Mindfulness: A Novel.

I don't even know where to begin. This book came from nowhere into my life and now it is certainly one of my favourite books of all time.

I felt so connected to so many things. Like the main protagonist, I grew up in the south with parents who grew up in Newcastle, ridiculously close to the scottish border. like the protagonist, this also caused a massive disconnect in my family. In addition, the death of princess diana served as an influence for this story, which was the day I was christened! What really shocked me about this book was how the essence of a mother/daughter relationship was captured in such painstaking truth; I have only ever seen this once in Almoldovar's latest movie, Julieta, which I highly recommend if anyone really loves this relationship accurately portrayed.

For me, reading this book felt like reading a long list of hard hitting truths, so took me a while to read for such a short novel; I half listened to the audiobook and read along and it was wonderful to listen to. For a debut novel, I am shocked with the skill and daring that McGregor applied into making this book flow in such a beautiful and interesting way. This is not something I say often but this book felt like an experience.

This was an entirely unique reading experience for me, but did let me reminisce on some favourites that I have already read; Super Naive by Erlend Loe in how the speech in the novel was captured and David Levithan-esque in terms of beautiful romantic writing style. I do think that the book is certainly not for everyone as the storyline is non-linear, and instead deep rich descriptions are offered, but for me, this is a book that I will certainly read time and time again. I cannot wait to read more of his work.