GONE GIRL

Who are you?

What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?

Thoughts 

It's safe to say that most people have heard about Girl Girl. And I'm pretty sure most people have seen other people reading this book on public transport. 

Two years ago it was everywhere hence why I avoided it like the plague. I had no interest in reading about a doomed marriage. But sometime last year I "accidentally on purpose" watched the movie. I committed the cardinal sin - I watched the movie before I read the book.  And my goodness, Rosamund Pike was brilliant. She is the psychotic, manipulating Amy Dunne and Ben Afflect is the insanely irritating husband. 

I started reading the book soon after. I have to say Gone Girl is really good, there are moments of imperfections of course but overall it surpassed my expectations. 

Here's my favorite paragraphs from Gone Girl. 

“Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”

Whatever happened to young female black characters

I read widely. I enjoy all kinds of books whether they happen to be by black or white or Asian authors.

However this week I was faced with the truth that I loved books with characters that looked liked me.  As a teenager I read books by Tsi, Degerambe - Nervous Conditions and felt kinship with the character, her confusion mirrored my own.  I read Knoughts and Crosses and I could vision myself as Sephy. In Purple Hibiscus, I was back in my native country navigating the pitfalls of growing up.

Recently though I've struggled to find authors who write about women for black women my age i.e. in their twenties who aren't affected by Third World poverty or war, women who are navigating the job market, men and such. It is as if our stories have no value. 

I read a book recently, a romance, it wasn't particularly interesting by a white author, I found myself very angry at her description of a passerby as simple “a black woman”.  If a white man had walked past, would she have described him as “a white man”. Also her constant use of porcelain skin annoyed me. Her main characters had beautiful porcelain skin, like a tea cups. She found so many ways of describing white characters, but could only find one word to describe a black character. 

Anyway where are all the black female characters? 

The Newlyweds

Amina met George online. Within months she has left her home in Bangladesh and is living in George's house in the American suburbs. Theirs is a very twenty-first century union, forged from afar yet echoing the traditions of the arranged marriage.

But as Amina struggles to find her place in America, it becomes clear that neither she nor George have been entirely honest with each other. Both have brought to the marriage a secret - a vital, hidden part of themselves, which will reveal who they are and whether their future is together or an ocean apart.

Amazon

Marlon James wins the Man Booker Prize

Marlon James has won this year's Man Booker prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings. He is the first Jamaican writer to ever win the prize. Congratulations Mr. James!

Synopsis from The Man Booker Prize


On 3 December 1976, just weeks before the general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica concert to ease political tensions, seven men from West Kingston stormed his house with machine guns. Marley survived and went on to perform at the free concert. But the next day he left the country and didn’t return for two years.

Inspired by this near-mythic event, A Brief History of Seven Killings takes the form of an imagined oral biography, told by ghosts, witnesses, killers, members of parliament, drug dealers, conmen, beauty queens, FBI and CIA agents, reporters, journalists, and even Keith Richards' drug dealer. The story traverses strange landscapes and shady characters, as motivations are examined – and questions asked. 

(http://themanbookerprize.com/books/brief-history-seven-killings) 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/13/marlon-james-wins-the-man-booker-prize-2015

The Daughter's Secret

My daughter is a liar. A liar, liar, liar. And I'm starting to see where she gets it from.

When Rosalind's fifteen-year-old daughter, Stephanie, ran away with her teacher, this ordinary family became something it had never asked to be. Their lives held up to scrutiny in the centre of a major police investigation, the Simms were headline news while Stephanie was missing with a man who was risking everything.

Now, six years on, Ros takes a call that will change their lives all over again. He's going to be released from prison. Years too early. In eleven days' time.

As Temperley's release creeps ever closer, Ros is forced to confront the events that led them here, back to a place she thought she'd left behind, to questions she didn't want to answer. Why did she do it? Where does the blame lie? What happens next?

First They Came

Marianne Jean-Baptiste was interviewed recently by Simon Hattenstone for the Guardian and at the end of the interview she quotes this wonderful poem. I thought the interview was intriguing and insightful. If you think so too, leave a comment below.

First They Came

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me - Martin Niemoller 

Read full interview - http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jun/15/marianne-jean-baptiste-secrets-and-lies-british-movies

""It’s not this sob story. I had a choice. I could have stayed and fought it out, but I thought you know what, this is madness, it’s like fishing in a river and seeing people grabbing fishes upstream and you’re still down there going, ‘This is where I need to be, this is my spot.’ You fucking walk up stream and you catch your fish. I’m a member of the African diaspora, my parents left the Caribbean and came to London for a better life. We moved. And you print that, with the expletives.

"I ask if she suffered because she wasn’t a conventional dolly bird.

“How dare you! ‘I’m not not a bloody dolly bird!’ I am!”"

The Woman Who Stole My Life

Synopsis

One day, sitting in traffic, married Dublin mum Stella Sweeney attempts a good deed. The resulting car crash changes her life.

For she meets a man who wants her telephone number (for the insurance, it turns out). That's okay. She doesn't really like him much anyway (his Range Rover totally banjaxed her car).

But in this meeting is born the seed of something which will take Stella thousands of miles from her old life, turning an ordinary woman into a superstar, and, along the way, wrenching her whole family apart.

Is this all because of one ill-advised act of goodwill? Was meeting Mr Range Rover destiny or karma? Should she be grateful or hopping mad?

For the first time real, honest-to-goodness happiness is just within her reach. But is Stella Sweeney, Dublin housewife, ready to grasp it?

The Girl On The Train

Synopsis

Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. ‘Jess and Jason’, she calls them. Their life – as she sees it – is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough.

Now everything’s changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she’s only watched from afar.

Now they’ll see; she’s much more than just the girl on the train…

The Peacock Emporium

Synopsis

Athene Forster embraced the Sixties like few others. Nicknamed the Last Deb, she was spoiled, beautiful, and out of control. And within two years of her marriage, the rumours had begun again.

Thirty-five years on, Suzanna Peacock finds refuge from her mother's shameful legacy in her shop, the Peacock Emporium. Within its magical walls she discovers not just friendship, and an escape from her troubled marriage, but the first real passion of her life.

But the spectre of her mother still haunts Suzanna, setting in place a series of dramatic events. Only by confronting the past will she finally be able to face the future

Thoughts

The Peacock Emporium has a very slow start and a mediocre ending. The writing is not very exciting and as far as characters go Susanna Peacock is as memorable as watching paint dry. I would not recommend this book, not because it's uninspiring and draining but because Jojo Moyes is a brilliant author and The Peacock Emporium does not showcase her wit, cynicism and class.

For a great read from Jojo Moyes try - Me Before You - http://herbooklist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/review-me-before-you.html

The One Plus One

One single mum

With two jobs and two children, Jess Thomas does her best day after day. But it's hard on your own. And sometimes you take risks you shouldn't. Because you have to . . .

One chaotic family

Jess's gifted, quirky daughter Tanzie is brilliant with numbers, but without a helping hand she'll never get the chance to shine. And Nicky, Jess's teenage stepson, can't fight the bullies alone.

Sometimes Jess feels like they're sinking . . .

One handsome stranger

Into their lives comes Ed Nicholls, a man whose life is in chaos, and who is running from a deeply uncertain future. But he has time on his hands. He knows what it's like to be lonely. And he wants to help . . .

One unexpected love story

The One Plus One is a captivating and unconventional romance from Jojo Moyes about two lost souls meeting in the most unlikely circumstances.