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Michelle Magorian – Goodnight Mister Tom | Review

Title: Goodnight Mister Tom

Author: Michelle Magorian

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 304

Rating: 4*/5

Michelle Magorian – Goodnight Mister Tom

I had to read and study this book when I was in secondary school, but I was lucky enough to really enjoy it at the time and to still have pleasant memories of it even today. When I first read it, I was so hooked by the story that I read ahead of everyone else, so while the teacher went around the classroom and picked people to read it aloud as the rest of us followed along with the book, I was eighty pages further in and just reading it like a normal person. It was great.

I also remember watching the movie adaptation in the classroom, although even then at fourteen or so I preferred the book to the movie. The characterisation is fantastic, even if much of that is demonstrated in the way that the characters react to what’s happening with the Second World War, and while it isn’t exactly a thriller, it has its fair share of twists and turns that will keep you interested as a reader. In fact, there’s something here for readers of all ages, and I think that by its very nature, its held up well to the test of time.

Books like Goodnight Mr. Tom are important, and I think that by reading them we help to preserve a time in history that shouldn’t be forgotten. I think this one in particular does a great job of showing human nature through the creation of complex characters and complex relationships between those characters. All of this comes together into a great little book that definitely deserved its place on my school’s curriculum, and it’ll also tug at your heart strings as you’re reading it. Bring tissues.

Michelle Magorian

Click here to buy Goodnight Mister Tom.

Sally Rooney – Conversations with Friends | Review

Title: Conversations with Friends

Author: Sally Rooney

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 330

Rating: 4*/5

Sally Rooney – Conversations with Friends

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book for free to review as part of my position on the Young Writer of the Year Award shadow panel. Click here to find out more about that.

I got super excited when I started this book because the characters were into stand up poetry, and I run a spoken word night of my own every month in the town I live in. It’s certainly true that several of the characters here are writers or poets of some kind or another and so we get to see a glimpse of the literary world, but that turned out to be more of a secondary plot behind the overall story.

The problem for me was that I struggled to relate to the main story line, which is about a young woman who has an affair with an older, married actor. The way that the characters acted was consistent with their personalities, but it made me dislike them. And I feel bad about saying that because much of their dialogue is taken from the author’s conversations with her own friends – hence the title.

The good news is that it’s well-written, and the fact that it’s written in first person actually adds to the story line and doesn’t just feel like it’s been done for the sake of it. The bad news is that I struggled to relate to it, but I think that’s partly because I’m not the target audience.

I usually don’t bother to look up reviews for books I read, but I did for this one and I found them to be pretty accurate. It’s a little predictable and it’s drawn out at times, but it’s the kind of book that might suit you well if you’re sitting on a beach. And while I gave it a 4* rating, I rounded up from 3.5.