Easing into the year slowly with good books to pass the dark, quiet days is usually how January goes and I don’t think I’d want it any other way. Here’s what I read last month and would recommend picking up to start your year.
Wandering Souls – Cecile Pin
Pin’s heartbreaking debut Wandering Souls tells the story of siblings Anh, Minh and Thanh who are Vietnamese refugees, sent on the trecherous journey to Hong Kong ahead of their parents and remaining siblings. Tragically, the three siblings are the only ones to survive the journey. They’re moved from refugee camps to detention centres before the hope their parents held for them, to emigrate to the United States, is shattered and they are instead sent to the UK. It’s 1980, in the midst of Thatcher’s rule, and the environment is hostile. Held in another dention camp before finally ending up in a tiny London flat where they struggle to make ends meet and are left with a deep sense of survivors guilt. That’s not to say the story is entirely harrowing, there are moments of light in the companionships they develop with other refugees, the celebration of shared meals and remembering their loved ones.
There were a lot of experimental structural elements at work here, entwined narratives of Ahn and her younger brother, Dao’s, wandering soul as he watches over them. His zoomed out perspective on his siblings was particularly affecting, especially when the family is finally laid to rest at the end. The bigger twist where the narrative shifts forwards in time and we discover the story is being recounted by an unamed narrator was initially jarring and disruptive, “I am overly wary of writing cliches, so much so that I hesitated for weeks before mentioning… rice on the first page.” That being said, I read the last hundred pages or so in one tear-filled go and think this is a powerful debut and one that’s not easily forgotten.
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop – Satoshi Yagisawa
Translated from the original Japenese, fans of the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series will enjoy this short novel about broken-hearted Takako’s stay with her Uncle Satoru, who runs a bookshop in the heart of Jimbocho (Tokyo’s Book District). Having lost her job and sense of self in the breakup, Takako falls into working in the shop and starts to rebuild her life. The threads of different characters entwine as she makes friends and finds community, pulling her back to Jimbocho even after she’s decided she’s healed enough to leave. I found the writing to be similar to Before the Coffee Gets Cold, slow paced and focussed on the small details and think this is just a nice, cosy book to curl up with in the winter months.
The Heartstopper Series – Alice Oseman
After falling in love with the Netflix adaptation, I wanted to read the graphic novels it was based on. Heartstopper is a story of two teenage boys, Charlie, who is openly gay, and Nick, who realises he is bisexual when he grows close to, and falls in love with, Charlie. Each volume tells a chapter in their story, beginning with them realising their feelings and then documenting their journey as their relationship grows and they face a whole host of teenage firsts alongside their eclectic group of friends. There are themes of mental illness and homophobia throughout. It’s clear that the TV series captured all of the sweet charm from the original stories, as well as an uncanny likeness in the characters.
I really enjoyed these and whizzed through all five volumes. As someone who loves to create, I appreciated the drawing style and little insights Oseman gives into her creative process at the end of the books. If anyone has any graphic novel recommendations, please let me know as it’s not a genre I usually gravitate towards.
