might just end up discovering something great.

I don't know how he did it, but Chris Cleave somehow managed to make a book about a terrible act of terror darkly comedic, but in the most respectful way. He somehow managed to squeeze moments of all-caps relief into what could have been a bleak, hopeless theme. Incendiary follows the unnamed narrator through a full year from the moment her husband and only child go off to a soccer match and get blown up as she's busy participating in the most unique sex scene involving a televised soccer match and a couch session I've ever read. (I mean, realistically, it's probably the only combined soccer/sex scene I've ever read, but...phew.)

From the moment she sees the explosion on screen, she starts experiencing horrible, constant PTSD. There are quite a few graphic scenes throughout the entire novel describing bodies burning/raging fires/horrifying violent and sexual scenarios that all help the reader feel the alarming things the narrator is experiencing, so if you're in any way sensitive to that sort of graphic content, you might want to be aware of its presence throughout the book. But the magic that Chris Cleave conjures throughout these scenes of terror is that none of it is gratuitous. Without such vivid descriptions, we just wouldn't get inside the narrator's head like we need to in order to feel empathetic to what she's going through and exactly how much her own world has been blown to bits.

She gets herself tangled up in people's lives in completely unexpected ways - in particular, her neighbour across the way, Jasper, and his girlfriend, Petra, as well as a chief superintendent of police, Terrence, who comes to be her boss. Under any other circumstances, her relationship with Jasper and Petra in particular might be far-fetched, but because of her PTSD and literally having her world turned upside down to the point where she doesn't have the ability to think clearly, it manages to feel believable. It's hard to have healthy relationships and transparent thinking when you've experienced that level of shock and life as you knew it was ripped away.

You might be wondering about the letters to Osama. She writes them to let him know exactly how his actions are directly affecting people on the other end of his reign of terror. He was sitting over on one side of the world directing suicide bombers while the people she loved the most in the world were ripped away from her, leaving her reeling. The city of London, where they all lived, adjusts and isn't the same. There are nighttime curfews and tributes to the dead and heightened security and everyone's on edge. She ultimately wants bin Laden to rethink his methods. Her letters to Osama are a form of therapy and a way of trying to process her grief.

It must be reiterated that this book just wouldn't be the same without its many moments of wry, dark humor. It's a bold, dramatic look into the life of a woman who's experienced firsthand the horrors of terrorism, the joy of deep motherly love, and how life can change in the blink of an eye. It's about how disorder can change a person's life in seconds, but equally about how order can be used to restore a fragmented life, even if the pieces will never quite fit together the same again.

Judge the cover: 4/5

The Blood Miracles by Lisa McInerney

The Blood Miracles is the jaw-dropping sequel to literary wallop that was The Glorious Heresies. One question that's usually asked when it comes to sequels is, do you need to read the first book to understand the sequel? In this case, I would say you don't have to, but you why would you not? You definitely should. Lisa McInerney's Irish is like English ignited with fireworks. It's English mixed with street slang and sparks and action so quick it's surprising the type isn't blurred. She lights a match, stands back and lets the words explode. Because of this, her characters alight off the page and hit your synapses.

The Blood Miracles picks up again with twenty-year-old Ryan Cusack, a drug dealer making his way up higher in the ranks while unraveling the deeper in he gets. There is a new plan this time around that involves mass quantities of Ecstasy pills coming from Italy, a nightclub which will serve as a front for the shady deals and a planned takeover of the current drug scene that's set to blow everyone's minds. Unfortunately, with drug money comes power and with power built on illegal trades, everyone's trust is held by the finest threads which threaten to break apart at any moment. Throughout the ring, from the top rank down to the bottom, the cogs that keep the machine turning are built of suspicion and threats and power moves. Violence and the dark cover of night and making sure you choose the right side is all part of the game. Everyone's a suspect and tangled into the kinds of problems that are usually solved with guns.

The love of Ryan's life, Karine, has had just about enough. While she's getting herself set up for success in life putting in hours and effort studying hard to become a nurse, Ryan's putting hours and effort into playing both sides, trying to keep both his boss and his girlfriend happy. This is an impossibility as Ryan's boss wants him at his side at the snap of his fingers, any time of the day or night, while Karine wants nothing more than for him to leave the fast life and settle down with her. She's given him more than a fair share of chances and so he picks up with Natalie. 

Natalie appears to offer everything Ryan needs - apart from actually being Karine, his one true love - she's there in body, mind and spirit, right up until the moment when Ryan makes an accidental discovery that changes everything...

Will Ryan quit the life and settle the conundrums he's gotten himself into - or will he forever be on the run? After all, it's hard to keep up the pace of the fast lane for the long haul.

Judge the cover: 5/5

Good Talk by Mira Jacob

Yesterday I did something I never ever do: I left the house without a book. Panic set in a few minutes later as I got stuck with a flat tire and an unforeseen trip to the mechanic. After that, I had to go to the library, which is when the panic subsided but also where I found myself in a bit of a conundrum: I'm currently reading a sequel to one of the best books I've read all year, so I didn't want to interrupt it with another book, yet I also couldn't NOT read something. Then I saw Good Talk on the shelf and I knew that, as a graphic memoir, it would be the perfect placeholder.

For the first time ever, I can say that forgetting a book at home turned out to be a great mistake. Good Talk is one of the best graphic memoirs I have read to-date and from the very first page, it promoted itself from placeholder to "drop everything else, I have to read this entire book".

It begins with Mira's son, Z, asking her questions about race. (Mira is the daughter of immigrant parents, she is married to a white man, Jed, and her son is mixed race.) Z asks A LOT of questions, as most kids do, however there are rarely easy answers when it comes to topics such as race and politics. As Mira contemplates the complex questions her sons asks, she leads us back through her own journey of growing up as a non-white person in America. It's a story full of questioning herself, looking back at her roots, and analyzing how she comes across to others.

She grows up and becomes a writer in New York City. 9/11 happens and she is faced with terrible assumptions and accusations from strangers based on the colour of her skin alone. There were things that happened to her during this time that put a rock in my stomach. Unfortunately, it wasn't just the 9/11 section that put a rock there. There are lots of heavy spots. There were lots of rocks.

Mira's parents and her in-laws were quite different. Mira's parents' marriage was arranged. They were funny and engaging and had funny banter, like this, about successful marriages:

"The problem with these Americans is they are always saying, "You're not who I married," and getting divorced."
"Indians never do that. Why not?"
"Because we never knew each other in the first place!"

Mira's in-laws were loving, but their relationship with Mira and Jed became strained when the latest US election took place. Jed's parents were adamant about voting for Trump, ignoring his blatant racism, which made Mira feel sad and betrayed. Her in-laws shut down and didn't want to discuss it. Trump's victory was obviously devastating and a complete 180 from the celebration they had when Obama was voted in.

The graphic component of this graphic memoir is phenomenal. It's a unique combination of full-colour photographic backgrounds with Mira's drawings overlaid. It adds texture and dimension to her story and an extra personal quality that's not always evident in other graphic novels.

Throughout the book, intermixed with the stories of Mina's life, Z continues to ask questions. A lot of tough, thought-provoking questions. Intelligent, innocent questions. Questions a lot of adults would be hard pressed to answer. I have so much admiration for Mira Jacob and her life story. There are still no easy answers, especially in the horrifying worst-case-scenario political climate that the US is currently in, but what rises above it all is hope. Hope is the answer to all of the questions.

Judge the cover: 3/5

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

I have to start off by saying I'm usually pretty uncomfortable writing reviews for books I didn't enjoy. Is there such a thing as a bad book? I have my doubts. It's more of a preference thing. Unfortunately, throughout this book, I would have preferred to be reading something else, but that obviously doesn't mean that another reader won't see it in a completely different light.

It's not that the plot is bad. To simplify, it's about a group of students that attend a private arts high school and the relationships they have with each other and their eccentric teachers. The premise is actually a pretty interesting one and there's a unique twist in the second part of the book where things in the first part are not entirely as they appear. Unfortunately, the plot twist still wasn't enough to keep me interested. My main problem with this book was that I found all of the characters unlikeable. Weird, since there were quite a number of them, so odds are that I'd have some interest in at least one or two of them, right? Unfortunately, that just wasn't the case. For the most part, I found them unbelievable and annoying and a couple of the characters I was drawn to in Part One of the book seemed to do an about-face by the second half, cutting the one or two threads that tenuously held me to them in the first place. It's hard to want to keep reading when you just don't care what happens to anyone, but from reading the jacket, I knew there was this big plot twist that was supposed to happen and by the time it arrived, I was already halfway through the book so I felt the need to keep going until the end.

I also found the writing style confusing. In the third part of the book (the book is divided into three sections), it took me about thirteen pages to figure out who was talking and what was going on. The points of view change in each section, which in itself isn't an issue, but it got a little muddled at the beginning of the second and third parts for me. It was overly wordy and overexplanatory without actually helping me figure out what was happening with any ease. I also found the middle part extremely grating to read - the main character in Part Two breaks down all of her feelings into literal dictionary definitions. Using this technique once would have felt a bit clunky, but to have it used over and over again started to get annoying. There was a reason the character did this, but nevertheless, I just found it cringey.

So, all in all, this one wasn't a winner for me. My favourite part of the book was the graphic design on the cover, so I'm interested to read some positive reviews to see if I can gain any insight into what others took away from the same book.

Judge the cover: 4/5

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki + Jillian Tamaki

 

This One Summer follows Rose and her parents as they return to their summer house at Awago Beach. There, Rose reunites with her summer friend, Windy.

It's not a very fun summer for Rose. Her parents won't stop arguing and though her father tries to reassure her not to worry about it, that it's just adult stuff, her mother's depression is unbearable.

Rose escapes to the beach most days with Windy, a fellow only child, who she sees every summer. They gossip, hang out at the beach, and rent scary movies. It's at the general store where they rent their movies that they catch glimpses of the lives of some older teenagers who live in the area. They're intriguing, these older teens, with their secret hangouts and drunken parties and crazy drama. Rose and Windy mainly gather insights through holes in fences, by eavesdropping on conversations and via the teens' loud partying, but the drama culminates when Rose finds herself caught in the middle of a pivotal moment in one of the older teen's lives.

Sometimes drama can separate people; sometimes it can unite. Sometimes kids just want to be older until they're thrust into adult situations when they just want to re-embrace childhood. And sometimes a summer vacation is good, but sometimes it's just good to be home. No matter what, there's always next summer...

Judge the cover: 3/5

What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence by Michele Filgate

It's always given me a little thrill when, as an adult, I've confessed things to my mother that I did as a kid that she was completely oblivious to. There are really no consequences at this point: no possibility of being grounded, of losing the phone or of not being able to hang out with my friends. But there are still plenty of things that I wouldn't tell my mother about in a million years. It's not for fear of teenage consequences at this point, it's just that mother/child relationships can be sensitive. They seem to come with their own kind of built-in baggage. Sometimes it's just best to keep certain things to yourself, even if they're far, far in the past. 

It's for this reason that I admire and applaud each of the fifteen writers who contributed to this book. It took a lot of bravery to dig deep and tell these truths about their relationships with their mothers with such candid spirit. Some of the writers' mothers are deceased, so it's from a place of relative safety that the authors were able to let out their secrets. Others' mothers are still alive, which adds a whole other dimension to what they chose to say and how they chose to say it. 

So many writers become inhibited when it comes to writing about their family members. After all, there are so many tricky emotions tied up in our life stories and our original core relationships. Some families are intensely private and would sooner die than have someone read about them. Others are more aloof, but when it comes down to it, it's still a very delicate balance for an author to decide if they tell all of the facts straight-up, consequences be damned, or if they choose to blur some details to make them more easily digestible than their original version. 

In this particular book, all of the writers were upfront with their stories even when it wasn't an easy task. There were issues of abuse, neglect, physical disabilities, wealth and step-families. There were also all different sorts of mothers: they were overbearing, cruel, loving, unfulfilled, free-spirited, lonely, proud...There is no such thing as a perfect family although we've all daydreamed about being part of one at some point. But some of these stories prove that when we think that the grass must be greener on the other side, in some cases, it turns out there's no grass at all, just an empty lot where that green, green grass should be.

It wasn't lost on me that I was reading this book while visiting my family for the weekend over Mother's Day. It got me thinking about all of the things that my own mother and I don't talk about. I'm just not sure I'm quite brave enough to have that conversation quite yet. Maybe I'll just keep it all buried safely away for now.

Judge the cover: 2/5

This Will Only Hurt a Little by Busy Philipps

Occasionally, I like to read memoirs by people I don't know very much about. That was the case with this one by Busy Phillips. I only knew the pencil outline version of her work - that she was on Freaks and Geeks, Dawson's Creek and Cougar Town and that she has a soon-to-end nighttime talk show, which I only watched once. I was more familiar with her red carpet appearances with best friend Michelle Williams above anything else.

Busy writes in a really conversational tone, as if you're her friend who she's dishing to over Cosmos on her couch. Her story starts right at the beginning, showing her independent streak when she takes off on her own for a walk around the block as a toddler. She then moves through her childhood and into her high school years, which was the point at which she decided that she wanted to be an actress. The difference between her and every other teenage girl with that very same ambition is that she actually made it happen. (And she got the satisfaction of throwing up a virtual middle finger to her teacher who told her that she wasn't going to be an actress and that being an actress was not a viable career.) She's extremely headstrong and determined; once she makes up her mind to do something, she goes for it and doesn't give up until she achieves it. Or if she doesn't quite achieve it, she has a cry (crying is a theme throughout), picks herself up and puts in one hundred percent effort to the next thing she's after.

This is one Hollywood celebrity who's not afraid to namedrop. Though I consider myself fairly up on pop culture references, I didn't recognize many of the names, though there were definitely enough that I did to make her anecdotes feel juicy. There was a purpose to it, though, and many times it was her way of standing up to the overriding boys' club/patriarchy/white male privilege that she put up with on so many occasions. It's her way of calling them out publicly for how they treated her or for their blatant hypocrisy. For someone who admittedly suffers from anxiety and depression, some of her writing felt like therapy. She was able to pour out her frustrations and worries onto the page. She never shies away from the truth and is really bold in the way she discusses her relationships from high school through to the present day. She's fully open about being raped as a teenager, the breakdown/reconciliation cycle of her current marriage and how she struggled with pregnancy and work obligations later in life.

This is still very much a Hollywood story. When she discusses money troubles and nannies not working out, as someone who's not anywhere near that upper echelon, it's definitely a little hard to relate, but that's just who she is and where she is because she put in all of the hard work to get there. Because Busy is so completely honest about all of the other aspects of her life, she doesn't try to sugarcoat anything to try to preserve her reputation. She puts it all out there and you can take it or leave it. She's already moving on to the next thing. Onwards and upwards.

Judge the cover: 4/5

Tin Man by Sarah Winman

I thought I'd enjoy Tin Man more than I did. It was just a little too cozy for me. There was a lot of potential, but it was just too quiet for my taste.

The premise was an interesting one: Ellis and Michael meet as twelve-year-old boys. They form a deep friendship that turns into more. And then one day, Michael is gone.

In the first half of the book, we are introduced to Ellis in the present day. His wife, Annie, has died and Ellis is struggling to get through life on his own, without his wife and without Michael who he reminisces about, as neither of them are no longer in his life. He works in a job that his father insisted on years ago, but his heart isn't really into it. He tries to bond with his younger neighbours, but he's trapped in his memories of the love he had for his wife and his friend, both of whom he misses terribly.

Most of the second half of the book is from Michael's perspective. Michael left town as an adult and we find out where he is and what his life is like afterwards. Before Michael disappeared and after Ellis met Annie, all three of them were inseparable friends. They hung out together all the time and Annie and Michael bonded just as much as Ellis and Michael. So, much of Michael's life is also spent reminiscing about the life he shared with Ellis and then both Ellis and Annie.

Having just read an action-packed novel that was full of punchy dialogue and original, descriptive language, Tin Man just felt bland in comparison. It's not a bad book - it was perfectly fine, but when there are so many amazing books out there, perfectly fine is not going to be memorable. Though I can see its appeal for another audience, unfortunately, this one just wasn't for me.

Judge the cover: 2/5 (Van Gogh has never been to my taste, but his Sunflowers painting is an important reference in the book, so the cover makes sense)

Eating the Sun: Small Musings on a Vast Universe by Ella Frances Sanders

If there's ever a thing to make you feel small in the world, it's examining the world itself and how we find our place within it. It's a difficult task to make the entire universe and all that it's composed of digestible and easily understandable to the average human. Eating the Sun manages to do just that.

If I were a person with a great memory, I would feel superbly smart after reading this little book. As it turns out, the part of my brain that retains facts and figures is unfortunately just a dust bowl. Things go in, but then they disappear. So I learned that there is actually a name for the different shades of grey and black you see when it's dark, I just can't remember what that name is. Did you know that the skeletal structure of a human arm is extremely close to the wing of a bird and that because some birds?/a particular species of bird?/something like that? has hollow bones and because of this, its feathers would actually weigh more than its skeleton? Let's see...what else can I "remember"...oh! This one's fascinating: did you know that you never actually touch anything directly? Everything has a forcefield of mumblesomethingsomethingparticlescan'tremember around it and so while it appears that you can feel objects, you're really just forcing apart the forcefields that are surrounding you and the object making it seem as though you're directly touching things!

Um. So.

If you have a better memory than me, you'll find this book rewarding. I mostly appreciate that vast vault of knowledge could be distilled down to only about a couple of pages per topic, all in laymen's terms with a small flourish of poetic language tying it all together. A ton of topics are covered from evolution to trees to outer space to how living things naturally synchronize. Amazing! I also loved the accompanying illustrations that added a sweet touch and a nice break between all of the facts. The only thing I have a slight problem with is that I couldn't find any references back to the sources where the author found her facts and statistics. As someone who doesn't know anything much about the topics in the book, do I just rely on the author's viewpoint? I'm sure a lot of this information, though scientific, is still subjective. In fact, at several points throughout the book, it's mentioned just how often scientists and researchers discover new information as they come to new understandings about the world we live in. But overall, this fun little reference book in a sweet package is a great alternative to all of the dry reference books out there. If only my memory was as great as my sense of curiosity.

Judge the cover: 5/5

If there's ever a thing to make you feel small in the world, it's examining the world itself and how we find our place within it. It's a difficult task to make the entire universe and all that it's composed of digestible and easily understandable to the average human. Eating the Sun manages to do just that.

If I were a person with a great memory, I would feel superbly smart after reading this little book. As it turns out, the part of my brain that retains facts and figures is unfortunately just a dust bowl. Things go in, but then they disappear. So I learned that there is actually a name for the different shades of grey and black you see when it's dark, I just can't remember what that name is. Did you know that the skeletal structure of a human arm is extremely close to the wing of a bird and that because some birds?/a particular species of bird?/something like that? has hollow bones and because of this, its feathers would actually weigh more than its skeleton? Let's see...what else can I "remember"...oh! This one's fascinating: did you know that you never actually touch anything directly? Everything has a forcefield of mumblesomethingsomethingparticlescan'tremember around it and so while it appears that you can feel objects, you're really just forcing apart the forcefields that are surrounding you and the object making it seem as though you're directly touching things!

Um. So.

If you have a better memory than me, you'll find this book rewarding. I mostly appreciate that vast vault of knowledge could be distilled down to only about a couple of pages per topic, all in laymen's terms with a small flourish of poetic language tying it all together. A ton of topics are covered from evolution to trees to outer space to how living things naturally synchronize. Amazing! I also loved the accompanying illustrations that added a sweet touch and a nice break between all of the facts. The only thing I have a slight problem with is that I couldn't find any references back to the sources where the author found her facts and statistics. As someone who doesn't know anything much about the topics in the book, do I just rely on the author's viewpoint? I'm sure a lot of this information, though scientific, is still subjective. In fact, at several points throughout the book, it's mentioned just how often scientists and researchers discover new information as they come to new understandings about the world we live in. But overall, this fun little reference book in a sweet package is a great alternative to all of the dry reference books out there. If only my memory was as great as my sense of curiosity.

Judge the cover: 5/5

The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney

This is the kind of book that I'd guess the adjective "rollicking" was invented for. Some other descriptors on the cover blurbs are: confident, gripping, a wild ride, punchy, edgy, fizzing. Yes to all of them! All so true.

Lisa McInerney is an author with a bold voice whose characters have solid identities and a lot to say. Like every Irish-authored book I've read to-date, it makes me wonder what it's really like growing up and living there. There is a certain toughness, a melancholy-yet-hopeful tone that radiates from their pages. That said, don't get me wrong; there's no way I'm saying that Lisa McInerney's writing fits into a typical mould - it's entirely original and a force of a book - it just sizzles with that hardscrabble Irish undertone that I've come to love.

In The Glorious Heresies, we meet Ryan Cusack - teenager, petty drug dealer, oldest of six, head over heels in love with his beautiful girlfriend, Karine. His mother is long dead and gone and his father, Tony, is an abusive alcoholic, so he's trying to keep his head above water. The deeper the trouble he find himself in, the harder it becomes for him to try to claw his way out. It doesn't help him any that Jimmy Phelan is running around in the shadows.

Jimmy is Tony's old friend who relies on Tony's sense of duty and need for money to help him clean up the bodies Jimmy leaves in his wake. If only Jimmy's unhinged mother, Maureen, would stop blabbing his business he'd be a lot better off. But Maureen just wants to be free of the ghosts that haunt her flat and her mind. It doesn't help anyone when, by chance, Georgie, a local prostitute, crosses her path one day and they start helping each other unravel the mysteries that plague them both. Georgie's desperately trying to find out what happened to her beloved boyfriend, Robbie, who went out one day and never came back. She's now trying to sort out fact from fiction while Maureen is looking for answers of her own. They both find themselves running away from their problems and finding themselves enmeshed in new ones.

As time passes, everyone's paths start crossing and their lives become further entrenched to the point where the evil web starts catching them all. Central to everyone's hatred is Tara Duane, a former madam, general lowlife and neighbourhood loudmouth. She's trouble from the get-go and a deliciously unlikeable character. 

Everyone in this escapade is broken and needs to be taken care of, but exactly which definition of that phrase applies depends on whose perspective you're seeing it from. Everyone's running from themselves, from each other, from endless worries and insurmountable trouble. What will happen when it all catches up to them is what will keep you turning the pages.

Without a doubt, this is one of the best books I've read so far this year. I'm beyond excited to see that there is already a sequel out, The Blood Miracles. After a brief moment to catch my breath, I can't wait to jump right back into this high-strung saga and get my blood pumping again.

Judge the cover: 5/5

Stitches by David Small

This memoir was absolutely heartbreaking.

David Small grew up in Detroit during the 1950s with two very distant parents who were going through their own significant struggles. Unfortunately, this perspective wasn't visible to him until he was an adult, so his childhood was spent fending for himself, battling disease and nightmares and the duality of his parents who acted one way around him and completely differently around their colleagues and friends.

When David was eleven, a family friend who was a physician noticed a growth on his neck. This growth turned out to be cancer, but this important piece of information was withheld from him. It wasn't until he'd already undergone surgeries and unearthed a secret letter that he discovered the truth about his body. When he woke up from his surgeries, he discovered that he no longer had a voice which, in turn, made his feel invisible to the world.

The graphic style pairs perfectly with this tragic story. While the author's self-portraits show raw emotion in his face and body language, the way he draws his parents and grandmother often without their eyes visible through their glasses, as well at the angles at which they're placed in the frames, gives them a hard sense of detachment. They appear large and looming, sad, fearful and angry. His mother, in particular, was an extremely mean, uncaring woman which meant that David wasn't able to come to terms with his awful upbringing until he found solace with a psychologist who was able to guide him to the truth. 

Thank goodness David Small found an outlet in writing and drawing. He has incredible talent for both and this is definitely a case where a graphic component adds dimension, understanding and a depth of emotion to the story being told. 

Judge the cover: 4/5