by Jessica Moor
SYNOPSIS
‘Everyone's got that history, I guess. Everyone's got a story.’
When Emily meets the enigmatic and dazzling actress Tamsin, her life changes. Drawn into Tamsin's world of Soho living, boozy dinners, and cocktails at impossibly expensive bars, Emily's life shifts from black and white to technicolour and the two women become inseparable. Tamsin is the friend Emily has always longed for; beautiful, fun, intelligent and mysterious and soon Emily is neglecting her previous life - her work assisting vulnerable women, her old friend Lucy - to bask in her glow. But when a bombshell news article about a decades-old sexual assault case breaks, Emily realises that Tamsin has been hiding a secret about her own past. Something that threatens to unravel everything . . .
Young Women is a razor sharp novel that slices to the heart of our most important relationships, and asks how complicit we all are in this world built for men.
REVIEW
When Emily and Tamsin meet at a climate change protest it doesn't take long before Emily is taken in by Tamsin's carefree lifestyle and refreshing attitude. As they grow closer and learn more about each other, Emily finds out about something that happened to Tamsin was she was only eighteen. This begins to play on Emily's mind and she becomes more and more determined that Tamsin should come forward with information about the incident. Emily's insistence starts bordering on obsession, as her frame of mind bleeds into her work, her relationships and her friendships, putting them all at risk.
After reading Jessica Moor's debut novel Keeper, it quickly became one of my favourite books of that year. Even though Keeper and Young Women deal with different topics, they both have an underlying theme of violence towards women. In Young Women, complicity and issues surrounding the #MeToo movement are the main focus. This challenging subject matter meant that it wasn't an easy book to read but I really believe that Jessica Moor is creating some of the most relevant stories I've read which reflect the current climate and open up discussions about the issues affecting women today.
Based on the synopsis and first few chapters I thought it was quite obvious how events in the book would develop and I thought that the story would all be about how one woman deals with the aftermath of a sexual assault. Actually, the book focusses on a number of different characters, the varying ways that they had all been victims of abuse and all of the different ways this abuse can manifest. If you look at each one of the female characters, they are all victims in a way - whether this emerged as smaller cases of gender inequality all the way up to more serious cases of abuse and assault.
The characters aren't always likeable, and the way they react to events is sometimes difficult to understand, but Young Women is a perfect reflection of the complexities of the issues covered. Surprisingly, it was the male characters reactions to these issues that I found the most successful - it really highlighted the fact that there aren't always easy answers to these situations, the feeling of helplessness and not being able to find a way forward.
Young Women is a compelling and thought-provoking story and I am very much looking forward to what author Jessica Moor decides to tackle next.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jessica Moor studied English at Cambridge before completing a Creative Writing MA at Manchester University. Her debut novel Keeper was published in 2020 to rave reviews and critical acclaim. Jessica Moor was selected as one of the Observer's debut novelists of 2020, and her debut, Keeper was chosen by the Sunday Times, Independent and Cosmopolitan as one of their top debuts of the year. Keeper was nominated for the Desmond Elliott Prize and an Edgar Award. Young Women is her second novel.
Follow Jessica on Twitter @jessicammoor
Thanks to Anne Cater - @RandomTTours, Manilla Press - @ZaffreBooks and Jessica Moor - @jessicammoor for the opportunity to read and review.
Fiction: Women's Literary Fiction
Publisher: Manilla Press
ISBN: 978-1838778682
Pages: 320pp
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