Review by Finola McLean of "Turtles All the Way Down" by John Green

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, at the start, presents itself as a typical teen mystery novel. By the end, it is perhaps anything but. After being motivated by her best friend Daisy, Aza is persuaded to start looking for a local missing billionaire, who happens to be the father of her old childhood friend, Davis Pickett, with whom she later develops a romantic connection. The story slowly evolves into a coming-of-age tale full of developing relationships, friendship struggles and emotional moments.

This book is incredibly well written and incredibly compelling. One of biggest complaints about this book is that "there is no plot"; however I think this actually works really well in the context of the narrative. The story does not have a clear climax or resolution but rather meanders and suddenly spikes and then continues, just like real life. It makes the book feel incredibly true and relatable to our own experiences (despite never hunting down a billionaire myself) and makes the characters feel very vivid and relatable for the intended audience. Worries about homework, upcoming college applications and money, permeating the story also add to this effect. I do enjoy that there is a satisfying conclusion to both the beginning mystery and the relationships that surround the protagonist, despite the atypical format of the rest of the book. I also like the insistence at the end of the book that, despite this chapter being over, there is truly no perfect ending and that life indeed just goes on with both the highs and the lows.

Still, in my opinion, the reason this book works so well is because of its characters and how their relationships evolve over the course of the story. Aza, the point-of-view character, is compelling and interesting, not because of any special characteristic but because of her normalcy and relatability while still being her own character with personality traits and flaws. She has both great  insight and great inexperience. This can especially be seen with her relationship to best friend Daisy which is a highlight of the book for me. The way they argue, without a clear correct view point, and the way they then make up again despite their differences is incredibly heartwarming and thought out extremely well.

One of the biggest talking points talking points about the novel is the depiction of the main character's mental illness, specifically obsessive compulsive disorder. This was probably the part of the novel I enjoyed the most. It is brilliantly executed. Because of the first person point of view, you are put into Aza’s mind and get a real sense of the torment that she faces everyday. And because of that she is incredibly humanised even in moments that would appear nonsensical to an outside observer.

All in all, this is a really great book that I would certainly recommend.

About the reviewer

Finola McLean is a sixth-form student currently studying History, Classical Civilisations and Latin at A-Level. She has a great passion for books and reading especially while sitting next to her cat. 

Review by Miranda Taylor of "Across the Universe: The Magic and Mystery of the Beatles' Creativity" by Steve Taylor

In Across the Universe: The Magic of the Beatles' Creativity, Steve Taylor accepts part of the Beatles' story: four working-class Liverpudlians who represented a nascent democratic collective consciousness - especially at the Beatles' creative zenith. But Taylor also argues that this interpretation flattens the Beatles' creativity as a group into a monolith and, in turn, homogenises their individual forms of creativity. Taylor analyses the band through a more revisionist lens in terms of their creativity and spirituality. The book begins with John and Paul's almost uncanny synchronicity at their first meeting at the St. Peter's Church fete in Woolton; it then follows a broadly chronological account of the band's chemistry, and how that managed to transform the Fab Four into embodiments of the 60s zeitgeist.

Taylor manages to distinguish the Beatles from other cultural staples of the 60s through the assessment of their creativity. Over twelve chapters, Taylor explores the unique circumstances that led to their creative success. He highlights the importance of Carl Jung's synchronicity, and, by following the Beatles chronologically, he is able to turn their narrative into a study of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. 

Through this, he persuasively frames their creative and spiritual development as simultaneously a movement toward self-actualisation and a rise to creative prominence. He describes the Beatles reaching the fifth, and highest level, of self-actualisation, a group dynamic that feels a need to evolve or progress; a group that fundamentally wants to grow intellectually, creatively, and spiritually. Self-actualisers have intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation; their motivation is fulfilled entirely from the self, rather than prestige or popularity. The Beatles' commercial success was, in this reading, a by-product, rather than the ultimate goal. Taylor insists that self-actualisation is the essential difference between the Beatles and most of their contemporaries. One example he highlights is Gerry and the Pacemakers: in 1964, they were about on the same level as the Beatles, yet by 1967 they had remained static, whilst the zeitgeist had shifted dramatically. The Beatles were able to match the zeitgeist, intuitively and with deft precision.

Personally, I thought that Taylor's emphasis on George Harrison stands out as the clearest of his arguments. Much previous research sidelines Harrison despite him being the member most devoted to the work of spirituality. Harrison continued to stick to a life of spirituality even after the Beatles’ split, and their subsequent, as Taylor puts it, "descent ... like a river split into tributaries then [stopping] and not flowing." Taylor resists the "quiet Beatle" caricature and frames him as integral to the band's creative development, highlighting how during the later Beatles period, Harrison seemed to lose interest in the guitar as his primary instrument. During this era, Taylor notes how Harrison moved towards sitars and organs, evident on "Blue Jay Way" and "It's All Too Much." Without the guitar as his primary mode of expression, Harrison's creativity was audible in the group's projects. Taylor cleverly uses this to show that Harrison's creativity is not a side story to the Lennon-McCartney narrative. Rather, it exists as one that proves to be a distinct route to the group's apex of self-actualisation.

Across the Universe serves less as a conventional biography of the Beatles than a psychological and spiritual revisionist study of the Beatles' creativity. Taylor makes the band's ostensible "magic" and "mystery" less monolithic yet simultaneously more human through his chronological retelling of the band's story. He is able to give familiar material a new angle, even if at points he risks making coincidence do a bit too much explanatory work, only lightly implying the existence of something otherworldly. But for Beatles fans interested in the subject, the book acts as an incredibly thoughtful contribution to a comprehensive study of the Beatles' creativity, offering even the most knowledgeable fans a new orientation of a familiar story. The Beatles' "magic" emerges as the convergence of distinct, synchronised, and sustained group creativity.

 

About the reviewer
Miranda Taylor is studying English Literature and History at University. She loves the music of the Beatles, the Monkees and My Chemical Romance. 

You can read more about Across the Universe by Steve Taylor on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Paul Taylor-McCartney of "The Lady of Atlantis" by Constantine

 

Atlantis is one of those stories so deeply embedded in the imagination that it can be difficult to approach it without the weight of everything that has come before. We think of a lost civilisation, catastrophe, mystery and the irresistible possibility that somewhere beneath the myth there may have been a real place. In The Lady of Atlantis, Constantine takes that familiar legend and brings it back to human scale. 

The novel is inspired by the archaeology of Akrotiri and by what the author describes as his own interpretations of Minoan writings, but its real strength lies in the attempt to imagine what such a world might have felt like from within. Thira is not presented merely as a doomed civilisation waiting to become archaeology. It is a living society, with its own beliefs, customs, relationships, expectations and hierarchies, inhabited by people who naturally assume that their world will continue. 

At its centre is Sa-ra, a young priestess who has always heard voices. Within her culture this gives her a particular spiritual authority, yet the novel is interested in more than the mechanics of prophecy. Sa-ra’s gift is connected to intuition, judgement and an ability to perceive what other people sometimes cannot articulate for themselves. This gives the spiritual dimension of the book an appealing ambiguity. The author does not simply reduce ancient belief to superstition viewed through modern eyes, nor does he demand that everything be understood in straightforwardly supernatural terms. Instead, belief is allowed to exist as part of the fabric of Sa-ra’s world. That, for me, is one of the more interesting aspects of the novel. The prose has a deliberately simple, formal quality which suits Sa-ra’s world and helps maintain a sense of historical distance. There are moments when that register may require a little adjustment, particularly for younger readers, but it also prevents the setting from feeling overly modern. Importantly, it is balanced by humour, warmth and moments of very recognisable human behaviour. 

Historical fiction about the ancient world can sometimes make its characters feel suspiciously contemporary. Here, there is a genuine attempt to imagine a society operating according to different assumptions. The place of women, religious practice, ideas about marriage and social responsibility are not treated simply as curiosities but as ordinary elements of Sa-ra’s experience. At the same time, the emotional concerns remain immediately recognisable. People love, doubt, worry, desire approval and try to understand what their futures might contain. In one early episode, a woman seeks Sa-ra’s guidance over which man she should marry. What matters about the scene is not the prediction itself, but Sa-ra’s understanding that prophecy cannot remove the uncertainty inherent in human relationships. Marriage, she recognises, will always contain both unforeseen hardship and unexpected happiness. It is characteristic of the book’s wider approach: grand ideas are repeatedly brought back to individual lives. 

Of course, that becomes especially significant because the reader knows something the characters do not. The world of Thira is unstable. The mountain is stirring and catastrophe is approaching. Yet life continues around it. People make plans, form relationships and imagine futures. It is this contrast between the enormous scale of what is coming and the ordinary lives being lived beneath it that gives the story much of its poignancy. There is something particularly affecting about treating Atlantis not primarily as a mystery to be solved, but as a home that people believed was permanent.

The novel also raises interesting questions about the relationship between myth and history. Atlantis has accumulated centuries of speculation, reinvention and fantasy. By rooting his version in Thira and Akrotiri, the author imagines the legend as a possible echo of real experience: a prosperous society, a natural catastrophe and memories transformed in their transmission. We tend to encounter ancient civilisations after their stories have ended. We know which cities disappeared, which cultures changed and which disasters came. The people themselves possessed none of that hindsight. They experienced their lives forwards, surrounded by all the uncertainty, hope and expectation with which we experience our own. The Lady of Atlantis understands that distinction. Its most affecting idea is therefore also its simplest: before Atlantis became legend, it was somebody’s present. And Sa-ra’s world matters not because we know it will be lost, but because to her – and to everyone around her – it is still entirely alive.

About the reviewer
Paul Taylor-McCartney is a writer, researcher and lecturer. His interests include dystopian literature, queer studies, YA fiction and initial teacher education. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in a wide range of print and electronic media, and fiction titles he recently worked on as commissioning editor have won regional readers’ and publishers’ awards. His debut novel, Sisters of the Pentacle, was published by Hermitage Press in 2022, and his first non-fiction title, Cornwall Uncharted: Mapping Cornwall’s Queer History of Concealment, Culture and Creativity, was published by The History Press (June 2026).

You can read more about The Lady of Atlantis by Constantine on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by Pam Thompson of "Skinship" by Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana

 

Skinship is Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s second collection after Sing me down from the dark (Salt, 2022) and is both a development and continuation from the previous collection. Corrin-Tachibana lived in Japan for ten years, experienced two marriages and the challenges of coming to terms with cultural expectations, not least judgements by in-laws, and indeed her own mother.

Skinship (its meaning in Japanese, "skin-to-skin contact") sees the narrator returning to Japan after a fifteen-year absence. Candid personal narratives are delivered via a variety of forms, predominantly variations on the zuihitsu and haibun. 

A zuihitsu draws together loosely-connected fragments of different types of writing. It allows narrator and reader to travel through time and place and to grasp several understandings about an overarching subject. Take the opening poem, "Skinship: a zuihitsu," which flickers through various memories around the birth of the narrator’s son, "Our son was born in Kalamazoo Hospital," and signals aggressions she meets along the way: the nurse who seized her nipple and "shoved it" in the newborn’s mouth; the mother-in-law who insists she eats an omelette which makes her sick, the increasingly ominous significance of a song, "I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo! Recorded in 1942 by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra." 

The Forward-prize shortlisted" ‘Madame Gout: a zuihitsu" draws its title from the writings of Benjamin Franklin in his dialogue with the Gout:

                                                                       Madame Gout. You know my 
          sedentary state and on that account, it would seem, Madame Gout,
          as if you might spare me a little, seeing it is not altogether my fault.

The rest of the poem is diverting and entertaining, beginning with accounts of the rich food the poet has eaten leading to the "foot twitch" on the train journey when she is talking to the "tattooed Norwegian." As we learn about famous gout sufferers, for instance, and the word’s derivation, "from the Latin gutta, a drop of liquid," we also sense the poet’s frustration at her husband’s repeated statement that "gout is common in Japan." The final couplet stings and conveys much about the relationship: "Your husband asks how is your foot? For the umpteenth time. / He is happy you are in the house when he returns from golf."

A haibun combines a section or sections of prose with one or more haiku. Traditionally the prose sets a scene, perhaps describes a journey while the haiku provides an oblique commentary or reflection on the prose. There are harsh times certainly but "Haibun from East Lothian," with its precise details of landscape, of plants and birds and joy with a lover, temporarily blots out other concerns even as the haiku hints at warning:

                                                                The spiky cockle I carry back
          from the bay, held sideways, is a pair of birds nestling their
          heads. Upside down it is erotic. And for a few days, in a
          whitewashed cottage, I do not think of your spoilt daughter
          … my teenage son … or of the stranger husband, in the spare room.

above marram grass

quartering short-eared owls

pursued by corvids

A "burning haibun" usually has a darker intent. In at least three sections, an act of erasure is performed on the initial prose which is then reduced to a haiku. "Fishbones: A Burning Haibun" gives insight into the narrator’s fraught relationship with her mother. She was "Rarely praised" and "there were plenty of stories about the trauma of having me." The poet "yearned, even as an adult, to hold her attention." The prose section ends with "She hates me cooking Dad fish. Throws open the lounge windows. Has no patience. For fishbones." The haiku which emerges from the erasure encapsulates chillingly what the broader narrative has conveyed:

I diluted her –
she spat words,
fishbones

The inclusion of the Japanese language, its phrases and characters, adds an extra visual and aural dimension. The different layouts of the poems are a visual treat too as is their attention to the nuances of social behaviour. I admired the shifts in tone, the balancing of heartbreak with resilience and sardonic humour and the narrator’s no-holds-barred approach to her material. There are so many more threads and features to be explored (e.g. music, literature, art – for instance the sharply poignant poems written in response to Yoko Ono’s Music of the Mind exhibition at Tate Modern) in this rich and inventive collection.

 

About the reviewer
Pam Thompson is a writer, educator and reviewer based in Leicester. Her latest pamphlet is Sub/urban Legends (2025, Paper Swans Press). She is a Hawthornden Fellow.

You can read more about Skinship by Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana on Creative Writing at Leicester here.