Liz Between The Lines

 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 ...

Hi There! Trying to balance my final year of university, my other extra curricular activities as well as my reading career has been a mission and a half, but I've managed to read and finish 13 books during the course of this year - which I think is a great given the circumstances. My latest guilt-read (I miss guilt-free reading so much) is 'Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine' by Gail Honeyman. Eleanor has been alone and lonely all her life - and not just in the romantic sense. She has had no companionship or friendship for the vast majority of her adult life. This makes her socially awkward as she finds 'there is no Eleanor-shaped social-hole'. The book explores the themes of companionship, loneliness, childhood traumas and their effects on one's adult life. Gail Honeyman's writing style had me crying, resonating with Eleanor and laughing in the span of one read. I did, however, feel like Gayle exaggerated the level of Eleanor's 'socia...