There Are More Things

by Yara Rodrigues Fowler

Born to a well-known political family in Olinda, Brazil, Catarina grows up in the shadow of her dead aunt, Laura. Melissa, a South London native, is brought up by her mum and a crew of rebellious grandmothers.

In January 2016, Melissa and Catarina meet for the first time, and, as political turmoil unfolds across Brazil and the UK, their friendship takes flight. Their story takes us across continents and generations - from the election of Lula to the London riots to the darkest years of Brazil's military dictatorship.

The novel builds on the unique voice of Yara's debut to create a sweeping novel about history, revolution and love. In it we see sisterhood and queerness, and, perhaps, glimpse a better way to live.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Lesbian, LGBT, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Brazil

464 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2022

About the author

Yara Rodrigues Fowler is a British-Brazilian novelist who grew up in South London. Her first novel Stubborn Archivist was published in the UK in February 2019 (Fleet, Little Brown) and July 2019 (HMH). Yara was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2019, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and named one of The Observer’s ‘hottest-tipped’ debut novelists of 2019. She was recently longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2020. Yara’s a trustee of Latin American Women’s Aid, an organisation that runs the only two refuges in Europe for and by Latin American women. Her writing and essays have appeared in Vogue, LitHub, Electric Literature, The Guardian, BBC Brasil, Skin Deep, Litro, and other publications.

Reviews

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author was recently selected for the decennial Granta Best of Young British Novelists list (2023 edition).

This novel was shortlisted for the 2022 Goldsmith’s Prize and 2022 Orwell Prize.

Na praia, na beira do mar, sentada na arcia

Ela disse assim

Aqui, com você, é como se não tivesse ditadura

Como se não existisse e nunca tivesse existido ditadura, nemdos, nem conquistador, nem explorador, nema minas, nem corporaçãoes mineiras, nem imperialistas, nem espies estadunidenses, nem portugueses, nem língua portuguesa, nem Portugal, nem Brasil, nem branco, nem escravidão, nem casa grande, nem senzala, nem varíola, nem rei, nem princesa ou imperador

What will our daughters say of us?

I read this book due to its shortlisting for the 2022 Orwell Prize for political fiction.

This is the author’s second novel after the intriguing debut novel 2019 “Stubborn Archivist” which as well as various book prize recognitions (Dylan Thomas longlist, Desmond Elliott shortlist, Observer Debut Novelists feature, Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year shortlist) also contributed to her recognition by the FT as one of the “planet’s 30 most exciting young people” across art, books, music, tech and politics – the political angle also recognising her activism and her involvement in boosting the youth vote in the 2017 General Election via the use of a bot on Tinder which encouraged voter registration and tactical anti-Conservative voting.

(For a different take on the ethics of the latter – see https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tinde...)

The author’s first book had a distinct style – one that was on one level experimental but in a way which was far less conscious and more natural than much experimental literary fiction. Non-chronological, copious blank space, a mix of first/second/third person, of different points of view, of conventional prose and fragmentary prose poetry, and perhaps most distinctly in the way the text switched in a natural flowing way from English to occasional and typically untranslated Portugese. It was also a book which aimed at lightness and avoiding the “oppresive weight of the [linear. Realist] British novel” but where I felt the lightness, and the sense of a debut novel searching for a narrative voice was perhaps a weakness.

This book I believe has exactly what one looks for (but so often does not find) in a second novel – something which retains the distinctiveness and strengths of the author’s debut novel (perhaps a little less switch of person, and a more obvious chronological signposting but with more developed use of Portuguese) but adds a greater conviction of touch and a weightier and more purposeful story to make for a really strong and accomplished read.

A quick glance at the author’s Twitter account shows her continued political activism – across a wide variety of progressive causes – and her belief in direct action and yearning for meaningful revolution over incremental, democratic change. That activism and belief has translated into her aims for this novel as captured in a recent Guardian profile (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...)

I wasn’t worried about writing a political novel – every novel is political – but I was asking myself how I could really agitate the reader. I heard a podcast with Sebastian Faulks talking about this fan letter he got from a woman who said: “I read Birdsong and the sex scenes made me realise I’d never known true love or sexual pleasure and so I left my husband of 20 years.” He was like, whoa. It made me wonder what it would be like if you wrote a piece of fiction that made people feel so full of revolutionary possibility and desire that they want to take to the streets, not necessarily for what might be achieved in their own lifetime, but for generations to come.

At the heart of the book are Catarina and Melissa – who become flat mates and close friends in Mile End (in East London) in 2016-17. The 2016-17 sections follow their burgeoning friendship and their involvement in a series of activist protests and direct actions in London, against a background of the despair they and their fellow travellers in England and Brazil feel with the Brexit Vote and impeachment of Dilma Rousseff (both in 2016).

Both Melissa and Catarina have Brazilian mothers and links and in two lengthy historical sections each we learn more of their background.

Catarina’s is the most known and the most radical – her grandfather a famous three time (deposed by the military on at least one occasion) state governor and her Auntie Laura (her mother’s elder sister) a radical guerilla subject to imprisonment and torture but who then died in a mysterious car accident post a national amnesty and restoration to her family. She is now studying in England for a PhD but shares at least something of the radicalism of her Aunt – one of the first times we meet her she is disgusted to find Melissa’s boss (who runs a PR agency) built his reputation working for early New Labour (that is of course the only non conservative party to win a UK General Election for almost 50 years) and denounces him as right-wing.

Melissa’s story by contrast effectively starts with her birth – as she knows very little of her mother’s origins in Brazil and nothing of her father (who left shortly after her birth). Instead we read of her upbringing in South London, her raising not just by her mother but by a small collective of stand-in Auntie’s/grandmothers who were her neighbours, her early friendship and then relationship (and then break) with another girl Ruth and her mother’s death. Having studied IT she now works for the PR relationship having been found a job by a close friend Femi who has strong (left wing in the conventional terms, right wing in the book) political ambitions of his own

What perhaps really makes the book is a tour-de-force section set in the Brazilian countryside in 1969-1974 as Laura and a fellow, but younger, revolutionary, flee the City and the attentions of the police for the initial (but false) sanctuary of a forest based Communist guerilla group (much if not all of what they experience based on real life incidents which the author sets out in an impressive Author’s note).

Now I have to be the first to say I did not really agree with the political impetus of the book – I felt my sympathies were more with Mel’s boss (who I am pretty sure is meant to be a sell-out anti-hero). But this Centrist Dog nevertheless found this an impressive read which sets out a cross-generational call for action to build a different world.

PS – small correction: I don’t think Maria and Ana can have seen Pele score against England – Gordon Banks prevented that.

[Steven Edmondson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this book literally seconds before Gary Numan came on stage at the O2 Corn Exchange in Edinburgh. I didn’t read during the support act - which would have been rude and hard on the eyes given the low light settings - but polished it off between acts. A liminal space you could say! Which proved oddly appropriate, thematically, given the way the book operates in the spac.. it’s ok i am just joking!

I liked TAMT a lot. I read an interview with an author a couple years back (i think it was nina mingya powles but may be misremembering) who was asked about their occasional drift, untranslated, into languages other than english in their poems - the response was interesting, along the lines of how, poetically, withholding the translation is a means to create, control and dynamically limit interpretive *space* - as well as being nothing speakers of languages other than english haven’t had to deal with, routinely, when reading.

It was something that came to mind because of how this book uses portuguese - I think because it’s used similarly
to the operation Nina (if it was her!) performs - but also because it uses its languages in this really dynamic way that, if i’ve come across it before, I hadn’t noticed. There are points where it withholds information (from english speakers anyway), dropping text in one language before dropping the translated text a page or two later. It feels, genuinely, like a detonation - so much of the difficulty of making art is in the creation and release of tension - Fowler’s landed on a way to do it effortlessly - like lobbing an emotional grenade. That sometimes we feel the shape of events before we actually understand them.

It’s an enormously practical tool but also a kind of bravura bridge of form and content and ideology. I was impressed as well as moved.

There was stuff I loved here that I’d probably just sound strange if I tried to hang a recommendation on it - It just fully captures living in shit - but at the same time not that shit really - rented accommodation in London in the mid-2010s. No one who didn’t rent a shit-ish room in London during the Cameron era will ever be able to grasp just how fully Yara nailed it.

And I know the exact Waitrose that gets repeatedly referred to here too - though it felt like a missed opportunity to not highlight how weird it is that that one Waitrose swapped out a lot of the Waitrose grocery branding for John Lewis. Makes you feel like you’re having a really low-key hallucination - the John Lewis Canary Wharf Waitrose is underrated as a liminal space. It’s *not* quite a Waitrose - but nor is it a John Lewis.

The author’s note is interesting - asking you to read sections out aloud and to play the music when it plays on page. I wasn’t able to do the former consistently as I was at a Gary Numan concert - and on the latter unfortunately there is no gary numan music in this book - wouldve been an amazing bit of synchronicity if there had been and, objectively, i have to chalk that up as a further missed opportunity.

But I did find the author’s note interesting too, just shifting the axis of the reader/author relationship in a way that felt, i dunno, oddly personal, democratising or something. Can’t put my finger on it but it was good. Also the music part really stood out to me as a very ‘online’ writing practice - a lot of fanfic comes with a playlist - bleeding into more a conventional publishing space. Which I just found really interesting.

I think one last thing - the book weaves its story around some of major news items of the period - acts of police violence, Princess Diana dying in 1997 (spoiler, sorry), and Grenfell. Not in a ‘Remember Me’ way, the romantic drama where it turns out a lady can’t date Robert Pattinson anymore because he died in 9/11 - the (London) characters aren’t inserted into these events in a ‘live’ fashion where it happened to them directly - it just happens around them and they bear witness. It was something else the book did that I found interesting but am struggling to articulate why I found it so impactful.

It made me realise that reading, being subjected to, the news is an oddly vital part of your life, if you are like me anyway, that you don’t tend to see reflected in fiction. It’s a book for and about people who recognised that they’d probably got over-invested in the Labour party’s electoral fortunes between 2015 and 2019 but who couldn’t look away anyway - Come to think of it (and I might be wrong here) I don’t think this book ever actually mentions Jeremy Corbyn by name. Projecting a bit, the wound from the last GE’s probably just a bit too raw.

I think it made me alight on a problem with a lot of quite similar relationship literary fiction that I hadn’t really thought of before, how insular they feel compared to much of this - how much of our inner life actually hinges on or gets tethered to these events over which we basically have no control, or no meaningful control over anyway. I think what I’m saying is, I don’t want to read a book set in the present day and not finish it without knowing where the characters were when lady diana died.

Getting a second copy for my sister.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

When the bulbs in the park hatched in March they formed a yellow curving path along Mile End Park, like the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz. A week later blue flowers broke and then pink and then lilac. Wearing leggings and a hoodie, Melissa began to run outside.

Shortlisted for the 2022 Orwell Prize for political fiction and the 2022 Goldsmiths Prize, the judges for the latter's take on There Are More Things is:

A novel which manages at once to be a celebration of the pleasure of being alive and an impassioned condemnation of some of the horrors of contemporary history.

True to its insistence on the capaciousness of the world and the consequent possibilities for change, the book finds hope in collective action. But this is no ordinary political fiction in which medium provides a bland vessel for message. Unhampered by conventions of structure (at the level of both story and sentence), there are more things enacts its belief in the redemptive potential of ways of seeing which lie outside of conventional forms of thought. A joy of a book.

Which is I think a fair, if generous take, and I'd also point to my twin's review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Equally I have to say this wasn't a book for me.

The novel did prompt some interesting thoughs on political activism particularly in a democratic state, although these were more prompted by thinking about the novel than reading them. E.g. when social media is manipulated to encourage support for the populist candidate in an election, is that a bad thing or a good thing ?

I wasn't expecting to be politically sympathetic to the UK sections of the novel, but I struggled more with their relatively banality. The portrayal of South London - Tooting and Mile End - was resonant (the opening quote to my review particularly, having spend last week planting bulbs in a park in that very area), although doesn't seem to have landed well with non-London based readers. But a lot of it felt like sub-Sally-Rooney padding (and led to a book more than twice my preferred length), for example,:

Later, three drinks later, Mel was outside smoking. A rickshaw cyclist with pink lights around the seat pulled a couple down the road. The rickshaw was playing music. The cyclist was sweating.
Tara came outside.
Hi
Hello
Mel?
Yes. What was your
Tara
It was warm and light and busy on the street
How do you know Katie?
We work together
You're a teacher?
An art teacher. I teach mostly year 7 to 11
Oh
Yep
How's that
I love it.

Melissa looked at her phone. She could hear music. Tara didn't get any cigarettes out.
Tara looked at her and smiled.
I just spent a month in Barcelona. School holidays are great of course.
Yes
Melissa looked at her.
So are you new to London?
A year
Will this be your first Carnival?
No — I went last year
Did you like it
Yes

The Brazil-based sections were more powerful and created an interesting contrast - although one I'm not sure the author intended - between the validity of political revolution in a democracy versus a military dictatorship, particularly when those in the latter case are putting their lives at risk.

Overall - not one for me, but a worthwhile inclusion on the Goldsmiths and Orwell Prize lists. 2.5 stars.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus)]

dnf 45%

i don't like dnfing books so late 'in the game' but i am becoming increasingly exasperated by the style and content of there are more things. this short review only reflects the portion of the book that i have read, so i recommend you check out reviews by readers who have actually read it all before deciding whether to give this book a shot or not.

the author's style is very reminiscent of Sally Rooney & Natasha Brown which will undoubtedly appeal to many readers, i just happen to feel conflicted about it. there is the predictable lack of quotation marks & an inconsistent use of punctuation marks. i would not call this type of writing 'prose' as it sometimes comes across as just text, text that could have been produced by an ai ("Melissa wore skinny jeans and Ruthie wore skinny jeans and Vans. The street air was hot and loud and dirty and the buildings were so large.").

for the record, i am not a fan of so-called purple proses, or proses that rely on too many metaphors or whatnot, and in fact, i like proses that are simpler, more subdued. but the writing in this book comes across as just flat & uninspired. imagine someone giving an unemotional & uninvolved scene-by-scene description of a film ("She brushed her teeth. She made coffee and toast. She drank the coffee. She buttered the toast. She ate it looking out on the street.")

sometimes sure, we get these descriptions that do manage to evoke a certain atmosphere ("They watch a film, they fall asleep, they wake on the sofa. Soft light. Warm and pell mell limbs. They brush their teeth, one toothbrush. Lights off. Pyjamas. Fingers in fingers […]"), as they capture a certain mood or phase of one's life, but for the most part the writing was too dry & affected for me. and what am i to make of these descriptions..."a person who looked fifty-five years old" and "she looked somewhere between forty-one and fifty-three years old". at one point we are being told about the childhood of one the main characters and we are informed that "There were thirty-three kids in 7C" and i kid you not, we then get each name. what was the point? and before you @ me saying that they were included to give readers an idea of the ethnicity & gender of these kids i say ma che minchia dici?!

anyway, the dialogues attempt to go for a mumblecore vibe, so we get a lot repetition and not-fully-formed sentences. sometimes these were convincing in rendering the way we actually speak in rl ("and well he didn't talk much to Johnathan these days, no he didn't talk much to Jonathan these days") but there were times were they made no sense (such as with: "What you do you lot do now go on 'dates'?"...even if the man in question is meant to be a tipsy and bumbling idiota i don't think that's how that phrase would come out).

the novel is very much concerned with politics and i wish that the focus on this did not come at the expense of its characters, who ultimately seem as vehicles through which the author can discuss the UK and Brazil's past & present political climate. the two mcs are painfully one-note and i forgot they even exist most of the time. i can like books that are all about the vibes but the writing here didn't capture me enough to make me forget about story & characters. while i appreciate that the author talks about current social issues, without presenting us with cartoonishly evil conservatives, there were many instances that made me question why the author hadn't written a nonfiction or a bunch of essays instead (i probably would have liked them a lot more).
the book does seem to go for a very anglo-american view of Brazil and Latin America....again, maybe the latter half of the book will challenge this more so the jury is out on this point.

maybe one day i will pick up this book and find myself vehemently disagreeing with everything i have said (or written) so far but at this point in my life this type of edgy millennial writing style is not for me. anyhow, i wish the author the best and i feel genuinely bad for not liking this. i really wanted to love it, and i did find some scenes aesthetically pleasing, but it was not enough to hold my interest....

if you are interested in this book i 100% recommend you read some more positive reviews as it just so happens that i did not get on with the author's style.

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I came to this book due to its inclusion on the 2022 Goldsmiths Prize shortlist. At the time that list was announced I had already read and really enjoyed four of the six books, so I was really looking forward to this, the fifth with one more to go.

However, I have to say at the start here that this one did not live up to the expectations that the other four had set in my mind. A large part of my relatively low rating here is due this disparity.

This is the story of Melissa and Catarina who share a flat in London in 2016/17. Coincidentally, several books I have read recently have been set around this time, I guess because it was a tumultuous time. And not just in the UK where I live. Both of the women at the centre of the book have a Brazilian heritage and a large part of the book is taken up looking back to their early years.

Unfortunately, for me, neither of these sections worked particularly well, although the Brazilian bits came very close to being excellent.

In London, we watch as the two women get involved in protests across London whilst also watching events unfold in Brazil. Here, I have to say I found the writing rather dull and this was made worse for me, a UK citizen who has barely any experience of London (although I did take a series of photographs there once that have earned me quite a lot of money!) by the descriptions of the city that somehow contrived to make me feel alienated rather than involved. Normally, I love to read about places I haven’t visited (or could never visit because they don’t exist or existed in the past), but here the London stuff was off-putting although I think that many of the residents of the city who have read the book have responded well to that side of it.

The Brazil sections come very close to being extremely powerful. I found myself again, though, put off by the writing style. I would be the first to acknowledge, however, that the final 100 pages or so of the book are very good and I enjoyed them a lot. My disappointment comes from the fact that I had to read 350 pages in order to get to those 100 pages.

All this is just my experience of reading the book. I would encourage people to look at other, more positive reviews and to give the book a chance. Many people will enjoy the style and, therefore, the book. I just couldn’t engage with it and found it a bit of a disappointment. I think I’m doing the book a disservice by awarding only 2 stars, but, as I suggested already, it would probably get a star more than that had I not read it in the context of the Goldsmiths shortlist for which I had high expectations.

[Molly Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s so many things I love about this book. I love that it treats romantic love and friendship with equal weight. I love the depiction of a grassroots group organising against deportations. As Steven said in his excellent goodreads review below, I love that it is so so hilariously accurate about the experience of renting a shit-ish flat in London in the 2010s. I love the humour in the depiction of the Blairite boss.

At the event I went to, Yara said she wanted to write a book that, while being about the experiences of people in the Brazilian diaspora, was not ‘about’ identity but about the work that people do together in that context to try to change the world. She has so profoundly succeeded imo! I love the depiction of being a teenager in the 2000s — Facebook invite house parties that get out of hand …!

I love that the book deals with state violence, colonialism, and dictatorship with such seriousness, and that as a monolingual English speaker there are points where the book doesn’t give you everything — I did a bit of quick google-translate-ing on my phone while I was reading and it have the whole experience such a different texture! (Plus I like that the book sort of sends you back to your phone to do this because the contemporary sections of the book depict various kinds of phone-use — including a phone passed round at a meeting — in a way that feels very real. So being sent back to look something up on your phone midway through feels like a very appropriate part of the experience of reading this.) Just an absolutely amazing book that feels so textured and real both about life in London in the 2010s and about revolutionary movements in Brazil in the 1970s & 80s. I really can’t recommend it enough ❤️

[Darran Mclaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent novel. I'm sure Millennial writers are tied of being compared to Sally Rooney, but whilst I found Normal People enjoyable enough, but underwhelming and not a match for the hype it received, I think this novel is more deserving of that response. The comparison to Rooney is prompted by the similarities of subject matter; young people dealing with relationships, living, working and studying in the city under 'Late Capitalism', addressing typical Millennial issues and concerns, and addressing the left wing political ideology typical of this generation. But I thought There are More Things dealt with all of this subject matter in a more interesting and engaging way. like the way that the narrative alternated between the present and the past, and between the UK and Brazil. I highly recommend it.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very ambitious - a deadpan realist novel about coming of age in 2000s/2010s London that is also an experimental novel about guerillas in dictatorship-era Brazil, with one spilling over into the other - and mostly, it pulls off the many things it tries to do with aplomb.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new favourite! Imperfectly beautiful, thought-provoking, and moving.

⇝ 4.5 stars

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few years ago I read Yara Rodrigues Fowler’s debut Stubborn Archivist and I loved it. When I heard she had a second novel out, I was quite excited and now with the Goldsmiths shortlisting, I had the impetus to read it.

There are More Things is everything I would want from a second novel. It is more ambitious, experimental and wide ranging thematically. yet, it is readable.

The plot involves two Brazilians who live in London. Melissa, who was born and bred there but has a Brazilian mother. her sections of the book focus on Melissa trying to establish her identity, both as a Brazilian and as a lesbian. We also do get snapshots of her mother’s struggle with the Brazilian government.

Catarina comes from a Brazilian family which was involved in politics. Thus her sections take place, mostly, in Brazil and focus on the coup and how it affected her family. Especially her older revolutionary sister Laura. eventually Catarina moves to London in order to study.

Both Melissa and Catarina meet and they discover that their pasts are more entwined than they think.

To add another political dimension, there is the Brexit referendum going on, which makes Melissa and Catarina question their identity even more. Do they want to life in a country which is divorced from an entity which may provide peace and is entering an era of political instability? is the UK similar to Brazil in this aspect? The book offers a lot of parallels and it’s interesting to see how it is dealt with.

There are more things has a lot of aspects I like in books, crossing timelines, linking coincidences, and a playful approach to the text. Unfortunately due to this being a ‘bigger’ novel it does thing to get baggy at times and there were a couple of sections which dragged just a tiny bit but on the whole this is a great novel and a lot of fun to read and in the process it made me aware of Brazilian politics, the only knowledge I know comes from the sleevenotes of a Tropicalia compilation I bought in 2006. – incidentally the music is meshed with the narrative as well. A truly kaleidoscopic novel.

[Tom Mooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Playful, moving, inspiring and beautifully written. Rodrigues Fowler is a real talent and this novel is a sign of what's to come.

Yes, it's a bit over-long, but that's just nit-picking really. It's a great novel of friendship, political awakening, London and love. Lots of it reminded me of first reading Zadie Smith all those years ago - this has the feel of White Teeth for the millennial generation. Really good.

[Simonh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thematisch gezien is het wat afgezaagd maar dit wordt ruimschoots goedgemaakt door de interessante schrijfstijl. Ik denk dat dit boek het goed zou doen binnen een vak bij de studie Literatuurwetenschap.

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 3 out of 5]

In some ways this book is a peculiar hybrid. For the most part it is a story of youth and personal discovery centred on modern, diverse, international London.
School crushes, give way to a more lively hedonism. Short lived relationships and the compromises of flat sharing are accompanied by the grind of mostly unfulfilling work.
It’s a story of urban twenty - somethings in the period before responsibility restricts the opportunity to live an impromptu life.
I found this part of the book readable, and realistic, if not especially original.
The London ‘villages’ which feature; Dalston, Tooting and Mile End are all close to my own Shoreditch base and I recognise the disdain of the young who express themselves on the streets and in the bars!

Offsetting the tale of the ordinary is the story of Brazil (reflecting the authors own parentage). The last sixty years have witnessed coups; impeachment and a certain amount of revolutionary activity.
Catarina (one of two leading female characters) comes from a family who have been at the forefront of demand for change. The Brazilian element has a much wider sweep and looks at change at governmental level. Y contrast with micro lives in London.

I enjoyed, rather than loved, the book and strangely found that anglophile Melissa (also of Brazilian ancestry), the second of the two primary protagonists, never gelled convincingly with Catarina.
The author does structure the book in an avowedly innovative way, with multiple short chapters, lots of white space and a non linear timeline.

20.7.2022 Yara Rodrigues Fowler In conversation with Jessica Andrew’s at Burley Fisher Books. Shoreditch

• When choosing to read a passage Fowler asked for audience input : a choice of sex scene or rave scene? She hadn’t decided what reading to give (rave was chosen)! This was a first for me at a book event.

• lockdown period created good writing conditions. Need to be in a good place to write well.

• Wrote this book (her second) with Mum. Her account of the difficulties experienced by some members of the resistance movement, while being queer, made their way into the story.

• No politicians mentioned by name after 2016 (eg Cameron, Corbyn). Reader would be sitting in a factional space.

• Writing about predecessor Brazilian revolutionary generations battles was an act of love.

• Archives access for research. For the Section describing guerrillas in jungle it was weird to find squabbles along the lines of Who was the best revolutionary?! The ability to roast a turtle was praised!;diarrhoea after eating cashew nuts was disavowed!

• Form of the book: white space was designed to be disruptive. A deliberate contrast to the authority of writing from an imperial background. Challenge the certainty of what happened- we don’t know.

• Writing the everyday life (classic feminist); while also highlighting other forces that stop us being free.

• Positive portrayals of sex in this world of rape and threat; otherwise we would stay threatened.

• A greater utopia targeted, but accompanied by existing joys: love; a great party; solidarity at a demo. Anne Boyer “ communism of two”. Liberation at intimate level not just State level.

• Generally writing for her own demographic (see this audience). “Other people like me” with different experiences. (Sally Rooney’s name did come with the hope that she would write a modern version of Middlemarch!!

• Gets sent a lot of books by young women, for endorsement. Doesn’t get books by black authors, so how do you develop diverse literature?

[bowiesbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

there are more things primarily follows Melissa and Catarina. Their friendship and past is explored, spanning several different generations and interweaving lives.

I really liked the style that this book was written in, I thought that it was super unique. It was a mix of chapters, poetry, recipes and sometimes just words. I liked the lack of structure and how in each section different 'pov's' were added. Although it was slightly confusing to keep track of at times, it definitely didn't feel disjointed or out of place. I just thought that it was really originally written, I never knew what to expect in terms of the layout.

The characters are interesting in the sense that I didn't feel as though we had many of their own inner thoughts. We mainly saw the two main characters Melissa and Catarina through the eyes of each other. We got back stories into each of their lives which did provide some guidance on them and their pasts but in some ways I didn't feel like I really knew the characters.
This wasn't the type of book that has a super fast moving plot with lots of action. It is more of a slow paced read and filled with history. I genuinely learnt so much about political events throughout time and a lot about Brazil's political climate. I love learning new things from books so this was absolutely a bonus.

This is definitely the type of book to read if you feel like a slow paced, filled with deep history and well thought out book that has something a little different about it.

Also there is great representation, with a queer main character, as well as great representation for non-binary people. Furthermore, both main characters are Brazilian and there are lots of POC side characters.

[Malise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fowler was just trying to hit a specific page count and wasted a lot of my time

[tuiskuaurora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mä tykkäsin täs erityisesti tästä kirjotustavasta ja formaatista, ja tää käsitteli tosi mielenkiintosii aiheita. Ainut syy miks ei ollu viis tähtee on et noi hahmot alko herättää tunteita vasta ihan lopuks ku kaikki sitoutu yhteen ja siltiki se jäi tosi auki, ja olisin ehkä halunnu niihin enemmän syvyyttä. Vähän ehkä turhan pitkä myös mut tykkäsin kyl paljon.

[Joanna Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful political novel for the year 2022 ! as well as learning a lot, feeling energised into the present day politically, and feeling immersed in parallel history / politics of Brazil and South London: I laughed, I cried, I gasped ! I literally w e p t through the final 50 or so pages lmao !

but also actually did learn a lot and feel like this needs to be added to some kind of subshelf of 'novels which made me feel like I know am somewhat informed on the general political happenings in X country in the past 50 years' which I'm extremely grateful for.

some of the retelling of brexit / 2017 GE / grenfell reminded me of ali smith (literary political UK writer reigning of the last 5 years I suppose) but this was from a very different perspective insofar that it felt experimental differently, probably more dynamic, unstable, fresh, direct? and young of course and with the anger and directness that comes with that perhaps. AND the way that it was about women's stories in London weaving together but also some ideas about communities of women across class / sexuality / generation reminded me somewhat of girl woman other but again this was a lot more dynamic? (and less confusing) and a lot more direct and compelling (I think) and political !

I lovd it and you should read it !

[rads · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is how you write a politically stirring book with a beating heart

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had all my favourite themes for a book - female friendship + the power of love in all its forms between women and generations.

I loved the history and connections between families and mums and daughters and grandmas and friends and lovers. The political activism in the book hit extra hard with the Palestinian genocide happening currently. I liked the fluid sometimes confusing structure of conversations between people dotted with awkwardness and really specific, fleeting descriptions of people's body language or a stranger walking by.

Also, maybe narcissistically I always love reading stories based in London and specific references to places I know. Relatable parts e.g. the banality of london working life sometimes - same pub every day after work with same people you don't really like drinking the same drink. Found the boss Marc a really well-written character - annoying af but the way he was written was v funny.

[Beth Newton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Call me a philistine but this book did not do it for me at all.

I could not get on board with the lack of speech marks (wait, what, who said that?!), the sheer quantity of boring/totally unnecessary description (‘there was coffee on the table. She looked out of the window, then went to water the monstera. Then she picked up a plastic Tupperware of leftover pasta and put it in her bag. She put on her shoes, picked up her keys and left the house. It was sunny. She saw a bus’) and did not enjoy the lack of storyline. Often I don’t mind lots of mini tales intertwined but I really didn’t see the point of this book.

I am sure it would be somewhat enjoyed by readers with more sophisticated tastes, but personally I found it really boring, persevered anyway, only to find myself eventually thinking “thank god that is over”.

[s ☭ · Rating 4 out of 5]

how do i even review this beautiful, wonderful book?

there are more things is a work of art, really. i say this a lot, but it's true. this book is a simultaneous collection of poetry and prose and recipes and slogans, a reflection on queerness and sisterhood and cisheteropatriarchy and capitalism, and a celebration of resistance. parts of it reminded me of Defacing the Monument, especially the unique structure and form of storytelling. also this book so very perfectly captures how it feels to be told "communism is just academic...no iphone..." by middle aged corporate white men.

[anna near · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting exploration of human histories, cultures, and connections to the places that form us.

This book is so beloved; I don't really need to say anything more than it just wasn't for me. the lack of punctuation and constant metaphors made it into an exhausting read. I didn't think it needed to be as long as it was either.

The cover is absolutely gorgeous though. Worth the read just to have it on my shelf.

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 -
A story about revolution, love, sex, death, politics, friendships, London, Brazil & all of those things combined. I loved the characters and it's made me want to be more radical and shout more.
Only loses .5 because we were in Brazil for so long at one point that I couldn't see it coming back to London / was losing that part of the story, but it came back together at the end, context rolled in to present.

[Rory · Rating 5 out of 5]

fuck me. apologies to my friends because i’m not going to shut up about this for a while

[iasmin · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 🌟

[Sumairaa Kazi · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much I loved about this book - Melissa growing up in tooting, the depiction of female friendships, the strength and power of grassroots activism, the parallels of history and politics of Brazil and the UK, the exploration of identity. And the retelling of British politics over the last 5 years felt particularly powerful and real.

I could read this again and again, love how it all ties together at the end. One of the most beautiful book I’ve ever read.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this so much. The writing and storytelling manages to be expansive, historical and transnational and at the same time close, intimate and in the detail

[Rachel Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it - loved how unfamiliar the topics (like even the use of Portuguese) were but familiar the setting was. Realities of London and flat sharing, but whilst teaching me a lot about Brazil and its history during a time which was so focused on the UK

[Davie Peel · Rating 5 out of 5]

alert 🚨 alert 🚨 new favourite book alert 🚨 i was in a deep book crisis and nothing was taking my fancy but this dragged me out to the light to see there are more things in heaven and earth . it is beautifully written and quite poetic and nice ooooooooo yes it’s so nice .

[Levi Van Dartel · Rating 4 out of 5]

liefdesbaby tussen ali smith en che guevara