This week’s bookcase includes reviews of Girl A by Abigail Dean and How To Be A Refugee by Simon May.
If the weather is keeping you indoors, why not pick up a fast-paced thriller or a moving memoir?
Fiction
1. Girl A by Abigail Dean is published in hardback by HarperCollins, priced £14.99 (ebook £7.99). Available now
Girl A by Abigail Dean. Picture credit: HarperCollins/PA.The subject of colossal amounts of hype, Girl A is the story of Alexandra ‘Lex’ Gracie, one of seven children held captive by their menacing father, and the first to escape his clutches.
Now grown up and working as a lawyer, Lex must decide, along with her siblings, what to do with the house they’ve inherited – the scene of their hellish childhood – and try to come to terms with her traumatic past.
Dark and deftly crafted, Girl A is an impressive debut that tackles a horrifying topic with subtlety and empathy.
While it might not be as mind-blowing as the build-up suggests, it’s definitely on a par with some of the greatest psychological thrillers of recent years.
8/10
(Review by Katie Wright)
2. We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan is published in hardback by Merky Books, priced £14.99 (ebook £7.99). Available now
We Are All Birds Of Uganda explores home, identity, love, and loss across the generations in turbulent times.
We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan. Picture credit: Merky Books/PA.Young, ambitious lawyer Sameer is ready to spread his wings.
Faced with choices between his career, family expectations and long-standing friendships, Sam’s journey takes an unexpected turn from London to the vibrant colours, smells and tastes of East Africa.
It is there that Sam uncovers his family history as he searches for his place in the world.
Unflinchingly honest but tempered by its humanity, this is a novel for our times from the #Merky Books New Writers’ Prize winner. It’s a complex and delicately flavoured dish to be savoured and digested slowly.
8/10
(Review by Emily Pennink)
3. People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd is published by Mantle in hardback, priced at £14.99 (ebook £7.99). Available now
People Like Her is a darkly cynical indictment of social media.
People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd. Picture credit should read: Mantle/PA.Set in the world of online parenting influencers, the marriage of successful Insta-mum Emmy Jackson and novelist husband Dan is under strain as they grapple with the ethics of making money from sharing their real lives, while a threatening presence imperils their seemingly idyllic existence.
Ellery Lloyd – the pseudonym for husband-and-wife writing team Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos – nail the murky details of influencer culture.
The story takes its time to get going with a slower-paced first half – and the occasional cliché – but the second part speeds up with twists that keep you guessing until the final page.
It’s an entertaining read that will leave you ready for a digital detox.
7/10
(Review by Jessica Frank-Keyes)
Non-fiction
4. How To Be A Refugee by Simon May is published in hardback by Picador, priced £20 (ebook £12.99). Available now
In this engrossing and poignant memoir, philosophy professor and author Simon May examines the roots of his confused sense of identity and provides a new perspective on some of the 20th century’s darkest days.
How To Be A Refugee by Simon May. Picture credit: Picador/PA.May, the child of German Jews, was raised in Britain as a Catholic, yet he was forbidden by his parents to identify as either Jewish, German or British.
Instead, he inherited from them a sense of being an eternal refugee, forever in search of home but forbidden ever to arrive.
To try and unlock this mystery, May embarks on a voyage of discovery over several years, interviewing relatives, researching documents and visiting key scenes from his family’s past.
The key lies in his mother and her two sisters.
They grew up as fully assimilated Germans, keen to distance themselves from a Jewish background that had proved lethal for many, long before Hitler.
They believed their expert engagement with the pre-Nazi high German world would provide them with immunity, so when the Nazis arrive and that world implodes, the shock and grief are definitive, and the sisters’ survival mechanisms drastic.
May later recounts the difficulties of his own journey to German nationality, and along the way discovers the spectre of anti-Semitism is still very much with us.
A fascinating, moving and troubling read.
8/10
(Review by Dan Brotzel)
BOOK CHARTS
HARDBACK
1. The City Of Tears by Kate Mosse
2. Luster by Raven Leilani
3. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
4. Girl A by Abigail Dean
5. The Survivors by Jane Harper
6. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
7. Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
8. The Burning Girls by CJ Tudor
9. The Shape Of Darkness by Laura Purcell
10. Troy by Stephen Fry
HARDBACK (NON-FICTION)
1. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty by Florence Given
2. A Promised Land by Barack Obama
3. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox And The Horse by Charlie Mackesy
4. Clean & Green by Nancy Birtwhistle
5. UnPresidented by Jon Sopel
6. Pinch Of Nom Quick & Easy by Kay Featherstone & Kate Allinson
7. Ottolenghi Flavour by Yotam Ottolenghi & Ixta Belfrage
8. Think Like A Monk by Jay Shetty
9. A Swim In A Pond In The Rain by George Saunders
10. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy
(Compiled by Waterstones)
