Jessica Moor

Hold Back the Night is set over three time periods: the late 1950s, the early 1980s and in 2020, the latter taking place during the first Covid lockdown. Annie steps forward in each timeline as the main character. She's living alone in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic whilst thinking back to the AIDS crisis in the 80s and how she took in men who were sick and had nowhere else to go, and to her time as a naïve young nurse working in a mental hospital in 1959 and how what she witnessed and dealt with there informed her later actions. Each thread ties into the others beautifully and heartbreakingly.

This is the third of Jessica Moor's books that I have read and I've found each to be hard-hitting in a kind of understated way - I feel like they creep up on me, pulling me in and making me care about the characters and consider what it is to be human, every so often delivering a plot point that really packs a punch. In many ways I had anticipated Annie would turn out to be a crusader in the 80s strand, when really she just quietly got on with it, and this quiet determination very much reflected her character in general. Even so, this is a powerful and shocking story which illustrates prejudice and intolerance, and a woman eventually atoning for her complicity, coming full circle by the end of the book.

Hold Back the Night is written with thoughtfulness and sensitivity and Moor is a talented writer, tackling difficult and important subjects so very well.… (más)

Jessica Moor's debut is two books mashed together in a way that didn't work for me. The story of Katie, a young woman who escapes an abusive relationship to work in a women's refuge, took two thirds of the book to build.

Cutting between the Then of the abusive relationship and the Now of the police investigation into her death, the novel is peppered with half formed stereotypical characters whose lack of definition made them difficult to care about.

I was a quarter of the way from the end when I mentally told Moor to just get on with it.

There's a twist, of course, but you can see it coming a mile off.… (más)

Young Women is a powerful story of the experience of young women in the setting of #MeToo. It’s about friendship, bonding over shared (awful) experiences and the rights of each woman to her own story – and whether she chooses to tell it.

The story opens as Emily is arrested at a protest – something quite out of character for the lawyer who is, well…fairly average on the surface. A lawyer who works for a charity for women’s rights, Emily feels strongly about the mistreatment of women in today’s society. Elsewhere, she’s a mess. She has split from her partner after an incident, she gets drunk a lot and she’s in a flat share on the outskirts of London. This is in dramatic contrast to her best friend from school Lucy, who has a job she loves, a partner and is about to buy a flat. Lucy is so boring and stable to Emily. So when she meets Tasmin as she gets arrested, it’s a breath of fresh air. Tasmin is a Canadian actor who has plenty of money and time on her hands. Together, they have a lot of fun from swimming at Hampstead Heath to running away from bad Tinder dates. There is also no shortage to good food and alcohol, but Tasmin just ‘gets’ Emily. But then a scandal breaks regarding historical sexual assault by a famous name and it’s all Emily can talk about. Tasmin, meanwhile, is becoming less polished and Emily puts two and two together…

The really interesting part of this story is the reactions of different characters to the sexual assaults in the media. Emily is like a bull at a gate, with only one ‘correct’ way forward in her head – tell all. She simply can’t see how anyone would do differently. Tasmin is against adding her voice to the women who have spoken out and it leads Emily to do the only thing she thinks she can. (I personally thought this was rather selfish, and in direct contradiction that Emily can’t tell the reader what caused the breakup between Harry and selfish). But it’s Lucy – so quiet and boring in Emily’s mind – that reacts completely differently and ultimately, was the most powerful revelation for me.

The novel looks at sexual assault, consent (and lack of it) and the objectification of women in multiple ways. The way some characters shrug it off yet others are affected daily. It also looks at the changing attitudes towards coercion, particularly when there are power imbalances in relationships that make consent very difficult. It also explores whether women have an obligation to speak out publicly, and the effects on them if they do so. Emily dreams she’s some kind of saviour and pillar of support for Tasmin to share her story. But at the same time, the women who did are subject to abuse and questioning online and in the media. Emily’s ideas are rather naïve, despite her work. I must admit that Lucy ended up being my favourite character in the end for her quiet strength. Overall, the novel is a powerful exploration of consent and friendship.

Thank you to Allen & Unwin for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com… (más)

Young Women is narrated by Emily who meets Tamsin at a protest. Instantly she is beguiled by her and they become friends. Emily constantly tries too hard whilst Tamsin seems to find everything effortless but there's a lot hovering beneath the surface and Emily starts to discover what that is and finds out more about her new friend.

A very relevant book in the MeToo era, this is a story of abuse and power, and also of female friendships and how they can often become toxic. It's incredibly thought-provoking and made me consider how much women's behaviour, both conscious and subconscious, is dictated by men. It chimed in with some of the reports we have been hearing in the news over the last couple of years.

This is not a particularly long book at just over 300 pages but it packs a punch. Despite the difficult subject matter I found it easy to read and I raced through it. It's a slice of life story, a snapshot of a particular time in Emily's life. I didn't always like her very much and found her quite selfish, contrary and easily influenced, but she made for a fascinating character to read about.

There's a moral dilemma to be found between the pages, I suppose one of whether we see abuse of women as something that is personal to each one or affecting us all, whether or not we have personal experience of it. Either way, it illustrates the battle a woman has ahead of her in proving it.

I loved Keeper, Jessica Moor's first novel, and Young Women is an excellent follow up. Whilst the stories themselves are quite different, the underlying message is not and I look forward to Moor's third book in the hope that it is equally as insightful and relevant.… (más)