Big History in a Small Book | Small Things Like These Book Review | Booker 2022 Shortlist

This week I will be reviewing a book from the 2022 shortlist every day! Then on the last day I will be ranking all of the longlisted and shortlisted books and providing my winner prediction! This will lead us right into the day of the announcement of the winner.
📚Review Week Schedule📚
Monday: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Tuesday: Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
Wednesday: Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
Thursday: The Trees by Percival Everett
Friday: Glory by NoViolet Bulawayu
Saturday: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
Sunday: Ranking all Longlisted Books and Winner Prediction
⌚Timestamps⌚
0:00 - Intro
1:48 - Synopsis
2:22 - Magdalene Laundries
5:54 - Morality
7:31 - Bystander Effect
9:12 - Overall Thoughts
🌠Book Wishlist🌠
www.amazon.com...
🎵Music🎵
All That from Bensound.com
Instagram: @freshlyreadbooks
Twitter: @FreshlyBooks
Email: [e-mail]

[@abhisekpal2315]

Love how you did your post-reading research and processing. Wonderful review.

[@luatkeswick]

You might be interested in Philomena by Martin Sixsmith. It's also a film, with Judy Dench

[@SavidgeReads]

I totally agree this book could be longer. For me it’s brevity was kind of it’s downfall. I couldn’t get emotionally attached and I think the background is really lacking, I don’t need everything explained but I do need to feel invested. And I didn’t. Though I think I’m very much in the minority.

[@FreshlyReadBooks]

Completely agree! I felt like by the end she had something going and then it was over 🙈 but yeah, the setting was almost nothing to me and I don't think I would have remembered that it was even winter if the synopsis didn't say it was in the days before Christmas lol

[@CGyog]

I love this book, & it has made me want to read everything else Claire Keegan has written. It was the ultimate show, not tell story, with a wonderful sense of time and place, and there is very little I would have changed about it.

[@FreshlyReadBooks]

I'm glad you enjoyed it so much!

[@ianp9086]

I really liked the book and loved the writing. I just feel that the Booker is about something more than a fairly straightforward tale of 100 pages!

[@starstuffpuff]

This little book had such a huge emotional impact on me, I loved it!

[@carlydonoghue2279]

so helpful for my Leaving Cert thank u

[@kseniyasbooknook4172]

I loved reading this little book last week and thought it had so much going for it: great writing, interesting historical background, setting, etc. But I felt like I got a book that stopped at the climax with no resolution... I really wanted to see how the main character would grow and change as a result of this choice- would he be able to stay on good terms with his family, his village, his own consciousness, with no regrets?

[@FreshlyReadBooks]

I agree! I like open ended endings, but not in such a small book! There was so much more that could have been explored

[@dylanwolf]

Have you heard Joni Mitchell's song, "The Magdelene Laundries"?
Great review of a superb novella. But...... arrrrgghhhhh..... "off of"!? "Off of" is both wrong and extremely ugly. I know in America people say "based off" rather than "based on" and that's weird, but OK. However the preposition is just "off" not "off of"; "of" is an entirely different word with an entirely different meaning. I suspect this has evolved from Americans saying "offa". Do you ever use "from"? e.g. 'This book is taken from the Booker shortlist' or 'I took the book from the table'?

[@thebobsphere7553]

Great review: have you watched the film The Magdalene Sisters (2002)?

[@FreshlyReadBooks]

I haven't! I'll definitely look it up though!