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Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

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One of my favourite parts of adulthood is my monthly book club sitting. The Prose & Icons met at Forking Good in Bryanston this month and we discussed Yellowface! Yellowface is a satirical novel by R.F. Kuang, although sometimes the satire left the room with the author’s overt lashings on the industry. We follow the story of June who, when her big-time young author friend dies with an unpublished manuscript by her side, steals her life. [Unrelated, there’s a sanctification that seems to be bestowed amongst those who have passed which I find interesting, probably either in reverence of death and its finality?} June is in anyway as annoying as any entitled mediocre MC can be but oh did we love to hate her! The callousness with which she carries herself throughout her shenanigans would be admirable if it weren’t so haphazard to everyone else around her. I have never engaged with Kuang’s work prior to this but the book feels almost autobiographical where I could not separate the ...
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Because I Love You by Joy Watson

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I first encountered Joy Watson’s writing in her debut novel The Other Me . I’m hardly one to read young adult fiction, particularly due to my protest against attributing a character’s choices to their juvenile minds. On the other hand, an author’s own wiser thoughts can leak out of the younger character with a level of maturity I struggle to believe an 8 year old would possess or articulate in that manner. Nevertheless, The Other Me held a perfect balance between my two conflicts with a level of realness that kept me captivated all the way to five stars at the end and cemented Joy as an auto-read author in my books.   Because I love you similarly impressed me from the first line: “ This is not a book about breakups. It’s a book about erasure. About the quiet violence that can live inside love, the kind that doesn’t leave bruises on your skin but rewires the architecture of your mind. ” The nonfiction anthology shares the stories of three women, Zara, Mira and Thuli, whose lives ar...
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And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

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There’s an insurmountable amount of both joy and devastation in how many books there are in the world and how many great books I am yet to read. And, really, you have to kiss some toads and frogs on the journey to them.  I read Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns in 2017 and The Kite Runner in 2020 and the former immediately cemented him as an auto read author in my books. I cannot give any explanation for the delay in reading And the Mountains Echoed, but I am very happy I didn’t read it until now — I think I can appreciate the skill better.  Khaled doesn’t introduce you to a character or a setting.  There’s no talking stage.  No starter.  You plunge straight into the meat and dessert with the familiarity of a third book in a trilogy, even though you’ve never met any of the characters before. One second you haven’t started the book, the next you’re deep in Shadbagh — an Afghan city that doesn’t even exist! You hardly even know whose pov you’re reading f...
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The Comrade's Wife by Assoc. Prof. Barbara Boswell

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I unintentionally got a spoiler of The Comrade's Wife months ago (granted, it was the spoiler that made me want to read the book in the first place). I was entirely captivated by the first few pages, but my chest was clenched in anxious anticipation. I found chapters are slightly long, but that’s on me and my attention span and not on the author’s writing.  Watching Anita lose so much of her resolve, bit by bit, was heartbreaking. Mind you, this was only three months into the relationship. What stressed me the most was that she has the language for what she’s going through, given her educational background, but seems blinded to it all. I suspect this was done deliberately to show the contrast between her academic and lived experiences.  Also, drawing parallels between this and A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo that I finished recently, the exact same red flags were exhibited: Diminishing her job (in this case, completely disregarding it), minimising any qualms raised b...
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Good Neighbours by Sarah Langan

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    Oh that was horrible — 5 stars, please!  ðŸŒŸ  Firstly, I borrowed this from the Manchester City Library solely because Gillian Flynn was on the cover. I often see “perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn/Gone Girl” (which I am), but hardly ever see the good sis endorse work herself so that got me. Sarah Pinborough (another top author on my thriller list) also described the book as a “bistering satire of suburban life with serious emotional stakes. A fantastic literary thriller.” The book is described as a ruthless portrayal of suburbia that excavates the perils and betrayals of motherhood and friendships and the dangerous clash between social hierarchy, childhood trauma, and fear. These are so intricately interwoven it’s difficult to accept the characters’ ills, and they were all grotesque, without at least trying to understand what makes them who they are. Sarah did an excellent job of depicting these complexities. This book also included a map of the neighbourhood, wh...
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Book Launch: The Reed Dance Stalker by Angela Makholwa

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 I just got home from the launch of Angela Makholwa's latest book, The Reed Dance Stalker. This is a sequel to Red Ink, which I read a few years ago and will be on Showmax later this year. Now this is not just about the book but my experience at the launch.  Firstly, Karabo Kgoleng. Karabo is an award-winning broadcast and print journalist and was the interviewer on the book launch panel tonight. I absolutely love it when interviewers thoroughly engage with the author's work prior to the interviews because, not only does it show in the quality of the questions asked, but it also makes the entire event a pleasurable experience for all. Karabo steered the boat very well and kept us fully engaged with her interview style.  Angela prefaced the interview by mentioning that parts of our protagonist (Lucy) are borrowed from her own personality (disclaimer: she emphasised that very, very little parts), which brings up a pattern I have noticed from attending book launches. Authors...
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Strange Sally Diamond

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 Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent I want to preface this post by stating that Liz Nugent is one of my favourite authors of all time, therefore read my thoughts below with more than un peu de sel (I'm learning French here - a pinch of salt), albeit warranted praise given the Irish author's first-class narrative skills. The book started with five pages of reviews and praise from other renown authors and not a single lie was uttered.  A supreme skill of the author is encapsulating a steady plot, not just to get the reader to a resolution at the end of the book, but also unravelling the main character on a journey through their life. In fact, the detail (or what we'd expect to be the killer plot twist) is usually provided upfront in the early stages of the book. In this story, we're told in the blurb already that Sally's father has died, and she has followed his instructions to the tee by putting his dead body out with the rubbish. We then follow Sally's life as ...
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Location: South Africa
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