Sometimes I pick up a book because I like the title. Sometimes it's because I love the author. Sometimes the book's been recommended to me and sometimes, it's just because the cover art is cute. That was, I have to admit, a heavily weighted reason I picked up The Gospel According to Drew Barrymore. Written by Pippa Wright, it's a pretty fun read. It follows the friendship of Esther and Laura who, over the years and the many dramas that arise in between, rely on Drew Barrymore to get them through. Despite the very public problems the real Drew Barrymore suffered (all of which still completely sadden me) it is the fact that she survived and then thrived that Esther and Laura use as their life propellers. If Drew can get through, so can you. New motto, anyone?

I liked that this was a book about female friendship. It felt like real friendship, that had mini ups and downs and periods of non-contact because sometimes life happens, it gets in the way. It also explored what I feel are very valid worries that if you met today, as you are now, would you still become friends? How does friendship survive when so many other factors require you to change. That was one of the saddest admissions in the book; when Esther openly admits that Laura's no longer the front and centre force in her life. With Esther having a husband and a baby, her priorities have shifted. But when two friends are on different life journeys, how do you adjust to no longer having the support you've always relied on? That's mostly Laura's problem, I feel. She has relied on Esther for most of her life. That's neither a wholly good or wholly bad thing. But when Esther becomes, for want of a better word, unavailable, Laura is left to make more bad decisions. Not to spoil the book, but she makes more than a few. 

The book splits between the present, which is around late autumn in 2013, and the past. The chapters from the past usually start with a Drew related quote, which is a fun little insert. And quite necessary really, considering the book's title. Starting with the moment the two became friends all the way through gross adolescent parties and uncomfortable career decisions. Esther, unkindly nicknamed Fat Fester at school, suffered terribly from self esteem issues, always comparing herself to the slimmer, cooler Laura. There's a simmer of resentment that I feel can often be present between girls, that comes and goes but is rarely completely unavoidable. Wright really writes women well I think (well, with the exception of Sophie, Esther's younger sister. I get she isn't really part of the story at all, but still, I don't know why she was introduced at all since she never really felt 3D to me). With the chapters in the present coming from Esther's first person perspective, we to see a whole spectrum of emotions that makes Esther feel very relatable. With Laura, we see her mostly through Esther's eyes, at least in the present, making her seem detached almost. Which she is, considering Esther finds herself leaving her baby at home to fly out to San Francisco, all to try and find an absconded Laura. Part of me really liked the way Esther was written as struggling to leave her new baby, one she had tried unsuccessfully to have for years. but part of me also felt she was a little too ready to blame Laura for all the new mother guilt she was buckling under. I think if we had read in prose, about Esther's succession of miscarriages, then maybe I would have felt differently. I found the email interchange, whilst very topical, to be a bit jarring. I loved Wright's prose and raced through all the other chapters but the series of emails diluted the end of the novel for me. It felt a little like Esther suffered a lot in her younger years but then found a guy she really liked, had a son she loves more than anything and has a job she's passionate about. In other words, she suffered but came out successful, like the opposite of divine retribution. But perhaps I'm being too critical of a character who does, let's be honest, have a lot on her plate. Not as much as Laura, but really, should we compare? Pain is pain, fear is fear. How you experience it is sometimes entirely unique. 

The end of the book is cute. Almost predictable but it also feels like a full circle has been drawn in the sand. I did actually enjoy it a lot; it was an easy read because the characters felt complex and of this time, too. Emails, Facetiming, everything that friends do now. And of course using a celebrity to somehow pave the way forward. I, for one, am definitely guilty of that. So if  you like books about the influence of famous people and, more importantly, books about the complexities of female friendship, give The Gospel According to Drew Barrymore a go.

Anything that has something to do with rooftops and Paris I am always going to find scintillating. I'm a total cliché but Paris is amazing and I hope one day to visit the city again. Rooftoppers took me there but it felt very different to the Paris I visited.

In Rooftoppers we follow Sophie, the young ward of Charles Maxim, both of whom were on board the Queen Mary before it unfortunately sank. Also on board was Sophie's mother and as Sophie grows up, she becomes determined to find her mother who she believes is still alive. And as Charles is often saying, never ignore a possibility. Living with Charles brings its own problems, thanks to the jobsworth that is Miss Eliot, who is determined to remove Sophie from Charles' charge so she can become a "proper lady". Without giving too much away, Sophie finds a potential address for her mother and whilst trying to avoid the authorities, the two slip away to Paris to begin their search.

While Charles tackles the Parisian police, Sophie finds a set of rooftoppers, Matteo being the most prominent. He teaches Sophie all manner of tricks of the trade and before long they're flying over Paris with scuffed knees and dirty palms. There was also, unsurprisingly, a lot of blood. No really, Katherine Rundell's descriptions of these children scraping various body parts is probably the biggest recurring theme in the book! Which I guess you would expect if you were jumping across rooftops in Paris at night. 

I'm not entirely sure what age this book was intended for if I'm honest. It felt a little like a children's book but distinctly different from a young adult novel, though I feel like that's the intended age range. The ending for me wasn't full enough and I felt a little put out for poor Charles who, in the latter half of the book, seemed to disappear for whole chapters at a time. I also found (because I'm a cynical boring pretend-adult) that Matteo was a bit petulant and so my enjoyment of the later chapters suffered a little because of that. But it's a book that takes place (partially) in Paris, so it's hard not to like it. It's also a light, easy read that fills those sleepless nights with ease. Ah, Paris. 

And though I never really jumped across Parisian rooftops, I did take some pretty pictures on them two years ago this exact weekend! Talk about timing.

Dorothy Koomson is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. I've already read and reviewed two of her other books (The Rose Petal Beach and The Flavours of Love) because Koomson's writing is so realistic that I get completely lost in the literature. I have no trouble ever imagining the events within her novels and I think it's a testament to her talent that many readers keep on coming back for more.That was exactly the case for me with The Woman He Loved Before. I didn't even need to read the blurb; just seeing Koomson's name on the spine meant I'd be taking it home to read. As the kids of some generation probably said, it was a no-brainer. 

I think I can say it wasn't my favourite book by Koomson. The Flavours of Love remains my number one but this latest read was pretty fantastic too. Koomson incorporates fast switching narratives along with diary entries that take up entire chapters. I love the stylistic use of diary entries, so much so that I'm currently experimenting with a diary-style book myself, but I did at times find it jarring to read. I don't know if it's because the entries felt less like a diary than what I am personally used to but then again, the subject matter was so intense that maybe any type of text would have elicited the same reaction from me.

The Woman He Loved Before follows Libby (short for Liberty, she'll have you know) who is a beauty therapist and very much the embodiment of a strong, independent woman. In a bid to buy a car, she meets Jack Britcham and immediately has no time for his continual attempts to ask her out. Eventually he wears her down but Libby then has to contend with everything in Jack's life that came long before she did. Jack's first wife, Eve, is more than a mere presence in both the book and Libby's life and Koomson seems to cover whole decades within the front and back cover. It's certainly a rich read and though it is dark and intense and sometimes difficult to read, it's thoroughly gripping and becomes increasingly hard to put down. As if often the case with her work, I raced through The Woman He Loved Before in the space of two days and enjoyed pretty much every minute of reading it.

Koomson excels at weaving worlds together through using emphatic and thematic undercurrents. There is a real theme of loss that perpetuates the novel (lost love, a loss of time, a loss of trust). It is these universal feelings that we, as readers, can identify with that ground Koomson's work to make it so brilliantly readable. That's why I think I keep coming back to her novels; it is more than the fact that Koomson writes black leading ladies which I will openly admit is certainly part of the appeal as a mixed race young woman. But more importantly than that, Koomson's work is always clever and cryptic and compelling - The Woman He Loved Before is no exception.

The concept of not judging a book by its cover was absolutely tantamount for this book. I picked it up because it was about a 22 year old girl living in New York, facing all kinds of problems and trying to decide what to do with her life. I felt it might resonate since I'm in a similar situation (except for the fact that I'm not living in New York, sob sob sob). 

In my head, I thought it was going to be a little clichéd and completely over the top, all of which I surmised from the front cover. In short: I was wrong. I raced through Angie's life (which was pretty over the top and outrageous) because it was written so damn well. It felt like I was reading about someone I knew, someone I went to uni went or something. It was authentic and real and whilst I can say I have definitely not been mistaken for a hooker, jumped into the sea to escape a drug-fuelled party or ran away from a guy I loved during a tornado, there was still a lot I could relate to. Angie wants to work in fashion but cannot get a job anywhere, no matter how hard she tries. She's essentially playing adult, which is definitely how I feel a lot of the time. I'm independent, I work hard and I have a strong set of values but feeling well and truly, properly adult? Yeah, that still feels a stretch too far. 

Living with four other girls means there's an abundance of drama that only groups of girls are able to create. There's also a whole host of romantic inclinations and Angie makes some questionable decisions along the way. She also makes some great friends too, which gives me hope that nice people still exist. Somewhere. There's also a lot that occurs which forces Angie to finally bond with her housemates - Pia, Julia, Coco and Madeline - all of whom are wonderfully written and have their own drama to contend with outside of Angie's spiralling. Angie also has to contend with some unresolved feelings concerning her parents and it takes almost the entire novel for the fallout to be rectified.

That's the time with this book, time seems real. There's no quick fix for the big problems but then when it comes to feelings and emotions, Angie can't keep track of quite how she feels. Does she love or loathe those she interacts with? Sometimes it's a quick fluctuation between them both. Which is true of real feelings, really. It's easy to fall in and out of love with people as you get to know them, especially when you're still learning what it is they're hiding. I thought Gemma Burgess had a great grasp on the way twentysomethings address life these days; the novel was current, entertaining and completely gripping. It definitely made me challenge my romantic notions about life in New York too, but I'd still be happy to become a Brooklyn Girl (just not one as wild as Angie!)

Jade x

A quick and easy read, The Peach Keepers by Sarah Addison Allen follows the lives of Willa Jackson and Paxton Osgood in a little town called Walls of Water, North Carolina. Between the two girls, there's a lot of shared history and a lot of secrets that quite literally become unearthed.

It was an enjoyable read for the most part, but it was a little 'small town' for me to love it completely. I had distinct recollections of The Vampire Diaries when I was reading this, with the town's innate history and the implausibility of a single place possessing such magic. I like history and I like fantasy, but the combination here was sometimes hard to digest. I'm also (probably very ignorantly) a bit wary of stories of Southern ladies. Guess I have Gone With the Wind, Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie and my knowledge of the civil rights movement to blame! To be fair, I'm generalising horrifically, but with parts of the story dating back to 1936, it's hard for my history-hardened brain not to jump there. 

Nevertheless, the book is definitely rich in other ways and its sensory detail is welcoming. In terms of characters, I liked Colin best; the twin brother of Paxton who sweeps back into Walls of Water like a breath of much-needed fresh air. He quickly finds himself wanting to win over a woman and the question becomes whether he can see her beyond the way her saw and admired her at school. Where I found the book to lack a little in plot, it made up for on its commentary of women. The way we bond, the way were live - I thought those elements were particularly well captured. There was a whole paragraph that really cinched this discussion on women, during an episode where Paxton gets drunk and finds herself on the streets late at night. I could type the whole thing, but I think The Peach Keeper is worth reading simply for this paragraph. I've chosen just to quote the last few lines but the sentiment is still as strong.

I loved the description of women being part of a collective unconscious because for a large part, I think it rings very true. That's why I think it's such a shame when women hate on other women - do we not have enough to fear in the world as it is, without fearing the judgement of other women? 

So whilst that may not have been what Allen intended as her take away message from The Peach Keeper, that is the one that will no doubt stick with me.

Black Water Rising is billed as a crime thriller, featuring Jay Porter, a lawyer from Houston who finds himself entangled in a messy affair after helping a seemingly troubled girl during a night out with his pregnant wife. From there, Jay's can't figure out if he's paranoid or whether he's right to be worried when he suspects he's being followed. But when his past begins merging with his present, Jay's quick to realise he's in over his head.

The book was pretty good; the premise for the plot was clever and well fleshed out. It had scope and I liked the way the characters were weaved into each others pasts. It wasn't a book I raced through, however, as I felt some chapters were just quite wordy and not that easy to read quickly. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and to be honest, I've been racing through a few books these last two weeks so it could also be reading fatigue! 

I do think that Attica was always on the back foot for me though, since I read an awful lot of Jo Nesbo's crime thrillers and for me, Black Water Rising just didn't quite hold up to Nesbo or Tom Rob Smith, another crime fiction author I really enjoy. I'd definitely read more of Locke's work and with the events unfolding concerning Walter Scott and the police, the racial aspects of Black Water Rising felt quite topical. Jay is an influential activist in his youth, staging protests similar to those we've unfortunately been seeing in places like Ferguson recently.

On the issue of race, whilst I know it was contextually sound to include certain words and terms within the novel, it doesn't mean I'm not going hate reading them. I do really think that this issue had a major impact on my overall opinion on the book. I'm not about to tell people what words to use or how to write because, let's face it, I'm far from qualified! But I am entitled to my own opinion and I personally hate the n- word, so reading a book where it's referenced a few times is never going to strike high on my list.

The book does feel authentic though and I gather it's garnered a lot of praise for Locke as her debut novel. I couldn't choose a particular quote that spoke to me so I'm bypassing my usual quotes collection. I've enjoyed picking books my unfamiliar authors though, feels good to widen my interests every once in a while!

I knew, before reading the blurb or thumbing through the pages, that I'd be leaving the library with this book. Anything on twins interests me. My dad is an identical twin and with the phenomenon often skipping generations, there is a slight increase in probability that I may have twins myself. I even made a set of twins my central characters in my final year creative writing project. And as someone who has often felt something of an outsider, I think I would have loved being a twin. But as Saskia Sarginson tells us in her debut novel The Twins, there too can be a need to escape all of that shared history.

It took me a few chapters to get into the book, even though it is of a similar style to the type of books I tend to opt for. I was determined to stick with it and remain wholeheartedly glad I did. By the time I was a third of the way through, I had slipped into a whole other world completely. It then took me a matter of hours to read the rest, scampering through the pages like a wild thing myself.

The book follows Viola and Isolte, identical twins born to an unsteady mother, Rose, who can never quite keep two feet firmly in the real world. For most of their early childhood, the three live in a commune in Wales, before moving to a forest in Suffolk where Viola and Isolte happen across another set of identical twins, boys this time. John and Michael are raw and wild, often suffering beatings from their father and skipping school. The two sets of twins quickly become intertwined and spend their hazy days together. 

The novel jumps between Viola's point of view and then, on Isolte-driven chapters, it enters the third person narrative. This doesn't distance the reader from Isolte; at least, it didn't distance her from me as I felt closer to Isolte than I ever did to Viola. I thought it was clever the way the novel also jumped between past and present, slowly letting the reader in to the events that sought to separate the sisters. Clearly a carefully thought out plot, that I enjoyed from cover to cover. 

I feel hesitant to give too much of the plot away, since it was such a enjoyable read, but I will say that although some predictability exists, the characterisation is so strong you almost don't mind being able to second guess some elements. Isolte's boyfriend was a welcome addition (and someone I quite fell in love with too!)

As is custom with my book reviews, largely because of my overwhelming to keep and hoard everything, I try and pick a quote that I particularly enjoyed. Again, I could have picked many as Sarginson's style is one that I find particularly favourable. Nevertheless, I narrowed it down to this which I admit makes little sense alone, but has great substance in the context of the novel. I also go crazy for alliteration, so this quote soothes me on several levels.

"The sea swallows things, she thinks, and the sea returns them."

(And if you ever needed written confirmation that I am, in fact, of the geekish nature, I would refer you to that there sentence! Soothes me.. what was I thinking!)

Not my usual novel, I'll admit that straight away. Based heavily in the Hasidic community - a way of life I have next to no knowledge of - this book was certainly illuminating. It was also very complex; the plot, the religious intonations, it all made for a challenging, rather than a passive, read.

I hunger for words, for literature I can commit to mind and memory, so when faced with a language I have never previously been exposed to, I quickly encountered cessations in my reading. Whilst the authenticity of the novel cannot ever be denied, for me, I found the process too halting to be enjoyable. The characters I liked, especially young Josef and his tortured life from childhood through to adulthood. All the women I found to be real, despite having few commonalities to the way I live my own life.

Starting with Zalman, the novel follows his life with Hannah (his wife), his children and the daughter he seemingly adopts as his own. Mila, a Jew that Zalman saves after her parents perish, quickly befriends Zalman's eldest daughter Atara but as they mature it is clear they are destined for different paths. Atara begins to question her religion in ways that Mila cannot understand, whilst Mila hopes for marriage and is happy to become betrothed to young Josef, a devoted studier of the Torah. Together they hope to have their own flourishing family, as Hannah and Zalman did before them. Though Mila tries hard - including enduring courses of fertility treatment - it turns out to be Josef who cannot conceive. Since it is an offence for a man to be tested for fertility as the act is "akin to murder", Josef is not medically diagnosed until it is too late; Mila seeks conception with another man but claims that God was on her lips as it happened.

A daughter - Rachel, named after Mila's mother - is born and Josef battles within himself to inform the rabbi of Rachels' true heritage. As the knowledge continues to haunt Josef, he begins fasting and becomes increasingly unwell. Much of the story follows Mila and Josef, though I longed more to hear of Atara, the daughter of Zalman who is destined to be forgotten. She is weaved back into the story when Judith, Mila's grandaughter, is set to marry one of Zalman's grandsons. Josef worries about the union and wrestles whether to tell Zalman the truth.

The book climaxes in several ways; reunions occur, death makes an entrance and lives are lived. I think that perhaps my ignorance, or simply my lack of exposure to this religious community largely impeded my enjoyment of the novel. The literary construction is lovely; the chapters, the way the book is broken up, is well thought out. Nevertheless, I did struggle at times to enjoy the book despite how intelligent the text truly is. 

After my local library closed temporarily for renovations, my literary life posts have been somewhat lacking. But joy, oh joy, my library is open and alive again! So I wasted no time in nipping in and grabbing a book. I picked up Between Shades of Gray and instantly set down to read it the minute I got home. The story dictates, using first-hand family accounts, the story of Lina and her journey across continents after she is deported from Lithuania. 

The setting is bleak, as one would expect from a war-based novel. Though Hitler is mentioned, it is Stalin's Russia and the Soviet guards who here are the enemy. The harrowing depiction of Lina's journey and the consecutive loss of those she loves is, unsurprisingly, tough to read at times. But glimmers of hope and happiness see Lina and her brother, Jonas, through to the end.

Sepetys begins with incredibly short chapters and I raced through chapters one to eleven in a matter of minutes. In fact, I managed to finish the whole book over the space of a day; partly because the text itself is quite modest, but also because of an eagerness to anticipate what was to follow. From the start it's hard not to root for Lina's mother, Elena, who is everyone's mother at some point or another. The selflessness she demonstrates inspires many a fellow camp mate and she continues to teach and mould her two children into decent human beings despite being faced with desperation and depravity.

Lina, a talented and artistic teenager, manages to make it through her ordeal by committing everything to memory and capturing the atrocities on the page. She draws in dirt when her tools are sparse but nothing is forgotten. The real Lina, who is mentioned in a small epilogue at the close of the novel, hid and buried her writings and drawings to be found in the future. We can assume from the creation and publication of Sepetys's novel that Lina's wish was granted. There is also real truth in the blossoming love story Sepetys captures between Lina and Andrius. The book ends on an uncertain note, with Lina still wishing for Andrius to find and save her. Thanks to the epilogue, we know their reunion was a happy one, a wait most worthwhile. 

Although the section where Lina reads through the book Andrius gives her as a birthday present remains a personal favourite, it is Elena's description of young men that tickled me the most. Sensing some sort of feelings beginning to brew, Elena explains how men are often more 'practical than pretty' but that Andrius happens to be both. But she also highlights male awkwardness, in a speech that I loved, for the picture the words painted were so true to life.