JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

The Islands by Emily Brugman

In the mid-1950s, a small group of Finnish migrants set up camp on Little Rat, a tiny island in an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. The crayfishing industry is in its infancy, and the islands, haunted though they are by past shipwrecks, possess an indefinable allure.

Drawn here by tragedy, Onni Saari is soon hooked by the stark beauty of the landscape and the slivers of jutting coral onto which the crayfishers build their precarious huts. Could these reefs, teeming with the elusive and lucrative cray, hold the key to a good life?

The Islands is the sweeping story of the Saari family: Onni, an industrious and ambitious young man, grappling with the loss of a loved one; his wife Alva, quiet but stoic, seeking a sense of belonging between the ramshackle camps of the islands and the dusty suburban lots of the mainland; and their pensive daughter Hilda, who dreams of becoming the skipper of her own boat. As the Saari’s try to build their future in Australia, their lives entwine with those of the fishing families of Little Rat, in myriad and unexpected ways.

A stunning, insightful story of a search for home.

Emily Brugman’s debut novel The Islands is a multi-generational literary tale that documents Finnish migration to the Abrolhos Islands off the coast of Western Australia.

Although this is a fictional tale, The Islands is heavily influenced by the stories of Emily’s ancestors from 1959 – 1972, as well as extensive research into these islands and cray fishermen from the mid-20th century. The Islands is set across many decades and moves back and forth between different members of the family. Over the course of the novel, we observe each character during pivotal moments in their lives.

“A year for the Saaris was now lived in two parts: on-season and off-season. Their first season on Little Rat had been a moderate success, from an economic standpoint, and the couple looked ahead with a suspicious and careful optimism characteristic of their people.”

At its core, The Islands is about the pursuit of a sustainable and secure life. But it’s also about resilience — both physical and emotional — and perseverance. We witness what that can encapsulate whether you’re 40, 60 or 14. In this isolated and secluded setting, we meet women experiencing loneliness, experiencing childbirth for the first time. We read as their children then mature into teenagers within this barren but plentiful landscape — we follow them as they discover impulses and sexual desire. We come across men working to earn for their families, having arrived with the hope of a land that provides.

“They carried him to camp and laid him down on his side, covering him with a blanket. Hilda stood watching from a corner. Helvi was crying and so was Aiti, although she was trying not to. Hilda wanted to cry too, but she didn’t think that would be right after what she’d done. So she just stood there. And Lauri didn’t move.”

Scattered throughout the novel are Finnish verses, then translated into English. By embedding Finnish language into the novel, readers are further immersed in culture, community and these characters’ historical journey.

There is a strong sense of song and music throughout the book, and the Finnish verses also allow the characters to have a stronger connection to their heritage because it feels like knowledge is being passed between generations.

“Towards the close of his first season, Onni woke to find Little Rat covered in dead shearwaters, their dishevelled bodies in oily black heaps on the coral ground. Those shaggy mutton birds, as the Aussies called them. They flew thousands of miles every year, across open ocean, through torrents of rain and wind. They didn’t always make it, and every so often they’d wash up on shorelines in their hundreds. A wreck. That was what they called it, when they washed up like that.”

Evocative and emotional, Emily Brugman’s The Islands is recommended for literary readers, and fans of grand familial sagas steeped in wild, forbidding settings like a Hannah Kent novel. Readership skews female, 30+

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

The Islands
Emily Brugman
February 2022
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez

It’s 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro ‘Prieto’ Acevedo, are bold-faced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying, Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn, while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan’s power brokers.

Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the one percent, but she can’t seem to find her own . . . until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets.

Twenty-seven years ago, their mother, Blanca, a Young Lord-turned-radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives.

Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico’s history, Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream – all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.

Xochitl Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming is a revolutionary, multi-generational tale about family, race, identity and politics. Two Puerto-Rican siblings living in gentrified Brooklyn are grappling with their responsibility to their mother — a radical activist who abandoned the family when protagonist Olga was twelve years old. She is now thirty-nine and her mother is a fugitive fighting for Puerto Rican independence, meanwhile manipulating her two children in a series of letters scattered throughout the novel.

Olga Dies Dreaming is a pointed commentary about American society and politics — about race and poverty, and how societal structures within America ensure that the poor stay poor, and the wealthy only gain more power. Whilst some of the political aspects of the novel may go over readers’ heads, the carefully crafted plotting and pacing still allows for an enjoyable read.

“Sometimes, when he contemplated the direction of his life, he felt his wounds were self-inflicted. He ran for office because everyone ignored his neighbourhood…these days, all eyes were on Sunset Park, and it was he, Prieto, who had put them there. For better and for worse.”

At their core, Olga and her brother Prieto are trying to prove that they’re more capable than what others believe. Olga is a savvy wedding planner, successful but depressed. Prieto may be a popular U.S congressman but he is hiding in the closet and is being blackmailed by high-powered real estate moguls. Both siblings are grappling with the trajectory of their lives.

Set mainly in the Summer of 2017, Xochitl’s writing is slick and omniscient — she’s an incredibly talented writer and this is an equally impressive debut. Her writing is observant and conveys layered emotion. Chapters end with open-ended dialogue or observations, allowing deeper character observation for the reader.

“He didn’t, in fact, agree with that assessment; he sometimes felt Olga underestimated him. When it came to business at least, Dick always saw the dark sides of things, but his gift, he felt, was for sensing the opportunities that often lie in wait.”

The pacing does differ across the course of the novel and the middle third of the book in particular feels painfully slow. The final part of the novel, once the hurricane hits, holds a much more consistent and engaging flow.

Readers who aren’t overly invested in literary fiction, nor interested in a novel that provides commentary on the American sociopolitical environment, admittedly might find their interests lulling throughout the story.

“Close up, Olga could see that Matteo was quite handsome underneath his scruffy semi-beard. He had a splattering of freckles and the kind light brown eyes that Olga used to call Coca-Cola coloured when she was a kid.”

Pointed, punchy and purposeful, Olga Dies Dreaming is recommended for literary readers. Readership skews 30+

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

Olga Dies Dreaming
Xochitl Gonzalez
January 2022
Hachette Book Publishers

The Survivors by Alex Schulman

Benjamin sees the shape of his two brothers trying to kill each other. It’s no worthy finale, but perhaps it’s also no surprise. How else had they expected this to end?

Three brothers return to the family cottage by the lake where, more than two decades earlier, a catastrophe changed the course of their lives. Now, they are here to scatter their mother’s ashes.

Benjamin, the middle son, drives the three of them down the old gravel road to the house, through a familiar landscape but also through time. Here they are as boys, tanned legs and hungry eyes, children left to themselves by remote parents; here they are as young men, estranged but bound together by the history that defines them, their lives spent competing for their father’s favour and their mother’s love in a household more like a minefield than a home.

In the intervening years, Benjamin has grown increasingly untethered from reality, frozen in place as life carries on around him. And between the three brothers hums a dangerous current. What really happened that summer day when everything was blown to pieces?

Translated from Swedish, Alex Schulman’s literary novel The Survivors centres around a dysfunctional family reunion between three brothers, congregating at their family lake house decades after a tragedy ripped the family apart.

Written in third person but following the perspective of middle child Benjamin, the novel follows two parallel storylines and moves between past and present – it is both a coming-of-age novel and a reminiscent tale that tackles long buried family secrets. Growing up, their parents don’t seem to hold much concern for their children – the parents are aloof, emotionally manipulative and distanced. Their mother is quite the complex character – easily angered, quick to blame Benjamin, limited emotional expression. The last Summer they spent at the family cabin proved deadly, and the family were never the same again.

“Mom was staring at him from halfway up the stairs. Her open robe, hair on end, pillow creases on her cheek. He couldn’t believe it, it was impossible. How could she suddenly just be there, without any warning at all? It was as if she’d never gone to bed last night, as if she had spent the night on the stairs, sitting there in the darkness and waiting in silence for the dawn, for this moment.”

Benjamin appears to be the most scarred by his childhood, so it makes sense that he’s the pivotal character in this story. Alex Schulman dances around the catastrophic events of their final holiday, circling back to it for moments of introspection and then thrusting us into another moment. It should feel jolting to the reader, but it works well in this context.

Naturally, the ‘present’ storyline doesn’t hold as much tension or anticipation as those chapters set in the past, but it does allow for an in-depth exploration of sibling relationship and familial dynamic. Guilt and repressed memories are running rife in this family, and it isn’t until the end that we come to understand the magnitude of what happened the last time this family went on holiday to their lake cabin.

“Benjamin stands down by the lake with a bouquet of dried buttercups in his hand. His brothers stand beside him. Nils is holding the urn. It’s heavy, and he constantly adjusts his grip on it, an increasingly baffled expression on his face, as if the weight of Mom has taken him by surprise.”

I do wonder if the twist comes too late in the novel. No spoilers, but there’s quite the surprise in the final few pages of the novel and then all of the sudden the book ends. If the twist were to be revealed a bit earlier, I think there would’ve been more capacity to let the reader sit with this news – we would have more time to question everything we’d just read throughout the story. Instead, the novel concludes, and it feels like an abrupt finish.

Additionally, the story itself is quite convoluted and sometimes hard to follow. The present storyline goes back in time, but the past storyline works in linear fashion, and I found myself having to re-read sections because the plot felt rather confusing. And until we hit some of the tense moments between the brothers, the pacing felt quite slow and drawn out.

“Nils shoves the urn with full force at his brother. Pierre isn’t ready for it and it lands on his chest. From the crack, Benjamin knows immediately that something has broken inside Pierre’s body. A rib or his sternum. Benjamin has always been able to see three steps ahead of everyone else.”

Tense and atmospheric, The Survivors is psychological suspense best suited for literary readers. Readership skews female, 25+

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

The Survivors
Alex Schulman
October 2021
Hachette Book Publishers

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

In the dying days of the American Civil War, newly freed brothers Landry and Prentiss find themselves cast into the world without a penny to their names. Forced to hide out in the woods near their former Georgia plantation, they’re soon discovered by the land’s owner, George Walker, a man still reeling from the loss of his son in the war.

When the brothers begin to live and work on George’s farm, the tentative bonds of trust and union begin to blossom between the strangers. But this sanctuary survives on a knife’s edge, and it isn’t long before the inhabitants of the nearby town of Old Ox react with fury at the alliances being formed only a few miles away . . .

Set during the Civil War and portraying life after slavery, Nathan Harris’ debut literary novel The Sweetness of Water is an incredible read. I’m so pleased to see that it’s been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

The Sweetness of Water takes place during a time of unrest and unease. The American Civil War is almost over and the enslaved are emancipated and allowed freedom, but tensions still run high and racism runs deep. There’s still a lot of resentment among white Southerners, as they struggle to accept that their superiority is slipping away. When the level-headed and moral farmer George Walker employs two former slaves on his property, the local townspeople in Old Ox are reluctant to accept his ways of operating. Characters clash and prejudice reigns. Soon, all lives will change.

“So it began that afternoon. A life of unhappiness that transcended George’s former independence, one of unity. Two lives merged. Her beauty was secondary to the strength of her character, the fortitude in which she housed her beliefs, her way of life, that same stubbornness that he shared himself.”

For a debut, the writing is almost faultless. Prose is stripped back but insightful. Written in third person, the book allows an intimate insight into George and his relationship with wife Isabelle, and their son Caleb. Initially thought to be killed during the Civil War, Caleb returns home unexpectedly, his face deeply scarred.

Exploring complex social problems in a time of great upheaval, Nathan has captured the era with ease. There’s just as much left unsaid and off the page, and there’s much to be admired about how Nathan has captured the three-dimensional, multi-faceted nature of his many cast of characters. Nathan draws together a series of tumultuous events that will attract an array of emotions from its readers – anger, frustration, sadness and concern. I don’t often cry when reading a book, but I cried reading this one.

“Prentiss and Landry arrived back to their camp late enough that the shade of the trees brought goose bumps to their skin. Prentiss had no mind to eat, even with the potatoes in his knapsack that he’d got from the man in the tent. He was hungrier for sleep.”

Nathan possesses a sensitivity and compassion when writing about this time period. There’s something about his prose that feels historical – omniscient and encompassing, but gentle. Dialogue features sparingly, and Nathan lets internal monologue carry a lot of the book. We learn about histories through memories and reflection, as each character realises the lessons they’ve learnt and the trauma they’ve been dealt. Tragedy looms large in this story.

The Sweetness of Water asks the question, what does it really mean to be free?

“They had opened his face with the butt of a rifle. He’d cupped his face with both hands, but no amount of dabbing at the wound could prevent the blood from slipping through his fingers and wetting the ground.”

Poignant, intelligent and expertly written, The Sweetness of Water is for lovers of literature. Literary readers, historical fiction fans. This book reminded me of To Kill A Mockingbird. Readership skews 25+

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

The Sweetness of Water
Nathan Harris
July 2021
Hachette Book Publishers

The Rabbits by Sophie Overett

Winner of the 2020 Penguin Literary Prize.

How do you make sense of the loss of those you love most?

Delia Rabbit has asked herself this question over and over again since the disappearance of her older sister, Bo. Crippled by grief, Delia and her mother became dysfunctional, parting ways not long after Delia turned eighteen.

Now an art teacher at a Queensland college, Delia has managed to build a new life for herself and to create a family of her own. Only more and more that life is slipping: her partner, Ed, has gone, her daughter, Olive, is distancing herself, and, all of a sudden, in the middle of a blinding heatwave, her sixteen-year-old son, Charlie, disappears too.

Suddenly what was buried feels close to the surface, and the Rabbits are faced not only with each other, but also with themselves.

Sophie Overett’s The Rabbits is a multigenerational literary novel interwoven with magical realism. At its core, The Rabbits explores family and loneliness, a loss of connection among loved ones, and reconnecting during times of heartache.

Set over a relative short time period, the story follows the Rabbit family — mother Delia, ex-partner Ed, and their three children Olive, Charlie and Benjamin. One day, Charlie disappears. For Delia, it brings back the painful memories of her childhood when her sister Bo died.

“They’re there within the hour, the blue and red lights flashing through the gap in the curtains, and Olive peers cautiously out her window as two police officers step out of the car…it’s not long before she hears the front door crack open and the police officers step inside, hears their quiet, considered words to Delia, and Delia’s harried response.”

Set in suburban Brisbane, Sophie captures the layers of contemporary family life in Queensland. It’s not just about the steamy, humid weather or school or trauma, it’s about the tense relationship between mother and daughter, the fractured relationship between mother and father, and how when Charlie goes missing, they all slowly come together to process this new family dynamic.

There’s a certain poignancy to this novel — a sensitive caress. This story is more character-driven than plot-driven, and Sophie uses magical realism to peel back the layers of the Rabbits so they can begin to heal. There’s beauty in the unknown here, and going into this novel with no knowledge of how the magical realism will be embedded proves an interesting read indeed. I loved finding out how the story was going to progress, and how elements of the magical were going to be interwoven. Whilst the elements of the unreal are never really explained or resolved, I don’t think they need to be. There’s beauty in what’s left unsaid.

“Her voice is weedy, wiry, like it’s distorted through a line somehow, and Olive can’t help it — the way it drips like petrol into the constant embers of her anger. Her chest suddenly aches, and she wishes she was somewhere else.”

Written in third person, the chapters alternate POV between the different members of the Rabbit family, and sometimes it was a little unclear at first whose story we were in. It could take a minute to determine the transfer of perspective, especially if the scene involved more than one Rabbit.

Other than that, Sophie’s writing is near faultless and the story grips you from the opening chapters. Her writing is seamless and the dialogue realistic. Tender moments between siblings and friends help carry the story forward, and I think this novel will attract a broad audience.

“Delia’s pencil makes quick work on the tracing paper, righting the slant, the scale, the shading that angles the lurching gum trees so strangely. It’s an easy practice. The shadow of an old habit, and out of the corner of her eye she can see the girl watching with wide eyes, her cheeks flushed, her throat quivering in embarrassment or admiration, Delia doesn’t really care to know.”

Captivating, rich and beautifully written, The Rabbits is recommended for literary readers. Readership skews female, 25+

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

The Rabbits
Sophie Overett
July 2021
Penguin Random House Publishers