Review – Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

Two years ago, I picked up Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s coming-of-age novel, The Mountains Sing, unaware that the Tran family would run away with my heart. Since then, Quế Mai’s words have touched readers around the world, and I have placed her story into the hands of friends and family, knowing that her words are a gift to anyone who reads them.

Needless to say, my expectations for her second novel, Dust Child, couldn’t have been any higher, but once again, Quế Mai has written a heart-wrenching novel that is a love letter to Việt Nam and its people.

Summary:

Weaving together multiple timelines, Dust Child is split into three storylines which intersect and converge in an epic conclusion. In 1969, two sisters leave their parent’s home in the countryside and travel to the bustling city of Sài Gòn where they begin working as ‘bar girls’ in a drinking establishment frequented by American GIs. As the Việt Nam War breaks out around them, the girls are forced to compromise their morals in order to survive. In the modern day, two men visit a very different Sài Gòn. Phong – the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman – is in search of his parents, whilst Dan, an American war veteran, hopes a return to the city will help him to ease his PTSD.

My Review:

Quế Mai’s signature poetic prose, sensory world-building and the richness of Vietnamese culture are ever-present in her follow-up novel. In keeping with The Mountains Sing, it is her understanding of human trauma and the compassion she has for her characters which makes this novel shine. I was drawn to all three strands of the story for different reasons, but I had an undeniable soft spot for the two sisters. Their familial bond was perfectly told and the sacrifices they endured at such a young age nearly brought me to tears multiple times.

Readers are effortlessly transported to the streets of Sài Gòn and Quế Mai has a natural gift for storytelling; her writing both captivates and educates, shining a light on the devastating consequences of war. As is the case with The Mountains Sing, she re-introduces humanity into the history books and gives a voice to the many millions of voiceless Amerasians in Việt Nam. In the author’s note at the end of the novel, Quế Mai recounts the seven years she spent writing the book and the tireless work she took in fictionalising the real-life interviews she conducted with Amerasians. The dedication that she has to sharing their stories not only speaks to the uniqueness of her craft but also for her warmth as a human being.

There are some books you don’t read so much as live, and Dust Child sits firmly within this category. I truly cannot wait for readers to fall in love with this book, just as I have done so.

Dust Child will be published by Oneworld Publications on the 20^th  of April 2023 (ad pr product)

Star Rating: 4.5/5

Review – 1000 Coils of Fear by Olivia Wenzel

Summary:

Olivia Wenzel’s debut novel is a bold and experimental exploration of Black identity in Germany. The unnamed narrator’s feelings of alienation are established in the very first sentence “My heart is a snack machine made of tin.” She then enters a rhythmic, multi-layered conversation with herself which is interjected by several other competing voices (perhaps the ID, ego and superego which make up her personality). This imaginative device allows Wenzel to jump back and forth between time and place and, in turn, grants the reader an insight into the protagonist’s family history; the story of her her white mother who was a punk in the former East Germany, her absent Angolan father and her twin brother who committed suicide when he was nineteen.

My Review:

Since reading the novel, I have come to learn that Wenzel is not just an author, but also a musician and playwright. I loved how she managed to incorporate these talents into her writing and intertwine them all to create such a unique form, almost a hybrid between autofiction and a play. The experimental form won’t be for everyone; it’s an unsettling and challenging literary novel which left me completely perplexed at times, but also in awe. Not only is it a beautifully written novel, but it is also masterfully translated from the German by Priscilla Layne.

The protagonist’s everyday life is peppered with events which shine a light on racism in Germany. In one chapter, she attends a play about the Berlin Wall coming down and is the only Black person in the audience. In another, she is sitting with her boyfriend by a bathing lake and four neo-Nazis show up. In New York, she witnesses Trump’s election victory in a strange hotel room and later awakes to panicked messages from friends. These moments are woven in alongside passages which read more like a stream of consciousness as she recounts the insurmountable grief she felt at witnessing her brother take his own life.

I did feel, at times, that the novel was slightly too ambitious and that Wenzel was trying to cram too much in, but there is no doubting that she is an exceptionally gifted writer. Despite the heavy themes (please do check out the trigger warnings), I found it to be both captivating and easy to read. 1,000 Coils of Fear is a truly unique reading experience and one which will certainly have a lasting impact on me.

Star Rating: 3.5/5

With thanks to Dialogue Books for my gifted copy (AD PR product). 1,000 Coils of Fear is out now.

Review – Dear Dolly by Dolly Alderton

Dear Dolly, 

Everytime I read one of Dolly Alderton’s books, I become obsessed with it. 

Lots of love,

A twenty-something-year old girlie in Oxford x

Like so many others, I have completely fallen under the spell of Dolly Alderton’s writing. My love affair with her writing first started back in 2020, when mid-lockdown, I picked up her debut novel, Ghosts. Last year, Everything I Know About Love quickly secured its place in my top reads of 2022, only further confirmed by the BBC One drama series of the same name. So of course, when Penguin offered me a copy of her latest book, Dear Dolly, I jumped at the chance. 

Dear Dolly is a collection of letters from the countless people who have written into Dolly Alderton’s agony aunt column in The Sunday Times Style since 2020. Broken down into seven different sections, the letters include breakups and body issues, families, friendships, dating, divorce, the pleasures and pitfalls of social media, sex, loneliness, longing, love and everything in between.

One of my favourite things about the advice Dolly shares is that it is always without judgement. Nothing is ever too ’embarrassing’ or too ‘weird’ for Dolly to answer and she never victimizes or shames anyone. She has such a deep empathy towards everyone, informed by her own, much-chronicled adventures in love, friendship and dating. Yet the way that she relates her own life to her readers’ isn’t an act of egotism, rather, it’s a means of comfort and showing that no one is ever alone. 

Dolly truly is the big sister that every millennial reader needs. I tabbed and highlighted so many words of wisdom and will be pressing her book into the hands of all my friends. 

Star Rating: 4/5

(With thanks to Penguin Fig Tree for my gifted copy, AD PR product)

Review – Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli

Someday, Maybe is the debut novel from Nigerian-British author Onyi Nwabineli and one of the leading titles from Oneworld Publication’s latest commercial imprint, Magpie.

Summary:

Nwabineli’s novel is a powerful tale of a London widow whose photographer husband died by suicide. After Eve finds her husband, Quentin, dead on New Year’s Eve, she struggles in the aftermath, turning to her close-knit Nigerian family and best friend Bee for support. Having been with Quentin since their college years, Eve feels completely lost. How did she not recognise that the person she loved the most was going through so much pain? Matters are made worse by Eve’s mother-in-law, Aspen, who blames Eve for the suicide of her only child. Just when it looks like Eve will never recover, a series of unexpected events and people show her a way to climb out of the depths of despair.

Despite the bleak topics of this book, there is so much warmth and spirit in Nwabineli’s words. She captures the tidal force of emotions that come with grief with such eloquence and compassion; I just wanted to scoop Eve up and give her a big hug. Eve is flawed and messy and spends much of the novel blaming herself for Quentin’s death, but through flashbacks to the early years of their relationship, we’re invited to see a completely different side to Eve; the person she was before. These chapters were heart-breaking knowing what is going to happen, but they are also some light relief for the reader full of happiness and humour.

Not only has Nwabineli created a loveable protagonist, but she has written an entire cast of friends and family who form Eve’s support network. My favourite character was her younger brother Nate, but each of them were everything a person could dream of without feeling false or over-the-top.

It’s not a novel that I would recommend lightly; the grief and pain is unrelenting to the point that you feel like you are experiencing Eve’s loss yourself. As a trigger warning, anyone who has dealt with the suicide of a loved one may want to steer clear. A harrowing and beautifully written debut, I can’t wait to see what Nwabineli writes next.

With thanks to Oneworld Publications for my gifted copy (Ad PR product).

Star Rating: 4/5

Review – She and Her Cat by Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa

Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, the translator of Convenience Store Woman, She and Her Cat should be on your Christmas list if you’re a Japanese fiction fan.

Summary:

Adapted from the 1999 Japanese original video animation created and directed by Makoto Shinkai, we meet four local cats in a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Tokyo. As the cats roam the streets of their suburb, the reader is taken on a journey along with them. Alternating between the point of view of the cats and their owners, this heartwarming tale shows the power of feline companionship.

My Review:

I always enjoy the subtlety with which Japanese fiction explores themes of mental health, and there’s a quiet melancholy to She and Her Cat which runs throughout each story. One cat encourages his owner to leave a faltering relationship, another witnesses his owner, a gifted artist, misunderstand her boss’s enthusiasm for her paintings, and one young cat hatches a plan to encourage his grieving owner to leave her room and re-discover her joy in life. It’s not often you see the life of a twenty-something-year-old woman through the eye’s of a cat, but somehow, it works!

A wholesome and easy read for cat lovers and manga readers alike.

Star Rating: 3/5

(With thanks to Doubleday for my gifted copy, ad pr product)

Review – Common Decency by Susannah Dickey

Common Decency had all the elements of a book I’d love: it’s Irish fiction about sad girls in their twenties. I so badly wanted Susannah Dickey’s second novel to take its spot in my favourite books of the year, but came away from it feeling pretty ambivalent.

Summary:

Lily and Siobhán both live in the same apartment block in Belfast, each with their own inner demons to grapple with. Since the death of her mother, grief has made Lily withdrawn and she isolates herself from the world. Upstairs, Siobhán is consumed by her affair with a married man, a relationship which is beginning to impinge on her career and friendships. The women are acquaintances at best, yet that doesn’t stop Lily from forming an unhealthy obsession with Siobhán. As her obsession slowly morphs into resentment, Siobhán begins to cross boundaries…

My Review:

Since finishing the novel, I’m still not entirely sure where I sit with it. There’s a tenseness that runs throughout Common Decency, and elements of the story verge into those of a psychological thriller, yet nothing ever comes from Lily’s obsession. I felt like I was waiting on tenterhooks for three-hundred pages, only for the ending of the story just to fizzle out. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love an ambiguous ending, but the conclusion to Dickey’s story felt anticlimactic. There was so much potential, but the story never really gets going.

Nonetheless, Dickey depicts the monotony of the everyday, navigating grief, and our innate urge for human connection in a way which felt similar to Sally Rooney and Naoise Dolan. I’ve seen more positive reviews for her debut novel, Tennis Lessons, which I’d definitely be keen to try. There’s no doubting her talent as a writer, but sadly, Common Decency was lacking the execution it needed to make it sparkle.

With thanks to DoubleDay Books for my copy (AD PR product). Common Decency is out now.

Star Rating: 3/5

Review – The Pachinko Parlour by Elisa Shua-Dusapin

Back in 2020, in the midst of lockdowns and with the desire to escape reality, I picked up Elisa Shua Dusapin’s debut novel, Winter in Sokcho. To this day, I still think about that disquieting powerhouse of a novel on a regular basis. So it is with this that I’m pleased to report that the magic of Dusapin’s writing that I fell in love with in the first instance comes back stronger than ever in her second novel, The Pachinko Parlour.

Summary:

During a sweltering hot summer in Tokyo, our protagonist, Claire, divides her time between tutoring French to a twelve-year-old girl and spending time with her Korean grandparents who own a pachinko parlour (a pinball-type arcade game). At the end of the summer, Claire plans to visit Korea with her grandparents, the home they fled (along with thousands of others) over fifty years ago during the civil war.

My Review:

Part of what I love about Dusapin’s writing lies in its understatement; her novels are beautifully simplistic yet simultaneously layered and nuanced. Both of her novels share interconnected themes and motifs – absence and abandonment, cultural history and identity, belonging and otherness, language and connection – and Dusapin is beginning to really carve out a distinct style to her writing.

Like many of her counterparts (Sayaka Murata, Toshikazu Kawaguci etc), Dusapin paints Tokyo as a cultural melting pot, a place where many of its inhabitants feel like outsiders, together but separated from each other by the barriers of culture and language. Even within her own family, Claire struggles to bridge the gap between herself (a half Korean/half Swiss who has grown up in Switzerland where French is her native language), and her grandparents, who grew up in a Japanese-occupied Korea where speaking their own language was punishable by death. They attempt to communicate in broken English but this often results in awkward, off-kilter interactions between the two generations. To contrast this, we see a blossoming relationship form between Claire and Mieko, the young girl she is tutoring in French. Their unlikely friendship, much like the unlikely romance between the pair in Winter in Sokcho, was my favourite element of the novel.

I truly didn’t think it was possible for Dusapin to top Winter in Sokcho, and the verdict is still out on which of her novels would take top spot in my ranking, but one thing I’m sure of: she’s an exceptional writer. The Pachinko Parlour is a masterclass in subtlety and control with not a single word wasted or out of place. For novels about evasion and soul-searching, there’s something so very comforting in these pages. I can’t wait to see where Dusapin takes us next.

Star Rating: 4.5/5

Review – The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

Almost two weeks on and I still feel at a loss for words as to how to review this haunting coming-of-age novel, The Book of Goose, the latest from Chinese-born author, Yiyun Li.

Summary:

In a small town in post-war France, two teenage peasant girls (Agnès and Fabienne) decide to write a book with the help of the local postmaster, M. Devaux, a reader, intellectual and recent widower. Their novel, about the harsh realities of their rural community, is eventually picked up by a publishing house in Paris and so the girls are granted an opportunity to spread their wings and escape their provincial lives. Despite the fact that Fabienne is the more confident and bolshy of the two friends, it is decided that Agnès should appear as the sole author of their book. With the success of their first book behind them, Agnès is sent to a finishing school in England to pursue her career as an author.

My Review:

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Li quotes Thomas Hardy, Katherine Mansfield, William Trevor and John McGahern as inspiration for her writing, and her admiration for these authors permeates her beautiful prose. Her writing radiates with the poise of a classic novel, yet it is so much more readable. This is one of the greatest feats of the novel; it manages to capture the essence of the time period without ever being bogged down with the historical nuances.

Another standout of The Book of Goose is the claustrophobic and obsessive friendship between Agnès and Fabienne. From the off, the reader realises that there’s a strange power balance at play, yet there’s a co-dependency between the two girls as neither really thrives without the other. I do think the novel lost its way a little in the second half when the girls are separated from each other, however, I loved how the intensity of their relationship was portrayed in the letters they exchanged.

It’s not often that I wish a novel was longer, but I genuinely could have read another few hundred pages of this gorgeous book! I’d love a sequel where we get to discover more about Agnès’ adult life in America. If you love a coming-of-age novel with a side of historical fiction and female friendship, you’ll want to pick this one up!

With thanks to 4th Estate for my gifted copy (AD PR Product)

Star Rating: 4/5

Review – Assembly by Natasha Brown

Although a slim novel, Natasha Brown’s debut into the literary world is a stunning exploration of a young black British woman’s musings on life with no holds barred.

Summary:

As our narrator prepares to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend’s family estate, she begins reflecting on her life. Having carved a successful banking career and with a major promotion on the horizon (plus a potential marriage proposal), she should be living the dream, so why is she so unhappy? Exhausted and burnt-out from the daily micro-aggressions, misogyny and discrimination she faces, thus begins her musings in this timely read.

My Review:

I feel like the saying ‘this book packed a punch’ has become somewhat of a cliche, yet I honestly can’t think of a more apt description for Natasha Brown’s novel. At only 100 pages long, the topics of conversation she interrogates are nothing short of outstanding. In a time when Britain’s colonial past is being scrutinised in the public eye, perhaps more so than ever, Assembly makes for a necessary read on institutional racism.

Covering points on race, slavery, capitalism, politics and British history, there’s a lot to digest. In hindsight, I wish that I’d taken my time with really savouring what I was reading, not only because the prose is gorgeous, but also to process the information. It’s quite an overwhelming and claustrophobic read in a lot of ways, but I think that’s the point; Brown mimics the feelings that her narrator is experiencing on an everyday basis.

I’m not sure how much this book will stand out to me over time, and I do think that the messages conveyed are stronger than the actual storyline, but that’s certainly no bad thing! Assembly is a powerful and astute read which I would recommend to any reader, just take your time with it more than I did!

With thanks to Penguin Random House for my gifted copy (Ad PR Product).

Star Rating: 3.5/5

Review – Keep Them Close by Sophie Flynn

I’m never normally much of a thriller reader, but if there’s one book which is going to convert me to become a fan of the genre, it’s Keep Them Close by Sophie Flynn. I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump all summer in the sense that I’ve been reading but I’ve not felt that compulsive urge to put everything on hold because I’m desperate to finish a book; little did I know, Keep Them Close was the perfect tonic to cure my slump.

Summary:

Emily, mother of four-year-old twin daughters, hasn’t been finding motherhood easy. The only place where she feels understood and free of judgement is on an online internet forum, MumsOnline. Her anonymity on the site allows her to voice her darkest thoughts, things she could never say in real life, but when an internet friendship blossoms with a fellow mum, she realises she’s shared too much. As the online “friend” begins to threaten Emily with secrets from her past, she takes drastic measures to protect her perfect life.

My Review:

What can I say about this book other than that I completely loved it? Sophie cleverly interweaves chapters between Emily’s internet posts and the current day, so there’s an intoxicating foreboding throughout the entire book. The dual timeline adds layers of secrets to Emily’s puzzling past and I found myself trying to turn the pages quicker than I could read them, desperate to find out what terrible accident had happened in her past (I won’t say anything more on this, but OH MY you’re in for a shock twist!)

I completely love an unreliable, unlikeable narrator, and as the story develops and Emily’s mental state becomes increasingly confused, it’s difficult for the reader to know who to trust or whether the events we’re seeing are real or imagined. Unlike some thrillers I’ve read before, Emily’s fragile mental state isn’t just used as a narrative tool, instead, Sophie sensitively engages with post-natal depression and the struggles facing new parents. You can feel Emily’s desperation as everyone around her begins to doubt her ability as a mother, and despite all her terrible qualities, I couldn’t help my heart wrenching for her. You can tell in the way that Sophie carefully treats the theme of mental health, just how close to home this book was for her to write and it is one of the novel’s greatest strengths.

I don’t want to spoil too much, especially in terms of the explosive ending, but I really can’t recommend this to thriller lovers enough. This dark, twisty psychological thriller will have you on the edge of your seat right until the very end. Sophie’s next book, If They Knew, is out in November and I am SO GLAD I don’t have long to wait for my next dose of her writing!

Star Rating: 4/5