No. 13 – A book set during a holiday
A Holly Jolly Diwali / Sonya Lalli

In my experience holiday reads mostly tend to be cutesy low-angst reads set during Christmas; it’s an entire sub-genre of romance novels and cosy murder mysteries that seems to have gained in popularity over the past few years. Hanukah seems the second-most popular holiday for setting.
And I have to admit; I was tempted. I’m into Christmas (booked a trip to a Christmas Market way back in September) and do enjoy cozy reads, but for some reason I wasn’t feeling it yet. I also kind of wanted something different because Christmas and Hanukah are not the only holidays celebrated in the world. So behold: a book set during Diwali, the Festival of Light celebrated by Sikhs, Hindus, Jains and Buddhists. Judging from the cover alone I figured one thing would be the same: it’s a cutesy low-angst read. After a couple of serious and intense books I could use something a bit lighter so I eagerly got in.

The story is about Niki: twenty-nine and single. Or very single, as her parents call her when they stage an intervention one Saturday night in the living room. Because yes, she’s still living at home. She chose to stay at home in order to save up as much money as possible to repay her student loans after she graduated college and landed herself a job as a data analyst. Niki is organized, always thinks things through, and isn’t the most spontaneous of people. Her parents have set up a blind date for her with the son of friends of friends and although Niki isn’t enthusiastic she is too obliging not to go. To her surprise she has a good time on the date but the timing isn’t perfect: she’s late to meet him because she was busy getting fired due to budget cuts in the office.
Getting fired leaves her in a state of shock but it also suddenly frees up her calendar. Now, she can go to India to attend her friend’s wedding there. Her family is surprised to discover her spontaneity but welcome it. Niki herself isn’t quite sure how to feel about it but does realize that the trip will be a good way to get a new perspective on her life and future.

Niki travels to India for the first time in her life. The daughters of immigrants, Niki and her sister grew up more American than Indian: Niki doesn’t speak Punjabi, doesn’t know the meaning of Diwali, or names of Bollywood actors. This meant Niki and I had the same knowledge gap and I learned along with her, which made things very easy to follow.
During the wedding celebrations Niki meets Sam, bass player in a band, and it is lust at first sight for both of them. Niki’s flirting skills are rusty but Sam isn’t much better. Sam lives in London, Niki in Seattle, and because there’s no risk about bumping into each other after the wedding, Niki is onboard for a fling. She’s never had a fling and thinks it’d be a great way to get rid of her goody-two-shoes image.
Sam and Niki are both close friends of the bride and both of them get invited to join the bride and groom on their honeymoon, in fact, there’s a whole group of friends going along to Goa.

Side note: I think it’s a wonderful idea to have your best friends along on a holiday and this couple had been together since high school and had been on a lot of holidays together already anyway and combined with a massive wedding I get that you’d like some quality time with the “insiders”. What made it slightly weird for me was that it was still referred to as a honeymoon instead of as just a holiday but probably that’s just the word association.

Although they are not officially a couple (Niki has her mind set on nothing serious) they are considered so by their friends and basically anybody they meet. It doesn’t help that Sam invites her to stay at his family’s home. His mother is there as well so it’s no wonder their fling doesn’t move beyond flirting and some kisses. Niki’s sister warns her that this is all too serious for a holiday romance but Niki doesn’t want to hear it and shouts angry words back at her.
After the call, she has to admit that this is indeed more than a holiday romance and tired of being the boring one, is ready to throw caution in the wind: because she’s between jobs anyway, and he’s seen her at her worst after she suffers from food poisoning, she tells Sam she will move to London for him. As I can tell from personal experience it’s not smart to move country for anyone unless you really want to move for yourself as well. Because Sam’s smarter than both Niki and me, he tells her that. But because Niki isn’t really listening she’s hurt by the message, and the travel romance becomes the travel drama.

This book is a lot of things: it has romance, travel, self-discovery, and cultural sense of being.
Every time I felt I had reached my limits with Niki, she did something that made me give her another chance. And in the end she did show growth and development and those are the most important things in a main character.
Most importantly, I really liked reading a book set during a non-Christmas holiday and will be on the lookout for others. Additionally, I’ll also be on the lookout for the follow-up on this book, which is centered around Niki’s sister Jasmine.

No. 7 – A non-fiction book
A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages : the World Through Medieval Eyes / Anothony Bale

I admit that before picking up this book, my knowledge of the Middle Ages was pretty limited: knights. Plagues. No Netflix.
Thankfully, this book contains a lot of information so I now know much more. It’s dry in the sense that it contains a lot of names, dates and places. But it isn’t written like a lecture; it isn’t boring. It’s written for any knit-wit that wants to learn more, and I was happy to sign up. And sheesh, did I learn stuff.

First of all: there’s not that much difference between preparing for travel back in the Middle Ages and the present day. Bags are packed, money and travel papers set aside, guidebooks purchased.
Of course, last-minute trips to a sunny destination were not what it was about back then, and travel was mostly pilgrimage related. However, travellers back then bought souvenirs, kept track of their adventures, and tried to make sense of new / other cultures, like we still do today. We have stickers or emblems with flags that get sewn onto backpacks, they had patches they wore on their lapels. They bought walking sticks and hats, we buy keychains and t-shirts.
They wrote their names on walls and doors of sites they visited, we…well, that one hasn’t changed a bit.
They kept diaries and wrote books on their findings (or made them up completely), we blog, tweet, and post (heavily edited or not) on Instagram.
And mass tourism is nothing new: back then, people travelled in caravans of up to thousands of pilgrims through the Holy Land.

The book is set up like a trip: it starts with a chapter on preparations, then there are the actual travel chapters, and it ends with a chapter on homecoming.
Great care has gone into making the reader understand the time and place. For example, referring to the Holy Land nowadays for Christians means Israel. But, back then, it meant any land mentioned in the bible, leading to a geographical area that included what are now Cyprus, Syria, and Egypt.
And while this book isn’t about pilgrimages but travel in general, pilgrimage was the biggest reason for regular people (non-soldiers, non-crusaders) to travel. Therefore, there are a lot of biblical references, especially in the first half of the book. But, the book also touches on the other travel patterns: south into northern Africa, and the Silk Roads east. Of course, this is because the second biggest reason to travel, was trade.
Almost everything in this book is based on western European perspectives, with one chapter offering a glimpse into the view from “the other side”. (Spoiler alert: aside from the travel direction there wasn’t much of a difference.)

The author cites from travel books, diaries and (auto)biographies of the time and I like to imagine that this means he got to visit libraries and archives and spent copious amounts of time in them, with these manuscripts in front of him. Which is as close as we can get to time travelling. I’m only slightly jealous.

Non-fiction reads different from fiction and even though the book in pocket only comes down to 360 or something pages, it was slower goings than “normal” with so much information to digest. But I liked this book a lot and I learned so much on this pretty random topic.

This book is for anyone who is open-minded and eager to learn something. If you’re into history, travel, and/or the Middle Ages, that’s an added bonus.

No. 21 – A book with a verb in the title
River Sing Me Home / Eleanor Shearer

This book starts in Barbados, 1843, where Rachel lives on the Providence plantation. Rachel is a woman, a slave, and above all a mother. When she is told that slavery has been abolished, the sudden thought of freedom and what to do with it, fills her determination: she’s going to find her children. Then, the joy is struck down immediately because the overseer informs them that they might be free, but they still have to serve a six-year contract of apprenticeship. It means still no money, no rights, no way to start their lives.
It breaks Rachel and she realizes she can’t be stuck on the plantation for another six years of misery. At night, she lies awake and thinks about the children she’d lost. The ones that died, the ones that weren’t alive when born, and the ones that were taken away and sold. Before she’s aware of what she’s doing she finds herself slipping away in the night, running as fast and as far away as she can, terrified the entire way because she doesn’t know where to go, or if the overseer has already picked up her trail. She only knows one thing: she needs to find her children and she would rather die trying, than not have tried at all.
An island offers only so far you can run, and after a night of running, Rachel reaches its natural border of the sea. Here, she meets Mama B, who runs an abandoned tabaco plantation and offers refuge for runaways. Mama B has helped other women finding their children, and she sets out on helping Rachel as well. Together they walk to Bridgetown, on the other side of the island, because one of the women on the tabaco plantation remembers seeing Mary Grace, one of Rachel’s daughters, there. With the help of Mama B’s network, they narrow down the search for Mary Grace until they locate her as the servant in a dress shop. The reunion fills Rachel’s heart with renewed love, and energy to continue the search for the other children. It’s painful as well, because Mary Grace no longer speaks, muted by the horrors she went through. Mother and daughter need to reacquaint, and learn that they don’t need words to communicate, and they quickly become inseparable.
When someone checks the slave registers for them, they learn that the other four children were sold to plantation owners in British Guyana and Trinidad. And so, they travel to British Guyana first, to continue their search for Micah and Thomas Augustus. On the ship they travel with they connect with Nobody, who has been on the run for a long time, and who decides to give up his life at sea to travel with them. He knows the area a little bit, having sailed there several times before, and the three of them quickly become a team.
They walk from one plantation to the next, before ending up going deep inland, with the help of a native boy, who teaches them to row a canoe, and read the landscape. Although they have been told that the stories of runaways living in the forest along with native tribes are just stories, Rachel knows first hand from her time with Mama B that these places do exist and they continue on their way. When do they find a village of runaways deep in the forest, they stay with them for a while, learning to live in and read the forest, a landscape they are not used to, and come to appreciate the knowledge that the villagers are willing to share with them.
Eventually they continue their way to Trinidad, where it’s more difficult to find their way than before. They don’t know this island, or anybody living there, and it’s more difficult to get their search going. But, Rachel is driven, and Mary Grace and Nobody support her and are ready to follow wherever she needs to go.
Everyone they meet has a story to tell. Everyone is a survivor.
Although not every story has a happy ending, Rachel concludes that it is still better knowing bad things, than not knowing at all.

The book is beautifully written and Rachel is an amazingly strong character. Her own tough life is only touched upon and you’re left to fill in the blanks. Her own story isn’t worth telling, all she can talk about are her children. Every child lost left a hole in her heart and until she knows what became of them, she can’t love anything else.
During the search Rachel learns that there are different kinds of freedom, and that people take different paths to get there.
The story is about intergenerational trauma, how deeply it settles in our dna. It’s about survival and the fight for freedom. Above all, it’s about love.

The story stayed with me for a long time after reading, especially because it is based on true events. The author’s note is an important part of the book so please don’t close the book too soon. But first, I encourage you to open it. If you’re into historical fiction you won’t regret this.

No. 10 : A book published this year
Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books / Kirsten Miller

If you like a book that is funny, smart, and on point.
If you have a problem with the idea of banning books.
Then you should read: Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books.

This book is about all things ugly: racism. Slavery. Sexism. Homophobia. Misogynism. Entitlement. Nazis. Book banning. Bullying. Fake news.
None of that sounds like this would be a fun read, but thanks to some clever writing it truly is.

Troy, Georgia, is a place that unfortunately is easy to “see” through the book. It’s pretty at first glance, but the longer you look, the more you realize that it’s just a filter covering up a bad picture.
It’s the kind of place where local busy-body Lula Dean makes sure that half the library collection gets banned. What to do with all the banned books? Wasteful to let them take up space, so maybe best to just burn them.
This idea is only just stopped by Beverly, the head of the school board (and Lula’s archenemy) and the books instead are stored in her office under lock and key.
Lula might not have read any of the books, but she just knows that they corrupt youngsters, getting them hooked on drugs, turning them gay, and giving them un-American thoughts. In protest against the liberal books that the library has in its collection, she puts a Little Free Library in her front yard and fills it with solid, decent, reading materials such as Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette, and Nancy Drew. Books that will better the world and will help turn things back to the way they were: good and proper American.

Luckily, for every local bully there is a local rebel. And in a wonderful coup they switch out the books in Lula’s library for titles she has deemed inappropriate, but, they place them inside the dust jackets of the original books. So, when someone picks up Buffy Halliday Goes to Europe!, she actually reads the banned Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl.
One of the first chapters (which, by the way, are named after these book titles so all bonus points for that) had me laughing out loud on the train (an older lady bakes a cake). The chapter after that had me gasping and shaking my head in disbelief. This is the kind of book that does that to you.
The book is smartly written with almost every chapter having someone different in the limelight, providing different points of view on the same issues, while adding nuance and inside glances to some of them.
Little by little the town starts to stand up against everything that is wrong with it, bringing all that has been simmering and festering under the surface for years to light, and it made me cheer for them.

Censorship is awful. Book banning is awful. This book covers the ugly practice and a lot of other uncomfortable, painful, and serious, topics. And it does it with humor and alacrity.
At times there are characters that veered a bit towards caricatures or stereotypes, but it didn’t bother me because they did serve the story and got the message across.
The message: book banning makes no sense. And: libraries, big or small, are amazing.

No. 5: A book I started but never finished
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue / V.E. Schwab

I remember I bought this book during one of the lockdowns because I thought I deserved a treat and I was so happy when it arrived (remember when a trip to the mailbox was the highlight of the day?), that I started it right away. I really don’t know why I never got very far in it, other than it being a big book coming in at over 500 pages, and during pandemic times I had the attention span of a confused gold fish. I found the Bookdepository (RIP) bookmarker still stuck between pages 55-56 and I vaguely remembered what I’d read, but the details eluded me, so I started over from the beginning.

This is a book that has everything going for it: gorgeous cover, great lay-out, and nice print. Yes, it’s big, but once I committed properly, I blew through it and this time around finished it within a weekend. The writing is easy, and Addie is a great character.
The story starts in 1714 when Adeline LaRue lives in a small village in France. Her parents are relieved that at twenty-three she finally is getting married, but Adeline, who doesn’t even like the man, fears that marriage will leave her virtually chained to the village, and she is desperate to find a last-minute escape. In her desperation she makes a deal with the devil and in return for her soul, he gives her freedom and with that a chance to live the life she’s always wanted for as long as she wants.
But you don’t “just” make a deal with the devil and Adeline soon discovers that she should have been more careful with her words because the downside to her deal is, that nobody remembers her. The devil gave her the “ultimate freedom” of not being remembered. She forever has to introduce herself and cannot even use her own name. She also cannot create anything herself; it gets erased right away.
It takes Addie some time to get used to this new way of living, but she manages. She leaves the village and goes to Paris where she learns it’s easier to be invisible amongst big crowds. She is visited there by “Luc” on the anniversary of their deal and he offers her an out: say the word and he’ll collect her soul and relieves her of the hard knock life she’s found herself in.
But Addie is not done living and refuses the offer. Every year on the anniversary Luc makes an appearance, and it’s something that Addie starts to look forward to, as he might be the devil, but he’s also the only one to remember her and call her by her real name. The two of them bicker and fight, and at times Luc punishes her by not showing up for a year or two.
This goes on for three hundred years, and lands us in the present of 2014. By then, Addie has been living in New York for quite some time, a city she enjoys as there is so much to discover. One of the things she discovers, is Henry. Henry works in a bookshop and when she goes back to return a book (after having it stolen a few days before), he recognizes her and chases her out of the shop (again).
The shock of someone remembering and recognizing her, has Addie startled more than being caught scamming. Thinking it’s a fluke, she doesn’t dare believe it actually is possible until she goes back to offer him an apology and he still remembers her. After spending three hundred years of reintroducing herself to people over and over again, slinking in and out of people’s lives, and nobody but the devil remembering her name, it is a welcome relief.
Although Henry clearly has a secret to hide himself, Addie is too relieved to be bothered by that. Their connection is immediate and intense and although she has to constantly introduce herself whenever they meet up with his friends, they both are fully committed to the relationship. She quickly decides she needs to trust Henry with her secret and he’s strangely easily okay with it all. She starts telling Henry everything, and he writes down her story, thinking this way she can leave her mark after all. But through her story, he discovers she’s already done that, having been a muse to painters, sculptures and musicians throughout the ages. Songs and pieces have been written and created because of her, and she shows up in paintings as “unknown woman”.
But the devil is due a visit because it’s been almost fifteen years since his last, and Addie knows they won’t have long. When Luc does show up, he shows up with the oomph you would expect from the devil. Just in time for the big finale.

And this is why I believe in second chances: I really liked this book the second time around!
The set-up is well done, and Addie and Luc are great characters. At times I wanted more depth from the historical settings and the people Addie meets, because they remain blurry. Although eventually that works, because it keeps the focus on Addie and Luc.
I have to admit I saw the twists at the end coming so the build-up to that felt a bit too slow and stretched out, and whatever story-telling was still happening, could have been left out for me. But this is a storybook-like telling, a great (love-hate) story, and totally enchanting. If any of that is your thing, don’t hesitate picking up this book!

No. 22: A trilogy
Hell’s Library series / A.J. Hackwith

I don’t read a lot of trilogies. In all honesty I have a hard time thinking of another set of three books I read. So, yay for the reading challenge expending my reading experience!
The trilogy I ended up with was by total accident: I got the first book purely based on the title and cover art and only found out it was the first of three books when I looked up more information online. So, I happily made sure to get my hands on parts two and three as well, and here we are.

Book 1: The Library of the Unwritten (2019)
Fantasy is not a genre I would pick under normal circumstances, because the world-building can be, dare I say it, tedious with too much detail. It’s a fine line between too much and not enough, and I guess the closer to the “known” the world setting is, the easier it is for the reader to be left to figure stuff out. For me that was the case with this book, as it is worldly unworldly.
The Library of the Unwritten, is part of Hell’s library, and is exactly what it sounds like: a library full of books that were started, but never finished. There are muses with pieces of text tattooed on their bodies, who live with damsels that fell out of their books and for whatever reason, couldn’t get back in.
The library users are demons and the like, allowed to use the materials inside the library but not take any of it out. There is a librarian in charge, doomed to keep the characters where they should be. Then one day Hero falls out of a book. Hero is classically handsome, and has one goal: to rescue his heroine, his author. He manages to escape the library and travel to earth, and when librarian Claire discovers this, she has to chase him through time and place to get him back into his book. That’s easier said than done, because she knows that when she leaves the library unguarded, well, all hell is about to break loose. And leaving the library is complicated enough, but getting back even more so, because the devil sends guards after them, and that’s not to get them back, but to eliminate them. Nobody is allowed to leave the library.
Claire doesn’t have to chase Hero on her own, because Brevity travels with her. Brevity is a muse, and library assistant. She has green hair and purple skin with text tattooed on it.
On their way they face challenges, engage in literature duels (awesome: participants hit each other with quotes), and need to track down a potion. They get stuck in a maze and have their souls weighted. And because the people they meet along the way all seem to have a hidden agenda, figuring out who’s friend or foe is difficult. All along they know that the situation in the Library is getting bad, and the urgency of finding their way back grows with every moment spent outside it.
I loved the settings (the gargoyle guarding the library, inter world loan system), and the characters were interesting enough to want to read more.

If you want to read this series, you might not want to continue this entry because what follows contains spoilers that might ruin your appetite and I’d hate to be responsible.

Book 2: The Archive of the Forgotten (2020)
This book opens where the first ended: the heroes have returned to the Library of the Unwritten and the dust of the big end fight is still settling. Claire is no longer the librarian, but has moved on to be the Arcanist, the keeper of the keeps of the Archive of the Forgotten. Fallen angel Rami has become her assistant. Muse Brevity is now the librarian of the Library of the Unwritten, with Hero as her assistant librarian.
When a mysterious inkwell appears on the library floor, they all go to check it out, and after reaching in, Claire’s hand turns completely ink black.
The gang needs to figure out how to help her, what effects the ink have on a human, and how to avoid the ink to spread. This sets off a chase across the realms once more for Hero and Rami. Claire stays at the Archives to establish what kind of ink it is. For this, she needs help from the damsels that live in the library but the relationship between Claire and Brevity is strained, making things move along slowly. It doesn’t help that Claire is distrusting of Brevity’s muse friend Probity.
Although everybody takes a different path, they all end up at the same place: the Dust Wing. This graveyard of books is where the finale takes place and we learn that it’s not about books, stories or writers, but souls. And that muses want to be their own person, and not just be connected to an artist.
We also learn that heroes should ask for permission to kiss someone because otherwise they’re no better than villains after all.
(Applause for that line.)

The story was easy to pick up because I knew the characters and was familiar with the setting. After the initial action of Claire getting stained by the ink, things slowed down a bit too much for my liking. There was a lot of interpersonal drama, which makes sense because the characters were left unsettled and have to get used to their new positions and roles, but that part wasn’t my favorite. Things picked up once Rami and Hero started to travel to other realms again, but by then the book was half-way through. Also, they returned fairly soon and it meant the story slowed down again.
For me, this was the weakest book in the series. I don’t read nearly enough trilogies to know if hat is a common thing to happen with the middle book.

Book 3: The God of Lost Words (2021)
And again, the book starts right where the previous one left off.
Hero feels lost without his book, Claire is still upset about her stain, and Brevity is recovering from the betrayal of her sister muse. Then, a new well appears in the library and everybody is on high alert this time. The well doesn’t contain ink though, but clear water, and through it travels Echo, the librarian of the Elysium Library. Rami and Hero had visited there in the previous book and with their presence they had awakened the books in the Elysium Library. Talking stories in an echo place is not a safe space, so the librarian is now seeking a place to hide. They’ve come to the Library of the Unwritten and without so much as a pretty please, bring in their materials.
Another person to visit, is Malphas. This dangerous figure is one of Hell’s generals and sets fire to the Arcane Wing, leaving Claire and Rami to seek refuge in the Library as well. The place is quickly becoming overcrowded, and not necessarily the safe space they all need. Realizing they are sitting ducks and that the best defense is an offence, the crew decides on a plan of attack. With an all-for-one-one-for-all ‘tude they get to working on creating a realm of their own. Which means that they need a space, a god, and a guard. To establish this, they need help from the libraries in the other realms and they set about to get the librarians on board. It’s a reunion with some of the characters from the first book and some new ones. Like in the first book, there is a sense of urgency with this story that keeps the momentum going. During their inter-world librarian meeting Malphas makes her attack and floods the Library of the Unwritten. Everybody is stuck but a plan starts to form and our band of characters jump into action: Rami and Claire lead the negotiations with hell’s general, Brevity uses her muse skills to keep what is left of the library safe, and Hero dives back into the Dust Wing.
The ending was nicely done with the Library telling the finale. It read like a movie.

I didn’t know I needed a trilogy set in hell’s library, but sometimes the books just find you and it’s a great find and all in all I’m really happy having read this trilogy. The library setting is super cool and made me smile plenty. The main characters are pretty kick-ass, and the bittersweet ending was unexpected and gave it all just a little bit extra.

No. 12: A book written by an author with the same initials as me
The Wives / Lauren Weisberger

LW. That’s me. And Lauren Weisberger.
I remember the joy that was The Devil Wears Prada (first the book, then the movie) and I have to admit that when I realized The Wives continues with the story of Runway assistant Emily, I had my doubts. But, I was also curious enough to give it a go and I’m happy to report that I have no regrets!

This book takes place years later, and Emily no longer works for Miranda Priestly but is still tough-as-nails, and uses her skills as an independent image consultant. Unfortunately, more and more of her clients get poached by a newcomer who is all about the latest social media platforms, while Emily still uses Facebook. After a mission leaves her stranded in New York, she decides to stop by her old friend Miriam. Miriam has recently moved to the suburbs of Connecticut and given up her job at a big city law firm to be a full-time mom. Emily is appalled by life in the suburbs but without any new clients lined up, and her husband on a long work trip to Asia, she decides to stay with Miriam and her family for a few weeks nonetheless.
It’s during this time that Miriam is contacted by her other old friend Karolina, former super model and wife of a senator. Karolina has been arrested for drink-driving with children in the car, and her husband is throwing her in front of the bus (press). She’s fled to their second home in Connecticut and when Miriam goes to visit her, she brings Emily along. Emily actually knows Karolina back from her super model days, when she would regularly be at the Runway office. The three of them quickly renew their friendship and it is Emily who tells Karolina to grow a pair and hit back at her husband.
With a lawyer and an image consultant in her corner, Karolina isn’t as helpless as her husband seems to think and they manage to hit him where it hurts the most.

In between the revenge-getting the women each have their own lives and are battling their own insecurities. But they strengthen and support each other along the way, and learn what it means to stay true to yourself, which even in suburbia isn’t easy.
Miriam and Karolina would have been boring characters without Emily’s gutsy presence to shake things up, and Emily needs a bit of sanity around her which these two provide. Of course, Miranda Priestly makes a guest appearance and is still the bitchy boss we all love (to hate). (Andy also pops up, although she has a cameo at best.)

All in all this book was a relaxed read and surprisingly fun sequel.

No. 9: A book set in my country
Waar ik liever niet aan denk / Jente Posthuma
(translated as: What I’d rather not think about)

This book was published back in 2020 but I only learned about it when it was shortlisted for the Booker International 2024. Go figure. I wasn’t the only one because I immediately went to make a reservation in the library and received a notification saying I was number five in line. It was so worth the wait.

This book is the story of a brother and sister. They call themselves One (brother) and Two (sister), after their birth order. They are twins, and have always been close. But the brother doesn’t want to live and takes his own life, and the sister can’t figure out life without him.

Two tells the story and it’s a story of twins growing up in a village, before moving to the big city. Like no names are given, no locations are either. It’s all neutral but still easy to picture.
Two has a dry and dark way to describe her upbringing, for example not recognizing their father walking out on the family, and dying shortly after, as a traumatic event because it wasn’t as serious as surviving a concentration camp would have been. (She’s slightly obsessed with concentration camps and Joseph Mengele (who in turn was obsessed with twins).)
As adults, One and Two start to carve out their own paths although they end up living on opposite ends of the same park remaining physically close. It is One who starts to take more distance though, needing space: he refuses to travel to New York, even though they have planned to visit their aunt who lives there, and prefers to spend time with a chosen family of fellow gay people over his blood relative. One fails his interview for graphic design studies, can’t figure out what it means to be happy, and has difficulty maintaining meaningful relationships. Two’s at times awkward responses, don’t help.
These are two people who are similar and grew up close, but still don’t understand each other as adults.
It’s when One’s depression grows deeper that they become closer again and Two spends more nights with her brother than her husband, not wanting him to be alone. But when someone wants to die, they find a moment and a way.
One’s death leaves Two completely at a loss. Although aware of the strain it’s putting on her marriage she still ignores her husband and spends even more time at One’s apartment than at her own, reading his diaries over and over, trying to figure out what drove him and what she could have done differently. Not knowing how to move on, she slowly comes to a standstill.

The setting of the book doesn’t involve windmills, tulip fields, or gabled houses lining pretty canals. It even takes a while for it to be explicitly clear that this is set in the NL. It’s subtle with the occasional bike ride, or swim in the canal. It’s very Dutch in its directness and straightforwardness though, and, completely fitting the story, the most Dutch thing in it is the way One ends his life.

This book is just like its cover: void of unnecessary adornments. The stripped back style makes it easy to read despite the heavy subject, and the unexpected funny parts offered both relief and sadness. I felt that the style complimented the subject and it completely sucked me in.
Grief, depression and suicide are not subjects for everyone, but this was so beautifully done that I still am recommending the book to anyone who is open to it.

No. 6: A book with a green cover
Camino / Graeme Simsion & Anne Buist
Original title: Two Steps Forward

Once again, I was roaming the library, checking book by book for any that fit my challenge. I quickly learned that a green spine doesn’t necessarily indicate a green cover, and if the cover wasn’t green, the book went back without further checking. As it turns out: green is not exactly the current “it” colour for covers. Teal or blueish-green is used a lot more, but of course I wanted to be as green as possible to avoid any discussion, so when I couldn’t find anything in the English language section of the library I resorted to the Dutch language section, where I finally pulled this one off the shelf.
Originally published as Two Steps Forward, it is written by the author of the Rosie Project books, and his wife. I’ve got to admit I’ve ignored this author on purpose after my great disappointment in the second book of the Rosie series. But with limited options I gave him (them) another chance. I was left with mixed feelings.

The book is about American Zoe and English Martin, who meet-cute in Cluny, France.
Martin fled there to teach technical design after his marriage collapsed, and Zoe is there to visit her old exchange student friend Camille.
Zoe discovers that the town is a stop for the camino and in a spur of the moment decides to go walk the path even though she’s only been in town for half a day. Within an afternoon she arranges the special pass, gets a backpack and fills it with some items from her suitcase. With a return ticket already booked she has limited time (and funding) available to finish, and instead of ending in Santiago de Compostela, makes the French-Spanish border her finish line. If you think she’s a spontaneous kind of person who does things on a whim all the time, you’re wrong: she’s just not in a normal mindset because only three weeks earlier her husband had suddenly died. And that’s not all because after his death she found out that he had accumulated a debt so big, that she would be forced to sell the house. She’s trying to come to terms with it all, even if she doesn’t recognize that yet.
Martin has lived in Cluny for almost a year and despite that, suddenly is hit by the same urgency to start walking. He’s come up with a design for a cart that can be dragged along by a hiker so they won’t have to carry the weight of a backpack. There is a big travel convention planned in two months and he needs to have tested the cart before then so he can sell the design. This is how they both end up receiving instructions and their path passes at the same time.
Even if you don’t know anything about the pilgrim route, the story is easy to follow: there’s a map provided at the first page (two books in a row with maps!) and because Zoe and Martin don’t know anything (or much) about it, you get to discover along with them.
All I knew about the camino before reading this book, was that it ends in Santiago, and the French route is marked with scallops, which in French and Dutch are named after Saint Jacob, the patron saint of the route.
The chapters are switching perspective on and off, but because Zoe and Martin’s voices aren’t distinctly different enough, at times I had to leaf back to check whose chapter I was reading. I consider that a fail for the concept.
The first half of their walk is very descriptive and very much a story of people discovering what it means to walk the old pilgrim path alone: the French countryside, the small towns, and finding places to sleep and eat, are well-described. (You can tell that the authors walked the path, which gives some much-needed extra weight to the story.) But then there’s a turning point and the story becomes more of a dramedy with a will-they-won’t-they arc.
Despite the heavy personal reasons for the main characters to go walking, they remain lightweights. Also, they spent the majority of their walk apart, doing their own thing, occasionally bumping into each other. I didn’t understand their so-called connection, and their lack of communication was annoying. When they are about to get together, Zoe receives news from her daughters and leaves right away. She writes a note that says “I’m sorry” and is gone. No wonder Martin is peeved. Could she really not have waited two minutes for him to finish his shower and talked to him? Or written a bit more to explain? It felt unnecessary and childish, especially because earlier, she’d told Martin that repairing his relationship with his daughter wouldn’t require much more than simply communicating. Practice what you preach, lady.
As a third act there is also the theme of self-discovery that pops up after all. It seemed strange to me that Zoe was communicating more with an editor than with her own daughters or Martin.

It felt like everything was thrown at this story and some things stuck better than others. Sometimes less truly is more, and for me it would have worked better if the authors had stuck to one thing: make it either a good travel story, a good romance, or a good story of personal development. Right now, for me, it was a miss for all three. I also thought the people that Zoe and Martin meet along the way were simply more interesting than them.
When a friend asked me to describe it in max ten words I said: a tame rom-com set on the camino.
Maybe I didn’t feel this book because I know there are other, better, books on the same topics out there. (The Salt Path by Raynor Winn is an absolute standout for me.)
Or maybe I should give up and admit that this author’s writing just isn’t for me and/or I’m not the right reader for his(their) books.