Grief Is the Thing With Feathers - Max Porter

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There’s a feather on my pillow. 

Pillows are made of feathers, go to sleep.

It’s a big, black feather. 

Come and sleep in my bed. 

There’s a feather on your pillow too. 

Let’s leave the feathers where they are and sleep on the floor.


From what I can gather, Porter’s novella is based on the work of Ted Hughes. Crow: from the Life and Songs of the Crow is Hughe’s second and most ambitious phase of work, where he stated to look at “mythical and narrative sequences”. This work vaguely follows the life of a crow from it’s creation by God, through a nightmare, as it tries to make God’s creations “better” or more successful. Additionally it makes its way around the world in search of a female creator and often aids people. This is what Porter seems to be showing. 

This novella doesn’t seem to fit in either a fiction, non fiction, or poetry form, but it seems to be all encompassing. The story follows a family of three, two young boys and their father after their mother dies. They are joined by a crow who acts as a Mary Poppins-esque counsellor, threatening to stay until he is no longer needed. This novel explores how people experience grief and the many coping mechanisms people have to get through the darkness that is the death of a loved one. 

What I find is absolutely stunning about this novel, is it’s pace. I read this book in 45 minutes and throughout there was humour and truth, as well as absolute confusion. The switch between each of the three characters “Dad”, “Boys” and “Crow” means that the novel reads really quickly. There are one line “chapters” and the average is only about a page for each point of view. I also love the confusion of which child is talking. They’re memories mix and become one and you’re never aware of their names so it could just be anyone. 

This ambiguity also carries through to their mother. We don’t ever hear how she dies specifically which I think is part of the beauty of this novel. This reads as just an exploration of unspecified grief which makes it so relatable to anyone who’s experienced the emotion. And it also gives a normality to the feeling of grief. Everyone, no matter the cause of death, is allowed to grieve the one they’ve lost. There’s no level of severity, beneath which you’re not allowed to grieve. That would be silly. This book gives way for emotion to be freely experienced, explored through a majority male cast of characters. This is so important, especially in our current world, as I feel men are often expected not to show emotion. 

The crow in itself is interesting to me. The way in which Porter has written the crow is really intriguing as many of the early chapters don’t seem to make much sense on a first reading. Many of his chapters read like prose poetry and it’s only when you get to the end of the chapter that you understand what has been spoken about. For example, this is often his nightmare situations or his bad dreams, as well as his actions and stories from his past. I feel like I and many other readers, would gain more from a second reading of this novella. It takes a little while to sink in and even longer to really take in the severity and beauty of what Porter is trying to portray. Additionally, I feel like I maybe need to comprehend the time scale a little better as currently I believe that it skips forward in the second part due to the shift in the language of the boys, but then it shifts back to the innocent childlike language towards the end. 

Overall I think that Porter has written a really great novella with a hard hitting message, masked in humour and intrigue, that introduces a new age to the idea of the Crow, Ted Hughes and the freedom of emotion. This book is surely like nothing I’ve read before and I’m not sure I’m likely to read anything like it again for a long time. 

 Read more on this novella from Max Porter's Guardian interview here!

Total pages - 114
Total read time - 45 minutes
Rating /10 - 7

Recommend - Yes

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Fellside - M.R. Carey

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It’s a strange thing to wake up not knowing who you are. 

Jess Moulson - not thinking of herself by that name or any other - found herself lying in white sheets in a white room, overwhelmed by memories of predominantly red and yellow and orange. The colours merging and calving endlessly, out of control, billowing heat at her like she’d opened an over door too quickly and caught the full blast. 
Someone had just been talking to her with some urgency. She remembered the voices, low but coming from right up against her face. 

Her face… now she thought about it, her face felt very strange. She tried to ask one of the women in which who came and went why this way, but she couldn’t open her mouth very far, and when she did, she wasn’t able to make anything happen beyond a few clicks and rasping sounds which hurt her in coming out. 


M.R Carey has always been an author that I’ll recommend to anyone. His debut “The Girl With All the Gifts” is one of my favourite books. I’m not sure if Fellside will join that list just yet, but it’s definitely another incredibly written literary journey from Carey. It just reminded me of why I love his writing style. With an array of characters, intriguing dialogue and a plot that draws you in this book is definitely one to read. 

Fellside is a maximum security prison for women on the Yorkshire moors. And it’s definitely not the sort of place you’d want to end up. But for Jess there’s not really much of a choice as after she’s found guilty she could be spending the rest of her life on Goodall. And as she starts her sentence, she’s begins to hear voices,  eventually even seeing, the ghost of a little boy. 

Now this book is far more than something paranormal. I know that I pick up books and see ghost and think “oh god maybe not” and put it back. However the way that Carey uses this ghost like figure is incredibly interesting. There’s a whole lore behind this “other world” that Carey has created, where in you can pass into people’s dreams and affect them, but only when they’re asleep. When they’re awake they are guarded by individual towers. It’s also hard for this ghostly character to appear during daylight hours. I really like the integration of this other character who’s not even sure if they’re remembering things correctly. It adds a really nice tension as Jess seems to hold onto everything this ghost says, whilst as a reader you are often skeptical because you’re not entirely sure they know what they’re saying themselves. 

Jess’ character is a little like this throughout. She thinks she knows something, but doesn’t quite. At the beginning of the novel she is incredibly naive and her actions could be seen as childish. However as the novel progresses we see Jess start to develop more. She becomes knowledgable and strong willed, aware of the consequences of her actions. This is a nice contrast to someone like Harriet Grace, the inmate who essentially runs Goodall. She’s a very strong character, with an ability to manipulate others. She runs the drug company in this cell block and spends most of the novel trying to spread out into another block. Yet it is possible to say that Grace’s character is developed from bullying she experienced as a child, something we learn through another inmate, Shannon McBride. 

Yet it isn’t just a cast of females in this novel. Dennis Devlin is a guard, whilst also being on Grace’s payroll. The two of them have a strange relationship, almost to where Grace has him perfectly manipulated. It is mostly conjugal, with Grace switching straight back to business afterwards, and it is possible to see that Grace takes advantage of Devlin’s state of mind to manipulate him into doing what she wishes. But he’s also a strong character in his own way. He is authoritative and demands respect, perhaps why the inmates refer to him as the Devil. Yet if you take his addiction to pethidine, you could say he is sup riding weak, as well as reliant, on Dr Salazar, or Sally as he’s known. 

Sally was on of my favourite characters to read. By a long shot. He seems weak and miserable through quite a lot, yet with a drive to help people that is infectious. His relationship with Devlin is a supplier to a junkie, yet the latter is in control. Devlin abuses Sally throughout the book and treats him like he’s nothing, which seems like a bad thing to do to the person who’s delivering you drugs. Towards the end of the novel he is hell bent on revenge, something that I love in novels with a character as weak and beaten down as Dr Salazar. 

Carey’s writing style once again is fun and full of description that brings the story to life. Fellside is not The Girl With All the Gifts, but it is another great stand alone novel. In the time of the trilogy or the series, to have a good quality stand alone is something that is quite novel, pun intended. His ability to make me visualise something that I have never and probably will never experience is remarkable. I love being able to be transported to another world through literature and whilst this novel can be said to be a contemporary thriller, Fellside in itself is a whole other world, full of deceit, death and drug dealing. These intricate sub plots are vital to the story as every individual inmate has a story to tell, and I think it really fleshes out Goodall block as a whole to find out these stories. The alternating of character focus is seamless and interesting, with character chapters being left without a conclusion, only to be picked up on later. I don’t even feel like this is at all confusing as each character brings something new to a larger story which collides at the end of the novel. The ending of this novel as well… Just superb.

I know a lot of people have complained about this novel feeling slow and not having much to offer, but I’d say push through. I read this during a reading slump and it did take me much longer than anticipated. But I read the last 200 pages in about 3 hours which just proves that the ending picks up massively from the beginning. The beginning is necessary to set up Jess’ case. The story relies on the reader knowing what Jess knows, as well as having their own suspicions. Every reader will have their own thoughts about the ghost, and her trial, which I think makes this novel such an exciting one to share with people. Plus, I’m always recommending Carey’s books, left right and centre.

Total pages - 496
Total read time -  untimed
Rating /10 - 8


Recommend - Yes for those who need a fix after Orange is the New Black finished

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Monsters of Men - Patrick Ness

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I would love to include a piece from this book to start off this blog post because it is just so beautifully written. Unfortunately, this book is the final instalment in the Chaos Walking Trilogy and to those who haven’t read it yet, that could give you HUGE spoilers. The same could be said for some of this blog post. Just fair warning ahead of time. 


So once again, Patrick Ness has lured me into this world of New Prentisstown and his use of language and narrative are just stunning. The addition of the map at the beginning of the novel gives a really good sense of space that you may not have had in the first two books and this is just so incredibly exciting to me. Mostly because the events of this book follow the war that’s been instigated in book 2 The Ask and the Answer. Seeing the space in which this takes place is really important to get a sense of the devastation that Ness explores through the act of war. We get really clear descriptions about people’s movements and their fighting as well as how weaponry works etc. I love this level of detail because it allows me to get a really good sense of the destruction caused my the people within this world. 

Once again we are following Todd and Viola. I love both of these character. They are messy and unpredictable and they make for really lovely reading. With Todd there is this language barrier, where he is unable to read, and this lack of education shows in the way he’s narrated. The first person allows for Ness to spell words incorrectly like “exploshun” because that is how Todd sounds it out in his head. There is a part of this book however where this changes slightly, and he’s finally able to read his mother’s diary for the first time. This is such a turning point for him because he slowly learns how to read and we as a reader see that in the physical writing on the page. 

Viola is just a stunning character to read. I find her to be a strong female character, even in this book wherein she becomes rather ill for a large part. I think that whilst she has a secondary love interest this is not her priority. She is very world centred and knows what she must do to save the world she currently inhabits, or at least save it for Todd. There is a lot of growing up for Viola to do in this book and we see some of her adult influences as well as her relationship with Todd develop throughout the novel and I think that it’s great to see someone who’s not concerned about looks or primarily in her love interest, but in doing what’s right. People could easily disagree and say she just cares about Todd but I think that it’s much bigger than that. 

In addition to these two there is a third voice that joins the narrative of this story. This is from the other side of the battle, allowing us to see what they are planning without the other one knowing and I found this to be a little distracting. The language is convoluted and there are no singular people just groups of people all referenced in particular ways and this confused me slightly to begin with. However towards the end of the novel, the short interjections just increased the tension and really made the story very enjoyable. 

And of course, we still have the terrifying Mayor Prentiss. I’m constantly in awe of how Ness can make me feel so bloody sorry for a villain. He’ll make him seem redeemable, a phrase we keep coming back to throughout the novel, and he seems almost like a good guy and someone who you could root for. As an aspiring author I feel myself drawn to these characters and then suddenly he’ll snap and I’ll come back to the sense of “actually wait he’s the bad guy”. And boy is he a bad guy in this novel. Holy smokes there hasn’t been a book I’ve sworn at so loudly in a long time. Several moments in this had be angrier than I’ve ever been at a character in a book if only for his actions involving Todd. He’s such a good villain because Ness makes you start to care about him, forgetting all of his misdeeds and wanting to redeem him (there’s that word again). You want to feel sorry for him at times but you just can’t because you’re aware of his shortfalls. It’s such a wonderful character formulae. 

This book is really about the choices made in war, for better or worse, for the people or for an individual, and about how those choices are realised. It’s about power struggles and surviving a war zone as well as having the longing for a companion throughout. Many of the characters are seeking just someone to care for and really that is all that they really require. This book made me laugh but mostly it made me cry. It is not for the faint of heart. When I say cry, I mean full on ugly sobbing into my pillows at 11pm on a work night, texting my boyfriend in full capitals

 I’M A BLUBBERY UGLY CRYING MESS AND I CAN’T HANDLE IT. I KNEW SOMETHING BAD WAS GOING TO HAPPEN! 
(word for word text I sent by the way).

 It is however stunning and poetic and shows just how dangerous an excess of knowledge can be. 

Total pages - 603
Total read time -  untimed
Rating /10 - 9/9.5

Recommend - DEFINITELY YES! GO BUY THIS SERIES OH MY GOD!

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Metropolitan Vol. 1 and 2 - Various Authors

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This is an extremely exciting blog post for me to write as I present to you my university’s anthologies. Started late last year, Metropolitan started as a way for the third year and graduate students to show their work and have a published piece of work to show for the end of their degree. This also had an online journal to go with it, featuring interviews and such from the authors and others. This unfortunately hasn’t been updated in some time, but the second volume of Metropolitan was launched on Monday 11th July. This one was a whole lot more special to me though. 

Metropolitan Vol. 2 was used as part of the module for third year students in their module “Professional Practise in the Creative Arts”. They were given anonymous submissions from all years and were allowed to choose and debate for the ones they wanted to go into the anthology. The reason this is so special to me is that two of my original poems have found themselves in this volume. At the end of my first year I never expected that I could be published, let alone chosen for my work by my peers and the staff, who are also incredibly talented authors themselves. 
Also aren't these covers just gorgeous


What I wanted to do was give you a taste of what Metropolitan is about through this post. Split into the two volumes, I’d like to talk to you about some of my favourite pieces.

Volume 1

Gwefus Melys Glwyfus - Denn Yearwood

It’s true you can’t go far in an anthology produced by a welsh university and not come across a great welsh voice. Yearwood’s “Sweet Bruised Lips” follows Anwen and Rhianne who are at a bar, and Rhianne leaves to get another drink from the bar. She’s joined by Gwydion Griffiths, a writer, keen on keeping her company. This story is full of tension and power shifts as well as the relationship between mother and daughter and history repeating itself. It’s definitely got one of the best twists to a story that I probably should’ve noticed before hand, but definitely didn’t. 

Entry Taken from a Medical Encyclopaedia - Imogen Cownie

Cownie's piece follows the styling of China Mieville’s piece of the same name. I am reluctant to call this a poem but then again I’m reluctant to call it fiction. It is about Hyperencephalopathy or Overload. Hyper intensive encephalopathy is described as “headaches, convulsions and coma that occur in the course of malignant hypertension”  This hypertension is caused by high blood pressure. However in Cownie’s piece she’s used Hyperencephalopathy in relation to a 28 year old South Korean who died after playing Final Fantasy for fifty hours straight. I genuinely thought this was real to begin with, but on going to check her sources, they’re all coming from 2017. Good job Cownie for tricking me like this. It’s such an informative piece on something incredibly fictional. 

An extract from In My Hand - Kirsty James

The first of the pieces to well me up on the coach home from Cardiff. In this piece, our protagonist with no name is meeting with Heather and her daughter Maya, with a bag full of unread letters. These are from his friend to be given to his daughter Maya. Whilst that in itself is not upsetting, what is is Maya’s unwillingness to accept the letters, and the letter we have the opportunity to read at the end of this piece. James has a stunning way of writing really great characters and from this two page extract, I really want to learn more about them. Plus there’s something great about each of the characters having an incredibly different voice that just reads incredibly well.

Perfection is Pain - Kristi Parmee

Speaking of great character voices, I love that of our protagonist in this story. Set in what I can only determine as a dystopian future of some kind, Perfection is Pain follows our protagonist through her process to be “upgraded” to perfection, meaning new teeth, a platinum kidney and a uterus that allows her to ovulate at will. In the short story, the protagonist enters the “Editing suite” to be edited and something doesn’t go to plan. With underlying thoughts on what it means to be perfect and to what extent people will go to, as well as the fact that you should be truly repentant to receive forgiveness, this story makes for very easy reading.

Holes in the World - Richie Copeland

I couldn’t mention this anthology and not talk about Richie. He was my poetry tutor this year and genuinely made the whole experience in my first year a joy. He really sold me on creativity and allowing myself freedom of expression. And you can feel that enthusiasm for the art of writing in his work. This story follows a group of friends in Cardiff, Banana, Dai and our protagonist. Dai and the protagonist are close friends with Banana being a guy they knew from school who joins their friendship group, although makes mistakes along the way. A particular favourite of mine is being told to dress up for Dai’s wedding and he comes dressed as Batman. This story is full of humour but also inherent sadness at the position of the people that are being written about. I also really love how I know many of the places that are mentioned. From living in Cardiff since September last year, I know exactly where the Burger King is across from the castle, and how queen street is often covered in McDonald’s wrappers. And what student doesn’t know where Revs is? I got a real good connection to each of these characters and I think that the use of imagery just really enhances this story. 

Gerontophobia - Sarah Dalley 

This story is a really interesting look at the life of a young person and their anxieties about the elderly. Whilst it’s socially expected for the elderly to be worried about the youth, it is not anticipated to be the other way around. Throughout they try and avoid the older characters who seem to have a lot of issues with them being outside at the same time. This seems to be a reversal of everything that we know from our current society. However towards the end the tables do start to turn and it is possible to see that young people are forced to act in a certain way because of fear. I think that this was a really interesting reversal on the society we live in and a really interesting read. 

Volume 2

This is How I Got Away With Murder - Breige Davies 

The dark, controlling nature of one friend versus the light, optimism of the other makes the story of this poem such a wonderfully intense one. The concrete imagery in this poem really cements the action in an idea that the reader an easily understand and the complete binary opposites show the contrast in characters. I think that this poem simply needs to be read to completely understand how great it is because I cannot do it the justice it deserves. 

Normal Norman - Alwyn Harries

This story speaks to me with a brother who’s on the autistic spectrum. Normal Norman shows the every day necessity for routines and compulsions for a child with an autism spectrum disorder and I think that it’s a really good way in which to show that they’re not entirely different, just that their brains work slightly differently. I find there’s a lot of humour in this story which often isn’t expected from something so serious as disorders of this kind, and ultimately I think it makes for a really interesting read, even for someone who understands it. It shows that there’s been a lot of work put into understanding those with the disorders it discusses and could even be shown to those with an autistic spectrum disorder to show them that they’re not weird at all, which is often something they like to worry about.

Blank Version 2 - Hannah Sierlis 

I can’t talk about volume 2 without mentioning Hannah. She is by far one of the best people I’ve met whilst at university, a South African with a whole load of interesting stories and a keen eye for imagery, Hannah has kept me entertained all year. Not to mention she read out her poem at the launch of this volume and I was blown away by it. This poem talks to a reader who may feel a little underwhelmed by life and what it has handed to them, who may feel boring or unworthy, and she encourages them to feel. Hannah plays around with words on the page, making some bigger or smaller, striking some out and underlining others to really emphasise her message and it is one of the poems that I continue to come back to regardless because it just fills me with so much joy to read it. 

Midnight Disturbance - Fiona Millar

Another great first year addition to this volume, and by far the shortest. Miller’s poem is 6 lines, 13 words short, but within this limitation she’s created an entire image that is by far one of the most common experienced by dog owners. I just found this poem to be so funny and engaging and really created a lovely image using very little at all. 

Lump - Kate Spalding

This poem ruined me for a while. I had to put the book down and just think for a second about how poignant this poem really is. Written from the point of view of a cancerous tumour inside the body of a woman who tries everything to remain healthy, it shows how smoking can affect your body and how leaving unknown lumps without going to the doctor can leave you untreated. The pure malice that comes from the voice of this cancer is truly horrifying, with an almost sneer coming through Spalding’s choices of words. I found it quite hard to read with it being very factual towards the end, as well as the use of imagery to enhance the devastation this caused her body. This poem caused me to really think and I love that it did. 

Him - Vicki Young 

A poem about unrequited love that you don’t quite realise until you’ve read it a couple of times. I read this and cried knowing that I have felt this way before and that people are feeling it now and I’m so lucky to have someone who makes me feel this way without the knowledge that he only wants one thing. I love how Young hasn’t used traditional metaphors or similes in this piece, and has focussed on creating some really interesting images regarding love, which can be incredibly challenging as a writer. I felt that this poem breathed a new lease of life into the genre of the love poem and I hope she continues on this similar thread in the future. 

Coffee Breath - Amy Parkes 

This poem is a brief snapshot into a couple of hours sat at a coffee shop alone. I’ve done it many a time before and I love that this has captured the very essence of that. It’s pretty melancholic in tone throughout, almost making me wish I could sit with Parkes at that coffee shop so she wouldn’t have to read alone or focus on the people around her. She picked out very distinct images and those are the ones that most people will recognise, for example the hipsters with their socks rolled up or the mother with a kid hanging from her arm, wishing she could just sit down and drink her coffee. I love that these images are so vivid and really bring the poem to life with lots of sensory vocabulary. 

So there are just a few of the many stories and poems collated in Metropolitan Volumes 1 and 2. If you’re interested in any of these stories and would like to read through the rest of the collection, they are available here and here (volume 2 to be put up shortly) for purchase. All of the proceeds that are made will allow us to be able to make more of these collections in the future and further give new voices a chance to be heard. 

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Baby Doll - Hollie Overton

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A dead bolt has a very specific sound. Lily was an expert at recognizing certain sounds - like the creak of the floorboards signalling his arrival, the mice scurrying across the concrete in search of food. But Lily always braced herself for the sound of the dead bolt, listening as metal scraped against metal. The lock was beginning to rust, so it always took him several tries. But inevitably, she would hear the click, the sound that meant they were trapped for another week, another month, another year. But tonight she heard nothing. Only deafening silence. Hours passed, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the lock. 




I came across this book on NetGalley, as I often do, and the premise of it attracted me immediately. I don’t know whether this is to do with my love for fiction about families or the psychological thriller tales of girls held captive and escaping but this story really intrigued me. I read this book in about 4 hours which just shows you how exciting a read it was, which is always great from debut authors like Hollie Overton. However this is not a story for the faint of heart. 

Lily Riser is a young woman who was abducted at the age of 16 by her high school english teacher. Eight years later he leaves the door unlocked which gives Lily the chance to escape with her six year old daughter, Sky. The story follows her return to her family home, reuniting with her mum, ex boyfriend and her twin sister, all of whom have changed in the time she’s been gone. Throughout we see how they try to rekindle and redevelop their relationships, whilst also going through the judicial process. 

What I really enjoyed about this book was the different character perspectives. Whilst still written in third person, every character chapter had a different voice which really bought them all to life for me, rather than being one dimensional characters. For example Abby, Lily’s twin sister, is an understandably angry character. Her story is really developed throughout and we discover what Lily’s abduction meant for her long term, and I think that her perspective gave a nice depth to the story. 

Additionally, having her abductor’s side put in as well really made the story a whole lot different. In other stories I guess we are only ever confronted with a story from the side of the victim. We only ever know their side rather than the motives of the abuser. What Overton has done so well here is create a character that I hated but also I knew that he thought he was doing the right thing. He talks in such a way about his wife that you know he must care somewhat, yet he’s married to her as a cover because married men are more trusted. 

I feel like some of the details were missing however. I feel that perhaps there would’ve been something in having a prologue with Rick interacting with Lily before he left. Throughout there is mention of how he acts with her, his abuse and such, yet not with their daughter Sky, and there is mention of how they both made attempts to make sure that Sky didn’t see what was going on. I would’ve maybe liked to have seen this so that I could really feel for Lily and have much more longing for her to break free from him. This is really sensitive material but I feel that, even if not in the form of a prologue but as some kind of development throughout, the detail would’ve made me hate him more and long for the characters to succeed. This would ultimately make me enjoy the ending a little more I feel. 

There are many twists and turns throughout this novel, people’s actions and things they say taking the story from one point of bad to another. There were many times in reading where I had to put the book down and just let out a huge sigh of “why?” at which point my boyfriend would simply turn to me and ask “has it gotten worse?” because yes. Yes it had. Even when you think it couldn’t. 

It had everything I think I could want in a well structured novel. A fast opening, quick turns and changes to turn me off course, different points of view to keep me engaged and overall a satisfying ending. 


Total pages - 288
Total read time -  4 hours
Rating /10 - 7

Recommend - Maybe

Baby Doll is released on June 30th! Preorder here

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RE: Shakespeare's plots are terrible by Anne Tyler

08:10 Unknown 1 Comments

Oh there are so many feelings right now towards this woman’s article. I came across it this morning on the wonderful Will Sutcliffe’s twitter and I just couldn’t not read it. And I have some things to say. And yes I’m going to go through and pick her article to pieces. Bit by bit. Because that’s how much it got to me. 
Anne Tyler - Author of Vinegar Girl 

The Taming of the Shrew is an outlandish story. So I filled in a few details and toned down the exaggerations. 

Okay, so for those of you who don’t know Shakespeare plays were often put on in playhouses where it was okay for the audience to be loud, eat and drink throughout, unlike in today’s theatres. Therefore the stories had to be outlandish and extravagant to capture the attention. Additionally, if they were plays about every day people then the audience would be less inclined to return to the playhouse to see another play. However what really makes me laugh is that, although she thinks that the plots are awful, she’s still used it as the basis for her new novel. 

“Well at least I wouldn’t have to come up with one of my own"

This is a direct quote from Anne Tyler herself about why she’d choose to use Shakespeare’s plot as a base. As an aspiring author myself this makes me so infuriated. I spend a lot of time, as do other authors, searching for inspiration and writing down ways that we can be different to others. The fact that she believes that she shouldn’t even attempt to find a new idea makes me despair. 

“I have to admit that I’ve been slow in coming to a true appreciation of Shakespeare. My first “Shakespeare moment” didn’t occur till I was in college… really it was someone else’s Shakespeare moment, but still, it made me realise that Shakespeare could still have relevance”

Okay so here Anne Tyler is talking about how a friend of hers read Shakespeare to feel less alone and comforted, and yet she hasn’t yet herself talked about how she’s developed an appreciation of Shakespeare’s works before beginning to unpick what he has created and create her new work. I feel that perhaps she’s just decided that she doesn’t like Shakespeare and thinks that perhaps she could do better.

It’s almost upsetting that she hasn’t actually realised that Shakespeare is relevant in all ways. We use his language every day. We quote him regularly without recognition. Yet all she can seem to do is say that his stories are “outlandish” although this was what they had to be for the time. Theatre has changed dramatically throughout the centuries to become what it is more commonly known to us. It used to be loud and full of life not just on stage but in the audience. Men used to play women’s roles. I think that to say that his plots are terrible is to forget what their context was and read them with a modern eye, which these plays were never meant for. 

And yes there are modern adaptations, some which are incredibly well done if I may say so, but yet they still remain true to their original story because that is what people expect from Shakespeare. We have always been trying to play around with Shakespeare’s work to make them more accessible but I’ve never felt that “another side” has been necessary. 

I just think that this article is too short for Anne Tyler to really give a balanced argument about her choice of wording. Additionally, I don’t think she’s opened up enough about her relationship with Shakespeare’s work and I definitely think that her writing style is filled with a self-appointed importance that is unnecessary but unfortunately unsurprising for an article in the guardian. 

If you want to, read the full article here

1 comments :

The Reader Problems Book Tag

08:18 Unknown 0 Comments

This tag is old and done but I thought, since I’ve been MIA for a bit with uni work, that I’d let you guys get to know a little bit more about me as a reader. And how better to do that than through a list of questions that everyone’s already answered before me! 



  1. You have 20,000 books on your TBR. How in the world do you decide what to read next?
     
Well I tend to look at a few things when I’m picking up books to read. Usually I’ll look at what I have on my kindle first. These are my ARCs or paperback reprints that I get through NetGalley and was really interested to read from their synopsis. I’ll usually revisit my shelf and reread synopsis to see if any of those interest me. If not I take a trip to my shelves and pick out what I’m feeling like. Maybe a book I’ve heard lots of hype about, or a new book by one of my favourite authors? Admittedly sometimes I choose the smallest books. Or the ones with the prettiest covers. 

  1. You are half way through a book and you are just not loving it! Do you quit or are you committed?

This question has me a little stumped. Sometimes I read on, other times I simply can’t. I feel bad for leaving books half finished but sometimes I just feel there isn’t enough of a plot to catch onto. However, if I feel there are enough ends to be tied up at the climax of the novel I do tend to read on in the hope that it’ll get better. Sometimes it does and it just takes time to get to. 

  1. The end of the year is coming and you are soooo far behind on your reading challenge. Do you catch up and how?

Hahaha reading challenges. I try and say I want to read 50 books in a year but it never happens. With university I’m trying to be so creative whenever I can, writing and what not, that I find reading tends to be at the back of my mind. I’m hoping it will be less so next year when I’m in a house, away from the noise and hassle of halls, where I can take more time to myself to really read. I think if I was behind I’d try and  catch up by reading novellas and graphic novels. 

  1. The covers of a series do not match! How do you cope. 

I don’t. Plain and simple. If I can’t get a matching cover I feel the need to buy a whole new set. Granted I tend to be so behind on popular series that I can just tend to buy them with their final cover evolution in a set so I tend not to be faced with this issue too often. But I do truly despise cover changes when the original covers are just so so pretty. 

  1. Everyone and their mover like a book that you don’t. Who do you bond with over shared feelings?

I tend to just read lots of reviews. I’ll usually find someone who has the same opinions as I do. And I tend to just write honestly on my blog and put it aside. I’ve had this experience before but I’ve never gotten too hung up on it. Sometimes you just don’t like certain books. And that’s okay. 

  1. You are reading a book in public and you are about to cry! What do you do?

Stifle tears as best I can. Locate the nearest bathroom. Cry there. If no toilets are available; grab tissues and just cry it out. If anyone asks you what’s wrong, recommend them the book. If you’re crying, that book has obviously gotten you emotionally invested; it’s a good book. 

  1. A sequel of a book you really like has come out and you have forgotten a lot from the prior novel. Do you reread the book? 

I tend to prefer standalone novels but when I am faced with a sequel or part of a series that I am late to reading I’ll usually try and find a review on youtube or a synopsis somewhere. Usually I’m pretty good at remembering the details of the books I really like and would seek the sequel of, so I don’t think I’d reread. Maybe I’d skip through a couple of chapters towards the end or so. 

  1. You don’t want anyone borrowing your books. How do you politely tell them no?

“Oh uh I’d really rather not. I’m kind of particular with my books and I’d hate to have the spine bent or something like that” 
“But I promise I wouldn’t…."
“Ah but you never know. Really sorry but I can link you to places where you can find it cheaper"

  1. Reading slump! You’ve picked up and put down at least 5 books! What do you do?! 

I try and take myself away from reading all together if I’ve picked up that many. Usually I’ll sit and watch Netflix, take a walk, spend time with friends and family, and do all the other things I can until I become bored of the real world and long for the one between pages. I’ll usually start with a book I know I’ll love, or one of my favourites, just to get me back into the swing of things. 

  1. There are so many books you’re dying to read! Do you buy them all?

I have a note in my phone of all of the books I see when I’m in Waterstones that I can’t buy. If I’m in there I’m usually buying one or two already (only if they’re buy one get one half price) but then I’ll come home and search on amazon or book depository to see if they’re selling them any cheaper. Usually I just wait until birthdays, christmas etc for books. Easter time I got Caitlin Moran’s Moranifesto which I’m slowly working my way through!

  1. After you buy those new books how long till you get round to actually reading them?

Sometimes I’ll start them the same day, other times they’ll sit on my shelf and I won’t read them for a few months, or when I have the time. You’d think if I bought them I’d want to read them straight away, but I already have so many I haven’t yet read!


Thank you so much for sticking with this blog if you’ve been reading for a while. I really appreciate every reader and it’s something I love to do. Thank you!

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The End of the World Running Club - Adrian J Walker

11:05 Unknown 0 Comments

“Beliefs are strange. Things of certainty about things uncertain. Take mine for example. I believe there are graves in the field next to the house where I live. I stop at the fence every morning and I look at three lashed crosses standing crooked against the sea, and I believe I know who is buried beneath them. 
But I can’t be sure. So I believe instead. I supposed I could dig them up, but, as I see it, there are only two ways that little enterprise can end and neither of them is particularly palatable. Besides, if you have to go round digging up graves to prove your own sanity then you’ve probably already lost it."



Oh my goodness, where do I start with this one? Well let me just start out with a virtual round of applause for Adrian J Walker for this incredible novel. It’s just joined the list of my favourite novels. And he has others!! They’ll quickly be joining my to be read list. 

So how does one go about defining The End of the World Running Club. Well as the title suggests it is set during and after an asteroid strike; note the "End of the World” part. It follows the protagonist Edgar, or Ed as he is mostly referred to throughout the book who is a 35 year old man living in Edinburgh. He’s got a family; a loving wife called Beth, a daughter Alice and his son Arthur. However he’s not the best. He’s an overweight regular drinker and a very reluctant father. He’s often dreamt about being left in the world on his own, as if the world has ended, but he didn’t expect it to actually happen. 

The family are forced to live in their basement for a couple of weeks before they are rescued and offered refuge in a nearby army barracks just in the nick of time, with the hop that they’ll be picked up by helicopters for evacuation from the UK to somewhere safer. Whilst at the barracks Ed offers to go on salvage runs to find food and other supplies with a few others but on their return they find they’ve just missed their evacuation; left behind by their families. 

This novel follows Ed’s journey, as well as the friends he makes, across the United Kingdom, from Edinburgh to Cornwall, to find his family. It’s a true exploration of what the human mind and body is capable of. 

So, why do I love this novel so much? 

There are a few reasons I could throw out and not talk about in detail but I really want people to understand where my love for this book comes from. So I think I’ll start by looking at some of the characters, because they are phenomenal. 

Ed is the perfect protagonist for a book about a man running across the UK to find his family. He’s overweight and actively seeks to avoid his family when he can. It’s such a complicated situation that he is put in and Walker really uses the first person narration for us to see Ed’s physical and emotional torment throughout. And boy does he go through some rough times. They all do. 

Also, as part of the salvage group, and later the running club, are Richard, Harvey and Bryce. These men are also civilians but all have something to offer Ed. Richard is a father as well and often has Ed’s side when people begin to question his role as a father and his dedication to his family. He’s also lost his wife and therefore feels the same desire as Ed to reach the evacuation point in Cornwall, so that he can be with his son. 

Harvey is the one who teaches Ed how to run effectively. Throughout the novel we hear about his incredibly running adventures and whilst they do seem a little unbelievable at times, it acts as a little comfort to Ed to know that it is possible to cover the 20 miles a day they have to average. He’s also an Australian (if that helps you at all). Thinking a little more about it and looking at Adrian J Walker’s biography the two seem a little similar, I don’t know if this is in fact the case but I’d be interested to know if he took any experiences from his own life when writing for Harvey. 

Bryce is probably my favourite of the male characters purely for how he’s described by Walker; “His eyes twinkled like diamonds from a deep coal pit. His hair was black and long and a beard covered half of his face, all of his neck and what appeared to be a permanent grin.” He’s such an interesting character to me because when we first meet him he’s full of bravado and yet as the novel progresses we see  him start to soften and become more human than “bear” as he’s described by Ed’s daughter, Alice. There was one particular moment where I really began to dislike him, but that was quickly rectified. And that moment was during a conversation with a character called Grimes. 

Laura Grimes is one of the army personnel who is out on the salvage mission when the evacuation helicopters leave. She’s very strong yet has a very kind heart. Bryce tries to intimidate her, asking if she should really be out with them or if she needs protecting and she just hits back with the fact that she’s really protecting him, although she was seriously debating stopping doing so. I think she’s such an interesting character who I really enjoyed reading about. 

There are another two people with them on their salvage trip; Yuill and Henderson. However, I think I’ll let you read about those two for yourself. 

What Walker has done incredibly well as far as I’m concerned as a reader, is create really well rounded characters who carry the plot with them. Even the secondary characters are fleshed out to a point where you almost want to read more about them. For example they meet a teenage single mum called Gloria with her new born Sofia and I wanted to read about how her life changed after the asteroids hit. The same with Rupert who they meet at Bartonmouth Hall. And I even wanted to read more about Jenny Rae (who is by far one of the most terrifying people in this novel). Every single person has a flaw but also has something they’re working towards. No one is completely good or completely evil. Often times you can find yourself sympathising with someone you know you shouldn’t because you understand their actions. 

Additionally, what I love most is that this is a novel set in the UK. I love novels set in Britain. To me they just mean so much more because understand the geography of where they are and how far it is to get from A to B. Even more importantly with this novel was to understand the devastation of the place. To find out London has essentially become a giant crater made me understand the level of destruction that had been caused and how many people must have died or been injured in that one asteroid hit. It also allows me to have a good indication of the scale of the task at hand. Whilst I can claim to know how large America is from one side to the other, I don’t. It’d be harder for me to get my head around that scale than it is for me to do so with the place I currently live it. The well crafted devastation really meant that the novel was full of unexpected twists. I learnt that in an end of the world situation, don’t rely on finding a car. Because even if you do it might not get you very far. And stay away from the coastline if possible. Sometimes it’ll have become swamp like. 

The novel’s themes are obvious ones such as endurance and family, but there is also an undercurrent of love. Whether it’s love for themselves or the longing for or rejection of love, Walker covers it all. In this desolate place that has been created, there is nothing quite so heartbreaking as seeing someone long for the love of another and be rejected, or to discover someone’s love just too late. Pair that with the exhaustion and hunger that you feel alongside the characters who have to struggle through this wasteland, meeting all kinds of people and battling, at times, with each other, this novel becomes incredibly overwhelming in places. The ending of this novel feels as though it should be the happiest ending to a story that there could be. A clichéd reunion between Ed and his family, Bryce finding someone he can love as much as he loves himself or alcohol, and Richard finding his son. I’m not going to tell you the exact ins and outs because I’m not a spoiler of books unless asked specifically. But just be prepared with a box of tissues. In fact I’d have them there from the start. 

Yet what Walker has done so well is juxtapose these dark times with humour, either in the form of Bryce's excitement about finding miniatures of alcohol, to just conversations that they have. The way that Walker writes, utilising the first person, is incredibly engaging and made me want to continue reading. The narrative voice was something that, in fact, kept me going. This, with the characters and the plot line itself, is really one of the reasons it's one of my new favourite books.

This novel taught me a lot about my own self too. I learnt that I can be resilient and can conquer that inner voice that says that I can’t do it. I learnt that, especially in running, it’s better to take smaller steps and make smaller decisions, all of which amount to one larger outcome. I feel that I have learnt so much about human strength and the capability to survive when the worst happens whilst building friendships and keeping each other strong. It’s going to be one I reread when I need to remember that not everything is so bad and that there’s always a positive to what seems like the end of the world. 

Total pages - 464
Total read time -  Untimed
Rating /10 - 8.5/9

Recommend - Yes

Also, once you've read it. Go back and reread the first chapter of the book again. Realise all of the things that you didn't originally and revel in the feeling that you now know something you didn't before. You won't regret it. 

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Buffering

13:47 Unknown 0 Comments

I don’t usually write personal lifestyle-esque blog posts on here but I feel like right now I need to. I could disguise this as a piece of fiction but I don't think I can. What I'm experiencing is affecting my every day and I’m not reading as much as I would like to. This is because I’m buffering.

Buffering is how I like to talk about my struggle with depression and anxiety. It’s the feeling of having to stop whilst everyone else moves forward. Imagine watching a youtube video with a friend and their’s continues to move on whilst yours stops loading for a few seconds so you’re constantly behind. That’s what I’ve always felt my depression to be like. 

I’ve been medicated since August 2015, so not very long in the grand scheme of things. I know people who have been on tablets for way longer than I have but this for me was a struggle in itself. I didn’t want to admit that I needed help. I just thought I was in a dark patch that was due to hormones and it would pass. This was what happened to every teenager right? Everyone’s stressed and down at times and it just passes?

Well, I took some time to really research what I was experiencing and discovered, thanks to the NHS online test, that I could be diagnosed with depression and generalised anxiety. When I went to the doctors that was what it was and I was offered counselling or tablets. At the time I felt so much stigma attached to my depression that I couldn’t face counselling, so took the tablet option instead and that’s where I’ve been ever since. 

There have been two occasions where I’ve stopped taking my tablets at university. The first I forgot to renew my prescription due to exams and my christmas holiday. The second has been in the last few weeks and I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse about the best time of my life. 

I’ve recently got a new boyfriend, been to an anime and comic book convention and even been told that I’ll be having two of my original poems published in an anthology by my university, yet everything feels like I’m buffering still. Not taking my tablets has not helped. Any doctor you talk to about mental health medications will tell you that you shouldn’t stop taking them without discussing it with your doctor first, yet I’m prone to forgetfulness. However what hit me today was that I’m sick of seeing things in black and white; I want to see the world in technicolour. Much like Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz, I want to leave this hurricane and step into a bright new world of opportunity where I can make friends again and enjoy life. 

I just want people to know that mental health issues are not something to be shy about. If you’re not happy, go and speak to a professional. They will be able to help you to come to terms with the issues that you may be going through, or the effects you may be feeling on your body. They may not be severe to begin with but they are better to be treated early than left to manifest. Linked below are some really good websites for mental health issues that you might want to investigate. 

Mind: For Better Mental Health

SANE: Together We Can #StopStigma

YoungMinds: The Voice for Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing

Blurt: Increasing Awareness and Understanding of Depression

And there is also this wonderful list of websites and phone numbers produced by the NHS


Please remember that you’re alive in this world for a reason. You are incredibly special. You are loved. And you’re never alone. You do not have to suffer in silence. 

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RE: The Imagination of the Child

12:55 Unknown 0 Comments

This blog post could also be entitled, “Why Samantha Shannon is right”. I was reading through the Guardian in search of some feature articles for my second year research and I came across a title which read “Why the headteacher who believes reading Harry Potter causes mental illness is wrong”. In this article written by Samantha Shannon she discusses a blog post written by The Acorn School’s headmaster, Graeme Whiting called “The Imagination of the Child". I wanted to to do the same. 

So what Whiting’s post is trying to say here is that children’s minds should be protected from “negative experiences”. He suggests that this should be done until they’re 14 at least and then they can slowly “move towards conscious thought as adulthood looms”. It’s a very interesting subject, that of protecting the minds of children, yet I’m not in any sort of agreement with Whiting here. I think that whilst, yes, some of the darkest things should be kept from children in order not to encumber them in life, children need to learn how to talk about difficult issues that may arise. I’m not saying let a 8 year old read “Room” by Emma Donoghue, but there are certain elements that arise, particularly in fantastical fiction, where they can actually help a child’s development. 

One of the series he mentions is Harry Potter. This book series, like to many others, is very near and dear to my heart. It helped me through a lot of tough times and gave me some much needed friends from time to time. So to hear Whiting talk about how children should leave these books until they have “first learned to love beauty” hurts me. A lot. I think that fantasy fiction is best enjoyed as a child. They are full of fun and fantasy which is incredible to read as a child. It was also what got me into reading! I also can’t see how, in any way, reading a Harry Potter novel could “damage the sensitive subconscious brains of young children.” 

Sticking with Harry Potter as an example here, I think that Whiting has missed a key issue. Books can be used as therapy, especially when looking at the darker matter. There is a guide book written by Kathryn Markell called “The Children Who Lived”. In this it uses literary references in order to help grieving children and adolescents. Harry Potter is a key component of this book because it does deal throughout with Harry’s loss of his parents and what he has to live up to. It allows a child to then relieve their grief and talk about it more openly because they’re using literature as a stepping stone to recovery. Without something like this they may not be able to talk about it as well with counsellors and therefore be stuck in a cycle of thinking they should have done something or they could have stopped it, which could leave them more severely mentally ill. 

Furthermore, Whiting states that he “stands for the old-fashioned values of traditional literature, classical poetry, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Dickens, Shakespearean plays, and the great writes who will still be read in future years”. Samantha Shannon makes a very good point in her article about "Titus Andronicus", a Shakespearean play which by all means should mean, to Whiting, that it is perfectly acceptable for children to read. The daughter of Titus,  Lavinia, is raped and then has her hands and tongue removed so that she can’t tell anyone. She is murdered by her own father out of shame for her being raped. I personally love that Shannon tries to find a Harry Potter equivalent which is near impossible, settling for Wormtail cutting off his hand, although she admits “it’s not quite in the same league”. 

I just want to mention a couple of other Shakespeare plays, whilst I’m here. "Romeo and Juliet” has three people stabbed in duels, Romeo drinks poison, Juliet stabs herself and Romeo’s mother dies of a broken heart. In “Hamlet” almost everyone is stabbed or poisoned apart from the people who die off stage who are beheaded or drown themselves. And in "Macbeth" just pretty much everyone dies. I think what Whiting wants us to think about are the comedies of Shakespeare, but even in those there are elements wherein they can be tense which could be said to torment a child. 

Additionally, lets talk about Dickens shall we. “Oliver Twist”, wherein a child is in a workhouse without family, is sold to the local undertaker who beats him before he runs away to London. He ends up in the company of pickpocketing homeless boys but on one of his pickpocketing jobs he is taken in by a rich man because of how much he looks like a young woman he has a portrait of. However he’s taken from this place by Bill Sikes and his lover Nancy and told he’ll go and burgle the place where he’d stayed. Oliver is shot but then taken in by the people who live there. If this currently isn’t enough of a tough time for a child reading it, I can’t imagine what they’d think when they read about Sike’s brutal murder of Nancy or that he inadvertently hangs himself on his escape mission. 

Classical literature isn’t all light and beautiful as Whiting would have parents of his school children believe. I feel that whilst classics are interesting to read they aren’t the be all and end all of beauty. I do not have a favourite book that could be classed as a classic. Additionally, I feel that when children are forced into reading classical literature it almost instantly kills their love of reading. I have had to talk to so many young adults who have just finished their A - Levels or their first year of university and many have said they’re just getting back into reading because they’re not being forced to read anything. Whilst I understand that Whiting may believe that beauty may only lie within the pages of classical literature, I implore him to read more. I think more than anything within his post the idea of having read all he wanted to before he was 30 hurt me the most. I can’t imagine having read everything I wanted in the next 10 years. There is always more. There are new classics to be made. New beauty to discover within new book pages. There is so much more to the world of literature than middle aged white men. 

Whilst I’m here too, Whiting talks about how children are “magnetised by the colourful and graphic attraction of the new book cover”. Yes. That’s because there are so many books that if you’re ever going to find something new it needs to stand out. I have picked up many a great book because of it’s eye catching cover. There’s nothing to say that this is wrong, sir. I’d also like to say he's wrong in suggesting that “authors don’t really care who reads what”. Ask any author of young adult fiction if they care about their audience. I’m almost certain that every single one would say yes. Because they’re writing to better the modern child. They’re writing to open children up to modern issues and creating a safe way for them to discuss issues which I think is incredible and something that Whiting is missing out on. 


He concludes his blog post by saying “beware the devil in the text! Choose beauty for your young children!” I can’t remember the last time the devil was mentioned in a novel I read. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a fantasy, or contemporary novel and didn’t think “wow this is beautiful”. What Grahame Whiting is trying to do here is say that classical literature is better than contemporary literature or that which lies in the fantastical realms of the imagination. Allow your children to explore and examine the world around them through different eyes. Allow your child to pick a book they think they’ll enjoy and if they’re young read it with them and don’t allow them to be ignorant. Discuss issues with them. Allow them to be free to read and enjoy reading. For after all, understanding yourself and the world around you is the most beautiful thing of all, isn’t it?

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