Review: Real Girl by Mutya Buena

 

Publication Date: November 2025

Publisher: Bantam Press

Source: Borrowed from library  [ Goodreads ]

Blurb: 

Mutya Buena was only thirteen when she became one third of the original line up of the iconic girlband, Sugababes.

Launching into fame, her life became unrecognisable overnight. Suddenly she was going straight from the studio to school in the early hours, rubbing shoulders with music royalty, and hearing fans scream her name.

This is the story of the girl the tabloids never saw.

In Real Girl Mutya takes us through the highs of her spectacular career and the lows that came with a life in the limelight and shares for the first time the struggles she’d kept hidden from the public eye.

Now the Sugababes are back and shining brighter than ever, Mutya is ready to share her story on her own terms.

Growing up, I was a big Sugababes fan. Especially the original line up as there was an Irish girl in it, Siobhan, that made me so happy. Nothing will beat the original trio for me and after seeing them perform last year it really cemented that fact that Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan are born entertainers. When I found out that Mutya had written this book, I got onto my library website and ordered it as soon as I could! 

Mutya was always portrayed as the quiet one, and I am so glad she is sharing her voice with everyone now and letting us readers in on the highs and lows of her life. 

Mutya candidly talks about her childhood, being half-Filipino, and living in London. Her time spent at school and how she hung around with the naughty kids. Her parents really fostered a love of music in her and her siblings and encouraged her to reach for the stars. This led to her meeting Keisha and Siobhan and signing a record deal for the girl band Sugababes at only 13 years old. I was shocked when I read that, as I had no idea they were so young when they first became a band. 

The autobiography delves into Mutya's struggles with fame, trying to juggle a normal life while at the same time trying to appear grateful for everything they received, even though sometimes 14-year-old Mutya would have rathered gone to the park with her friends than fly on a plane to the other side of the world to do an interview. 

Mutya also bravely talks about falling pregnant with her daughter at just 20, and how struggles with addiction, self harm, body image and abusive relationships all had an impact on her life. Her leaving the band due to the dark place she was in caused her to spiral further and eventually seek treatment at a facility. I really was amazed at how much she had been through in her life and how she had come out the other end stronger and swinging. Mutya is definitely a fighter and a shining star. 

Review: Where The Shadows Hide by Amy Clarkin

 

Publisher: O'Brien Press
Publication Date: October 2025
Source: Borrowed From Library
Series: PSI #3

Blurb: The chill intensified, and Archer opened his eyes to see the candles extinguish one by one …

PSI – Paranormal Surveyance Ireland – are in deep water. When the operators of a luxury cruise ship ask for their help with a series of unexplainable events, Raven and the team are hopeful that this case, for once, won’t endanger their lives.
As they try to blend in with the wealthy passengers, it quickly becomes clear to Davis, Fionn and the others that there is more lurking in the shadows than they've realised. With the eerie encounters escalating and rising tensions threatening to tear the team apart, time is running out for PSI. Can they save the ship – and themselves – before it’s too late?

If you have not read the previous 2 books in the Paranormal Surveyance Ireland (PSI) trilogy - WHY NOT?! But please also be aware that, since this is the final book in the series, this review will contain spoilers for the previous two books, What Walks These Halls & Who Watches This Place, as well as for this final book. You have been warned ... 

This series is up there with one of the best Irish young adult series I have ever read. The trilogy centers on a paranormal ghost hunting team set in Dublin, made up of twin siblings Archer (golden retriever) and Raven (black cat). These siblings along with their other members of their team - Fionn the tech guy, Davis the practical one and Eabha the clairvoyant - they take on requests from people who may have a little "ghost problem". 

Review: Not Going To Plan by Tia Fisher

 

Publisher:  Hot Key Books

Publication Date: August 2025

Source: Borrowed from library

Blurb: 

Marnie's really messed up this time - expelled and forced to change schools, the only empty seat in Marnie's new school is next to Zed, a nerd with zero tolerance for mistakes. Marnie (skilled at art and Spanish, struggles with numbers) can't wait to lose her virginity. Zed (brilliant at maths and physics, loathes languages) is a loner who can't stand being touched. They couldn't be less alike, but they both need good grades in the subjects they hate.

What starts as a trade in tuition turns into an unlikely friendship - and after Marnie has sex with a boy who lies about using a condom, she needs Zed's help to make the hardest decision of her life.

After reading Fisher's debut, Crossing The Line, last year, I knew she would become an author I would read everything she put out. 

Our main characters are going through a transition and a coming-of-age time in their lives. Marnie has just been expelled from her private school and has now been enrolled into public school. Zed has always been a loner, more intent on solving maths equations than making friends. When Marnie and Zed are thrust together, a beautiful, unlikely friendship forms. I really enjoyed reading about their friendship. They are total opposites but perfectly complete each other and build such a supportive friendship. I loved reading about Zed discovering his sexuality and from his point of view, we learn the way he interprets the world around him is very different to Marnie. 

Review: Show Me Where It Hurts by Claire Gleeson

 

Publication Date: April 2015

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Source: borrowed from library

Blurb: How do you survive the unsurvivable?

Rachel lives with her husband Tom and their two children: it's the ordinary family life she always thought she'd have. All of that changes in an instant - when Tom runs the family car off the road, seeking to end his own life, and take his wife and children with him. Rachel is left to pore over the wreckage to try and understand what happened - to find a way to go on living afterwards.

What emerges is a snapshot of what it's like to live alongside someone who is suffering, how you keep yourself afloat when the person you love is drowning, and how you survive irreparable loss.

Impossible to turn away from, Show Me Where It Hurts is a compelling, heartbreaking and ultimately life-affirming story of recovery and unexpected hope.

This was another case of the book being so hyped up and talked about that it just didn't do it for me. 

This debut novel deals with an incredibly dark topic - our main character Rachel is dealing with the aftermath of her husband driving their family to their deaths but both her and her husband , Tom, survive, leaving the children dead. 

Review: Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 

Publication Date: March 2022

Publisher: Penguin Books

Source: Borrowed from library   [ Goodreads ]

Blurb: 

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing.

But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality. Forced to resign, she reluctantly signs on as the host of a cooking show, Supper at Six. But her revolutionary approach to cooking, fueled by scientific and rational commentary, grabs the attention of a nation. And soon a legion of overlooked housewives find themselves daring to change the status quo. One molecule at a time.

This is potentially a controversial post but I just don't think this book lived up to the hype at all for me. 

Review: Liccle Bit by Alex Wheatle

 

Publication Date: March 2015

Publisher: Atom Books

Source: Borrowed from library    [Goodreads]

Blurb: 

What's worse than hiding a secret? Liccle Bit's about to find out...

Venetia King is the hottest girl at school. Too bad Lemar is the second shortest guy in his year. Everyone calls him Liccle Bit, and his two best friends, McKay and Jonah, never tire of telling him he has no chance with girls. Things aren't much better at home. His mum is permanently hassled, his sister a frustrated single mum and his dad moved out years ago. Liccle Bit wishes he could do something - anything! - to make life better. A new phone would be a start...

As a new gang war breaks out on his estate, Lemar discovers that South Crongton's notorious gang leader has taken an interest in him. Before he knows what's happening, he's running errands. When he puts his own family in danger, Liccle Bit will be forced to question his choices. How can he possibly put things right?

I picked this book up on a whim, having heard nothing about it apart from that the CBBC was adapting it into a tv show. After my order arrived from my local library I dove in and was so pleasantly surprised to find that this was a phenomenally entertaining read. 

Set in "Crongton", an alias for Croydon I assume, the story follows Lemar (Liccle Bit to everyone else) as he navigates friendship, family problems, school, a crush and some seriously dangerous people. 

What I absolutely loved about this book was how genuinely "teenage" the teenage characters felt. A lot of the time you read a book written by an adult with teen characters and think "no teenager would say that / act like that / do that". Alex Wheatle has captured exactly the mannerisms and thought processes of teenagers, and teenage boys to be more exact, in this novel. From the friendship interactions, the talking about and to girls and the slight feeling of awkwardness everyone feels as a teenager - it was perfectly done.

Review: Toffee by Sarah Crossan

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Publication Date: February 2020

Source: Purchased

[Goodreads]       

Blurb: I am not who I say I am,
And Marla isn't who she thinks she is.

I am a girl trying to forget.
She is a woman trying to remember.

Allison has run away from home, and with nowhere to live, finds herself hiding out in the shed of what she thinks is an abandoned house. But the house isn't empty. An elderly woman named Marla, with dementia, lives there – and she mistakes Allison for an old friend from her past called Toffee.

Allison is used to hiding who she really is and trying to be what other people want her to be. And so, Toffee is who she becomes. After all, it means she has a place to stay. There are worse places she could be.

But as their bond grows, and Allison discovers how much Marla needs a real friend, she begins to ask herself - where is home? What is a family? And most importantly, who am I, really?

 If you know me, you know that Sarah Crossan's One is a book that I absolutely adored with my whole heart. So when I happened across her new novel in the bookshop, I immediately snatched it up.