Four – by Veronica Roth

14 07 2025

So while the Divergent books were technically a trilogy, the author wrote a fourth book, giving a bit of backstory to the male lead (called Four), since the first two books of the trilogy were told purely from Tris’ perspective. It’s told as four short stories, and three mini chapters, though the short stories flow fairly well chronologically anyway. That said, I wouldn’t suggest reading this if you haven’t read the trilogy first, as there’s definitely some assumed knowledge! (And don’t think the films will be enough, I watched them recently and the plot seemed to veer right away from the books!)

I enjoyed the stories that were set before the trilogy starts, but once it got to those that overlap, I just felt like I was reading something I’d already read, I didn’t feel like his perspective added a tonne to it. If you’ve read the trilogy it’s worth a quick read through, but I wouldn’t rave about it.

One line though that I thought was worth sharing: “Dead people can be our heroes because they can’t disappoint us later; they only improve over time, as we forget more and more about them.”


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Internet highlights – w/c 6th July 2025

12 07 2025
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Unashamed – by Harry Baker

7 07 2025

Less than a month after reading his third book, I’ve now read his second (also, his first is on order and fourth is on pre-order!). I was privileged to see Harry perform live last week, and so got this book then! The poems take on another dimension when performed, but it’s still great to be able to have copies of them to be able to pick up and read any time.

This time the maths and German themes felt even more prominent, as well as chat about marathons and his mum. There’s a poem that runs through the book with a stanza between each other poem, taking you through the maths of a marathon!

Again, it’s crazy hard to narrow it down to a few favourites, but I loved “Falafellöffel” (translation: falafel spoon), “Knees” (how great his are), “Toilet Seat” (the joy of a new one), “An A-Z of Time and Space” (what it says on the tin) and “Christmas Through the Ages” (a look back on the first 24 Christmasses of his life)! Even his chat between the poems, introducing them was really fun and warm too, and gave you a good feel for what he’s probably like.

This book also introduced me to the concept of a Dougie Day (and the excellent young man who inspired it), but I was devastated to find I’d missed mine!


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Internet highlights – f/c 22nd June 2025

5 07 2025
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We Solve Murders – by Richard Osman

5 07 2025

I really enjoy the Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman, so when he wrote a book that wasn’t in that series, I was interested to see if it was as good – and I do think it was!

So the basic premise is that Amy is a close protection officer, currently looking after a world famous author Rosie on her private island, and Amy’s father-in-law Steve is a retired cop, living in the New Forest. But then various people who are trying to get other people killed get involved, there are influencers, money smugglers, all sorts of things.

And I think this is the only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars (I would have given it 4.5 if that was an option on goodreads) – there are a lot of fringe/secondary characters, and I don’t know if it was that they weren’t given enough intro to bed them into my brain, or if there were just one or two too many of them, but I did have to keep trying to remember who some of them were during the first half, and one of them even later on I was still struggling to place. But I don’t want to be too negative, that really was the only negative for me.

I think Richard Osman’s greatest strength is his characters, and their little eccentricities which really endear them to you. I particularly loved Steve and Rosie this time around, I related to Steve a lot in his desire to potter about somewhere he knows – and Rosie was just so extreme and extravagant in so many ways! The contrast between them was a lot of fun.

What was also enjoyable for me were the bits set in the New Forest, I grew up just outside the national park, and so it was fun to hear references to different places I knew!

As I often do, here are some of my favourite one liners

  • “Jeff looks over at Tony, ‘No offence.’
    ‘I never take offence,’ says Tony. ‘Saved me a lot of time over the years.'”
  • “Trouble [the cat] never stopped to ask [what flavour his dinner was]; he just loved food that he hadn’t had to catch or scavenge for himself.”
  • “What unfortunate timing. If she’d known she was going to die this morning, she would have ordered the pancakes.”
  • “‘And how did she score on your psychopath test?’
    ‘Ninety-six, same as me. That’s why she’s Head of HR'”

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Allegiant – by Veronica Roth

21 06 2025

This finishes the initial trilogy – there’s a separate fourth book that ties in, which I’ll get to at some point.

I was less keen on this when it started, as while the first two books are told from the perspective of the female protagonist, this one alternates between her and the male protagonist as the narrator, which was quite off putting initially, took a lot of concentration and flicking back to check who was talking to begin with.

In this book we go outside the city that’s been the setting for the first two, and there are shocking revelations about the origin of the city that’s been their home. There’s an awful lot going on with plot, which occasionally got a little confusing, but generally just kept attention, with the second half of the book being really gripping.

The only thing that annoyed me a bit about it was the relationship between the 2 main characters in that so many times it seemed if one of them was upset, it would just be resolved with a passionate kiss – there was a lot about the impact of the kissing, it was a bit grating after a while.

But it’s a trilogy I’ve enjoyed, and I’ll read Four at some point, which, I think, is a series of stories from our male lead’s perspective.

I watched the first 2 films as I reread, but having finished this, it seems the films have now disappeared from iPlayer, which is a shame. Plus this book was meant to be split into two films, but they never made the second, so it’d be left open anyway!


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Internet highlights – w/c 15th June 2025

21 06 2025
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Internet highlights – w/c 8th June 2025

14 06 2025
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The Correct Order of Biscuits – by Adam Sharp

11 06 2025

I have zero recollection where I discovered this book, I’d have guessed it was on twitter, but I realised yesterday that I wasn’t even following the author, so who knows, but either way, a book of lists can only be a good thing!

I don’t think this was quite everything it could have been, some of the lists got a bit same-y (eg. there were a lot of lists of literal translations of idioms from other languages), but not in a way that stopped it being enjoyable.

A few lists got confusing where they definitely started as lists of things that were real, but then some were clearly made up, but it wasn’t abundantly clear when that changed. I think when I see a list, I like it to be all real or all made up, but not a mixture.

Anyway, overall it was good fun, and here is a list of some of my favourite lists:

  • A list of unnecessary, needless, and gratuitous tautologies
    • eg. “Nodded her head (what else would she nod?)” and “Past experience”
  • A list of contemporary curses for your worst enemy
    • eg. “May you forever put your USB in upside down” and “May all your snacks be really healthy”
  • A list of fun alternatives for existing words
    • eg. “Food library (fridge)” and “Milk racist (lactose intolerant)”
  • A list of proposed to meanings for existing words
    • eg. “The word flattery should mean flat battery in a car (because it gets you nowhere)”
  • A list of the worst types of list
    • Most of these were things like “click bait lists”, and “to-do lists”, but also, “colonialists”
  • A bonus list of the single best title for a research paper ever
    • “In March 2006 Professor Daniel M. Oppenheimer published a paper that argued writers seem more intelligent when using simple words than fancy ones. His paper was titled ‘Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity'”

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Wonderful – by Harry Baker

9 06 2025

I’ve loved Harry Baker’s stuff on socials for a long time, and really wanted to get one of his books. My brother kindly got me this for my birthday, and I read it in 2 days.

Harry’s interests are based around maths, dinosaurs and German, but he’s also a Christian – while not a perfect overlap, it’s pretty close all things considered!

Now, this IS a poetry book, and as a general rule, I am NOT into poetry. I hated studying it at school, and often find it’s just a bit too fancy. But when I do like it, is when it’s fun, and a lot of these are! A handful are more meaningful, but still in his style and so not too much for me to handle, and I really appreciated them too.

I would say my favourites from this book were: “20 Achievable New Year’s Resolutions”, “An Ode to Postcodes”, “Things I Learnt from Interrailling”, and “Trying”, but I loved nearly all of them, and really had to try hard to not list over half the book in picking favourites!

Big fun, big feelings, loved it. Can’t wait to get his other books.


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