FOLIO | BOOK REVIEW: THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY BY MATT HAIG

Review by Letitia Fitzpatrick

How many of us have wondered what would have happened if we had made different choices in our lives?  From the author of How to Stop Time, Reasons to Stay Alive and The Humans comes this unique, poignant novel about regret, hope and forgiveness, and a library which keeps second chances on its shelves. Matt Haig blurs the lines between genres, blending fantasy and myth with science fiction to create inventive and popular contemporary fiction.

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year 2021, The Midnight Library weaves magic from the first page. When Nora Seed finds herself in the library of the title, she has a chance to make things right by following different careers, undoing old break-ups, pursuing her passions, or travelling the globe.

Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret.  She feels she has let down everyone, including herself, but things are about to change.  The books in the Midnight Library allow Nora to live as if she had done things differently.  With the help of an old teacher, she can now undo every one of her regrets, as she tries to work out her perfect life. But would any of these other lives truly have been better?   

Nora finds that things aren’t always what she imagined they would be if she had chosen a different road.  Before time runs out, she must search within herself for fulfilment, and find the best way she can to live her one precious life as well as discover what makes it worth living in the first place.

Matt Haig was born in Sheffield in 1975.  He writes books for adults and children, often blending the worlds of domestic reality and outright fantasy, with a quirky twist.  His bestselling novels are translated into 28 languages.

The Midnight Library is a warm, funny and uplifting read which is full of enchantment and food for thought.

FOLIO | BOOK REVIEW IF I NEVER MET YOU BY MHAIRI MCFARLANE

Fancy a bit of light relief from all the doom and gloom around us? Here is a fun, easy read with lots of humour and plot twists by the Sunday Times bestselling author, Mhairi McFarlane.

If I Never Met You is about Laurie whose partner, Dan dumps her after 18 years, just as she is hoping they will start a family. She is devastated by this turn of events, and to heap on more humiliation, they still have to work together in the same law firm. So when Laurie gets stuck in the lift with her good-looking colleague, Jamie, who is the office heartthrob, they hatch a plan to stage the perfect romance.

He’s looking for a promotion, but his bosses have indicated that he needs to settle down. Laurie wants revenge to make Dan jealous.

“Laurie had made them a great home and it still wasn’t enough. Or, she wasn’t. She felt so foolish: the whole time he’d been growing colder, quietly horrified, hemmed in and alienated by it. It was such a shallow thing, but Laurie felt so damn uncool for being satisfied by a life that Dan wasn’t.”

It’s a fauxmance rather than a romance, but things get complicated in this hilarious, touching and well-written tale which will have you turning the pages into the wee small hours.

“I think long-term relationships are the most potent demonstration of Sunk Cost Fallacy you’ll ever see,” Jamie said. “The definition of Sunk Cost Fallacy is a refusal to change something that makes you unhappy. You won’t, because look at the time and money and effort you’ll have wasted if you do. Which of course only means more waste.”

Had this been what Dan decided?’

If I Never Met You is Mhairi McFarlane’s sixth novel and she says she’d wanted to write the Fake Romance trope for ages: “The social media age is such a rich time to write the wholly performative love affair because there’s so much highlights-reel-showing-off going on already. To counterpoint the high concept romance, I wanted the pain that spurred the protagonist into doing it to feel very real: thus the awful separation and ‘emotional ghosting’ Laurie gets right on the cusp of starting a family and in sight of middle age.

And of course at the heart of it all is that romantic comedy mainstay: two people who imagine they’re chalk and cheese.”

Enjoy this classy rom com from a clever, witty writer.

By Letitia Fitzpatrick

FOLIO | BOOK REVIEW: Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession

The writer of this beautiful, uplifting and touching first novel has been a senior civil servant for many years, and has captured the imagination of readers in Ireland where the novel is set, as well as abroad.

Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession tells of two friends in their thirties, who seem a bit odd and nerdy, but are good-natured and happy with themselves and their world. Their greatest passion is board games, and they enjoy reading science journals, encyclopaedias and birdwatching.

Hungry Paul lives with his mother and father, and the family are content together. Leonard also lives at home, with his widowed mother. Mindfulness is all the rage these days, and we are invited into the two friends’ world where they live in the present, take care of their parents, are kind, and delight in the small joys of life. They remind us that life is precious, even when people are uncelebrated.

The public response to this book, published in March 2019, has been phenomenal; it became a word-of-mouth bestseller in Ireland and Britain and was the subject of a publishers’ bidding war in America. It was also chosen by Dublin, Unesco City of Literature, as 2019’s One Dublin One Book where everyone in the city reads a designated book during April.

The book is a positive story, celebrating small acts of kindness which can mean so much, and seems particularly apt in these troubled times where we have come to appreciate friends and family more.

A busy father, Hession wrote Leonard and Hungry Paul in 2017 in the late evenings when his children were in bed. That’s still when he writes, when he has the house to himself. It was his first experience of writing prose and there aren’t any writers in his family. Being chosen for One Dublin One Book has made him realise how rooted he is in the city.

Leonard and Hungry Paul is a celebration of people who live quiet lives, people who “don’t push themselves to the front” and are often either simplified or, worse, rendered grotesque in literature. This is why there are very few physical descriptions, no surnames, no place names. The author didn’t want shortcuts, and believes that if you want to take quiet people and put them in the foreground, you need to prune away the things that normally obscure them.

“Leonard and Hungry Paul in particular, is heavily influenced by coming out of a decade of reading children’s books for my kids,” he says. “What children’s books do a bit better than other fiction is they try to go beyond just saying ‘the world is a bad place’… They try and say, ‘Is there a way to be in the world, given the world is the way it is? How do I engage with the world without it overwhelming me?’… That’s something I think of in my own life and it comes out in the book.”

It’s an unexpected treasure of a book which I thoroughly recommend.

By Letitia Fitzpatrick

FOLIO | BOOK REVIEW - WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Letitia Fitzpatrick

Where The Crawdads Sing is a bestselling debut novel by Delia Owens set in North Carolina in the Fifties and Sixties. It has sold more than 4.5 million copies and topped Amazon’s list of Most Sold Books in fiction in 2019. It’s also a favourite of book clubs everywhere.

It combines a murder mystery, a coming-of-age story and a celebration of the natural world. For years, rumours of the ‘Marsh Girl’ have swirled around Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. In 1969, when a handsome young local man, Chase Andrews, who’s a bit of a celebrity, is found dead, suspicion immediately falls on the Marsh Girl, Kya Clark.

Shy and rejected by the townsfolk, she’s a complex individual who has had to survive alone in the marsh she calls home, making friends among the wildlife, and learning an astonishing amount about nature. She’s extremely clever, becoming self-sufficient since she was a young child. As she grows up, navigating her lonely life, she yearns for love, and two young men from the town become fascinated by her.

“Learning to read was the most fun she’d ever had. But she couldn’t figure why Tate had offered to teach po’ white trash like her, why he’d come in the first place, bringing exquisite feathers. But she didn’t ask, afraid it might get him thinking on it, send him away.

“Now at last Kya could label all her precious specimens. She took each feather, insect, shell, or flower, looked up how to spell the name in Ma’s books, and wrote it carefully on her brown-paper-bag painting.

“‘What comes after twenty-nine?’ she asked Tate one day. He looked at her. She knew more about tides and snow geese, eagles and stars than most ever would, yet she couldn’t count to thirty. He didn’t want to shame her, so didn’t show surprise. She was awfully good at reading eyes."

However, Kya’s new life brings danger, and the gripping plot twists and turns. Kya is a compelling and sensitive character, and the author’s descriptive prose draws you into her life in the wild, evoking the beauty of the marshland and its inhabitants.

Where The Crawdads Sing draws on themes of survival, of racial and social division, and ecology. The heroine is portrayed sympathetically, and her story examines how isolation affects our behaviour and how abandonment and rejection cast long shadows on our lives.

It’s a real page-turner, right to the end.

LOCKDOWN LITERATURE - BEST COMFORT READING BOOK ROUNDUP by Rose Winter

With the extended, year-long lockdown hopefully almost over, most of us have been drawn to on-screen entertainment as a way to escape the everyday reality of being stuck at home. But if you’ve exhausted Netflix, or maxed out Amazon Prime through these last weeks of our imposed quarantine, we suggest turning to some good old fashioned books to spark your imagination and titillate the grey matter without the blue light of a screen. I have rounded up five of the best books from recent releases for a good dose of escapism and a chance to kindle a spark of hope or lift your mood.

Writers and Lovers, Lily King 

(Literary Fiction). 

This new novel from American author Lily King explores grief, love and passion through the life of a young author who finds herself at a crossroads in life. After the death of her mother, she is stuck between the pressure society puts on women her age and working on her novel. King’s sensitive dialogue is a delight, and this hopeful novel should be on the TBR list of everyone who wants to enjoy some uplifting emotional escapism. 

Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney 

No doubt you have heard of Normal People by now, whether you’ve seen the series or just heard about *the* chain. The BBC adaptation of Rooney’s first novel, Conversations With Friends, is due to drop in 2022, so there is no better time to get all caught up with the work of this up-and-coming Irish icon. Conversations with Friends centres on two best friends who become entangled with the fate of a married couple in Dublin, and the fallout for their own relationship. This novel is a whirlwind tour of poetry, love, heartbreak, art, and everything in between. Personally, I found this novel even more compelling than Normal People, and I can’t recommend it enough for its sharp perceptions of what makes people love and leave each other. 

Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid  

Fair warning - Reid’s debut novel is heavy going at times, for good reason. This striking new novel is an honest and sensitive portrait of race and youth in contemporary America. You will find yourself attached to the protagonist, Emira, from the very first page, and although the themes the novel raises are upsetting at times, Reid never fails to deal empathetically with these moments in gorgeous prose and dialogue. The reason I loved this novel so much was the way it makes you look within and question yourself, and the hope it offers up for people to be better versions of themselves. 

The Fire Starters, Jan Carson

Belfast author Jan Carson’s debut novel is not to be missed. Set in East Belfast, this tale of magic realism and darkness is the perfect choice for anyone who loves a novel that rests just between fantasy and reality. It is hard to look away from Carson’s fluent writing as it explores language, inheritance and chaos. She takes a city that you know and turns it sideways, making it unrecognisable and perfectly familiar at the same time. Get stuck into The Fire Starters if this appeals to you, and you won’t be disappointed. Look out for recent new work from this author too, she’s a must-read for literary types interested in Belfast. 

Sweet Bitter, Stephanie Danler  

You might be forgiven for thinking this novel will turn into a cliché at the very beginning: Tess jumps into her car with a few boxes and moves to New York City to make it big. Within a few pages, however, you will quickly become invested in this beautiful story about love, food and belonging. Emphasis on the food! Danler treats us to a wine soaked tour of New York through the perspective of this young woman who suddenly becomes involved in the high pressure world of fine dining. The best part is you will genuinely learn something about fine food, wine and culture in these pages, alongside the beautiful storyline. With a new series adaptation of this gorgeous novel recently released, this novel is the perfect read for some feel good escapism. 

Whether you are a keen reader or prefer to dip in and out of a book, try one of these titles with a hot drink and a moment away from the news, giving yourself a minute of downtime! What better way than to keep your spirits up while we wait for restrictions to be lifted? 

If, like me, you also want to continue supporting local and independent businesses while keeping up your book habit, you’re spoilt for choice. If you’re Belfast based, BooksPaperScissors and No Alibis are both still delivering orders over the lockdown, and have a great choice on their websites or can order titles in specifically. If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, bookshop.org is a great alternative to Amazon at similar prices and delivery times.

FOLIO | BOOK REVIEW | AFTER THE SILENCE BY LOUISE O'NEILL

Louise O’Neill’s latest piece ‘After The Silence’ is set on the island of Inisrun, ten years after the mysterious and brutal murder of Nessa Crowley, one of the island’s legendary Crowley sisters, at a Christmas party. O’Neill takes us back to the island where the Kinsella family, who hosted the fatal party, are hiding a deep secret.

The novel was initially inspired by the infamous true crime podcast ‘West Cork’ and the investigation into the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, and O’Neill wanted to use aspects of this within the novel, so she used flashbacks from Keelin Kinsella, the wife of Henry and mum to Evie and Alex, as well as interviews by a team of Australian film makers with islanders past and present, to tell the story.

Film makers Noah and Jake come to the island to make a film about “The Crowley Girl” and they use their interviews to show the prolonged hurt and strain among those left behind, especially Keelin Kinsella. Keelin’s husband Henry was always known as a blown in, and definitely doesn’t have the public’s favour since his family had let their money talk years ago when they built a retreat for artists. He is the main suspect in the murder, but O’Neill has written the novel so well that you don’t know exactly what the family is hiding until the very last minute.

The family lives a quiet and remote life on the island, away from other islanders since Nessa’s death, but when the documentary makers arrive, this all changes and the islanders are hopeful that the boys will uncover some new evidence that would finally convict Henry of the murder of one of their own. No one could get on or off the island the night of her death due to a huge storm, so if it wasn’t Henry Kinsella then they need to know who it was finally as the murderer was (and maybe still is, among them).

The Kinsella family dynamic is clearly strained and this has a central tie to the whole book which personally I enjoyed. One minute I felt sorry for someone, the next I was questioning why I had felt sorry for them. This ability to evoke emotion around characters is is a great attribute to any writer so big applause to Louise O’Neill here.

The book is set out to be a murder mystery, but it is clear from the outset that the author is hugely passionate about the story of Keelin and her harrowing experiences with domestic violence - both from a former husband and now in very subtle, but coercive ways with Henry.

Overall it’s a very thrilling read as, right from the outset you know that there is without a doubt more to the story than is being told. The gentle unravelling of the overall plot, both present day and in the past, as well as the setting of the wild and rocky island, make the tale even more thrilling and atmospheric although your mind needs to be fully switched on and engaged to keep up with the back ‘n’ forth nature of the flashbacks. It’s not one to read with a sleepy, pre-bed mind, that’s for sure! But if you like murder mysteries and a notion of quaint island life then this is definitely one for you.

FOLIO | BOOK REVIEW | SHUGGIE BAIN BY DOUGLAS STUART

Shuggie Bain is a powerful, beautiful first novel by Glasgow-born writer, Douglas Stuart. Winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, it’s set in working-class Glasgow in 1981, where poverty is casting a long shadow as traditional industries die.

Shuggie watches his beautiful mother, Agnes, often compared to the film star Elizabeth Taylor, struggle to hold on to her dreams, which include having her own front door.

Her violent, womanising husband abandons the family, and she and her three children end up in a dying mining town. Margaret Thatcher’s policies have led to mass unemployment, and alcohol and substance abuse are never far away.

Ground down by life, Agnes takes pride in her good looks, but becomes more dependent on booze to get through, as her older children pull away from her to try to save themselves. Her youngest, Shuggie, a lonely sweet boy, adores his mother, clutching on to the hope of a brighter future for them, but he has to cope with his own struggles. He is bullied for being effeminate, different and not fitting into this brutal world where men dominate. Agnes wants to stand by him, but her addiction means that most of the family’s meagre benefits go on drink, and she gets lost in a haze of alcohol a lot of the time, leaving her vulnerable son to face the world on his own.

As her alcoholism becomes worse, Agnes is exploited by men and even by neighbours pretending to be friends. Her eldest child, Catherine is the first to get away, escaping to South Africa, then Shuggie’s older brother leaves, telling his brother that Agnes will never change.

Both are afraid of getting sucked into a hopeless, desperate situation. Shuggie’s deep bond with his mother is heartbreaking, as her decline continues. They are left alone together and things go from bad to worse, but young Shuggie has a huge capacity for love and forgiveness.

“She was no use at maths homework, and some days you could starve rather than get a hot meal from her, but Shuggie looked at her now and understood this was where she excelled. Everyday with the make-up on and her hair done, she climbed out of her grave and held her head high. When she had disgraced herself with drink, she got up the next day, put on her best coat, and faced the world. When her belly was empty and her weans were hungry, she did her hair and let the world think otherwise.”

Shuggie Bain is a brilliant, tragic insight into a family beset by secrets, alcoholism, and sexuality against a backdrop of poverty. The author shows huge compassion in this unforgettable novel.

FOLIO | BOOK REVIEW | BECOMING BY MICHELLE OBAMA

By Alison Campbell & Cathy Martin

‘Becoming’ is a beautiful, inspiring and engrossing piece of work from the former First Lady of the USA, Michelle Obama. If you’ve ever wanted to laugh, cry and cheer for someone all at once, I promise you will do it in this. Without a doubt, Michelle Obama has to be one of the most influential women of our time and the way she tells her story (stories, actually) in Becoming shows us just how relatable and down to earth she is.

The memoir has been divided into three parts, Becoming Me, Becoming Us, and Becoming More - each as captivating as the next.

‘Becoming Me’ talks about her upbringing and childhood struggles in the south side of Chicago as Michelle Robinson. She discussed her father’s fight with MS, as well as an early experience with the police alongside her brother, which would teach her early on how the colour of their skin made them vulnerable. She travelled over an hour every day to get to school, but even then her drive, conscientiousness and ambition was clear. Some say perfectionism is a negative thing, but Michelle wanted to be more than a stereotypical South Side black girl, she wanted to be more and strove to achieve each goal along the way.  

‘Becoming Us’ is, as you can imagine, all about meeting Barack.  But before deep diving into their love story she talks about feeling isolated as being one of only 9% of black classmates at Princeton. She fought and got into Princeton to join her brother, but it was here that she began to really see the race and class differences, which, instead of fighting against, she strove to beat in a different way, by being better than a black statistic.

‘Becoming More’ is the most personal part of the book, as it talks a lot about the struggles of being the First Lady, and the criticism she dealt with, but also her passion for the varying charities, campaigns and foundations that she supported (and continues to do so).  She talks about her pride at raising her children and wanting their lives to be as normal as was possible within the confines of the White House bubble. No mean feat!

As expected, the book brings a very different perspective to the public persona that is and was an esteemed American First Lady. We often don’t hear of the late night struggles and sacrifices that have to be made, or the worries that her girls wouldn’t make friends because of who they are.

The book demonstrates further that she is the epitome of a strong woman - and has had to be from an early age - but a lot of it is quiet strength. She has the quiet inner confidence of a lady who is polite and kind, but is not afraid to speak out where she sees wrong. And we all know we need more women like that! Wasn’t it another former First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, who said if you don’t speak up against oppression you stand on the side of the oppressor? Well if it wasn’t her, it was probably something she’d align herself to, as she was a steely First Lady like MO too.  Outside of the book, we at The F Words loved how Michelle plain as day called Trump a bully during the Presidential campaign. And it’s great that she (and Barack) continue to do so.

Overall this is a book of inspiration and shows that anything is possible if you put your mind to it and have good people around you. A great read.

FOLIO | BOOK REVIEW 'GROWN UPS' BY MARIAN KEYES

Grown Ups is a lively, fast-paced and moving story about a highly dysfunctional (although hilarious at times) Irish family, The Caseys, and all of their complex, entangled stories.

The three Casey brothers, their wives and assorted children all spend a lot of time together, but tensions are simmering under the surface from old resentments, second marriages, truculent teenagers, step-siblings and fears of insufficiency.  

Throughout the book the Casey clan delivers an endless amount of drama peppered by author Marian Keyes’s signature humour, while simultaneously addressing serious, real-life issues such as bulimia, anxiety, depression and alcoholism.

With the countless characters and their many complex relationships, the book can seem a little confusing at the beginning for some; but stick the pace because it all falls into place and, once finished, most are sad to see the complicated clan go. It’s a bit like arriving into a dinner party and immediately forgetting everyone’s names once you’ve been introduced, but as the stories unfold and the night passes, you put it all together.  Personally I didn’t need it, but the family tree at the beginning of the book ought to have helped some!

Keyes brilliantly captures the impossible paradox of being a 21st-century grown-up, furiously trying to keep up, pretending you know what you’re doing, never feeling like you’re enough, parenting children who seem more savvy than you, and sometimes just wishing someone else would sort it all out for you. Told from multiple points of view, Keyes knows best how to bring out her character insecurities and flaws, making them incredibly relatable – and perhaps this is why the book is such a hit.

Overall I found the book witty and engaging in a light-hearted and typically Marian Keyes way - it’s difficult not to become so immersed in the lives of these people that the pages just fly by – but it’s also a page turner for the more serious and powerful themes around the dynamics of family, marriage and body image. There really isn’t a dull moment, and this is tragicomedy at its heartbreaking and witty best…