I spent my Christmas Break, for the most part, reading.
Between late-night shifts at work, trips in the car to visit family, friends, and family-friends, and a small mountain of Quality Street, I could be found on a sofa trying to wind down, in a car seat ignoring my habitual carsickness, or surrounded by yellow wrappers, with a book in my lap.
In fact, I devoured books at a rate that only makes sense to someone who has spent a semester reading for work and finally has the freedom to read for fun.
Here is a whistle-stop tour of every book I managed to cram between the many lives I live, along with recommendations!
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
★★★
Read on the sofa whilst digesting a lot of turkey.
I wanted something easy as my brain was fried by the many courses of Christmas Dinner. Between a mountain of trifle, pigs in blankets, and mince pies, and with Swan Lake playing in the background I curled up on a sofa and cracked open the first of my many Christmas reads. Instantly, I understood why this book has dominated my TikTok For You Page.
Between a sharp wit and entertaining internal dialogue, Alderton explores post-breakup insanity. Good Material’s protagonist (Andy) goes through all the stages of grief and a whole lotta booze. There’s a sense of snarkiness within the (realistically dislikable) protagonist. Following him was like talking to that friend who has just gone through a very messy breakup; at times I had my head in my hands and felt on the brink of yelling ‘You did what?!’ He was obnoxiously human, and it was perfect in every way. I will admit, the book was a little difficult to get into at first, as Andy is intensely dislikable. He’s a self-pitying, moping wreck who clearly does not make any effort at all—which is, admittedly, brutally realistic. However, it definitely improves as Andy’s character grows.
The final chapter suddenly shifts to the ex-girlfriend (Jen’s) perspective, which was a little bit of a surprise to me but I thought it worked (and revealed quite a bit!) and I honestly preferred it to Andy’s (near-constant) whining. The ending was undeniably perfect for the book, and I felt like it was overall the perfect Christmas Day read: easy, wholesome, and funny.
Whilst I’m not sure if I’d have enjoyed it as much if I’d read it in a different context, I did think it was exactly the medicine I needed to recover from my food hangover, and it could equally heal a reading slump with its easy flow and fun perspective. As much as I did love the sudden turn into Jen’s perspective, I think Andy’s point of view was necessary and I do admire Alderton’s range. If you also enjoyed this, I'd recommend reading some Nora Ephron for a similar (and possibly more honed?) sense of sharp wit.
She's Always Hungry by Eliza Clark
★★★★
Started before work, finished after my shift.
She's Always Hungry ended up on my Christmas list mostly because the edition of it in Toppings and Co. is stunning. I had not read Boy Parts (and I still haven't) so this book was my first introduction to Clark's style and the gore-filled book was perfect for my horror-loving self. A series of short stories, most of which enter body-horror territory, She’s Always Hungry explores a series of dystopias mixed in between the trauma of girlhood.
I found the collection to be a mixed bag: some excellent, where others delighted in their own perversion a little too much. Surprisingly, I felt that the exclusively body-horror stories were some of the weakest. Both Build a Body Like Mine and Shake Well revelled in their vivid descriptions of tapeworms and pus-filled acne (respectively), but without any substance beyond a vibe of ‘girlhood is difficult.’ It was when Clark ventured into the genre of sci-fi that she truly found a space of her own. Whilst Hollow Bones and Extinction Event both contain body horror elements (notably, even more vivid descriptions of pus) the world-building around them added depth beyond the ‘ew-gross’ factor. Science-Fiction and body-horror have always been closely intertwined, particularly in film (The Fly, Slither, or my personal favourite, a segment called ‘Stowaway’ in V/H/S/Beyond) but Clark shifts this in a new way—Hollow Bones is not merely a human turning into an insect, but rather is something more sinister, it is the potential of a life-ending organism, and Extinction Event utilises the climate crisis to look at human nature. These are both utterly incredible stories, chock full of body horror.
Another standout for me was The Problem Solver. Free of any horror, this was an exploration into the psyche after a sexual assault—and her (male) friend’s white knighting. Despite the story’s brevity (8 pages!) it was a particular standout. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the weakest story was easily Goth GF, a pervert’s perspective of his ‘cool girl’ coworker. Perhaps it was Clark’s aim, but I felt incredibly uncomfortable the entire story and afterwards needed to wash the story off me. Somehow, I pushed past this one-star read which dragged on for nearly twenty pages.
This book is gory, gross, and fantastic. In it, there is something for everyone (so long as they have a strong stomach) and it is, in many places, incredibly funny. For me, this collection was an incredibly fun read (worth its four stars) and felt inspired heavily by Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, one of my favourite books of all time. In fact, I would go so far as to say it’s rather like the YA version of that book, and if you enjoyed She’s Always Hungry, that is definitely my recommendation—as you clearly have an appetite for twisted short stories.
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
★★
Read in the bathtub; dried on the radiator.
A victim of what I refer to as the Sally-Rooney-Curse, where I read two books by the same author too close together, in some desperation to fill the gaping hole left by my empty bedside table only to utterly hate the fact that they are so similar (coined after I read Normal People and Conversations with Friends back-to-back). It's like a one-night stand who looks like your ex; only did it to fill a void and now everything I loved about the original I now hate in this one.
I loved Alderton's strong voice and occasional delusion but here I couldn't stand it. Exeter is not wholly different from St Andrews (seaside, middle class, drunk) and yet I hated Alderton's friends and their Bullingdon-club antics.
That’s not to say it wasn't funny, I enjoyed the book-- especially the section bemoaning an all-girl’s school childhood (she hit it on the nose)-- and read it within one sitting before the water even got cold. I enjoyed the breaks from genre the best, the weird parody-emails that kept popping up highlighting the truth behind dinner parties (a little too relatable to the St Andrews crowd, I'd imagine) and the writing was consistently engaging.
Easily the peak of the book was the chapter on Florence, the younger sister of Alderton's best friend who contracts cancer. It struck me in an incredibly personal way, and I was teary-eyed as I followed this story. The book itself is dedicated to Florence, with the permission of the family, and realising this before I closed the cover led me to drop my copy in the tub. This aspect of the story is so incredibly strong that it saved the book from my typical Rooney-Curse one-star-score and if this story hits close to home (or even if it doesn’t) then it is well worth reading.
In all, this book is (almost too) honest and very funny at times, I just wish I'd borrowed it from a library rather than adding it to my Christmas list as I don’t especially want to keep it on my shelves. If you enjoyed this, the most similar book I've read recently is Strong Female Character by Fern Brady. It's similar enough to help with the ache, but different enough to avoid the curse.
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