Review: The Girls - Emma Cline

Title: The Girls

Author: Emma Cline

Summary: The Girls follows Evie, an impressionable teenager living in 1960s California, as she encounters a mysterious group of girls and is drawn up in their seemingly glamorous lives. The closer she grows to the group, the more unpleasant it becomes, veering towards drugs, sex, and terrible violence.

Rating: ★★★★★

Review: 

Like most of you I'm sure, I heard a lot of hype about The Girls when it was released last summer, but I didn't get around to reading it until I borrowed a copy from my mum. The story revolves around a cult based on the Manson Family - which I'd not really heard of before beginning the book.

Review: Wild - Cheryl Strayed

Yes, I know it's the movie tie-in cover,
but this is the copy I have!

Title: Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found

Author: Cheryl Strayed

Summary: Cheryl Strayed lost her mother to cancer at the age of 22 and fell into a life of drugs and sex. Trying to find her way again, she decides to hike a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail completely alone. Wild follows this journey, as Cheryl reflects on her past and how to deal with pulling together what remains of her old life and starting a new one.

Rating: ★★★★★

Review: 

Wild is one of those books that you know you adore from about ten pages in, but when you try and enthuse about it to somebody in the real world, you just end up gesticulating frantically and trying to find something else to say apart from 'It's SO good!' 

Review: Welcome to Lagos - Chibundu Onuzo

Title: Welcome to Lagos

Author: Chibundu Onuzo

Summary: Welcome to Lagos follows a group of strangers who meet on a bus ride to Lagos, each of them running away for a different reason: deserting the military, fleeing an abusive husband, orphaned by an attack on their village. After arriving in the city, they find themselves in the middle of a scheme involving ten million dollars, a disgraced Education Minister, and the editor of a failing newspaper.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review: 

When I first started reading Welcome to Lagos, I found it a little slow and I wasn't sure whether I would really get into it. As time went by and the pages kept turning, I completely revised that opinion - I became so invested in the plot and since finishing, it has really stayed with me. 

Review: Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Title: Americanah

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Summary: Americanah tells the story of Ifemelu and Obinze, two young, academically talented Nigerians who fall in love but get separated by their journey to the West. Ifemelu attends college in America, ends up staying for fifteen years, and becomes a successful blogger, while Obinze tries his luck in the UK and eventually back in Nigeria.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review:

If you've been on the internet for a few years and haven't come across Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I'd be surprised. She is famed for her brilliant 'We Should All Be Feminists' TEDx Talk, which was sampled in Beyonce's Flawless. I had heard about Americanah long before I got my hands on a copy, with praise centred on its observations about race, identity, class, and gender. So - did it live up to the hype?