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Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden
I had quite hopes for Anything But Fine and the first few chapters promised a ya coming-of-age in the realms of The Sky Blues, Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun, and You Should See Me in a Crown. As the story progresses however I found myself growing weary of the unnecessary miscommunication. If you are…
1st pov, 3 STARS, Anything But Fine, AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIAN AUTHOR, bi side characters, BOOK REVIEW, Booklr, Contemporary, dancing, drama, gay, HIGH SCHOOL, lgbtq+, LGBTQ+ Author, m/m, male authors, My reviews, published in 2021, queer, read in 2022, reading, ROMANCE, sports, teen angst, Tobias Madden, YOUNG ADULT -
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
“Maybe it’s good, I said, to stop sometimes and reflect upon the things that have happened, maybe thinking about sadness can actually end up making you happy.” Cold Enough for Snow is a slight novella narrated and characterized by a crisp prose. Despite the introspective nature of this work (there are no dialogues and the…
1st pov, 3 STARS, Adult, ART/CREATIVITY, AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIAN AUTHOR, Cold Enough for Snow, cold tone, Contemporary, female authors, hong kong, introspective, japan, Jessica Au, LITERARY FICTION, MEMORY, mothers & daughters, NOVELLA/SHORT STORY, published in 2022, read in 2021, restrained prose, style over character, travel, unnamed characters, unnamed narrator, WINTER, winter reads -
Friends & Dark Shapes by Kavita Bedford
That is the truth of someone’s character: how a person makes you feel after you walk away from spending time with them.” Kavita Bedford’s Friends & Dark Shapes is an exceedingly millennial novel. We have a directionless and nameless narrator, a modern flâneur who is afflicted by a vague sense of ennui. There are no…
1st pov, 3.25 stars, Adult, AUSTRALIA, BOOK REVIEW, BOOK REVIEWS, Booklr, Contemporary, contemporary malaise, ennui, female authors, Friends & Dark Shapes, Indian Australian author, millennial, mumblecore, My reviews, navel gazing, no quotations marks, published in 2021, read in 2021, reading, SLICE OF LIFE, strong sense of place, style over character, stylised prose, unnamed narrator -
A Lover’s Discourse by Xiaolu Guo
On paper A Lover’s Discourse is the type of book that I generally like: we have an unmanned who recounts her relationship to her unmanned ‘lover’—a man she addresses as ‘you’. Our narrator met ‘you’ after moving from China to Britain in 2016. Recently orphaned and feeling somewhat alienated by her new environment the protagonist…
1st pov, 2 STARS, A Lover's Discourse, Adult, ALIENATION, AUSTRALIA, Brexit, China, chinese author, Contemporary, cultural dissonance, dialogue heavy, england, existentialism, female authors, Germany, LITERARY FICTION, LONDON, migration/immigration, navel gazing, published in 2020, read in 2020, ROMANCE, unnamed narrator, Xiaolu Guo -
The Survivors by Jane Harper
Alas, figuring out the murderer’s identity in the first 15% made this book kind of a drag. Having highly enjoyed Jane Harper’s The Lost Man, The Survivors felt by comparison vaguely uninspired. While the setting is just as atmospheric and vividly rendered as the ones in Harper’s other novels, the characters and mystery were very…
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Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings — book review
While Kathleen Jennings is an undeniably wonderful illustrator, I’m afraid that I wasn’t particularly impressed by her novella. What first struck me as somewhat discordant in Flyaway was the prose itself. At times the writing was clunky and there were passages that seemed as if they were trying to echo someone else’s style. The way…
1st pov, 2 STARS, arc, AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIAN AUTHOR, Booklr, creepy setting, FAIRY TALES, female authors, Flyaway, FOLKLORE, GOTHIC, Kathleen Jennings, MAGICAL REALISM, missing fathers, missing persons, mothers & daughters, netgalley, NOVELLA/SHORT STORY, read in 2020, SMALL TOWN, toxic relationships, unreliable narrators, YOUNG ADULT -
Dolores by Lauren Aimee Curtis – book review
I guess that I’m but a fickle creature: I saw and fell for the cover of this novella (the neon colours, the pose of the model, the simple font…I was a goner). Sadly the actual inside of Dolores has little in common with its fantastic cover design. Written in a prose that manages to be…
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Between a Wolf and a Dog : Book Review
Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain ★★★✰✰ 3 stars This novel had a really strong start: Blain’s style was compelling and brought her story to life. However, as the narrative progresses, I started to notice that the language and descriptions could be very repetitive and, at times, even overdone. Although there are…
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THE LOST MAN: BOOK REVIEW
The Lost Man by Jane Harper ★★★★★ 5 of 5 stars “What happened to him?” “Usual story out here.” Nathan made himself keep his voice even. “Wandered the wrong way and got lost.” To call The Lost Man a crime/mystery novel seems somewhat reductive. I guess that at its heart this is a story about…
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The Dry by Jane Harper
Harper delivers an absorbing yet somewhat ‘run-of-the-mill’ thriller. The story is one that has been done time and again: our main character returns to the small town where they are from (having left after certain traumatic events) and is forced to confront his past ghosts as well as his new ones.Now, despite these stereotypical elements, Harper reworks…
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