Book-review post!
Books for adults that you might have heard about…
Jennifer Weiner – All Fall Down
I adored this book, a look at addiction to prescription medication. Allison Weiss seems to have it all – handsome husband, beautiful daughter, dream job, perfect house in the suburbs. In reality, the husband is selfish and distant (the extent of his ick-ness is not entirely appreciated by the text, I think), the daughter’s a brat, the ‘dream job’ involves being subjected to online harassment (in the way that women having thoughts online seems to promote), and her dad’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. Allison’s frustration and stress comes across all-too-authentically, and her use of prescription painkillers – first from her doctors, then ordered online – begins to seem understandable, even as it spirals out of control. Loved this. Well worth reading.
Judy Blume – In The Unlikely Event
New Judy Blume for adults! Joy! Loved this. The story takes place in the early 50s, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and is based on three real plane crashes that happened close to each other at that time, mysterious and unsettling. The central character is fifteen-year-old Miri, though we step inside a number of different heads, and the discussion around the plane crashes echoes the way adults talk to kids about all important issues – or rather, don’t. The period comes alive through all the tiny specific details, and the overall feeling is one of immense sympathy for all the characters. A delight to read.
(Related: myself and a number of other kidlit and writerly types talked to Sarah Bannan about why we love Judy Blume…)
Paula Hawkins – The Girl On The Train
Rachel drinks too much. She knows this. Every morning she takes the train to London and every evening she takes it home, to continue the fiction that she is still employed. And out of the window, where the train regularly stops, she sees the road she used to live on – the house where her husband still lives with his new wife. She sees another house, too – where a seemingly-perfect couple live. She names them, imagines their lives, and then one day she sees the wife kissing another man. The next week, the newspapers reveal that this woman’s gone missing – and Rachel is the only one who knows about this kiss and a possible suspect. She also knows she was in the area that evening – and can’t remember what happened. This is a gripping read, though not as amazingly-omg-breathtaking-brilliant as its ongoing presence in bestseller lists might suggest, and ticks several boxes for me (non-chronological storytelling, difficult women…).
Spoilerish thoughts:
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I’ve been thinking about this in relation to Gone Girl, another Big Hit, and its polar-opposite heroines. Amy is the kind of cool girl (or snarking-about-cool-girls cool girl) we think we want to be, until we realise, oh, jesus, no, that’s a step too far). Rachel is not – she’s a mess, and she’s been hurt, and she’s what we don’t want to be, but also fear we are (too sensitive, too melodramatic, too much). And she’s dealing with the turned-up-to-eleven version of what happens when there’s the man you love who’s keeping something from you or has wronged you and there’s some minor horror that really you’re overreacting about, that you’re gaslighted (gaslit?) about. And she’s validated in the end. This is not as gorgeously-written as Gone Girl, but I do think culturally it’s doing something that we seem to need or want, and I think that’s why it’s been doing so well. (That and success tends to breed more success.)
