No. 20 – A book that prominently features an animal

Remarkably bright creatures / Shelby Van Pelt

I was afraid that this challenge entry would end up being a book with/about a cat or dog (nothing wrong with those, just a bit predictable), but then I found this gem and now I want to read more books about not-your-average animal side-kick, so if anyone has any tips on that, please let me know!

This book is about Tova, Cameron, and Marcellus:
Tova is an older woman who still has a cleaning job at the aquarium because retiring would mean stop moving, and she’s not sure she can do that. She’s been moving and cleaning ever since the disappearance of her son.
Cameron is a young man who’s messed up another relationship, lost another job, had his truck repossessed, and is watching his friends starting to grow families.
Marcellus is an octopus living in the aquarium, studying humans and their behavior from behind the glass of his tank.

Tova lost her son when he was eighteen and the mystery of his disappearance is still only talked about in hushed voices. Then Tova’s husband passed away, and she’s left alone in the old family house that is now too big. Unlike her friends, she has no children or grandchildren who will check in on her, or help her out and she is considering moving into a retirement home.
When she suffers a bad fall and has to wear a protective boot for weeks and isn’t allowed to work, she’s forced to sit still and think things over. The only thing she can really think about though, is Marcellus, the giant Pacific octopus back at the aquarium.
Marcellus has become Tova’s confidante and she talks to him while she cleans the glass of his tank. She also lets him pet her, and helps him escape or get back into his tank.
Marcellus is a smart cookie even though he isn’t a baked good, and he knows things about Tova she isn’t aware of. Marcellus also knows that he is fast approaching the end of his life expectancy. He knows this because getting in and out of his tank is becoming increasingly more difficult. He’s also been counting the days of his captivity and the sign outside his tank reads that his species averages four years. It’s an easy sum to make, and he’s accepted his fate and the fact that he won’t experience the open ocean ever again.
When Tova is out with her injury, the aquarium needs a new cleaner, and in steps Cameron. Cameron has moved to Sowell Bay from California after learning it is the place where his father was from. His mother was a troubled teenager when she had him, and attempted to raise him despite her addictions. She walked out of his life when he was nine though, and has never been in touch since. Cameron was raised by his aunt instead, and carries a lot of anger and resentment. Refusing to leave until he’s spoken to his father, he gets himself a job at the aquarium as a temporary cleaner, a job, he is surprised to discover, he actually likes.
Tova is sitting at home, imagining grubby finger prints on the glass of tanks in the aquarium, and dust bunnies underneath benches now that she’s not there to clean, so she sneaks in late in the evening to check on things. She’s surprised to discover that Cameron is doing a pretty decent job, although he’s not quite up there to her standards. So, she decides to train him, not just in the importance of properly lining the trash bags in the cans, but also in how to treat Marcellus.

This book is about family, blood-related or not, the questionable practice of keeping animals in cages or tanks, the cycle of life, and the importance of feeling appreciated. That might sound heavy, but it’s still an easy read because this book has a whole lot of heart in it. (An octopus joke. They have three!)

No. 12 – A book about travel

Beach Rivals / Georgie Tilney

If you’re looking at this cover, and are thinking: “that seems fluffy”, you’re absolutely right. Comfort reading, easy reading, beach reading, airport reading, whatever you want to call it, that’s what this book is. If you want to read something low on angst, with a bit of romance, that takes place on a sunny island, and makes you crave cocktails, look no further.

Clare is a twenty-something who abandoned university after the death of her father, used her inheritance to travel for two years, and when she came home, couldn’t settle into a serious or even half-decent job. Living at home and fired from yet another job that didn’t suit her, she’s tired of not getting ahead, not having found her “thing”. So, when she spots an ad for a dream job on Bali, she half-jokingly applies and to her own surprise, gets accepted. This dream job consists of running a bookshop at the beach, while living above it: dream job, indeed! The position is for three months and her mom warns her that she better uses the time to come up with a plan for life after those three months because she won’t allow Clare to live at home anymore, figuring that she’s made things too cushy for her. Clare’s backpack suddenly carries more weight, but she agrees with her mom and realizes that she’s been taking the easy way out.
Upon arrival in Bali she learns that the bookshop owner has left out a few things in the interview: she will actually be co-running the bookshop, and her co-worker will also be her roommate. The apartment is as small as the bookshop so sharing it with straight-laced Jack is asking for trouble: he is focused on statistics and budget, while she’s all about creating a vibe. He’s careful and responsible, she’s flaky and creative. But, as the saying goes: opposites attract, and it isn’t long before Clare and Jack have sparks flying.

I do like fish-out-of-water tropes, and reading about people who throw themselves into an adventure. (Especially when that adventure contains a bookshop!)
Being away from your known, safe, environment, will make you look at things differently. A distance that is required every now and then, to evaluate and look beyond the obvious. You don’t have to go half-way around the world for this, but there’s something about being in a place with a different language and culture: it creates perspective, and it forces you to be open. This story plays on those feelings and therefore fits the reading challenge perfectly.
The story has no big surprises (even the so-called rivalry isn’t much of that), but it’s always fun to read about books, bookshops, book nerds and authors. I was I no mood for big surprises: after reading a couple of murder mysteries back-to-back, followed by books about spies and war, this book came at the right time for me and I eagerly embraced its fluffiness.

No. 15 – A book with food in the title

When the apricots bloom / Gina Wilkinson

Aaaand here’s the third book by an Australian author in a month. It’s like the secret: if you believe it, it will happen. It should probably freak me out a little bit, but I’m just too happy with it to question it, so onto the challenge.
This challenge entry proved a difficult one, because I kept overthinking it but then I realized that in my mind I had turned “food” into “meal” and of course that’s not the same. So, I decided to stick to what border security says in those real-life docuseries: if you can eat it, it’s food and you should have checked the box on your papers. It left me browsing the library shelves for edibles (so to speak of course) and I took this book out without even checking what it was about.

It turned out that When the apricots bloom is a modern historical novel that takes place in Baghdad, 2002, and is inspired by the author’s experiences in Baghdad.
The story centres on three women. Huda and Rania were childhood best friends but an incident drove them apart and they moved on, got married, and raised families. Their lives are brought together again with the arrival of Ally, a young newlywed who followed her diplomat husband to his new appointment at the Australian embassy. Huda works at the embassy as a secretary and although the pay is great, the downside is the secret police, who are keeping close tabs on her because she works with foreigners. They push her for information and when they feel she’s not getting enough for them, threaten to draft her son into the horrible fedayeen.
Out of desperation Huda contacts her old friend Rania who, as the daughter of a sheikh, has connections that Huda is hoping to use to get her son a passport so he can escape the country and live in safety abroad. Rania, however, has problems of her own: broke, and forced to draw art for Saddam Hussein’s Ministry of Culture, she cannot afford to rock the boat.
Ally, in the meantime, is having a hard time adjusting to life in Baghdad where her “housewife” visa doesn’t allow her to do anything more than that. A journalist by training though, curiosity keeps drawing her out and she starts investigating the past. Her mother had been a nurse and worked in Baghdad in the seventies. Although her mother passed away when Ally was young, she left pictures and postcards behind and Ally wants to find her mother’s old friends and learn more about the time she spent in the city. The seventies were a very different time though and one not a lot of people are willing to talk about, especially because Ally goes about it like a bull in a china shop: although she is aware of the secret police listening in on her calls and conversations, she doesn’t realize that local people are also under their control, and she is endangering any person she talks to simply because they are seen in the company of a westerner.
The women are brought together by fate and realize that they need to trust each other to make it out alive. But trusting someone you know has lied and betrayed and is keeping secrets, is not easy.
As it is said: “two people can keep a secret, when one of them is dead.”
The anxiety of being watched at all times, the whispers, the dread of not knowing who is an informant and who can be trusted, is well-written and makes the book a page-turner.

Not having read any other books set in this country at this time, I’m really glad I picked up this book and let myself be surprised.

No. 2 – An award-winning book

The woman in the library / Sulari Gentill
Won: Best Indie Novel – Crime Fiction Lover Awards 2022

Just in case you have this book on your TBR pile and want your reading experience unspoiled, I’ll start with my conclusion: concept + murder mystery = solid effort. If you want to know how I got to this conclusion, keep reading but beware of spoilers ahead.

The best way to describe this book, is by comparing it to Matryoshka dolls: one story is nestled into another which is nestled into another. I will try to explain as clearly as possible. The story is about Hannah (doll one), an Australian author who is writing a story about Freddie (doll two), an Australian author living in America, who is writing a story based on the people she meets in the Boston public library (doll three). Although this technically makes Hannah the main character (without her the others wouldn’t exist), she’s the one we know the least about. What is known about her, is provided to the reader through letters from Leo, a fan who lives in Boston and sends her feedback and suggestions. To make things as complicated as can be, Hannah writes a Leo into Freddie’s life: a neighbour, who has the same air of vagueness and intrusiveness about him.
Thankfully, there is no Leo in the third storyline.
Doll two takes up the most of the book, and it makes Freddie the most developed character. Her story starts in the library, where she seeks inspiration for her book and finds it in Handsome Man, Heroic Chin, and Freud Girl, or: the people sitting at the same table as her, Cain, Whit, and Marigold. Then suddenly there is a scream that terrifies everyone in the library, and the police is called in to find out what happened. The foursome immediately bonds over this incident and are convinced someone was murdered, even though the police didn’t find a body. The way they instantly become close friends over this seemed a bit odd, although part of how that is possible is explained later on as the mystery unravels. There also was a lot of young adult relationship drama that did nothing for me. But when a body is found after all, the little group suddenly is involved in attacks, stalkers and more deaths, and the focus shifts more to the mystery.
To me this book wasn’t the page-turner it wants to be though, as I felt it was lacking angst and urgency in the biggest story (Freddie’s story). The most angsty parts, are Leo’s letters to Hannah which become increasingly uncomfortable, but even that storyline peaks at the wrong time so it never gets truly scary. The third story is the smallest and least developed as it mostly follows Freddie’s own exploits and it’s basically a repeat of what she goes through. It’s also abandoned half-way through as she is too busy solving the mystery to continue writing. I liked the concept of this book a lot, and I really wanted to like it a lot, but the story (stories) felt “so-so”. That’s not to say this is a bad book, it just left me a bit disappointed. I would like to point out the cover, which I think is really cool and represents the story within a story so well.

No. 22 – A book with more than 500 pages

Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up / Alexandra Potter

This book has 547 pages but the last 43 turned out to be preview chapters of books yet to come. I find this annoying to a level where I make loud sounds of disappointment and anger: you’re reading and then out of the blue, bam, book done. It’s like climbing stairs but you’re already at the top or bottom and there’s nothing to step left. It’s weird. (It’s also very easy to land on your face.) In the end the book came in at 504 pages so it still counts for the challenge. Which I was happy with because, staying on topic, I have to confess I don’t read a lot of big books.
Nice as they might be, they are just too impractical as it requires both hands to carry the weight, which rules out reading on public transport and in bed. They also take up too much weight and volume in my bag to carry them along. And yes, an e-reader could solve those problems, but for me this would be the only argument to use them and that’s simply not enough. Instead, I just extra enjoy those moments where I do have time and the right mindset to sit down and dive in. And did I dive! Despite its volume, I finished this book in one day. That’s a record for me but it’s an easy read and to be honest, the layout helped, with pleasant font, size and alignment. Also, I had no other plans and was not in the mood for chores so basically it meant as long as I was reading, I didn’t have to do laundry.
And yes, of course, it was the title that made me gravitate towards this book, but I’ve read and liked other books by this author (Me & Mr. Darcy, Who’s That Girl?) so picking this up was a no-brainer.

Nell is the forty-something f**k-up from the title. Returning to London after losing a business and a fiancé in the US, she has to start over again at an age where she had pictured herself all set. Instead, she’s now renting a room and sharing the flat with her landlord. She’s back to basics on the job front as well, lucky to land a freelance gig writing obituaries. She’s not keen on meeting up with her parents, fearing a second degree questioning from her mother. And while she is keen on meeting up with old friends again, they have all moved on and don’t have time for wild nights out or even coffee in the city, as they are too busy dropping kids off at various places.
Seeing her friends married with children and living in houses they own instead of rent, makes Nell feel less than capable and their Instagram feeds of perfect kitchens, baked goodies and glamping trips, leave her crying in self-doubt.
I guess this is exactly why doctors and psychologists warn against the use of social media. I naively also thought that grown-ups would know better, but I’m not on Instagram or TikTok, so I don’t know how addictive it can be.
Instead of going offline, Nell keeps torturing herself with self-doubt, and when she finally realizes she needs to talk to someone, she decides on the broke-ass version of therapy and buys herself a microphone, downloads an app and starts to podcast.
When she learns her first episode had two listeners, she already feels less alone and continues to podcast.
Out in the real world, she makes friends with an elderly widow she met writing the husband’s obituary. This lady (Cricket) lost friends when she lost her husband and also has to start over in life. So, when Nell has tickets for a concert, she invites Cricket, and when Cricket needs help donating her husband’s clothes to charity, she calls Nell.
Although Cricket seems to be coping well and moving on, Nell discovers that not only might people paint a different picture online, even in real life people put on a brave face to hide their true feelings.
I’s easy to relate to Nell: who hasn’t questioned her own plans, or compared herself to friends? Insecurities are for all ages. Ditto for arguments with roommates, the horrors of (online) dating, and the ups and downs in friendships.
Being the only one of your friends without a relationship or children, was something I related to as well, but even if you don’t, it’s easy to get into Nell’s mindset.
And Nell’s mindset is not something only relatable to the readers, but of course, her podcast audience keeps growing as well. I won’t spoil anything more than this.

One of the blurbs mentions Bridget Jones and it’s easy to compare the two. However, where Bridget Jones was more romantic comedy and about finding love, this book is about being okay with yourself, even when yourself is not at her best.
That makes this book more women’s fiction than romantic comedy and it’s a cosy and easy read.
The sequel is about to be released any moment but I’m waiting a bit so as not to overdo it.
And the same applies to the tv series. I watched the first ten minutes of the first episode, and although it seems more inspired by than based on, I need some more distance before watching this.
(Not Dead Yet is streaming on Disney+ here, not sure about other countries.)

No. 17 –  A recommendation

The reading list / Sara Nisha Adams

Things just got meta: I read a book titled The Reading List for my reading list.
This book was recommended to me by my colleague and fellow librarian, E. As you might imagine, E and I talk books A Lot and recommend titles to each other all the time, and while she has the courage to join a book club, I stick to my trusted reading challenge.
This book was a wonderful read and I can’t wait to tell you about it, so here goes.

The Reading List takes place in Wembley, London, where different members of the community find themselves thrown into reading, after finding a list of book titles.
Main characters are Mukesh and Aleisha. Mukesh is a grieving widower, trying to find his readjusted place within his family, and society in general. Aleisha is a teenage girl, who landed herself a summer job at the local library branch despite not liking reading. She lives at home with an older brother and a mother who has mental health issues. Her mother’s illness is a huge stress factor for Aleisha and her brother, although they both refuse to acknowledge that. It’s Aleisha’s brother who suggested she work at the library, because he did one summer and loved it and is convinced she will too.
One day at work, Aleisha finds a list of book titles that was stuck between the pages of a returned book and with lack of anything better to do, she starts reading the first book on the list: To Kill a Mockingbird.
Simultaneously, Mukesh finds a library book his late wife forgot to return, and starts reading it to feel closer to her. The Time Traveller’s Wife resonates with him and he decides to read more. So, he goes to the library where Aleisha suggests he reads To Kill a Mockingbird.
Because she never read much, she has no other books to recommend to patrons and after the success of the first book on the list, she continues with the next.
Rebecca first freaks out Aleisha, then Mukesh. And one after the other they get to experience the emotional rollercoaster that is The Kite Runner.
It’s wonderful to read about people discovering the joys of reading. It’s even better when they are reading and talking about books you have read yourself.

Aleisha and Mukesh don’t just start reading, they start stepping out of their comfort zones: Mukesh hesitantly goes out again, meets up with old friends and makes new ones. Aleisha takes off her headphones and connects with the people she sees around.
When Mukesh’ daughters start mingling in his private live, he imagines them as the Bennet sisters. He channels his inner Atticus Finch when a friend is going through a tough time, trying his best to find the right words for the situation. He reminds himself that if Pi could survive on a boat with a tiger, he will survive organizing a gathering for friends. Aleisha wants to become a lawyer and is in awe of Atticus Finch. She also discovers that reading out loud to her mother not only has a calming effect on her mother, but it also helps create a connection they haven’t felt in years.

Aleisha and Mukesh’ chapters are mixed with chapters about other people, all finding the same reading list throughout the years.
The further along the story gets, the less attention there is for the books on the list, especially near the end, and I had a hard time remembering which the last two books on the list were (Beloved and A Suitable Boy).
Despite the somewhat rushed feeling of the ending, this book is a joy. It’s about reading, libraries, friendships and love. Do not expect a fluffy book though, as it packs some punches and although those punches can be seen coming, they still hit hard.

All in all, The Reading List is a warm and wonderful read and I heartily pass on the recommendation.

No. 5 – A book with a person’s name in the title

Lily : A tale of revenge / Rose Tremain

I spotted this book over a year ago in a bookshop and wasn’t sure about it then, and gave monetary priority to other titles. Then recently I stumbled upon it yet again and this time with a discount, so I thought to go for it after all as the picture was still on my phone (does anybody else take pictures of books they can’t afford?). As it turned out I should have listened to my book instincts and left it, no matter how much off it was.

The cover is nice enough. The title and description on the back, intriguing enough. Yet reading it, left me feeling confused and disappointed: I didn’t understand what this book was meant to be. Murder mystery? Victorian guilt trip? A story of unrequited love? The title calls it “a tale of revenge”, but revenge indicates a certain ruthlessness, a desire, that I found lacking. This was more about the guilt that follows the act of revenge, rather than the emotions that drove to it. And yet it was all very melodramatic. Like I said, I feel confused.

Lily has committed a murder. That much is clear even before you start the book.
The story is told in a now and then, telling of Lily’s childhood and how she came to be where she is now. The chapters are roughly on and off, but it’s not indicated with a timing (the chapters have titles instead), and sometimes it takes a few sentences to realize where the story is in the timeline, especially in the beginning when new characters get introduced in both the past and the present. It doesn’t read easy and although I don’t mind using my brain, but it’s annoying when you have to think about these things instead of the story itself.

And the story just wasn’t really pulling me in at any point. I thought the build-up was too long, too slow, without enough surprise or tension for the big moment. By the time the murder happened, I was just glad that it happened. There was so much guilt about it, so much internal struggle from page one onwards that the event didn’t even have that much of an impact. Then a confession happens much later, odd in both timing and setting.
Even stranger was the ending, which I didn’t get, or maybe by then I was too annoyed by the melodramatics.
Clearly, this book and I turned out to be a bad match.
I’m wishing happy readings to others (I’m donating my book to a second-hand shop), but this book wasn’t for me.