REVIEW: Jaded by Ela Lee

Jade has become everything she ever wanted to be.

Successful lawyer. Dutiful daughter. Beloved girlfriend. Loyal friend.

Until Jade wakes up the morning after a work event, naked and alone, with no idea how she got home. Caught between her parents who can’t understand, her boyfriend who feels betrayed, and her job that expects silence, the world Jade has constructed starts to crumble.

Jade thought she was everything she ever wanted to be. But now she feels like nothing at all.

"But he said nothing further. Soothed me with praise of my strength, when I needed him to accept my weakness. Hushed me with a standard I didn't know how to meet anymore.

Jaded is a searing social commentary on modern life from a powerful voice. Ceyda encapsulates the struggle of the glass ceiling as she navigates contemporary corporate culture and the rampant sexism that plagues it, she works through working out her own identity and how her heritage and culture factor into it on top of how other people treat her due to it, and faces the devastating fallout of sexual assault in a world that silences victims.

When you read about everything she goes through, it almost feels too much as her life is explodes and catches fire after she is attacked - but it’s painfully realistic and handled with such authenticity and care that she could be any one of us, or a dear friend and that makes reading about her so much more compelling but also much more painful.

Her narration is fabulous, I loved the way she noticed little things, the little thoughts she would have between moments and how she saw the world. She was somewhere between friendly and formal in the way she told the story, but it just worked.

An honest and painful portrait of the lasting, explosive damage of assault - not an easy read, but an important one.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Jaded is available from February 8th with Random House UK. I was gifted an advanced reviewers copy of this title in return for a review.
This title contains subjects that may upset readers including sexual assault, rape, racism and sexism.

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