Echoing the story of David Copperfield, Kingsolver wove in the ups and downs (more of the latter) of Dickens’ David to the sad and sorry tale of Demon. Born to a mother already addicted to pills and booze, his childhood was doomed from the outset to be a struggle. Demon faced his lot with realism, learning fast that if he needed help, then he’d better look within himself than expect or rely on the kindness or duty of others, be they the good-hearted Peggotts next door or the overworked social workers assigned to his case. The rotten luck and bad treatment that Demon encounters seems to be endless but Kingsolver’s’ ability to capture the voice of a disenchanted, world weary 11 year old who still retains a kernel of pluck and spirit keeps you in the story’s thrall. Come to this book with fortitude, as you will need it as you join Demon’s journey.

To provide lighter relief from the dark days of Demon’s life, I took refuge in a string of other books. The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of a Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson was the perfect foil. I can’t even recall how long this book has been sitting patiently on my Kindle bookshelf. I have a vague recollection of buying it when it was one of the 99p specials after a good friend recommended it. It’s Allan Karlsson’s 100^th birthday and he really doesn’t want all the fuss of the party the nursing home has planned for him, so he opens his ground floor window, steps gingerly out into the flower bed and hot foots it away as fast as his slippers and 100 year old body can carry him. As Allan makes his escape, the time-shift story flicks back to his youth and through his life. Although school wasn’t his forte, he learned early on how to use explosives and became quite an expert at blowing things up. And so his adventures begin. Chance decisions bring him into the path of some of the most memorable figures of 20^th century history like a centenarian Forrest Gump. You can’t help but be pulled in by Jonasson’s epic caper. It reads a bit like a fireside yarn spun by your favourite Grandpa, happenstance and incredulity dripping off the page. If you haven’t read this yet, get hold of a copy and enjoy. This was my first 5 star book of the year (before I turned the last page of Demon).

Keeping it light, I borrowed from my niece the second in the All Four Stars series about Gladys Gatsby, 12 year old restaurant critic for the New York Standard newspaper. In the second instalment, The Summer of Stars, Gladys has to try to keep up with her secret side hustle while attending summer camp. That would be difficult enough, but when her fellow critic tries to steal her assignments and sabotage her reviews by giving her a fake assignment to find New York’s best hotdog, Gladys has her work cut out. Tara Dairman makes this KidLit book as entertaining for its target audience as well as their aunts. This one was just what I needed. And needless to say I wanted a hotdog myself by the time I’d finished this one.

In early February, a long road trip with my sister was the perfect opportunity to use one of my Audible credits and buy a recent release to listen together on the journey home. Piglet by Lottie Hazell had come up in my Bookstagram feed a few days earlier and the donuts on the cover sold it for me. Piglet (the nickname of our female MC) is soon to marry Kit and is in the throes of last minute wedmin while juggling her day job as a cook book editor. Each scene plays out with food at the centre, whether around the dining table, a test kitchen or restaurant, it’s a series of meals rather than chapters. Though this sounds like it should very much be my cup of tea (with a biscuit please), it just didn’t hit the spot. Just 3 stars for this debut.

Back to the dusty to be read shelf at home and I sought out a long-term resident. One for my Baby by Tony Parsons had resided on my shelf since I lived in London the first time around, a Tesco bargain with discount sticker still on the cover (£3.84 in those days was a steal). Time to come on down and have its day. Opening in Hong Kong (a place where I spent 6 months in my early 20s as a junior lawyer) I was immediately drawn in to the scene on the Star Ferry, remembering numerous trips back and forth in Hong Kong’s harbour. Alfie Budd bumps into his perfect woman, the One for him, who will become his wife. But their life together is short-lived as his wife dies barely two years into their marriage and Alfie returns to London to pick up the pieces of his life. He’s a bit of a grumpy chap, Alfie, bumbling along back in his parents’ house. As Alfie mourns his lost future with his wife, his own father throws decades of marriage away by leaving his mother and shacking up with his mistress. The story follows Alfie’s string of ill-advised couplings with his students at the foreign language school where he has found a job. I spent much of the book wishing that he would open his eyes to what was right under his nose. And wishing I was at the end of the book already. This wasn’t one of those rare gems lurking on the shelf. This was one of those that I should have abandoned and ditched. You win some, you lose some.

Rounding of the month, I had been spending time at the gym listening to another audiobook, Atomic Habits by James Clear. Funnily enough it was particularly helpful at cementing in place my new habit of going to the gym or doing some other activity before 9am. Clear breaks down the thinking behind how it’s the actions, the habits, which are more important than the goals themselves. And further, that to become long lasting the habit you wish to foster should become part of your self-identity. It was an interesting listen, but the kind of thing I will probably have to listen to twice for it to fully sink in. There’s one habit I already have well and truly nailed: reading books wherever, whenever, and however.

“A woman is like a tea bag. It’s only when she’s in hot water that you realize how strong she is.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

Opening with a punch, this book starts with Sarah crouched in the footwell of a car and her mother slumped over the wheel, a bullet in the back of her head. Orphaned at 15, Sarah’s priority is to escape from the border guards that have just killed her mother and get herself to safety.

Set at the eve of WW2, Sarah and her mother attempt to flee into Switzerland. Already pushed out of their home in Berlin, Jews living in Austria are no longer safe from the wave of National Socialism that has taken over Germany in the preceding years and the spread of its power into neighbouring countries. Sarah has been schooled by her mother in theatrical arts which, coupled with her blond hair, allows her to masquerade as an Aryan and helps her to survive.

Sneaking her way onto a boat bound for Switzerland, she rescues a mysterious gentleman, Herr Haller. Putting at risk her own safety, saves him from trouble with the border guards at the dock through her quick wit and bravery and together they dodge their way back into Germany. A German scientist is threatening to develop a nuclear bomb, which would have catastrophic consequences. Herr Haller convinces Sarah to infiltrate a Nazi school, which is grooming the female monsters of the future, so that she can befriend the scientists daughter and gain access to this lab. Sarah becomes the Orphan Monster Spy.

This is a fast paced book, full of action, but it skilfully roots itself in the horror of what Sarah and her mother have endured during the rise of National Socialism. Sarah, though seemingly unshakeable on the outside, has packed all of her terrible experiences into a box down in her soul, first as a means to keep from being overwhelmed by the weight of it all, and later as a source of power to overcome what gets put in her path. Using Sarah’s gymnastic skills as a metaphor, “commit to the move” is a refrain which comes back again and again, giving the message that you have to do something wholeheartedly and with all your effort to succeed. Timidity will lead to failure. Eloquently written, and with real heart, there was nothing timid about this debut novel. I’m looking forward to sequel.

Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them – Bob Dylan

What would you do if every 60 minutes or so, your memory erased itself and all you could remember were snatches of your earliest childhood? Through the eyes of Emily Barr’s Flora Banks, you can live that experience, where the same things happen over and over again, and you rely on those around you to keep you moving a little bit forward instead of forever going back to the beginning.

The titular One Memory of Flora is that she kisses Drake. On a beach. You’ll read this a lot. Drake is her best friend Paige’s ex boyfriend, who is leaving town to study in Svalbard. When Paige learns about the kiss, she cuts off her friendship with Flora. But the timing is terrible as Flora’s parents have to leave town to visit Flora’s older brother who is gravely ill in Paris, thinking that Paige will look after Flora. Flora finds herself having to look after herself, as Paige won’t forgive her. Keeping up the pretence that she and Paige are having a good time together, Flora finds ways of reminding herself who she is and what she needs to do to get through the week without her parents, to keep herself safe and to remember to take her medicine, all the time clinging to her One Memory. She kissed Drake. On a beach.

Ever resourceful, Flora decides to go to Svalbard to find Drake, and hopefully restore her memory. Reading about her journey was like watching through my fingers, expecting Flora to have mishap after mishap. The awkwardness and uncomfortableness of Flora in unfamiliar territory, and the quiet safety net put up by those who meet her and immediately see her vulnerability is well portrayed, the often unwritten but tangible part of the tale.

This is an incredible love story. But not the one that you expect from the first couple of chapters. I felt the frustration of Flora followed by the fear and confusion that comes when her friable memories disintegrate once again. You find yourself rooting for Flora and hoping that from the One Memory, more memories follow on.

“There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins. They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life.” Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird

If you don’t go in to book stores to buy your books, you don’t get to chat to the people who work there, invariably book lovers themselves. While treating my niece and nephew to a couple of new books in the children’s section in Waterstones, I confessed to the girls on the till that I had a bit of a thing for teenage fiction myself. They immediately pointed me in to the direction of The Hate U Give and were so effusive about it, that I was not able to leave the shop without bringing it with me. Do believe the hype. This is such a powerful read.

From the start this book is punchy, confronting the reader with the unwarranted shooting of a child. The misfortune of crossing the path of a prejudiced and paranoid police officer while being black and male. Starr is in the passenger seat when her friend Khalil, gets pulled over by the officer for no apparent reason. Moments later, she is cradling him as he slips away, multiple bullets in his back from the gun of white officer.

The Hate U Give makes plain how it feels to be fearful of being just who you are in case that puts you in a stereotyped box, paints you with only the negative traits associated with that stereotype and denies you justice because guilt becomes presumed unless innocence can be proven, though if the bullet is already out of the gun you have already been tried, judged and sentenced, with no chance of appeal.

Starr takes us through her grief for her friend, her guilt that she couldn’t have saved him, not just in that car but in the months leading up to the moment, how treacherous she feels to be with a boyfriend whose skin is the same colour as the man who murdered Khalil, and her discovery of the power of a voice that is brave enough to make itself heard.