Dark, hilarious, challenging. Consider yourself warned.

Bina by Anakana Schofield

Rating 👓 👓 👓 👓 👓

This, like the subtitle says, is a novel in warnings - and these warnings should be heeded.

Bina is a woman with a mission to warn you. She has made mistakes that harmed her and she doesn’t want you harmed too. 

Bina, a 74 year old Irish woman, belongs to a secret Group who help people die. She is funny and selfless and a much better person than she thinks she is. Simultaneously mistrustful and generous to strangers, she would be the first to admit it’s a problematic paradox - look at Eddie, a free-loader and parasite - not really Bina’s son - but how else to explain him? And Phil, her best friend in the world, leaving forever without letting Bina say the things she wanted say. But Eddie might come back, and so, in fear and exhaustion, Bina takes to her bed to write down (because her memory is not always great) her warnings to the world. In the yard a group of young activists protest and a court case against Bina looms.

Anakana Schofield brings us Bina in a time where we need guidance and simple morality, and honestly, who better than a woman who has had enough?