A Year Of Reading: April 2023

In April, I felt as though I lost my reading mojo in comparison to March, however I enjoyed each of the books I read!

Educated, Tara Westover

Westover’s memoir was one that has been on my shelf for a long long time. She recounts memories from her childhood and her life growing up in the mountains of Idaho within a survivalist Mormon family, before moving to university despite her lack of formal education after teaching herself and passing the entrance exams, and her adventures to Cambridge University.

In one respect, we trace Westover's journey to gain an education, having grown up being denied one in the traditional sense - ‘When I'd told Dad that I planned to go to college, he'd said a woman's place was in the home, that I should be learning about herbs - “God's pharmacy" he'd called it, smiling to himself - so I could take over for Mother. He'd said a lot more, of course, about how I was whoring after man's knowledge instead of God's.’ - and given an unsatisfactory homeschool education. We see her curiosity, and her craving to learn more about the world and her place within it though gaining an education. In another, we see how her education extends to how she becomes herself, after being defined her entire life until the point of her leaving for university by what her family believe and who they want her to be, specifically her father. For Westover, an education was both one of academia and an education of the self, and learning who she is and who she wants to become. Ultimately, this meant becoming wholly detached from her family, because she could not have both them and an education.

There are some truly heartbreaking moments which Westover reflects on, not least the opposition raised by her father against her curiosity in learning and receiving a school education, as well as the abuse her brother Shawn inflicted upon her throughout her childhood and adolescence.

This is a very readable memoir. The short chapters make it easy to set a pace with the text. It is very well written, it is considered and reflective whilst also being on the shorter side, which makes for an easier reading experience, and I particularly loved Westover’s descriptions of the landscapes, which she conveys in vivid and beautiful detail.

‘The seed of curiosity had been planted; it needed nothing more than time and boredom to grow. Sometimes, when I was stripping copper from a radiator or throwing the five hundredth chunk of steel into the bin, I'd find myself imagining the classrooms where Tyler was spending his days. My interest grew more acute with every deadening hour in the junkyard, until one day I had a bizarre thought: that I should enroll in the public school.'

Malibu Rising, Taylor Jenkins Reid

This was my second Jenkins Reid novel, the eighth book she has written. I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo back in 2021, and whilst I enjoyed it, I did not love it as much as everyone else seemed to. However, I can confidently say that Malibu Rising affirms its author's status in the literary world.

We follow the lives of Nina, Jay, Hud and Kit Riva. The present day is 1983 and the eve of the annual Riva party. In alternate chapters, we flash back as early as the 1950s to witness the infamous relationship between their parents - the gentle, down to earth June and the magnetic Mick Riva - as well as the Riva four’s childhoods; this ultimately gives us an image of how they have come to be who they are in the present day in 1983.

I really enjoyed this book. I listened to it on audio, mostly whilst I travelled to France on my skiing holiday, and it was so addictive. Jenkins Reid has such a skill with developing mesmerising worlds with characters who draw you in and keep you hooked in their stories. Though I liked the Hollywood glitz and glamour of Evelyn Hugo's world, I preferred the breezy, sun-kissed scenes of Malibu we find in this novel and the background of surfing, oceans and beaches that illuminate the Riva storyline.

I also loved how the storyline kept jumping between present day and the past. The hour-by-hour narrative was an excellent way to keep you intrigued to find out what will happen at the Riva party too.

Overall, I think this was a very well written and engaging novel, and I am eager to pick up Carrie Sotto is Back, the follow-up to Malibu Rising, this summer.

‘In the world they lived in, they had to make hay while the sun shined, because once the sun set, it got very cold and dark indeed. But part of Nina ached for that time, the time when people stopped looking, stopped caring. Part of her wished she could take her beauty and hand it over to someone else, someone who wanted it.’

Hamnet, Maggie O’Farell

Finally, I picked up O’Farrell's Women's Prize winning novel of high acclaim. In Hamnet, we are in 1596, and follow Judith Shakespeare's path into the depths of plague in Stratford-upon-Avon whilst her twin brother, Hamnet, searches for help. We also move back in time to the meeting and union of Agnes Shakespeare with the famous playwright (who, amazingly, is not named at all in the novel), and see how their relationship was frowned upon and how their love for one another prevails. It is a story of magic, of family, of grief and of death.

This is a really imaginative and clever novel, into the minds and experiences of Agnes Shakespeare and her family as they face the unbelievable pain of losing a child. I loved the ending (no spoilers, of course), and the way O'Farrell binds her fictional world to what we know of the Shakespeares and Hamlet. It is also very beautifully written. Understandably, a large portion of it is really very sad, but it is not a gloomy or despairing novel. Rather, it speaks of themes of resilience and courage, specifically that of women, of imagination and its power, and of how there are always more stories beneath the canonical one we have always been told (that is, of Shakespeare himself).

However, I do not wholly feel like this novel is deserving of the high acclaim is has received, in the sense that I felt it was not as arresting as I hoped it would be. Did we have enough time with the characters to love them and thus feel their emotions acutely? I am not sure. I am not sure either if O'Farrell created a bond between us and her characters, but I cannot put my finger on why that was. So, although I did enjoy this book, I think I expected to love it a lot more than I did.

‘Every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicentre, from which everything flows out, to which everything returns. This moment is the absent mother's: the boy, the empty house, the deserted yard, the unheard cry.’