Sitting here in the corner of my bedroom while my son Sebastien naps in the bed. I was reading my book for a while while he napped. It’s Talking At Night by Clare Daverley and I’ve very very nearly finished it but I’m doing that thing where you drag a book out because you’ve enjoyed reading it so much you don’t want it to end. It’s reached by top 3 books of 2024. Here’s why plus the two other books I highly recommend you read.

Talking at Night by Clare Daverley

This book has surprised me. It’s been sitting on my shelf unread for months and I haven’t been picking it up to read because to be honest I thought it would just be a bit of a fluffy chick lit. Perhaps it is still that. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But this book has given me more than I could have imagined actually.

Being 18 and in love is painful.

Especially when it’s with the wrong boy. The “bad” boy. The beautiful rebellious boy that you know you can’t have. That’s painful. It’s the love that starts this novel and it bought back deep rooted memories for me of getting my heart broken for the first time. I think I was sick in toilet once from heartbreak - that sounds so dramatic but it feels that bad the first time!

Then there’s the grief, the deaths, the cancer in this novel which I always shy away from reading about but were dealt with so beautifully and sensitively in this novel. I didn’t feel it was overly sad.

But this isn’t why I loved this sweet novel. There was a theme in this novel that I related to so much it nearly blew my socks off…

Being good.

Being a good person. Being a moral person. Doing the right thing, again and again. Always trying hard. Watching a film or choosing a restaurant that someone else wants over what you want, always.

“You let other people choose for you over what you want, and that’s not just sad Rosie, it’s fucking spineless, which is the opposite of what you actually are.

And you have this false perception of what’s good and, I don’t know, proper. Like it matters.”

— Talking at Night by Clare Daverley

You know when you read a part of a book and then just lay there and stare into space for 20 minutes and feel so seen!

I think I feel like part of me has always needed to be good. I was a teacher’s pet, an A* student, I got a 1st in my degree and I won the overall award at the end of my three years vocational ballet school. I always texted my parents when I got to a friends house. It took me a long time to even say a bad word to my therapist about a toxic ex. I never ever lie. I can’t even do a little friendly white lie. And there’s those small micro moments throughout my day still where I am still trying to prove I’m good. Checking literally anyone needs a seat on a train more than me even if I am exhausted, weary, feeling ill.

I don’t necessarily think wanting to be a good person is a bad trait but when it allows you to be manipulated or when it leads to suffering yourself, this can be detrimental. I’m working on it.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

A classic that made me feel warm inside. The narrator, Cassandra Mortmain, made me want to keep a journal more. I loved the insight into her mind. Her thoughts on paper. It’s how I like to write myself.

If you need something cosy to read, then this is it.

Cassandra is very self aware, intelligent and yet dreamy and romantic and some might say “away with the fairies” but in a good way.

Set in the 1930s in a ruined castle in Suffolk, England - just one of my favourite times and places to read about. I really enjoyed reading about the trips they all took into London too - it seemed so much more glamorous back then.

I shared a beautiful quote from this novel with the Lottie Murphy Pilates community while I was reading it.

“After a few minutes I seemed to live in every inch of my body as fully as I usually do in my head and my hands and my heart.”

— I Capture the Castle my Dodie Smith

That quote embodies literally what I wish I could experience at all times. Being in my body. As a movement teacher and someone who endeavours to teach others to be more connected to their bodies, this is a gem of a quote.

Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan

This won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2024 and I can absolutely understand why. It really blew me away and I think this book is my number 1 for 2024.

Set in Sri Lanka during the civil war. We follow aspiring doctor, Sashi, and her four brothers as they navigate growing up with violence and politics being a part of their every day.

The events are horrifying and after some googling I learnt that a lot of what happens in this novel, actually did happen in real life.

Despite the horror, this doesn’t have a harrowing feel. I felt in awe of the strength and resilience of humans. It was also so thought provoking. So many times while reading this, I had to stop and ask myself, what would I do in this situation?

I think this is one of the most powerful paragraphs I have read in a book ever.

“I have no affection for the dramatic, and so I describe it to you plainly, as it was: a man in a grey building, behind a desk, as ordinary-looking as so many other men and so many other desks in New York, telling me that tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent people were going to be killed, and that there was nothing either of us could do, even though neither of us had any greater purpose than standing in the way of such a thing.”

— Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan

I will leave you with that quote and say if you read 1 book in 2025 make it Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan.