JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart by Margarita Montimore

What if you lived every year of your life in the wrong order?

Brooklyn, 1982. Oona Lockhart is about to celebrate her 19th birthday and ring in the New Year. But at the stroke of midnight, she is torn from her friends and boyfriend, finding herself in her fifty-one-year-old body, thirty-two years into the future.

Greeted by a friendly stranger, Oona learns that on every birthday she will enter a different year of her adult life at random. Still a young woman on the inside, but ever changing on the outside, who will she be next year? Wealthy philanthropist? Nineties Club Kid? World traveller? Wife to a man she’s never met?

As she struggles between fighting her fate and accepting it, Oona must learn to navigate a life that’s out of order – but is it broken?

The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart by Margarita Montimore is a time-travelling novel that explores the power of being alive, and the importance of living life to its fullest at every moment.

Oona jumps to a different point in her life every year on New Years’ Day. The pattern is random and there’s no way to tell what age she’ll be after her 12 months are up.

Whilst time travel is not a new concept, the premise of this book feels fresh and unique, taking readers on a journey through different eras — from the 1980s to 2017.

“Oona came to with a long gasp, as if breathing the surface after being trapped underwater, left to drown. A second earlier, she’d been surrounded by people and light and noise and warmth. Now she lay on a plush carpet in a dark room lit by a fireplace, silent but for the crackle of flames heating the drafty space.”

The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart is charming and sweet — the perfect beachside read or airport purchase.

The novel explores the conflict of knowing your future. If Oona knows where her life is headed, should she change what she’s doing in the present? What kind of effect will that have on her future life?

Oona faces this dilemma multiple times in the novel, each time questioning the reasons behind living the life she’s expected to live. If she knows where the next 12 months will lead her, how is this living? How is this fun? She should be allowed to make her own decisions and live her life spontaneously.

“Kenzie joined her when he didn’t have calls or errands, and she picked his brain about the modern world. She brimmed with endless questions like a hyper curious child, only instead of asking why the sky was blue or where babies came from, she asked why 9/11 happened and where society’s progressive attitude came from, still in awe that a black man was president and gay marriage was legal.”

Upon reflection, I feel that there isn’t much tension in this book. Sure, it’s disorientating and confusing for Oona whenever she jumps to another year in her life, because she’s never really sure where she’ll end up. But, she’s got an incredibly secure life and so there’s never a time where you truly worry for her.

Firstly, she’s rich. In every single year of her life. She never even has to work or find a job. Secondly, she has her mother’s help and guidance every time. Thirdly, there’s a letter waiting for her that gives her an update on her life, and an indication of how she should live the next one.

To be honest, Oona’s life is relatively easy. I never once worried for her. Or felt concern for her.

“Deep breath in, deep breath out. Oona tried to check the time, but found she wasn’t wearing a watch. A flash of colour on the inside of her wrist made her pull up her sleeve. She gasped and revealed a tattoo: an hourglass with swirls of galaxies in place of sand, a ribbon across its space spelling out M.D.C.R.”

Characterisation is one of the biggest strengths in this novel. Margarita captures Oona’s conflict incredibly well, but also her grief, her despair, and her doubts. Time travel would have its benefits but it would also be devastating knowing how your life ends up, without ever having the chance to experience that yourself. Oona’s internal dialogue is filled with depth, understanding, maturity, but also raw human emotion.

Recommend for fans of literary fiction, and women’s literature. The unique premise will draw you in and keep you engaged until the final chapter.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart
Margarita Montimore
March 2020
Hachette Book Publishers

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Kohan has been in possession of her meticulously crafted answer since she understood the question. On the day that she nails the most important job interview of her career and gets engaged to the perfect man, she’s well on her way to fulfilling her life goals.

That night Dannie falls asleep only to wake up in a different apartment with a different ring on her finger, and in the company of a very different man. The TV is on in the background, and she can just make out the date. It’s the same night – December 15th – but 2025, five years in the future.

It was just a dream, she tells herself when she wakes, but it felt so real… Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.

That is, until four and a half years later, when Dannie turns down a street and there, standing on the corner, is the man from her dream…

Rebecca Serle’s In Five Years is an uplifting novel about life, love, heartbreak and the uncertainty of life.

In Five Years explores the concept of face and destiny, and understanding the difference between what you can control in your life and what you can’t control.

Dannie is blissfully happy with her fiancé, until she has a dream set five years in the future, and suddenly she’s unsure. It isn’t until four and a half years later, when Dannie meets the mysterious man from her dream, where she starts to think about what she wants in life and if maybe it’s different to what she’d always planned.

“Four and a half years pass. Winters and falls and summers. Everything goes according to plan. Everything. Except that David and I don’t get married. We never set a date. We say we’re busy, which we are. We say we don’t need to until we want kids. We say we want to travel.”

In Five Years is a diamond among the rough — a glorious, surprising novel that is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. It took unexpected turns, and explored emotions and circumstances that many readers will be able to relate to.

There’s a lot of heartache in this book, but it’s part of the charm of the story. You don’t quite expect it, and you find yourself caught unawares by the direction of the story. The characters are raw, honest and the story is compelling.

At times, Dannie can be naive and oblivious to her own situation, but she’s also caring and considerate and present when she needs to be. Her best friend, Bella, is carefree and energetic and spontaneous, until something happens that forces her to confront her life and its current situation.

“I help David unload the trunk, handing Morgan her roller as Bella comes out of the house. She has on a pale linen dress, the bottom of which has paint splotches on it. This fills me with a very particular kind of joy. To my knowledge she hasn’t painted all year, the sight of her — hair wild in the wind, the atmosphere of creation hanging around her like mist — is wonderful to witness.”

In Five Years explores love, loss, grief and the power of friendship. At its core, this book is a rom-com. Dannie is a little too comfortable in her engagement and her best friend introduces a new boyfriend who has completely captivated her. However, the book is also about female friendship and loyalty — Rebecca Serle captures a really strong bond between Dannie and Bella, and many readers will be able to recognise that kind of friendship.

Dannie goes through more than one heartache across the course of the novel; we witness her confront her hopes and fears, her failed ‘plan’ and her desires for the future.

“Bella opens her mouth to say something, but closes it again. She likes David. Or at least, I think she does. I suspect she’d like me to be with someone more adventurous, someone who maybe pushed me outside my comfort zone a little bit more. But what she doesn’t realize, or what she conveniently forgets, is that she and I are not the same person.”

I will admit the synopsis is a little misleading — it implies the book features time travel, and that when Dannie goes to sleep she actually does wake up five years in the future and has to navigate her new life. I spent the first few chapters quite confused with the direction of the plot, but soon I just let that go and enjoyed the story for what it was.

Heartbreaking at times, but also really joyous and full of life. Recommended for female readers, 20+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

In Five Years
Rebecca Serle
March 2020
Hachette Book Publishers

You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Shay Miller has three strikes against her: no job, no apartment, no love in her life. But when she witnesses a perfectly normal looking young woman about her age make the chilling decision to leap in front of an ongoing subway train, Shay realizes she could end up in the same spiral. She is intrigued by a group of women who seem to have it all together, and they invite her with the promise: “You are not alone.” Why not align herself with the glamorous and seductive Moore sisters, Cassandra and Jane? They seem to have beaten back their demons, and made a life on their own terms – a life most people can only ever envy. They are everything Shay aspires to be, and they seem to have the keys to getting exactly what they want.

As Shay is pulled deeper and deeper under the spell of the Moore sisters, she finds her life getting better and better. But what price does she have to pay? What do Cassandra and Jane want from her? And what secrets do they, and Shay, have that will come to a deadly confrontation?

You are not alone: Is it a promise? Or a threat?

You Are Not Alone is the third psychological thriller novel by duo Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, this time exploring a dangerous friendship between a group of women.

Thirty-one-year-old temp worker/data analyst Shay is lonely and insecure, secretly in love with her roommate, and craving a strong connection with at least one other person. When she witnesses a young nurse jump in front of a train, it sets in motion a series of events that have the potential to derail her life.

Set in New York City, Greer and Sarah explore female friendship and toxic human relationships, introducing us to a group of 6 women who are determined to manipulate Shay and sabotage her life.

“In the days that followed, Daphne picked up the phone a half dozen times to call the police. But she always hung up before dialling. She kept experiencing the sensation of James’ hands closing around her throat while she lay there, unmoving.”

The premise and plot are a little absurd and ridiculous, but that doesn’t matter. You Are Not Alone is a juicy, engaging thriller that will entice all readers. The alternating POV is a common thread in Greer & Sarah’s novels, and I think it works quite well in this latest instalment. This stylistic technique means the reader gets both sides of the story, and it allows for a faster pace and increased tension.

Another stylistic technique that Greer and Sarah use with each book is the intermittent use of flashbacks. Over time, we come to understand how the six women met and what drives them to target other people. Slowly, we realise what they have planned for Shay.

“I wonder if Amanda was one of them. Witnessing near-constant suffering and death must be overwhelming. Another article I read showed nurses are 23 percent more likely to commit suicide than women in general.”

Shay trusts easily. When she meets and befriends Cassandra and Jane Moore, her life seems to change for the better. But she’s a little naive — sometimes unrealistically so — and the women appear to be setting her up for a crime she didn’t commit.

Shay is also incredibly observant. Her mind is trained to notice inconsistencies, and facts that don’t add up. Statistics are littered throughout the novel and whilst they don’t feel altogether necessary, they do add to Shay’s characterisation to make her obsession with numbers and facts a little more believable.

“The sisters weave toward the door — waving at an acquaintance, sliding their champagne glass onto an empty table, dodging a man who steps in front of them with a smile, never stopping but never giving the impression they’re rushing out of the gallery. Why now, so many days after Amanda’s death, is Shay moving the necklace?”

I did feel that there were too many characters in the book. There’s Shay, Valerie, Cassandra and Jane, but there’s also Daphne? And Stacey? and Beth? And then of course there’s the deceased Amanda, and all the secrets she took to the grave with her. I think the long list of core characters made for a convoluted narration at times, and evidently there wasn’t enough depth to the characters. More could’ve been done — or a couple of characters could’ve merged — to make for a clearer story.

Recommended for fans of thriller, suspense and crime novels. The audience for this book definitely skews female, aged 20+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

You Are Not Alone
Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
March 2020
Pan Macmillan Publishers

Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin

Claire is only seven years old when her college-age sister Alison vanishes from the luxury resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X on the last night of her family’s vacation. Several days later Alison’s naked body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men, employees at the resort, are arrested. But the evidence is slim, the timeline against it, and the men are soon released. It’s national tabloid news, a lurid mystery that will go unsolved, but for Claire’s family there is only the sad return home to broken lives.

Years later, riding in a New York City taxicab, Claire recognizes the name on the cabbie’s licence, Clive Richardson – her driver is one of the men originally suspected of murdering her sister. The fateful encounter sets her on an obsessive pursuit of the truth, not only what happened on the night of Alison’s death, but the no less elusive question of exactly who was this sister she was barely old enough to know: a beautiful, changeable, provocative girl of eighteen at a turbulent moment of identity formation. As Claire doggedly shadows Clive, hoping to gain his trust, waiting for the slip that will uncover the truth, an unlikely intimacy develops between them, two people whose lives were forever marked by a tragedy.

Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin is a haunting crime novel about a young girl’s mysterious death and how the unsolved case still torments her sister eighteen years later. The book explores grief, family, sisterhood, and illustrates how our perceptions of someone — or our understanding of them — can be inherently misguided.

Claire was seven years old when her sister Alison died on a family holiday to the Caribbean. Her body was found in a nearby cay, but the crime remains unsolved. She’s haunted by the mystery, and she soon becomes obsessed with who her sister was, and what happened to her on that final night of their family holiday.

“The island is turned upside down with searching. Members of the civil service are given days off to join the search. Prop planes loaned from a larger island nearby scan the shallow seas. The lagoon into which, mere days ago, Alison watched the blond boy hit golf balls is trawled to no avail.”

Saint X plays with the concept of voyeurism. Claire thinks she knows her sister — she thinks she understands her. Until she dies, and she realises she never really knew her at all. When she’s older, she starts reading Alison’s diary from the time she died and Claire realises how complex and complicated her sister was.

The novel is multi-layered; it’s not just about Alison’s death. It’s also about social dynamics and human relationships.

Saint X explores Claire’s obsession with her dead sister, and how oblivious she is to her own obsession. The book also explores white privilege and wealth, because the two men who were suspected of killing her were both men of colour. We come to understand how their lives were affected after they were falsely accused of murdering Alison. Life was not kind to them in the wake of their interactions with Alison.

“The eleven-year gap between Alison and me is notable, and requires some explanation. I was not an accident, nor had my parents been trying for years to conceive again…those were her exact words: ‘We decided to have you.’ As if they had known, when they chose to have another child, that the child would be me.”

The pace of the novel is incredibly slow — snail’s pace. Claire weaves in and out of stories really abruptly, but also over-explains and indulges the reader in excessive description. Most of the time, this felt unnecessary and it just felt like Alexis was trying to prolong the story. It’s actually kind of incredible how there’ll be a chapter where nothing really happens and Alexis has managed to draw that out over thousands of words.

Saint X does a fantastic job of highlighting the media and the general public’s obsession with true crime and the murder of young women. After Alison’s death, the media feed off the mystery and there is even a true-crime documentary series created about the mystery. It doesn’t help Claire’s family cope with the tragedy and it doesn’t help the two men suspected of her murder move on with their lives.

“At some point, my father must have taken the rolls of film from our vacation to be developed, because a few months after our move to Pasadena I found the photographs in his home office, in the back of his desk drawer.”

Whilst engrossing at first, Saint X flounders throughout. Truthfully, I don’t think that the ending to this novel is explosive or thrilling enough to warrant such a slow-paced story. If I’m being perfectly honest, I thought this book was okay, but not amazing.

Crime readers will be disappointed with this. Literary readers will probably love the deep characterisation and the slow burn of the plot. I’m not sure any reader will feel satisfied with the ending.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Saint X
Alexis Schaitkin
March 2020
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Salt Madonna by Catherine Noske

This is the story of a crime.
This is the story of a miracle.
There are two stories here.

Hannah Mulvey left her island home as a teenager. But her stubborn, defiant mother is dying, and now Hannah has returned to Chesil, taking up a teaching post at the tiny schoolhouse, doing what she can in the long days of this final year.

But though Hannah cannot pinpoint exactly when it begins, something threatens her small community. A girl disappears entirely from class. Odd reports and rumours reach her through her young charges. People mutter on street corners, the church bell tolls through the night and the island’s women gather at strange hours…And then the miracles begin.

A page-turning, thought-provoking portrayal of a remote community caught up in a collective moment of madness, of good intentions turned terribly awry. A blistering examination of truth and power, and how we might tell one from the other.

The Salt Madonna by Catherine Noske is literary fiction set on an imaginary island off the coast of Western Australia, following a small and ageing population as they start to believe a religious delusion that sets in motion a number of unfortunate consequences.

The strengths of this book lie in establishing that fanatical, overdramatic hype when a group of people convince themselves that something is bigger than it is. After young, 14-year-old Mary falls pregnant, the town believes it’s a religious blessing. They’ve fallen on tough times, and Mary is the answer. Tensions builds as residents clash, and poor Mary is caught in the middle of their hysteria and mania.

Protagonist Hannah returns home to the island to care for her ill mother, and whilst there are other character POVs throughout the book, Hannah’s perspective is the only one we know to be true. The others — particularly Mary’s POV — is actually just an exploration of what Hannah *thinks* happened. This method of storytelling allows for a multi-layered novel that will draw in readers of all ages.

“Dinner is uncomfortable, the three of them around the table, the television flickering on mute from the lounge. Mary’s father is propped up on one elbow, leaning over his plate, his fork in his free hand. He hasn’t showered yet. Mary can tell he would rather be in front of the TV.”

The writing is beautiful — evocative prose and imagery, a wonderful flow of lyrical sentences that I’m sure Catherine spent many months perfecting. However, the complex sentence structure and metaphorical language just meant I spent most of the novel convinced there was something I was missing. I could follow the plot, for sure, but I’m sure there was symbolism I was missing. Or metaphors, or just something *bigger* than my brain could comprehend.

Truthfully, the writing was difficult to get through. The book is overly descriptive, and it felt incredibly impenetrable. The vocabulary and sentence structure sometimes made it a chore to get through and by the end, I’m not sure I felt it was worth it. I think this says more about me as the reader than the book itself. Not every book is for every reader, and I just don’t think I’m the target audience.

“Thomas follows with everyone else as the parade winds up towards the church, but his eyes don’t leave Mary. For a moment, as he watches her, it is as if everyone else disappears. He is the only one there. The street is empty, it’s just him and her.”

The pacing is slow and the plot kind of uneventful. Nothing really happens and you find yourself going back and re-reading chapters because you think, wait that can’t be right? Something has to happen and I’m just missing it?

And then you re-read and realise, ah yes, this is one of those literary novels where it’s all about character and not as much about plot and so you spend most of the novel feeling just that little bit dumb and confused.

“She sneaks out in the end. It makes it more exciting. The summer evening means it isn’t dark but violet with dusk, an electric sort of half-light filled with shadows. She walks to the village through the grapevines rather than along the road and comes out at the pub.”

Worthy and lyrical. For fans of literary fiction; for readers who love atmospheric, multi-layered stories that aren’t too plot-driven. If you don’t dabble in literary novels, this isn’t the book for you. The writing style is not for everyone.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Salt Madonna
Catherine Noske
March 2020
Pan Macmillan Publishers