15. Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein

★★★☆☆ A year or so ago, I watched the documentary Three Identical Strangers about three triplets who were separated when adopted and happened across each other as late teenagers. I found this concept fascinating and impossible, and through that documentary found out about this book, authored by a set of female twins who experienced the...

14. Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

★★★★☆ In this vibrant short story collection, Nafissa Thompson-Spires explores everyday life for middle-class Black Americans with a spunky balance of humour and an underlying melancholy. The theme of heads and bodies, what they represent, and how they interconnect features strongly throughout the collection. Thompson-Spires brings her characters thoroughly to life in their limited page...

March Round-Up

March has been a weird and long month. My interest in reading the entire Women's Prize for Fiction longlist has slightly waned and also I won't be able to get some of my reserved items from the library due to closure. I'm fine with that, and am quite looking forward to shopping my own shelves...

April TBR | O.W.Ls Readathon

I took part in this readathon, my first ever, this time last year and loved it. You "sit" exams in the Hogwarts school subjects by completing the corresponding prompts, and the subjects you fulfil the prompts for influence your options for the follow-up N.E.W.Ts readathon in August, and the "career" you can work towards. (Seriously,...

13. The Hoarder by Jess Kidd

★★☆☆☆ The Hoarder simultaneously has a lot going on, and feels stretched too thin. In her second novel, Jess Kidd explores the relationship between Cathal Flood, a cantankerous old man, and Maud, the social worker tasked with making his hoarder's home liveable. With the promise of dark secrets, The Hoarder gives the impression of being...

12. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

★★★★☆ The Dutch House is at its heart a classic family story, examining family in its smallest denominations and its unconventional configurations. Danny and Maeve grow up in the unusual Dutch decor house in Pennsylvania with their father, until his marriage to their stepmother Andrea drastically changes the siblings' situation. Ann Patchett navigates their story...

11. The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

★★★☆☆ It's hard not to be drawn in by the premise of this debut novel: in 1826, Frannie Langton, a black maid, is on trial for the murder of her employers, Mr and Mrs Benham. Told through Frannie's own words in the form of a confession to her lawyer, you are fed her life story,...

10. The Haunted Moustache by David Bramwell

★★★★☆ Combining coming-of-age memoir, obscure local history and the occult, David Bramwell's "83% true" account of his inheritance of a moustache in his Great Aunt Sylvia's will and the journey it takes him on is refreshing, original and thoroughly absorbing. Despite sounding on first glance a bit whimsical or avant-garde, there is something to be...

9. Emma by Jane Austen

★★★☆☆ Emma, the last of Austen's novels published in her lifetime, follows the eponymous character in her endeavours to match-make within her social circles whilst bearing no desire to marry herself. In Austen's characteristic style, the novel is full of character observation, dry wit, irony and societal commentary. At the end of last year, I...