Hi everyone welcome back to the Waterstones YouTube channel, my name is
Aisling and I've got two reading recommendations for you today. So I've
picked two novels, they're not necessarily new, but maybe they're new to
some of you and I picked them because I felt that they would make complimentary
reading. If you would like one I think you would also like the other and vice
versa. So the first book I have picked is by Ottessa Moshfegh. I mentioned in a
video a couple months ago that her latest novel, My Year of Rest and
Relaxation was one of my favourite books of the last year so I went and picked up
her previous novel, Eileen, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2016.
Because I enjoyed My Year of Rest and Relaxation so much I felt
compelled to go pick this up. It's a similar type of close character study
that MYORAR was as well kind of zeroing in on this
strange, dark female character. But she's very different to the protagonist in
MYORAR. So Eileen is a young woman of 24 and
she's working in a juvenile detention center for teenage boys and she lives
alone with her father who is an alcoholic. Her sister doesn't live with
them anymore, her mother died and it kind of just follows Eileen's thoughts and
whims throughout the book, what she's thinking. She's very socially awkward,
she's led a very sheltered kind of strange life and her opinions on other
people are at once incredibly cruel but also very hilarious. Kind of directly
comedic. There's not a lot of plot for the most part but I don't mean that
as a negative because Eileen herself is so interesting
that that kind of gives the reader a lot to work with. So I would say if you
enjoyed her other book, MYORAR by Ottessa Moshfegh,
you should pick up Eileen as well because I really flew through it.
I found it quite an easy read I think but not easy in
that the vocabulary was simple or anything like that but just that it was
easy to get into and to relate to a character who is actually so inherently
unlikable. So I don't know what that says about me but I really really enjoyed it
and although there isn't a lot of plot to speak off there is a
little bit of drama that kind of all culminates at the end, so that's quite
exciting. So I think that a lot of people should pick this up. I know Ottessa Moshfegh
has two other books as well: a short story collection called Homesick for
Another World I think and a novella called McGlue. So I think I'm gonna pick
them both up as well and try and work my way through all of Ottessa Moshfegh's
work while we're waiting for her to write something else. So guys my other
book that I have suggested for you and I think it would be complimentary reading
to Eileen as well - although they're not that similar - I just think if you like
one you'll like the other. So the other book I've chosen is Lullaby by Leila
Slimani. So this is the story of a nanny - no spoilers because this is announced
on the very first page -a nanny who kills the children that she is caring
for. And the whole book again is very much a character study but very
suspenseful when trying to find out why this nanny did what she did. I read this
book in one day because it was so deliciously and darkly compelling and
curious and I just had to get to the bottom of it and it is absolutely
fantastic. I'm obviously not going to spoil anything here but I just think you
won't be disappointed if you read this book.
I know Leila Slimani, she's a French writer or she writes in French at least
and her novels are being translated. I know she has at least one other book
translated into English at the moment and that book is called Adele. So I
think I'm gonna pick that one up too. Because honestly I enjoyed this so much
this might be one of my books of the year even though it wasn't out this year
but you know I'm gonna put it on my list. I just think it would be great reading
if you just want something a bit dark and syrupy and suspenseful, I would recommend it.
So there you have it guys, those are my reading
recommendations for this month. I hope you pick them up, I hope you find them
enjoyable and I'll be chatting to you again soon. Okay bye-bye.