november reads
chasing humpback whales across the sea
I started the month in Australia, more specifically on a ferry to try and find some humpback whales, and boy, did I find some. Gripping my phone on the choppy waters, I gasped with the other 30 strangers as we watched a baby humpback whale jump out of the water, its mother swimming close by. It was one of the rare times that my heart has jumped out of its chest for an experience that wasn’t scary or romantic. It reminded me of the boy I was madly in love between the ages of 13-17 (and then again briefly in my early twenties), picking me up in his battered mini cooper where you had to hold the passenger door so it didn’t fly open. We would drive around, talk, and he would hold my free hand occasionally throughout the journey.
I don’t know why the whale reminded me of this, but it did. Since then, I’ve been trying to locate whatever this feeling must be and I’ve settled on three options. Youth. Surprise. Joy. Humpback whales can live up to 90 years old, a similar life span to humans, perhaps that’s what made it so incredibly emotional seeing this beautiful creature find delight in its journey to the Antarctica — simply, soaring in the air before meeting the ocean again, it was breathtaking. Who knows if I’ll ever see one again (in the wild), and if I do, perhaps it won’t be quite the same because, if we are being honest, does the second time really ever beat the first? (I’m open for different opinions).
a screenshot of the video of the baby gorgeous angel whale i saw
This month was also full of books about love, memory, sexual desire, vacancy and intimacy. I didn’t necessarily pick them on purpose, and at the end of the day, aren’t all stories about love? You can’t escape it even if you try! So here’s the four books I read in November.
Sunburn - Chloe Michelle Howarth - ⭐⭐.75
I hadn't realised when I started reading this book that ultimately, this is a YA novel. I think what Chloe is trying to do is evoke those feelings that we felt when we read Normal People by Sally Rooney for the fist time, however, I felt like it was just incredibly ‘try-hard’. But then again, it’s about two girls in a friendship group who fall in love for the first time — with each other — so maybe I’ve forgotten what a try hard I was when I was 15 years old. The main frustration for me that so much of the novel was just endless repetition, I would have appreciated the arc more if we could see the story from both sides but unfortunately we were focused on only one third of the love triangle, so parts of it just were incredibly boring to read. I’m yawning just thinking about it.
I read somewhere recently that as our brains mature we literally cannot remember what it’s like to think as a teenager - and I remember thinking at the time, that’s a load of old hog bollocks, I can obviously remember what it’s like to be a teenager!! But remembering what it’s like to be a teenager and willing my brain to think like a teenager are two completely different things, and I think this was my main problem with this novel. A good friend of mine recently read it and absolutely fell in love with, so like I said - it’s a me problem.
I think every person who studied English Literature + some other thing at university has come across Doris Lessing. You’ve heard of (or maybe even read) The Golden Notebook and The Grass is Singing or one of her other 50 books that she wrote throughout her prolific career as an author. So when I saw, Love, again — it intrigued me. I hadn’t read anything from her which was in any way represented your typical love story hence why picking it up.
This novel follows a widowed playwright who has her own successful theatre fringe company. For their new play which is based on a writer called Julie Varion (which after constant googling, I realised was not actually a real writer at all!) Sarah, our playwright falls in love with two younger men while casting for a director and for actors, navigating feelings she thought had long surpassed her.
This overall was a S L O G — I felt like it was just written undeniably with someone in mind and she didn’t quite have the confidence to say it to their face. Therefore, she wrote a novel about them and her conflicting feelings of getting older, having desire, not having enough confidence. I think this is one of those novels that I will really enjoy when (god willing) I get a bit closer to Sarah’s age and perhaps I’ll understand it a bit more. But essentially, nothing really happened, it was just really, incredibly overwritten and Sarah spent a lot of time in bed thinking about her feelings - which is fine! I’m the first to champion that ‘thinking in bed’ is a real life past time which should be accepted and advocated for.
I bought this with my book voucher last Christmas - I think it was in the Waterstones sale and I was very much in a place where I wanted to read more translated works (and I still am!) so this ticked all my boxes. I hadn’t heard of anyone else reading this before so I’d just come about it by chance - but wow, what a small and powerful read.
The foreword was particularly interesting — do you always read the forewords? I’ll skip them if they sound really boring but this one was particularly interesting as I hadn’t heard of Nawaal El Saadawi before. Turns out she was not only a writer but a psychiatrist, feminist, and human rights activist and one of the most influential and controversial voices in Arab feminism, to the point where she was imprisoned in 1981 for her political views.
But what about the novel! Woman at Point Zero is based on a real woman that El Saadawi met in prison (prior to her going to prison herself). Almost immediately, the narrator meets Firdaus, a woman awaiting execution for murdering a man. Firdaus agrees to tell her life story the night before her death. Although a short novel, it’s incredibly intense as we are told about the abuse that Firdaus has faced during her early life, all of the events in her life lead her to becoming a sex worker, which, paradoxically is the first time she truly feels control in her life. I won’t ruin the reason why she murders the man she does but this novel really speaks volumes at how women are mistreated by men across the world, and it left me feeling rather sad at the thought that this happens every day in different forms. It left me with the question, what does true and genuine respect look like?
Would definitely recommend reading this for a thought provoking story, really glad I read it, also a great gift for those who want to read more translated works.
There were so many similarities between Woman at Point Zero and I who have never known men — survival, isolation, female empowerment and really, what that looks like from individual to individual.
My gorgeous friend who has excellent taste in books messaged me when she finished reading this, telling me I need to read it as soon as possible. When my flight back to wherever I was going was delayed, I saw this in WHSmith and bought it straight away. This small yet mighty novel completely differed from my first thoughts of the blurb, I thought it was going to be a strange science fictiony novel about how terrible men are, but it wasn’t really about that at all.
We follow our nameless protagonist who spends the first part of her like imprisoned underground, her life dictated by when the overhead lights turn on and off. I don’t want to spoil it too much, but our protagonist and the other 39 women do manage to escape.
The thing I found so interesting about this novel was the complete absence of men, our protagonist never really experiences romantic or sexual desire, and it makes you really question these societal norms, and how power is really constructed in society. it was so interesting and I spent a lot of time staring into space on the u-bahn thinking about it. I will say that one of the reasons that this novel is either a hit or miss is because the ending is rather odd — perhaps one would say that it’s not really an ending at all, but I really like how abstract it was (do let me know your opinions if you think otherwise). Definitely a good book to get someone who likes to stare into space as well as chewing over something for a long period of time.
Looking back at my calendar - I’m surprised I managed to finish 4 books at all, as life led me to Amsterdam > Australia > Amsterdam > Berlin > Wales > Amsterdam > Berlin. I am incredibly lucky to have seen so much of the world in these last couple of months, I’ve rediscovered just how much you can do in a 24 hour period, how kind people are — regardless of the language they speak, and how weird it is that all airports are different but essentially the same.
I will be starting my December reads blog in the next couple of days — I don’t want to give too much away! Looking forward to the last couple of days and enjoying the strange ‘in-between’ between Christmas and New Year.
Bigs hugs to you all my lovelies.
Ava xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx