The One That Got Away by Melissa Pimentel
Penguin
Paperback, 352 pages
Read time: 2 hours
Verdict: 7/10

Disclaimer: I received an ARC from Penguin Michael Joseph in exchange for an honest review!

For me, reading chic-lits are the ultimate escapism. Yes they may all lean towards a formulaic nature and a happy ending, but that really is all I crave when the nights start drawing in and my hot chocolate supply coincidentally triples. The One That Got Away by Melissa Pimentel provided me with cosy entertainment and a wonderful escape from the norm.

I read the whole book in a matter of hours - two to be exact which is something quite unusual for me. It normally takes me at least a day of flitting too and from a book deliberating as to whether I can fully get behind the characters. But Ruby was #relatable from the start, shes a normal girl, who much like me is very career driven and goal orientated. She's rarely in a relationship due to her fast paced lifestyle, and has an insatiable love of English castles. Ruby is pretty much a carbon copy of me.

Because I'm terrible at explaining plots, here's the synopsis:

Ruby and Ethan were perfect for each other. Until the day they suddenly weren't.
Ten years later, Ruby's single, having spent the last decade focusing on her demanding career and hectic life in Manhattan. There's barely time for a trip to England for her little sister's wedding. And there's certainly not time to think about seeing Ethan there for the first time in years.
But as the family frantically prepare for the big day, Ruby can't help but wonder if she made the right choice all those years ago? Because there's nothing like a wedding for stirring up the past . . .

A quick, light, and colourful read - you really cannot go wrong with Pimentel's latest offering.

I did not know much about George Orwell, but what I did assume about him, I assumed incorrectly. Being the well known writer of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, I thought he would have lived a comfortable life as an author. But I couldn't have been further from the truth! Down and Out in Paris and London is in fact his memoir of his time living through poverty in London and Paris in the 1930s.

Orwell's account of his own poverty, in itself, is not one of tragedy or desperation. Yes, he lives on little to no money from one day to the next, and is in near constant search for employment, but he is only troubled by poverty for a matter of months. At most a year (the timescale is a bit uncertain). However, during his time in Paris and London, he learns a lot about what it was really like to be poor, and casts his own views about why poverty happens and how the burden can be lightened.

Being a history student, I feel like I have a firm grasp upon what life was like at particular points in time. But I had no idea of the scale of poverty in Europe during the 1930s. It was quite frankly shocking. It is clear that the government and the majority of the population had no real desire to ease poverty; the measures they put in place to do this were wholly inadequate and degrading in nearly all cases. Accommodating tramps in prison like cell blocks overnight, and landlords charging eight-pence for a small coffin bed in a cramped, dirty, loud and crowded conditions seemed like the appropriate response to these dire circumstances.

Drawing from his own experience, Orwell suggests his own set of social reforms that could
potentially ease the burden on the poor. From a socialist perspective he argues for self sufficient farms to replace tramp 'workhouses' and better conditions in overnight rooms. Both such simple and easily implementable ideas if it weren't for the ignorance of the government.

This should be on the top of the reading list for anyone who wants to discover the real history of the 1930's. Whilst great changes were taking place, it is important to remember that not everyone enjoyed the inter-war period.