Author: fiendfullyreading

Five Female-Character-Heavy Reads

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When I asked for recommendation requests, a friend wanted books featuring a ‘pack of female characters doing stuff’. No problem, I thought. And then I looked through my Goodreads ‘read’ shelf. It turns out there are a lot of books I’ve read featuring one or two female characters doing things—together or separately—but a real lack of groups of them doing interesting things.

Leaving out Little Women and any of the teen fiction books I actually read when I was young, I’ve put together a list of books that are either general fiction or YA that fit the category. And have resolved to find more for the second version of this list. Links to longer reviews (if I’ve written them) from individual book titles.

  • Girlhood by Cat Clarke – Not out yet, but Girlhood has to go on my list because I read it recently and loved it. It centres around one female character and her group of friends at boarding school in Scotland, and what happens when a mysterious new girl appears and seems to have so much in common with one of them, down to the same tragedy. Clarke creates a tense narrative alongside an honest and and enjoyable version of teenage troubles like going to university, sexuality, and coping with grief.
  • The Stolen Child by Lisa Carey – A small community in an Irish island, mostly made up of women, deal with loss, a new stranger, and calls to leave their home for the safety of the mainland. A different interpretation of the request, but a book with a real range of female characters working together and apart.
  • Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson – A novel about the friendship between four girls living in Brooklyn in the 1970s and how they grew up, grew apart, and saw each other differently. The book is in a photographic style giving snapshots of memories and really getting across how friendship can be tied to time and place.
  • The Bomb Girls’ Secrets by Daisy Styles – I’ve included this one because it best fits the idea of female characters together doing things, in that it is a novel about young women coming together for the war effort, gradually getting closer and also forming a band. A light period read ideal for anyone who’d prefer something more historical than YA in the group of female characters category.
  • If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo – Russo’s YA novel about a trans girl starting a new school isn’t just about a group of female characters, but the friendship between Amanda and her new group of friends—each with their own secrets and problems—forms a crucial part of the book.

Shakespeare Continually Retold

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I love a modern retelling of Shakespeare. They can be insightful, thought-provoking, or just damn fun. For 23rd April—Shakespeare’s deathday/possible birthday and World Book Night in the UK—I’ve gathered together my thoughts on the current (and upcoming!) Hogarth Shakespeare series of modern novel retellings of his plays.

  • The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson – A transatlantic, slightly alternate universe version of our modern world in which The Winter’s Tale unfolds as a story still full of jealousy, grief, and discovery. The complex relationship between Leo, his wife MiMi, and his best friend/ex-lover Xeno is a highlight, turning a strange plot device in Shakespeare into an interesting look at three characters falling apart. The book that really sparked my interest in the series (read my full review here).
  • Shylock Is My Name by Howard Jacobson – Jacobson’s take on The Merchant of Venice is a little different to the rest of the series in that instead of updating Shylock fully, he parallels the sixteenth century character with a modern version, the art dealer and father Simon Strulovitch. The backdrop is rich side of Manchester and the updated plot line is quite impressive, but the merging Shylock’s world with Strulovitch’s and the writing style of the novel make for a dense read.
  • Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler – In my original review, I said that this book wasn’t necessary because 10 Things I Hate About You exists. I stand by this statement, though more because I found the message of Vinegar Girl confused rather than ambiguous and its ending downheartening without illuminating on Shakespeare’s ending than because I think the enjoyable teen film is a work of genius. You might enjoy it. I didn’t.
  • Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood – There is something endearing about the way that Atwood takes Prospero’s slightly flimsy plot for making his enemies see their bad deeds and turns it into an equally flimsy plot in which Felix tries to show the injustice done to him through a performance done by the inmates he has been teaching The Tempest to. The in-jokes about the existence of Shakespeare’s plays in these modern worlds really reaches its peak, with Shakespeare as a double meta-narrative. Read more in my review here.
  • New Boy by Tracy Chevalier – New Boy isn’t out until May, but I highly recommend you grab it when it is. Othello is retold in a tense and claustrophobic day in a 1970s Washington schoolyard, as new boy Osei finds himself out of place in the entirely white school. The strange timeline and irrational jealousies of Othello find themselves a good home in this novel, where intensity is heightened because this schoolyard is the world for most of these students. I review it in more detail here.

Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallet

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Back to the old house: Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallet

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Peculiar Ground is a novel of divisions and connections, of the Berlin Wall going up and down and the changing world after the Restoration, of the young giving way to the old and the estate of Wychwood standing throughout. In 1663, the grounds of Wychwood are landscaped by Mr Norris, who watches the family as he plans the hedges. These same grounds provide the backdrop for a party in 1961 where eight-year-old Nell overhears the adults talking but scarcely understands their world of Cold War spies and love affairs. In the ensuing decades, Wychwood continues to stand as a place where the same people gather and play out the intrigues of their lives as a new world dawns with the Berlin Wall coming down and the grounds of Wychwood used as a tourist attraction.

Hughes-Hallet creates a varied novel with a wide cast of characters across both the seventeenth- and twentieth-century portions, using different narrative styles and perspectives to get across their differences. The seventeenth-century parts are largely narrated by Mr Norris in an archaic – but not overwhelmingly so – style, making them feel quite different to the Cold War narrative that forms the bulk of the book. The parallels drawn between the two are clear and expected, but this trope serves to show how the ‘peculiar ground’ of Wychwood bears drama across the centuries.

The narrative is controlled tightly, with mystery and ambiguity, hinting towards later events or details that will not yet be fully revealed. This is one of its main strengths: a sense of being drawn into the world of Wychwood in 1961 and watching the characters then and in the two subsequent periods in which they are shown, revelling in their triumphs and problems, waiting for more secrets to be known. Stand out characters are often the ones who are outsiders brought into the scene, like the art dealer Antony whose secrets everybody seems to know.

Peculiar Ground is an epic kind of English country house novel, but one that works to reflect the world around it, from Andy Warhol in the early 70s to Salman Rushdie and religious tension in 1989. The seventeenth-century part adds interesting parallels and ideas about religious difference, witchcraft, and garden landscaping, though it is less compelling that the large middle of the novel focused on the years when the Berlin Wall was standing, which has a more intriguing set of characters and events. The novel may appeal to fans of Hollinghurst’s The Stranger’s Child or Stoppard’s Arcadia, but also to anyone who enjoys novels spanning across changing times, watching as characters react and a crucial location stands still.

The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride

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Love, innocence, and drama school: The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride

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The Lesser Bohemians in an in-your-face, beautifully written novel about an eighteen-year-old Irish girl who arrives in London to start drama school. Despite her naivety, she is quickly taken in by the city, but it is when she meets an older actor and learns to shed her innocence about love and lust that she really becomes sucked into London and into the life it has offered her. It is a novel about the intensity of a love affair and overcoming the lingering past, with a 90s London backdrop and a distinctive style.

McBride writes in a poetic and stark way, a style that hurtles through the excitement, passion, and fear of  Eily’s point of view, using a kind of stilted stream-of-consciousness that takes a moment to get into, but works well once you are. It might not be readable for everyone, but it makes The Lesser Bohemians stand out as a book that gets across the intensity of her new life in North London through this unusual writing. The narrative mainly focuses on characters’ feelings and secrets than events, with the acting very much in the background, giving yet more sense of how Eily’s emotions have drowned out everything else. This is a stylish, exciting novel, a kind of harsh poem about the highs and lows of love and youth.

(Sidenote: The Lesser Bohemians was on the Bailey’s Prize longlist this year. Also check out my reviews of Hag-Seed and The Essex Serpent, both also on the longlist, and, even more importantly, Stay With Me and The Sport of Kings, both on the shortlist right now.)

The Future Is Terrifying: Some Other Dystopian Reads

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The title says it all, really. It was not a surprise to me to get a request for some dystopia recommendations, considering the current climate. 1984, Brave New World, and The Handmaid’s Tale have recently been headline books once again as people turn to fiction not for comfort, but for information and for inspiration on resistance and seeing what is going on in the world. Those three are certainly the big names, but there is plenty more dystopian fiction out there to check out.

  • The Transition by Luke Kennard – A young couple seemingly failing to make their way in the world land in trouble and their way out is a new scheme that promises to help them grow up and find their feet in the adult world. Only out last month, this is a modern dystopia about a generation unable to find its feet, with hints of Black Mirror thrown in. See my longer review here.
  • The MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood – Comprising of Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam, Atwood’s far more recent dystopian writings (the final book only came out a few years ago) have a much more complex narrative than The Handmaid’s Tale, comprising of a weird, almost post-apocalyptic world. Much of the story is told in flashbacks, looking into biological experimentation, class divides, and the commodification of sex. For those who prefer a less tradition approach to the dystopian genre (and in my opinion more engaging than her more famous one).
  • Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov & We by Yevgeny Zamyatin – For an alternative novel about a totalitarian state – or one for people who’ve done all the big names before – then either Nabokov’s Bend Sinister or Zamyatin’s We are good options, novels that both use different elements of experience with Russian oppression to form their plots and ideas. We in particular is chilling, not even published in Russian until 1988 due to Soviet censorship and forming inspiration for 1984.
  • High-Rise by J. G. Ballard – Another slightly different take on the concept, High-Rise is like Lord of the Flies for the rich consumer age, a tale of enforced building hierarchy and breaking free of respectability. A recent film adaptation starring Tom Hiddleston reminded people of the novel, which offers a kind of social dystopia that would make anyone nervous of those flats you can rent with everything you might need on site.
  • The Last Man by Mary Shelley – For my final pick, I’ve gone for a slightly more escapist option as a reminder of how dystopian fiction can date in some ways and still be both touching and sad in others. The story of a plague hitting mankind, with sweet political optimism and less sweet terrifying isolation. Maybe her heavily Romantic writing style isn’t for everyone, but her descriptions of grief are heartbreaking.

The Valentine House

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The Valentine House by Emma Henderson

The Valentine House is a family saga with a French Alps backdrop – a novel full of the intrigue and ambiguity that is to be expected from its spanning generations of the same family and their time in their summer house in the mountains. The story is held together by Mathilde, a girl from a local farm who goes to work at the house in the summer of 1914, surrounded by the mountaineer Sir Anthony Valentine and his family. As her story unfolds, so does the tale of the summer of 1974 when Sir Anthony’s great-great grandson George comes to visit the house and old secrets are brought back out.

The plot line is much to be expected from this kind of novel, with scandal, arguments, and hidden secrets being revealed by showing the impact of multiple generations of a family and the location they kept returning to. The remote mountain setting allows for some interesting points about the effect of les anglais (as the novel calls them) on the locals and how these intruders are seen. It also adds to the kind of claustrophobic feel of a family all coming together and staying in one house, out of the way of most of humanity, which is reflected in the oppressive heatwave of 1974. Henderson plays around with bits of French and with language barriers in a way that highlights the differences between the English and French characters, particularly in terms of the lack of French much of the former speak. These moments add colour to the novel, adding interest beyond that of the family intrigue.

This novel is an enjoyable read, similar to others focusing on the span of generations of a family in a certain place, but with a setting that brings an interesting look at cultural exchange and language as a sideline. The twists in the narrative are quite easily worked out, but the various descriptions of the mountains leave a lasting impression. The Valentine House would make a good, fairly light holiday read of a more literary nature.

Best friends celebrated in poetry

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Best Friends Forever: Poems About Female Friendship edited by Amy Key

Best Friends Forever: Poems About Female Friendship is a heartwarming and often brash collection of poems that explores different female friendships, young and old, sisters and best friends. It is a refreshing breath of honesty about the small details and big feelings in friendship from The Emma Press, a UK independent publisher.

Many of the poems focus on the intensity and specific feelings of teenage friendship, such as ‘Snakebite’, Catherine Smith’s wonderful poem about feeling grown up and invincible, and ‘Agnosia’, Martha Sprackland’s poem about friendships changing when a shared hometown is left. On the other hand, Kathryn Maris’ hilarious ‘Will You Be My Friend, Kate Moss?’ is one of a few poems looking at making friends when older. The vivid retro aesthetics and female dangerousness of ‘I Want To Be In Your Gang’ by Andrea Quinlan and ‘Roller Girls’ by Camellia Stafford are a particular highlight in the collection, as are the details and ordinariness of ‘best’ by Laura Webb and ‘Stars of the County Down’ by Fran Lock.

The collection can’t help but make readers reflect on their own friendships and on the details that make them special. It is an emotional anthology, and one that contains some exciting poetry as well as a nostalgic feel. Buy it for your best friends, or keep it for yourself and make them read it over your shoulder.

(Note: I got the ebook from their website here.)

So you want to read Middle English lit?

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In honour of it soon being the Harrowing of Hell – the greatest episode in Piers Plowman, maybe tied with the dreams within dreams – here is my fun and somewhat irreverent guide to the big names of Medieval English literature. They’re in a subjective order of ascending difficulty when reading in Middle English, but when in translation, it’s similar except Gawain is easier and Piers Plowman is basically just as hard. Onwards, to knights and strange religious dream poems feat. weird Biblical apocrypha.

  • Morte Darthur (/other spellings/Works) by Thomas Malory – More fun than could be expected from a huge book (if you get the bright red complete works edition) written like a five year old tried to spell more modern English. Malory’s prose Arthurian stories have everything you might want from an epic – knights, fights, magic, the chosen one being too good for this world, Gawain recognising Lancelot from how he rides a horse – and some you might not – incest, doomed love affairs, accidentally killing people and starting all-consuming feuds.
  • Various medieval drama – Medieval plays, usually short and part of a cycle that was performed around a city for a special occasion, basically encompass the Bible from creation to the apocalypse. Don’t say they didn’t think big. There are anthologies of some of the best bits and you can find them online too (try the York cycle for a starting point). There’s weird comedy with Lucifer stealing God’s chair and jokes whilst Christ is being nailed to the cross. Really.
  • Geoffrey Chaucer – The big name. I’ve not specified a work first because it depends. Obviously there’s The Canterbury Tales, which true to its name is separate tales told by fictional pilgrims. Some are very dirty (try the Miller’s Tale if that’s your interest). Or read The Wife of Bath’s Prologue because she had a fun life. If you like Greek stuff/the Trojan War/Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, try Troilus and Criseyde, though it is quite long and you will get pissed off at Pandarus. Or if you like a crazy narrative involving retelling part of the Aeneid and also flying on the back of an eagle trying to explain physics to medieval people, go for my personal fave House of Fame.
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by (imaginatively) the Gawain poet – SGGK is a fantastic story told in a cinematic style, but it is also quite tough Middle English so good to read in translation first. Read it for the great descriptions or for the part where Gawain keeps having to kiss the Green Knight as part of a weird deal they made.
  • Piers Plowman by William Langland – On the surface, Piers Plowman doesn’t sound like much fun. A huge medieval dream poem in alliterative verse which features complex theology and dreams within dreams that are less heist-based than Inception. Once you read it, you’ll discover it still isn’t great fun, but it is also is, because it’s incredibly weird and features Christ jousting the devil in Hell.

Little Gold by Allie Rogers

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Growing up different in the 1980s: Little Gold by Allie Rogers

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Little Gold is a moving and tense novel about growing up, facing difficulties, and finding the words for problems. Set in Brighton in 1982, it shows a tough summer for Little Gold – who has cast off her too girlish name and is teased by other kids for being weird. She has left middle school, her dad is gone, and her mum will barely get out of bed. Her older brother and sister are caught in their own problems, but when she becomes friends with Peggy Baxter, the old woman from down the road, she finds a place to escape to. When things get even worse, Little Gold has to find a way to tell somebody what is going on before it is too late, but she might not have words to say it.

In Little Gold, Rogers has created a fantastic character, a girl on the brink of adolescence and trying to deal with being different. Much of the narrative is from her point of view and the style gets inside her head, leaving the reader tensely hoping that better will come for her. Peggy’s chapters are slower to get into, but as soon as her backstory starts to be revealed they become more gripping, with the visit of her former lover Vi a particularly touching part, especially when Little Gold joins them. The dark, abusive threat at the heart of the novel is carefully written, not for shock effect, but as part of a narrative showing how those in need of protection can be exploited and how problems can all become entangled.

This is a novel that touches upon a lot of issues, held together by an enchanting main character whose struggles with knowing who she is as she grows up are moving and relatable. Rogers creates an oppressive atmosphere showing the limits of being both young and old, a world where it is the middle aged adults who are the threat or let down, but also a positive novel that affirms that being different is okay and that friend and family connections can help even at the darkest times.

Quick book picks for April

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As the weather gets (vaguely) nicer, here are some books coming out in April, perfect for avoiding the burgeoning sun and staying indoors – with quick summaries and links to reviews.