"The Long Forgotten" by David Whitehouse - Review

 

David Whitehouses „Mobile Library“ was probably the first review copy I ever got, back in 2015 when I just started my book seller apprenticeship. It was also the first review I wrote for my bookshops website. And I was lucky, because I had come across a rare gem back then, so the memory of this first venture into my profession happened to be a very good one. I am still holding “Mobile Library” very dear, partially for nostalgic reasons but also because it was a brilliant book.

Now when you have read and loved someones debut novel, a second book being published is equally exciting and scary – your expectations are high, so there is plenty of room for disappointment. But like with most things in life, there is just as much room for things to go well.

I will admit it, it took me shamefully long to pick up “The Long Forgotten”. Not only because reading isn’t part of my job anymore and therefore, I find very little time in my day to day life to do so, or because my pile of shame is so much higher than I’d like to admit (but I will: Currently 55 books). I also was scared to be disappointed.

I was wrong, and I have never been this happy about being wrong in my entire life.

On the first glance, in “The Long Forgotten”, David Whitehouse tells not one story but three and at first it seems odd since these people do not seem to be connected in the slightest: Dove, an odd-ish young man from London with anger issues and memories that are not his own. Peter Manyweathers, a cleaner from New York in the 1980s who is swept away by a sudden obsession with botany. Professor Cole, a grumpy scientist who stumbled across the black box flight recorder of the lost flight PS570 in an incident that almost cost him his life.

These stories seem to be only connected by them being unlikely enough to be of interest but just likely enough to actually happen. For the sake of a spoiler-free review I will only say: They are connected, and it is astonishing how. Please do read the details yourself.

David Whitehouse has a talent to make the reader fall in love, with his language, with his characters and especially with whatever subject he decides to write about. I have never been this passionate about rare flowers and botany before. I have never related this much to an orphan curious to find his parents. And I certainly have never felt that much interest in cleaning in my entire life and hope to get some great accomplishments from this newly found and most likely shortlived obsession.

Whitehouses habit to find and portray the magical in the most mundane, to tell stories of such wonder in an every day life setting that you inevitably start to view your own life through completely new eyes, is remarkable. Personally, I hope to read much more from him.

"Nicotine" by Nell Zink - Review

First of all, I want to say that "Nicotine" was not an easy read. It took me about 10 weeks to finish it. To be completely honest with you, I still don't know what exactly to think of it, because it was very strange. It was not exactly good in a classic sense, not the kind of book you just want to celebrate, but that doesn't mean it was bad either. Not at all! But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's try to give you a summary of what it is about first.

Penny Bakers life has never been normal or ordinary: Her father, a cult leader of sorts, married her mother, who's younger than his oldest son, after originally adopting her (yes, that does have a very Woody Allen vibe to it, you are not the only one thinking that). Penny used to rebell against her family by being the more conventional one until her father dies and with him the rental contract for the flat she lives in. Since she is unemployed this makes her face the problem of eventually becoming homeless as well. When she visits her grandparents house that is supposed to be a ruin and finds it alive and well and occupied by a jolly group of passionate smokers (who gave it the name "Nicotine") and falls in love with Rob, a self-proclaimed asexual bike repairman, she decides to not tell him and the others that this house belongs to her family and instead dives into the squatters culture and anarchist life style. All would be well if it wasn't for Pennys oldest brother Matt, who inherited the house from his father and wants to claim it - and also falls in love with Jazz, another occupant of the Nicotine, leading to a very unhealthy obsession with her.

I think its safe to say that "Nicotine" is a very unconventional book. To be honest it wasn't easy to narrow down the plot to the summary above because it has a lot going on given that it only has 336 pages. As someone who has experienced squatters and anarchist circles, I did recognize a few things as very familiar, other things seemed very odd or even wrong to me, but who am I to judge if that isn't exactly how people are like in the United States? If there aren't mostly occupied houses where all people occupying it are activists for the same cause (for example "smokers rights", or climate activists etc.)?

A thing I kinda liked was the uninhibited portrayal of sexuality and especially female sexuality, desire and pleasure (since that is still very thinly spread). However, it often gave me a somewhat voyeuristic feeling, the feeling of the reader being intrusive. It made me uncomfortable, and I guess that is the point. Not porn or overly romaticising, but absolute intimacy including things that only work in said intimacy between everyone involved, which makes the portrayal of sex in this book feel very natural, real and true.

On the other hand, we have the portrayal of sexual orientations which rubbed me the wrong way (no pun intended). As I said, Rob is asexual, but this gets questioned a lot by those wanting to sleep with him and is a huge topic throughout the book, including the narrative of people not able to have a relationship with him without sex. This is not discussed with him or realized after thinking stuff through, it is just a given and unlike Robs asexuality, it is never questioned by anyone.

SPOILER AHEAD

...of course it turns out that Rob isn't actually asexual but just insecure because he has a small dick and after realizing that no one gives a shit about dick sizes when they're in love everyone fucks happily ever after. My guys, I am mad. So much for acceptance in the portrayal of ace folks. Great. Just great.

SPOILER END

I already mentioned that another thing that rubbed me the wrong way was Pennys family in their entirety. Not because they show toxic, unhealthy family constellations (it does get a lot weirder than what I already told you) but because it is never questioned or put into perspective. It is portrayed as normal and ok and not to be viewed with concern. No one, not a single character stops to think "wait, should I really just accept this and not wonder if theres some serious manipulation playing into that old dude marrying his adopted daughter..?" That just never happens and to me does seem unrealistic and an unhealthy portrayal, especially since we're mostly dealing with leftist SJW characters here.
Overall, I think it's pretty obvious that I still don't quite know what to really think of "Nicotine". It did have it's moments and wasn't a bad read but it has a lot of problematic aspects, so I guess I wouldn't recommend to buy it, but if you can borrow it and feel up for something very weird and kinda uncomfortable, do your thing.

"The Blackthorn Key" by Kevin Sands - Review

Christopher Rowe is extremely lucky in an otherwise unfortunate life – after growing up in an orphanage he gets the opportunity to become an apothecary’s apprentice and ends up with Benedict Blackthorn who is probably the only apothecary in London in 1665 who would never beat him. He studies hard, the recipes and how to encode them, and he finds a father figure in Master Benedict who tries to bring his curiosity under control when he almost blows up the apothecary shop again with one of his unauthorized experiments. Actually, everything could be perfect, if it wasn’t for the mysterious murders that keep happening in the city – the victims primarily being apothecaries. Christopher worries for his master and a race against time begins where he has to try, with the help of his masters codes, to lift the secret of the murderers.

Kevin Sands’ debut “The Blackthorn Key” is an exciting mix of adventure, crime and a tad of fantasy that gets a slight historic spin from its setting. Young Christopher Rowe and his master grow close to the reader very quickly, the other characters are designed with a lot of love as well, and the plot is worked out with loads of details and pretty much impossible to solve by yourself. “The Blackthorn Key” is recommended for children between 10 and 13, but the now grown up Harry Potter- and Bartimæus-fans will probably like it just as much.

"The Keeper Of Lost Things" by Ruth Hogan - Review

Many people collect something in their free time. Stamps, coins, rocks, books... but it's a lot rarer you hear about people collecting lost things, things they find somewhere. Writer Anthony Peardew is such a person. Ripped off coat buttons, umbrellas and a mysterious cookie tin filled with ashes, Anthony keeps everything, puts a label on it stating when and where he found it and tries to give it back to its original owner. He does all of this to compensate for a lost locket he once got from his deceased love Therese.

When Anthony dies he leaves his house and his whole fortune to his assistent Laura – and with it the task to bring back the lot things to their rightful owners. Laura doesn't feel like she could handle that but she gets help from Freddy, the garderer she's secretely in love with, and Sunshine, a girl with down syndrome who lives in the neighbourhood that hardly ever leaves her side.

Throwback to 1974: Young Eunice starts working as an assistent to the attractive publisher Bomber. They share a big passion for movies and an incredible love for dogs and Eunice instantly falls in love with him. But she knows that they will never be a couple and instead she stays at his side as a trustworthy friend, both at the publishing company and in their private life where she helps him facing his sister who is spoiled by a big inheritance and doesn't understand why Bomber refuses to publish her shamelessly plagiarized manuscripts.

In her first novel „The Keeper Of Lost Things“, Ruth Hogan neatly puts those two plots together without being too intrusive – the full extent of the link is only revealed on the last pages. Both stories are full of British humour, heartwarming moments and a little bit of mystic. Lauras story is also bristles with short stories about the lost things in Anthonys possesion – if they are from the writers imagination or the actual backround stories is up to the reader. All that makes „The Keeper Of Lost Things“ a light summer read without too much kitsch that should delight fans of David Whitehouses „Mobile Library“.

"The Universe vs Alex Woods" by Gavin Extence - Review

In the middle of the night in Dover, a boy arrives on the ferry and is arrested. He is 17 years old. 130 grams of marijuana and an urn are found in his car. This and the partial epileptic seizure he has during his arrest are apparently not helping him against the police. At the police station he tries to explain that strange situation, but the officers aren’t interested in the whole story – and thus, he tells it to the reader.

Alex Woods‘ story starts with him being hit by a meteor at age 10. He survives with an injury of his brain that makes him an epileptic. As if that isn’t enough already he is bullied by his classmates for his gigantic interest in astronomy and neurology and so, one day fleeing his bullies he ends up in Mr Petersons garden.

Mr Peterson is an American, Vietnam veteran and a passionate fan of Kurt Vonnegut. Actually, he prefers to stay on his own, but he and Alex become friends pretty quickly who learns to love Kurt Vonneguts books as well. Based on their reading they start discussing profound philosophic and especially moral topics. When Mr Peterson is diagnosed with an incurable nervous disease years later, Alex has to show that he actually learned something about those topics. 

Gavin Extences first novel „The Universe vs Alex Woods“ convinces with bittersweet humor, curiosity for the world and, of course, the unspoken and yet so urgent call to think about the moral questions asked in the book yourself. The characters are likeable and the book read quickly – how else, when you can’t put it down?

"I'll give you the sun" by Jandy Nelson - Review

The twins Noah and Jude are inseperable – both are interested in art and have an artistic disposition but apart from this they are rather different. Noah, who draws, is closer to their mother, and the sewing and sculpting Jude has a better relationship with their father. Noah is an introvert original while Jude is popular and spends a lot of time with her surfer friends at the beach. Still, they are hand in glove with each other – until puberty hits and everything changes. Both want to attend the Californian School of Arts, and thus a rivalry for the mothers attention and support forms who seems to be somewhere completely else mentally. Noah discovers his homosexuality and doesn't really know how to deal with it, Jude herself makes first experiences with love, and slowly, the siblings grow apart more and more, become stranger to each other, and when their mother dies in a car accident, their connection is lost for good.

All of this is told from 13 years old Noahs point of view. Three years later, Jude tells us about the current situation where the twins' roles seem to have switched: Jude is attending art school, is seclusive, hardly cares for friendships and keeps boys away from herself, whereas Noah is cool and popular but gave up drawing. They hardly talk to each other. Jude has a hard time sculpting in school, all her clay works break mystically. She believes that her dead mothers ghost is so angry with her that she is breaking her works. Jude wants to make up for something, and for that she needs stone, a statue, and a mentor to teach her statuary. She finds that in the bizarre artist Guillermo – and with him, she finds Oscar, a mysterious English boy who makes it hard for her to hold her boycott on boys up.

Incredibly sensitive and gentle Jandy Nelson guides us through the exceptional twins' emotions. The subject of the siblings who love each other but still are in concurrence to each other is rarely found in young adult fiction in a way this unique. Jandy Nelson combines family drama, LGBT+ literature, coming of age story and, yes, a love story and manages to find an own style that is hardly comparable with other authors.

"Half of a yellow sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Review

The newly acquired independence of Nigeria from the Commonwealth involves new problems. The population is split over how the country should be governed. Many intellectuals still see a strong bond to the former colonial ruler Great Britain, and between the different tribes is discord as well, because when you speak of Nigerians you don’t speak of a homogenous people but a loose affiliation of different peoples whose only common ground is that between the borders of their nation.

Now that the Nigerians are supposed to govern themselves, each of those tribes is afraid of being overlooked, and Nigeria turns into a powder keg. History is made quickly, a military putsch is pulled through mainly by Igbo, one of the three biggest tribes in Nigeria. That results in the persecution of the Igbo who get murdered in masses by people of the other tribes. 1967 at last, in the South-East of the country, the republic Biafra is declared, a nation supposed to protect the Igbo and make them independent from Nigeria. What follows is a bloody war between both countries and a blockade that coins the image of the biafran malnourished child with a bloated belly forever before Biafra is reincorporated after the capitulation in 1970.

In “Half of a yellow sun”, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie bluntly and impressively tells the story of three people during the rise and fall of Biafra. The link between those people is the university docent Odenigbo who fights for Biafra passionately. We witness the story from the point of view of his wife Olanna who falls from the life of a privileged daughter of a rich family into a life in poverty in a refugee camp during the war, the point of view of the houseboy Ugwu who is intellectually fostered but also influenced by his master and yet always keeps a little jungle in his heart, and from the point of view of the British journalist Richard who, after living as a stranger in Nigeria, finally feels home in Biafra – and still isn’t, due to his skin colour and origin and the privileges coming with that.

With “Half of a yellow sun”, Adichie, who is an Igbo herself, makes a part of history visible that ususally is overlooked by the Eurocentric world view and the habit to let the winners write history and yet manages to not force a onesided view upon the reader by being fully aware of both the flaws of Biafra as well as the injustices that were committed by Nigeria and the rest of the world. Additionally, with the social entanglements between Olanna, Odenigbo and Richard and their families, she makes up a thrilling and captivating family story.

 “Half of a yellow sun” makes this part of history understandable especially to those who never heard the word Biafra. Helping with that is a glossary at the end of the book.

"My heart and other black holes" by Jasmine Warga - Review

Aysel is 16, depressive and plans to kill herself. Some may think that this is the typical melodramatic behaviour of a teenager. But Aysels problems are pretty atypical: She is the daughter of a convicted murderer, and no one in Langston, a small town in Kentucky, fails to remind her of that, not even her family who she feels left out of, and she herself. She fears that she might have inherited the „gene for evil“, for the rage and aggression of her father, and one thing is clear – waiting and seeing what happens? Not an option.

But Aysel is also scared that she might not follow through, that she might back down in the last second. A partner is needed, and she finds that partner online at „Smooth Passages“.

This partners name is Roman, respectively FrozenRobot, is 17 and lives in the nearby town Willis, even though „living“, in his case, means „existing“. Roman has to live with a whole different problem: He didn't watch his younger sister carefully enough and she drowned. He feels responsible for that. He, too, fears he might not actually do it, and thus he advertises at Smooth Passages and is found by Aysel.

Except for the shared wish for death, Aysel and Roman are quite different. While Aysel is more of a weirdo with her interest in classical music and science plus her Turkish heritage which is pretty uncommon in conserative Kentucky, Roman is popular, athletic, normal and somewhat fitting in. What they share is April 7^th, the day they chose to jump off a cliff into Ohio River together. But can you plan a suicide with someone you don't even know? Even if you just want to die instead of live together?

„My heart and other black holes“ is Jasmine Wargas well-made first novel. You don't wish upon her that she got inspired by her own life, yet, she started writing after a good friend of her died in 2013. Thematically, this young adult book is incredibly important. In a world where the rates of teenagers in therapy rise steadily it is a great approach to offer a reflection in the character of Aysel that touches the reader, may it be the reader that is affected themself or the happiest person in the world. And we follow this reflection, we understand Aysels emotions, her grief, her fear, her suspicion, and we witness her developement, see a possible progress of an illness that is hidden and ignored so easily. Still, „My heart and other black holes“ isn't meant to scare people. It's meant to help feeling understood, and this intention is met with bravour.

I'd recommend „My heart and other black holes“ to fans of John Greens „The fault in our stars“, to readers who like to sympathise, and of course to everyone who wants to feel understood in their sorrows just once.

"Masterminds" by Gordon Korman - Review

Imagine growing up in a small town in New Mexico. There is no crime, no one is unemployed, no poverty, everyone is peaceful, share everything justly and are completely honest with each other.

Sounds good, right? Almost too good.

Serenity is such a paradise. Although a bit boring. Except for the plastic factory that no one can enter without working there and the Serenity trophy, a gift from Roosevelt himself, there’s not much to see. Eli Baris still feels pretty good about living there, and most of his classmates agree with him. That’s why hardly anyone of them ever crossed the city borders, not even for a vacation with their parents. Why should they? Serenity holds everything you need, and out there you only get violence and hate.

And an old car that Eli and his best friend Randy want to explore, somewhere in the forest just beyond the city limits. But Eli never gets there because when reaching the border he suddenly collapses with pain and nausea. What fist seems to be a coincidence turns out to be a complex plan to keep Eli and ten other kids inside the city. But why them? And why does it seem as if in this peaceful idyll so much is a lie or even life-threatening?

“Masterminds” by Gordon Korman is an exceptional novel for young readers 12 years or older. In about 330 pages happens so much that would actually be part of a dystopian novel like “Hunger Games” or “Divergent”, and yet while reading you realize quickly that what’s happening in this book could happen just as well in real life. To be honest it is not easy to review this book without spoilers – and there’s much to spoil given the loads of revelations and plot twists “Masterminds” has to offer. Thus, there’s not much more to do than simply express a clear recommendation: For everyone who likes mystery, for everyone who’s flirting with the thought of reading “Divergent” but would prefer less death – and for everyone who likes to question right and wrong.

"Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Review

 One thing has to be clear from the very beginning: Yes, this book is about race. And about racism. No ifs, no buts. And yet without dividing the world into good and evil based on race and without a wagging finger. It’s evaluating the situation and it’s honest.

“Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (a name you’ll have to learn merely because you’ll be delighted by her work) is about two young Nigerian lovers. Ifemelu and Obinze meet in school and quickly become a couple. They are intelligent, determined and plan to leave Africa already while still at university. Ifemelu seems to be successful with that plan, but she has to learn that in the USA, her skin colour suddenly becomes a huge factor and that it’s not easy to establish herself, let alone earn money when you’re a black foreigner. After one especially bad incident the contact to her boyfriend Obinze breaks off completely. Later, she starts writing a blog about her observations about the topic race in America.

However, Obinze doesn’t get visa for the USA because he is a young man of colour and those are viewed with even more suspicion by the American authorities. Instead he manages to overrun a visa in London for a few years without being discovered. Shortly before he can get married for convenience he gets caught and deported.

Years later, Ifemelu decides to go back to Nigeria and she and Obinze meet again.

With “Americanah”, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie managed to write a classic right from the start. The young Nigerian writer tells her story in a style very comparable to literature Nobel prize winners. Her sober portrayal of an existence as a black person opens the readers’ eyes quickly for things you usually don’t realize as a person not affected by racism – and those are not even necessarily negative things.

I truly think everyone should read Adichie, literally anything she has written – but take care, she can get you addicted pretty quickly.