One of the (very few) benefits of having tonsillitis is that I’ve had the chance to read more.

As a teenager I used to get through a book a week fairly easily, but times have changed since then as I no longer have as much free time. But I knew that was going to change when my mum gave me an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas. I'm usually carrying camera stuff around so I don’t have space in my bag to take a book out and about, but a Kindle is super thin and lightweight, so I've been reading a lot more recently. I’ve already got through three books this year, and we’re only halfway through January.

I’d heard good things about The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr, so I picked it up just after Christmas. I was hooked from the first page. The story is all about Flora Banks, a seventeen year old with anterograde amnesia. She’ll frequently forget what she was doing, any new people she’s met, and even her own age. Because Flora doesn’t remember what’s going on, it forces the reader to pay attention. She can’t make any connections, so we have to make them for her and put the pieces together throughout the book. It’s very well written and incredibly captivating, I’d highly recommend it.

I finished the previous book in a few days, and then the Amazon store recommend Eleanor Oliphant is Completley Fine by Gail Honeyman. This is another one with very good reviews and the description sounded like a standard, light-hearted, quarter-life-crisis type of plot. Eleanor is nearly thirty and has worked in the same job for years, doesn’t have any friends, and doesn’t do much in her spare time. I thought I’d give it a go, but the book turned out to be much darker than I thought; and contrary to the title, Eleanor Oliphant is definitely not fine. However, the book is amazing. I couldn’t put it down once I started reading it.

The third book I’ve read this year is A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard. This one didn’t leave quite as much of an impact on me as the previous two, but it was still a good read. The main character, Steffi, is seventeen and a selective mute, who is introduced to a new boy at school who’s deaf - meaning that unlike the other people in her life, he won’t mind that she sometimes can’t talk. I thought the way Steffi described having selective mutism and how the people in her life handled it was very interesting. I’d recommend this book to teenagers struggling with anxiety, as well as those who know someone who is, because it will really help you see things through their perspective.

Overall, three very good stories that I like for three different reasons. I would definitely recommend a Kindle as well, it’s made it so much easier to find new books.

Have you read any of these? What do you think I should pick up next?