27 Oct 2025
One Minute Book Reviews | Summer Reads
Here’s what I read over the summer!
Table for One by Emma Gannon
Willow’s settled life falls apart when her partner leaves her, and phases her out of the business they set up together. She is forced to start over and in doing so discovers a relationship that she has long neglected: the one with herself. A couple of my personal bugbears cropped up with this novel – wooden dialogue that doesn’t read how people actually talk and a title which didn’t feel quite representative of the story. Didn’t blow me away but enjoyable enough with some fun characters. 3/5
Knife by Salman Rushdie
Rushdie’s memoir about the knife attack that resulted in him losing his eye, and the following year of recovery. This was a fascinating, if grisly, memoir. It is so personal that at times, it’s almost uncomfortable to read. There were some meandering tangents which I didn’t necessarily think added much but, on the whole, this was a powerful book that was hard to put down; I read it in a couple of days. 4/5
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Set against the backdrop of the NASA space shuttle program in the early 1980s, we follow astronaut Joan Goodwin, jumping between a disaster on the space shuttle and the events leading up to it. This was my first TJR novel and I loved it. I was hooked from page one, adored Joan and Vanessa and didn’t want it to end. Those final few pages had me weeping. I’ve got a lot of TJR novels to catch up on! 5/5
How Not To Be A Supermodel by Ruth Crilly
A nineties memoir about Ruth’s time not-quite-making-it as a supermodel. This had me snorting aloud on more than one occasion. A bit like sitting down with someone, glass of wine in hand, and them regaling you with funny stories from their unusual past. 3.5/5
Who Wants To Live Forever by Hanna Thomas Uose
Yuki and Sam are a happy couple planning on spending the rest of their lives together, until a miracle drug is released which can extend a human’s life indefinitely. Yuki campaigns against it, Sam chooses to take it. Following a cast of intersecting characters, we travel over the next few decades exploring the effect of the drug both on the world and individual ordinary lives. My only gripe with this book was that I wanted it to be longer; there was so much detail to unpack, and there wasn’t quite enough book to do so. But I loved the idea behind it, loved the themes around society’s fixation with aging and the parallels that could be drawn to the current alarming trends around Botox and weight loss injections. Would recommend. 4.5/5
Bikini by Amber Eve
Greek island, pop star, enemies-to-lovers, good dose of silliness. Perfect summer beach read. 3.5/5
One More Croissant For The Road by Felicity Cloake 4/5
Peach Street to Lobster Lane by Felicity Cloake 4/5
Red Sauce, Brown Sauce by Felicity Cloake 3.5/5
These brilliant foodie travel memoirs kept me company for six weeks over the summer and I was genuinely sad when I had finished all three and was no longer cycling around with Felicity. A food and travel adventure is right up my street, and I loved Felicity’s writing style and funny stories. I thought the UK trip wasn’t quite as fun as the others, mostly because of the Covid restrictions, but these were all really enjoyable reads – I particularly enjoyed the American trip. If you’re a fan of cycling, food or travel (or all three!), I would definitely recommend these.
My Friends by Fredrik Backman
Within a few minutes of starting this book, I thought uh oh and my bank balance groaned. Because I knew that I had just found an author whose entire back catalogue I now had to read. I know, I know, I’m late to the party, but I instantly loved Fredrik Backman’s writing style. And this story! The way it was peeled away, layer by layer! It’s hard to describe without giving too much away but it is the story of Louisa and how she is one of the few people who notices the teenagers at the end of the pier in a world-famous painting, and how the painting ends up belonging to her. And it is also the story of the teenagers in the painting, twenty-five years earlier, whose friendship will change Louisa’s life. I adored this. 5/5
Happy reading folks x
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