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How to Set (and Stick to) a Routine During COVID-19

Last week South Africa joined the ranks of countries going into lock-down to stop the spread of COVID-19, which means that most of us are roughly four days into our mild emotional breakdowns by now. For everyone staying home and doing their part to flatten the curve: I see you. This sucks. But we’re doingContinue reading “How to Set (and Stick to) a Routine During COVID-19”

Review: ‘Unflappable’ by Suzie Gilbert

Thank you to Netgalley and Perch Press for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Unflappable is a wild ride – literally. In this road-trip-meets-nature-conservation tale, Luna Burke is on a mission to reunite a kidnapped Bald Eagle with its mate and smuggle them both to Canada before her psychotic billionaire husband and his various armed forces can catch her.

Review: ‘Grown Ups’ by Marian Keyes

Thank you to Netgalley and Michael Joseph Publishers for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Marian Keyes has a certain gift for writing alluring family drama. I know this for a fact because I’ve never really considered her novels “my thing”, what with the networks of secrets threatening to break apart already complex relationships – and yet there I was, utterly engrossed in the Casey family’s dysfunction. Honestly, it was difficult to focus on anything else for the three short days I spent reading Grown Ups.

Review: ‘Craigslist Confessional’ by Helena Dea Bala

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

A collection of forty anonymous stories, Craigslist Confessional is the passion project of a D.C. lobbyist with a desire to fulfil a fundamental human need: to have one’s story heard. Helena Dea Bala’s story begins not with the ad she posted on Craigslist offering to listen (anonymously and without charge) to secrets people felt they couldn’t share with anyone, but rather with her own experience of confessing her own problems to a homeless man outside her work. The conversation prompted a realisation of the dissonance between her internal reality and the person she presented externally to the world: “I felt inherently dishonest,” she writes in her introduction. “And, I often thought, if I couldn’t be honest with others, how could I be honest with myself? Had I gotten so warped, so sucked into playing the role of the perfect daughter, the perfect employee, the perfect girlfriend, that I could no longer tell my genuine life from the one I was projecting?”

Review: ‘Sashenka’ by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Winter, 1916: In St Petersburg, Russia on the brink of revolution. Outside the Smolny Institute for Noble Young Ladies, an English governess is waiting for her young charge to be released from school. But so are the Tsar’s secret police… Beautiful and headstrong, Sashenka Zeitlin is just sixteen. As her mother parties with Rasputin andContinue reading “Review: ‘Sashenka’ by Simon Sebag Montefiore”

Three Ways to Take Care of Yourself in 2020

I’m not great at this whole “self-care” thing. Scratch that – if we’re being completely honest here, I’m probably the worst person in the world at practicing self-care. When my therapist tells me to keep working on my “self-care” techniques, I think she pictures me meditating under a willow tree by a peaceful stream, aContinue reading “Three Ways to Take Care of Yourself in 2020”

Review: ‘Verity’ by Colleen Hoover

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, readyContinue reading “Review: ‘Verity’ by Colleen Hoover”

Review: ‘Code Name Verity’ by Elizabeth E. Wein

Oct. 11th, 1943 – A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it’s barely begun. When “Verity” is arrested by the Gestapo, she’s sure she doesn’t stand a chance. As a secretContinue reading “Review: ‘Code Name Verity’ by Elizabeth E. Wein”

Plagiarism in Publishing

Studying Literature at university may not make me an expert (yet or maybe ever, who knows?) on all things academia, but one thing I can be certain of is my extensive knowledge about plagiarism. Although, in all fairness, this knowledge came about more from my experiences as a tutor than as a student myself. IContinue reading “Plagiarism in Publishing”

How I Balance Life as a Blogger, Reviewer, and Full-time University Student

Blogging is a huge commitment. In terms of time alone, it’s capable of draining hours upon hours of your life for one measly post that takes 7 minutes to read – tops. Then there’s the stress of what to actually write about, which (for me at least) often just centers on how hard blogging actually is. Fun, right? IContinue reading “How I Balance Life as a Blogger, Reviewer, and Full-time University Student”