Top 5 Reads of 2019
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong
Unflinchingly honest and raw, this book has stood above the rest as my favourite read of 2019. This is a layered story of migration, love, the working-class, family, trauma, hope. A book about belonging everywhere and nowhere at once. Little Dog’s voice and story has continued to haunt me long after I turned the last page, read the last line. Ocean Vuong’s prose, images and unique observations have stayed with me too.
So many gorgeous line but one of my favourites: “Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.”
Wilder Girls - Rory Powers
Compelling and visceral, those are the two adjectives that comes to mind when I think of Rory Power’s debut — Wilder Girls. A story about survival and the power of female friendship at a time in life when everything and every emotion are so intense and absolute. Rory Power delivers edge of your seat horror amid a beautiful and sharp prose. The premise of this book was so intriguing that I ordered a copy from the US instead of having to wait for the UK release, and it was worth it.
To sum up this book in one line: “A feminist Lord of the Flies meets Annihilation.”
The Red Word - Sarah Henstra
I bought this book based on a tweet from someone in publishing who had just finished it and admitted that they couldn’t stop thinking about it. In this all too familiar story Sarah Henstra explores the rape culture on a university campus and Frat houses ‘right to party’ by taking a very predictable situation and set of behaviours and spins it all around, leaving you dazed and questioning everything. An important read.
Three Women - Lisa Taddeo
I was lucky enough to attend an event at Foyles about Three Women and listen to Lisa Taddeo talk about how she wanted to explore women desires through the female gaze by following three very different women. Lina, Maggie and Sloane’s stories are compelling and sometimes hard to read (especially Maggie’s whose story could be enraging at time). This is a brutally honest look at who we are allowed to be as women, and what is expected of us.
Swan Song - Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott
Kelleigh breathes and loves everything Capote and I believe she is the only person who could have written this book with such brilliance and wit. A story dazzling like a Capote party, sharp like an Orange Drink, Kelleigh channels the voices of the swans who loved Capote until his ultimate betrayal and their revenge. The prose and the story will whisk you away following the whirlwind relationship of Capote and his swans around the globe.
