Blog tour: This Is How We Are Human

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Welcome to the blog tour for This is How We Are Human by Louise Beech.

More about the book…

Sebastian James Murphy is twenty years, six months and two days old. He loves swimming, fried eggs and Billy Ocean. Sebastian is autistic. And lonely. Veronica wants her son Sebastian to be happy, and she wants the world to accept him for who he is. She is also thinking about paying a professional to give him what he desperately wants.

Violetta is a high-class escort, who steps out into the night thinking only of money. Of her nursing degree. Paying for her dad’s care. Getting through the dark.

When these three lives collide, and intertwine in unexpected ways, everything changes. For everyone.

More about the author…

Louise Beech is an exceptional literary talent, whose debut novel How To Be Brave was a Guardian Readers’ Choice for 2015. The follow-up, The Mountain in My Shoe was shortlisted for Not the Booker Prize. Both of her previous books Maria in the Moon and The Lion Tamer Who Lost were widely reviewed, critically acclaimed and number-one bestsellers on Kindle. The Lion Tamer Who Lost was shortlisted for the RNA Most Popular Romantic Novel Award in 2019. Her 2019 novel Call Me Star Girl won Best magazine Book of the Year, and was followed by I Am Dust.

Her short fiction has won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting for the Bridport Prize twice. Louise lives with her husband on the outskirts of Hull, and loves her job as a Front of House Usher at Hull Truck Theatre, where her first play was performed in 2012.

What can I say?

In all honesty, I don’t know. Every time I have the opportunity to join a blog tour for a new book by Louise Beech, I race against the clock to secure a spot. When I received a physical copy of This is How We Are Human I jumped up and down around the kitchen as my wife and daughter looked on, somewhat bewildered. And now? I have no words.

Seriously, I say this every time… every time I read one of the author’s books and I don’t think it can get any better than that, she proves me wrong. Every. Single. Time.

This novel touches serious heart strings. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a mother now, or because we’re expecting a new baby and I’m all emotional, but I projected so many hopes and fears in the fates of the lovely Sebastian and his superhero of a mother, Veronica.

I could write about characterisation, plot points, narrative style etc. but this book spoke to my heart and my heart doesn’t care about those things. My rational mind would like to point out that all of those technicalities are flawless, as ever. My heart just wants to drag you to your nearest bookshop (yay, they are open again) and put a copy of the book in your hands.

So there, I loved it.

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