Jenni from the book

Doesn't it feel good to officially tick a New Year's resolution off your list? Well one of mine for 2021 was to read more and I set myself the target of at least 5 books. As any previous jenni from the book readers will know, that's the magic number that creates one of my book blog posts. So the fact you're reading this means that I managed it! Who wants to hear what I thought? Keep reading and be prepared for spoilers...

I first discovered Sally Thorne when I read her debut (I think) novel The Hating Game, which was uh-mazing (I reviewed it in one of my previous book blog posts). So naturally, when I saw that she had written another one, I was really excited to read it. 99 percent mine is the story of Darcy Barrett who's been in love with Tom Valeska for as long as she can remember. There's only one problem - he's the lifelong best friend of her twin brother Jamie. But when the twins' Grandma dies and leaves them her old cottage to restore and sell as their inheritance, it's builder Tom who's roped into the task. For the first time since they were teenagers, Darcy is alone with Tom on the building site and with chemistry bubbling away, can she finally make him hers? As soon as I started this book, I was hooked on the build-up and was intrigued by Darcy's character straight away. Complex and her own worst enemy, the author did a great job of creating a character that I immediately wanted to know more about and she was skilled at looping in the history and finer details without it feeling clumsy. Throw Tom into the mix too and their chemistry was amazingly written. You really got a sense of two characters with magnetism who had been fighting it for years and I couldn't wait to see where their story went. But it didn't really. The problem with this book was not the characters or the writing style - it was the complete lack of storyline. Okay so there was a skeleton of a storyline, but it was just never really fulfilled. The book was great until I got about 75% of the way through, which is usually the point at which something BIG happens (you know, the main disruption of the story etc). But nothing really happened. After a big build-up, Darcy and Tom finally sleep together, and then the next day, Jamie (the twin) shows up. This is the point at which something explosive happens right? Wrong. Darcy couldn't resist spilling the gossip to her brother after about 5 minutes (even though Tom asked her not to), Jamie doesn't really react much and then Tom spills some other secrets he's been feeling guilty about and takes off. Not to be heard from again until 2 months later (also 2 pages later because it skips this period) when him and Darcy reunite and all is forgiven. It was very much an anti-climax and there was no crescendo of the story to speak of. Which was disappointing, since the build-up had been exciting and so well written. The ending itself fell too flat for me too; Jamie was suddenly super happy about Tom and Darcy being together, the twins split the inheritance money from the cottage sale with Tom, Tom was planning to propose and Jamie was likely going to end up with Darcy's best friend. If you've ever read my book reviews before, you'll know I HATE when authors try and end everything with a perfect happily ever after. The ones where every single character get a perfect ending and everyone is eating a cake filled with rainbows and smiles. It's very lazy writing if you ask me and totally undermines all the good writing the author had done in the first three quarters of the book. Because it wasn't just a love story; the book also explored ideas of grief and fear and reservations and how your upbringing affects your life. Darcy also had a heart condition which added an interesting dimension to not only her character but also to her relationship with Jamie. I would've liked to see Jamie himself in the story a little bit more (rather than just in Darcy's memories/thoughts) and to have learned more about the twin's relationship in the present, but I guess the author took the decision to focus more on the relationship with Tom. If it had all ended a little more realistically (and true to the rest of the book) then I would've said it was a relationship story worth telling.

Now this one was extra fun, because me and the girls read this as part of a virtual lockdown book club where we all read it at the same time and caught up to discuss every 100 pages or so. A highly recommendable lockdown activity if anyone else fancies it! And this was a great book to start it with. The Flat Share can perfectly be summed up in 2 sentences: Tiffy and Leon share a bed. Tiffy and Leon have never met. Naturally, I was intrigued by the front cover alone! The actual story however, is a lot deeper and more complex than it initially sounds. When quiet, thoughtful and brooding nurse Leon is strapped for cash and needing to pay for a lawyer to get his wrongly-imprisoned brother out of jail, he advertises a flat share with a difference. He works nights and stays at his girlfriend, Kay's house at the weekend so the one-bedroom flat would essentially be free for the time that a 9-5 worker would be there. The 9-5 worker who answers his advert (hopeful he isn't a serial killer or a pervert) is the even-more-strapped-for-cash, Tiffy. A quirky, chatty lover of clashing outfits, Tiffy is in a bind having broken up with her on-again-off-again boyfriend Justin and needs to move out of his flat, pronto. Their bed-sharing arrangement may be unusual, but it's preferable over the other options available for £350 in central London! So having never met her new roommate, Tiffy moves in. And what begins to blossom is a beautiful but quiet and understated friendship between the two kindred spirits through a variety of Post-it notes, thoughtfully left dinner leftovers and baked goods. On its surface, this book was about a quirky living arrangement. But its themes were so much more complex and hard-hitting. Tiffy's last relationship wasn't just unhealthy but also emotionally abusive, which is revealed slowly as she begins to come to terms with it herself - an element that felt very honest. "He never hit me or anything like that" was a line that rung particularly true, with many women not realising they're in abusive relationships because they centre around gaslighting and manipulation as opposed to punching and slapping. On the other hand, Leon's wrongly-imprisoned brother is not just a victim of bad luck but also a victim of the injustices and discriminatory elements of the judicial system (since Leon and Richie are both mixed-race and working class). It initially feels as though these two lost souls have found each other by accident. But if you've ever read any of my other book reviews (or other life blog posts), you'll know that I don't believe in accidents. From her crafty DIY eye that helps him make more money, to his gentle kindness that helps her realise how she should be treated, Tiffy and Leon help each other in more ways than they could know. Oh and did I mention that Tiffy's best friend is a top barrister? Told through alternating chapters that are beautifully written from each character's point of view, the author manages to completely capture the essence of each of them. Even down to the writing style, with Tiffy's chapters being filled with long descriptive sentences and Leon's being made up of succinct thoughts and dialogue. There were some really funny one-liners in there too (especially from Leon) and it was great to see the same situation unfold from two different standpoints. There were a few obvious holes you could poke in the story, like how the arrangement could've easily avoided bed sharing through some kind of sofa bed, or the fact that Leon's favourite patient at his work is supposed to be 7 but talks and articulates thoughts like a 31 year old. But we'll allow it one or two unbelievable elements! Overall, this book was excellently written and was a captivating story about how healing doesn't happen overnight, but sometimes the universe gives you just the right person to do it with.

I got through this book at lightening speed which usually means one of two things; either the book was amazing and un-put-down-able or it was awful and I wanted to finish it as quickly as possible. This book was VERY much the latter. The second book to be read as part of our lockdown book club, Hot Mess doesn't give much of the plot away from the blurb. Simply that Ellie Knight is essentially the next Bridget Jones (overweight in a "fun" way, tragically single and doesn't particularly have her shit together). And given that the reviews on the back of the book describe it as "laugh-out-loud" and "the funniest thing I have read in a long time", you'd have high hopes right? Well, clearly those reviewers were either paid a lot of money for their words, or they were on crack when they read this book. I have read genuinely funny books that have you trying to control your laughter when you read them in public, and this was soooooooo far from that I can't even explain. There were one or two mildly amusing anecdotes and dating analogies, but mostly, the storylines were far-fetched, clichéd and lazy. Lazy is a great word for the book as a whole actually. Lucy Vine is potentially the laziest author I've ever come across. Her characters were stereotypical and over the top, the writing style was juvenile and the commentary was unrealistic (every man and his dog is commenting on how tragic and single Ellie is when she's actually only come out of a serious, mortgage-sharing relationship a year ago and she's 29). I kind of saw what the author was trying to do. She was trying to be "woke" on issues such as feminism and modern attitudes to sexuality. She was trying to make "hilariously" unrealistic situations a reality. The problem was that she failed miserably. The comments on feminism came across as though she thought it was what she should put rather than what she actually felt and her observations on situations like men telling women to smile were nothing but wishy-washy. As for the unrealistic situations, that's exactly what they came across as. Not in an 'omg I can't believe that actually happened' kind of way, but in a 'that would clearly NEVER happen' kind of way that felt ridiculous at best and frustrating at worst. Like when Ellie takes her 60 year old Dad who wants to get back into dating to his first ever cocktail bar for his birthday (upon his request) and she's worried it will be awful and he'll hate it. But then the bouncer spots them in the queue, sends them straight through and stays in the bar with them for the rest of the night, the barmaid pays for their drinks all night (and also sits with them for the entirety) and then people start randomly joining them because her dad just seems so amazing. It was honestly laughable, but not in the kind of way that I hope to laugh at a book. As for the actual storyline, it's simply a book about a 29 year old woman (not as old as the author tried to make out btw) who's been single for a year and is attempting (yet failing) to get her life together. She goes on a number of tinder dates, secretly fancies her flat mate, has a childhood best friend who's always been a bit in love with her, lives in a shitty flat that she wants to get out of, and works in a job that doesn't really fulfil her. Naturally, some woman came up to her at a party and presented her with a job opportunity despite not knowing her and not having spoken to her for more than 3 minutes, because that was just the way this book seemed to operate. She slept with her flat mate and then he confessed his undying love for her without any kind of build-up. She and her best friend had a massive 'plot-turning' fight over literally nothing. Everything that happened (which really wasn't a lot) just happened too quickly without any effort by the author to actually develop or nurture a story. And also, it came across like the author just wanted to write a flimsy dating book and her editor said it needed a serious element to make it resonate with people so she had Ellie's mum die a year prior. But then just left it at that, rather than attempt to explore the complexities of grief in ways I've seen other books do rather well. Ellie's sister was a bitch who couldn't care less, her dad was raring and ready to date again only a year later and Ellie herself seemingly just used the whole situation to justify cheating on her perfectly lovely (at the time) boyfriend before breaking up with him at the funeral. A vague attempt at giving Ellie some more depth, only served to show her as a self-sabotaging woman worthy of equal parts pity and contempt. And while we're talking about the dad, there are huge chapters of "book" that he's written and sent to Ellie, that the author forces us to read. A book that's a supposed parody of 50 shades of grey and is deliberately in the worst, most-underdeveloped writing style ever. All it proved to me was that the author was capable of writing even worse drivel than the book itself, and the parody pages had me skipping bits faster than the speed of light. The one tiny bit of respect I have for Lucy Vine is thanks to the fact that the book ended with Ellie realising she really is happy single - and staying that way. Obviously every other character was coupled up clumsily, unrealistically and in the laziest way possible, but I'll give one shred of praise for the message that women don't need boyfriends to be happy. They do somehow randomly win art competitions that award them enough money to invest in their own gallery AND purchase property on their own (both in central London) apparently, but that's a rant for another time.

Since we were reading two fluffy books in a row as part of book club, I fancied something different, just for me. And I went with a book that was super different than anything I've read before and one that I've had on my shelf for ages. My mum always buys me a book for my birthdays and Christmas' by an author called Jenni/Jenny/Jennifer and A history of Britain in 21 women was a rare example of an author with the same spelling as me! This book was exactly what it said on the tin; a biographical history book based on 21 women deemed by Jenni Murray (presenter of Woman's Hour and pronounced feminist) to be the most notable in our country's history. So it starts way back with Boadicea, continues through Jane Austen and Emmeline Pankhurst before reaching the present day with the likes of Nicola Sturgeon. Queens, astronomers, composers, writers, activists; this book encapsulated everything I believe about women and feminism. That feminism means doing and being whatever and whoever we want. And the very first thing it highlighted to me, is how ignorant I am and how lacking our education system is. I'd never even heard of most of the women on the list and when being taught about suffrage, we weren't even taught that there were two camps (the suffragists and the suffragettes). The next thing that the book did was anger me. I felt angry for all of the women before me who had far fewer rights and privileges and choices, and I felt angry for the women around me now for all of the inequalities that we still suffer. I mean, Mary Somerville (prominent 19th century scientist) had to have her husband read her scientific paper to the Royal Society because women weren't permitted to attend meetings, for crying out loud. The next thing that the book did was delight me. It was so fascinating to read about the colourful lives of these amazing women, and so interesting to learn that a lot of them were interconnected; Mary Somerville tutored Ada Lovelace (first computer programmer), and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (first female doctor, surgeon and mayor) was the sister of Millicent Garrett Fawcett (leader of the suffragists). The author didn't just regurgitate facts either. I loved the thread of her own voice and the sharpness of her feminism that was woven throughout the book. At one point, she was discussing the two different believed versions of a speech that Queen Elizabeth I supposedly gave - one was far more fiercely feminist than the other and the author said she liked to believe that was the one she delivered (I do too). This book was far from an easy read though and it's not exactly one I'd recommend to take on holiday to enjoy by the pool. There were a lot of facts and names and dates to take in, and there was one particularly gory chapter describing a mastectomy before anaesthetic was invented. I felt I owed it to the brave, brave woman who experienced it to be brave enough to read it in its entirety but my god it was hard. I did like that this was a dip-into-it-when-you-fancy kind of book though. Each chapter was dedicated to a different woman so I wouldn't recommend leaving it mid-chapter, but a chapter at a time made for a nice pace. I learnt a lot from this book and it made me cry on a number of occasions, both for women's losses and challenges as well as their strength and triumphs. It was written with a beautiful blend of warmth and scepticism and reaffirmed a number of things I already believed. That from challenge comes change, that men must be feminists if we're ever to achieve equality and that if you're not fierce in your feminism then it's because you're not paying attention.

After reading a miserably awful book (like Hot Mess), I always turn to authors that I can trust. And having loved Maybe in another life and One true loves, I trusted Taylor Jenkins Reid to deliver once again. This time, I went for her debut novel, Forever, interrupted, which introduces us to Ben and Elsie as they discuss whether or not she'll be changing her last name, having eloped and married after a whirlwind 6 month romance. But this book starts where most books end; with the happily ever after. Because in chapter 1, Ben is tragically killed in an accident while out on his bike, and Elsie is left a widow after only 9 days of wedded bliss. And while she may technically be Ben's next of kin, that's not how his other next of kin, (his mother Susan) sees it, having never met or heard of Elsie before. What ensues is a non-linear story of parallels, as the chapters alternate between two timelines, generally 6 months apart; the story of Elsie and Ben and the story of Elsie after Ben. I like the way the author tangles the two together, with similarities such as Elsie locking herself out of her apartment after meeting with the funeral directors, and her doing the same thing on her first date with Ben. And I felt myself going through the stages of grief right alongside Elsie, the main one being shock and disbelief that Ben would no longer be around because you grew to love him more, the more you find out about their love story. I will highlight though that this was a love story, not a marriage and barely even a relationship. The author does a good job of conveying the deep and passionate love the two felt for each other in such a short space of time, but for me it fell a little on the unrealistic side. In that time, you haven't had chance to go through challenges or hardships together, you haven't looked after each other while ill, you haven't celebrated birthdays or Christmases and if you haven't met each other's families then you haven't really integrated with each other. I also struggled with the substance of their connection. I got that they had this raging lust for each other and that they were head-over-heels, but they didn't seem to argue or challenge each other (apart from on only 2 occasions where Elsie basically emotionally manipulates Ben). There was a sense of their compatibility and things they had in common, but a lot of their chats were simply too idealistic for me and their discussions about the future were not thought-out enough. They were quite clearly in the honeymoon phase; all couples are madly in love after 6 months and wanting to spend every minute of every day together. These two were just crazy enough to get married while in that stage! Sadly, I felt like if they'd been given time, they may not have ended happily ever after anyway. Well, that was until I reached the end of the book and got to the acknowledgments, where the author thanks her husband for teaching her that a perfectly sane woman can fall madly in love and get married in a matter of months. So maybe the love story is more realistic than I first thought! For me though, the real story of this book was the one on the other timeline; the one of Elsie after Ben. There are so many beautifully complicated ideas about grief and suffering and the way that such a huge loss affects you. It's a complex idea to lose someone so early on; you haven't formed that level of attachment but I suppose you grieve more for all the things they could've been/had/done rather than the hole they leave behind. The way that Elsie and Susan are able to bond over it and find solace in each other is really lovely, although Susan did a bit of a 180 too quickly for me. In the days after Ben dies, she's awful to Elsie and completely rejects her, but then comes back out of the blue a couple of months later and wants to be best friends. Personally, I would've liked to see this as more of a gradual process, but I think it worked well that the author skipped a couple of months so that we could see the later stages of grief, rather than when you're completely consumed by it. Ultimately, I did like this book. I could tell it was a debut novel, as it isn't as sophisticated as her later works and lacks the same level of finesse, but it's a lovely story about love and loss, grieving and healing, and learning to live again, even if it now looks a little different than you used to picture.