Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

 

“Emira found herself arranging her mouth as if she’d ingested something too hot. She caught a morphed reflection in a freezer door, and she saw herself in her entirety.”

So I'd been hearing a lot about this book and wondered what the fuss was all about. For a first novel it is amazingly good. Equal parts hilarious, uncomfortable and troubling it is undoubtedly an amazing piece of writing that I throughly recommend ( as have a host of reviewers out there).

Reviewing a novel about race is challenging these days. I don't want to offend anyone, I can only relate my feelings about reading this book. As a white reader I experienced the creepy sensation of the do-gooder boss who sees Emira as a project and reflection of her liberal attitudes. In Alix's gaze, Emira ceases to be a person and is a walking beacon of virtue signalling by a cardboard self-help guru whose facade is purely plastic. The ***spoilers ahead*** revelations of Alix's past and relationship with Kelley further illustrate her fake nature.

Kelley isn't as colour blind as he repeatedly insists he is. In some ways, he's the embodiment of the sexual fetishisation of people of colour, with his penchant for dark skinned girlfriends coming as a disappointing revelation. I so wanted him to be the perfect boyfriend, but then I remembered they rarely exist, even in literature.

If I've made you think this is all serious and depressing, then fear not. One of the greatest achievements of the novel is that the heroine, Emira, is such a well rounded, engaging character and so entertaining as we, the reader, share her knowing winks, disappointments and eventual triumphant escape from the babysitting rut.

Personally, I think we're all humans and there are aspects within us all  that make us feel like the 'other'. Some of us pass through the world with less of these complications, that doesn't impede our ability to empathise with others subject to more obvious biases. What this story so brilliantly does is bring those to the fore, so that we can think about what needs to change in today's world, how complicit we are in that structure ,what should have changed many centuries before and the comforting lies we sometimes tell ourselves.

5 out of 5 - believe the hype.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

 

“But we are always optimists when it comes to time; we think there will be time to do things with other people. And time to say things to them.”

Sometimes you just read the perfect book at the perfect time.The lovely Andrea who helped me set up our newly established bookclub, picked this delightful novel and what a fantastic selection. Ove is determined to end his life after the loss of his wife and yet life has other plans. I'm probably giving way too much away here and yet this endearing portrait of a grumpy widower who finds reasons for living due to his neighbours leaves such a beautiful impression that doesn't fade with time.

His passion for Saabs is reminiscent of the Ford versus Holden diehards of the nineteen eighties. In fact, Ove's general grumpy demeanour and kind heart reminded me of my dad, a similarity that gained additional poignancy as he's been not himself lately.

I would wholeheartedly recommend this novel to anyone, it has a decidedly universal appeal and is the perfect antidote to these misery guts COVID times.

 5 out of 5 - don't park on his grass and you will need tissues.

Run River by Joan Didion

“She hoped that although he could not hear her she could somehow imprint her ordinary love upon his memory through all eternity, hoped he would rise thinking of her, we were each other, we were each other, not that it mattered much in the long run but what else mattered as much.”

I was eagerly anticipating getting my teeth into Didion's first novel, as I've really marvelled over some of her other works.It has been a rough few weeks with family things going on, so perhaps I wasn't best placed to launch into a bad relationship story. I've read some rave reviews, and yet this didn't leave much of a mark on me. It starts off so promising with the evaporating Joy perfume and continued down a joyless path that I couldn't connect with.

3 out of 5 not the salve I needed.