Quickfire mini-reviews (grown-up books!)
Lisa Owens’s Not Working is a funny and neatly-observed tale about a woman in her late twenties who quits her job to ‘find herself’ and figure out ‘what she really wants to do with her life’. Fortunately, she doesn’t decide she wants to be a writer – which is where I feared it was going – but instead we find ourselves questioning the idea of whether your work needs to be completely fulfilling, and what the trade-offs are. As someone fascinated by work and people’s relationships to it, I really enjoyed this.
The Other Side of Silence by Linda Gask is a memoir about depression by a psychiatrist, offering us a look at two sides of the fence. Gask draws on her own experience as well as what she’s seen with her patients, and provides insights into treatment and theories. A surprisingly quick read.
For your inner nerd, Set Phasers to Stun by Marcus Berkmann explores fifty years of Star Trek, although the bulk of the material focuses on the original series and The Next Generation with very little to say about later series in the franchise. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes gossip, but it’s also incredibly critical of many of the episodes and decisions made – which feels strange coming from a self-professed fan.
Liz Nugent’s Lying In Wait is one to zip through because you’ll need to know how it all turns out. The novel begins with a murder and skips on from there, with the narration alternating between an unbearably snobbish society wife, her son, and the dead girl’s sister. If you like your suburban gothic you’ll eat this up.
Fat Chance by Louise McSharry is an incredibly honest and inspiring memoir about growing up under tough circumstances, with an alcoholic mother, and also what it means to be ‘fat’ and what bodies are there for. Here’s a story we don’t hear very often: woman loses weight. Woman is praised for losing weight. Woman is losing weight because she has cancer. But it’s more common than you might think, and the idea of weight loss as only a ‘bad thing’ if one is of an ‘acceptable’ weight already is downright dangerous. If the ‘beach-ready body’ bullshit has crept its way inside your brain, have a read of this.
