Theresa Smith's Blog, page 36
July 24, 2022
Book Review: Notes on Heartbreak by Annie Lord
Dark, fierce and raw, Notes on Heartbreak is a love story told in reverse, starting with a devastating and unexpected break-up.
As Annie Lord reels from a broken heart, her stunning memoir revisits the past, from the moment she first fell in love, the shared in-jokes and intertwining of a long-term relationship, to the months that saw the slow erosion of a bond five years in the making. Alongside her memories, Annie charts her attempts to move on, from disastrous rebound sex to sending ill-advised nudes, stalking her ex’s new girlfriend on Instagram and the sharp indignity of being ghosted.
This stunning exploration of love and heartbreak from cult journalist and Vogue columnist Annie Lord, is so much more than a book about one singular break-up. It is an unflinchingly honest yet lyrical meditation on the simultaneous joy and pain of being in love that will resonate with anyone who has ever nursed a broken heart. It’s a book about the best and worst of love: the euphoric and the painful, the beautiful and the messy.
Published by Hachette Australia – Trapeze
Released 28th July 2022
My Thoughts:One of the best things about being a book reviewer is receiving books from publishers that I would not normally have chosen for myself. Books that wouldn’t have even been on my radar. I know a lot of reviewers who don’t like this, but for me, many of these books have turned out to be the absolute best of reads. Notes on Heartbreak is exactly one of these. It’s a memoir, I guess, which is usually a hard no from me, but then it doesn’t read like a memoir, and it doesn’t follow the usual formula for memoirs either, and in some ways, it also nudges into self-help without actually being a self-help book. It reads like a novel, which was intuitively appealing to me, at times giving me Bridget Jones feels yet knowing all the while that, unlike Bridget Jones Diary, this was all true, not made up, and all the more powerful for it. To lay yourself open like this, it’s entirely impressive, and to do so with such introspection and intelligence as well. Annie Lord can write, wow, can she ever, and this book…well, it’s affected me more than I could have ever anticipated.
It actually took me more than a week to read Notes on Heartbreak, which is quite a long time for me. I told myself it was because the book was almost four hundred pages long and I had been reading it in a week where I was working almost 38 hours and juggling way too many balls at once. Yet, I regularly work weeks like this and my whole life is about juggling, so why, with a book I was enjoying so much, was it taking me so long to read? I was definitely lingering over it and taking my time with it, because despite reading like a novel, it was still non-fiction and that, for some reason, always slows my reading down by at least twenty-five percent, at a minimum. But none of these things are why it was taking me so long. The truth of it is that this book was unstitching me, tugging at things I thought I’d dealt with and resonating with me to the point of distraction. It’s stirred up all these thoughts within me and even though I was desperate to keep reading it and just get on with it, I would dip in and out and then wander around with my thoughts for ages before repeating the process.
They say the best books are the ones that make you feel, that resonate, that reach out beyond their pages to you. I don’t know if this book will mean as much to you as it did to me. For me, it became about me, as much as it was about Annie. If you haven’t had a breakup ever, or recently, it might not be of interest at all. Or maybe, like me, you’ll think you’re over your breakup and that reading this book will be a bit of entertainment while drinking tea and taking a break from life. Maybe, like me, you will find yourself completely undone for the duration. In 2020, within the thick of Covid lockdowns, my marriage ended. It’s been almost two years now, and my life is so much better than I ever thought it would be, and despite the pain and anger that the end brought to my life, and to that of my almost adult children, I have no regrets. And yet, I still have times of crippling grief, when I have to pull my car over because I’m inexplicably crying, or my fingers go to automatically text a number that is no longer in my favourites and I feel overcome with the loss of no longer being able to do that. What I loved about Notes on Heartbreak is that as Annie discovers and shares with such a raw and unbreakable truth is that this is okay. You don’t just one day wake up over it. It’s a process and sometimes that process takes a long time, stretching even into the time when you think you’re completely fine and your heart is mostly healed.
“Perhaps no one ever forgets anyone. We keep parts of them inside us forever and they come out in the moments we need them. Like ghosts who can’t find their way to the afterlife.”
Reading this book has been so cathartic. I spent twenty-seven years in a relationship with a man who I fell in love with as a teenager, who I had three children with, who I shaped my life around. Moving on, no matter how much I wanted it, has been hard. And until reading this book I kept thinking to myself, what is wrong with you, why does this bother you still, or upset you, or hold you back…why, why, why, do you still feel anything at all about this when you wanted it so badly. Because, twenty-seven years is a long time, and despite the indifference and anger that peppered the years, that one person was, throughout, my confidant, the one who shouldered the burden of life that I couldn’t carry. He was my person. And that’s hard to let go of. I feel like reading Notes on Heartbreak has been the most effective therapy I’ve ever had. Truly. This book is an amazing gift. I love how Annie talks about moving on to someone new, how that in itself is a process. The part I love the most though is how she rediscovers herself and starts to make all these realisations about the many ways in which she lost herself and didn’t take care of herself throughout the relationship. This journey back to your own self is the part about the last two years that I have enjoyed the most and like Annie, the support of my friends along the way has been invaluable beyond words.
“I thought love had to come from a boyfriend, but you can find it in friends too. They bolster me and build me up, and being with them is like being in a support group. Like having a bunch of sponsors you can call on when they’re needed.”
I am now at the point where I am moving onto to someone else, someone quite amazing, and yet, at least once every day I am terrified of it and wonder how long it will take me to botch it up and whether it’s better to just call it a day before someone gets hurt. This is okay too. I won’t always feel this way. I just need to trust the process and myself. The heart is a muscle after all, it’s strong and can withstand much, and really, if you’re lucky enough to find someone who it beats in time with, then that has to be worth the risk. At the end of the day, I am more in tune with myself now than I ever have been before and the power of that is phenomenal. You’ll have to forgive me for this self-indulgent ramble that is more reflective essay than book review, but before I was a reviewer, I was a writer, and sometimes certain books just bring that out in me. Notes on Heartbreak has prompted me to compile my own notes on heartbreak – and recovery. This is definitely an example of the universe handing you the right book at the right time.
“And it’s through this inner dialogue that you become conscious of yourself as someone you can talk to and have a relationship with. I look at her now in that mirror and she’s me and I am her, and although we’re the same thing I see that we can talk to each other even if I will always know what’s coming because she, her, me, is the only thing I can count on to be there for the whole of my life.”
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
#NotesonHeartbreak
July 21, 2022
The Week That Was…
Joke of the week:
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What I’ve been watching:
I loved this new Netflix adaptation of Persuasion by Jane Austen. It was fresh, quite funny, and visually stunning. Dakota Johnson was sublime as Anne Elliott. I think people need to embrace new adaptations with an open mind to interpretation. It would be very boring if every new adaptation were rigidly the same. And I guarantee this will introduce a whole new group of readers, such as my 20 year old daughter, to Austen’s work, just as the latest Emma adaptation did, and I can’t see anything wrong with gaining new Austen readers!
From The Crown to this. Claire Foy is stunning in this miniseries about the toxic marriage and very public divorce between the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. Gripping and infuriating, I was shocked at how the law allowed such favour to the Duke and encouraged open humiliation for the Duchess. It is said the Duchess of Argyll was the first woman to be publicly shamed by the media. She was by no means faultless, but she didn’t deserve the treatment she was subjected to after such a cruel marriage. Highly recommend this one.
I adored the first season of Rutherford Falls so I was thrilled to see the second season pop up. Good fun with sharp wit.~~~
What I’ve been reading:
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Until next week… 
July 17, 2022
Book Review: Elektra by Jennifer Saint
An exciting and equally lyrical new retelling from Jennifer Saint, the Sunday Times bestselling author of ARIADNE.
Clytemnestra
The sister of Helen, wife of Agamemnon – her hopes of averting the curse are dashed when her sister is taken to Troy by the feckless Paris. Her husband raises a great army against them and determines to win, whatever the cost.
Cassandra
Princess of Troy, cursed by Apollo to see the future but never to be believed when she speaks of it. She is powerless in her knowledge that the city will fall.
Elektra
The youngest daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, Elektra is horrified by the bloodletting of her kin. But can she escape the curse, or is her own destiny also bound by violence?
Published by Hachette Australia – Wildfire
Released April 2022
My Thoughts:The Ancient Greeks sure have a handle on maintaining a family grudge down through the generations. In Elektra, Jennifer Saint reimagines the story of Helen of Troy through the perspectives of the women from the House of Atreus, along with Cassandra of Troy. The resultant novel is spellbinding, gripping in its unflinching portrayal of female rage, vengeance, Gods and mortals, ancient curses, and the sacrifices and spoils of war.
‘I don’t stop her from embracing me. Her hair is soft against my cheek. Menelaus lived in a humble tent on a foreign shore for ten years to have her in his arms again: men beyond number died for it; my husband murdered his own daughter for the privilege of winning Helen back. In these long years, she has become something other than herself, more than one woman could be. I can’t reconcile all that bloodshed with my sister.’
I quite enjoyed Jennifer Saint’s first novel, Ariadne, but I absolutely loved this second one. She has gone from strength to strength between these two novels and I am filled with anticipation for what she has up next for us. Retellings of Greek mythology have become popular in recent years, and I feel that Jennifer Saint has firmly placed herself into the inner circle for this sub-genre. She’s an author I feel I can confidently rely on for a masterful retelling. She reimagines the lives of the women of ancient Greece with such vividity and realism, allowing an accessibility to these ancient myths that has previously been elusive. Female rage has never been so on point.
Personally, I loved Cassandra the most in this novel and Elektra the least, with Clytemnestra somewhere in between. Each perspective was written to provide a uniquely personalised gaze upon the same story, to offer a different view of the men who were warring and controlling the destinies of these women. I particularly liked the ending, where the curse upon the House of Atreus was played out with heartbreaking intensity.
I highly recommend this novel. Note, Elektra is not a follow on from Ariadne, the two are standalone stories.
*Book 9 in my 22 in 2022 challenge*
July 16, 2022
The Week That Was…
Joke of the week:
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What I’ve been watching:
A brilliant film and such a solid adaptation of the book.~~~
What I’ve been reading:
A hard #dnf from me. Possibly one of the most pointless books I’ve ever come across.Magnificent!~~~
Until next week…
July 14, 2022
Book Review: Young Women by Jessica Moor
A vivid, bold and compelling new novel of female friendship and what it means to be a young woman after MeToo, from one of the most exciting young novelists writing today.
Everyone’s got that history, I guess. Everyone’s got a story.
When Emily meets the enigmatic and dazzling actress Tamsin, her life changes. Drawn into Tamsin’s world of Soho living, boozy dinners, and cocktails at impossibly expensive bars, Emily’s life shifts from black and white to technicolour and the two women become inseparable.
Tamsin is the friend Emily has always longed for; beautiful, fun, intelligent and mysterious and soon Emily is neglecting her previous life – her work assisting vulnerable women, her old friend Lucy – to bask in her glow. But when a bombshell news article about a decades-old sexual assault case breaks, Emily realises that Tamsin has been hiding a secret about her own past. Something that threatens to unravel everything.
Young Women is a razor-sharp novel that slices to the heart of our most important relationships, and asks how complicit we all are in this world built for men.
Published by Allen & Unwin – Bonnier (Manilla)
Released 5th July 2022
My Thoughts:Beautifully written, compelling and thought provoking, Young Women is a novel that I hope becomes the next one that everyone is talking about. Emily and Tamsin are in their mid-twenties, navigating their way through a world that is pushing back against the patriarchy. This is a post-MeToo story, but it’s not ‘just another’ MeToo story, if that makes sense. It’s more of a story about having agency over your own experiences. Having the right to make a call about what to do with your own story, without feeling the imposed pressure to act within the defined parameters of how others think you should act.
I really liked how the author examined the manner in which women can take ownership over other women’s experiences. A potentially contentious topic, but she handled it beautifully within this novel. It’s such a critical issue, the way in which we cleave to a hashtag, make it our own, judge, and join the cause, even if we have the best of intentions, are we doing more harm than good? Yes, the anger is real, but my anger doesn’t necessarily have to become your anger, and your trauma doesn’t necessarily have to be considered within the same framework as mine. Do our reactions have to be the same, and am I wrong if my reaction differs to yours, and vice versa. I’m not sure if I’m articulating this in the way that does the novel the justice it deserves, but suffice to say, this is a powerful and impactful read that I highly recommend. Incredibly thought provoking, an ideal pick for book clubs.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
July 12, 2022
Book Review: Joan by Katherine J. Chen
Girl. Warrior. Heretic. Saint?
France is mired in a losing war against England. Its people are starving. Its king is in hiding. Yet out of the chaos, an unlikely heroine emerges.
Reckless, steel-willed and brilliant, Joan has survived a childhood steeped in both joy and violence to claim an extraordinary – and fragile – position at the head of the French army. The battlefield and the royal court are full of dangers and Joan finds herself under suspicion from all sides – as well as under threat from her own ambition.
With unforgettably vivid characters and propulsive storytelling, Joan is a thrilling epic, a triumph of historical fiction, and a feminist celebration of one remarkable – and remarkably real – woman who left an indelible mark on history.
Published by Hachette Australia – Hodder & Stoughton
Released 12th July 2022
My Thoughts:I do really love a good feminist retelling. I know that some people are hesitant when it comes to fictional retellings of the lives and doings of real people, but I’m not one of them. Particularly when it is someone as legendary as Joan of Arc, I was nothing but filled with anticipation for this novel and it more than lived up to my own personal expectations.
‘Head up. Shoulders back. Your heart may be breaking, but you don’t let it show, not on your face or in your eyes. You walk with a spring in your step toward a destination yet unknown.’
There is so much research that has gone into this novel that is evident throughout the story. Not just on Joan herself, but also on the political, religious, and social history of the era. I felt immersed into both the period and the location, and subsequently, became highly invested in the story. It’s also written beautifully, told from Joan’s perspective, yet all encompassing. This retelling of Joan of Arc is how I’d like to think she actually was: a flesh and blood woman, courageous, driven by a multitude of motivations. Bravo, five stars for a brilliant read. I laughed, cried, and felt so much all the way through. Highly recommended.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
July 9, 2022
The Week That Was…
Joke of the week:
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What Zeus has been doing:
Always needs to make a spectacle of himself…
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What I’ve been watching:
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Beautiful book mail:
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What I’ve been reading:
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Until next week…
July 7, 2022
Book Review: I’m Sorry You Feel that Way by Rebecca Wait
Immensely readable and gorgeously comic, this is Rebecca’s finest novel yet.
For Alice and Hanna, saint and sinner, growing up is a trial. There is their mother, who takes a divide and conquer approach to child-rearing, and their father, who takes an absent one. There is their older brother Michael, whose disapproval is a force to be reckoned with. There is the catastrophe that is never spoken of, but which has shaped everything.
As adults, Alice and Hanna must deal with disappointments in work and in love as well as increasingly complicated family tensions, and lives that look dismayingly dissimilar to what they’d intended. They must look for a way to repair their own fractured relationship, and they must finally choose their own approach to their dominant mother: submit or burn the house down. And they must decide at last whether life is really anything more than (as Hanna would have it) a tragedy with a few hilarious moments.
Published by Hachette Australia – Riverrun
Released 8th July 2022
My Thoughts:This is one of those novels that is entirely driven by character. The plot is the family and where they are and how they got there. We begin at a funeral, a darkly comedic affair that immediately sets the tone of the novel. I loved it and was instantly hooked. From there, we move back and forth, and between the perspectives of each family member, each chapter forming a crucial piece within the story of this dysfunctional family. I adored the alternating perspectives, the author cleverly showing us how one person’s truth can be wildly coloured by another’s own experiences and interpretations.
I veered throughout between liking and loathing each character for varied reasons, but overall, I came to understand them all, and consequently, form an attachment to them all. I particularly loved Alice and Hanna, their relationship as twins not your regular sort, in fact, almost with a divide between them that seemed exacerbated by being twins rather than enhanced by it. The mother force within this novel was quite tangible and toxic, and I appreciated so much how the author showed the way in which a lack of nurturing can have inter-generational consequences. There was much to ponder on whilst reading this one.
Essentially, the novel orbits around mental illness within families and there’s a precision to the way in which the author weaves this into the very fabric of each family member’s psyche. It’s a story about impact and reverberation, misplaced intentions, and the many things we repress, hide, and refuse to see until they implode. Fresh and unique, I highly recommend this one.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
July 5, 2022
Book Review: The Brightest Star by Emma Harcourt
1496
It is the height of the Renaissance and its flowering of intellectual and artistic endeavour, but the city state of Florence is in the grip of fundamentalist preacher Friar Girolamo Savonarola. Its good people believe the Lord speaks through him, just as certainly as the Sun circles the Earth.
For Leonarda Lunetta, eldest daughter of the learned Signore Vincenzio Fusili, religion is not as interesting as the books she shares with her beloved father. Reading is an escape from the ridicule flung her way, for Luna is not like other girls. She was born with a misshapen leg and that, and her passion for intellectual pursuits alters how society sees her and how she sees the world.
Luna wants to know, to learn, to become an astronomer who charts the night sky – certainly not the dutiful, marriageable daughter all of Florence society insists upon. So, when Luna meets astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, she is not surprised that his heretical beliefs confirm her view that the world is not as it is presented – or how it could be. These dangerous ideas bring her into conflict with the preacher Savonarola, and her future is changed irrevocably as politics, extremism and belief systems ignite in a dangerous conflagration.
Luna is a woman born out of time, the brightest star of her generation, but can she reconcile the girl of her father’s making with this new version of herself? And if she does, will Renaissance Italy prove too perilous and dark a place for a free-thinking woman?
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia – HQ Fiction AU
Released 6th July 2022
My Thoughts:Florence is one of my favourite settings for a novel and the Renaissance is one of my favourite eras, so it should come as no surprise that I was drawn to this latest release by Emma Harcourt, The Brightest Star. The events unfold during the dark period upon which Florence was within the grips of the extremist Savonarola, a preacher who sacked the city, expelled the Medici’s, destroyed so much art and so many books, all in the name of religious purity. At the time of this story, the Medici’s are in exile and plotting with loyalists to raise an army to return. The atmosphere within Florence is one of volatility, fear an ever-present undercurrent for families of means as they wait for Savonarola to cast his eyes their way for the slightest of provocations. To date, I had only read up to the period where the Medici’s were exiled, so I found it quite fascinating to dive into this period through fiction. I thought the tensions and volatility were conveyed through the narrative with precision, keeping the reader on edge, a certain sense of doom pervading all and giving you cause to brace yourself for what you surely knew was inevitable.
Luna is the eldest child of one of Florence’s leading families. Propelled by guilt, her father has nurtured her precocious mind through the provision of an education that is usually reserved for sons. It is only as Luna approaches adulthood that he begins to rue his decision, viewing her educated mind as much of a repellent for suitable husbands and a secure future as her deformed leg. As Luna becomes increasingly aware of the fate her father plans for her, she resists as much as she can, with the ultimate and most tragic of consequences. But it is in the aftermath of tragedy that Luna realises her full potential. I particularly enjoyed these later scenes where Luna is coming to terms with her grief whilst grappling with a yearning for knowledge that may not be barred to her any longer within her newfound circumstances. The early ideas of female agency tied in with female hysteria and the ‘harmfulness’ of educating women were tightly woven into the narrative, giving a well fleshed out story that reflected the politics of 15th century Florentine society within the context of a woman born a step out of her own time.
‘It was wrong that women were damned and silenced for expressing any of the glorious and complicated emotions they felt.’
Overall, I found The Brightest Star to be a most engaging read, tense and interesting, highlighting an era of history that has not been overly plundered through fiction. Highly recommended.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
June 30, 2022
Book Review: Someone Else’s Child by Kylie Orr
A gripping contemporary novel from a magnificent new talent that tackles the almost unbreakable loyalty of female friendships, the generosity of community and the lengths we will go to save a child.
Ren will do anything for her best friend, Anna. The news that Anna’s daughter Charlotte has terminal brain cancer sends them on a desperate hunt for a cure and their only hope lies in an expensive European drug trial.
Ren jumps on board Anna’s fundraising efforts, willing to put everything on the line – her reputation in their close-knit community and all the money she can beg or borrow – to secure Charlotte’s place. When the local charity drive quickly becomes a nationwide campaign, townspeople start asking questions about the trial. Questions Ren can’t answer.
The more she uncovers, the more Ren realises the truth is darker than she could ever imagine. Are there any lines that won’t be crossed in their fight for Charlotte?
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia – HQ Fiction AU
Released June 2022
My Thoughts:I found this to be an impressive debut. Kylie Orr has crafted a compelling domestic thriller that digs deep into female friendship, raising questions of loyalty versus naivety and just how far one should go before they start asking questions about something that doesn’t sit right with them. I have to say, I have never been a fan of the go-fund-me movement. It’s stories like this one that make you realise that you just need to be careful about what you are putting your money into. Not everything can be taken at face value.
This is one of those tricky novels where I’d love to dig in and really discuss the themes at length, however, that would completely spoil the novel for you all. Suffice to say, even though I could see some writing on the wall, as I did not like Anna one bit right from the start, I certainly didn’t see everything that Kylie Orr had coming for us. One aspect of this story that I particularly liked was the focus towards the end, not so much on why a certain person did what they did and what might have been wrong with them to do such things, but more on the consequences of their actions rippling out and affecting those involved. The trauma that one person can inflict upon so many others through their actions: lasting, difficult to overcome and move on from and impossible to forgive sort of trauma. I liked how the author explored this to a certain degree within her ending.
A must read for fans of domestic thrillers. I could see this one translating well to the small screen as a compelling TV series.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
