With all that being said, there are some truly harrowing and very realistic descriptions of addiction throughout. Though I recognized that he was wrestling with a number of issues and has the common self-centredness of the young, I grew annoyed with him as a character and how he refuses any opportunities to positively change his situation.

Between that, an ending that feels shoved in and some heavy-handed metaphors, the book just fell a bit flat for me. A coming of age novel for people who like or came of age themselves deeply into music, The Arena of the Unwell spirals the reader into not only sticky floors and spilt pints, but a hard-to-put-down toxic relationship amidst the realities of NHS cuts for mental health services. An manchen Stellen echt SEHR detailliert (TW Selbstverletzung, musste echt einmal das Buch wegpacken…) super toxisches Geschehen im Buch aber ein passendes Ende gefunden. The long-awaited second instalment in Samantha Shannon's Sunday Times and New York Times-bestselling series Tunuva Melim is a sister of the Priory.

Nevada by Imogen Binnie – I’m counting the UK publication this year as making it released in 2022, though clearly it’s not from 2022. Konemann captures that intensity brilliantly; at times I felt like I was still peeling the grime of last night’s gig off my skin. Throughout the course of the story, Konemann presents his readers with an uncompromising interrogation of the contradicting and often obscure nature of love and desire. I was surprised not to appreciate this novel after having read (and loved) the novel “Love in the Big City” because the protagonist of that book is somewhat similar to Noah. For fifty years, she has trained to slay wyrms - but none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation.

Konemann renders with heart-wrenching lucidity Noah’s vulnerabilities, his yearning to fit in, to be loved and to belong. Instead, the story seems structured in a way where the fault lies entirely with the two men who draw them into their twisted (and frankly baffling) co-dependency. As well as a lot of new and upcoming books, many of which did not make the cut for these lists, I read a lot of horror (including a month of it in October) and plenty of poetry.You know, when things are a bit over-explained and the author shows too much of themselves and their personality instead of the characters’.

His alcohol and drug consumption lends a murky quality to many portions of his narration and further adds to the gritty atmosphere of the story. I loved this book so much and felt so bereft when it was over that the day after I finished it I went back and started it again. There’s a basement flat that appears very briefly which is almost an exact copy of one I lived in several years ago.Queerness is just part of the novel, and that feels refreshing and not something I've seen in this kind of genre (though, admittedly, I'm not sure what kind of genre it is—music scene novel? They never really let Noah in, keeping him in the dark about the true nature of their relationship, nor are they honest about their intentions with him, hell, sometimes they do not even consider him at all. The offhand comments and jokes (like Mairead’s girlfriend and Noah’s coworker Jenny having been an emo) really build up a picture, and one that makes you both want to be at a gig and really not, seeing as Noah isn’t exactly using music in a healthy way a lot of the time. An all too abrupt ending for characters and relationships that, in my opinion, had so much more to give.