Author Archives: Rose Herbert

Review: Sumner Burstyn – This Way of Life

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This Way of Life
Sumner Burstyn

“In an isolated and rural New Zealand, Peter and Colleen Ottley-Karena raise their seven children on the thin edge between freedom and disaster. With its genesis in the multi-award winning 2009 documentary of the same name, we see where the Ottley-Karena family is now. Faced with a range of new challenges they approach life with characteristic dignity and strength. But is their unique lifestyle one that is sustainable in the long term?”

This is a collection of stories about this family which seem to be in no particular order. The writting style is rather strange and hard to parse. I wish the author had decided one way or another on what tense to use, and whether to use third or first person, and been consistent about the source of the stories.

Am I too cynical? Am I too widely read? For me this book was too short and ultimately unremarkable. I know of, and have read, similar non-fiction. I myself was somewhat brought up this way – only the serious things are out of bounds (eg. take the dog on your walk so you don’t run into a snake), the rest you learn by doing (eg. if you poke the ants’ nest, you will get bitten!).

There’s plenty of lovely colour photographs, but I wasn’t quite sure of the relevance of some of them to the stories. It’s simplistically written, yet too detailed in places to be considered a children’s book. I can’t think of who the target audience is, or why you would want to own it to read more than once. Maybe borrow it from the library if you are keen to read more of the Ottley-Karena family, but don’t rush out to buy it.

Spotlight: Robert Kiltz – Living Your Best Life

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“Living Your Best Life: How to Think, Eat, and Connect your Way to a Better Flow”

We all have moments in life that throw us off course – sometimes, entire years. With the pandemic behind us and springtime optimism ahead – this book is the perfect way to make a comeback, in body, mind, and spirit.

Dr. Robert Kiltz is a board-certified OB/GYN and reproductive endocrinologist who has earned recognition outside of the fertility world for pioneering the holistic health movement and the keto lifestyle. In his latest book “Living Your Best Life: How to Think, Eat, and Connect your Way to a Better Flow,” Dr. Kiltz provides guidance to help you to live your best life and bring your mind, body, and smile into balance.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

“Living Your Best Life: How to Think, Eat, and Connect your Way to a Better Flow” will provide the resources necessary to help create the ideal you by focusing not only on the body but on the mind and the soul as well. Dr. Kiltz applies a holistic approach to medicine, working collaboratively on his patients’ physical being as well as their emotional and spiritual selves. In his book, Dr. Kiltz deep dives into various self-help techniques such as the power of mediation, eliminating stress, the benefits of yoga, and listening to your inner voice.  

  • – RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2021
  • – PUBLISHER: Waterside Productions
  • – ISBN-13: 978-1-951805-70-8 (print)
  • – ISBN-13: 978-1-951805-71-5 (ebook)
  • – PURCHASING DETAILS: Available on Amazon. 

WHY YOU NEED THIS BOOK:

Written by a board-certified, globally renowned physician and holistic medical thought leader, this book offers scientific, research-based insights that meld western medicine with eastern healing practices. “Living Your Best Life: How to Think, Eat, and Connect your Way to a Better Flow” will provide with the resources necessary to cope with those moments in life that throw you off course or make you feel defeated and will give you the tools needed to come back from such setbacks and help you understand that those challenging moments in life are all par for the course. With daily practice, you will learn to control your thoughts and your instincts and begin to manage your life from a place of love and joy rather than stress and fear.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, DR. ROBERT KILTZ:

Dr. Robert Kiltz is a board-certified OB/GYN and reproductive endocrinologist, and Founder and Director of CNY Fertility, one of the largest and most dynamic fertility centers in the country, featured in the Wall Street Journal, Today Show, and CNBC for helping shape the future of fertility medicine. Dr. Kiltz has earned recognition outside of the fertility world for pioneering the holistic health movement and the keto lifestyle. He is the author of several books including The Fertile Feast and Daily Inspirations, and his latest, Living Your Best Life: How to Think, Eat, and Connect your Way to a Better Flow which released April 2021.  In addition to his own media outlets, Dr. Kiltz appears regularly on numerous popular blogs and has shared his views as a TEDx speaker. For more information, check out Dr. Kiltz’s website, or follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT: www.doctorkiltz.com/living-your-best-life

Review – Amy Beashel – The Sky is Mine

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The Sky is Mine
Amy Beashel

Izzy may have drunk too much at that one party, but she shouldn’t keep getting mocked about it, and certainly not pressured into sex. But Izzy isn’t sure who she is, and where her own self-worth is. Her step-dad Daniel puts a lot of pressure on her by mocking her mother and touching her in the wrong way. Can Izzy be strong enough to stand up for herself and by herself? Does she have to go it alone to survive?

I struggled to get into this book because I was too afraid of what might happen. Having just read Fighting Words, I felt like I couldn’t deal with another child sexual abuse novel. Then, I picked it up again because I thought it deserved another chance. Then, the mobile internet went down, and next thing I knew I was stuck into reading it.

I liked that it was never really defined how ‘fat’ Izzy was, and whether it was within her own mind, Daniel’s mind or someone else’s mind. Equally, I think that either her best friend or her best friend’s girlfriend was a woman of colour? But I’m not 100% sure who was who. I think that this makes this novel easier to see yourself in it and helps the reader connect with the main character.

This is a powerful and yet sobering read. There is a huge push at the moment in Australia for people experiencing domestic violence to be confident enough to stand up against it, and ask for help. What this novel introduces is providing some more personal insight into what it might be like for a family experiencing this negative behavior. It’s easy to say that you’d do things differently if you were in that situation – but leaving is certainly not as easy as it might seem to an outsider.

This is a well-spent $10 worth of novel. I’m not sure that I could bear reading it again though. What brings its rating down to a 3.5 is that it is so very, very British in its pronunciation and word-usage. I don’t have a problem with swear words, but I do have a problem with ‘innit?’ No. I really hope no one actually speaks like that – it’s just like most Australians don’t greet others with ‘How’s it going, mate?’ Anyway, language like that served to interrupt my reading.

Allen & Unwin | 6th February 2020 | AU$7.99 | paperback

Review: David Yoon – Super Fake Love Song

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Super Fake Love Song
David Yoon

Uh oh, Sunny Dae is in trouble. So far in life he’s owned being weird and a nerd – but his parents are insisting on him looking after the new girl in town. The quick motion of going into his brother’s bedroom instead of his own means that Sunny is now the front man of a rock band! Will Sunny be able to hold Cirrus’ attention? Or will his nerdery shine through and scare her off…

This was strangely compulsive reading! The whole time I was reading I was hanging out for the moment of ‘truth’ for Sunny. And then it happened! Yes! And it was excellent! Things exploded just like I thought they might. The blurb really gave away 3/4 of the book to an extent, so I remind you again to not read the blurb if you want a complete surprise.

I wasn’t so sure about the ‘happy ending’. But maybe teenagers in love are more forgiving, particularly if their friends are their best-est-est friends ever. Can I imagine doing that to my high school friends? Hmm, I’m not sure I would have given up being a nerd for a girl. Like Sunny, I’m absolutely a ‘things in my room should be neat and where I left them last’ sort of person (well, if you’re talking about my book collection or LEGO).

What I would have liked to see more of was the fact that Gray is possibly clinically depressed and that this wasn’t being acknowledged by the Dae parents. Also, it seemed a bit trite that Gunner had a ‘hidden’ personality. I would have really wanted to hear more about the cool playwear stuff the three buddies made! But then, I think cosplay is totally cool and not necessarily nerdy at all.

I regret leaving this so late to review. It was a fantastic book, and would make an excellent gift to a teenager. Again, just like Frankly in Love, this is a very American-centric novel. I think it definitely reflects American society where ‘white’ people seem to be more common than other nationalities. However, it’s certainly not the case in the high schools in my area! Regardless, I think any nerds or would-be rock stars would enjoy this novel. 4 stars from me.

Penguin Random House | 17th November 2020 | AU$17.99 | paperback

Review: Alicia Jasinska – The Dark Tide

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The Dark Tide
Alicia Jasinska

Lina just KNOWS that it will be her brother Finley who is chosen as the sacrifice this year. Finley is equally insistent on going to the revelries to find a potion to fix Lina’s broken ankle. Next thing Lina knows, she’s asking her heartthrob Thomas to find a way to save Finley – but instead finds herself falling for Queen Eva.

Thomas – the hero we love to hate? Does that make him the anti-hero? Because it certainly seems like he’s a waste of space. What did Lina ever see in him! Lina on the other hand is surprisingly poorly aware of herself and the effect she has on others. Her obsession with dancing means that I expected her to heal her ankle, but instead she gets great joy from terrorising Finley over it.

I guess it’s a teenage novel because there are some graphic descriptions of basically torture and some pretty vivid death. Honestly though, the level of the story is younger tweenagers, and I was left wholly unsatisfied with it. Surely there are better young reader fantasy novels with gay characters?

I found myself disappointed in this novel. Yes, it had queer characters, but the story overall wasn’t that great. I felt no sense of satisfaction at the ending, and the fantasy/storyline wasn’t convincing. I loved the idea of witches using parts of themselves to do magic, but I hated that none of them actually disappeared!

3 stars from me, and seriously put this book down further on your to-read list, it’s almost not worth your time.

Penguin Random House | 2 June 2020 | AU$19.99 | paperback

Review: Emery Lord – The Map from Here to There

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The Map from Here to There
Emery Lord

Paige’s final year of high school is going to be perfect. She’s got the best friends ever, a cute-as boyfriend and a dream college plan. Too bad that things don’t stay perfect forever, no matter how much you would like them to.

I, for some reason, didn’t realise that this was the second book in the series. I thought that The Start of Me and You was perfect just as it was. It’s been 4 years since I read it, and so this book just pinged vague reminders that mostly just irritated me.

Paige, you suck. Max, you suck. Just suck it up! Things change. And if you have anxiety, that’s probably not going to change either. So really, Paige regresses from the start, and it’s just painful to watch the train wreck happening. I couldn’t feel attracted to her college dreams or her parents marriage/divorce/marriage problem. I also couldn’t have cared less about her clueless friends. Oh, and tossing in Tessa being gay was just off-topic and not what the first book set it up for.

I didn’t actually receive this book from the publisher, I went and bought it myself because I’ve loved most of what Emery Lord has written (see: When We Collided and the names they gave us). This one was a bit of a flop. 3 stars from me.

Bloomsbury | 5 March 2020 | AU$14.99 | paperback

Review: Catherine Steadman – Mr Nobody

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Mr Nobody
Catherine Steadman

Dr Emma Lewis is a specialist in memory loss and brain damage. Perhaps it comes from her own past, a man who did something terrible and a memory Emma couldn’t forget. Mr Nobody has no memories of his own, but he knows things about Emma that he shouldn’t know.

There is a beautiful slow pacing in the first half of the novel which potentially could be considered glacially slow if you prefer a novel with a bit more action. I wasn’t in a hurry because I’d only brought one book! I enjoyed the perspectives, although I felt like there was perhaps too much insight into each of their minds. I also didn’t really ‘need’ all of the characters. For example, the nurse wasn’t that necessary.

The ending to this one was a bit of a twist, but not quite as twisty as I thought? I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Honestly, after all the build up I thought something exciting might happen in the final pages. I was wrong, and it made me sad. It seemed like Emma had given up (something nebulous that I’m not going to say because it’ll spoil the book).

Thanks to COVID-19 I’m more than a year behind on reviewing this novel. With all the bad stuff that was/is happening in the world I couldn’t face a thriller. This is worthy of three stars – 4 from the beginning and 2 for the ending! If you want a gripping crime go check out Before Her Eyes.

Simon & Schuster | 1 February 2020 | AU$29.99 | paperback

Review: Yumiko Kadota – Emotional Female

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Emotional Female
Yumiko Kadota

“Yumiko Kadota was every Asian parent’s dream: model student, top of her class in medical school and on track to becoming a surgeon… She was regularly left to carry out complex procedures without senior surgeons’ oversight; she was called all sorts of things, from ‘emotional’ to ‘too confident’; and she was expected to work a relentless on-call roster – sometimes seventy hours a week or more – to prove herself.”

Yumiko has claimed her title of Emotional Female and taken it to the next level. As a patient, I feel most listened to when the doctor seems to actually be 1) listening and 2) can empathize. Yumiko takes us on a frankly uncomfortable journey into the Australian medical system where things are rancid and wrong to the core.

Yumiko talks about how staff would get her and another woman of Asian descent confused. Thankfully I see this practice actively changing in the university system, where students are encouraged to learn how to pronounce a person’s given name, not just call them by a nickname.

I love that Yumiko has tried to make the most of her burnout time (if that is such a thing) and found passion in a related area of teaching anatomy. She’s also returned to some surgery, and I hope that her way forward is not as painful as the past. Funnily enough I recently worked with someone who went the other way – first an anatomy tutor and now she’s in post-graduate Medicine. I can only hope that the environment has improved since Yumiko’s time as a student, but I fear that the workplaces are much the same.

I requested this book because I work with both post-graduate and first year undergraduate Medicine students. I feel as if I should know more about what it takes to ‘become a doctor’ because there is so much more ahead of them after they have finished university. I want to be able to give good advice, or at least informed advice, to students about what they hope to achieve out of medicine – and whether they have healthy coping mechanisms.

I have previously read Going Under which is a fictional account of another young woman’s training in Medicine. The original blog of that author’s post was in 2017. It doesn’t give me much home that the profession is changing its ways in regards to its attitude towards mental health and chronic overwork here in 2021. I hope that further people feel able to speak up, and perhaps change will eventually happen.

Buy this book and be part of the change we need in the Medical system. Encourage others to read it. You won’t regret it.

Penguin Random House | 2 March 2021 | AU$34.99 | paperback

Interview with Diego Ornelas-Tapia

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An interview with Diego Ornelas-Tapia, author of Tame a Dame

Diego Ornelas Tapia was born in 1994 in Los Angeles. He wrote Tame a Dame, his first book, and he’s currently working on Void. A lover of adventurous and unique stories, he loves to read and write stories that blend multiple genres.

Take it away, Diego!

Where did you get the idea to write To Tame a Dame?

To Tame a Dame stemmed from a subplot part of my other book, Void. In particular, the relationship between two characters. I wanted to explore the beginning of that relationship, so I went from there. The writing process for Tame a Dame was definitely letting it all unfold. I had no plan, unlike Void.

Why did you choose to self-publish?

I didn’t want to deal with the hassle and drama of pitching my story idea to a select few in a traditional publishing house. I prefer and love how much freedom self-publishing gives the author. Is there more to learn? Yes. More responsibility? You bet. But is it worth it? Without a doubt.

Who are your favorite writers?

George R. R Martin. I love how A Song of Ice and Fire is one big ensemble. Each chapter belongs to a character: Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister, Eddard Stark. And each character’s chapter has their own story in which nothing is black and white. There are no traditional heroes and villains and the world is brutal and merciless; love does not prevail in Westeros.

What is your writing process like?

I come up with a rough outline of the main plot and have an idea of where the story will go. However, this isn’t set in stone and I prefer letting the story unfold and giving the characters the reigns. At the end of the day, it’s their story, not mine.

An example of this would be a fight scene in my story, Void. For no spoilers and simplicity’s sake, let’s name the characters, the good guy and the bad guy. The bad guy is a natural born killer who’s never lost a fight in his life. The good guy is a bodyguard.

The bad guy was supposed to easily kill the good guy and move on with the story, but as the fight progressed, something surprised me. The good guy was able to hold his own. And the bad guy was getting the challenging fight he’s been waiting for his entire life. So, it’s like the bad guy told me, “this is it, Diego, this is my end. Don’t take that away from me.”

So, I didn’t.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

I have a routine set up. I write weekdays and dedicate five to six hours on these days. I split it into two rounds. One in the morning, followed by a break, and one later in the evening. I strive to hit a goal, not a deadline, of five thousand words in a week.

Usually, this routine keeps me focused and there aren’t any issues.
But that only lasts so long.

So, when I do hit writer’s block and I don’t have the discipline or mindset to move forward, because the attempt is literally draining my health, I take a deep breath, close my laptop, and give myself the day off.

I’ve discovered that I hit writer’s block within four to five months of working on a project. Aware of this, I make sure to give myself a week off and go on a road trip. I have fun and don’t think about my book at all. And when I come back to the fray, I feel refreshed and kick butt.

What’s the best thing about being a writer?

The freedom it grants me. And solidarity.

Unlike a scriptwriter, the life of an author means there are no limitations to your creativity. No sacrifices. You don’t have to worry about time limits or budget cuts, you don’t have to ask for permission to shoot at a certain location, you don’t have to worry about anything. You just let your mind roam free and see where it leads you.

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

It’s a cliche answer but keep writing. If you have an idea for a story that you feel great about, follow through with it, and finish the project. Don’t worry about how the final product will look.

Your first draft will not be great. I wish I saved my first draft of Void so I could show the world how horrible it was, but I deleted it out of shame. It had issues with tense: I would switch between present and past; it had issues with POV: I would switch between third person limited and omniscient; and it had issues with dialog: I would rely too much on it to carry the plot forward and delve into a character’s psyche.
The point being, it had issues.

But, with each revision, it got better and better and better. So, never surrender, my dear lads. Be it in writing, editing, or publishing. You’ll get there.

Wait, you want to hear more from this author? You’re keen to learn more about the book? Diego has set up a fabulous one-stop-shop for all the details you could possible want. You can find it here.

Review: David Arnold – The Electric Kingdom

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The Electric Kingdom
David Arnold

Nico has been sent on a quest by her father to jump through the waters of Manchester. Kit’s never known life without his mother – or with more than 5 people in it. The Deliverer is an enigmatic unknown face that tries to support a failing human population besieged with Flies. Each has a potential mission to complete, but that seems impossible.

It wasn’t exactly edge-of-your-seat reading, but I did want to know what happened next. I was able to put it down though, because I just wasn’t as invested as I could have been. I’m not really sure that I believed the characters died when they did, and there was a sense that nothing was really real.

Also, what’s the deal with the title? Isn’t the fact that there is no electricity left? Well… except in the super special place where it worked. And the time jump wasn’t even electrical! I was disappointed.

As with all novels with potential time travel, although it is theoretically possible for a circle to be made, it makes the ending sort of pre-thought. Yet I kept reading in the hopes that the finale would redeem the book for me. It didn’t. Why was this particular cycle the one the author chose to write about? It seems like a personal hell.

I liked the characters well enough, and I enjoyed the different perspectives (for a change) but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this novel to everyone. A better time travel novel doesn’t come to mind right now, but if you have to pick a first one to read in the genre, perhaps don’t pick this one. 3 stars from me.

Text Publishing | 16th February 2021 | AU$19.99 | paperback