#And so it was very hard for me not to read ladybird’s mother as deeply cruel to the point of villainy

[herbofgraceandpeace]

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[prettylittlelyres]

2020: My Year in Reading

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I also re-read “Midnight” by Jacqueline Wilson, which was even better than I remembered. My sister and I have been re-reading a lot of Jacqueline Wilson’s books recently, and, in doing so, have found that all our hang-ups about them were actually… just a bit twitty. They’re great stories, they keep you turning the pages, and the pure sass of some of the characters just goes right through the roof. “Midnight” however, is a story I’ve always loved – no silly hang-ups could ever touch it – in part, I guess, because Violet just feels so Sapphic-coded, and also because she had a room full of fairy dolls that she’d made out of love for her favourite series of books, “The Flower Fairies” (sadly fictional, but I would quite frankly die of happiness if Jacqueline Wilson wrote and published even one as a novelty!). That might seem an odd reason to love a book, but, when I was at primary school, I was obsessed with the “Rainbow Magic” books by Daisy Meadows (by several ghost-writers, actually, but I digress) when I first read it, and had my very own “India the Moonstone Fairy” doll, which my mother had helped me to sew! As far as I was concerned, I was Violet, minus the horrid (misunderstood) big brother, and plus a lovely (the best, actually) big sister. Didn’t hurt that I was a baby gay, either, and that I had a close friend who played dolls with me (and with whom I might have been a bit in love). I’m seriously considering writing to Jacqueline Wilson to tell her how much I adore “Midnight”, even at 22. (I’m just not sure how to do that without coming across as a sycophant.)

Somehow, I’d managed to forget how heart-breaking “Vicky Angel” and “My Sister Jodie” were (also Jacqueline Wilson), but re-reading them at the beginning of December brought all the Big Tears flooding back. I managed not to cry outwardly, but these books hit me hard! I loved the Gothic atmosphere of “My Sister Jodie”, though – it was quite a bit like “Midnight” – and all the references it had to “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett (which I need to read, actually; I’ve only ever read the Ladybird version). The descriptions of Melchester College as the family sees it for the first time, and then looks around their living quarters, are great, such a strong contrast between this beautiful vista and the drab dreariness of life-behind-the-scenes.

I took December to make my way through my small (but growing!) library of writer’s craft books, with “Writing Deep Point of View” and “Fiction Pacing” by Rayne Hall, and “Writing Your Story’s Theme” passing a few hours on a rainy afternoon by reinforcing all I learned at A’ Level and teaching even more, and “Ghost Stories and How to Write Them” by Kathleen McGurl giving me a much clearer idea of how to craft something spooky, as well as how to market it. I don’t really write many short stories, but that’s something I want to change, so I thought it would be a good idea to start with some craft revision! Further to wanting to write more spooky stories, I also took December to finish “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James (more popularly known since the brilliant Netflix series as “The Haunting of Bly Manor”!), and the novel we were set in our French class, “Et si c’était vrai” by Marc Levy (the basis for the film “Just Like Heaven”, which I adore).

I’ve been trying to get into more subgenres of Alternate History and Fantasy, as I’m really enjoying “Kushiel’s Dart” by Jacqueline Carey, but I’m painfully aware that it’s Eurocentric in the extreme. I’m so glad I made an effort to push my reading horizons further this year, because I loved reading “Daughters of Nri” by Reni K. Amayo, and I’m looking forward to reading “Children of Blood and Bone” and its sequels by Tomi Adeyemi. I tried to read the first one two years ago, but my brain was mashed potato at the time, and I couldn’t concentrate on it at all. I’m doing much better now, so it’s on my reading list for 2021!

I also finally read “Alone: A Love Story” by Michelle Parise, which is the novel-version of a podcast with the same name. It helped me through a horrible time a few years ago and is just so beautifully written that – despite it being attached to some nasty memories – I really love it, and still listen to it to go to sleep. Obviously, I knew exactly what was going to happen, because it follows the same “storyline” as the podcast, but the book is just as excellent. They are both the author’s memoir, focussing on how she’s learned to enjoy living alone, being single, and carving out an independent life for herself. Suffice to say, it was the first step on my ladder to “feeling OK”. Steps 2, 3, 4… 10, 15… 86, etc. were spontaneous day trips to Winchester, where I would proceed to hole up in a coffee shop with a ball of yarn and a crochet hook, sipping tea while I worked, and tried not to think about what was making me sad. Those steps were not as good as the first one, and if I’m going to recommend you pick just one, I’d say, “Pick Step 1, and read or listen to “Alone: A Love Story” by Michelle Parise.”

For far too long, I’ve had “On Beauty” by Zadie Smith, and “The Returnees” by Elizabeth Okoh on my Kindle app (I don’t like Amazon, so I’m looking for alternatives!), and hadn’t read either one of them through to the end. I’d picked them both up on occasion, but only on short bus journeys, or while I was passing time, waiting for tea to cool; it made it hard to get into them, but I decided I’d sit down and read them both from the beginning, and not stop until I reached the end, and they’re both fabulous. I love Elizabeth Okoh’s painting of life in Nigeria, and as a British-Nigerian, and Zadie Smith’s lavish descriptions of everything are just wonderful. I can’t wait to see what Elizabeth Okoh does next (“The Returnees” is her debut novel), and I’m looking for my next read from Zadie Smith.

More speculative fiction finished off my reading in December! “Gone” by Michael Grant is perfect for fans of “The Society” (Netflix – please renew it! I would so love to see further seasons!), and “Q” by Christina Dalcher was deeply upsetting, but a gripping read. At last, I also finished “The Left/Right Game” from the r/NoSleep subreddit. I stayed up late, late, late, and then woke up early, early, early, to read the last chapters, on the morning of New Year’s Eve.

So, there you have it; a condensed overview of books I read in 2020. Condensed? Yes! Condensed quite a bit! This article is over 6,000 words long as it is, so I think I shall split it up into several posts, and queue them to be published, one per day.

I hope that I’ve helped you find something to read, or that I’ve reminded you of a favourite book you now want to re-read! Happy New Year to everyone, and may 2021 be much better!