Robert Welbourn - Belonging

Robert Welbourn - Belonging 

4⭐

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Fiction

Pages: 300

Format: Paperback  

Publisher: SRL Publishing  

Date Published: 15th May 2023

 

Huge thank you to SRL Publishing for sending me a copy of this book to read and review. 

Book Blurb: 

Noah is young, attractive, and madly in love with two people. These two people are both madly in love with Noah, yet neither knows about the other. Can Noah balance two secret relationships? Can he juggle so much secrecy, all whilst trying to discover who he really is as a person? And when family tragedy strikes, how will Noah cope with all that follows?

Belonging is a novel about being young and in love in a world that's cold and uncaring. Can you ever truly know someone if you don't know yourself? Can you find meaning in a world that seems random and thoughtless? Does anyone, like, actually care?

My Review: 

I really liked how different this book was. Belonging makes you rethink everything you hold dear and overanalyse the way our society and people work and behave. The main character Noah doesn’t seem to have a filter but at the same time, he represents all of us, in a way that we probably think so much more freely in our heads yet select carefully what we say out loud. It just shows how complex we are and how restricted we are in terms of societal expectations of what is right or wrong to say, do or be. I really enjoyed the snappy and short chapters that at the same time contained so much information and explored different themes about our society, people, mind, and 21^st Century.

The book follows Noah, who wants to be someone, but also wants to be no one since in his mind it is impossible to be someone if you are just an average working-class person. He struggles with his anxiety and wanting to belong in modern society, whilst having dreams and aspirations too. He is complicated and yet simple, different, and yet very relatable. He has his own flaws that he knows about, but is not afraid to point out flaws in modern society too. On top of that, he is dating two people, and of course, juggling two relationships at once is not an easy task.

I enjoyed the complicated juggling of the relationships that Noah had with both of his love interests, especially how he wanted them both, but for very different reasons. For Noah, his perfect person wasn’t just one person, but two different individuals, who made Noah’s life worthwhile and gave him the love he needed.

The only thing I didn’t like about this book was the ending. The thing that happened at the end of the book was a bit too much for me to stomach and I wish there was a trigger warning about it. As much as I liked how honest and open the whole book and Noah were, I think the episode at the end of the book made me put the book away for a few days before I could come back and finish it. Other than that, the book was really easy to read and enjoyable, as it was a different exploration of someone’s life, purpose and belonging.

Overall: Well-written book, with short and easy-to-read chapters. Very complex, yet relatable main character and the exploration of his early 20s in modern Britain. I wish at the end there was some sort of epilogue about Noah and his life further down the line, as it would have been interesting to see whether his dreams came true or not. 

About the Author:

Robert Welbourn was born and bred in Yorkshire and has lived there almost all his life. He’s had a passion for books for as long as he can remember and has been writing his whole life. His favourite authors are Bret Easton Ellis and Stephen King, and he cites Ellis as his number-one influence. Outside of books, he has a passion for travel and cats. And his friends and family, etc.

He studied English Literature at Salford University and this confirmed that he wanted to spend his life working with books, one way or another.

https://www.robertwelbourn.co.uk/