Book Review: Reckoning

From Goodreads: Heartbreaking, joyous, traumatic, intimate and revelatory, Reckoning is the book where Magda Szubanski, one of Australia’s most beloved performers, tells her story.
In this extraordinary memoir, Magda describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood, haunted by the demons of her father’s espionage activities in wartime Poland and by her secret awareness of her sexuality, to the complex dramas of adulthood and her need to find out the truth about herself and her family. With courage and compassion she addresses her own frailties and fears, and asks the big questions about life, about the shadows we inherit and the gifts we pass on.
Honest, poignant, utterly captivating, Reckoning announces the arrival of a fearless writer and natural storyteller. It will touch the lives of its readers.

Thoughts: Once again a Richard Fidler Conversation sparked my interest. I mean apart from the fact it's Magda Szubanski, one of Australia's funniest people, it's first line is this:

If you had met my father you would never, not for an instant, have thought he was an assassin. 

Seriously!! Is that not the best first line you have ever read!! Thankfully I have excellent friends who totally get me and my reading style so one of them bought it for me for Christmas - thanks Jodie! Nailed it!!

This is not your typical celebrity memoir. Szubanski takes you into her childhood, viewed from the eyes of a new immigrant to country. She explores complex and life changing feelings, events, experiences and thoughts, relating them back to her growth as a person, a comedian, an immigrant, a daughter. She is brutally honest about her struggle to accept her sexuality and her fear of it's affect on her relationships not only with her family but the public.
You cannot read this book and not admire Magda Szubanski. I don't think it would be easy for those who are valued for being funny to write so seriously. It wouldn't be easy to expose so much of yourself. 
Reckoning was definitely an excellent way to end the year.

Reckoning gets 4 stars.

*        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it
*****   It was amazing

Book Review: Island Home

From Goodreads: 'I grew up on the world’s largest island.' 
This apparently simple fact is the starting point for Tim Winton’s beautiful, evocative and sometimes provocative memoir of how Australia's unique landscape has shaped him and his writing. 
Wise, rhapsodic, exalted – Island Home is not just a brilliant, moving insight into the life and art of one of our finest writers, but a compelling investigation into the way our country shapes us.

Thoughts: Winton. Seriously, you can't go wrong with the man. His ability to place you smack bang in the middle of Australia and view it through his eyes is second to none. Everything from the cover to the explorations of place will make you long for this place we are lucky enough to go home. His description of what it feels like to be an Aussie overseas may be one of the big reasons I am not so eager to travel overseas. The love he has for the country only fuels my desire to see more of it - especially Western Australia and it's beautiful coastline. As one other review I read of Island Home said, all of Winton's books are about place, but this is about The Place.

Without beating the reader over the head, Winton gently reminds us how ancient this land is and how it captures people's hearts. He acknowledges the love non indigenous Australian's feel for their home, but points out we lack the ancient connection our indigenous population feel and revere. We have much to learn from the aboriginal culture and if we would only open ourselves up to it, they would be happy to teach us and maybe we could heal some of the hurt caused by our ancestors. 

Australia is big enough for all of us and I only hope that we all find the love and joy in this land that Tim Winton wants us to.

Island Home gets 5 stars

*        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it
*****   It was amazing

Book Review - Relativity

From Goodreads: Ethan is a bright young boy obsessed with physics and astronomy who lives with his mother, Claire. Claire has been a wonderful parent to Ethan, but he's becoming increasingly curious about his father's absence in his life, wanting to fill in the gaps. 
Claire's life is centred on Ethan; she is fiercely protective of her talented, vulnerable son, and of her own feelings. When Ethan falls ill, tied to a tragic event from when he was a baby, Claire's tightly held world is split open. 
On the other side of the country, Mark is trying to forget about the events that tore his family apart. Then a sudden and unexpected call home forces him to confront his past, and the hole in his life that was once filled with his wife Claire and his son Ethan.
When Ethan secretly intercepts a letter from Mark to Claire, he unleashes long-suppressed forces that – like gravity – pull the three together again, testing the limits of love and forgiveness.
Heart-wrenching, absorbing and magical, Relativity is an irresistible novel about science, love, unbreakable bonds and irreversible acts.

Thoughts: Antonia Hayes did not give a lot of interviews about this book. Understandable when you realise how closely she cuts to the bone with the premise of the book. One interview she did give was on Richard Fidler's Conversations. (seriously, I should track how many books I get from that show!) It was interesting and heart-wrenching enough for me to add to my list. In the end, I listened to it as a audio, read by the author herself.

I quite enjoyed the book, although I found Claire to be fairly annoying. However, there was one moment in the book where it completely lost me and it took a lot to get me back. During a meeting at school with Claire, Ethan, staff at the school, the parents of one of Ethan's friends and Ethan's friend, the mother of the friend reveals some very private and privileged information. The principal and other staff that were present just let it happen. There was time and space for them to intervene and they didn't. I do not know of, nor can imagine such a situation ever occurring. Schools are big on privacy and protecting children. There is no way what was revealed would be allowed. It was necessary for Ethan to find out the information disclosed, but it was done in such a clunky, plot device way it completely jarred me out of the story. For quite awhile I was so angry about the whole thing  I struggled to slip back into the story. However, in the end I managed to move past it and follow the story to the end.

The book is one of those that presents several questions to the reader. How would you react in Claire's position? What would you tell your child about what happened and the effect it has had? What are the dangers of hiding such information from a child - especially when they form answers for themselves that may be very far of the mark. And at what point do you start to believe your own lies in order to cover the pain?

Part of me wants to give Relativity 4 stars, but the reality is the school scene plus a few other little niggling issues means it will stay at a 3.

Relativity gets 3 stars

*        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it
*****   It was amazing

Book Review: Flesh Wounds

From Goodreads: A mother who invented her past, a father who was often absent, a son who wondered if this could really be his family.
Richard Glover's favourite dinner party game is called 'Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?'. It's a game he always thinks he'll win. There was his mother, a deluded snob, who made up large swathes of her past and who ran away with Richard's English teacher, a Tolkien devotee, nudist and stuffed-toy collector. There was his father, a distant alcoholic, who ran through a gamut of wives, yachts and failed dreams. And there was Richard himself, a confused teenager, vulnerable to strange men, trying to find a family he could belong to. As he eventually accepted, the only way to make sense of the present was to go back to the past - but beware of what you might find there. Truth can leave wounds - even if they are only flesh wounds.
Part poignant family memoir, part rollicking venture into a 1970s Australia, this is a book for anyone who's wondered if their family is the oddest one on the planet. The answer: 'No'. There is always something stranger out there.

Thoughts: I reckon everyone has a story they could tell during a game of "Who's Got the Weirdest Parents?", I know I've got a couple that could be contenders for the top prize. Richard Glover's life is full of them. 

Flesh Wounds is our book group book for November. It was my choice, made after I heard him interviewed by Richard Fidler on the Conversation Hour. It's a great interview - funny and cringe worthy at the same time. You can find it here and I highly recommend a listen. 

The book was the same, you'd be laughing out loud one moment and then cringing the next, feeling slightly ashamed that what you were laughing at was someone's life and delusions. But Glover wants you to laugh, he wants you to acknowledge the absurd and the crazy.

As a book group read it's fantastic. Lots of discussion to be had and pasts to be delved in. I'm sure there will be a round or two of Who's Got the Weirdest Parents and some pondering over what stories our own children might tell when they are older. 

I think it must have taken incredible courage for Richard Glover to write this book. His parents are not portrayed in a good light in any way. In fact as you read, you find yourself wondering how Glover turned out to be a functioning adult at all. He is a shining example of resilience and thriving despite not because of your circumstances. This book could have so easily been a depressing, dark and horrible journey through a not terribly nice childhood. Instead Glover presents his life as it is what it is and you can't change that so you might as well make the best of it. He acknowledges there are aspects of his life he keeps at arms length, developing a kind of detachment from the more bizarre and hurtful parts. His continued devotion to his parents, continuing to visit and include them in his life is not something I think a lot of people would have done. If nothing else this book goes to show a dysfunctional family does not mean the end of a functional life. As Glover himself says: " ...So many people had inadequate childhoods but we're not all insane or self-harming or miserable. We just found the love we needed elsewhere... This is the amazing resilience of humans. We are hungry for love and - mostly - we somehow find it."

Flesh Wounds gets 4 stars

 *        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it

*****   It was amazing

Closet His, Closet Hers

From Burge Words:  A COLLECTION of ten stories, all variations on the same theme: hiding from the truth.
The matron who interprets her sexual desire as physical pain, obsessed with one of her nurses to the point of stalking.
The father who has liaisons with men at public toilets, and the kid who works out he knows the bloke.
The painter who is out but not too proud, not until she’s achieved something with her life, and the Auschwitz survivor she must care for in her day job.
The mother who tries to find ‘the right girl’ for her son, only to come face-to-face with his male partner.
The daughter who finds her gay uncle on Facebook and confronts her christian father about his homophobia in one insightful email …
Captured at the crossroads of their lives, these people face choices between extraordinary heroism and cowardice.

Thoughts: Michael is a writer who likes to tell it like it is, even if his characters are hiding some pretty big secrets. His characters are all struggling with their sexuality and how they fit (or don't fit) into the roles society has chosen for them.
If you have read Michael's book Questionable Deeds you will recognise some of the situations he presents in Closet His, Closet Hers. There are a couple of stories which were almost like dry runs of what is delved into more deeply in the non fiction Questionable Deeds. For me it felt almost like a testing of the waters - can I write about this or is it still too raw?
All of the stories are about same sex attraction. At times it is very confronting, forcing you to not only face how parts of society react to same sex relationships or sex, but possibly your own thoughts and feelings.
Closet His, Closet Hers highlights the shame and trauma placed upon people when they are forced to hide what they truly feel. All of it's characters are damaged in some way because they feel they have to hide how they truly feel. And the damage extends to their friends and their family. No one can be happy if they are living a lie.
I would like to think that many of scenarios presented in Closet His, Closet Hers no longer exists. That a man no longer feels he has to marry, have children, live the suburban life if that is not what he wants. That a woman doesn't have to deny what she really wants and feels able to follow her desires and dreams. Sadly however I know these scenes are still played out in the daily lives of some. Hopefully books like this can highlight how damaging that is and everyone can learn to accept that love is love, regardless of a persons gender.

If you would like to know more about Michael Burge, his current publications and his upcoming releases, check out his website, Burge Words.

Closet His, Closet Hers gets 4 stars

 *        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it

*****   It was amazing

Book Review: The Wonder Lover

From Goodreads: "The compartments in our father's life were not the separations he needed to build to preserve his sanity. They were his sanity. When he fell in love... when he fell to the abjection he deserved, the walls began dissolving. And once the walls came down between all three, or now four, of his lives, so did every other retaining wall - between past and present, present and future, self- and non-self, dream and wakefulness. The walls were his sanity. Love had driven him mad."

This is the story of John Wonder, a man with three families, each one kept secret from the other, each one containing two children, a boy and a girl, each called Adam and Evie. 
As he travels from family to family in different cities, he works as an Authenticator, verifying world records, confirming facts, setting things straight, while his own life is a teetering tower of breathtaking lies and betrayals.

Thoughts: In a move to get me out of a reading slump I borrowed three "fastbacks" from the library. A fastback is a 7 day, non renewable loan of high rotation, high interest books. I picked this for no other reason than it looked interesting and it was.

I'm always fascinated by people who live multiple lives. The amount of energy and planning that must go into it is huge! John is exceptionally good at compartmentalising his life into the three separate families he has. To be truthful, he never planned to have three families, it just kind of happened. He has managed to convince himself that maintaining 3 is kinder than breaking up 2, although I'm sure at times he doesn't believe his own rational. To add a fourth relationship into the mix can only spell disaster for an already stretched timetable.

The narrator of the story is one of John's six children talking for all, or all 6 depending on how you look at it. The term "our mother"is used for all three women and thankfully is followed by the name of the mother in question. However, the children and even the wives to an extent, remain shadowy figures in the background of this story. Plausible explanations are given for how each of them believe John's stories of why he is away 2 weeks out of 3 and you even get the feeling he has fallen for women who don't question it too much because they actually prefer it that way.

The book started really strongly for me. I was intrigued, interested and eager to read more. However some where along the line it seemed to loose direction and purpose. It started to meander and I became unsure of the point of the book. In the end it just petered out and left me feeling rather unsatisfied. It has however, seemed to reignite my desire to read. I finished it and immediately picked up something else - something I haven't done for quite awhile.

The Wonder Lover gets 3 stars

 *        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it

*****   It was amazing

Book Review: The Rosie Effect

From Goodreads: THE ROSIE PROJECT WAS COMPLETE BUT I WAS UNPREPARED FOR THE ROSIE EFFECT.
GREETINGS. My name is Don Tillman. I am forty-one years old. I have been married to Rosie Jarman, world's most perfect woman, for ten months and ten days.
Marriage added significant complexity to my life. When we relocated to New York City, Rosie brought three maximum-size suitcases. We abandoned the Standardised Meal System and agreed that sex should not be scheduled in advance.
Then Rosie told me we had 'something to celebrate', and I was faced with a challenge even greater than finding a partner.
I have attempted to follow traditional protocols and have sourced advice from all six of my friends, plus a therapist and the internet.
The result has been a web of deceit. I am now in danger of prosecution, deportation and professional disgrace. 
And of losing Rosie forever.

Thoughts: I loved The Rosie Project. It was funny and quirky. Funnily enough, this made me a little hesitant about The Rosie Effect. Kind of a too much of a good thing. On the whole I was wrong. Once again, Simsion has written an enjoyably quirky book with lots of laughs and giggles to be had. Is it as good as The Rosie Project? Not in my opinion, but it comes close.

My biggest problem is one I frequent have with sequels - the characters don't change at all. I get Don's issues - his need to adhere to the rules, his totally logical and unemotional way of looking at things - but I think I did expect him living with Rosie would loosen that up a bit. Maybe not loosen, but teach him to look at things from the perspective of someone else, especially since he has the motivation of loving Rosie. I think I expected him, as a fairly intelligent man to look at something and think I don't understand why they think like that, but...and he doesn't. He continues to expect everyone to see the world as he does and is truly perplexed when they don't.

I think Simsion has taken the The Rosie books as far as he can. I really hope there isn't another one. Don's inability to change would make another book a farce. I really hope he does write more, just not about Don and Rosie.

Book Review: The Invaders

 

From Goodreads: Hal and the Heron brotherband are on the trail of Zavac and his precious cargo. Will they be able to find the pirates when the weather clears? And when they do, how can they possibly beat the mighty Raven and its crew of vicious cut-throats and killers?
A chance discovery will lead them to their prey, but the pirates have a well-fortified position. The Herons must drive out the invaders - and to succeed, Hal will need to devise a foolproof plan. In the icy waters of the Stormwhite, the smallest mistake could prove fatal.

Thoughts: I'm a long time fan of John Flanagan. Loved his Ranger's Apprentice series and raved about the first in the Brotherband series - The Outcasts - a couple of years ago. His books are full of adventure, fast paced and exciting. They show young boys in a positive light. I'm a bit behind in the Brotherband chronicles. So far there are five books in the series and if it's anything like Ranger's Apprentice chances are it will just keep getting better and better. 

Flanagan pulls very few punches in his books. The world he writes about is tough and hard to survive. People die, people kill - including the good guys. Things are not necessarily solved with diplomacy but frequently with swords and arrows. The adventure aspect of these books would appeal to boys. I've often thought Flanagan a  perfect author for reluctant male readers. Brotherband is definitely aimed more at the young adult audience than Ranger's Apprentice if for no other reason than the deaths I've already mentioned. The characters in Brotherband are a little older and have less hand holding than Will does in Ranger's. It's a good follow on series where the author has managed to maintain the magic.

Book Review: The Briny Cafe

From Goodreads: Brimming with warmth and wit, a delicious tale of friendship and love, and the search for a place to call home
Ettie Brookbank is the heart and soul of Cook's Basin, a sleepy offshore community comprising a cluster of dazzling blue bays. But for all the idyllic surroundings, Ettie can't help wondering where her dreams have disappeared to until fate offers her a lifeline, in the shape of a lopsided little cafe on the water's edge.
When Bertie, its cantankerous septuagenarian owner, offers her "the Briny" for a fantastic price, it's an opportunity too good to miss. But it's a mammoth task, and she'll need a partner. Enter Kate Jackson, the enigmatic new resident of the haunted house on Oyster Bay. Kate is also clearly at a crossroads running from a life in the city that has left her lonely and lost.
Could a ramshackle cafe and its endearingly eccentric customers deliver the new start both women so desperately crave?

Thoughts: Susan Duncan's memoir Salvation Creek spoke to me. Just like her, I live somewhere accessible only by boat and it truly is a different way of life. The community and the way of life are something I don't think I could ever give up - I truly struggle to see me ever living on the mainland again.
The Briny Café draws on Duncan's offshore living experience to build the fictional community of Cook's Basin. Just like Salvation Creek, community and food are at the heart of this book. The story travels along at a good pace, following Ettie's journey as she takes on the run down Briny Café while helping newcomer Kate find her feet within the offshore community. Filled with likeable characters, The Briny Café is not going  to provide you with a challenging read, but with a setting that you will want to come back to in order to see what you're new friends are up to.

Book Review: Monkey Grip

From Goodreads: Inner-suburban Melbourne in the 1970s: a world of communal living, drugs, music and love. In this acclaimed first novel, Helen Garner captures the fluid relationships of a community of friends who are living and loving in new ways.
Nora falls in love with Javo the junkie, and together they try to make sense of their lives and the choices they have made. But caught in an increasingly ambiguous relationship, they are unable to let go - and the harder they pull away from each other, the tighter the monkey grip.

Thoughts: I loved Helen Garner's The Spare Room and This House of Grief. I saw something on TV about Monkey Grip, which was her first novel so decided to download it to my kindle and add it to my holiday reading list.
Monkey Grip is one of seminal pieces of Australian Literature that's often included in best of or must read lists - truthfully I'm wondering why. If this had been the first Garner I'd read, it may very have been the last. It just seemed to go nowhere. There was lots of people going in and out of each others rooms and houses, often in the very early hours of the morning, drug taking, having conversations that were never described so you don't know what the conversation was about and fucking. Never called sex, making love, rooting - just fucking. It struck me as trying to shock or portray it as meaningless or insignificant, but it just jarred for me.
Maybe if I had lived through that time (it was written in 1977, I would have been 6 and obviously lived in a world far different to the one described in the book.) I would see the book differently, but it's not something that struck a chord with me.

Book Review: This House of Grief

From Goodreads: On the evening of 4 September 2005, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother when his car plunged into a dam. The boys, aged ten, seven, and two, drowned. Was this an act of deliberate revenge or a tragic accident? The court case became Helen Garner's obsession. She was in the courtroom every day of Farquharson's trial and subsequent retrial, along with countless journalists and the families of both the accused and his former wife.
In this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. At its core is a search for truth that takes author and reader through complex psychological terrain. Garner exposes, with great compassion, that truth and justice are as complex as human frailty and morality.

Thoughts: Harrowing is a word that instantly springs to mind in regards to this book. Helen Garner sat through and shares her thoughts about the trial of Robert Farquharson, a man convicted of murdering his three sons by driving his into a dam and allowing them to drown.
I've read a lot of true crime books, but Garner is the first writer who manages to not sensationalise or aim purely to horrify the reader. Her observations are thoughtful, heart-rending and have the tone of someone who is truly interested in the truth and at times conflicted by what she sees and hears in the courtroom. It's also a book that examines our jury system, removing any idea of the glamour of prestige Hollywood portrays these trials to be. Instead it shows how gruelling, often boring and frequently distressing they can be.
This House of Grief is a harrowing (there's that word again!)read, but well worth the emotional roller coaster it will take you on.

Book Review: The Distant Hours

From Goodreads: A long lost letter arrives in the post and Edie Burchill finds herself on a journey to Milderhurst Castle, a great but moldering old house, where the Blythe spinsters live and where her mother was billeted 50 years before as a 13 year old child during WWII. The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives looking after the third and youngest sister, Juniper, who hasn’t been the same since her fiance jilted her in 1941.
Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in ‘the distant hours’ of the past has been waiting a long time for someone to find it.
Morton once again enthralls readers with an atmospheric story featuring unforgettable characters beset by love and circumstance and haunted by memory, that reminds us of the rich power of storytelling.

Thoughts: I listened to this as an audio book and must say  the narrator, Caroline Lee was a fantastic choice. 
The Distant Hours is a book about secrets - those we keep from others, those we keep from ourselves and the effect those secrets have on those surrounding it. Kate Morton takes the reader into the lives of the Blythe sisters - thick with secrets - and slowly unravels their tale and the tragedy of lives not lived to the fullest. Enslaved by a controlling, dead father and the legacy of a book he wrote - The True History of the Mud Man - Percy, Saffy and Juniper all have their roles to play, whether they want to or not.
For me, Morton's great strength is in her characters and her ability to make you invest in them. She is very good at leading you down a certain path, only to suddenly change direction and make you question everything you thought. The person you detested, thinking they were horrible and really not very nice, turns out to be one you admire most by the end.
A trait of Morton's is the story jumping back and forth in time. However, the distance between the time lines (in this case, WWII and 1992) makes it fairly easy to follow the story. Another thing I like about Morton is the fact that the reader is told everything, even if the characters are still in the dark. In this way, the reader is privy to all the secrets without feeling like the characters have come across the information in a contrived and unnatural way. The reality is a lot of secrets are taken to the grave, those left behind to never know the full truth of the matter. As a reader, that frustrates the hell out of me! If I've taken the time to follow the story, invest in the characters then I want to know what happened! Morton is more than happy to let the reader in, but is also happy to keep the characters in the story in the dark.In this way she ties up all loose ends without ruining the feel of the book. 
There is now only one Kate Morton book I haven't read and I'm caught between diving back into one of her wonderfully rich worlds or putting it off so it doesn't pass to fast! My next audio is Tim Winton's Eyrie, so maybe after that... 

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The Distant Hours

Book Review: Jasper Jones

From Goodreads: Late on a hot summer night in 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his sleep-out. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan.
Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into the night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress. Jasper takes him to his secret glade in the bush, and it's here that Charlie bears witness to Jasper's horrible discovery.
With his secret like a brick in his belly, Charlie is pushed and pulled by a town closing in on itself in fear and suspicion as he locks horns with his tempestuous mother; falls nervously in love and battles to keep a lid on his zealous best friend, Jeffrey Lu.
And in vainly attempting to restore the parts that have been shaken loose, Charlie learns to discern the truth from the myth, and why white lies creep like a curse.
In the simmering summer where everything changes, Charlie learns why the truth of things is so hard to know, and even harder to hold in his heart.

Thoughts: Wow. Simply wow. This is my book groups August book and it was fantastic. Craig Silvey has written what I am sure will become an Australian classic. In my mind, Silvey has the potential to find a place in my heart right alongside Tim Winton.
Jasper Jones has many layers. It's a story of small town intolerance, of family dysfunction, of friendship, of guilt, of growing up. It's all these things, yet it all works. The different themes blend and meld into a story that has you cheering, crying and shaking. (thisiswhathappened).
Silvey writes characters that are worth investing in. I found myself desperate for things to work out for the narrator Charlie, for Jasper to find whatever he's looking for, for Jeffrey to find acceptance. Silvey also has the ability to make you forget, momentarily, what the book is actually about and become immersed in something else - namely a cricket match - and even if you don't like cricket, you will be on the edge of your seat.
However, for me, it's the ending that will stay with me. (thisiswhathappened) It's the end that had me rocking, shaking, moaning even as the truth is revealed and you wonder how will they survive this.
Jasper Jones has just become my 2014 you must read this book. Trust me, you must read this.
 

Book Review: Past the Shallows

From Goodreads: Brothers Joe, Harry and Miles live with their father, an abalone fisherman, on the south-east coast of Tasmania. Everyday their dad battles the unpredictable ocean to make a living. He is a hard man, a bitter drinker who harbours a devastating secret that is destroying him. Unlike Joe, Harry and Miles are too young to leave home and so are forced to live under the dark cloud of their father's mood, trying to stay as invisible as possible whenever he is home. Harry, the youngest, is the most vulnerable and it seems he bears the brunt of his father's anger...

Thoughts: I was in equal parts drawn to this because of the cover and scared to read it due to the comment on the front cover - "Wintonesque" I love Tim Winton and I was terrified of reading this and having to exclaim - "You know nothing of Winton!" And while it wasn't Tim Winton, I can see the parallel. Parrett has a sparseness of language that portrays way more than you would think, something Winton is a master of. The bleakness of the setting perfectly reflects the bleakness of the story, giving the reader an ongoing sense of foreboding. My heart breaks for all three of the boys in this book. Joe because you know he will feel guilt for leaving the other two, but you also know he doesn't have a choice. Miles because you know he can't leave - he must fill the hole left by Joe and protect Harry from their wild, angry father. Harry because he still holds an air of innocence, but it is already being tainted by the harsh life he leads.
Past the Shallows is a book that will be enjoyed by those who like Winton. For a debut novel it's exceptional and you would think the only place for this author to go is up.

Book Review: The Turning

From Goodreads: Tim Winton is undisputedly one of the finest storytellers working in the English language. Now he gives us seventeen exquisite, overlapping stories of second thoughts and mid-life regret - extraordinary tales of ordinary people from ordinary places. Here are turnings of all kinds - changes of heart, nasty surprises, slow awakenings, sudden detours - where people struggle against the terrible weight of the past and challenge the lives they've made for themselves.
Brilliantly crafted, and as tender as it is challenging, "The Turning" dissects and celebrates the moments when the light shines through.

Thoughts: All the stories in the Turning are linked, either by character or place. All have some link to Winton's fictional Western Australian coastal town Angelus. As you read, you are looking for the links, smiling when you spot the familiar and settle in to see what has been going on, where on the timeline this story fits. 
Each story features an event in one of the characters lives, a turning point that has significance. Like all of Winton's work, the writing is masterful. One review I read on Goodreads described each page as a masterclass in technique.
The thing with Winton though is his technical brilliance doesn't create a text that you have to wade through. It a literary text that accessible and easy to read. It's what truly great literature should be - writing so flawless you don't realise how immersed you are in the story until it ends or someone interrupts you. Writing you don't read, but absorb. 
As I say after any Winton read - read it. The man is by far and away Australia's best writer.

Book Review: The Madding of Daniel O'Hooligan

Synopsis: 'Daniel Clare O'Hooligan - motorcycle enthusiast, failed family man and teacher of Medieval Literature - is increasingly at odds with life in the twentieth century. His other world, the fantastic realm of the Sacred Lake with its eccentric denizens, beckons ever more alluringly...This audaciously inventive novel rockets along at full throttle, steering a wild course through medieval warfare, higher education, theories of light, the music of Liberace, and the nature of doubt and belief.' (Source: back cover)

Thoughts: Delightful, left of centre, funny book that lets you into the mind of Daniel O'Hooligan as he loses it. The blurb states that the "novel rockets along at full throttle, steering a wild course" and that sums it up perfectly. If you have ever been on a motorbike, on a twisty road, you know what it's like to be thrown from one side to the other and back again as you go through the bends. Likewise, Wear's novel throws you from one thing to another and back again, barely giving you time to gather breath before being tossed in yet another direction. And it works. Through it all there is a twisted logic you can follow. You can see what O'Hooligan sees and it all makes so much sense.
I can just about guarantee if you read this you will laugh out loud, you will despair and you will delight in the characters and their lives. The Madding of Daniel O'Hooligan is a amazing gem. It's almost impossible to find it in hard copy, but the author has just re-released it in Kindle format. (http://www.amazon.com/The-madding-Daniel-OHooligan-fiction/dp/0702223417) Well worth the $4.90.

Book Review: The Wild Girl

From Goodreads: Dortchen Wild fell in love with Wilhelm Grimm the first time she saw him.
Growing up in the small German kingdom of Hessen-Cassel in early Nineteenth century, Dortchen Wild is irresistibly drawn to the boy next door, the young and handsome fairy tale scholar Wilhelm Grimm.
It is a time of War, tyranny and terror. Napoleon Bonaparte wants to conquer all of Europe, and Hessen-Cassel is one of the first kingdoms to fall. Forced to live under oppressive French rule, the Grimm brothers decide to save old tales that had once been told by the firesides of houses grand and small all over the land.
Dortchen knows many beautiful old stories, such as 'Hansel and Gretel', 'The Frog King' and 'Six Swans'. As she tells them to Wilhelm, their love blossoms. Yet the Grimm family is desperately poor, and Dortchen's father has other plans for his daughter. Marriage is an impossible dream.
Dortchen can only hope that happy endings are not just the stuff of fairy tales.

 Thoughts: Dark, disturbing, harsh, haunting, emotional. All of these words are repeated often in reviews of The Wild Girl, and they are all correct. Kate Forsyth's historical book about Dortchen Wild and Wilhelm Grimm is spectacular. You will experience the full range of emotions as you read about their love, the barriers put up by Dortchen's father, all against the tumultuous backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.
Forsyth does not protect her reader at all from the harsh realities of life, or the darker side of human nature. She pulls no punches, softens no blows, but leads the reader down dark paths, dangerous alleys into terrifying situations. At one stage she leaves you with little hope for her characters. At times the despair is almost suffocating, but you are pulled back as you want to know, need to know, if this can be resolved. For me, I was so connected to Dortchen, so concerned for her that I felt I had to read on, if only to see her out of the darkness. I felt that if I closed the book, I left her there, hanging, waiting for me to continue to lead her (hopefully) somewhere safer, quieter, lighter. 
I also now want to go and read all of Grimm's fairytales again.
I was so taken with this book I'm going to go out on a limb here and put it on par with Markus Zusak's The Book Thief. Yep, it's that good. Not often will I say a book is a must read - but this is a must read. In years to come when they put out those "50 books you must read" or "50 books to change your life" this will be on it. It will stand the test of time and like The Book Thief will become a classic. Don't miss it - read it now.
I must also say thanks to Eclectic Reader, whose review of The Wild Girl is what prompted me to read it.

Challenges: Aussie Author Challenge

Book Review - The Happiness Show

From Goodreads: She ached for him. She longed for him. She missed the way he made her feel and how funny and smart and sexy she felt with him. And young. She missed the version of herself that she had left behind.At thirty-eight, Lizzie Quealy thinks she has things sorted: a happy relationship, a couple of gorgeous kids, a steadfast best friend and a career she loves. But when Lizzie bumps into Tom, an old flame from her globe-trotting twenties, her life begins to unravel.Tom is her 'unfinished business': the man she might have spent her life with, if things had gone a little bit differently. Ten years on, the spark is still there – but how far is Lizzie prepared to go to recapture it, and at what cost?Set in Melbourne, London and Bali, via Tokyo and the Trans-Siberian Express, The Happiness Show is a refreshingly honest story of love, fidelity and the messiness of second chances. Sexy and hilarious, it explores the rules and taboos of contemporary relationships – and what happens when they stand in the way of one woman's pursuit of happiness.

What I Thought: Hmmmm....not sure. It's not that I didn't enjoy this, but there is something about it that annoyed me and I'm not quite sure I can put my finger on it. Maybe it's my inability to truly understand why someone who is in a happy, stable, loving relationship is willing to risk it. If you do happen to come across your missed chance and it sends you into as big as a whirl as it did Lizzie, then I find it hard to buy that your current relationship is as wonderful as we are led to believe. And I cannot, no matter how hard I try, buy into it being ok to cheat on your partner - it's not - even if you are never caught.
Lizzie came across to me as selfish and willing to risk her marriage and friendships for a second chance at a earlier romance. If you don't take the book too seriously, then it's a fun, light holiday read. Other than that, I'm not a fan.

Challenges: Aussie Author challenge

  

Book Review - Pulling Down the Stars

From Goodreads: Charlie Lansdowne’s life is going nowhere ... fast.
Trapped at home with his eccentric father and his stroke-affected grandfather, he finds life a daily exercise in dysfunction as three generations of men strive to get along.
But when Charlie meets the volatile and tempestuous Maxine – a surfer girl who works at the local abattoir – his life goes supernova. Friendships implode, passions ignite and death comes stalking in the night.
Set in the seaside country town of Warrnambool, this is a contemporary Australian thriller likened to 'Jasper Jones'

What I thought: Back in May 2011 I reviewed a book called The Taste of Apple by James Laidler. I loved it and was thrilled when the author contacted me and asked if he could use my review on his website. (for the record, I said yes.) I was even more thrilled when he contacted me again late last year and asked if I would like an arc copy of his new book. Again I said yes and just before Christmas, Pulling Down the Stars landed on my Kindle.

First off, can I just say I love the cover! Almost makes me wish I owned a hard copy - but lets face it, it's what's inside that counts.  From the opening chapter where we meet Charlie as he baths his invalid grandfather, I wanted to know more. More about Charlie and his dad, more about how Maxine and Charlie cross paths, more about Bill and his...lets just say more about Bill.

There is a thriller element to this book, but it is so much more. In fact, the thriller aspect can be forgotten at times and then, when your drifting along nicely in the story, you're brought back to the darker side, rocketing back like an elastic pulled tight and then released.  Each of these thriller moments are short, like a quick glimpse into the side of life we don't want to acknowledge is there. We turn back to the light, but with the thought in the back of our mind that things may not turn out the way we want.


Laidler's strength lies in his characters. Both Maxine and Charlie are looking for direction in their lives, but come from very different backgrounds. Maxine with her privileged up bringing resents  her parents, rebelling against her mother's  expectations and her father's infidelity. Charlie has spent his life aware that his birth caused his mother's death, leading his grandfather into alcoholism and his father's servitude to the old man. I felt for both of them and the other characters caught up in this tale. The strength of the characters and the readers empathy for them carried the book in areas where the story wasn't quite strong enough. At times issues seemed to be resolved rather abruptly with little or no lasting effect (such as Charlie's falling out with his best mate).

Unlike The Taste of Apple, which was written in verse, Pulling Down the Stars is prose. Yet in some of the text, that lyrical, poetical feel is obvious.

I am all at sea.
First there's the surge, followed by the rush, as lying on my surfboard my hands excavate the water - fingers panning for hold.
I am all at sea,
feeling the lactic burn across my shoulder blades and the slow building elevation from behind.  

 The moments Laidler hits these lyrical bits are the best bits. They provide strong imagery, clear pictures of the characters and an ebb and flow that carries the reader easily, leading them further into the story.

All in all I enjoyed Pulling Down the Stars and would recommend it, especially older teenagers looking for that bridge between young adult and adult books.

Many thanks to the James Laidler and Hybrid Publishers for providing me with a copy to review. All views in this review are mine and mine alone!

Challenges: Ebook Challenge, Aussie Author Challenge