4 STARS Sally Rooney, 2021 CONTAINS SPOILERS Every person you’ve ever met or seen in the street lives a life as rich and complex as your own. Chapter Two of Sally Rooney’s new novel Beautiful World, Where Are You forces us to confront this truth. We view ‘a woman’ as she goes about her day…
My 2020 in books: a reading year in review
I’ve read 52 books this year – a classic number, one for every week. It is down from 85 in 2019 and 100 in 2018, though. However, with my average book length being 353 pages (thank you Goodreads), I think I had a lot of longer reads which took a couple of weeks to get…
Not haunted enough by Dolly Alderton’s Ghosts: Review
2 STARS Dolly Alderton, 2020 CONTAINS SPOILERS ‘When will this all end? I just want someone nice to go to the cinema with.’ The above line was the most heartbreakingly depressing moment in Dolly Alderton’s first novel, Ghosts. It promised ‘whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.’ What it presented –…
Film Review: Rebecca
3 STARS Ben Wheatley, 2020 CONTAINS SPOILERS “I’m asking you to marry me, you little fool.” When Armie Hammer delivered this line in a smouldering whisper, clutching Lily James’s face tenderly in both hands against the lush backdrop of an opulent bedroom which suggested sensuality just as much as James’s tilted head and open mouth…
Untimely Endings in Ali Smith’s Summer: Review
4 STARS Ali Smith, 2020 Summer isn’t just a merry tale. Because there’s no merry tale without the darkness. It’s quite sad that this series has come to an end. The contemporary-est of contemporary novels, they have featured current events often of only a month or two before publication, mixed in with stories about…
The Testaments: The Sequel You Didn’t Know You Needed?
3 STARS Margaret Atwood, 2019 CONTAINS SPOILERS You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on you. In many ways, The Testaments is the exact opposite of The Handmaid’s Tale. There, we were claustrophobically confined to one character’s limited viewpoint. Here, we move rhythmically between three different ones. There,…
White Teeth: the Debut Author’s Hysterical Realism
3 STARS Zadie Smith, 2000 Shiva shook his head. ‘I been out with a lot of white birds, Samad. A lot. Sometimes it’s worked, sometimes it ain’t. Two lovely American girls. Fell head-over-heels for a Parisian stunner. Even spent a year with a Romanian. But never an English girl. Never works. Never.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Too…
simple student recipe: prawn salad bowl
A salad bowl is such a simple meal: just stick loads of healthy things in a bowl together. However, I don’t eat this sort of thing often at uni, because it relies on having a large variety of ingredients in your fridge or cupboard. Having said that, most of these ingredients are cheap, and buying…
27 ways to level-up your avocado toast
Avocado on toast is a classic for a reason: it’s perfect for pairing with other ingredients. Avocado’s mild flavour makes an ideal base, while toast is sturdy enough to support a veritable pile of extra toppings. It’s one of my favourite meals, so I thought I would compile a list of ideas to level up…
Cambridge// eat: The Locker Cafe
54 King St, Cambridge CB1 1LN Founded two summers ago, The Locker Cafe has suddenly shot to popularity among the student body in Cambridge over the past two terms. It’s a new favourite spot for brunch, equal only to Fitzbillies and Queens’ College buttery. Varsity (the student newspaper) reviewed it, and soon ‘you’ve not been to Locker Cafe yet?’ became a…
