January Book Review

One of my Goals For 2021 was to make writing a priority and within that I said that I would be reading more and writing monthly book reviews. Here are the books that I read in January 2021 and what I thought of them.

Sex and the City, Candace Bushnell

I remember watching the Sex and the City TV series finale in 2004. I was fifteen and a half and I watched it sat on the floor in the living room at my friend Anna's house. Her parents were out for the evening, a group of us gathered and a few of us had a couple of Smirnoff Ice alcopops, that made our inexperienced teenage bodies "drunk".

Being far too young for the series back in 1998, I discovered it when I was fourteen or so, and binged it all. I loved it. It was funny, raunchy and had a strong focus on female relationships. As an impressionable teen, sexuality and friendship were things I was slowly learning about. I envisioned a future for myself where I would move to a big city, be super successful and fill my apartment with all kinds of wonderful expensive things.

Fast forward seventeen years and I finally got around to reading the book that the series was inspired by. I really, really wanted to like it.

I just couldn't.

I even forced myself to read it to the very end in the hope that it would get better. I just didn't get it. The book is a collection of articles that Candace Bushnell originally published in The New York Observer about being a thirty-something single in New York.

Perhaps, having not been a thirty-something single in New York in the 90s, I just couldn't relate. It seemed to be more than that though. I've never been a young British boy stranded on an uninhabited island and I loved Lord of the Flies.

Characters were introduced throughout the various articles and some of them reappeared in later chapters, but other than that there didn't seem to be any kind of plot, storyline or timeline.

I made it to the epilogue feeling vastly underwhelmed. A rare occasion where the adaptation is much better than the book. Save yourself the effort, stream the series instead.

Shopaholic Ties The Knot, Sophie Kinsella

I absolutely love Sophie Kinsella. My obsession with her started when I read "Can You Keep A Secret" for the first time in my early teens. A few years back I considered writing a book about how what we see on social media is all a lie, but I'm kind of glad I didn't because what she did in "My Not So Perfect Life" was much better than anything my brain could have dreamt up.

Basically, I'm a Kinsella fan girl.

Undoubtedly, her most famous creation is Becky Bloomwood of the "Shopaholic" book series. I thought I'd read most of the Shopaholic books, but after a quick glance of my "for later" shelf at the Vancouver Public Library, it appears I have a lot to get through.

Look, honestly, you know what you're going to get from Becky Bloomwood. It's not Shakespeare at the end of the day. She's going to get herself into a ridiculous mess, drive herself crazy and somehow figure it all out in the end.

Kinsella writes with such wit and charm that you can't help but love Becky, even though the situations she gets herself into are often very far fetched. In Ties The Knot she ends up in a pickle where she's meant to be getting married in both New York and the UK on the same day.

These books are the perfect escapism and although I can pretty much work out the end from the first chapter, I'm really looking forward to working my way through the rest of the series in the coming months.

Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race, Reni Eddo-Lodge

I'm not all about chick lit and random entertainment. I also love reading things that make me think and question the world around me.

In a time where it's becoming increasingly ridiculed to be "woke", I find myself wanting more and more to educate myself about the issues faced by people who are much less privileged than myself.

In Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race, Eddo-Lodge gives an account of structural racism in Britain and an overview of British black history. She is one of the few British voices writing about race, as the vast majority of books on the subject relate to the equally abhorrent subject of racism in America.

From a young age, I was educated to believe that the sun never setting on the British Empire was a wonderful thing. It is only as I have grown older and been fortunate enough to travel to some amazing countries around the world, that I have realised and learnt the true impacts of colonisation.

This book gives some insight to what it is like to be Black and British in today's society. I am grateful for some of the lessons I have learned from it and would highly recommend it.

Also Started...

No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering, Clara Bensen - I struggled to properly get into this book, I read a few chapters but it didn't keep me from putting it down the way some books grab me. I will likely try again in the future as minimalism and travel are two things I am definitely interested in!

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed - I was really getting into this book when I realised that I needed to return it to the library. I will definitely pick up where I left off when I can so look out for a future review of this one!

And that was that for January. I am truly obsessed with reading and love hearing book recommendations, so if you have any suggestions from chick lit to thrillers to autobiographies, I'd love to hear them!