Author: Kate Gardner

I live in Bristol and I like to read books and share what I thought about them here. I read mostly general or literary fiction, with pretty much every genre making an appearance from time to time. I love to receive comments, whether you've read the same books or not!

Book review: The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule by Angela Saini

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The Patriarchs book coverHow did men become dominant in human society? When did patriarchy begin? Was it inevitable or could the world have been different? Angela Saini looks at all the available evidence to answer these questions in her book The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule.

Having read (and loved) her previous books Inferior and Superior, I knew I was in safe hands as I embarked on this journey to discover how human inequality began. To begin with two of the few solidly definite answers Saini can provide: no, patriarchy was not inevitable and no, it has not always been the way most human societies are structured. Reaching those answers required sifting through centuries of research, a task at which Saini excels.

Societies that are matrilineal (where family lines are tracked through the mothers) and/or matrilocal (where women stay in their childhood homes to raise their own children – sometimes with husbands going to live with them, sometimes without co-parents ever co-habiting) have existed as far back as prehistory and still exist now in pockets all over the world. Matriliny and matrilocality don’t necessarily equal matriarchy but they do lend themselves to more equal society overall, in which women can hold positions of power, own property and receive education at parity with men.

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K-drama review: Snowdrop

Snowdrop still
Snowdrop alternates between tense action, sweet romance and over-the-top comedy.

When Tim and I agreed to take a break from Netflix to catch up on all the great TV on all the other streaming services we have, my major concern was how would I access K-dramas. Netflix has, I think, a better selection of international TV than any other service, with not just one or two but dozens (if not hundreds) of shows from every country it operates in.

But we really did need to reduce the selection of available TV to a list slightly less overwhelming, and in the four months since we suspended our Netflix account we have barely dented the still very long list of TV shows to catch up on. There were even still a small number of K-dramas available so I thought I really should check one out.

Snowdrop (JTBC 2022) is a political melodrama set in late 1987, when South Korea is finally due to hold a democratic election that will end its dictatorship. It’s largely set in the dormitory of the fictional Hosu Women’s University where the young women live under strict rules. Our heroine is Eun Yeong-ro (played by Jisoo, from the girl group Blackpink), a freshman who is soft-spoken and very private.

When her very popular roommate Ko Hye-ryeong (Jung Shin-hye) is asked out on a group date, Yeong-ro goes along and there she meets Lim Soo-ho (Jung Hae-in, who starred in the film Tune in for Love). There is an immediate spark between them. And then a few days later he turns up in her dorm room covered in blood. He is being chased by the Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP) who claim that he is a North Korean spy. Thinking that this is an excuse from the ANSP to arrest and beat up a pro-democracy protestor, Yeong-ro hides Soo-ho in the dorm.

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April 2023 reading round-up

Reading companion

I read a lot in April. I mean, yes, I set aside the long Easter weekend to mostly read, and that accounts for 3.5 books. But that still means in the rest of the month I read 5.5 books, more than March or February.

Partly it’s because this has been a cold, wet spring so far. And I think I’ve been better than usual at creating time to read as I really liked most of the books I read this month. I’ve watched half a dozen films with Tim, but none on my own. Admittedly, though, the K-drama I’m watching has 80–90 minute episodes so you could argue I’ve watched eight more films…

April was quite up and down for us. We seem to have a number of friends going through tough times. It can be hard not being able to prevent bad stuff happening to people you love. But it has made me stop to appreciate the good things in my own life, which it’s important to make time to do.

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Book review: The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

The girl with the louding voice book coverThe Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré is a book I probably wouldn’t have picked out in a shop, as I’m a little tired of all the novels with titles that begin “The Girl…”, particularly as most of them are about grown women. But when a friend offered to lend me this Nigerian novel, I looked it up and was intrigued. I’m glad I gave it a chance.

For one thing, the girl of the title, Adunni, really is a girl. Which is especially key as her story begins with her being married off aged 14 because her father needs the money from her dowry to keep paying rent. She is suddenly the third wife of a middle-aged man, who demands total obedience and turns a blind eye when his first wife beats Adunni. She is expected to be silent, meek and subservient but it is not in Adunni’s character to fade into the background. Her curiosity and boldness repeatedly bring her trouble.

All Adunni wanted in life was to stay in school and become a teacher. She had no interest in marriage, unlike many of her friends. So she struggles to find any sympathy when she complains of her situation on the rare occasions she can get out of her new home. She’s desperate to educate herself and reads everything she can get hold of.

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Book review: Sunset by Jessie Cave

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Sunset book coverSometimes I love a book while I’m reading it but two weeks later I have largely forgotten it. In other cases, I not only remember details but find myself reflecting on them day after day. Sunset by Jessie Cave falls into the latter category: a highly enjoyable but also profound novel.

I really want to share this recommendation with everyone, but it’s going to be tough to talk about Sunset without spoilers. Even my one-sentence review on Instagram arguably included a spoiler! So I’m going to do a brief spoiler-free review, then a very clear spoiling warning before delving into the key subject matter. (The plot summary on Storygraph does an admirable job of getting the essence of the book while remaining spoiler-free.)

This is the story of sisters Ruth and Hannah, narrated by younger sibling Ruth. They’re very different people but have maintained a close relationship into their late 20s. Hannah is grounded, always in a serious long-term relationship, has a career and runs a charity on the side that gives books to children who can’t otherwise afford them. Ruth’s life is…messier. She has been floundering since art school, working zero-hours contracts, mostly at fast-food outlets. She sleeps on a mattress on the floor and survives largely on caffeine and sugar.

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March 2023 reading round-up

Spring snow

I didn’t get through many books this month but the ones I did read were pleasingly varied. And I wrote three whole book reviews! I know it isn’t quite the old blogging days of posting two or three times a week.

Now that the days are longer and the weather better, I’m trying to cycle more again. I’d like to do more long bike trips this year. In the hope it will inspire me, I have subscribed to Emily Chappell’s newsletter Unfinished Journeys. She’s a great writer, and once a month she recommends a book so my list of books to buy is ever-growing.

Next week is Easter, when we get a four-day weekend here in the UK. Every year, Tim spends those four days gaming with friends, while I spend them mostly reading. I’ll squeeze in some time with family and friends too but I am looking forward to my mini readathon.

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Book review: The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane book coverIt can be disconcerting to realise which historical events were contemporaneous. The Aztec empire was at its height in 1519, the same year in which Leonardo da Vinci died and Catherine Howard (fifth wife of Henry VIII) was born. Japan ended its Sakoku period of isolation in 1868, the same year as the first bicycle race was held in Paris and the first traffic lights were installed in London.

I tend to think of the Cultural Revolution in China as something that happened ages ago, even though it ended just a few years before I was born. The novel The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See brought it into perspective for me as its main character is almost exactly my age, yet her life is intrinsically linked to the end of the Cultural Revolution and the period of reform that followed.

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Book review: A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: the Journey of Doaa Al Zamel by Melissa Fleming

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A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea book coverI’m a little unsure how to feel about this book. Melissa Fleming is a UNHCR bigwig and she wanted to draw attention to the plight of refugees by highlighting one true story. The one she chose is a doozy. A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: the Journey of Doaa Al Zamel is an action-packed and informative tale. But right from the start I had some concerns.

Doaa Al Zamel had certainly been through the wringer by the time Fleming met her. She is Syrian, an educated young woman from a middle-class family. She had a place waiting for her at university in Damascus and took place in anti-government demonstrations during the Arab Spring, until the civil war made life intolerable in her home city Daraa.

The Al Zamel family fled to Egypt, where they were initially well looked after, before the sheer number of refugees turned the tide of public opinion and national policy. Doaa and her fiance – a fellow Syrian refugee she met in Egypt – tried to escape across the Mediterranean via people smugglers no less than three times before her final horrific journey ended in one of the worst shipwrecks in the Mediterranean. Doaa became a minor celebrity as the Italian press lauded her role in saving a baby.

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February 2023 reading round-up

I mostly hibernated in February. Usually with the dog snuggled up next to me or on my feet. Which is lovely but I also feel guilty that I left the house so little. It’s not unrelated that spring seems to be just barely getting started a month later than usual this year.

There is one new thing in my life – I’ve started playing D&D! About 18 years after Tim started playing D&D and telling me how great it is, I’m finally giving it a try. Two sessions in, I really enjoy it.

And now it’s March. Happy St David’s Day.

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Book review: Brown Baby by Nikesh Shukla

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brown baby book coverJust when I’ve got used to the recent trend of memoirs written in the form of a series of essays, journalist and novelist Nikesh Shukla adds a new twist in his book Brown Baby. While each chapter takes a different topic from his own life, they are not essays but instead letters to his eldest daughter, affectionately nicknamed Ganga. 

Except that his daughter is still young (under 10, I believe) so she most likely won’t be reading this book for a while yet. It’s certainly not written as though it’s intended for primary-school-aged children and Shukla acknowledges a few times that his intended audience won’t be his first reader, that she will come to it in several years’ time, if at all.

So why this format? It’s a hook, of course; not many books are written in second person. And it was probably a useful exercise for Shukla to organise his thoughts when approaching writing this. But it does also add a layer of meaning for us readers who aren’t children of Shukla’s. Initially it feels intrusive, like this is genuinely a personal letter from a father to a daughter, in which he opens up to her for possibly the first time. But once I got past the feeling I was eavesdropping, I think the format made this more impactful.

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