I tried all the books on this year's Women's Prize longlist, here are my thoughts 🏆

Finally a booktuber who's not boasting about their ability to buy and read a lot, but actually helps me find books I might want to read. Thanks for the useful content!

It was good to hear your thoughts on these :) I've read Soldier Sailor and Ordinary Human Failings and thought they were both great. I've now started Brotherless Night on audio and And Then She Fell in physical form and am very much enjoying them both. I really like slow, detailed books so the writing in Brotherless Night works for me. I just wanted to mention that I don't think it is Alicia Elliot sexualising the child herself, more that the way this is portrayed is indicative of the way in which both young black and indigenous girls are sexualised by society at large. The rates of sexual abuse perpetrated against indigenous girls in Canada in particular is horrific and is largely ignored by the government so I think the author is writing a story that (sadly) reflects real life.

I just found your channel through this book and I cant wait to catch up with other videos of yours. Useful, sincere content on books is priceless.

The 8 lives of a trickster just finished loved it also enjoyed solider sailer

I enjoyed this! Thank you.

I always love hearing your thoughts on the samples. I am definitely going to try samples too at some point of all the WP fiction books. I am still also super excited by the non fiction so plenty to keep me busy. ❤

This will be a really helpful video to people who aren’t sure which books on the list they want to read Charlotte, really enjoyed hearing your thoughts. Only two still appeal to me, Enter the Ghost and Brotherless Night- I think I’d get on well with the slow detailed nature of the latter. I doubt I’ll get to either this year though.

Great video! I’m glad you found some you are excited to read. I don’t mind a short sci-fi novel, but from some reviews I’ve seen of Karen Lord’s book, it’s the third in a trilogy and people who have read it as a standalone end up confused (so I bought the whole trilogy 😆).

This was a wonderful video, Charlotte. I'm glad you found "The Maiden" worthwhile. That's a great endorsement and validation for me.

This was super helpful, thanks Charlotte! I was planning on getting And Then She Fell but I always skim and feel really uncomfortable reading this kind of topic as well. I think I'll steer clear. I do have my eye on a few of the others though :)

I can’t juggle two prizes at the same time and the international Booker is the one I love most so looking forward to your take on that next week. But watching the diversity of opinions on the women’s prize is certainly entertaining - you would not think that you and Scott at Gunpowder, fiction and plot were considering the same books! All readers are different - which is great!

Hi Charlotte. I am happy to have discovered your video! Your background view intrigued me. I LOVE Bali! So, I have read The Maiden and although I don't see it winning, it was a THOROUGHLY enjoyable read. Soldier Sailor's intense panicked tone also put me off at first, but it turned out to be great for me. I don't have kids, but I could still relate with the narrator. I do think new mothers lose their marbles a little bit (said with all respect) and many of them say things like "I did not wash my hair for two weeks and could hardly get out of my pajamas". This book portrays the frenzy of this hormonal and intense period well. (Although Enright's description of motherhood in The Wren The Wren is almost better....)

Brotherless Night was just nominated for the Carole Shields Prize here in N. America. Several books that were predicted for the Women's Prize did make it on that long list. I encourage you to check it out.

Loved this overview. I’m interested in In Defense of an Act. I am very excited by And Then She Fell. Alicia Elliott is an incredible writer. Soldier Sailor is intriguing to me too. The Wren The Wren is on my wish list. 😊💙

New subscriber here!! I also DNFd Ordinary Human Failings at 30% last year but I carried on with it these last few days and I’m glad I did. Around that point the narrative switched slightly (which I hadn’t realised when I dnfd) and we got a much deeper insight into the family’s past and I ended up really loving it. On the flip side I ended up hating Hangman, the beginning really intrigued me but it all went downhill from there for me 😬

I think I will try Nightbloom and Ordinary Human Failingsxx

Oh it's fab to hear your thoughts after reading samples to these books! I'm halfway through The Maiden and all the things we think at the beginning quickly unravel lol, but I'm not enjoying the women being pitted against each other. Oooh no And Then She Fell worries me now that you've mentioned that. I just finished River East, River West and honestly same girl. It was a book. I wasn't here for the child sexual assault in this book either. The comment on Dolly Maunder cover 💀 I thought maybe the cover didn't do it justice, but might just be a cosy historical women's fiction like you said.

It seems like I have almost entirely opposite taste in books to you, but I totally agree about women and girls being used in books poorly. ‘Dead/abused woman as beautiful object’ is a trope I furiously avoid.

Are you going to look at the Carol Shields Prize long list?

The books I bought from Blackwell's are The Maiden, In Defence of the Act, A Trace of Sun and Soldier Sailor. While waiting for them, I've read 10% and dnf'd Hangman and Blue, Beautiful World. I'm halfway through listening to 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster and quite liking it. It's basically a history of life in North and South Korea from WWII thru the Cold War. Not perfect, but worth reading IMO especially if you don't know much about Korean history. All the other books I should be getting from my library as real books, ebooks or audio books. It's so much easier to dnf if not purchased. I listened to The Wren, the Wren and loved it. I'm now reading it and appreciating it even more. Western Lane was meh for me.