In brief: Hey, Zoey; You Could Make This Place Beautiful; The Light Eaters – review
A thoughtful meditation on love and loneliness via an AI-based sex doll; an outstanding debut memoir of infidelity’s aftermath; and a passionate and insightful botanical study
A thoughtful meditation on love and loneliness via an AI-based sex doll; an outstanding debut memoir of infidelity’s aftermath; and a passionate and insightful botanical study
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| Sarah Crossan |
Hey, Zoey
Sarah Crossan
Bloomsbury, £16.99, pp320
When protagonist Dolores discovers an AI-programmed sex doll – Zoey – hidden in the garage, it spells the end of her stilted marriage. With her husband gone, Dolores finds herself talking to Zoey, an interaction that eventually forces her to question her own emotional detachment from the wider world and to confront her past traumas. Highly inventive, astute and funny, Hey, Zoey is a thought-provoking reflection on loneliness, love and the search for connection.
You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir
Maggie Smith
Canongate, £10.99, pp320 (paperback)
Smith is a celebrated poet (Good Bones went viral) and her outstanding debut memoir recounts the aftermath of her husband’s infidelity and her subsequent divorce. In a series of short vignettes, Smith reveals her emotional acuity and quiet wisdom on love, trust, marriage and motherhood, as well as the nature of creativity and the ramifications of success. As a chronicle of a divorce and a meditation on parenthood, it’s unflinching, insightful and exquisitely written.
The Light Eaters: The New Science of Plants
Zoë Schlanger
4th Estate, £22, pp304
As a reporter on climate science, Schlanger has a long-held fascination with plants and the complexity of their evolution. In her debut book of popular science, she provides both an overview of botanical history as well as the latest research on the way plants interact, compete and survive. Schlanger’s passion for her subject is palpable in a book teeming with fascinating and enlightening insights, from the incredible endurance of fern sperm to the ability of tomato plants to turn caterpillars into cannibals.
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