Book Review: London Made Us

A copy of this book was gifted to me by Canongate Books in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve never listened to Robert Elms’s radio show, but London Made Us sounded fascinating – a personal memoir, told through the history of London. Parts of it certainly were fascinating, but overall I found it a little bit disappointing.

‘London is a giant kaleidoscope, which is forever turning. Take your eye off it for more than a moment and you’re lost.’

Robert Elms has seen his beloved city change beyond all imagining. London in his lifetime has morphed from a piratical, bomb-scarred playground, to a swish cosmopolitan metropolis. Motorways driven through lost communities, accents changing, skyscrapers appearing. Yet still it remains to him the greatest place on earth.

Elms takes us back through time and place to myriad Londons. He is our guide through a place that has seen scientific experiments conducted in subterranean lairs and a small community declare itself an independent nation; a place his great-great-grandfather made the Elms’ home over a century ago and a city that has borne witness to world-changing events.

London Made Us is well-written, and Elms has a knack of carrying the reader with him through various, often bizarre or ridiculous, events. It’s full of local knowledge, and it’s clear that Elms loves this city with all his heart. As someone who loves her own city (and London) wholeheartedly, I could definitely relate to that. But all the way through the book, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Elms was almost looking down on those of us who aren’t from London. There’s a definite vibe of “London is best”, and I felt he sort of passed over some aspects of the darker side of the city.

I suppose, given it’s a memoir, I should have also expected the sheen of nostlagia that colours the whole book. Again, there’s a definite sense of the past being better than the present, and while I can agree in some ways (such as the destruction of London’s architectural heritage being a crime against the city – I have feelings about that), I do think it’s disingenuous to gloss over the many problems London has had in the last century.

I think that if I’d known of Elms, or listened to his radio show, before I read this book I would probably have enjoyed it more for what it was, rather than wishing for something different. I suspect that the tone wouldn’t have felt so snobbish if I knew how he sounded anyway. I know that a lot of people loved London Made Us, and I can see why, especially if you happened to be a Londoner yourself. But I hadn’t done any of that, and the book felt to me, as a northerner and more specifically, a scouser, less accessible because of it. And that’s why it was disappointing. You shouldn’t need to already know the author to enjoy reading their book.

3/5

London Made Us is out now from Canongate Books

Book Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

I was gifted a free e-arc of this book from the publisher, Titan Books, via Netgalley.

I don’t think anyone who’s read this blog would be surprised if I said I was a massive fan of V E Schwab. I love all her work, and I’ve been dying to read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue since she first spoke about it. It therefore also won’t be a surprise when I tell you that I loved it with every fibre of my being.

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever-and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore, and he remembers her name.

I don’t even really know where to start or what to say. Addie’s story spans 300 years, although we see the most detail from her first 100 years and the current time (which in the book is 2014), and I just loved it. I shared Addie’s hurts and frustrations, her loneliness and her shock at finally meeting someone who remembers her. I loved seeing the ways she adapted to her situation, finding clothes to wear and places to sleep, but never being able to leave a mark. I really, really loved the epigraphs that began each section, showing the impact Addie had had over the 300 years of her life.

I realise I’m not going into much detail here, but I do think you should experience this book as free from knowledge as you can possibly be. What you need to know is this: it is beautifully written. Seriously, so beautiful. One of my joys of the last 6 years has been watching V’s writing improve with every book – and she was brilliant to begin with. Addie LaRue is not like anything she’s ever written before though. It feels very different, but I’m not sure I can put into words why it feels so different so you’ll just have to trust me. If you’ve not picked up a V E Schwab book before, this is the one to start with.

The characters are fantastic. Not just Addie, Henry and Luc, but all the people we meet in the course of the book. Even the landlady who forgets Addie has paid a week’s rent in advance sticks in the memory, which is testament to V’s skills. I couldn’t put it down until I finished it because I needed to know what happened to these people. I’m not saying I didn’t guess some of the plot turns, because I did, but it didn’t matter.

I could carry on gushing about The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, but that seems a bit pointless, so I’ll end here. Just know that this is a wonderful, beautiful book that takes you on a journey with its protagonist that you will remember forever, and you will not regret picking it up.

5/5

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is out today, 6th October, from Titan Books