Recently, my obsession with audiobooks has spiralled out of control. I resent the shower and hair dryer for interrupting my listening.

Please enjoy my random ramblings and recommendations.

EMMA

by Jane Austen

Prepare to be whisked away from the desk of your tedious job to the English countryside for some tea and matchmaking, with this Audible Original. Part narrated novel, part radio play, total bliss for all my fellow tragic Jane Austen fans. Ignore your emails pinging and your phone ringing, let your ears enjoy the narrations of Emma Thompson. Forget what’s for lunch, this production’s joyful musical interludes will have you dancing around your kitchen, in a ball gown with Mr Right.

Unlike Austen’s other female characters, Emma is financially independent so has no need to marry. That doesn’t stop her for pairing up everyone else. Something many of us are guilty of enjoying. Emma is fun and flawed, silly and selfish. She isn’t perfect but she’s certainly not boring. I could relive this story again and again.

And you can. If you have some time on your hands, I’d recommend starting with the audiobook and then treating your eyes to the 2020 film adaptation of Emma (starring Anya Taylor-Joy). If that’s not enough, you can try the much-loved 1996 movie. In which, Emma is famously played by Gwyneth Paltrow.

If you aren’t interested in audiobooks or Austen, you may still enjoy or probably have enjoyed Clueless, the 90’s experience of Emma you never knew you needed (“Ugh! As if!”).

CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS

by Sally Rooney

Long before the release of the series Normal People, before we ceased baking banana bread and started worshipping Connell and his chain, there was Sally Rooney.

I came to Rooney’s second novel, a year after reading Normal People and a few months after devouring the series.

Conversations with Friends follows the life of Frances. You can expect unexpected relationships and complicated friendships. Let me be clear, this is a sexy Irish novel. Two words I’d never thought I’d put together after growing up there. Rooney proves it’s not all green fields, potatoes and Catholic guilt on the Emerald Isle.

Rooney’s writing excellently depicts the deep inner lives of her characters by detailing their everyday awkwardness and insecurities, exposing something true in us all. In Rooney’s work, you become privy to the vastness of other people’s internal lives and in return feel a little less alone.

Rooney’s novels enter your mind in a special way. I’d read anything she published. I’d particularly recommend her interview on Literary Friction, if you’ve read Conversations with Friends but just need a debriefing before reluctantly moving on with your life.

Living in Melbourne, I cherished Aoife McMahon’s southern Irish accent narrating the audiobook. I’ve decided she is a red haired goddess with green eyes and clothes. I refuse to Google her.

UNTAMED

by Glennon Doyle

A memoir portraying women as cheetahs and the patriarchy as Zoo Keepers. I was sold.

Untamed is Doyle’s third book but the first of her work I’ve read. I became interested in Doyle from a podcast. Around the same time, her book popped off on the gram when Adele praised it, for making her feel as if she “flew into… [her] body for the very first time”.

Ready to fly, I began the book.

For Doyle, women, like cheetahs, are tamed and constrained from reaching their innate potential. Untamed, challenges women to recognise the cages that society traps them in from birth. Doyle urges the reader to, “Stop pleasing, start living”.

Within the book, Doyle recounts countless conversations with her wife, ex-husband and children that often feel too polished and metaphorically fitting, to be true. However, if you can push pass the lack of realism, Doyle makes a lot of observations that ring true. For example, Doyle sets the scene of asking her children and their friends if they are hungry (some are girls, some are boys). From this, Doyle acutely and profoundly points out that girls often “look outward for permission, approval and consent”, when we should be looking “inward for wisdom”.

Doyle proposes that women shouldn’t strive to meet others’ expectations and should stop stressing over replying to their friends’ calls and texts. If I stopped responding to my friends and told them that I was “trusting the voice deep within me” instead, I’d be lonely and friendless fast. Although I found Doyle’s refusal to be the ‘nice girl’ a refreshing idea. The sort of idea the book is filled with.

WARNING - This book is very American soccer mom vibes. However, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get out my black sharpie and a piece of paper and write, “We can do hard things”. Thanks for great new mantra Glennon Doyle.

SUCH A FUN AGE

By Kiley Reid

Kiley Reid’s debut novel came to my must read list, highly recommended. I’d heard it be likened to Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, as Reid’s story follows a young black woman working for a white family. Reid’s novel is an essential millennial take on this often problematic dynamic. 

Such A Fun Age is the story of Emira Tucker, who is fresh out of college and working as a babysitter. When Emira is wrongfully accused of kidnapping Briar, the toddler she is babysitting, a series of events are set in motion that expose how harmful well-meaning white people can be. 

The story centres around the awkward relationship between Emira, her boss Alix, no not Alex but A-l-i-x (that says all you need to know about this character) and Kelley, Emira’s boyfriend. As Alix and Kelley are older than Emira, we expect them to know better but they certainly don’t act better. 

At times, Such A Fun Age makes for uncomfortable reading, as it explores the themes of performative wokeness and privilege. White people: prepare to cringe as Reid perfectly captures modern failings in conversations about race. Conversely, there are plenty of laughs, especially from the scenes with Emira and her group of girlfriends. The friend groups’ language style and Briar’s toddler talk are accurate and hilarious. Emira’s angst with what the hell she’s doing with her life, feels reassuringly recognisable. 

Reid’s writing talent is thrilling, she gets to the realness in self-serving relationships and provides astute social commentary within a fast-paced engaging plot. I’m anxiously awaiting Reid’s next novel.