The Silence of The Girls - Pat Barker

"The ancient city of Troy has withstood a decade under siege of the powerful Greek army, which continues to wage bloody war over a stolen woman—Helen. In the Greek camp, another woman—Briseis—watches and waits for the war's outcome. She was queen of one of Troy's neighboring kingdoms, until Achilles, Greece's greatest warrior, sacked her city and murdered her husband and brothers. Briseis becomes Achilles's concubine, a prize of battle, and must adjust quickly in order to survive a radically different life, as one of the many conquered women who serve the Greek army.

When Agamemnon, the brutal political leader of the Greek forces, demands Briseis for himself, she finds herself caught between the two most powerful of the Greeks. Achilles refuses to fight in protest, and the Greeks begin to lose ground to their Trojan opponents. Keenly observant and coolly unflinching about the daily horrors of war, Briseis finds herself in an unprecedented position, able to observe the two men driving the Greek army in what will become their final confrontation, deciding the fate not only of Briseis's people but also of the ancient world at large."

This year has been a good year for Greek retellings and this has to be one of my favourites. The Silence of the Girls is a dark and weighty retelling of the Iliad. Told from the voice of one of the defeated, Briseis, the reader is offered a different perspective on the destruction of Troy.

Briseis, once a queen, is now a prized possession of Achilles--the same man who destroyed her city and butchered her family. Relegated to be Achilles’ “bed girl,” she is merely serving a purpose in the Greek camp.  Often referred to as “it,” she isn’t thought of as a human being. She struggles to maintain her place and function in a world run by her enemies.  

Briseis is a compelling narrator and I was often on edge waiting to see if she was going to survive the horrors of her new life. I felt the weight of her story and the empowerment of her words. However, I occasionally found the narrative to be bit temperamental and the sudden and unexpected shifts to Achille's POV felt clunky and confusing.

Pat Barker captured the grandiosity of these characters and events in a way that really struck a chord with me; I felt constantly on the verge of tears reading parts of this novel because Homer's musings on fate and free will and grief and glory - in short, what makes the Iliad so epic and timeless - are all echoed in Briseis' narrative. But Barker also manages it all from the sidelines, zeroing in on the experiences of a war slave who has no choice but to watch events unfold around her with no personal agency. Briseis is fully aware that she is not the hero of her own story, that she's narrating these events as a spectator to her own life. 

I also felt these were some of the best depictions I've ever read of these characters, notably Achilles and Patroclus. I find that certain writers have a difficult time reconciling Achilles' brutality with his heroism, and likewise Patroclus' ruthless streak with his kindness, but Barker captures the duality of nature well.  

Barker continues on the themes of war, providing a brutally visceral portrait in this telling of The Iliad, adding the voices of the women missing from the original. When her family is wiped out by the forces of Agamemnon, Briseis becomes the premier warrior, Achilles, trophy prize. Barker provides complex and nuanced characterisation, of the women as slaves, prostitutes, nurses, whilst giving us an Achilles that is less a hero, more a troubled man with his own demons. We get the clash of male egos when Agamemnon demands Briseis for himself after losing his woman. A bitter Achilles agrees but refuses point blank to fight for him any more. As we are immersed in the daily horrors of war, Achilles's pain and despair overflows after a personal tragedy but still has him able to feel compassion towards the grief of Priam. The Silence of the Girls is a stellar novel, beautifully written, where the stories of the women are told, made authentic with their opinions and views, amidst the never ending cost of war they are forced to endure. Would highly recommend. 

Age Rating 16+ Extremely brutal depictions of war, rape and strong language. 

Reality is Not What it Seems - Carlo Rovelli

“Do space and time truly exist? What is reality made of? Can we understand its deep texture? Scientist Carlo Rovelli has spent his whole life exploring these questions and pushing the boundaries of what we know. In this mind-expanding book, he shows how our understanding of reality has changed throughout centuries, from Democritus to loop quantum gravity. Taking us on a wondrous journey, he invites us to imagine a whole new world where black holes are waiting to explode, spacetime is made up of grains, and infinity does not exist -- a vast universe still largely undiscovered.”

This book was exceedingly interesting and a great introduction to a subject I knew very little to nothing about. I read a few reviews before I bought it and each one praised his “poetic” writing. I personally didn’t find this book to be very poetic at all. That isn’t precisely a bad thing just something I wanted to make clear.

It is well written, making complex concepts understandable to a layperson and someone of my age.  Metaphors where employed well to bring concepts into real life and I really appreciated the non-mathematical focus. 

Harking back to the ancient Greeks felt at first out of place, but was actually very insightful and made me re-mourn the loss of the Library of Alexandria. 

Over all a brilliant book for anyone that wants to be introduced gently to this subject. Covers enough ground for you too feel like you learn something and leave just enough for you to want to learn more yourself. I found myself furiously YouTubing other concepts during the reading of this book. 

Age Rating 14+. While accessible still is definitely higher grade so avoid this book unless you want to get frustrated, unless of course you are a wunderkind.  

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

"Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now..."

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a brilliant, endearing, scary as hell book.

Told with simplistic prose and stark attention to detail, Atwood describes life in the not too distant future where the United States has been transformed through military coup into a totalitarian theocracy. This dystopian horror story is made all the more real by the bridge Atwood has created between the world we know now and the world that could be – the story’s protagonist remembers the time before the change. This is, to my knowledge, a unique element in the dystopian genre, whereas in many others the setting is some time in the far future and there seems little hope for change or revolution.

More than that, the heroine, Offred (not her real name but the proprietary title she is given) is an approachable, likable character that brings the reader dangerously close to the action. Drawing an obvious correlation between far right conservative Christian movements and Muslim Sharia law authoritarian theocratic ideologies, Atwood has created a disturbing vision.

It's a bleak picture. Atwood uses the very claustrophobic perspective of Offred to great effect. Offred is the eponymous handmaid who find herself in a dystopia where her only societal value is also a curse: her fertility. Her world consists of her room, a stroll down the stairs, a garden, a walk to the butcher and her one and only societal mission: to get pregnant. She has to wear a cape that allows her to only look directly in front of her. She's isolated and stripped of her identity. Even her memories are slowly disappearing and losing relevance in a surrounding that offers nothing to link them to. Through this narrative Margaret Atwood succeeds in donning that same vision-confining cape on her readers' heads, immersing them in that same claustrophobic atmosphere. 

The writing is beautifully simplistic, showing how much we take our bodily autonomy for granted and the staving off of madness. The simplicity and matter of factness in the writing adds to the brutality of the piece. The way that the Offred desperately projects her story, a story that might never be heard, in need of human contact, of connection, was heartbreaking. 

This books does very well what it set out to do and that also explains why I didn't thoroughly enjoy it. I wanted more background. I wanted more explanations. I wanted more action by the protagonist. I wanted her spirit, still apparent in the secretly hoarding of butter and the plotting of small thefts, to break free and wreak havoc among the bastards. Make them lose without losing herself. I wanted the flashes of hope to last, to mean something bigger than survival. In short: the author succeeded in making me want exactly what the protagonist wanted. 

Age Rating 15+. Definitely an adult book with some strange sex/rape scenes and executions. 

The Power - Naomi Alderman

"In The Power the world is a recognisable place: there's a rich Nigerian kid who lounges around the family pool; a foster girl whose religious parents hide their true nature; a local American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. But something vital has changed, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power - they can cause agonising pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world changes utterly.

This extraordinary novel by Naomi Alderman, a Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year and Granta Best of British writer, is not only a gripping story of how the world would change if power was in the hands of women but also exposes, with breath-taking daring, our contemporary world."

Ooh, this is a toughie. I have a lot of mixed feelings about Alderman's The Power. It's an intriguing and clever concept, but this never really translates into an engaging story.

Imagine if one day, suddenly, girls developed a strange physical power: they can produce electricity inside them. They can use this power to hurt, to torture, and to kill. A world that is built on patriarchy is suddenly upturned - being a woman is synonymous with power and strength, men are the ones afraid to walk alone at night, the female body itself becomes an instrument of power.

With obvious nods to rape culture, The Power imagines what the world would be like if men, not women, had to live in constant fear for their physical safety. Alderman considers how this would affect a variety of people and issues, from terrorism to religion, and she does this through the eyes of four very different people.

There's Roxy, a white British teenager and the daughter of a gangster. There's Allie, a mixed-race girl who runs away after years of abuse and finds herself at a convent, revered as some kind of goddess. There's Margot, an American mayor and one of the few older women to develop the power. And then Tunde, a young Nigerian man and aspiring journalist who captures early footage of the power in action.

The four perspectives are unequal and uneven, with certain perspectives being much more interesting for part of the book and then becoming tedious, and others doing the reverse of that. Some of the characters verge on cliches and stereotypes too.

I felt like most of the book explored a concept without telling a story. After the initial discovery of the powers and the subsequent affect on the world, the book kind of stalled, and lots of chapters felt dragged out without purpose or direction. Allie's perspective became deeply entrenched in religion, more so than was interesting, and I quickly lost interest in where the other POVs were going.

Also, some parts seemed a little too simplistic. I honestly don't believe that Saudi women would embrace rebellion so readily and to that extent. The notion that Muslim women are just waiting to throw off their clothes, riot in the street, and have casual sex seems like a blinkered "Western" perspective. Sure, maybe this would evolve over time if Saudi women had power, but I find it very hard to believe that anyone would cast off centuries of cultural practices in a matter of days.

Social norms throughout the world shift daily as more and more young women discover their ability to harness the power. Some social adjustments are small and happen slowly; others are more drastic and arrive suddenly. Males must behave in ways that are unorthodox for men but are, in the real world, common practice for women. It often feels unfathomable that male characters in the book should suffer such atrocities, but readers are forced to recognize a disturbing fact: Women suffer similar acts of barbarism every day in the real world.

The Power is a real mixed bag full of fascinating ideas, lack of focus, over-simplified male/female power dynamics, and some clever subversive scenes. I particularly liked the part where one woman claims that some boys "secretly like it", a play on the notion of "asking for it" in rape culture.

A hard book to rate. I wonder if it would have made a better short story. 

Age Rating 15+. Quite brutal rape and war/death scenes. 

Circe - Madeline Miller

“In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.”

Anyone who knows me will tell you I absolutely love mythology, any period, any country. I especially love an artful retelling. They are difficult to find but this one definitely deserves to join their ranks. 

The thing that brings this whole novel together is Circe’s character. She is a woman who has done awful, evil things, and yet remains unfailingly, unflinchingly human. She is lonely, harsh and hiding herself in sarcasm much of the time. Yet there is not a moment in this novel in which I didn’t adore her. Madeline Miller does such an amazing job developing this character, weaving her thoughts into the narrative without manipulating you into feeling a certain way, keeping the narrative wide yet keeping it focused around Circe. Throughout this novel I developed such a deep level of admiration for both this author and this character, this character I’m sure will stay with me forever. 

This novel is so interesting because at its core, it is an exploration of the voice of women in Greek mythology. Circe is a character we see nothing of in the narrative of Greek mythology, a character with seemingly evil intentions and little motivation – and all this despite showing up in several different stories. There’s something supremely excellent about seeing a character like this who is essentially a plot device be given a story.  I absolutely love giving characters who have been given no agency the agency they deserve. 

I mean, everything about this book was just brilliant. The prose was just sparkling. I loved seeing how the different mythology joined together creating a flowing river of cause and effect difficult to see in the short single story. I also loved the myth interpretation: Penelope and Odysseus are both written perfectly, and seeing Jason basically get called an asshole while Medea stood on being young and morally grey and in love was so fantastic. The exploration of gods vs. mortals is just brilliant: 

You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see.

The terrible beauty of the gods was beautifully conveyed. I don’t think I have read a book that has conveyed the gods to be so inhuman. Madeline makes a point to show that the God aren’t human, they don’t feel like humans, nor do they desire the same things. They are almost the distilled values of humans. All our vices and beauty heightened, without our softening complexity.
 
I loved the relationships — just as a special note, the relationship between Circe and Telegonus made me want to cry. I so enjoyed the bittersweet motherly love. Many books don’t show the reality, that sometimes your child is not what you expected, the relationship didn’t work out perfectly but you still have to love them and would do anything for them. Exploring this complexity was done with subtly and masterfully. 

Not an uplifting book. Sad and leaves you with a sense of heaviness. Not something I think I would read again. 

Age Rating 15. There is a rape scene and quite a bit of sex. Most of it happens off screen or is described through a fog of confusion so is never explicit. 

Freaks, Geeks and Aspergers. Users guide to Adolescents - Luke Jackson

“Have you ever been called a freak or a geek? Have you ever felt like one? Luke Jackson is 13 years old and has Asperger Syndrome. Over the years Luke has learned to laugh at such names but there are other aspects of life which are more difficult. Adolescence and the teenage years are a minefield of emotions, transitions and decisions and when a child has Asperger Syndrome, the result is often explosive. 

Luke has three sisters and one brother in various stages of their adolescent and teenage years but he is acutely aware of just how different he is and how little information is available for adolescents like himself. 

Drawing from his own experiences and gaining information from his teenage brother and sisters, he wrote this enlightening, honest and witty book in an attempt to address difficult topics such as bullying, friendships, when and how to tell others about AS, school problems, dating and relationships, and morality.”

As someone who falls on the Asperger’s spectrum I was interested to read the perspective of a younger Aspergian and thought his advice could be pertinent. 

It was a one day read. It’s short and sweet. The writing is easily understandable, personal and accessible. It isn’t bogged down by facts and doesn’t go into the definition of Asperger’s as so many books start with. I found his insights interesting and found quite a few similarities to our shared experiences and thoughts which was validating and compelling. 

I would recommend this book to younger people with Asperger’s though. As someone older I had already figured out many of his suggestions for myself through experience. I also wouldn’t really recommend to parents as I am sure they will know most of this stuff by just being in your child’s presence unles they are very young and you would like to get a glimpse into their future world. 

Overall not the most scientific or informative book on this subject I have read, but definitely worth the quick read. 

Age Rating 11+. Really suitable for anyone to read.  

The Binding - Bridget Collins

"Imagine you could erase your grief. 

Imagine you could forget your pain.
Imagine you could hide a secret.
Forever.

Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a letter arrives summoning him to begin an apprenticeship. He will work for a Bookbinder, a vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice - but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.

He will learn to hand-craft beautiful volumes, and within each he will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there's something you want to forget, he can help. If there's something you need to erase, he can assist. Your past will be stored safely in a book and you will never remember your secret, however terrible.

In a vault under his mentor's workshop, row upon row of books - and memories - are meticulously stored and recorded. Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of them has his name on it."

Imagine you could erase grief.
Imagine you could remove pain.
Imagine you could hide the darkest, most horrifying secret.
Forever.

Young Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a strange letter arrives summoning him away from his family. He is to begin an apprenticeship as a Bookbinder—a vocation that arouses fear, superstition, and prejudice among their small community but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.

For as long as he can recall, Emmett has been drawn to books, even though they are strictly forbidden. Bookbinding is a sacred calling, Seredith informs her new apprentice, and he is a binder born. Under the old woman’s watchful eye, Emmett learns to hand-craft the elegant leather-bound volumes. Within each one they will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, a binder can help. If there’s something you need to erase, they can assist. Within the pages of the books they create, secrets are concealed and the past is locked away. In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, rows upon rows of books are meticulously stored.

But while Seredith is an artisan, there are others of their kind, avaricious and amoral tradesman who use their talents for dark ends—and just as Emmett begins to settle into his new circumstances, he makes an astonishing discovery: one of the books has his name on it. Soon, everything he thought he understood about his life will be dramatically rewritten.This book has three parts to it. The first act is slow, plodding, and mired in the familiar 'other characters know things but cannot tell the protagonist for reasons' trope. Act two is a major reveal, a flashback, and something I really, really enjoyed. Act three is a new perspective, misery, and extra unpleasantness.. 

The concept of binding memories, locking away emotions, is fascinating. There was something of a cultural clash of the rural, old-world, respect for such an exchange, versus the more urbane and materialistic -- and not to mention vile and/or wicked -- reasons for doing so. It's terribly gruesome and disturbing at times and portrays abuse in many shapes, yet I couldn't look away. For the past few days, I've been wondering why I was so damn affected.

 Yet I'm pretty sure that the sense of dread I felt came from how very realistic the horrors pictured were : you can wrap up abuse with a fantasy bow, in the end what remains is the profound easiness with which we human beings hurt others every single day. The way that some people sold their memories for money, almost a type of mental prostitution, was so horrifying and wrong to me. 

The Binding reminded me of Dickens' works in the way the dichotomy between rural and urban is pictured, with the underlying idea that the rural world is more innocent, and that the city's greed and selfishness spreads into people like a disease. I understand how it could annoy readers and I would have preferred if the comparison didn't feel so simplistic at times, yet it did fit very well the story and therefore didn't bother me.

There is darkness to this story, unpleasantness, and any of the magic I was hoping for was really just limited to the strange practice of the binding and the few binders who could do it. This was a lot less fantastical than I thought it would be and the only surprise was that there is a queer romance within these pages which caught me off guard. 

The relationships portrayed are...  viscerally messy, and I understand why some readers hated the boys. I just. I couldn't.

Both Emmet and Lucian were so unlikable sometimes and yet I loved them so much. There's an enemy to lovers romance with a love triangle of sorts... except not really.

Sigh.

Okay so: I know many people will disagree with me, but what I mean is- there's unrequited love from another character and yes, I know it's a love triangle for some people but nah, not for me. It did hurt, though, because that character was young and sweet. Yet Love is selfish. I don't think we can prevent ourselves from loving someone, even if it hurts someone else we love. I just don't believe that. Do I wish it wasn't this way? Sure. But there's a difference between what I wish and what is. Nobody's cheating. Trust is broken, but I don't think the characters had any other choice, and I'm not gonna judge them for the way they tried to navigate a society so profoundly homophobic. 

Overall an atmospheric and deeply disturbing book. Really appreciated it. 

Age Rating 15+. Trust me on this. A lot of adult content like suicide, sex, and multiple forms of abuse ranging from physical to sexual. Also touches on alcohol addiction.