Book-review post!

And back to some good ol’ book reviews – two YA here (one contemporary, one sci-fi/thriller), and two for grown-ups (one memoir, one contemporary women’s fiction).

Cat Clarke – Undone

Really enjoyed this latest book from Cat Clarke, who I have noted previously as being excellent at handling mean teenagers – they are messy and complicated and flawed and petty and screwed-up and very authentic. This book focuses on Jem, whose best friend Kai has just committed suicide after some rather nasty bullying and gossip at school. She’s furious, and grieving, and feels there’s nothing to live for – except revenge on the popular kids she blames for Kai’s death. And once that happens, she has a plan – to join Kai. This is a dark, dark twisty book, and very readable. Highly recommended.

Julie Cross – Tempest

I liked reading this – time travel, yay! – and it was especially nifty to see the idea of parallel/alternate timelines being created because of jumps made, playing around with the notion of multiverses. The main character, Jackson, is interesting, and there’s plenty of familial angst going on there alongside the stuff with his girlfriend, Holly. I wasn’t particularly keen on the ending (the entire sequence, not just ‘how it ends up’), but imagine I’ll check out the sequel at some stage.

Emma Forrest – Your Voice In My Head

This memoir explores both the loss of a trusted psychiatrist and the break-up of a relationship, and generally there is gorgeous writing and lots of angst and some really nice observations. I wanted to know more about her work alongside all the emotional trauma – the difficulties and/or successes of her writing, which is sort of casually alluded to – but I accept that this is a tad workaholicy of me. It’s an interesting read, and one which invites a lot of reflection as well as empathising.

Sarah Webb – The Memory Box

This follow-up to The Shoestring Club focuses on Pandora, Julia’s older sister. At the opening of the novel, we discover she’s been told she might have a hereditary cancer gene (their mother died of breast cancer) and the story follows her as she waits for the test results and begins to create a memory box for her daughter, Iris, all too conscious of the risks associated with a positive result on this test. On a birthday trip to Paris with her friends, she slips off to try to find Olivier, the father of her child – and the man she’s been keeping a secret, and keeping a secret from, for a decade. It doesn’t go as well as she’d hoped, to say the least. Back home, there are difficulties with her sensible boyfriend and the dramas created by his ex-wife and sulky daughter, and the Shoestring Club friendships are maintained in this book as we get more insight into Alex and her issues. This balances lighter topics with the more serious, and is a quick and engaging read.