Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Ok for this one I am just going to do the books that are next to me on the shelf by the chair that I am sitting on to write this post!
HOW ARE WE ALREADY IN MAY???
Ok now that that is out of the way because I swear I just put together by March TBR, we can think about what we want to read in May. It is a busy month at school because of tests and reports and fitting everything in before the last term of the year but I do have the last week of May off and it starts with a bank holiday so I don't think it will be a bad reading month.
I am thinking that I will do Bout of Books this month because, even though it is SATs week so I will be tired and emotional, I feel like the bank holiday at the beginning and the emotional release weekend at the end will be helpful reading times.
Here's my breakdown of what I want to read:
Gwen is coasting through life. She’s in her mid-thirties, perpetually single, her friends are busy procreating in the countryside and conversations with her parents seem to revolve entirely around the council’s wheelie-bin timetable.
Review:This was such an interesting take for a story, especially in the age of sustainability. I love the idea that Gwen is trying to get her life on track by not only giving up her time but working somewhere where people literally give up their possessions to live another life. It feels very meta but it just works in the context of this novel.
Gwen is a great character because she is a little on the prickly side, some of her thinking is quite rigid and yet she is very easy to identify with and very easy to get behind. I love following her through her renaissance and getting to know her story one little detail at a time. Because the structure of this book is such that we get to learn a little about Gwen and then we get the story of an object that is sent to the shop in which she works.
I think the structure of the novel was my favourite thing about this book. We have a Gwen chapter followed by an object’s story. We don’t know if this is something Gwen will come into direct contact with or if this is something entirely unrelated to her but it is so interesting to think about each item that comes into a charity shop and the life that object might have had before it found its way there. I was also really blown away by how these object chapters help to feed into the mood or directly into the plot of the next step of Gwen’s journey.
Parts of this book are very real and there were definitely some emotional moments for me but because it was so real I definitely enjoyed it. Gwen is honest about her feelings, including her sexual and romantic feelings. The aspect of her character I enjoyed most was about how honest she was when it came to ‘getting back to work’ and how this was something she didn’t feel ready for yet, she had a financial plan that would last her as long as it did and in the meantime she was free to focus on herself and her own relationships whether they were family or friends. I loved that she stood up for what she believed in, even if that was saying no to things and it helped make this book what it was-a pleasure to read!
Review: I have been looking forward to reading this new book from Jo Thomas. Her stories never fail to pull me in and fire my imagination as I am transported to a new location and usually learn about a craft on the way. This book is set in Wales and, as the title would suggest, taught me something about making ice cream, or, as I learned, gelato.
The narrative centres on Beca Valentino, who is returning to the Welsh seaside town she left over twenty years ago, tired of the gossip following a painful break-up. She has made enough money from her successful business in London to buy the farmhouse that she always dreamed of owning. Her ambition is to settle there and foster children in need of a home. A lot has changed in the town, but most important for her is that her beloved grandparents’ ice cream parlour has been bought by her former boyfriend and turned into an upmarket bistro. Fortunately, her childhood friend Griff is still living in the town and they rekindle their friendship. When her first charges turn up, they are not quite what he had envisaged. Instead of younger children, she is presented with two unrelated teenage boys who have been in the system for some time and each have their own problems. When sorting out some of her grandparents’ possessions, Beca comes across their gelato recipes, giving her the idea of recreating the delicious products they used to sell in their parlour. She, Griff and the boys set out to perfect the gelato and add some interesting new flavours, turning an old boathouse into a pop-up ice cream cafe by the beach. However, it appears that somebody in the town doesn’t want Beca to succeed, and even the weather is against her. Can she and her friends bring the old Valentino’s gelato back to the town against all the odds?
This was a really enjoyable read, filled with interesting characters and situations. Jo Thomas’s wonderful descriptive writing once again captivated me as I was carried off to Beca’s farmhouse where I could hear the sea lapping on the shore but also the whispers of the local people wary of the newcomer and her charges. I felt for the teenagers who turned up at Beca’s door, fearful of being moved on again at a moment’s notice. They were indeed lucky to have landed at a home where they were to be included in a new venture where their input was valued. Of course, as an ice cream lover, I was intrigued to learn about the process of making gelato, and my mouth was watering at the mention of some, but not all, of the flavours. All was not plain sailing for Beca in this book, the twists and turns introduced by the author adding even more interest to the story. I think it is a mark of a really good story when you miss the characters once the book is finished. That is certainly the case here; I would love to know what happened next for Beca, Griff and the boys. This is definitely a book I would recommend, preferably read with ice cream!
To order your copy now, just click the here!
Neither of them expected to fall in love. But sometimes life has other plans.
