#5Books: Book recs and what movies to work by

I have a thing for action movies on in the background when I’m at home working. If I have it on low enough, I can ignore the bullets and explosions, and it kind of feels like this chatter on in the background in the office. I find dialogue a lot more tenser in action movies that a romance or comedy, and for some reason that helps.

Go figure.

I’ve had all the Terminators, Die Hards, Gerard Bulter as a secret agent — OHHH, The White House movies where the president gets held hostage, Harrison Ford’s action movies on. Don’t ask my how many times mind, you, I just tune them all out though.

That and classical music. It depends how my mood is LOL!

What’s the oddest thing you’ve missed from the office? The background hum of voices is definitely one for me.

Here are my books for this week

Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noir 

Mocha Memoirs Press is proud to present Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire – a revolutionary anthology celebrating vampires of the African Diaspora. Slay is a groundbreaking, unique collection and will be a must-have for vampire lovers all over the world. Slay aims to be the first anthology of its kind. Few creatures in contemporary horror are as compelling as the vampire, who manages to captivate us in a simultaneous state of fear and desire.

Drawing from a variety of cultural and mythological backgrounds, Slay dares to imagine a world of horror and wonder where Black protagonists take center stage – as vampires, as hunters, as heroes. From immortal African deities to resistance fighters; matriarchal vampire broods to monster hunting fathers; coming of age stories to end of life stories, Slay is a groundbreaking Afrocentric vampire anthology celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the African Diaspora.

Everything about this blurb right here? PERFECT. This genre, vampires especially, are overdue for this sort of diversity.

Slingshot

An exciting debut contemporary young adult novel perfect for fans of Rainbow Rowell and Mary H. K. Choi

Grace Welles had resigned herself to the particular loneliness of being fifteen and stuck at a third-tier boarding school in the swamps of Florida, when she accidentally saves the new kid in her class from being beat up. With a single aim of a slingshot, the monotonous mathematics of her life are obliterated forever…because now there is this boy she never asked for. Wade Scholfield.

With Wade, Grace discovers a new way to exist. School rules are optional, life is bizarrely perfect, and conversations about wormholes can lead to make-out sessions that disrupt any logical stream of thoughts.

So why does Grace crush Wade’s heart into a million tiny pieces? And what are her options when she finally realizes that 1. The universe doesn’t revolve around her, and 2. Wade has been hiding a dark secret. Is Grace the only person unhinged enough to save him?

Acidly funny and compulsively readable, Mercedes Helnwein’s debut novel Slingshot is a story about two people finding each other and then screwing it all up. See also: soulmate, friendship, stupidity, sex, bad poetry, and all the indignities of being in love for the first time.

Grace crushes heart, but she’s the only one that can save him from his dark secret? Whatever is going on here, this is a love story i am going to like, I think.

Memorial

A funny, sexy, profound dramedy about two young people at a crossroads in their relationship and the limits of love.

Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson’s a Black day care teacher, and they’ve been together for a few years — good years — but now they’re not sure why they’re still a couple. There’s the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other.

But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. Without Mike’s immediate pull, Benson begins to push outwards, realizing he might just know what he wants out of life and have the goods to get it.

Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they’ve ever known. And just maybe they’ll all be okay in the end. Memorial is a funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you’re supposed to be, and the limits of love.

I think this might be the only blurb I’ve ever seen that makes me be at peace at the possibility of an ending where the couple doesn’t get together at the end of a story.

Everyone Dies in a Small town 

A lyrical and heartfelt collection by an award-winning writer that connects the lives of young people from small towns in Alaska and the American west. Each story is unique, yet universal.

In this book, the impact of wildfire, a wayward priest, or a mysterious disappearance ricochet across communities, threading through stories. Here, ordinary actions such as ice skating or going to church reveal hidden truths. One choice threatens a lifelong friendship. Siblings save each other. Rescue and second chances are possible, and so is revenge.

On the surface, it seems that nothing ever happens in these towns. But Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock shows that underneath that surface, teenagers’ lives blaze with fury, with secrets, and with love so strong it burns a path to the future

The idea of connections between two very different small towns caught my eye, as does the idea that the author is lifting the lid on what really goes on in small towns — which is more than we’d ever think if revenge is included in the blurb.

Big Girl, Small Town

Milkman meets Derry Girls. A cracking read’ Sinead Moriarty

‘A thrillingly fresh, provocative and touching voice’ Marian Keyes

‘Bawdy yet beautiful, full of everyday tragedy, absurdity and truth. I grew extraordinarily attached to Majella’ Sara Baume

Routine makes Majella’s world small but change is about to make it a whole lot bigger.

*Stuff Majella knows*
-God doesn’t punish men with baldness for wearing ladies’ knickers
-Banana-flavoured condoms taste the same as nutrition shakes
-Not everyone gets a volley of gunshots over their grave as they are being lowered into the ground

*Stuff Majella doesn’t know*
-That she is autistic
-Why her ma drinks
-Where her da is

Other people find Majella odd. She keeps herself to herself, she doesn’t like gossip and she isn’t interested in knowing her neighbours’ business. But suddenly everyone in the small town in Northern Ireland where she grew up wants to know all about hers.

Since her da disappeared during the Troubles, Majella has tried to live a quiet life with her alcoholic mother. She works in the local chip shop (Monday-Saturday, Sunday off), wears the same clothes every day (overalls, too small), has the same dinner each night (fish and chips, nuked in the microwave) and binge watches Dallas (the best show ever aired on TV) from the safety of her single bed. She has no friends and no boyfriend and Majella thinks things are better that way.

But Majella’s safe and predictable existence is shattered when her grandmother dies and as much as she wants things to go back to normal, Majella comes to realise that maybe there is more to life. And it might just be that from tragedy comes Majella’s one chance at escape.

I’ve seen a bit of Derry Girls and it is utterly hilarious, so that caught my attention rightaway. Majella’s story though — it makes me want to see her escape, to become more than she thought she was.

Have you watched the Derry Girls? It’s a comedy set in Ireland in the 1980s — and it is hilarious! I need to watch it again!