Jessie's Recent Reads

August Blue by Deborah Levy

A concert pianist is haunted by a woman she believes to be her doppelganger while travelling around Europe, as she both confronts and avoids her past. Elegiac, hypnotic and imbued with a sultry summer heat, I was mesmerised throughout. 

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

When the members of guerrilla gardening collective Birnam Wood – who see themselves as radicals yet rarely do more than steal garden implements from wealthy landowners – come up against a tech billionaire, values are dramatically challenged in this spectacular satire of corporate greed and liberal idealism.

Feast by Emily O’Grady

Feast is moody and unsettling, in a brilliant way. The characters shift and bend, as they change their narratives to better position themselves through the lens of history. It makes for uncomfortable reading but flawed, unreliable narrators are always my favourite kind.

Juno Loves Legs by Karl Geary

Life is bleak for Juno, living in poverty with her seamstress mother and alcoholic father in ‘80s Dublin, until she meets Legs and their friendship changes everything. I will be raving about this one for years to come!

Review by Jessie - Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh

“If you eat the bread, you’ll die, he said, and it sounded more like a caress than a threat.”

Based on a real-life mass poisoning in a rural French village, this is a hypnotic and often absurd fever dream of a novel that I read quickly, as though in a trance. 

In the aftermath of World War II, Elodie, the baker’s wife, lives a staid and frustrated existence. When a new ambassador arrives in town, his glamorous wife Violet quickly captures Elodie’s attention and soon, an obsession is formed. What starts as seemingly innocent fascinations soon turns into more sinister events. A boy jumps into a fire, horses are found dead in a field and the townspeople start acting in strange ways, all culminating in the final, frenzied day.

Told through flashbacks, as Elodie writes letters to Violet, the novel plays with subtle manipulations of power, through the characters’ desires and delusions and is constantly shifting the reader’s perception of what is real and who can be trusted. Sophie Mackintosh’s writing is silky smooth and incredibly effective at lulling you into a dream state, from which she then yanks you unceremoniously, leaving you dazed and confused, as though untimely woken from a nap. It felt like such a different reading experience and I absolutely loved being transported in this way. A perfect winter book, best enjoyed by candlelight, safely cosseted in blankets.

JESSIE’S 2023 RECS

I started my reading year by returning to a classic. I savoured the indulgence of reading an old favourite – The Secret History – a palette cleanser, before heading back to the land of new releases. And there are so many! Here are just a few coming out in the next couple of months that I’m excited for:

Shy
by Max Porter

Not to be dramatic, but I am IN LOVE with Max Porter. Two of his previous novels, Grief is the Thing With Feathers and Lanny sit in my room dog-eared and perpetually close at hand. His language is experimental, dreamy and magical. Shy follows a few hours in the life of a troubled teen boy, continuing Porter’s exploration of the emotional life of young men in a way that takes a pickax to the heart.

Due April 4th

Birnam Wood
by Eleanor Catton

Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries returns with an eco-thriller about a guerrilla gardening group – if that doesn’t pique your interest then I don’t know what else to tell you. Catton is brilliant at shaping worlds that are deceptively layered and I’m so eager to see where this one goes.

Due February 28th

Cursed Bread
by Sophie Mackintosh  

Based on the true story of a mass poisoning in a French village in 1951, this sounds like a feverish and hypnotic feminist fable. I loved both of Sophie Mackintosh’s previous novels – she has a knack for unsettling you in a really satisfying way – so I can’t wait to dive in!

Due March 7th

Old God’s Time
by Sebastian Barry

A retired policeman settling into life by the sea is confronted by his past when two young detectives seek his advice on a long-forgotten cold case. Sebastian Barry is often not for the faint-hearted but the payoff is always worthwhile, in my experience and his perfect Irish colour palette of moody hues is my beach reading of choice.

Due February 28th

Crushing
by Genevieve Novak

This sounds right up my alley: darkly humorous contemporary lit with a bite. Novak looks at the fraught and ever-confusing process of moving on and starting anew in relationships with comforting hilarity.

Due April 5th

Old Babes in the Wood
by Margaret Atwood

A new Margaret Atwood short story collection, huzzah! I have only read the first story so far but it’s delightfully Atwood; crisp and matter of fact while somehow making you question everything you’ve ever believed in. I’m going to eke these stories out in between the novels on this list so as to stay in Atwood’s bizarre and wonderful world for as long as possible.

Due March 7th

Staff Review - The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding by Holly Ringland

by Jessie Kinivan

It has been a year since Esther Wilding’s sister Aura was last seen, walking towards the sea. In an attempt to make sense of her sister’s life, Esther travels from lutruwita, Tasmania to Copenhagen and then the Faroe Islands, following a trail of stories Aura left behind; seven stories of swans and seals, loss, violence and the strength of women, told through cryptic verses Aura had tattooed on her body.

Rich in fairy tales and folklore, the stories of the women in this book will certainly get under your skin. Holly manages to weave magic into her descriptions of nature, with gorgeously lush imagery of the sea, and of the Tasmanian and Faroese landscapes. Esther holds grief, joy and discovery within her at all times and you know you are in safe hands with Holly when it comes to leaning into the fullness of emotion. It is about finding the courage to heal as well as to live with the wounds that stay with us forever.

Fans of The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert or The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams will love this novel about sisterly bonds, fairy tales and forgiveness.

I have the most colourful soundtrack running through my head after reading this and immediately started planning an ‘80s party (you’re all invited!). 

Staff Review - Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls

by Jessie Kinivan

A new mother escapes into a dream world; two young girls steal a baby; friends reunite years after a terrible event; a camping trip goes horribly wrong…

The stories in Anne Casey-Hardy’s debut are all about girls and women behaving badly – a theme I relish! This is a forceful collection, filled with characters who act on base instincts and push societal boundaries. They share a sense of mischief, irreverent humour and a longing for freedom that is undercut by an ever-present sense of danger.

I particularly enjoyed the stories with teen narrators, as Casey-Hardy captures the reckless energy of the young so well. Often though, the transient borders of childhood, adolescence and womanhood blur, such as in ‘My Beautiful Dollhouse’, in which a woman’s childhood toys have taken hold in her adult life, or ‘Being the Mother’ where two girls crave the experience of motherhood. Many of the stories read like fractured fairy tales with a lulling and, at times, sinister effect. In each of them though, there is an urgency that is very much rooted in the modern world.

Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls thrums with life, energy and desire and I sped through the eighteen stories despite (admittedly half-hearted) attempts to savour them and will eagerly await anything Anne Casey-Hardy does next. 

Staff Review - Cult Classic

by Jessie Kinivan

On a night out with friends, Lola, an embittered, embattled New Yorker runs into an ex-boyfriend. The next night she sees another, and another and another… As these meetings start to pile up, Lola begins to suspect a greater force may be at play, and when her former boss admits to using her as a test subject for a mind control experiment (a pesky habit of his) she is given the option to willingly participate in this bizarre form of past regression therapy.

From long-term loves to brief dalliances, Lola is thrown back into her romantic past to question and attempt to make sense of her habits and flaws. If she can, will it allow her to move forward and finally settle into the kind of life she has been resisting for so long? 

Witty, weird and often confusing, Cult Classic dips gently into speculative fiction while maintaining immense relatability, thanks to Lola’s perceptive and authentic voice. Her snarky take on life is pure enjoyment to read and with each awkward, painful or unexpected encounter I grew fonder of this darkly comic heroine.

It asks questions about what we take from a relationship and what we leave behind. How does each person change us and we them? Maybe sometimes it’s the ill-defined, seemingly insignificant liaisons that leave the biggest mark of all.

If you enjoy smart, unconventional romances with humour and heart, Cult Classic is for you! 

Staff Review - Fight Night

by Jessie Kinivan

“He looked happy and sad at the same time. That’s a popular adult look because adults are busy and have to do everything at once, even feel things.”

Fight Night follows three generations of women; our narrator Swiv, who is ‘around a hundred months old’, her mother, and her grandmother Elvira. The stubborn and anxious Swiv has been suspended from school for enacting Elvira’s lessons in fighting back, and so spends her time with her grandmother, shopping, watching basketball games and attending weekly ‘editorial meetings’. 

As her heavily pregnant mother, an actress with a flair for the dramatic (as well as visible PTSD) waits to give birth, Swiv is assigned the task of documenting their lives for her absent father, noting down the domestic routines that tell a far bigger story, in a way that only a child can. When Elvira books a spontaneous trip to California, it is up to Swiv to keep her boisterous grandmother safe, and as the two navigate travel from Canada together, their blend of stern naivete and jovial wisdom make for a delightfully odd duo – one you would always want to be seated next to on a flight. 

Swiv’s blunt observations and honest empathy bring to mind Scout Finch, and the love she has for the women in her life, all so different, yet bonded by the same grit and heart, determined to fight for the right to live life on their own terms, is spectacular.

Full of brilliant lines that are both riotously funny and deeply moving (I stopped highlighting sentences early in when the book started to resemble a colouring book) it is a paean to mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers. All three women are irrepressible, staunchly loyal and filled with charm and empathy. They guard themselves, and each other, with a fighting spirit that cuts through the novel’s darker edges and leaves the reader emboldened and hopeful. 

Fight Night will break your heart (in all the right ways) and then immediately seek to heal you with its warmth and humour. I can’t recommend it enough.