The Alibi Book Club #35 {Summer Must Reads}

It's basically that time of year when you're in the mood to get out and bask in the sun.

Whether that's in a completely different country (VERY jealous of those of you who get to indulge in that) or in your local town or city.

And what's a better companion than a book??

Sure, friends are great, but when you're lazing around eating snack food, then a book in hand is a great option to go for to pass the time in the sun's rays.

SOOOOOO I have three beautiful little paper offerings for you which I highly recommend you guys take with you!

Get your bookmarks ready...

001: sally rooney - normal people:
I feel like everyone and their dog has read this book...

This book is something special and left me with the kind of ache where you know life is so complicated that you can’t have what you dream of.

And that’s basically the plot of this when Marianne (the loner) and Connell (the popular one) meet in school and form a friendship then love for each other.

This book revolves around classes in society, loneliness, love and makes you look at the world differently. It’s told over the years from the point they meet in 2011 up until the near end of uni in 2015. It’s a bittersweet read and the book ends just at the right time for me. (Where I’m like ‘whhhyyy?!’ but understand why!)

"Marianne is the young, affluent, intellectual wallflower; Connell is the boy everyone likes, shadowed by his family’s reputation and poverty. Unlikely friends, and later lovers, their small town beginnings in rural Ireland are swiftly eclipsed by the heady worlds of student Dublin. Gradually their intense, mismatched love becomes a battleground of power, class, and the falsehoods they choose to believe."

002: meg wolitzer - the female persuasion:
This novel is one packed full of feminist ideas and surrounds the feminist movement. Following Greer Kadetsky - a college student - who meets Faith Frank - a glamorous and influential figure from the feminist movement - and she follows her down an unseen path away from her dream love story of marrying her childhood sweetheart.

I did enjoy reading this, but it did feel slow at parts. It’s funny to see Greer go on this journey and see her grow and that Faith is literally a vehicle for this to happen. The novel satisfyingly comes full circle with Greer reflecting on what she’s learnt.


And the fact we hear from other characters points of view like Greer’s boyfriend was something that added depth to the story and made her life feel more real.

"Greer Kadetsky is a shy college student when she meets the woman who will shape her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant, has been a pillar of the women's movement for decades, a figure who inspires others.

Hearing Faith speak for the first time, in a crowded campus chapel, Greer - misunderstood yet full of longing for an ambition that she can't quite place - feels herself changed. And then, astonishingly, Faith invites her to make something out of this new sense of purpose, with a career opportunity that leads her down the most exciting and rewarding path as it winds towards and away from her meant-to-be love story with high school sweetheart Cory and the future she had always imagined."

003: zadie smith - feel free:
Having read two novels from Zadie Smith so far, I was super intrigued by what her personal essays would offer.

Spanning over eight years during the time Obama was in presidency and later, these essays range from the B word (Brexit fyi) to art and the even personal essays about feeling joy and family relationships. And even about being a writer!!

Only a couple of essays were quite hard to follow - I was probably tired after a long shift but I persisted - while others I whizzed through and wanted more of.


Zadie Smith’s voice, I feel, is unique and one that feels like she’s personally written to you and I want to tell you her story. Which also relates to one of my fave essays which is about using the first person in fiction!

"No subject is too fringe or too mainstream for the unstoppable Zadie Smith. From social media to the environment, from Jay-Z to Karl Ove Knausgaard, she has boundless curiosity and the boundless wit to match.


In Feel Free, pop culture, high culture, social change and political debate all get the Zadie Smith treatment, dissected with razor-sharp intellect, set brilliantly against the context of the utterly contemporary, and considered with a deep humanity and compassion."