Normal People by Sally Rooney
I decided to read this when I saw that the BBC had done an adaptation.
It follows the tale of Connell and Marianne who grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked, while Marianne is a loner.
Connell’s mother is a single parent, who works as a cleaner for Marianne’s family. One day, when Connell arrives to pick his mother up from work, a spark of attraction jumps between him and Marianne. But when the two strike up a conversation something life-changing begins.
Normal People is a story of mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find they can’t.
This is one of those books that at times I couldn’t put down but sometimes had to read in short bursts, but I thought it was tender, wonderfully beautiful and a real love story.
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
We are huge fans of American writer Tayari Jones. She is the best-selling author of An America Marriage which not only got the attention of Oprah Winfrey after selecting it for her Book Club but former US president Barack Obama included it on his increasingly celebrated list of summer reading and Bill Gates recommended it too.
Silver Sparrow is the breathtaking story of a man with two families and two teenage daughters caught in the middle.
James Witherspoon is happily married man with a wife and a successful business. But he has a secret. Across town he also has another family. When his daughters ‘accidentally’ meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows the truth.
This is an explosive read delving into family, marriage, motherhood and sisterhood.
Silver Sparrow is Jones’ third novel and is published for the first time in the UK this year.
Expectation by Anna Hope
This debut novel by Anna Hope is an evocative tale about female friendship.
It is a sharp, even brutal at times, exploration of the expectations of life in your 20s and the reality of becoming an adult.
The story follows three friends; Hannah, Cate and Lissa.
They are young, vibrant and inseparable. Living on the edge of a common in East London, their shared world is ablaze with art and activism, romance and revelry – and the promise of everything to come.
Ten years on, they are not where they hoped to be. Hannah is married but is trying for a baby, Lissa is a failing actress and Cate is struggling with a new baby in a new house in a town where she feels isolated.
Their friendship isn’t what it used to be. There’s jealousy, resentment, longing and a yearning of what was.
Expectation will resonate with most women as it did with us.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Kya Clark grows up alone in a shack in the swamplands of North Carolina after being abandoned by her family. She learns from the wildlife around her, gaining tricks of camouflage to evade truant officers and acquiring hunting skills to feed herself and catch mussels and fish to sell to shopkeepers in the town beyond the creek.
But the time comes when she years to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens.
This coming of age drama has everything; suspense, murder mystery, love and loss.
Most of the story is told in flashback and it’s a tale I didn’t want to end.
Unorthodox - The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman
This memoir has inspired a new Netflix mini-series - but before you head to watch this - it’s definitely worth a read first.
In Unorthodox, Feldman lifts the lid into the ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish community in which she was born into.
It’s a fascinating read about a culture that many people don’t understand or know much about and Feldman’s struggle with growing up under a religious code of enforced customs governing everything from what she could wear, what she could eat, what she could study, to whom she could speak to what she was allowed to read (public libraries too are forbidden).
When she marries at 17 Feldman believes it could be her way to gain more freedom. Instead, is shackled once again with duties expected of a wife and her dreams of independence start to disappear.
After giving birth to her son she decides to give her child a more mainstream upbringing she needed to escape.
This is Feldman’s journey of how she breaks her ties with the community and forges a path to freedom.
Copyright © 2022 WorkingMamas - All Rights Reserved.
Powered by GoDaddy Website Builder