SHORT STORY REVIEW: I Meant It Once by Kate Doyle

This striking collection of interwoven short stories is an amazingly honest and heartfelt exploration into the relationships, people and moments that we have throughout our lives that shape us and change our paths, whether they endure, fade away or explode. It captures that transformative “in between” that young women experience between being a girl and an adult, when everything in intense and confusing and changing so quickly, and we aren’t sure whether to be looking back or onwards.

These stories follow a whole cast of somewhat familiar and relatable women; three siblings navigating family dynamics, rivalries and rifts, someone learning to live without their best friend for the first time, a couple try to work out what they owe to each other and themselves, a young woman longing for the people who have moved away or drifted away, friends sit in a hospital face the possibility of losing someone they love forever, a college student recalling a humiliating love story — each story has something unique and highlights such universal experiences that you can’t help but find something in them.

The prose is lyrical, poetic and warm; that provides both comfort and connection through each story. Themes of belonging, desperation, confusion, and love woven carefully throughout each character and tying together beautifully with those things that bind us together. Each voice was distinct in personality but worked together in a common ground that made everything flow easily from one story to the next.

This is a staggeringly powerful and memorable debut, I cannot wait to see what the author creates for us next.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review.

Comments

REVIEW: This Could Be Us by Clare McGowan

Genre: Fiction | Literary Fiction Release Date: Expected 1st June 2023 Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group | Corsair Kate has done the unthinkable. She'd worked hard to build a perfect life for herself, while ignoring her growing unhappiness. But when her second child was born profoundly disabled, reality hit. Unable to cope, Kate left - disappearing without a trace. She ends up in LA, with a glittering career and a new family of sorts, but the guilt is still suffocating. Husband Andrew was left to pick up the pieces and care for their disabled daughter and angry, confused son. Bereft and broken, he leaned on Olivia, Kate's best friend. She's been by his side ever since, ignoring her own needs to meet his. Years later, Andrew has written a memoir about his daughter learning to communicate against all odds. But when Kate's new producer husband decides he wants to make a film of it, their worlds collide once again. Now, Kate must return to the life she abandoned and reck...

REVIEW: Live, Laugh, Lesbian by Helen Scott

Genre: Non-Fiction | Memoir | LGTBQ+ Release Date: 19th October 2023 Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Part memoir, part guide, part conversation and all queer joy — Live, Laugh, Lesbian is a brilliantly warm and friendly journey into the queer experience, not only from the author but from plenty of other lesbian, queer, bisexual and pansexual contributors who bring a unique viewpoint and voice and also show a beautiful diverse, intersectional scope of the queer spectrum and welcomes in queer people and allies of any kind to come feel the love. The book is very conversational, talking to the reader in a fun, friendly way — at times I rolled my eyes as the use of “famalam” but as a previous patron of Colours and Chicagos I’m not in a position to judge the Essex-isms. It’s full of anecdotes and observations that were witty and relatable as well as talking is through the more difficult side of queerness like dealing with workplace discrimination, religious trauma and coming out to family...

BOOK TOUR STOP x RANDOM THINGS TOURS: Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen

" This town has secrets that are best left alone." Author Hannah is a success, on paper at least. She's receiving critical acclaim and praise worldwide and her work is regarded as some of the best. She writes literature, not just books. But the reality is, outside of the literary circles nobody actually reads her work. But when she finally snaps at a book event and publicly criticises the genre fiction books that outsell hers, claiming they're easy and mindless she's challenged to write her own crime fiction novel in just thirty days by an author she loathes. Desperate not to lose to him, her editor arranges for her to spend a month in a quiet, cold village in Iceland hoping that the solitude will spark inspiration. But instead of writing a murder story - she's in one . Just before she arrives, the body of a young man is pulled from the icy waters and her search for ideas soon becomes a search for a killer. And if she's not careful, she might end up the...

On Bee's Bookshelf

Search This Blog