JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

A moving story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog.

When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatised by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.

While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog’s care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unravelling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them.

Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.

In The Friend by Sigrid Nunez, the unnamed female narrator inherits a Great Dane named Apollo after her friend, fellow writer, and former mentor commits suicide. She lives in a 500-square-foot Manhattan apartment, is not allowed to own a dog in the apartment, and it also a self-confessed cat person.

The book is written in second person, directed at the friend who committed suicide, and is the perfect example of when an author executes second person really well in literature.

“Mostly he ignores me. He might as well live here alone. He makes eye contact at times, but instantly looks away again. His large hazel eyes are strikingly human; they remind me of yours… Having your dog is like having a part of you here.”

Suicide is mentioned sporadically, in tune with a human’s tendency to think through issues at different times of the day and in spurts. The narrator will wonder about her friend’s death, and his decision, for a moment or two, and then her thought process will switch to something else. Sigrid has captioned the human experience very well, particularly through the narrator’s internal dialogue.

The tone of the book is mournful, soulful, and rich with remembrance. The narrator is trying to come to terms with her friend’s death, and at times, the reasons behind it. The book shows great friendship between the narrator and her mentor. The two had a long history together, at one point they were intimate but mostly it was just a long-lasting and strong friendship.

At first, Apollo is a burden to the narrator. She takes him reluctantly. The dog is going to cause the narrator to get evicted from her apartment and whenever she leaves the dog for too long, she comes back to find him anxious and depressed. But over time, and particularly in the final third of the book, their friendship and understanding develops and she sees Apollo as a companion.

The fact that Apollo is the only character in the book who is named shows great significance.

“When you’re lying in bed full of night thoughts,” she thinks, “such as why did your friend have to die and how much longer will it be before you lose the roof over your head, having a huge warm body pressed along the length of your spine is an amazing comfort.”

The book is as much about Apollo as it is about writers and writing, since the unnamed narrator is a writer and a writing tutor. She is often disappointed in what her students produce, and addresses her friend when she talks about the quality of the work she’s reading.

At times, the book feels like a blend between fiction and memoir, since Sigrid Nunez is a very accomplished author who may have once grappled with questions surrounding the nature writing that our unnamed narrator does.

The narrator’s friend was a writer and a writing professor, and he was far from perfect. You learn about his multiple marriages and his womanising. He was charming, but he was also a sexist man. He often slept with his female students, of which our narrator was one. His ex-wives, and the narrator’s interactions with them, all give the reader insight into what the character was like and how he affected those around him.

Our narrator doesn’t forget these things. She knows he was flawed, and he made mistakes. But she was also his friend and she loved him. She doesn’t make excuses for him, and quite a few times throughout the book she expresses her anger at him for what he was like when he was alive.

“I am left thinking about the mastiffs. Besides their great bulk and a mane that makes them look part lion, they are known for being fiercely protective and loyal to their masters. So what does a doh bred for those traits feel when its master lets it be herded onto one of those transport trucks? Does a dog understand betrayal?”

The book explores despair, but also understanding and hope. The character doesn’t understand — and didn’t foresee — her friend committing suicide and must learn to accept that she can’t change what happened.

Recommended for literary fiction lovers. Despite being well-written, the book does read a little dry at times and I feel this is a book best discovered by seasoned readers. There isn’t much plot in the book, so it’s really read for the narrative voice and the writing and the relationship between the narrator and her dead friend, and now her relationship with his dog.

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

The Friend
Sigrid Nunez
January 2019
Hachette Book Publishers

The Boy by Tami Hoag

Mother, liar, murderer?

In the sleepy Lousiana town of Bayou Breaux, a mother runs to her neighbour – bloody and hysterical. The police arrive to find Genevieve Gauthier cradling her seven-year-old son in her arms as he bleeds to death.

Detective Nick Fourcade finds no evidence of a break-in. His partner Detective Annie Broussard is troubled by parts of Genevieve’s story that don’t make sense. Twenty four hours later teenager Nora Florette is reported missing. Local parents fear a maniac is preying on their children, and demand answers from the police.

Fourcade and Broussard discover something shocking about Genevieve’s past. She is both victim and the accused; a grieving mother and a woman with a deadly secret. Could she have something to do with the disappearance of teenager Nora Florette?

A unbearable loss or an unthinkable crime? Number One New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag keeps you guessing in her most gripping thriller yet.

The Boy by Tami Hoag is a crime thriller set in a small town in the United States; the book follows the investigation of the brutal murder of a young boy, KJ, and the disappearance of the boy’s teenage babysitter, Nora.

The book is set in the Cajun country in Louisiana, and Tami encapsulates the setting perfectly. You can picture the small town easily, with the distinct class systems and the gossip and the hidden secrets behind closed doors.

The Boy works really well as a standalone novel, with only a few brief mentions to previous cases and enough information that you can follow along easily.

“The house looked even worse on television than it did in real life. People would watch this and think she lived in a dump — because she did. They would have no way of knowing it was only temporary, that as soon as Jeff was able to give her an office job and she had managed to scape together enough for a deposit and first month’s rent, she planned to move someplace better.”

The plot is twisted and full of mysteries, with fully fleshed characters and plenty of secrets. Nick is a very unpredictable man, with a lot of anger simmering beneath the surface. He’s snappy and unable to keep his opinion to himself.

His wife Annie is warm and comforting and is a much more approachable character. She helps calm her husband down, trying to make him see reason so that he doesn’t piss off the wrong person and get himself fired. Their dynamic works really well, and I thought they were both great protagonists.

I certainly didn’t see the ending coming, and all my guesses were wrong. I ploughed through this book so fast, completely enraptured by the mysteries of this small town.

The Boy switches between character POV, allowing the reader to find out different information about the victims. Slowly, information is revealed and you can start to form your own opinions about who killed KJ and where Nora has disappeared to.

Tensions builds throughout the whole novel, delivering the reader to a really intense finale. The ending is as satisfying as the lead up.

“As he rose, he reached out and gently touched her uninjured shoulder in a gesture of sympathy and reassurance. She seemed as slight as a bird. It was hard to imagine her fighting off an armed assailant, but people often found physical strength beyond imagining when faced with the choice of life or death.”

The book touches on many societal issues that people will recognise — bullying, suicide and class. Nora is from a poor family that have a very unconventional home life. Her single mother never really knows where Nora is, nor her other children. She cares about her children and she loves them, but isn’t able to always be there for them or support them in the way that they need. They’re left to their own devices a lot, and they’re really irresponsible. Nora’s brother Dean is a bully and really abusive, and a couple of Nora’s sisters are young single mothers who are also struggling.

Most of the people in the town judge them and shun them and refuse to let their children hang around the Florette family. A lot of people also judge KJ’s mum Genevieve because she’s a single mum and she’s poor and living in a rundown rental property.

“Still young enough to be momentarily intimidated by authority, the boy’s expression sobered as Annie walked up to him with her hands jammed on her hips. He was about the same size as her, she thought, and he was still more little boy than young man.”

In the first 100 pages or so, the dialogue between the detectives — in particular, Detective Nick Fourcade — was very cliche and over the top. It was antagonistic and actually made me cringe on many occasions. This seemed to mellow out as the book progressed, though.

Something else I disliked about the book was the unrealistic, overly sensitive inner monologue that both Nick and Annie shared. Sometimes their inner dialogue — in particular when they were thinking about how much they loved the son — read identical, like they were the same character. This was a point in the novel where I felt like the author’s voice, and her own feelings towards her family members and how she’d feel if anything happened to them, was coming through the page. The lovey-dovey thoughts of Annie and Nick actually made me cringe and roll my eyes, and it really jolted against the pacing of the book.

A fast-paced thriller novel with more than one mystery to solve, crime readers will be turning the pages desperate to find out the ending.

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

The Boy
Tami Hoag
January 2019
Hachette Book Publishers

Archenemies by Marissa Meyer

Time is running out.
Together, they can save the world.
But they are each other’s worst nightmare.

Nova’s double life is about to get a lot more complicated:
As Insomnia, she is a full-fledged member of the Renegades, a syndicate of powerful and beloved superheroes. She works with Adrian’s patrol unit to protect the weak and maintain order in Gatlon City.

As Nightmare, she is an Anarchist – a member of a group of villains who are determined to destroy the Renegades. Nova wants vengeance against the so-called heroes who once failed her when she needed them most.

But as Nova, her feelings for Adrian are deepening, despite the fact that he is the son of her sworn enemies.

Nova, Adrian, and the rest of their crew are faced with escalating crime in Gatlon City, while covert weapons and conflicting missions have Nova and Adrian questioning not only their beliefs about justice, but also the feelings they have for one another.

The line between good and evil has been blurred, but what’s clear to them both is that too much power could mean the end of their city – and the world – as they know it.

Archenemies by Marissa Meyer is the second instalment in the Renegades trilogy, a vivid and exceptional series about superheroes and villains and the blurred boundaries between good and evil.

You can read my review of Renegades HERE.

In Archenemies, Nova and Adrian are still living their double lives. Nova is a member of the Renegades, but she’s secretly working with the Anarchists to bring down the Renegades and help super villain Ace Anarchy rise to power again. Throughout this sequel, Nova’s main task is to track down Ace’s old helmet and bring it back to him. With his helmet, Ace will regain his full power.

Adrian’s alter ego is The Sentinel, a hero working solo. Adrian has created his suit and spends as much time as he can capturing villains and saving civilians. But, neither the Renegades or the Anarchists are welcoming towards him. The Sentinel bends rules, breaks protocol, and he just may be a liability rather than an asset.

“For a long second, no one moved, Simon was standing only five or six paces away from Max, close enough that he should have felt the effects of Max’s power immediately. He would feel weak, first, and then the draining away of his abilities. When it had happened to Adrian, he had felt it most in his hands.”

Archenemies introduces a fresh set of problems for the characters. HQ unveils everyone to Agent N, an irreversible serum that erases a prodigy’s powers and forces them to become a common civilian. It’s a neutralising agent, designed to stop villains from ever harming others again.

This is very risky and Nova is concerned that errors will be made. Renegades are given training on how to administer the agent, but are given free reign to neutralise any prodigy who they deem to be a threat. Nova is vocally against Agent N.

Adrian also discovers the Vitality Charm, a necklace that means people can interact with his brother Max and not have their powers stolen. This is a long-awaited development for Max, who lives inside a sealed area and isn’t allowed to physically interact with other prodigies.

Nova and Adrian’s relationship develops over the course of the novel. Adrian is unsure about his feelings for Nova, and Nova has been instructed to get close to Adrian so she can get access to his family and Ace Anarchy’s helmet. This poses all sorts of problems for Nova as she starts to develop genuine feelings for Adrian.

“Once she was finished with her inspection, Nova raised the gun, gripping it in both hands, and fired. It was so fast Adrian wondered if she’d even bothered to take aim at anything, but a glance at the targets showed her dart dead centre in a distant bull’s-eye.”

I’ve been looking forward to this sequel all year; Renegades was one of my favourite reads of 2017. The universe is unique and imaginative, and the characters fully-fledged and relatable. This series explores the concept of right and wrong, evil and good, but it also immerses the reader in a really fast-paced, fun and exciting plot.

A highly enjoyable sequel to Renegades, the tension and pacing never wavering and the stakes only getting higher.

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

Archenemies (Renegades #2)
Marissa Meyer
November 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

Fed Up by Gemma Hartley

Gemma Hartley wrote an article in Harper’s Bazaar in September 2017 called ‘Women Aren’t Nags – We’re Just Fed Up’, which instantly went viral. The piece, and this book, is about ’emotional labour’, i.e. the unpaid, often unnoticed work, done by women, that goes into keeping everyone comfortable and happy.

FED UP tackles the hard-hitting issues surrounding emotional labour: the historical underpinnings and roots in feminism, the benefits and burdens of this kind of effort, and the specific contexts where emotional labour, otherwise known as the ‘mental load’, plays a major but undervalued role, including relationships, work, sex, parenting, politics and self-care.

Dubbed as the next feminist frontier, emotional labour couldn’t be more relevant to these times we’re living in. Fed Up is a must-read for those who want to harness the power of emotional labour and create a more connected, equal world.

Fed Up by Gemma Hartley is a feminist memoir and critical analysis around the concept of ‘emotional labour’. This is a truly fascinating read and I’m now going to thrust this book into the hands of every female friend.

Gemma explores the imbalance in relationships regarding ‘emotional’ tasks. This is usually things that people, or partners, don’t ‘see’. This may be remembering to buy a gift for a family member, remembering to book a doctors appointment or keeping a calendar of upcoming commitments for the whole family.

This kind of organisational activity is often performed by the woman in a relationship, whereas a man justifies ‘work’ as physical things that people can see, like mowing the lawn, walking the dog, fixing the car.

They often don’t understand the extra work that a woman performs to keep the house tidy, the kids behaving, or the friendships maintained. And then when the woman complains, she might find it hard to really explain what she means and then her partner is confused and perhaps frustrated.

I’ve certainly heard a lot of my female friends complain about their partner’s lack of help around the house or the family, and after reading this book I’ve realised it’s because they’re performing all the emotional labour and they feel unsupported by their partners.

Fed Up is engaging and exploratory, inviting discussion and deep reflection around gender imbalance in relationships and domestic responsibilities.

I was initially drawn to this book not because I share the same experiences as Gemma, but because I read — and loved — her Harpers Bazaar piece and thought this would be a well researched, well-written piece. And I wasn’t wrong.

Gemma has done so much research ahead of writing this book. She interviews many woman in relationships who lead different kinds of lives, and statistics are scattered throughout the chapters to help prove a point.

“The movies focus on the sweeping proposals and fairy-tale weddings, but what they don’t show is what ‘happily ever after’ actually looks like. We are presented with the beginning of a relationship, or else an act of emotional labour serves as a second chance, a promise for the future. The movies show us that the beginning of love requires an investment of emotional labour on the man’s behalf. Sometimes we get that in real life, albeit on a smaller scale. Sometimes we don’t.”

Initially, I did wonder about same-sex relationships. Who performs the emotional labour in relationships where there is not just one man and one woman? This book is about how woman do more emotional labour than their male partner, but not all relationships fit this description.

Gemma does indeed explore this in the novel, interviewing same sex couples and uncovering the balance of emotional labour in each relationship and analysing how that balance affects each person.

“Women’s experience with emotional labor makes them adept problem solvers. We are trained to always look at all of the different parts that are in motion and then carefully consider the choices that will put us, an those around us, in the most advantageous position.”

A few times in the book I felt like Gemma was repeating herself, but it was only occasionally done and it helped her reiterate a point she’d made earlier in the book.

I like that Gemma gives many examples from her own relationship and family and that of her friends and interviewees. This helps balance out the statistics and factual evidence in the book so as to not bog down the reader.

This is an eye-opening, fascinating read. Female readers — and any person who acknowledges that they’re performing most of the ‘emotional labour’ in their relationship — will love this book.

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

Fed Up: Navigating and redefining emotional labour for good
Gemma Hartley
November 2018
Hachette Publishers

Elevation by Stephen King

Castle Rock is a small town, where word gets around quickly. That’s why Scott Carey wants to confide only in his friend Doctor Bob Ellis about his strange condition: he’s losing weight, without getting thinner, and the scales register the same when he is in his clothes or out of them, however heavy they are.

Scott also has new neighbours, who have opened a ‘fine dining experience’ in town, although it’s an experience being shunned by the locals; Deidre McComb and her wife Missy Donaldson don’t exactly fit in with the community’s expectations. And now Scott seems trapped in a feud with the couple over their dogs dropping their business on his lawn. Missy may be friendly, but Deidre is cold as ice.

As the town prepares for its annual Thanksgiving 12k run, Scott starts to understand the prejudices his neighbours face and he tries to help. Unlikely alliances form and the mystery of Scott’s affliction brings out the best in people who have indulged the worst in themselves and others.

Elevation by Stephen King is a touching, captivating novella about how one man’s mysterious medical condition results in a small town growing closer together and overcoming prejudices.

There are a couple of different strands to the story. Firstly, we have Scott Carey and his strange affliction. When he steps onto the scales every day, it shows him that he’s rapidly losing weight. But, he doesn’t look any different. He looks 240 pounds and he continues to do so, but the scales tell a very different story. Scott’s ailment prompts him to become more aware of the world around him, and he starts to notice just how horrible some his neighbours are.

There is a lesbian couple — Deirdre and Missy — who are new to town and they have opened up a new vegetarian Mexican restaurant, Holy Frijole. But no one is dining there and it’s mostly because Deirdre and Missy are openly married and a lot of the residents in Castle Rock are homophobic.

Scott makes attempts to connect with Deirdre and Missy and change the townsfolk’s attitude towards them and their restaurant. Scott wants to fix the prejudices against them.

“Mike’s smile went away. ‘Nothing to be proud of. She’s a lesbian. That would probably be okay if she kept it to herself — no one cares what goes on behind closed doors — but she has to introduce that one who cooks at Frijole as her wife. Lot of people around here see that as a big old screw you.”

Stephen King is a master storyteller, and in only 132 pages he’s captured so many amazing characters and a heartfelt story. I thought this novella was brilliant. There were a few things unanswered but I still felt that the book was complete. I was left wanting more.

I was intrigued by Scott’s story arc and how he grew over the course of the book. At first, he seemed like the kind of man who kept to himself and didn’t want to cause drama. But then, when he overhears some of his friends talking disrespectfully about Deirdre and Missy, he stands up to them and addresses how inappropriate their behaviour is.

“In the centre of the sheet was a photo of Deirdre McComb. There were other runners, most of them behind her. A big number 19 was pinned to the waistband of her tiny blue shorts. Above them was a tee-shirt with NEW YORK CITY MARATHON 2011 on the front. On her face was an expression Scott would not have associated with her: blissful happiness.”

The story is propelled forward by Scott’s weight decrease. Over time, he’s getting lighter and lighter and he doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him when he gets down to zero. This kind of supernatural, fantastical element to the story is Stephen King’s trademark — the unexplainable.

This novella is quite different to Stephen King’s usual writing, and so I think it has a really broad appeal. It’s also perfect for people who don’t have the time to commit to Stephen’s usual novels that are hundreds and hundreds of pages.

This is a tender and charming tale that I highly recommend to all ages.

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

Elevation
Stephen King
November 2018
Hachette Book Publishers

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