This is probably the best feminist horror story I have ever read – and I appreciate that that might sound like an unusual genre. There have been so many advancements in mental health during the last couple of decades that it’s easy to forget just how terrible things were in relatively recent history – especially for women. The Yellow Wallpaper illustrates that in a very chilling way.

The whole story is told from the perspective of a woman whose husband and doctor have decided that she needs to start taking things easy. Her own feelings and perspectives are never really listened to or taken seriously, and what should have been something relatively mild, ends up becoming much more serious.

I think it’s a story that’s just as relevant now as it was when it was first published back in 1892. For one thing, it stands as an important historic record of the type of experience many women had at the time (even if this story is entirely fictional). Also, while things are much better these days, women’s health being dismissed and consequently not tended to properly is still an enormous problem today – and a lot of people in my life have first-hand experience of this.

It’s a short piece of work (it only takes about 30 minutes to read it all), but it really highlights the author’s strengths that the story and characters all still managed to have such a big impact on me. Right at the end, it’s not clear exactly what has happened, and I know that some people have a supernatural interpretation of it. It’s a good story to discuss with people for that reason, and while I am not sure if I subscribe to the supernatural reading, even if you do, I don’t think it makes the story any less serious or weakens its commentary on society.

What I found particularly upsetting was how the narrator’s mental decline is very apparent as the story goes on. At the start, she’s perfectly lucid, but by the end her grip in reality is very loose – and the saddest thing of all is that the people who are supposed to be in a position to help her are actually the ones who are making her worse. It’s the hopelessness of it all that makes it so heart-breaking.

I don’t want to say too much more, because it’s only a short piece and I don’t want to give too much away, but I definitely recommend it to just about anyone. There’s very little to lose by sparing half an hour to read it, but there is an awful lot to gain. It’s an important slice of feminist literary history.

Rating: 8.8/10

Buy it here.

This is the second novel in the beloved Goosebumps series. I have to say that, though I enjoyed this one, I felt it was a bit weaker than the first one (Welcome to Dead House). I obviously don’t expect children’s horror novels to have super deep literary or gothic storylines, but where the first one kept me guessing and had some pretty shocking twists and developments, this one had a much more basic plot and wasn’t as creepy as the first.

The storyline features two kids, a brother and a sister, who are concerned about their father growing increasingly distant and spending more and more time working on an experiment in the basement of their home. Things grow worse when their mother has to go away for a while, leaving them alone with their aloof father. Naturally, they end up going into the cellar to see what he’s up to… despite him expressly forbidding them to go in there.

I won’t spoil what’s actually going on down there, but it wasn’t really something that pushed my spooky buttons. I wasn’t bored at any point, and the novel is far too short to overstay its welcome, but it felt like more of a mild sci-fi thriller than anything truly disturbing – which is a shame because I felt Welcome to Dead House really was kind of unsettling.

I think for me, the stakes felt lower because the children were within their own home the whole time, and they were mostly investigating something their own father was doing. Perhaps that would make it more unsettling for some people, but I felt that that made everything feel a lot safer than in the first book, which had the whole family moved into a new and unknown environment.

Still, it was enjoyable enough while it lasted and there were a few scenes that were kind of unnerving in a gross-out kind of way. I highly doubt anyone would regret reading it, and it’s a good light read for anyone after a pallet cleanser after something heavier.

Rating: 7/10

Buy it here.

This was Charles Dickens first ever novel and one that I was inspired to read because I come from Corsham. Among people of Corsham, there’s a lot of talk about how this book was partially written while Charles Dickens was in the town and how it was partially inspired by it. While this may be true, anybody reading it in the hopes of seeing a fictional representation of Corsham will be disappointed as it does not feature at all – though it does include chapters set in Bath, Bristol, and Ipswich, which are all other towns that I know well.

This is one of those old novels that you can tell was written for serialisation. The storyline essentially just follows the Pickwick Club (a group of eccentric, bumbling rich men) who travel around the country looking to meet new people and have new experiences. In that sense, it’s really just a random string of events which have been strung together – they range from comedic escapades, to really bleak anecdotes relayed by side characters. One chapter might be a man having a silly conversation with a ghost that lives in a chair, another chapter might be about a man’s slow descent into insanity as he keeps thinking he is going to murder his wife.

The overall effect of this is that some chapters are really, really good, while others are pretty dull and you never know what you’re going to get. I did find the Pickwick Club members themselves quite endearing, especially Mr. Pickwick himself, and the scrapes and misunderstandings they get themselves into were usually pretty funny. Though sometimes the story focused on romance plots which didn’t seem quite as compelling, as well as long court cases which I wish could have been wrapped up sooner.

It’s a really unique reading experience, and not strictly in a good way. I am glad that I read it, and things like someone asking a ghost “Why do you continue to stay in the room you died when you could go out and see the whole world?” really amused me. It’s disappointing that it didn’t really seem to tackle social injustices in the same way that some of his later work does, and I wouldn’t recommend this to modern readers who haven’t tried other Dickens novels, but if you’ve read a lot of other classics, including some of his other works, I think you might enjoy it.

Rating: 6.3/10

Buy it here.

Volume 16 of Assassination Classroom was absolutely incredible and offered an insight into Koro-sensei’s past. It was that origin story that really elevated the character to one of my favourite fictional creations of all time. Volume 17, in contrast, is much more humdrum, which is probably to be expected (not every volume can be incredible), but it is, at least, still very enjoyable.

Essentially, the story this time is that the students are fighting amongst themselves in order to decide whether they should continue to try to assassinate Koro-sensei, or if it might be better for them to try and find a way to save him from his Earth-threatening condition. It’s not just chaotic conflict between them either, but a carefully organised fight, with Karasuma and Koro-sensei watching and judging it closely.

In some ways it’s a bit of a generic Shonen “let’s get everyone fighting each other” affair (so it’s fortunate that I like the characters), but it does go a little bit deeper than that. This volume also explores the history of the friendship between Nagisa and Karma, which I found interesting and is an important milestone in the relationship between the two of them, since they are both on opposing sides of the fight. This is what kept this volume interesting for me.

Other than the two teams fighting and the deeper insight into Karma and Nagisa’s friendship, there’s really not much else going on here. To be honest, it’s a little bit of a filler volume, but nonetheless, I’m deeply enough invested by this point that even the filler keeps me hooked. Though to be honest, if I imagined somebody skipping this volume, they’d probably figure out what happened and carry on easily enough without it (even if they did miss some backstory).

Rating: 8/10

Buy it here.

I hate to say this, because it feels incredibly disrespectful to Robert Jordan (who died after the previous book in the series, Knife of Dreams, was published) but I feel like Brandon Sanderson is the breath of fresh air that the series needed. This is the twelfth book in the series, and by the eleventh instalment I had gotten so bored of the plot seeming to meander endlessly and all the ridiculous excuses he could come up with to have the women being naked or spanked – and Brandon Sanderson avoids all of Jordan’s pitfalls while actually moving things on meaningfully.

As soon as I started the first chapter (which deals with ordinary people in the series’ world responding to the enormous changes they’re encountering) I knew something was different. I felt more invested. Everything seemed to have more value and significance, and consequently, I ended up enjoying the entire book a great deal more. I think it’s really lucky that it was a writer of Brandon Sanderson’s calibre who ended up picking up the torch and carrying it over the finish line.

He also does a fantastic job of helping to make the portrayals of certain characters make sense. For instance, Rand. Before now he’d just seemed arrogant, petulant and annoying. I liked him in the first few books, but once he embraces being the Dragon Reborn, he was really boring – but in this book, it became clear to me that we the audience are not supposed to side with Rand and, in fact, a scene that he shares with Tam towards the end of this book is, in my opinion one of the most meaningful moments in the entire series. After this, I finally get why anyone would be invested in the character.

Meanwhile, the continued story of Egwene (still under captivity with the White Tower Aes Sedai) puts her ascension to Amyrlin into a new context – you really get a look at how that would make her feel (especially considering that it was so unusual) and this novel has her prove herself to the rebels she’s leading in a way that makes it make sense that anyone would following her. I think in the older books, characters just accepted new developments without much thought, but here we really get a look into their heads and see what they think and feel about things, which makes everything feel more believable.

Plot threads that have dangling for a long time (e.g. Aes Sedai politics) are finally resolved, some characters are killed, and every chapter of the book feels like it brings the story forward in a way that I really couldn’t say about the earlier books – especially some of the later ones, so The Gathering Storm made me excited for the rest of the series in a way I hadn’t done for a while.

Rating: 9.2/10

Buy it here.

Despite what the title might make you think, this is actually the penultimate Sherlock Holmes short story collection. While it is often said that Arthur Conan Doyle lost his enthusiasm for these stories as the series went on, I think there are a lot of really good ones here, and His Last Bow itself is one of my overall favourite Sherlock Holmes stories. Here are my thoughts on each one:

The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
One of the more gothic Sherlock Holmes stories that sees Holmes and Watson heading to a home in the countryside to investigate a brutal murder. It all ends up being tied to some shady secrets in the past and altogether, I thought it was pretty engaging.

The Adventure of the Cardboard Box
The title of this story makes it seem like it’ll be a really boring one, but it’s actually quite an unusual and intriguing one. It’s about some mysterious deaths, ones that can’t even be easily explained – of course, Holmes soon gets to the bottom of it, and it’s pretty bleak.

The Adventure of the Red Circle
A landlady comes to see Holmes because she has a suspicious lodger who she never sees. It might not sound like there’s much to this one, which is also what Holmes thinks, but there are lots of unexpected twists and turns that I quite enjoyed. Lots of moments where it looks like one thing is happening, but actually another is happening.

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
This is a pretty cool one, because it is obviously set in the looming shadow of the First World War and features Mycroft Holmes coming to his brother to investigate the loss of plans for a new type of submarine. It’s one of those cool, international affair sort of Holmes stories, and one of my favourites in this collection.

The Adventure of the Dying Detective
Another classic and one of my overall favourites. The story starts with Holmes horribly, horribly ill and seemingly on the brink of death. It’s interesting to see a seemingly more vulnerable Holmes, but that’s all I’ll say because I don’t want to spoil anything.

The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
What makes this story quite interesting is that it gives Watson quite a lot to do while he heads off Holmes-lessly to investigate the disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax. It feels quite different from most others with a lot of travelling around,

The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot
This is one of those stories that has Holmes investigating something seemingly supernatural, which, of course, is ultimately not as it seems. Nonetheless, everything is very creepy at first, and I enjoyed the slow debunking process.

His Last Bow
The grand finale of the collection! At the furthest point in the timeline, we get a story set during the First World War. Unlike most of the others, it isn’t narrated by Watson and for the longest time, it isn’t even clear how it ties into the earlier stories at all – but it all comes together to create a brilliant epilogue to the Holmes canon.

It’s a really high quality selection of stories and is sure to delight anyone who has enjoyed the earlier Holmes adventures and, with His Last Bow being “the end” for series, I strongly recommend this as essential reading for Sherlock Holmes fans.

Rating: 9.4/10

I’ve always liked Harley Quinn as a character and when recently looking for a comic to read during a flight, I spotted this on the shelf and thought that it would be the perfect choice. If you don’t know anything about Harley or Batman comics at large, you don’t need to worry at all – although it takes the basic ideas behind certain characters, it’s largely a completely original storyline that has no real connections to past iterations of Gotham City.

Here you’ve got a teenage Harley who is being raised by a single drag queen father who goes by the name Mama. Harley is a weird girl and something of a perpetual outcast, and though her grasps of right and wrong don’t seem very well-defined, you feel for her as a dumb kid who’s just trying to find her way – and I’m sure we can all remember a time when our young teenage selves had slightly wonky values.

You get to see her making friends with a young Poison Ivy – though this is very much a story that is rooted in reality, and in this version of events Ivy is just another girl in the school who is into environmental activism. Harley immediately latches onto her and thinks she’s really cool, though the two of them occasionally clash because of Harley’s less keenly developed sense of morality.

It’s a story of our times, dealing with wealth inequality and the disregard for ordinary working class people that is often displayed by rich property owners. It illustrates how someone like Harley, who is not particularly motivated by social causes, could end up being forced onto a side in a “political” debate, just by existing.

Also, I particularly liked how this graphic novel handled The Joker. At fist, I really didn’t want him to be in it, as I didn’t want him over-shadowing Harley and Ivy, but in the end I was very pleased with how he was portrayed. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it felt like he was intentionally written to highlight that it is really not a good idea to put the character on a pedestal and celebrate him as someone who challenges the hypocrisy of society, illustrating that his attitudes just reinforce the status quo in harmful ways.

I thought it was a really beautiful story, and although it seemed to end a little abruptly, I enjoyed every second that I spent in its world. I loved the positive focus on drag queens and the way that so many of he characters felt so real. It was gritty and it was engaging, and the art by Steve Pugh helps make it even more beautiful. I strongly recommend it to anyone, whether you’re a DC fan or not.

Rating: 9.6/10

Buy it here.