JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over-especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control.
By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames.

But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.

Lifestyle of the rich and the famous! Taylor Jenkins Reid’s literary novel Malibu Rising explores one unforgettable night in the life of a wealthy, famous family, where everyone is forced to confront their mistakes and their secrets. Malibu Rising is a beautiful, delightful and enchanting novel, whisking readers away on an emotional journey through time.

Whilst the story moves back and forth between decades, the main storyline is that of the present — the four children of famous singer-songwriter Mick Riva are planning a Malibu party. The events of the book take place over 24 hours in 1983, where eldest daughter Nina is reeling from a failed marriage and cheating husband.

Sporadic chapters propel us back to 1956, where Nina’s mother, June, meets Mick. He’s not yet famous, and over the course the novel we follow their love story. Despite sharing an instant connection, he is not loyal nor is he a faithful husband. After a string of affairs and disappearances, and June’s descend into alcoholism, suddenly Nina must take on the role of caregiver for her three younger siblings. It’s a role she adopts for most of her adult life.

“Now here he was, nearly a year later, barricaded from his own house. But he’d known from the very moment he punched the mirror that this was looming. Maybe he’d known long before that, too. Maybe he’d always known he couldn’t escape himself.”

Taylor’s writing is inviting and emotional — we grow to love Nina and her siblings, we sympathise for them, we root for them. But June’s story is as tragic as Nina’s. She’s sweet-hearted and full of hope. She has dreams that exceed what her parents expect of her. She wants to do more than just take over her parents’ fish and chip shop — she wants to find love and have children and she wants to be blissfully happy. And when she meets Mick, she naively thinks he’ll give that to her.

Nina and her siblings have bonded over quite tragic of circumstances. Even betrayal is short-lived between them, because they’ve weathered worse during their childhoods. Taylor Jenkins Reid has crafted four young characters who have all been broken by the absence of their father — his rejection of them. Their mother did the best she could, but any success they possess is of their own doing, and they’ve spent their relatively short lives purely trying to survive, and I can imagine it’d be exhausting.

“Nina grew more and more anxious with every second. He could fall off, he could lose the board, he could break his leg or his hand or go under. Nina quietly calculated how she would save him, or what she would say if the owner showed up, how she could handle all of this if it went south.”

The novel centres around an infamous and raucous party, but it’s worth noting the party doesn’t really kick off until at least halfway through the novel. For most of the story, we’re in June’s timeline. By the time the party rolls around, the events of the evening seem a bit squished together in an unnatural, fast-paced scene.

Admittedly, the ending did feel a bit farfetched. Not the fire, which is teased in the prologue. But the confrontations between the siblings, and the resolution of Nina’s journey in the book. It all felt a little stretched and over the top, particularly in the dialogue — like a caricature of reality. In most scenes that feature Mick, present or past, his dialogue can border on cringeworthy.

“So Nina knew she couldn’t cancel a party like that. The Rivas might not be like most families, being just the four of them, but they had their traditions. And anyway, there was no good way to cancel a party that never had any invitations. People were coming, whether she wanted them there or not.”

Malibu Rising is recommended for readers of contemporary fiction, and romance. The novel moves between the 1950s-1980s, so those of you who love reading stories set during these decades will appreciate the setting. Readership skews female, 25+

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

Malibu Rising
Taylor Jenkins Reid
June 2021
Penguin Random House Publishers

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada.

Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and the micro-aggressions, she’s thrilled when Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events cause Nella to become Public Enemy Number One and Hazel, the Office Darling.

Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.

It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realises that there is a lot more at stake than her career.

The Other Black Girl is debut fiction by Zakiya Dalila Harris, set predominantly within a top-tier publishing house in New York City and centring around 26-year-old editorial assistant Nella, who is initially thrilled when her employer — Wagner Books — hires another black girl. But it becomes clear very quickly that all is not quite right with new employee Hazel.

This is one of the first books in a long while where I really had to take some time afterwards to think on the story, and the ending. Get Out is a great comparison for this book — it’s genre-bending and twisty, and forces you to re-think every character you meet. But I’ll admit that The Devil Wears Prada does not feel like the right comparison title. Don’t go into this book thinking it’s going to be a fun, light and glamorous story. The office setting is similar, but nothing else. This is a heavy story — very dark.

“Nella cocked her head, wondering how Hazel had guessed that. She often prided herself on how different she was from her Ivy League, upper-middle-class colleagues — not just in her appearance, but in the ways she moved about the world. Still, Nella knew she had it pretty good, too.”

A social satire, The Other Black Girl expertly captures modern workplace social dynamic. More specifically, institutions pretending to support diversity, but also psychologically forcing black staff to bend, adapt and morph into an employee that’s deemed appropriate by the corporation — complacent and apologetic, eager to please and do what’s expected of them.

While the pacing does lag a bit and most of the scenes take place during the day-to-day office environment, Zakiya sets the reader up for a tense read. Nella and Hazel’s interactions grow sharp and full of power — a tense back-and-forth between the two that continues to build. You feel sucked into their world. You know it’s not going to end well for Nella, but you can’t work out how the story will progress, and so you keep reading.

The publishing industry’s lack of diversity is a point of critique in the novel, and Zakiya drew on her own experiences working in book publishing when writing the novel. Majority of the staff are white, especially those at the top, but everyone likes to act like an ally. They like to pretend they care for diversity, but their actions do little to prove this.

“Nella hadn’t intended for her own voice to have such an edge to it, especially when Hazel had been so hopeful and reassuring. She didn’t feel much like apologizing, though. Not now, and not when forty-five minutes passed without her cube neighbour speaking another word.”

Admittedly, this book felt longer than it needed to be. The climax of the story — the best bits — were in the final 50 pages. And it did feel like a long time coming. The different POVs thrust into the story seemed to distract from the storyline and slow down the piece. Could they have been stripped back, or could information have been included in a different way? Perhaps.

Finally, it’s so incredibly obvious from the outset that Hazel is trying to mess with Nella. From the very first couple of scenes together, she’s deliberately trying to sabotage Nella. And Nella actually takes quite a long time to put two-and-two together, making her look incredibly naive. And even when she does star to clock on, she’s quite a passive person. She’s not active in response, and she doesn’t seem motivated to do anything. She just…lets events happen. I found Hazel to be a much more interesting character than Nella, she certainly felt like a more compelling person to read about.

“Nella sank back down into her chair, a sudden chill threading itself down her throat and into her stomach, like she’d swallowed an unhealthy amount of helium. Again, she examined the piece of paper that was in her left hand; then the envelope in her right.”

Dark and claustrophobic but oh so inviting, The Other Black Girl will delight. Readership skews female, 25+

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

The Other Black Girl
Zakiya Dalila Harris
June 2021
Bloomsbury Publishers

Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz

This is not just another novel about a dead girl.

When she arrived in New York on her 18th birthday carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen camera, Alice Lee was looking for a fresh start. Now, just one month later, she is the city’s latest Jane Doe, an unidentified murder victim.

Ruby Jones is also trying to start over; she travelled halfway around the world only to find herself lonelier than ever. Until she finds Alice’s body by the Hudson River.

From this first, devastating encounter, the two women form an unbreakable bond. Alice is sure that Ruby is the key to solving the mystery of her life – and death. And Ruby – struggling to forget what she saw that morning – finds herself unable to let Alice go. Not until she is given the ending she deserves.

Before You Knew My Name doesn’t ask whodunnit. Instead, this powerful, hopeful novel asks: Who was she? And what did she leave behind? The answers might surprise you.

Jacqueline Bublitz’s debut novel Before You Knew My Name is compelling and powerful literary fiction about murder and grief, but also about what happens to those left behind after someone is killed.

Two woman arrive in New York City on the same day, and although they don’t know each other, their lives soon intersect under tragic circumstances. Thirty-six year old Ruby, running away from love, discovers the body of 18-year old Alice Lee. Raped and murdered in the early hours of the morning, Alice is about to be the latest statistic of women murdered in NYC.

The book switches focus between Alice and Ruby, as we work to find out what happened to Alice in her final days, and how Ruby will cope in the wake of the murder.

“In the beginning, I disappeared on purpose. Extricated myself from a life I didn’t want, just like Ruby did. But unlike Ruby, I didn’t tell anyone where I went. Not even my best friend. I let Tammy think I had stayed right where she left me; I wanted to skip out of my old life unseen. And if certain people stayed on my skin, if they came along in my suitcase uninvited, at least they wouldn’t be able to cause any fresh wounds.”

Whilst Before You Knew Me Name features elements of crime and thriller in the story — peppered but present — I wouldn’t describe this as crime fiction. It’s a character-driven story that dances around the murder, building tension with each passing chapter as we come closer to understanding Alice’s final hours, and how that will intersect with Ruby’s story.

Jacqueline’s writing is a key strength here. It’s reflective and observant — mature. Alice presents this all-knowing voice, which invites the reader in and expertly guides them until the final page. The novel explores so much more than just love and loss. It’s about connection and family, and about someone else choosing where your life is going in a split second. It’s about how to take stock of her life, even when you’re going through the worst time, and choose for yourself how you want to continue.

“I am tired of beautiful things making me sad. I should like to love something without turning it over and discovering exposed wires, cheap parts on the other side. For the first time, I wish he wasn’t so insistent on telling me the truth of things.”

Initially, it does take a couple of chapters to grow comfortable with the style of narration. The novel is written posthumously from Alice’s perspective, but in the midst of telling her own story, she does intermittently focus in on Ruby’s story. Switching between past and present, Alice seems to be all-knowing, offering reflections on Ruby’s life with an intimate perspective.

So whilst the writing is incredibly affecting and delicate, and the story is told in the best possible format, the stylistic elements of the writing — in particular the POV — do take a bit of time to get used to.

“Later, when I look back at all the beginnings that turned me, inch by inch, toward the river, I will see this was the gentlest of them. Shaking the soft, warm hand of an old man, and then a tour of his apartment, with a large, brown dog leading the way.”

Exceptional literary writing that will sit with you for days after completion, Before You Knew My Name is powerful and devastating. As hard as it is to ‘enjoy’ something of this subject matter, it is a phenomenal read. A comparison title would be Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones.

Readership skews female, all ages.

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

Before You Knew My Name
Jacqueline Bublitz
May 2021
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar

Kitty Hawke, the last inhabitant of a dying island sinking into the wind-lashed Chesapeake Bay, has resigned herself to annihilation…

Until one night her granddaughter blows ashore in the midst of a storm, desperate, begging for sanctuary. For years, Kitty has kept herself to herself – with only the company of her wolfdog, Girl – unconcerned by the world outside, or perhaps avoiding its worst excesses. But blood cannot be turned away in times like these. And when trouble comes following her granddaughter, no one is more surprised than Kitty to find she will fight to save her as fiercely as her name suggests…

Wolfe Island is the second literary novel from Australian author Lucy Treloar, set on an estuary that is slowly disappearing in the ocean.

Wolfe Island is part of the Chesapeake Bay estuary off the east coast of the US. The ocean is slowly swallowing it and over the years, one by one, the locals have fled the island for the mainland. But not Kitty Hawke — she’s now the sole survivor of that island, and she’s determined to stay there for as long as possible.

But when four young runaway kids — one of whom is her 16-year-old granddaughter Catalina Hawke — show up desperate to hide from their families, Kitty takes them under her wing. They stay in a vacant house on the island and over a period of many months, Kitty and the group bond.

“I went to the marsh walkway, a structure that ambled above the eastern salt marsh like a caterpillar in search of a leaf. It had a way of clearing my mind, which was muddled then by many worries: about the future, and about Claudie and what she knew, and whether I should tell Claudie about Cat, and what I suspected about her.”

In Wolfe Island, America is in the midst of a climate crisis. The coast of the country is being eaten away by the ocean and scores of people from the south are venturing to the north in seek of refuge. But this is not a safe world. They’re not welcome in the north, and anyone fleeing north — ‘runners’ — are hunted, captured and locked up.

Two of Catalina’s companions are runners seeking refuge.

“Not long after, we passed a farm prison where illegals and children, perhaps their own, all dressed in orange, were in trees picking fruit. It was the first I had seen of that sort of thing.”

A talented artist, Kitty is an interesting protagonist — reserved, independent, quiet, but also fierce and brash and determined. The writing is tight and almost flawless, the characters all just as interesting, diverse and integral as the next.

Her closest friend is her wolfdog, Girl, and her memories of their time together on the island. The book moves between past and present seamlessly and regularly, taking the reader on a journey through history so that by the end, we feel like we’ve been living on Wolfe Island for centuries.

The book is atmospheric and effortless, exploring themes of fragility, flight, survival, independence and adulthood. It’s about people who runs from their problems, and the people left behind.

“Summertime. When I wake early I can pretend things haven’t changed. I wait for this moment: first light arriving on the plain of Wife Island like a can of paint-wash water of clearest watermelon pink flung in an enormous delicate rush.”

It takes a bit of time to warm to this book — the writing feels sparse at the beginning, and the characters a little dry and distant. But over time, the book finds its rhythm and the horrors of the world scarily reflect our own and you find yourself drawn to the characters and their journey.

Recommended for fans of literary fiction, and character-driven stories. Recommended for regular readers.

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

Wolfe Island
Lucy Treloar
September 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

A Shout in the Ruins by Kevin Powers

Following his hugely celebrated debut novel, The Yellow Birds, Kevin Powers returns to the battlefield and its aftermath, this time in his native Virginia, just before and during the Civil War and ninety years later.

The novel pinpoints with unerring emotional depth the nature of random violence, the necessity of love and compassion, and the fragility and preciousness of life. It will endure as a stunning novel about what we leave behind, what a life is worth, what is said and unsaid, and the fact that ultimately what will survive of us is love.

Set in Virginia during the Civil War and a century beyond, A Shout in the Ruins by Kevin Powers is a novel about the brutal legacy of violence and exploitation in American society. At its core, the novel explores power and love.

There are two narrative threads in the novel. The first storyline is set in the 1860s before, during and after the American Civil War. It centres on the Beauvais Plantation and two slaves — Rawls and Nurse. They work for Lucy Reid and her husband Bob, and Rawls has already had his feet ‘docked’ by his previous owner. Rawls falls in love with Nurse, and when she is sold off to a cruel and volatile new owner, Rawls sets off to find her. This storyline then shifts and focuses on the marriage between Emily Reid and Antony Levallois. Their union is not passionate or filled with love. Instead, Emily is young and impressionable and Antony is cruel and unpredictable.

The second storyline is set one century later in 1956 and follows 90-year-old George Seldom — Nurse’s son — as he traces history in an effort to find out where he came from and what happened to his mother.

I don’t think the transition between the two storylines was seamless. At times, Kevin switches between each period so quickly that it jolts the reader and forces them to feel separated from the book.

“He did remember voices in the woods, a noise like rolls of thunder coming sharply and in quick succession. There were cries of pain, too, and a man who only called him ‘friend’ tucking him papooselike into a great gray overcoat against the cold.”

Kevin Power has real control of prose, writing poetic sentences and beautiful imagery and trapping the reader with his masterful use of words and dialogue. I fell in love with the way he weaved sentences together, overcome by how each paragraph flowed.

“He sat bolt upright, spat from the paralysed terror of the void back into a simple, remorseless summer night on earth. His breathing was out of control, shallow and quick. He tried to raise himself up out of the mud only to collapse back into it face-first.”

Unfortunately, I struggled to understand what the reader was supposed to take away from this novel. What are we supposed to feel? Understand? Know? Want to know? The writing was beautiful and the characters intriguing, but I couldn’t help but feel the overall message or purpose of the novel was lost to me.

“Of course Nurse knew. And she did not care what people said, except for the fact that new words being said can sometimes create a new record to measure deeds against.”

I recommend this to lovers of historical fiction — the kind of historical fiction that’s set in the deep south of America during periods of War, not the kind of historical fiction that’s about love or romance. Fans of Westerns will also love this style of storytelling, and the characters within the pages.

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

A Shout in the Ruins
Kevin Powers
May 2018
Hachette Book Publishers