Title: The Shelf
Author: Helly Acton
Narrator: Daisy Edgar-Jones
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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All the stars for this amazing book! I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook, and Daisy Edgar-Jones’ narration was sooo amazing! The audiobook also had these great sound effects that were really immersive. Helly Acton, the author, did an awesome job with this book, and I’m almost sad I waited so long to listen to this one, as it was in my library for weeks. It was worth every second of the listen.
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The story focused on Amy Wright (the main character) and *spoiler* other women, who were dumped by their partners on a TV show. It’s the first season of the first-of-its-kind reality TV show, in the vein of the world famous Big Brother. We get to see horrible boyfriends, husbands, and exes as displayed by the behaviors of the contestants’ exes.
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The theme of feminism is really heavy and highlighted all over the book, and the character development is on another level. We get to see the women grow out of the old ideas of relationships and how they should be. They’re given a bunch of challenges with really anti-feminist and regressive themes throughout the show, and the ridiculousness of these challenges and lectures serve to highlight the feminist theme of the book.
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Helly’s writing really served to demolish a lot of misogynistic tropes, such as “letting yourself go in a relationship”, “fixing your attitude to appear more desirable”, and “being a natural mother/ having maternal instincts”. I really loved the strong and quality female friendships cultivated among the housemates, and how the women learnt to reclaim themselves. She also brought irony and absurdity of the things men want in a relationship.
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One of my favorite contestants was Jackie, and I loved how she never subscribed to any of the things society and the fans of the show want her to subscribe to. I loved her arc in the book and her journey on the show. As a result of the immense character development, there were so many different emotions I felt towards each contestant on the show.
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There were sad moments, happy moments, feelings of pity, anger, and shock. There were so many curveballs in the show.
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I really loved every single part of this book.
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Blurb
Amy Wright thinks her boyfriend is surprising her with a dream holiday to pop the big question – they’ve been together for two years now so surely it must be about time? But the dream turns into a nightmare when she removes her blindfold and finds herself on the set of The Shelf, a Big Brother-style style reality television show.
Along with five other women, Amy is dumped live on TV in front of a studio audience and millions of viewers watching from home.
The women must compete in a series of humiliating and obnoxious tasks in the hope of being crowned The Keeper.
Amy initially stays on The Shelf with the million-pound prize in mind. But, empowered by the women around her, and with a month to think about what she really wants (without constantly comparing herself to everyone else’s filtered online lives), she might come away with an even bigger reward.
This fun, relatable, honest and satirical look at society’s obsession with settling down, coupling up, having the courage to be enough on your own will strike a chord with anyone who’s been asked ‘why are you still single?’.
Oyinda Loves Books 