Small Pleasures, Clare Chambers
Small Pleasures was longlisted for the Women’s Prize in 2021, and follows the story of Jean, a middle-aged unfulfilled journalist taking care of her aging mother on the outskirts of London in the 1950s. When the newspaper she works for gets a letter from a woman claiming she had a virgin birth, it is Jean’s job to investigate. Of course everyone is skeptical of the claim, and with good reason, and though the true source of the pregnancy can be guessed at, the ways Jean’s life changes throughout the six months that she has contact with the family are unanticipated. A simple yet satisfying novel, Small Pleasures was an easy read with the classic literary convention of a plot twist right at the end of the book, changing how the reader perceived things from the very beginning.
Lonely Castle in the Mirror, Mizuki Tsujimura
Lonely Castle in the Mirror was a book I found in an Indonesian bookshop and ended up being YA fiction, something I only realized part way through when the writing struck me as a bit immature. That being said, I really enjoyed this book, which weaves fantasy together with real-life issues such as teenage bullying and school truancy. Kokoro stops going to school after being bullied by a group of girls, and one day as she is sitting at home, her mirror starts to shine. When she touches it, she falls through into what looks like a castle, and discovers six other adolescents there, and a young girl who demands that they all begin to search for the Wishing Key. When one of them finds it, that person will get to make a wish, but then their memories will be erased. They have one year to do it. The seven adolescents discover they are more focused on fitting in and making friends with each other than on finding the key, and during the year they have access to the castle, they help each other in surprising ways. With an unexpected ending that wraps everything up nicely, Lonely Castle in the Mirror was a surprisingly good read, though outside my normal genre.