Cover Image: The Other Half of Augusta Hope

The Other Half of Augusta Hope

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Member Reviews

I reviewed this on my blog in May 2019:

As much as I dislike the commute it does give me time to read and I read a few books last week. One, “The Other Half Of Augusta Hope”, I got on Netgalley for review purposes. The formatting was dreadful and while I understand it was an uncorrected review copy, it was enough to distract me from the writing which was very good indeed. As for the story? Beautifully written but too dark and sad throughout for my liking. The sadness came in layers and I simply wasn’t in the mood for that. The book stayed with me though so I’ll be rating it 4 stars. There was one paragraph I loved and really resonated with me:

“Our grieving was an exchange of cakes through the winter because sometimes the only things you can do in response to big things are small things. There aren’t big enough big things.”

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Augusta Hope has a brilliant mind, at six she could memorize the dictionary, at seven Augusta corrected her teacher’s mistakes, when she was eight she spun the globe and picked her favourite country. Burundi, a landlocked country and it’s part of Africa.

Augusta has a twin sister Julia, they grew up on Willow Court, in Hedley Green and are very different. Augusta likes horse riding and library club and Julia enjoys her dance classes. Augusta has no idea what she is going to do after she finishes university, Julia has her life all planned out, she’s going to marry her childhood sweetheart Diego and start at family.

When a double tragedy strikes the Hope family, Augusta’s life is turned upside down and she travels to Spain. The place where the family enjoyed a holiday years ago, here she meets Parfait a painter and he’s also lost people he loved. Parfait is from Burundi, Augusta’s favourite country and he surprised she's so knowledgeable about his homeland. Augusta and Parfait share their sorrows and it’s almost like fate has brought them together.

I received a copy of The Other Half of Augusta Hope by Joanna Glen from NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers Australia in exchange for an honest review. It’s a complex coming of age story, at times I struggled to understand Augusta's character and she's a rather quirky one. Three and a half stars from me, I enjoyed reading about Augusta's relationship with Julia, they shared a room and their thoughts growing up and the unexpected link at the end to Zion.

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I must be honest I tried to read this one a few times but I did not connect with it.
The writing style was not for me and I abandoned this book early on.

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This was so unexpected - I loved it! The dual narratives were so intriguing and I really enjoyed watching things link up and come full circle in a slower pace. The characters are really well developed and writing is stellar. Definitely recommend.

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I loved this book! it gave me all the feels I want to feel in a book and i found it so hard to put down!! brilliant read!

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I loved Augusta and felt such an affinity with her particularly in her childhood form! My interest waned a bit in the latter half of the book as Augusta aged but it was still a good read!

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Thank you a Harper Collins Publishers Australia and Netgalley for an ARC in return of my honest opinion.

A well deserved five stars for this wonderful book. Thank you for lifting me out of my reading slump and enveloping me in this fabulous story.

“She and I were Snow White and Rose Red: Julia, fair, quiet and contained, happy inside herself, inside the house, humming; and me, quite the opposite, straining to leave, dark, outspoken, walking in the wind, railing.”

Augusta and Julia are twins yet their ways of perceiving the world are so very different. From a young age Augusta yearns to break free from her family, suburban life and safety sure there is something more. I really connected with Augusta, often times feeling like I was reading my teenage self throughout this book, having felt that feeling that ‘there is more’.

I loved the contrasts explored through the twins, what a promise means, what home means, what love is, there were just so many.
Augusta lessens her anxiety and builds understanding of her world with a dictionary, something that maddens others, Her thirst for knowledge, understanding of a world much beyond the crescent in which the family has always resided and life’s meanings. Not settling for the easiest option, but waiting out for the real deal. Yet, meaning value, meaning and love in everything where it all first began.

This wonderful book was full of beautifully crafted sentences, wonderful descriptions and just evoked so much in me. I will be thinking of this book well beyond the last page. This will be one of the very few books I will reread.

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After a dramatic start – reminiscent of Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce books – we settle down to learning about the young Augusta Hope, who turned out to have a mind which thinks just like mine! I remember reading the dictionary – and being admonished for trying out new, obscure words in everyday speech – before moving on to encyclopedias. (I could happily spend the rest of my life on the Internet, learning forever...) But then Augusta’s life began to change, and she was no longer like me. Her life took so many different turns, yet all along it was leading her to the one place she needed to be – to the person she was to become – couldn’t have become, without all that happened along the way. Maybe we have to learn to look at our own lives that way, that all the things that happen – even the things we don’t want (or didn’t value at the time) – are for a purpose, leading us toward where we need to be : who we need to be. That is a lesson I will take with me from reading this book, not to regret what didn’t happen in my life, but to appreciate what did. (I also learned about being a twin, about the reality of life in Burundi,....and the meaning of ‘parfait’...) I won’t spoil the story by giving details, but one particularly poignant lesson was that learned by Augusta’s father, as to the way he treated a neighbour. It was a hard lesson, and a surprising outcome of an unexpected turn which his own life took – a reminder that it is never too late for redemption.
[The only reason I am not giving this 5 stars is because of some of the content – pages which I had to skip, and would have preferred not to be included.]

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This book made me laugh, cry and smile like an idiot one after the other, and all at the same time sometimes.

Augusta has a tough time and goes through a lot in this story and her journey to finding her "other half" is heartening and sweet and charming. The characters are well fleshed out and the dual perspectives are woven together perfectly to give a fully fleshed out narrative with a charming but serious vibe.

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Regretfully, I am one of the sad majority of readers who didn't gel with this book at all. When I saw its premise, I was hoping for a quirky, feel-good read in the vein of Eleanor Oliphant, but found myself struggling with the character of Augusta very early on - we just didn't connect at all. I put the book down a few times to see if this feeling would change, but it didn't. So whilst I appreciate that this was a very different story with potentially interesting characters, it just didn't work for me. I abandoned it at the 20% mark and regret that I won't be able to give a review at this time.

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I enjoyed reading this book. It wasn’t hard to keep wanting to read. The story from the two characters perspective was interesting although I favoured Augusta.

The storyline was a little predictable and the outcomes could be spotted a fair distance away.

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Definitely a very different book, and in a good way too. This is a story of family, twin issues, love, loss and wisdom. Beautiful writing, quirky situations, likeable characters, humour. You'll want to read it in one go,

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This was an interesting book. I did find it hard to keep tabs on everything though as the story kept skipping.
Still a thoroughly enjoyable book that I would recommend to others as it had many truths in the tales it told

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You can find this review and all of my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com

I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Harper Collins Publishers Australia, and the author via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Augusta Hope has always loved words, since she was first able to speak them or read them. She loves words like other people love sweets. At six she was reading the dictionary, memorising all of the different words and their meanings. When she's eight, she spins the globe in the library and picks her favourite country - Burundi. Augusta has always felt like she never quite fit in. Her twin sister, Julia, and her are raised in a small town called Hedley Green, on Willow Court. When the other people in the court were shying away from Graham Cook because of his disability, Augusta was doing all she could to make him feel like he had a friend and wasn't alone. While Julia was getting a boyfriend and starting her journey into the land of love, Augusta was dreaming of a place that she could fit in. They've always been inseparable, until tragedy strikes, then Augusta is left trying to find her 'home' which is not a place, but a person. What if that person is half a world away?

This book made me feel ALL OF THE THINGS!! At first, I wasn't a hundred percent sure that I was going to like it. It's written in such a way that I'm just not used to. The story starts when the twins, Julia who was born in July, and Augusta who was born in August, first come into the world. The story quickly progresses through the earlier years as Augusta chronicles how she was different to everyone else in her court. Memorising the dictionary at six, picking a country in Africa that she'd never heard of before, as her favourite when she was eight. The memorising of facts and information that her mother and father never wanted to know. Reading poems that made them cringe or made Julia ask her to stop. She was always searching from a very young age, and we can see this right off the bat.

The POV switches between Augusta in England, to Parfait in Africa, and back again. Alternating between each other as their stories seem to run parallel. We get a glimpse at the tragedy and heartbreak that people in Africa experience every day, but we never hear about. Contrasted with the problems and issues that a comfortable girl who lives in England experiences. Neither issues that are raised outshine the other. It's a great illustration that, everyone is going through something, yes one may be more horrific than the other, but to the person who is experiencing the pain, heartache, loss, grief, joy, any number of emotions, the 'something' is massive to them. There's never a competition about who has the worst problems or is going through the worst time, everyone's issues are relevant, regardless of their complexity. This book is a great illustration of that, and I loved that about it.

The story progresses through the lives of Parfait and Augusta, the loss, grief, joy, excitement, terror - all the ups and downs, as they grow up, both dreaming of something more. For Augusta it's a place where she fits in, for Parfait it's a place where he is safe. The writing was an odd one for me, there wasn't so much a flow to it, as a staccato beat that told the story in a very monotonous way, however it was anything but boring. The voice used to narrate this story wouldn't have worked if it had been written any other way. The staccato beat of the sentences and paragraphs wound together to make such beautiful prose that it just draws you in and holds onto you so you don't want to stop. I powered through this book in a day and a bit because I found myself being drawn into the story so much, that I literally did not want to put it down. It's funny, I don't recall the exact moment that I became enthralled with it, it was a gradual progressing that all of a sudden, I was in love with this story and nothing was going to change that. The book deals with all the ups and downs in life. It deals with mental health, coming of age, growing up, individuality, finding one's self, loss, grief, healing and love.

This book was such a wonderful illustration of serendipity where everything comes together in the end and we see all the connections that happened throughout. I don't want to go into too much detail because I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that this book made me sad, it made me happy, it made me laugh and it damn near made me cry (the only reason I didn't was because I held it back as I was sitting at the dinner table with the fam). It made me go through a kaleidoscope of emotions, and not because it was extravagant, but because it just is. This book is just life. There's no major frills or extravagance to it, it. just. is. If something's meant to be it will be, I've always been a firm believer in that, and this book attests to it. Such a beautiful story that I would happily read again.

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‘There are places–aren’t there? Places which are so full of feeling you hardly dare return to them. I wonder which place it is for you.’

This is really a rather extraordinary book. Upon completion, events remains with you and the significance of the message grows stronger. At first it seems a little ‘left of centre’, especially considering the rather unique style of writing. Then you begin to realise that is the whole point - Augusta Hope is ‘left of centre and a most unique character. This book will grow on you as it is clever ... and funny ... and sad. Very sad.

‘I didn’t bother to talk about the fact that love might be the hugest word there is in the world and that we would never, across a whole lifetime, work out what it meant.’

The story revolves around Augusta Hope, a twin, who feels she simply does not fit in and dreams of escape to more exotic locations. She is a logophile - a lover of words - and is always asking questions. Her parents find her hard to understand/appreciate, however her more mainstream twin, is her champion.

‘Don’t you want to be extraordinary?’ I said. ‘To have an extraordinary life?’
‘I’m happy to be ordinary,’ said Julia.

Running parallel to Augusta’s story is that of Parfait - a young boy growing up in wartorn Burundi, who likewise dreams of a better life. The story of his journey will break your heart, as indeed, both Parfait and Augusta experience life changing occurrences. The constant thread through both of these tales in Joanna’s writing, it really is exquisite. Words of wisdom literally fly off the page in a highly unique yet beguiling way. The range of topics she fears not to embrace - plight of refugees and postpartum depression, to name but two - is full of courage.

‘None of us can ever imagine being someone else. Isn’t that why being human is lonely? Because however many words there are in a language, they never express the actual thing, the actual feeling, the actual being ourselves?’

As you follow along the journey’s of Augusta and Parfait - from childhood through to adulthood - you will be moved by their struggles as both strive to find a place that is right for them in this world. This is a story that has a little of everything - some laughter, lots of love and simultaneously, great and overwhelming sadness - all surrounded in a cloak of serendipity. You will laugh ... you will cry ... but you certainly will not regret stepping into the world of Augusta Hope.

‘I always had some kind of ache inside me,’ said Parfait.
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know anyone else had that ache.’
‘I always assumed everybody had it,’ he said.
We were talking fast now, our words crashing against each other.
‘I thought I’d been born into the wrong life,’ I said.



This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

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Huge thank you to HarperCollins Publishers Australia and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book!

DNF @ 9%

I think I’m in a very small minority who didn’t like this book but I could tell almost immediately this book wasn’t going to be for me. Whilst it’s extremely well written, stream-of-consciousness style writing just isn’t something I enjoy.

The narrative is all over the place, quickly jumping from one topic to the next with seemingly no connection between any of the topics apart from the fact that that’s what Augusta happened to be thinking about at the time; it’s almost like talking to a person who just drank 10 cups of coffee quickly followed by a six pack of Red Bull. It was very hard to keep up with and I couldn’t entirely figure out what the story was supposed to actually be about.

I also just really didn’t like the main character. Even as a child, August Hope was an obstinate, arrogant, contrary little know-it-all who hated her parents for seemingly no reason at all, back-chatted her teachers because she thought she was smarter than them, and didn’t seem to care about anyone but herself.

I’m only sorry I gave up before getting to Parfait’s first chapter because from what other reviewers have said his point of view was far more interesting than Augusta’s. Although considering Augusta’s point of view takes up about 80% of the book, I still don’t think I would have found it interesting enough to keep slogging through Augusta’s chapters unfortunately.

Full (spoiler-y) review here: https://wmsreads.tumblr.com/post/186623738162/

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I loved this book so much! What a gorgeous, lyrical, heartfelt story. The characters were so well drawn - believable, heartbreaking and funny in turn. I loved the relationship between Augusta and Julia, and how they really were two halves of the same person. I enjoyed reading about Augusta's sometimes difficult dynamic with her parents. And I loved Parfait and his family. I'm so overwhelmed by this book, and I know I'll be thinking about it for a long while yet, and reading it again. A five star book for me.

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Two lives, two stories that will lead the reader on a journey as these characters find their way in this world. This is a wonderfully written book that will have you full of emotions along the way and even have you finding it difficult to read at times. But the journey is worth the pain as you near the ending of this wonderful story.

You will travel from England to Burundi over two decades of time as the story intertwines together. I did struggle a bit at the start but soon the flow set in and off on this adventure I went.

It is hard to believe this is the authors first published book. Well done.

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*Thanks to NetGalley and Borough Press for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.* I must start by saying what a beautiful book this is. The prose is so lyrical and I was fascinated by the protagonist, Augusta Hope's way of looking at the world. Here are just a handful of the quotes that jumped out at me:

'I didn’t bother to talk about the fact that love might be the hugest word there is in the world and that we would never, across a whole lifetime, work out what it meant.'

'None of us can ever imagine being someone else. Isn’t that why being human is lonely? Because however many words there are in a language, they never express the actual thing, the actual feeling, the actual being ourselves?’

'Where no foreign journalists came. Because people in their sitting rooms in the West had had their fill of Rwanda. And didn’t have the stomach for any more.'

'Our grieving was an exchange of cakes through the winter because sometimes the only things you can do in response to big things are small things.'

It is hard to describe the plot of 'The Other Half of Augusta Hope' as it is so different to any other book I have read. It is the story of the Hope family. A mother, a father (who I couldn't stand!) and their twin daughters, Julia and Augusta. It is the story of the lives of this family and their neighbours in Willow Crescent. However, it is about so much more. It is not just about England, but about Burundi and Spain, too. About ideas and feelings that are too big to put into words. About growing up and loss. Augusta reminded me a little of a character in my favourite novel - Scout from 'To Kill a Mockingbird', so I feel I was already predisposed to like her. I would love to meet August in real life. Or Scout, for that matter!

This is a beautiful and timely book. Read it, you won't regret it.

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An absolutely spell-binding tale, The Other Half of Augusta Hope will hook you from the very first page and refuse to let you go. Augusta herself is a fantastically drawn character - brilliant, sharp, observant and so very likeable despite (or possibly because of) her many imperfections.
Despite tackling serious topics and covering heartbreaking moments, the story somehow remains warm and even genuinely funny at times. It's ultimately a beautiful story and one I could not recommend more strongly.

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