Books with a Nature Vs Nurture Vibe...

Can I Stray? - Jenna Adams

Sometimes a book just cuts through you and gets you really assessing everything you know or thought you knew. And more importantly, getting you questioning right and wrong. This book had me deep in nostalgia, reminiscing about first loves, first date/relationship emotional minefields and the dreaded ambiguity. Exploring the complexities of young love. Wanting to be accepted, to be mature, the raging hormones…

How the relevance of age differences that 10 years later evaporates, are so open to speculation. The difference between right/wrong, grooming/authenticity. Is our past not what we thought it was?

We don’t know what we don’t know. Or at least we didn’t. Knowledge can be earth shattering and completely change our past. Knowledge can make us feel vulnerable. But also help us to understand the issues we have bubbling under the surface.

A very insightful read that throws our history into a speculative oblivion. Rightly so. It explains a lot of issues many people are currently dealing with. Was it me? My fault? My issues?

Buy here.

 

The Things We Do To Our Friends - Heather Darwent

Publication Date 12 Jan 2023

Clare wants a new start when she starts university in Edinburgh where nobody knows her and the constraints of her past will not affect who she can be. To be self-efficient and feel like you belong surely isn’t too much to ask for? Then she finds a group that provide excitement, escape from mundanity, and that enigmatic dynamic that makes you want to be accepted and they do so want her. How intoxicating. But all friendships have unique dynamics, some more complicated than others. I guess a lot of friendships are based on how much that works for us.

Do we really know our strengths and our true selves? Fighting against who we naturally are is exhausting. Fighting against who we are told we are is confusingly soul destroying. A chilling novel that explores many levels of nature versus nurture. An addictive read that could easily produce a sequel! 

 

Manic Man - Jason Wagner

Manic Man is everything I love about the power of book. How we can learn from our mistakes and share our experiences. Start conversations and challenge perceptions of the question “Who am I?”. How Jason brings to life his recollection of his journey to being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder 1 is powerfully and compassionately brought to us in a unique and empowering way that has you hooked on his rollercoaster journey, rooting for his recovery and success as a human being.

The more we understand of each other, the better.

 

Let Your Hair Down - Bryony Gordon

I may be 40 but I do love some YA fiction, throw in an author whose adult fiction is right up my strasse and you get a winning combo. Barb, a 16-year-old influencer, sorry creator, is ready to ditch school and start her incredible life using her unbelievably fortuitous hair to get her noticed on the latest social media platform ‘ShowReal’. A platform that professes to be more real than any of the others… Where the fame will also bring the friendships she sorely needs after being ditched by her long-term friend. Then there is her aunt who is also her guardian and although she has incredible focus on supporting and directing her online success, she does however lack in any other real support. Such as affection, parental nurturing or ability to tell the truth. When we do not get our basic needs met and our authenticity gets lost, we all will crack at some point…

Give it a go.

 

Strange Sally Diamond – Liz Nugent

Publication Date - 02 March 2023

I saw this book and it caught my eye with the slightest of description so I knew very little of what to expect other than it involved a ‘strange’ character. My fascination with understanding the adverse had me sold, therefore I had no idea of what was coming. This novel is disturbing in so many ways, the intense emotion that it invokes in you will have you reading a good 2 hours past your bedtime. A fantastically written narrative of two separate upbringings which transpire were not as they seemed, an incredibly intoxicating subjective perspective on nature versus nurture. How trusting those closest to us can be wildly dangerous…