Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Three Rooms | 2021 | Jo Hamya | Buy |
| 2 | The Hypocrite | 2024 | Jo Hamya | Buy |
Jo Hamya’s two novels are quite different from each other in structure, but both deal with the question of how people navigate the distance between their ideals and their actual lives. Three Rooms follows an unnamed young woman through post-Brexit Britain as she moves between an Oxford rooming house, a stranger’s sofa in London, and her childhood bedroom. It is a novel about housing insecurity, low wages, and the daily frustrations of being young and educated but unable to afford a stable life.
The Hypocrite compresses its story into a single afternoon. A woman’s father goes to see her play at the theater, not realizing it is based on him. The novel flashes back to a family holiday in Sicily when the daughter was 17 and her father made her take dictation for the novel he was writing. It is a book about parents and children, artistic ego, and the stories families tell about themselves. The Hypocrite was shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards in 2024.