50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Six

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth thread of the 50 Books Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2025, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles or / and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track.

Some of us like to bring over lists to the next thread - again, this is up to you.

The first thread of the year is here, the second thread here , the third thread here, the fourth thread here and the fifth thread here

39 The Indifferent Stars Above - Daniel James Brown
An Audible punt which recounts the horrific and gruesome tale of the ill-fated Donner party of pioneers who set off from Illinois to California in 1840 in search of a better life. Occasionally waffly, but generally does a good job of evoking the extreme hardships that American immigrants went through when travelling through this wild and brutal landscape.

#10 We Begin at the End Chris Whittaker
This was my plane audiobook. Before i was diagnosed with cancer, i was terrified of flying. It came on suddenly (starting when i flew days after 9/11). I always took unopened security valium, an audiobook & noise cancelling headphones. These helped to block things out and allowed me to pretend i was actually on a bus. Im not sure im scared of flying anymore, im not even sure where the valium is now, but i still like an audiobook for a flight.
This worked well as a thriller. Vincent Price is released from prison after serving 30 years for a crime he commited as teen. He returns to his small Californian home town and the book traces the impact of his release on the town's residents - primarily Walker his childhood friend, now police officer, and Duchess the daughter of his former girlfriend. Short chapters and regular reveals and dramatic events held my interest. It was over 10 hours long and i finished it in a few days. I was less convinced by the character driven aspects. I think his male characters are better than his female ones. Walker, guilt ridden, clinging to the past and determined to see the best in people is well drawn. However, Duchess just never rang true to me as a 13 year old from a very tough background. Swearing a lot isn't a character trait (& can be pretty common place) and i found her constant references to herself as an 'outlaw' unlikely. I know he was aiming for 'tough and vunerable', but it didnt work for me. I also think the ending pulled it's punches a bit. All a bit neatly tied up after covering some very dark ground. All that sounds very critical, but as a page-turner it worked for me. I'd read another by him.

@ShelfObsessed Bought! Thank you.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

You’re welcome and I hope that you enjoy it.

I really should stop obsessively checking my Wishlist because I’ve bought far too many books lately but I can’t resist a 99p Kindle book deal.

97 . Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez

The follow up to Part Of Your World this follows Alexis’s best friend Bri and her romance with fellow doctor Jacob. The classic “lets pretend we are a couple short term” rom com trope.

Everything I said about Part Of Your World applies again here…cheesy..not the greatest writing BUT I was invested in this a lot more it got me in my feelings. I could see this as a film.

For a second time she’s rushed the ending though, running out of pages and it’s not properly resolved and then BAM an Epilogue.

Just For The Summer is my next and last for now (because I’m doing RWYO) but I’m more excited for it as it’s the one I’ve heard raved about. We shall see.

Bring the House Down by Charlotte Runcie. Finally a bold book for me! This is set at the Edinburgh festival and is about a theatre critic, Alex, who files a 1 star review for a one woman show, then promptly takes the woman home and sleeps with her. When she finds out what he’s written, she turns her show into a discussion of the experience, which quickly becomes a hit. It’s told from the perspective of Alex’s colleague who is mother to a toddler, away for the first time to cover the festival, and gets involved in supporting Alex through the fall out.

I worked at the Fringe for a couple of summers as a student so this felt very nostalgic to me. I adored it, I don’t know if everyone would love it, but it brought together a very specific list of my interests: the Edinburgh festival, feminism in the arts, journalism, new motherhood…

The Names by Florence Knapp. Much hyped, this starts with a mother in an abusive relationship deciding between 3 options to name her new baby son. The story then splits to follow through 3 different possibly lives based on the implications of those decisions. I liked this, it’s well written and the formal works well, though I don’t think it’s super original. There are some very upsetting descriptions of domestic abuse throughout, and generally some unnecessary extra tragedies which I always find annoying.

Sweet Heat by Bola Babalola. Fun, sexy follow up to Honey and Spice as we see the characters dealing with their relationship after university, breaking up and getting back together again. I like how these books centre black British, specifically Nigerian, art and music alongside the love story.

America is not the Heart by Elaine Castillo. Big novel following Filipino emigres in San Francisco, particularly Hero, a young woman who has joined her extended family illegally after being tortured in a prison camp at home. I really wanted to like this. I’ve read a lot of reviews from Filipino Americans saying that it absolutely captures their culture and lives and language which is super important. But overall I found it very long and lacking in much of a narrative, I kept thinking we were reaching some kind of dramatic crescendo, then nothing would really happen.

@GrannieMainland I've added the Edinburgh book to my ever-growing wishlist. I worked at the Filmhouse as a student in the 90s, wonder if we overlapped. I loved the crazy festival atmosphere that overtook the city, hanging out in the Pleasance bar and blagging my way into various parties!

86. Dreamland - Rosa Rankin-Gee. Read as part of RWYO, this has been on my Kindle since 2021 but may be a bold for me. Set in Margate in the near future, it takes in the housing crisis, rural poverty and climate change. The narrator is 17 year old Chance who was relocated to Margate with her mother and older brother when she was 10. As she grows up in a world of drugs, abuse and few resources, the government introduces a localisation scheme where local councils are responsible for their own boroughs, effectively cutting off the poorest areas of the country like Margate. Meanwhile the waters are rising, days are hot and the sea is full of sewage. This was very bleak but brilliantly done - there's a love story between Chance and a middle class in-comer, another of sorts between Chance and her best friend Davey, and a love letter to Margate itself as Chance and her friends explore the decaying leftovers of the town, including Dreamland. It's being made into a BBC drama at the moment and am intrigued to see how they manage it.

Got a long wait and left without a book or earphones. Absolutely stupid of me. Perused the shelves (Healthcare setting) very slim pickings

Kindle app on your phone, @EineReiseDurchDieZeit ? Desperate times…

@Stowickthevast I thought Dreamland was excellent.

@SheilaFentimanI’ve never set it up but it could work Thanks

@Stowickthevast ah I was a bit later, in the 2000s. Some of the best times of my life though, like a summer from a YA novel. I thought the book really captured the chaotic energy, no one sleeping, renting damp flats, everybody desperate to find the most exciting new show.

#11 The Couple at No. 9 Claire Douglas
DP took DD to Smiths to spend some book tokens she won at school. Smiths being the only shop selling books in a reasonable driving distance of our home. DD's 2 choices were in a 3 for 2 offer & as a 3rd did not take her fancy he picked this, reasoning i might read it on holiday, which i did.
This is a complete 'paint it by numbers' domestic thriller. We had all the key components:
Chapters told from different characters viewpoints
The link between one character & the main story isn't clear at the start
Actions of one character totally inexplicable & frankly unbelievable
A 'twist' you spot about a fifth of a way in
People writing letters/diaries where the admit to murder (just like real life)
A convoluted plan to get away with murder that is just stupid
I'd like to say it was so bad it was good, but really it wasn't. Made me appreciate We Begin at the End even more. Strapline was 'Gripping , twisty & hold your breath tense' - no it wasn't. The couple lived in a cottage in 'Skeleton Place'. Hmmm.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit once trapped in a cottage with no tv 😯& no books (long before wifi) i was forced to read Fatima Whitebread's autobiography from the slim pickings on the book shelf. I enjoyed it more than The Couple at No. 9.

What a damming review @Owlbookend 😀😀

I've now finished Cleopatra by Natasha Solomons. I have read a few of hers lately and I think this one is the best of her historical bunch. It's well written and not as forced feeling as Fair Rosaline which shoehorned in Shakespeare quotations. As Solomons points out, Shakespeare left Cleopatra out of 'Julius Caesar' so this part of her life is underwritten.

This is based on Cleopatra's relationship with Caesar and her desire to save Egypt. She is powerful, yet lacks true power. I liked all the conniving and (occasional literal!) backstabbing. However, I do think in order to make the women 'better' than the men the gender roles can be a bit cliched.

Apollodorus is a nice male character and she makes Charmian interesting.

Solomons is clearly clever, literary and accomplished so I am not sure if the mistakes in my edition are her misspellings, uncorrected, or a heavy handed , semi literate editor. Editing seems so slapdash these days, as I have noted before - I give you 'pour' for 'pore' (although used correctly a second time) , repeated use of 'alter' for 'altar' and I am sure 'rumbunctious' isn't a word (the internet disagrees with me so I might reluctantly allow her that one). It undermines a writer if these things remain - and it might not be her error!

Thanks for that excellent suggestion @SheilaFentiman really salvaged my morning!

A long train journey has helped me finish another book:

The Cypress Maze - Fiona Valpy

The author very much has a formula - split timeline between present day and Second World War but as long as you're not reading them back-to-back it's fine. This one is set in Tuscany where an estate looked after child refugees during the war and Beatrice (an English tutor when war broke out) helped care for the children. Beatrice is now the elderly caretaker of the estate and telling her story to Tess. I enjoy learning a bit more about the war and it's well done with nice settings etc.

@CutFlowers I loved The Dead Lake short but immensely powerful.

@Piggywaspushed I’ll give Solomans another chance based on your review.

Queen Lucia E L Benson
I picked up an edition of all the Mapp and Lucia stories years ago on Kindle and after Agualusa, Shafak and Ghosh I just needed a nice light read and this is definitely that. A comedy of manners set in 1920s suburbia where everyone is all art for art’s sake dahling and Lucia leads this motley crew. A guru, an opera singer and a mystic all contrive to (accidentally sometimes) dim her light. Lot’s of people calling on each other, performing for each other and trying to steal each other’s limelight. The idly wealthy being rather silly. I did enjoy it, it was longer than it needed to be at about 300 pages. This particular escapade could have been a novella with just the first visitor to Rissholme. I will read the next one at some point and might seek out the TV series with Anna Chancellor.

121 The Ship of Brides - JoJo Moyes

At the end of WWII, Australian women who had married British servicemen were transported en masse to England. The author’s grandmother was one such bride, and this is a fictional version of one such journey on HMS Victorious, a modified aircraft carrier. It focuses on Margaret, Avice, Jean and Frances, who share a cabin and get into scrapes, entanglements and danger with the crew, as well
as getting to know and care for each other,

This was written in 2004, before the massive success of Me Before You etc, and was a lovely read.

Two more finished for me.
111 The City Changes its Face by Eimear McBride
This one is not RWYO but I’m not counting it as a break as it was a library hold that just became available. This is the continuation to The Lesser Bohemians that I read a few weeks ago and loved. This continues the story of Eily and Stephen’s large age gap and sometimes toxic relationship in 1990s London. I think you would have to read the first book to get a full appreciation for it. It is written in McBride’s trademark broken syntax and stream of consciousness but this has two timelines only a short time apart. This was another tough but good read though not quite bold for me because of a long section that describes a detailed viewing of a film one of the characters was involved in making. This did move the story forward and may help this book to a Booker nomination for its lack of convention (though that’s true of McBride’s writing anyway). Not as good as its predecessor IMP but still an excellent book.

112 Bad Actors- Mick Herron
The latest Slow Horses caper which came out in 2022. Lots of politics, spying capers and Jackson Lamb shenanigans. I won’t describe more than that because spoilers. This was one of my favourites in the series and I enjoyed it thoroughly and flew through it. Bold for me. I’m having a great reading month!

@Owlbookend I really enjoyed your reviews earlier and @EineReiseDurchDieZeit glad you found a way to read. Congrats on the new job @ClaraTheImpossibleGirl

@ÚlldemoShúl I didn't think the film part was entirely successful - I listened to it on audio and it dragged a bit for me as it was so long. I read an article about her where she was discussing how it was the most difficult thing she had written because of the all the changes in how she refers to Stephen between now and then and tenses in different sections, which I don't think I completely picked up on listening to it, although the audio was brilliant. I do love her books and think she is one of the most interesting writers around at the moment. She deserves a Booker nod, IMO.

87. The Unwilding - Marina Kemp. This is about a family with 4 children, a writer father and a subservient mother. It starts with the last summer of them renting a house in Scilly where they have been going for 10 years. Various other cultural types come and stay over the summer, and the book is narrated by the youngest daughter Nemony, who is 10 when the story starts, and an up and coming author Zoe, who feels out of place in the worldly family. The father Don Travers rules the roost and everyone else vies for his attention. The next part moves on 20 years to the fallout from that summer. I quite enjoyed this although it has some interesting views on motherhood.

@Stowickthevast Mine was on audio too. That’s interesting about the interview- I’d imagine it was very difficult to read. I agree about the Booker nod.