September reading wrap up

Welcome to my first monthly wrap up of book reviews! I had some pretty great and varied reads this month from the science behind sex to horrifying taxidermy. If there are going to be any spoilers you will be warned beforehand. I hope you enjoy and I hope you find some fabulous recommendations.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translation by Geoffrey Trousselot)

4.5 ★ / fiction, magical realism

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is about a small café located secretly in Tokyo where customers are able to travel back in time. We meet four people, each wishing to time travel for various reasons and each story unveils beautiful and emotional truths behind human behaviour and makes you wonder, if you had the chance to go back, what would you go back for?

The strict rules customers must follow adds intrigue and tension to their time travelling visits. They must remain in their seat, they can only visit someone who has previously visited the café and their time limit is until a fresh mug of coffee turns cold. The magical realism of this book was the perfect short and sweet escapism story.

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

4.5 ★ / fiction, horror

Weird and wonderful is the best way I can sum up this book. The story follows Kara, a woman who upon becoming divorced has had to move back home. Her uncle lives in and owns The Wonder Museum, a museum for quirky antiques and unusual taxidermy. Kara discovers a hole in the wall leading to strange and eerie alternate worlds. Along with her neighbour, Simon, she ventures in to explore only to discover that curiosity can in fact, kill the cat.

Each page itches with creepy events. The myriad of peculiar encounters our main characters face had me devouring this book. I found the main characters to be entirely loveable and at times hilarious due to their reactions to what is happening around them. While I wouldn't say this is a terribly scary horror, it certainly tickled my taste buds for a weird and wonderful creepy thrill.

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

5 ★ / fiction, thriller

There were times during this reading experience where I was genuinely scared. Lock Every Door follows our main character, Jules who is currently sleeping on her best friend's sofa and is in dire need of money. After being offered a job that pays $12,000 just to live in an apartment in one of the most high-profile buildings in Manhattan for three months, it seems like an opportunity too good to be true, right? Right.

The dark history of the building doesn't seem to bother Jules at first yet the rules: no visitors, no nights away from the apartment, no disturbing the rich and famous residents, seem a little off. When one of the other employed apartment sitters suddenly goes missing in the middle of the night, Jules' questions slowly but surely lead to some blood-curdling truths and heart-stopping twists. This fast-paced read had me on the edge of my seat, desperately trying to solve the mystery alongside Jules. Towards the end, I was feeling incredibly anxious for Jules and my mind changed more than once on what outcome I thought would happen. I definitely want to pick up more by this author. A cult-ish thriller you won't want to miss.

Bonk by Mary Roach

3 ★ / non-fiction, science, sex

Apparently, the measurements of your vulva impact how well you can orgasm! Who knew? In this essay style book by Mary Roach, Bonk explores ‘the curious coupling of sex and science.’ It features sex orientated scientific experiments that have been carried out anywhere between the 1920s to the 21st century and honestly, some of them are wild. Roach herself even gets involved in a few. Although I found the experiments explored in this book to be highly interesting, I found the book quite heavy going at times due to how scientific it is. While this isn't a criticism, because I am not someone who is knowledgeable in science I found that some of the information went over my head. Otherwise, very informative and perfect if you want to read heavily science based essays on sex.

Rough by Rachel Thompson

5 ★ / non-fiction, feminism, sex, psychology

Rough discusses sexual assault, the 'grey areas' of sexual assault where you may just refer to it as a bad experience and it is described as "a handbook for anyone who has ever been made to feel uncomfortable, frightened, powerless or small."

Instantly, I was hooked. I found this book incredibly relatable and it encapsulated so many of the things I have felt but didn't know how to put into words. I felt incredibly seen and heard whilst reading this.

The 'grey areas' it mentions blew me away as these were things that have happened to me but I didn't realise at the time how bad it was such as non-consensual choking. This section touches on how porn has made people think that certain sex acts such as choking or impact play don't require any consent when consent is still of course, absolutely necessary.

I enjoyed the diversity this book encompasses. As a white woman it was essential to hear the voices of Black and Asian women and how sexual violence impacts them. As an able-bodied woman, it was important to hear how sexual violence affects disabled women. And as a cis woman, it was important to hear the experiences of transgender people and non-binary people.

Rachel Thompson dived deep into research for this book assisted with the impeccable inputs of 50 women and non-binary people. I have come away from this feeling as though I have learnt a lot about how sexual violence affects people differently, how we should no longer be brushing off these 'grey areas' as bad experiences, but instead acknowledging them for what they are and how we need to be resetting sexual culture, for good. I urge everyone to read this.

Normal People by Sally Rooney

3.5 ★ / fiction, contemporary, literary

This was a particularly interesting read for me because while I could appreciate the content and the books exploration of love, friendships, classism and that feeling of not knowing exactly where you belong in the world, I wasn't falling in love which seems to be the common response to Normal People.

Whenever I end up not absolutely loving a highly praised bestselling book like this one, I often have a moment where I think I must be stupid and just not understand what everyone else is understanding. However, that is a bad habit and I think it is more so that something about this just wasn't my cup of tea. (Spoilers ahead) When reading Normal People, I could see why people love it so much and I appreciated much of its content such as its discussions around classism and how this can affect people particularly in a university environment and Connell's dilemma about wanting to study English. Nevertheless, I just didn't click with Sally Rooney's writing. Much is left to the imagination about how the characters are feeling and while I appreciate that this is arguably a direct reflection on how in reality, we scarcely know what other people are really thinking and that can impact our relationships, at times this fell a little flat for me. I would often finish a chapter and feel slightly disappointed at the lack of detail. For example, after Marianne has experienced abuse she begins to eat much less but it never really shows us how she feels about the fact her eating habits have been affected and for my personal reading tastes, I was gasping for more information on how these characters felt in certain situations. I thought the book was good and can see where it is relatable, I just don't think the writing style was for me. Also, I am a few episodes into the TV show adaptation and am loving it. My enjoyment of the TV show is definitely allowing me to enjoy the story more.

That concludes the wrap-up of all the books I read in the month of September, 2021. I hope you enjoyed and look out for October!