Things to Read if You Liked The Handmaid's Tale.

So a week or so ago I chatted about the recent tv adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale and how I felt about it and that got me thinking about what an excellent book that is which then got me to thinking about other excellent dystopian books there are out there because I love me a good dystopia and so then I decided to make a list because I also love me a good list.  Wow, holy run on sentence Batman.

Anyhow. Here is that list. (Also, disclaimer: this is not me in any way pretending to have any intellectual or literary-wise opinions here. I just really liked these books.)

Dystopian Novels you should read if you liked The Handmaids Tale (in no particular order).

Quick May Wrap-Up

Perhaps I’ll do this every month because why would I not. I mean, with the BEST WILL IN THE WORLD – and let me tell you, my will is good – I never ever get to review all of the books that I want to review and this seems like a nice little way to make sure that the books I don’t manage to spotlight get a mention. And I can talk all about all the other stuff that’s been going on also, because my life is nothing if not fascinating. I mean, I read a lot and I sleep and lot and I drink a lot of coffee and why would you not want to hear all about that?

So, let’s do it. Let’s talk about May.

Books That You Should Read On The Beach Because Of Reasons

So I don’t do Top Ten Tuesday every week, mostly because I am so incredibly rubbish at keeping to any kind of posting schedule ever because I just suck, so it always gets to Thursday and I realise it was a really good theme this week and I kick myself. 

Not actually, because ouch, but you know, metaphorically. 

Anyway, their theme this week is a summer freebie which is nothing if not fortuitous because last night I was messaging with The Gals (which is the unique and very inspired name me and two of my friends have for each other) last night about our forthcoming weekend away in the sun (HURRY UP JULY) and my pal Hol asked me for holiday book recs. 

Which, OH HELLO LET ME THROW THESE BOOKS IN YOUR FACE. 

Metaphorically again, this girl is one of my faves; I would NEVER actually throw a book in her face.

Review: Fellside

Looking back through my blog the other day I realised that I never actually reviewed M R Carey’s The Girl With All the Gifts. Which, well at first I thought that was extremely remiss of me but then I realised that actually, it was more likely because I didn’t know how. I mean, how is it possible to review a book that you really need to read without knowing much about. & what is there to say other than I loved it so freaking hard. One of my faves ever. Yep, I’m saying that.

Anyhow, the point I’m making is that because I loved The Girl With All the Gifts as much as I did, I was ridic excited when I realised that Carey has another book, Fellside, which is published today. I did an actual dance of delight and excitement. An actual dance people. With a shimmy.

So, I’ve read it and I’m here, sat at my pretty purple laptop and typing this little review and well, what do I want to say?

Fellside is wildly different from The Girl With All the Gifts. Wildly.

There’s that. & that’s a good thing I think, because if he’d tried to follow in the footsteps of that book of great beauty then I fear he may of fallen flat on his face because there would have been comparisons and a bar too high to even contemplate. With this book, totally different as it is, you’re forced to judge it on its own merits. And merits? There are plenty.

So. Fellside’s set in a women’s max security prison (on the Yorkshire Moors no less HIGH FIVE) which, well I was always going to be all over this wasn’t I? I binge watch OitNB like a pro; I have all the seasons of Bad Girls on DVD box set. I love me a good women’s prison story.

 

& it’s about Jess Moulson, convicted of murdering a ten year old child, and a little boy with a message. & plotwise Immma tell you nothing else, sorry. I think that might be Carey’s thing: that you have to go into his books cold. COLD BUT OH SO EXCITED.

What I will tell you is that it’s pretty damn excellent.

In a similar way I guess to The Girl With All the Gifts, Fellside is creepy and compulsive, and hard-hitting; it’s gruesome and raw and it makes your heart race just a little bit. It’s entirely unexpected and incredibly well-crafted and it’s so very intense and so very very gripping.

& desolate. It’s desolate. Desolate like the Yorkshire Moors and that, that is no mistake I am certain. The prison is where it is for a reason. And I love it. 

There is a strange kind of beauty to Carey’s writing, it’s raw and honest and evocative and I will read, I think, anything else he has to offer ever because not many could make me love The Girl With All the Gifts and not many could make me love Fellside and not many could write two spectacularly different stories and make me love both of them as hard as I do. I doubt I’ll throw Fellside in the faces of everyone I know who reads like I did with The Girl With All the Gifts, but still, even though I didn’t love it quite as much, it’s absolutely definitely worth a read. It’s one of those books that you kind of want to hold aloft and say ‘see, this is why I’d rather stop in and read on a Saturday night, because people can do this with just 26 letters.’

I reckon I’d have given it 5 stars if I’d read it first which perhaps means my rating system is a bit messed up but hey, whatcha gonna do?

Buy yourself a copy why don’t you? It’s out now.