Books from November 2024

Mini reviews of everything I read in November.

My bookcase shortly before the latest purge and reshuffle

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November passed by in a thrilling, thick, wood-smoked haze. Hot off the heels of a trip to balmier shores, I completely revelled in the autumn chill and pairing almost every at-home activity with a book. Nothing much changes! It meant that I gleefully flipped my way through seven books, started a reading journal, and soaked up sheltering from the brisk outdoors. I’m now finally up to date with my NetGalley ARCs, which feels like a huge relief – I won’t be requesting this volume of galleys again in a long time, that’s for sure.

Here’s everything that I read, along with some short reviews:

Hum by Helen Phillips

Thanks Atlantic Books and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

Rating: 3.75 stars

When May loses her job to AI and struggles to find another, she becomes a guinea pig in a new experimental procedure, altering her face so it cannot be recognised by the surveillance that is now rampant. In turn, she is paid handsomely and can secure her family's future for another few months. May lives in a city that's been transformed by climate change and now shares its population with robots called 'hums'. The hums dispense pharmacy prescriptions, track your whereabouts, advertise to you every 15 minutes according to your surveilled condition, and far more.

Fraught with anxiety and stress, May splurges some of her newly earned cash on prestigious passes to the Botanical Garden: a rare, green refuge where forests, animals, streams and nature still flourish. Hardened by her family addiction to their devices, she decides to take her husband, daughter and son to the Garden without their devices, a decision that proves far riskier than anticipated. And, when her children come under threat thanks to her rash actions, May must put her trust in a hum.

I really enjoyed this speculative fiction from Phillips. AI and climate change are subjects I am incredibly interested in and passionate about, and they serve as a great backdrop to this story about motherhood, humanity, society and marriage. The distant-future dystopia felt dizzyingly real, and there's some excellent topics at play here. We must interrogate what happens when AI, climate change, tribalism and egocentricity are left to their own devices.

I read this book in days and thoroughly enjoyed it – I enjoyed the urgent prose that pulls you into May's mind and the childlike innocence of that of May's children. Somehow, it worked that you never learn much about her husband. I do wish there was a little more depth to the characters, and perhaps more world-building about life outside of the family's world. Perhaps that would've lifted this to a 4-star read.

Pick up a copy of Hum on Bookshop.org to support your local independent bookstore.

The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Stacy Sivinski

Thanks Zaffre and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

Rating: 2.5 stars

This cosy witchy fantasy book centres around sisters Anne, Beatrix and Violet as they run a divination tearoom and discover they've been cursed. Tasked with uncovering three other witches' Tasks (their reason for existing), the sisters each find themselves on different paths. Anne grapples with a discovery that her magic is far more powerful than her sisters, while Beatrix squirrels away at her writing, concealing her book publishing deal from the siblings. And Violet finds a new love for the circus (yes, really), meeting somebody that changes her life’s outlook. What will bring them together or drive them apart?

I really wanted to love this novel. It has all the components of a book I love: magic, low-stakes fantasy, a magical house and time-travelling cat, themes of sisterhood and coming-of-age. But I found it a bit of a slog from the 45% mark and then I became completely overwhelmed by how often the author overused words and phrases like 'thread', 'woven together', 'knitted with' and 'fabric of being’. They're great peppered here and there but, my goodness, it completely took me out of the story unfortunately.

Moreover, I would've loved to be brought further into how close the sisters were before things kicked off – I couldn't really connect with their supposed close sisterhood and really wish there was a splash more sentimentality and perhaps some flashbacks. These could’ve been executed in such a magical way. There's also plenty of fillery parts that could've been replaced with some character and world building. Enjoyable for the first half and the final handful of chapters, but it really did lose its way.

Pick up a copy of The Crescent Moon Tearoom on Bookshop.org to support your local independent bookstore.

The Party by Tessa Hadley

Thanks Jonathan Cape Books and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

Rating: 3 stars

This novella follows sisters Moira and Evelyn as they sneak off to a party in post-war Bristol. There, they meet two men and it is clear there's a class division. Packed with lovely 'full' descriptions, I felt there was an unnecessary use of almost archaic language and French inserts. Was this to create an obvious class divide and commentary? It took me out of the scene. There's an interesting and too-deliberate commentary on class, religion, family and aspiration here, but it's lost amongst vapid and hollow characters who are fairly dull upon examination.

Pick up a copy of The Party on Bookshop.org to support your local independent bookstore.

The River Thief by Hannah Peck

Thanks Piccadilly Press and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

Rating: 4 stars

Adventurous and magically warm, I really enjoyed The River Thief after a slow start. Adderley is a smart and conscientious scientifically minded heroine and her compassionate, thoughtful and logical ways made for a great protagonist. On one of her everyday adventures, Adderley meets Ef, the half-human half-fish that dwells in the river beside her village. And she has a quest.

Written for middle-grade readers, I loved being on this riverward adventure with her and Ef, and the free-flowing prose perfectly captures the time and mood of a bygone England.

Pick up a copy of The River Thief on Bookshop.org to support your local independent bookstore.

The Inner Life of Animals: Surprising Observations of a Hidden World by Peter Wohlleben

Rating: 5 stars

Do animals experience complex emotions? Can they have maternal instincts, feel love consciously or deceive one another?

These are all questions posed and ruminated by Peter Wohlleben in The Inner Life of Animals. His quiet observations on animal’s habits, communication, behaviours and instincts bring a whole world to life, deepening our empathy for the creatures we share planet Earth with. Full of fascinating commentary on topics of the likes of the domestication of animals – is it inherently cruel? – and whether we apply human traits to them – yes – this book is a compassionate look at the environment around us, and a reminder that we too must become more compassionate.

Peter Wohlleben is one of my favourite nature writers and I adore his other books in this series. An easy five-star read for me, and now I want to reread his others!

Pick up a copy of The Inner Life of Animals on Bookshop.org to support your local independent bookstore.

The Days Between by Robin Morris

Thanks Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

Rating: 4 stars

CW: infertility, suicide, alcoholism.

The Days Between is a gripping page-turner of a debut that truly doesn’t read like a debut. Andrew and Amy are happily married, thriving in their respective careers and living in a stunning house on the beach in Delray. The next step is a baby, according to Amy. But the couple have struggled to conceive: Amy wants to begin fertility treatment, while Andrew is less than motivated, yet happy to adopt.

Their lives are turned upside down when, one morning, he runs into Kathryn on a rare morning coffee run. They haven’t seen each other in 20 years. Her phone drops and on it Andrew glimpses the face of a boy that looks just like him? Could it be… a son? His child? So begins the unravelling of many manicured lives.

The Days Between is told across alternating timelines and perspectives. Morris does an incredible job with the pacing of the narrative, beautifully building tension to create a story that completely grips you. I found myself cooking pasta with my Kindle in my hand, for goodness’ sake. Morris tackles alcoholism, family breakdowns and mental health, amongst other big topics, with expertise, weaving them amongst gorgeous prose and realistic dialogue to bring the story to life. It’s billed as a ‘drama’ but feels like a really well done family saga thriller to me.

What’s rare, too, is that the cast of characters all feel pretty well-developed and incredibly real. In my mind’s eye, they are real people with complex histories, hopes, ambitions, secrets and struggles. I also loved the look at mother/son, mother/daughter relationships, as well as the commentary on parenthood as a whole. However, the characterisation is also where I’ve knocked off a star for an otherwise-perfect read. Amy, our second female lead, is cold, calculated and emotionless, hellbent on getting her way… And then about a quarter way through, it’s revealed she ‘has Chinese parents’ and there’s a bit of a weird throwaway comment about weird Chinese herbs. There is no further development on Amy’s heritage, so it feels like a roundabout way of describing the awful stereotype of a ‘dragon woman’. There’s also a secondary male lead, Lucas, who is revealed to be Brazilian towards the end of the book, and his heritage isn’t touched on at any other point. It did feel icky to me that the two POC characters get shunted to the side.

Overall, a really well-written book and I genuinely can’t believe it’s the author’s debut.

Pick up a copy of The Days Between on Bookshop.org to support your local independent bookstore.

Your Neighbour’s Table by Gu Byeong-Mo

Thanks Wildfire and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

Rating: 4 stars

I went into this galley barely knowing a thing about the plot or premise, having requested it solely for the cover. And it ended up being a really great, interrogative novel. Your Neighbour’s Table is a story about community and the cultural expectations of motherhood. Four women (and their families) move into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, just on the outskirts of Seoul, South Korea. Here, they’ll take part in a government initiative designed to boost the national birth rate, which has been falling at a rate of knots. Like her neighbours, our protagonist Yojin has agreed to live in this experimental communal space and have at least two more children over the next 10 years.

Community, a dream for parents, right? It takes a village, we’ve all heard.

However, as the last family to move in, Yojin almost immediately begins to feel uneasy about the enforced community spirit. Her concerns only deepen as the communal childcare begins, and the other parents begin to entangle their lives.

There’s some really brilliant threads being woven here: a social commentary on tribalism, fertility, motherhood, parenthood, community, and on gender roles. The women soon begin to shrink into themselves, downplaying their responsibilities and workload and the challenges of being women with jobs and careers. As Yojin reveals her worries, the other families press on with their ambitions for a future communal living space outside of the initiative, a sort of premade utopia.

An illuminating and ambitious novel, Your Neighbour’s Table taps into the everyday minutiae of motherhood, baring to all the unspoken labours that women take on both inside and out of parenthood. I had a small issue with the translation style and the chapter-less structure, but thoroughly enjoyed this nonetheless.

Pick up a copy of Your Neighbour’s Table on Bookshop.org to support your local independent bookstore.

Eyes on the Blue Star by Dewi Hargreaves

Rating: 4 stars

2024 has been the year of dystopias in my reading and sort of in reality too. Eyes on the Blue Star is a human, post-apocalyptic dystopian novel set in a torn-apart version of the USA. Hargreaves cleverly combines patriotism with politics and brings his characters to life with stunning dialogue and a multi-perspective narrative structure. We follow both main characters and side characters, creating a well-rounded perspective of what the hell has happened in this wrecked country.

In this fragmented America, teenaged Naomi flees the safe space of her auntie and uncle’s Pennsylvanian home, unconvinced by the propaganda that the world out there is terrible. She joins an ex-mercenary and a Bluestar en route to Bostonia, famous for its ‘freedom’. Their mission is to free the people of Pennsylvania from its present dictatorship. I loved the social and political commentary that sings throughout Eyes on the Blue Star, it isn’t angsty, but beautifully woven in amongst historic quotes that are perfectly placed to push the plot forwards.

And what’s clever here, too, is Hargreaves’ play on the USA and its ‘freedom’. What was once the American Dream has been destroyed by misuse of power and late-stage capitalism. A must-read, especially post-2024 election.

What’s the best book you read in November?