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A couple of years ago, I watched the Netflix adaptation of ‘Behind Her Eyes’ by Sarah Pinborough. It was a slow-burn thriller about a single mother who unwittingly becomes a part of twisted mind games when she begins an affair with her psychiatrist boss while secretly befriending his mysterious wife. The ending shocked me. I hadn’t seen it coming. I really enjoyed the series but I wished I had read the book before watching it.

So naturally I was excited to come across ‘Insomnia’ by Pinborough. Reading the blurb and the reviews I was sure it was a gripping and unsettling psychological thriller. But it took me a while to get through Insomnia because it was so dark and dense. I’d have to put down the book after a few chapters to process what I had just read.

The plot is actually creepy. Emma has a great life: a successful career as a lawyer, a husband, Robert, and two children, Chloe and Will. But she’s unable to sleep and that is really messing with her head. Emma’s insomnia causes blackouts, makes her doubt her actions and question everything and everybody around her. When the police become involved, Emma starts wondering what she is capable of.

Emma and her older sister Phoebe grew up in foster care after their mother was admitted to a psychiatric facility on her 40th birthday. As Emma’s 40th birthday approaches and she finds herself struggling to sleep, she fears the ‘bad blood’ that made her mother go mad is affecting her too. She can’t trust her husband or her sister, both of whom are hiding things from her. Worse, her son Will is terrified of her and her daughter Chloe is a rebellious teenager.

There is a lot going on and it is all very paranoia-inducing. It’s difficult to trust any of the characters in the book. Everyone seems to have a sinister motive behind their actions. Or is Emma the real villain, her own worst enemy who is as deluded and psychotic as everyone around her is claiming she is? The horror/thriller aspect of the story is subtle but disturbing. It comes unexpectedly and takes root in your heart and mind.

Reading Insomnia also makes you wonder what traits you have inherited from your family. Do we all become our parents and embrace their faults and weaknesses? I can’t say I loved the book but I enjoyed reading it. I would definitely recommend it if you are looking for a scary book to get lost in during the weekend.

Fiction

Insomnia

Sarah Pinborough

Published: 2023

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 342, Paperback

Sally Diamond is strange. She doesn’t always function in the way she’s expected to, meaning she doesn’t fit into society’s standards of ‘normal’. When her dad dies, she puts him out with the trash, because he once mentioned that is what she should do: ‘When I die, put me out with the bins. I’ll be dead, so I won’t know any different.’ This leads to a furor that unravels a lot of secrets of Sally’s past, and all of it happens under the glare of the media and public.

Sally’s father has left her letters and they have details about her childhood that she had never known before. Apparently, the people she thought were her parents were her foster parents and her real mother Denise Norton was abducted as a child. Sally was born in captivity. As she comes to terms with it, Sally also has to learn to be more social and adapt to a world whose ways are alien to her. It’s not easy because she has led a protected and sheltered life where everything has been taken care of for her. She is 42 but she has never had a job and now, without her father to take care of her, she will have to find one. It doesn’t help that as people find out about her troubled past, they look at and treat her differently.

Then, she starts getting creepy mail: an old toy, and a birthday card, that makes her believe Conor Geary, her father and the man who kidnapped Denise, is alive and wants to connect with her. There is also Mark, a guy who seems to be obsessed with her and her past. He’s been asking questions about her and showing up almost everywhere she goes.

‘Strange Sally Diamond’ isn’t your regular thriller. Though it’s definitely a page-turner, the book is character-driven rather than plot-driven. The suspense element is just one aspect of the book and not the main focus. Instead, the book discusses trauma and grief, explores the effects of crime on the victim’s family, and shows how your childhood impacts your life.

Sally is a compelling but complex character. Though she’s the protagonist, she isn’t made out to be a hero. She doesn’t always have other people’s best interests at heart and that makes her relatable. Slightly reminiscent of Emma Donoghue’s ‘Room’, Strange Sally Diamond is a thriller where the crime is downplayed and the spotlight is on the aftermath. In turn delightful and disturbing, this is a book that will stay on your mind long after you finish it.

The book is Nugent’s fifth but my first time reading her. I’m going to hunt for her other books and read them all. That’s just how much I enjoyed Strange Sally Diamond. Nugent is quite famous in Ireland and, over the years, her books have been on different bestseller lists. She has also won four Irish Book Awards and the James Joyce Medal for Literature.

Fiction

Strange Sally Diamond

Liz Nugent

Published: 2023

Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

Pages: 363, Paperback

How could I not buy a book about books? I saw the title ‘The Last Library’ on the spine of the book during a recent trip to Ekta Books in Thapathali, Kathmandu, and bought it on a whim. I didn’t even read the blurb. I was reading something else at the moment but I still couldn’t resist it. I started reading it, sitting at Ekta’s newly opened quaint little café at the bookstore premises. It didn’t immediately grab my attention and, as far as my experience with books goes, that’s never a good thing.

 It’s a cute little book. That’s all there is to it. I didn’t love it. But it was enjoyable. I felt like I had read similar books in the past. The plot wasn’t anything new. In fact, it felt a little too cliché. But I also wanted to finish it despite having a strong inkling about how it would end. The characters are interesting, but then again, you’ve met them before, in books with similar plots. Sampson hasn’t been able to develop the characters. You meet them but you never really get to know them. And you end up not caring much about them either.

This standalone novel focuses on a library assistant and her determination to fight for her beloved local library which is threatened to be shut down. Thirty-year-old June Jones has never left the sleepy English village where she grew up. She spends all her time at the library where her mum once worked. She’s the assistant librarian there. When the library is threatened with closure, June has to get out of her comfort zone to save the place that holds so many memories. At the risk of losing her job, she joins hands with a group of eccentric yet loyal locals who start a campaign to keep the library open. In doing so, June builds some relationships that might save her and give her story a new beginning.

The Last Library (The Last Chance Library in the US version), I believe, is perfect for non-readers or those who want to get started with reading. It’s light. You don’t have to invest too much mental or emotional energy and the chapters are short. I felt the book was also a commentary on the importance of libraries as public spaces. In the book, it’s where a lonely old man hangs out, where a teenager escapes her chaotic household to study in peace, and an immigrant builds new connections. I wouldn’t recommend or not recommend this book but if you are a voracious reader, you can give it a miss.

Fiction

https://www.goodreads.com/series/240356-the-last-library 

The Last Library

Freya Sampson

Published: 2021

Publisher: Zaffre

Pages: 364, Paperback

Louise Kennedy’s debut novel ‘Trespasses’ is set in Northern Ireland during the 1970s when the country was going through the Troubles (an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998.) It’s a simple story that feels a little sluggish at times. Kennedy, by her own admittance, came late to fiction writing. Born a few miles outside Belfast, she spent almost three decades working as a chef, before writing the stories that made up her first book, ‘The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac’.

Cushla Lavery is 24 years old and she’s a primary school teacher in Belfast. She sometimes helps her brother, Eamonn, at the family pub, which is a regular haunt of leering and aggressive British soldiers. One day, she meets Michael Agnew. He is handsome and charming. But the Protestant barrister who defends unjustly arrested young Catholic men is also married. Michael asks Cushla to teach him and his friends to speak Irish. He takes her to an Irish-language evening and, on the way home, one thing leads to another and romance ensues.

But romance isn’t the only plotline of the novel. There are other narrative strands. Cushla’s mother is an alcoholic and there’s that mother-daughter dynamic in the story as well. Then there’s Cushla’s relationship with a boy from her class. Davy McGeown is bullied by his peers and Cushla kind of takes him under her wings. Then things come crashing down for Cushla and the narratives intersect.

Through the parallel storylines, you understand Cushla and see why she’s embarked on a forbidden relationship, despite maybe having faulted her initially. Trespasses is largely narrated in a series of vignettes with Cushla’s affair with Michael tying it all together. Violence is so normalized that it’s never actively discussed in the plot. But the threat of death, from bombs and guns, is evident on every page. Some chapters begin with news headlines about deadly explosions and arrests. You realize everything is happening in a war zone. It adds an underlying tension to the story and keeps you hooked.

This is more a character-driven story than a plot-driven one. Kennedy has fleshed out the characters really well and you find yourself empathizing with them all, even the gin-addled Gina. Cushla’s thoughts and dialogues are relatable and you will root for her despite her questionable actions in some instances. Overall, Trespasses is a beautiful and devastating novel that explores a lot of emotions.

Fiction

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60417483 

Trespasses

Louise Kennedy

Published: 2022

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Pages: 311, Paperback

I had heard of Riley Sager from some BookTubers I follow but I had never read any of his books. Like most authors, Sager gets mixed reviews. Some love his work, while others think he should stop writing. A BookTuber I love agrees with the latter and I usually like her recommendations. So, I thought I wouldn’t particularly enjoy his books but I was also intrigued.

‘The House Across the Lake’ is Sager’s latest thriller. His other works include ‘Final Girls’, ‘The Last Time I Lied’, ‘Lock Every Door’, ‘Home Before Dark’, and ‘Survive the Night’. A year ago, paperbackdreams, whom I follow on YouTube, posted a five-minute video, ranting about how terrible Survive the Night was. Apparently, it shouldn’t have been written. She says Sager comes up with great premises. Reading the blurb makes you want to pick up the books. But his stories, she says, always fall short.

I started reading The House Across the Lake with mixed feelings. I wanted to enjoy it but I thought I wouldn’t like it. I was surprised to find myself breezing through it. The writing wasn’t that great but the story was captivating. I didn’t see the twist coming at all. It blew my mind.

The story follows Casey Fletcher, a widow who is forced to retreat from her stressful life at her family’s tranquil lake house. Following the tragic death of her husband, she finds herself taking solace in glasses of bourbon. One day, she saves one of her neighbors from drowning in the same lake her husband had died in. Then, out of curiosity, boredom, or just nosiness, she starts spying on them. She tells herself she feels responsible for Katherine, having saved her life once.

Casey notices Katherine seems to be a little out of sorts. She believes her husband Tom might have something to do with it. Katherine too drops little hints that she isn’t happy with Tom.

Then Katherine disappears and Casey thinks Tom had something to do with it. Is something sinister going on? Or is her alcohol-addled mind playing tricks on her? The deeper Casey digs, the more complex things seem to be. But can we trust Casey?

I admit I had fun while reading the book. It was by no means the best thriller I had read but I also stayed up half the night to finish it. I had to know what was going on. Sager throws a curveball three-forth into the book and I literally put the book down to process what had just happened. I’m still undecided about whether I like that twist but I would definitely recommend The House Across the Lake to anyone who wants a spooky read.

Thriller

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58909880-the-house-across-the-lake  

The House Across the Lake

Riley Sager

Published: 2022

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Pages: 349, Paperback

I’ve once been scolded by a relative for saying I didn’t want children, at least not yet. She told me I was not doing ‘what I was meant to do’ and depriving my parents of the right to be grandparents. She said children would complete me, and that not having them was out of the question. I shouldn’t even be thinking such horrid thoughts.

Fast forward a few years and a miscarriage later, I still don’t have a strong maternal urge to have children. If it happens, fine, but I don’t think I will feel empty and incomplete if I don’t. In our society, having children is made out to be such a natural progression of life that you are almost looked down on if you aren’t pregnant within a couple of years of marriage.

But what’s also true is that many women are choosing to have children later in life—in their 30s and even 40s—or at least wait a few years after getting married. They want to be financially secure before being responsible for a baby. Some want to focus on their careers for a while. They believe having a baby will slow their progress and shift their priorities and they don’t want that at the moment. I also have a couple of friends who don’t want children. While all this is normal, our society doesn’t think so and women who deviate from the norm are considered misfits and lectured.

Emma Gannon’s debut novel ‘Olive’ explores this very theme. The protagonist, Olive, doesn’t want to have children. She’s never wanted them and now that she’s in her 30s she’s even more certain of it. Her best friends are having babies or trying to conceive but “that doesn’t make her ovaries twitch”. She breakups with her boyfriend of nine years when he suggests they might want to start a family. But she feels her friends—Cecily, Bea, and Isla—are moving on without her. They are no longer as accessible as they were before they were parents or were trying for a pregnancy.

Olive is a thought-provoking read that explores motherhood, fertility, female friendships, relationships, and what it means to be true to yourself when everyone around you wants you to conform. I just wish Gannon had been a little more empathetic in her writing. Very often the characters come across as selfish and annoying. Some topics like veganism and infidelity are discussed so lightly that the tone is almost mocking. Something feels a little off but the story isn’t one that you come across regularly so you might want to overlook the little niggles.

Fiction

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52928287 

Olive

Emma Gannon

Published: 2020

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 409, Paperback

‘I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki’ by Baek Sehee is less than 200 pages long. The chapters are short too. You will be able to read it in a single sitting. But you won’t be done with the book so soon. You will want to keep rereading passages and dipping in and out. I’m not someone who likes to underline and write in her books but my copy of ‘I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki’ is filled with scribbles and notes. I wanted to be reminded of some things over and over again.

Part memoir, part self-help, the book is a record of the therapy the author received for dysthymia, or persistent depressive disorder (a state of constant, light depression). Written by a young woman who is struggling through life, caught in a web of mood swings and ups and downs, the book is highly relatable and discusses fairly common issues like low self-esteem, jealousy, anger, etc. It also highlights how social media and society put pressure on us to conform—look a certain way, behave a certain way, etc—and how that can have a detrimental effect on our mental health.

Baek Sehee decided to open up her sessions to the world by writing a book because she wanted others who were going through the same problem as hers to know that they weren’t alone. Early on, in the introduction, she admits that the next book she writes might not be as honest but she will try to do everything she can to help those going through mental health issues.

Baek Sehee’s book quickly became a Korean bestseller. It was even recommended by a BTS member. Mental health problems are highly stigmatized in Korean society, despite highly stressful work and social environment being a leading cause of suicides among youths. This book sheds light on what it’s like living with mental health issues and how getting help can prevent problems from escalating. I Want to Die But ‘I Want to Eat Tteokbokki’ is an insightful and eye-opening take on the importance of acknowledging mental health conditions as any other health problem and how therapy can be a boon.

Memoir

I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

Baek Sehee

Translated into English by Anton Hur

Published: 2018

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 194, Paperback

‘Counterfeit’ by Kirstin Chen could very well be made into a movie. It reads like one. Maybe it’s already being adapted for the screen as the book was Reese Witherspoon’s book club pick in June last year. It’s basically about complicated friendships and fake handbags and it’s really fun. Counterfeit will remind you of ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ both of which are highly enjoyable books and movies. 

The story is narrated in the first person by Ava. She meets an old friend, Winnie, who used to be her roommate during her freshman year of college. Winnie had disappeared under mysterious circumstances—pulled out of college after roughly six months. Now, she’s back and she runs a successful business. The catch is it’s not entirely legal. High-end luxury handbags are bought and then ‘superfakes’ (top-quality fakes) are returned in their place. The originals are then sold at slightly cheaper prices than their retail values. The scam is highly profitable but Winnie needs help with it. 

Ava is reluctant to help out at first but then she’s bored of being a stay-at-home mother. Despite having been a highly-paid lawyer, she enjoyed going on extended maternity leave because she secretly hates her job. Now, she wants some change in life. After an incident where she finds herself broke and alone in Hong Kong (her husband cuts her access to their joint bank account), she is forced to join Winnie. We find out about Winnie’s business as Ava tells the story to a detective. Winne has vanished and Ava claims to be the victim. We also hear Winnie’s side of the story in the second half of the book. Who is telling the truth? And what is really going on? These are the questions that compel you to keep turning the pages. 

Counterfeit is original and fresh. I hadn’t read anything like it before. It’s a fairly quick and easy read given the captivating plot. If you ask me, reading it is a great way to spend your Saturday afternoon.

Four stars

Counterfeit

Kirstin Chen

Published: 2022

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 274, Paperback