Friday Friyay: 'Assembly' by Natasha Brown

Happy Friday! Remember when I was complaining about the hot weather last week? Well, the weather has taken a major turn! We've had some super-intense thunder and rain lately and I'm loving it. Although the drop in temperature was a little intense (I suddenly needed a coat!), I seriously can't complain. And the semester is officially over, so today I'm treating myself to a massage. Selfcare for the win! I'm also planning on lazing about and reading this week. One book I'm hoping to finally read is Assembly by Natasha Brown.

Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Step out into a world of Go Home vans. Go to Oxbridge, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy a flat. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going.

The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend's family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can't escape the question: is it time to take it all apart?

Assembly is a story about the stories we live within - those of race and class, safety and freedom, winners and losers. And it is about one woman daring to take control of her own story, even at the cost of her life.

Book Beginnings is at home on Rose City Reader, hosted by Gilion Dumas, and Friday 56 at Freda's Voice, hosted by Freda. I'll also be joining the Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Billy over at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. All quotes are taken from an ARC and may be different in the published
book.

BB:

'Alright

You have to stop this, she said.

Stop what, he said, we're not doing anything. She wanted to correct him. There was no we. There was he the subject and her the object, but he just told her look, there's no point getting worked up over nothing.' 1

Oof I feel like I'm going to feel that deep frustration feeling while reading Assembly. You know that feeling which makes you angry but also just so exhausted and sad. Maybe I need to save this for when I have a glass of wine ready, so I can stare out of a window and sigh.

F56:

'Explain air.

Convince a sceptic. prove it's there. prove what can't be seen.

A breezy brutality cuts you each day - how do you excuse it?' 56

I just loved the way this looked in the book and the way it builds up to that "breezy brutality". Although I haven't started yet I can kind of see what other reviews were talking about when they mentioned how hard-hitting and sharp the book is.

BB:

This week's question came from Billy himself and I accidentally almost answered it last week!

Do you enjoy reading memoirs?

Honestly, no. Or at least, usually no. I find the straightforward memoir often very hard to get through, even if it is about a person I find very interesting. I just don't know how to get through it. But memoirs that play with genre, with writing, that have some kind of concept behind them, those I do enjoy. So for example, In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado was a stunner and I loved it, devoured it, didn't even realise I was reading a memoir. On the other hand, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo is a memoir which didn't entirely work for me. I enjoyed the way she wrote, but weirdly enough, I didn't enjoy getting to know her more as a person. I cant' really explain what it was and I felt weirdly bad about it. It was one of the rare cases where I enjoyed knowing less about an author. Maybe that's why I don't like memoirs, I like for my authors to remain a little bit of a mystery at least.