Here are three reviews of books I’ve read recently!

Beautiful Broken Things by Sara Barnard

If you’re looking for books about female friendship, Beautiful Broken Things is an excellent place to start. It has one of the most honest accounts of friendship I’ve read so far. It tackles that intense feeling experienced when one of your best friends becomes better friends with someone else and what it’s like to see your friendship falling away – and not knowing what to do about it.
Caddy and Rosie are super close until new girl Suzanne comes along. She’s interesting and fun and beautiful. Caddy is suspicious of her until she finds out something from Suzanne’s past that no one else knows. As Suzanne opens up, Caddy finds herself drawn to this fascinating person who’s so different to herself – more daring, more fun, more exciting.

Beautiful Broken Things is difficult to read at times – Suzanne’s mental health and the things she’s experienced are horrendous. And at times it’s tricky to like Caddy as a character, with her comparably easy life of private school and zero Significant Life Events. And yet there are many people out there who haven’t had something traumatic happen to them but struggle through life all the same; feeling the pressure of society, parental expectation and their own self-criticism. Beautiful Broken Things shows what happens when Caddy and Suzanne are convinced they need each other – and who’s to say they don’t?

Oh, what fun it is to see Harriet Manners again! Every time I pick up a new Geek Girl story, I’m transported to a happy place.

Head Over Heels is the fifth book in the series the perfect mix of modelling and the equally as eventful world of Harriet Manners. Team JINTH (Jasper, India, Nat, Toby and Harriet) have it down: they frequently meet at their favourite coffee shop (and have allocated seats) and have pre-planned sleepovers (Harriet has the schedule written up). Harriet’s had a difficult time making close friends up until now and so it was great to see her in this dynamic, even though it’s not as easy as she might think. And it was lovely to greet the supporting characters we know so well and love, from Wilber (even if he isn’t completely himself lately) and Richard (ever the quirky parent) to Rin (still kawaii) and baby sister Tabitha (and potential future model). I had a brilliant time reading Harriet’s fifth adventure – this time set in beautiful, colourful India – and didn’t want it to end.

But Sunny Side Up helped fill the spot nicely, with Harriet on a trip to Paris Fashion Week. I read it after Head Over Heels, but it actually takes place before the fifth book (a little tip!). It’s a short, sweet and fabulous summer novella, with more stunning outfits and hilarious antics. I also enjoyed the extra short: we get to see the first time Lion Boy meets Harriet, from his point of view. I’m ready for you, book six!

I’ve always been slightly fascinated by asylums – how easy it is to get committed, how difficult it is to get out, what defines mental illness and the blurry line between “sane” and “insane”. Asylums are a common appearance in horror stories, but they were a genuine horror for the people who had to stay in them.

The Ballroom is set in Sharston, an asylum located on the edge of the Yorkshire moors in the early 1900s. We hear from John Mulligan and Ella Fay – who meet and dance in the asylum’s elegant ballroom, a privilege provided to well-behaved patients – and Charles Fuller, a doctor who writes and researches the eugenics movement. Charles proposes that music therapy can improve the lives of patients, or the “feeble-minded” – until the reader begins to believe that Charles may be the only one who truly belongs at Sharston.

The Ballroom is incredibly compelling and one of the few adult novels I’ve had the chance to read this year. John and Ella’s developing romance is heartbreaking, as is the life of Clem, a bookish friend that Ella in her dorm. Eerie, bleak historical fiction that somehow still manages to leave you hoping.