Susan Green is the cactus, she’s prickly, obtuse, and entirely herself whether you like it or not. If you don’t understand her or her ways… well that’s simply your problem. She has crafted the perfect life for herself, “perfect” being entirely defined by her of course. Her life is turned irrevocably upside down when she is told her mother has died and she’s pregnant. Faced with her mother’s will that favours her seemingly incapable brother, she embarks on a mission to prove that her brother schemed his way as beneficiary but as her due date draws ever closer, she discovers life is much more complicated than she ever thought and to get through it she might just have to shed some of her spikes.  

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo came out to what seemed like universal praise and as such, it was hard to get into the book with the right level of expectation. It was also marketed as the book on female sexuality, which is perhaps why it felt like such a disappointment. In reality, the book follows three women and their sex lives. And that’s it. There’s nothing wrong with that being the focus of the story, but if you come in expecting more, you will feel frustrated.

Queenie is the story of a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living and working in London. After a messy break up from her long-term boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places, including the company of several hazardous men who do nothing for her sense of self-worth. She does this whilst managing her ‘far from nuclear’ family, mental health, trauma, a job at a newspaper surrounded by white middle class microaggression-harbouring colleagues, friendships, singledom and sexuality.