Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
I really enjoyed this book! I didn't see the ending coming at all. It caught me off guard slightly, but as the twist began to settle I thought it was very smart.
A novella that packs an emotional punch, weighing up religion vs conscience in a small Irish community.
Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These is the shortest book to be longlisted for the Booker Prize awards.
Bill Furlong owners a timber and coal business in a small town in 1980s Ireland. Bill’s life is traditional and uncomplicated. He lives with his wife and five children in a community that lives in the shadow, literally, of the local convent. While making his delivery rounds in the lead up to Christmas, Bill encounters those that live in the Convent, and finds himself stuck between what he believes is right and what other’s believe he should do.
With his own upbringing and background mapping out his conscience, and the power of the convent looming over him, Bill is left on his own to decide what the right thing to do is.
Despite being a short read, the weight of Bill’s conscience is so implicitly laid on to the reader. The book is atmospheric, and the writing is beautiful, despite the topic being anything other than. The Magdalene Laundry’s cast a dark shadow over the church and Irish history. Keegan does well to bring together the thoughts of the community, the power the church holds over them, and the conflict between religion, and morals.
With the book being short, you don’t get much detail about the lives of the women in the convent, only what Bill see’s. There is a lot of background on Bill’s life and his family, and then you are left with a slight cliff-hanger. I felt the balance between background and plot was possibly a bit off balance.
It’s easy to see why this book has been included in literary award nominations, and I would certainly recommend it.
In this story we follow our unnamed narrator as she tries to prove a controversial therapist is responsible for the death of her sister.
The story is told through chapters of a diary by the narrator and chapters that are designed as a biography of the therapist- Braithwaite.
The story isn’t about the death or even a mystery. It’s more a tale of self discovery as our narrator attends therapy sessions with Braithwaite under an alias ‘Rebecca’ and starts to lean into this alter ego.
This was an interesting story and well written, but very unlikable characters. I’m not sure the narrator / Rebecca was supposed to be as unlikeable as she was. Definitely ‘quirky’ or different, but I just couldn’t take to her. The result being that I didn’t care what happened to either of them.
It is a short book, so didn’t take too much time to get through. But had to keep making myself pick it up to finish.
This is a dark story of five people whose lives interweave with each other over the course of several years. Based in modern day Cork, Ireland, we see prostitution, drug abuse, drug dealing, murder and complicated relationships.
There are five main characters in this story, Jimmy the local “kingpin”, Maureen his mother, Georgie a local prostitute, her dealer Ryan and his girlfriend Karine. There are also side characters, Ryan’s father Tony and a local busy body Tara.
I can’t say any of the characters are particularly likeable. I started off liking Ryan, a young boy who has lost his mum and is trying to find his place in the world. But his story takes him to a dark place and his relationship with Karine is very toxic. However, I thought the writing of their relationship and how it gradually turned into something abusive was very well done.
For a lot of the characters, especially Tony and Maureen, your introduction to them isn’t very warming, but the more you learn about them, the more you understand why they are the way they are.
A lot happens, it starts with a murder that starts to bring these characters lives together, and is a little thread throughout the book. It takes you into character’s pasts, and also jumps a few forward as their stories progress. I don’t think there is any part of the book that lags or doesn’t have a good pace to it.
I did enjoy the story, despite it being quite dark topics (make sure to look up the content warnings!) but the book was very well written. The characters have a look of layers to the and you are gradually introduced to them in a subtle way. There is some humour written into the book, which breaks up the heavy topics.
For this I listening to the audiobook, and this is where it lost some points for me. The narrator had an odd way of reading, the tempo would pick up suddenly and there would be no breathes, particularly during dialogues meaning you couldn’t tell who was speaking. The voices for the women were often whiny and grated on me slightly. I believe I would have enjoyed this more if I had read the book and not listened to it.
This is a brutal tale, full of heavy and sometimes uncomfortable topics, still it is quite a journey and I can see why it’s an award winner.
This is not my favourite ACD books, I was a bit disappointed with it. Essentially it is a story of two halves. The first half is your typical Sherlock Holms novel, then the second delves into the backstory of one of the minor characters.
The second part of the book felt very different to the first half, and I did loose interest quite quickly,
We meet Queenie, a 25 year old women living in London, just as she is about to go through an difficult period in her life. Battling cultural conflicts, processing childhood trauma, a break up, problems at work and more, Queenie doesn’t always make the right decisions but you follow her through her journey of healing and self love.
Queenie is one of best characters I have read in some time. Despite having completely different backgrounds and cultures I related to Queenie so much. I adored how quick witted she could be and wasn’t afraid to speak her mind.
I felt very protective of Queenie, I wanted to shake her at times but really just wanted to give her a big hug (metaphorically because she wasn’t keen on physical contact 😊)
The book covers some dark topics and it tricked me a bit as the first chapter was written in quite a lighthearted way and had some funny interactions. This comedy doesn’t stop as the book goes on and I think it does really well and taking the sharpe edge of what could have been a really heavy read.
Candice Carty-Williams wrote about the struggles of mental health and generational trauma in such a realistic way. It was subtly feed to you as the reader and my love for Queenie just grew and grew.
This isn’t anything like Bridget Jones, I don’t like that comparison it doesn’t do Queenie justice. It isn’t a rom-com it’s a story about a young woman struggling to process pain and learn to love herself.
This is 5 stars for me. Make sure to check the content warnings though.