Everything You Ever Wanted: A Florence Welch Between Two Books Pick

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In this five-part series, US happiness expert and positive psychologist Michelle Gielan and British journalist and author Oliver Burkeman explore ways to become truly happier, backed up by scientific evidence. In the opening pages of Luiza Sauma’s second novel, Iris Cohen reflects on the choice she made to abandon Earth and its soulless grind for life in another solar system. The narrative is not written from a first person perspective, but it is contained to Iris' view directly and often comments on her internal thoughts and feelings.

Sauma is brilliant at nailing the details of contemporary life in a way that is recognisable to anyone who has suffered the mundanity of office jobs. I've never read any of the PRETTY LITTLE LIARS series, but when I saw this Sara Shepard novel, intended for adult audiences, I was definitely intrigued -- even when the description on the back sounded a little less than enticing, I admit. The question is, if the story of EYEW was real, how many people would jump at the chance to leave their families and friends behind and start afresh in this way? As the community falls apart, the food runs out and the positive points of the place slowly fade away so finally Iris decides to leave.The modern discourse between generations can be summed up by pitting a baby-boomer who’s screeching, “Millennials are killing everything! Her adopted son Scott may have been involved in a hazing scandal --and it may or may not have led to the death of one of the boys he coaches on the school team. She has presented a sci-fi premise that is at once reminiscent of Bioshock or Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s The Long Earth but also wholly and refreshingly original, to the point of feeling energetic even in the face of depression and palpable existential dread.

One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here. The story was decent, but the ending wrapped up way to quickly for how the rest of the story dragged out.