Books Rare Birds: Olive, Again These 13 short stories about loneliness, ageing and mortality are all connected by a very interesting, quirky protagonist.
Books Rare Birds: The Foundling This book raised some interesting questions about the environment a child grows up in and also shed a light on mental illness.
Books The Nickel Boys This well written book, based on real life events, follows two black teenage boys in an abusive segregated reform school.
Books Rare Birds: The Island of Sea Women A very powerful read that taught me a lot about Jeju's haenyeo culture and the brutal history of the island.
Books The Glass Castle An astounding memoir about being raised in poverty by two very dysfunctional parents.
Books Hamnet Hamnet is not just a retelling of the untimely death of Shakespeare's son, it also beautifully describes a family in grief.
Books Lit In this fascinating memoir the author is brutally honest about her struggle with alcoholism, her marriage and her trouble finding faith.
Books Rare Birds: A Thousand Ships A very entertaining retelling of the Trojan War, now from a female perspective.
Books A Manual for Cleaning Women A very entertaining collection of short stories by an author who is not afraid to expose the bad and ugly of the events in her life.
Books The Things We Cannot Say A powerful story of survival, courage, love and personal growth told in two different timelines that are linked together.
Books Educated This memoir is a great example of the influence your upbringing and education can have on your life, and how difficult it is to break free from that.
Books Rare Birds: The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters The story of the youngest sister saved this book for me as it wasn't just heartbreaking, but I also learned a lot from it.
Books I Am, I Am, I Am A memoir that seemed chaotic to me in the beginning, but left a huge impact on me after reading the amazing last two chapters.
Books Daisy Jones & The Six A story about a fictional band in the 1970s that was so realistic I had to remind myself they were not a real band.
Books Los Aires Difíciles An amazing book by one of my favourite Spanish authors, who intertwines the past and present of the characters in a very intelligent way.
Books Rare Birds: City of Girls I ended up loving the main character more and more over the course of the book as she turned into a very independent woman.
Books The Dutch House This book reminded me of my difficult relationship with my own father, but this actually made me appreciate it even more.
Books Americanah This book is written beautifully and I learned a lot from it, but I unfortunately did not fall in love with the characters.