✦ Somebody loves you

✦ Book Title: Somebody loves you

       ✦ Author: Mona Arshi 

       ✦ Genres: fiction, audiobook  

       ✦ Publisher: And Other Stories

       ✦ Publication Date: November 16th 2021

BUY THE BOOK HERE – AMAZON | BOOK DEPOSITORY |

☼SYNOPSIS

Ruby gives up talking at a young age. Her mother isn’t always there to notice; she comes and goes and goes and comes, until, one day, she doesn’t. Silence becomes Ruby’s refuge, sheltering her from the weather of her mother’s mental illness and a pressurized suburban atmosphere.

Plangent, deft, and sparkling with wry humour, Somebody Loves You is a moving exploration of how we choose or refuse to tell the stories that shape us

☾REVIEW

★★★

Rating: 3 out of 5.

This was a book very different form what I am used to as a reader, and I have to say that It felt really nice to change it up. I am not used to non/fiction, for some reason I really never resignate with the stories, but this one made me feel like I was in our main character’s shoes.

It is quite a heartwarming story in which we are inside of this girl’s head as she takes us along her journey. 

The audiobook was exceptional, the narrator made me feel like I was in the story and not outside from it. It was sad and harsh at times so it really got to me.

Even tho this was a good one, I do feel like it would not be for everyone. The pacing did felt slow at times and like we were stuck in time a bit. That is one of the reasons why I wasn’t able to give it a higher rating. However, the writing was so beautifully done that made me just keep listening.

Overall it was a great read to disconnect and live through someone else’s eyes! 

✦ ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WEBSITE | TWITTER |GOODREADS

Mona Arshi worked as a Human rights lawyer at Liberty before she started writing poetry. Her debut collection Small Hands won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2015. Mona’s second collection ‘Dear Big Gods’ was published in 2019 (both books published by Liverpool University Press’s Pavilion Poetry list). She has taught and mentored extensively including the Arvon/Jerwood mentorship Programme and the Rebecca Swift Women’s Poetry Prize. Mona has judged both the Forward and TS Eliot prizes as well as the National Poetry Competition . She makes regular appearances on radio and has been commissioned to write both poems and short stories. Her poems and interviews have been published in The Times, The Guardian, Granta and The Times of India as well as on the London Underground. She is currently writer in Residence at Cley Marshes with the Norfolk Wildlife Trust. Her debut novel Somebody Loves You will be published with And Other Stories in Autumn 2021. She has recently been appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Liverpool. Mona is currently editing a book of black and Asian poetry ‘Nature Matters’ with Karen McCarthy Woolf which will be published in Spring 2022 by Faber books.