Day of the Accident by Nuala Ellwood

 

Paperback read but ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

4/5 stars

Content warnings: child death, suicide plus attempts, eating disorder, grief.

Maggie has just woken up from a coma to be told that her daughter Elspeth has drowned and her husband Sean has left. Maggie's injuries tell the police that she tried to stop the car going into the river but what caused the accident? Maggie has lost her memories of the day. Then she's told that due to her husband leaving she now has no home or belongings and very little money of her own.

This was a gripping, fast-paced novel with nice short chapters. Some of the chapters were separated by letters from an unnamed child in some kind of children's home situation. You might have guesses as to who this child is but you are probably wrong because that particular reveal comes quite late.

The only thing I didn't like was that the whole situation between Maggie and her husband is very brushed over and I feel like it needed more page time.

Steff Out x

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

CW: murder, suicide, self-harm

I've seen this book around Instagram a fair bit lately and then I was scrolling through my Kindle when I spotted I had it (memory of the proverbial goldfish me) and thought now's a good time to read it.

For me while the story was intriguing I'm not sure if I really cared. Even with her diary entries Alicia didn't seem a very solid character. She didn't have any interests or personality. Theo was an arrogant dick and to be honest I'm not sure how much of his story was true and how much was manipulation. He was very controlling for a therapist and the way he went out searching for Alicia's family was pushing the boundaries a bit too much.

The twist was interesting but the ending on the whole felt a bit rushed and the timelines in the end were a bit muddled as to what happened when.

Stef Out x

The Sharp Edge of Silence by Cameron Kelly Rosenblum

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

Lycroft Phelps is an elite boarding school with very traditional values. "Turn a blind eye" and "boys will be boys" both ring true. Above all the boys rowing team rules the roost. They control the school and have created the Slycroft Club, a secret society with less than stellar ideals.

Charlotte is a dancer who is dating one of the rowers but she feels like Seb is holding back, and then she starts receiving mysterious notes about him. Max is a scholarship nerd, insecure about his height but then he's asked to join the rowing team as a cox. He enjoys it but all is soured once he learns the truth about Slycroft. Quinn, known as Q, is depressed and angry following a rape that can't be prosecuted. The three, along with some other friends, come together to start changing the "boys club" culture of Lycroft Phelps.

I really enjoyed the way this all came together and I liked the characters and how they developed and grew. I especially enjoyed Q's progression from alienating everyone to letting people in. I did feel like the ending was a bit rushed and it didn't seem like the situation of who was sending Charlotte the notes was properly resolved. Overall a great book that people should definitely read.

Stef Out x

Resolutions Recap 2022

 Hello and welcome to my yearly resolutions recap where I remind myself what a failure I am! LOL!

1. Get at least one piercing
2. Get at least one tattoo
3. Add 20,000 words to my WIP novel
4. Write 30,000 words for National Novel Writing Month 2022
5. Break in all my Dr Marten shoes properly
6. Get a new job
7. Learn to drive
8. Get a new car
9. Sew a garment
10. Learn how to crochet
11. Learn how to cross stitch
12. Read 100 books
13. Watch 100 films
14. Go to the cinema 5 times
15. Go to Longleat Safari Park
16. See a show on stage

Yet another successful year as you can see! So we ended up with a new car at the end of July. The old one, a Nissan Micra, broke down fatally while we were en-route to go shopping in June (I totally looked back at Facebook and Twitter for the dates LOL!). It started to slow down, the gears went funny and then we pulled over and it wouldn't restart. A policeman wanting to do speed checks pushed us into the car park of a shut down pub. We waited 4 hours for the RAC in the heat, I got sunburn just sitting in the car. It turned out to be the timing wheel. We looked for a new one but in the meantime I was walking to work in the height of summer, ugh. It could have been worse though, the day after the actual breakdown we'd planned to go to the cinema to see the latest Jurassic World film, a breakdown on the motorway would have been hell!

We eventually found a new car within our meagre budget, a Citroen C1. Where it had been sat around a while we needed to get a new battery straight away but it's OK, it prefers going fast to slow. The gears are a bit clunky and the left indicator has just started playing up but it's got it's MOT in a couple of weeks, a tad overdue, oops!

I ended up with a new job at the end of September. I left the old one on Tuesday 27th, started the new Thursday 29th! Things had deteriorated badly at my old job. I was accused of mishandling a donation, suspended, investigated, thought I was going to lose my job but kept it by the skin of my teeth. A lot of the issue was verbal information and an incorrect date given, I remembered the correct date, they found the details and all was good-ish. This was the beginning of September. My manager then sent through the latest rotas and we weren't scheduled to work together at all up until at least November (that's how far it went at that point). She'd also hired a Sunday Supervisor behind my back when our original plan was share the weekends as we'd been doing and get me an extra day a week. Then she started leaving loads of catty notes about the way I work so it was good timing that I left then.

My new job is slightly better but it's not one I want to stay at. Some days there's loads to do, others there's nothing and you end up tidying. Ugh. When I started they wanted me to stay away from the tills but now I have entire shifts covering the customer service desk. The training was abysmal, I'm only just figuring some parts out. Sometimes they moan when I'm not doing something quick enough but I'm helping customers and covering breaks in between doing whatever I'm doing. The foot pain that started in my last job is also getting worse so I end up limping around which isn't great.

Only one cinema trip this year :( Sing 2. We planned on seeing others but finances etc just never work out. I made it to 152 books read though so I'm proud of that. I can't remember the film number and officially there's still a few days of the year left but it is over 100. NaNo was a fail this year, I didn't even reach 5,000 words. I did absolutely no planning and a depressive funk made me wonder if I was even going to attempt at all.

Everything else was obviously finance and time related. And motivation, I've struggled mentally this year, I'm constantly in a low level of I don't care. Hopefully that might improve soon? Please?

Back Sunday with this year's resolutions! (Though I'll write it up now and then schedule it XD)

Stef Out x

Rayne and Delilah's Midnite Matinee by Jeff Zentner

 

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

Read April 2021.

4/5 stars

This guy really knows how to write characters! Josie and Delia co-host a cult horror themed TV show. For Josie TV is what she wants to do with her life and her parents have even organised an opportunity in a different town for her. For Delia horror is the thing she loves, it's the thing she shared with the father that abandoned her. She's scared because everyone leaves.

I loved the friendship between Josie and Delia, it was such an authentic relationship. Lawson was amazing as well, he defied stereotypes and I loved it! The writing throughout was really fun and genuine. Delia and her mother's depression was treated so well and the use of medication was totally normalised and they had a great relationship. The stuff with Delia's dad was handled brilliantly as well.

I only have a couple of tiny criticisms. I wish we could have had a little more of Josie with her family, on the whole "family" was skewed heavily towards Delia. There were a couple of idiotic jokes that were too bad for one person to know, never mind multiple (2022 note: why did I not include these specific jokes in my initial review?). Also the entire convention section was absurd and went way too over the top with trying to jam too much into just a few hours.

Stef Out x

Solitaire by Alice Oseman

 

(Review copied from Goodreads)

Original review March 15: I liked and didn't like this story. The characters were well-developed and interesting and very real as modern teenagers but Tori is so unlikeable. She improves slightly throughout when she realises that shock horror she's allowed to care! I found myself wanting to know more about Michael and I really want a more detailed story about Charlie, he was so sweet! There also wasn't much detail given about the situation with Ben and the conclusion of Lucas was a little obvious and cliched. I also found all the conversations about shipping and fandoms and the sexual tension between Sherlock and John in BBC's Sherlock very odd as despite them being popular topics of conversation these days - particularly online - I haven't come across those sort of conversations in books before now.

Re-read Oct 19: I still sort of agree with some of my previous thoughts but now I find Tori relateable in her pessimism and some of the rest I just don't care about. I just enjoyed the book. I do still want to know more about Ben's situation though. I don't know if it comes up during Heartstopper at all? I seriously need to read that sometime!

Re-re-read May 22: Ben's story makes so much more sense having read Heartstopper. Also having read Heartstopper I wanted more Charlie and Nick! On this reread I barely noticed most of the fandom stuff although there is a lengthy Harry Potter based conversation in the opening chapter. I've come to appreciate Tori more with each reading. I did want to know more about the other guys involvement in Solitaire though.

4/5 stars

Stef Out x 

The Outrage by William Hussey

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

Read March 2021

This was a powerful book. Set in a dystopian future England - unknown year but a 2038 car is mentioned as vintage - where anything to do with being LGBT+ or having free will is completely outlawed and many books including 'The Wizard of Oz' (the man behind the curtain) are banned.

Gabe is gay and he begins an illicit relationship with Eric, son of the chief inspector at Degenerate (gay) Investigations, and a very troubled young man. The pair stumble upon an old destroyed library by chance and find a hidden cache of old DVDs - that miraculously still work? A scratch tends to kill them - such as 'Star Wars', 'Love, Simon' and 'Indiana Jones' that inspire Gabe in particular. He then fosters an ambition to become a movie director.

A chance encounter means that their relationship is discovered and the pair are arrested. Eric's father forces him to lie that it was non-consensual in exchange for a role on the force and "freedom". Gabe meanwhile is tortured and worries about his future. Forced to work the degrading and dirty jobs marked as 'degenerate' by a pink cross, or an unknown alternative...

It soon comes to pass that there is an underground resistance that Gabe's parents were part of when they met. Gabe is given help to escape but is soon given information that may help...

I loved the characters and thought that they were well-developed, I especially loved Gabe and his childhood best friend Albert's friendship, and their heart to heart later was beautiful! However the explanation for the initial "Outrage" was a little too brief and I thought the ending was very abrupt. Did anything change? How did their life go?

4/5 Stars

Stef Out x

P.S. Why did Blogger change again? Alignment used to work perfectly.

A Danger to Herself and Others by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

Read November/December 2020

Following an accident at summer school Hannah's best friend Agnes is in hospital with brain damage and Hannah herself has been institutionalised as "a danger to herself and others".

Hannah believes that there's been a mistake and she'll be out soon, after all school starts in a couple of weeks and she prides herself on being a star student, and an all round mature person. But days turn into weeks and then months and nothing seems to change,  except the arrival of a roommate, Lucy, a talented dancer struggling with eating disorders. Can Lucy help Hannah figure out why they're keeping her locked up?

This was a twisty, intriguing novel that I wasn't even sure how to review for ages. It drew me in and I really enjoyed how everything knit together so seamlessly. Hannah isn't necessarily a likeable person but I still felt sympathetic towards her. Overall a very well-written novel.

4/5 stars

Stef Out x