Author Archives: Rose Herbert

Review: Jenny McLachlan – Star Struck

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Star Struck
Jenny McLachlan

Pearl is the bad girl. Rough, swearing, in trouble at school. It turns out that she has some really good explanations for why that’s the case – you’ll have to read on and find out.

9781408856130Oh yeah, who’s going to cheer for that entirely surprising ending? Uh, that would be me. I didn’t see that coming at all. Should I have? Were the signs there? I can’t remember.

This is the 4th book in the ‘series’. Four friends, four books. There is absolutely no need to read the first three though. I have a feeling that they all centre very firmly on the main girl, and so I think I could go back and read them even having read this novel without having had too many spoilers.

No no no. This is not the right book cover! Well it is… But it’s so much more vibrant in real life. Part of the reason I reviewed it was because I was sick of seeing the fluro pink on my bookshelf… No honestly, it’s BRIGHT.

Look, I wanted to give this 4 stars, but then again I thought I wasn’t quite absorbed enough by it to justify a strong reaction. Good teenage storyline and characters, just not enough real depth for me.

3star

Review: Jesse Andrews – Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Jesse Andrews

Greg Gaines hates high school. He has mediocre grades, and a disinterest in hanging out with one group at a time. He prefers to drift on the periphery – right up until the point when his mother tells him he has to re-befriend an ‘old flame’ from his past. It seems to Greg that after this point, his life becomes more complicated than he ever imagined.

12700353I didn’t even realise Earl was black. Call me stupid, but I didn’t even look at the front cover before I started this novel. And then it doesn’t bother me that people would be a different race to me, so I guess I didn’t pick it up for ages.

Greg is constantly self-depreciating, and it’s easy to tell why he doesn’t become friends with people. We really don’t understand why he is even writing the novel if he hates it so much to the end. In fact, I’m not sure I understood any of his motives – ever. I just couldn’t care!

Rachel had some potential there, but as Greg says, it was never really about Rachel when it should have been. Greg manages to be a selfish bastard the whole way. The reader doesn’t even feel like that until it’s pointed out by Greg’s acquaintances. That’s the danger of having an unreliable first person narrator I suppose.

There were some humorous points in this novel, and maybe that’s what made it a good film? Honestly, I have no idea. I don’t generally read novels to laugh, and I expect a rock-solid storyline – not what seemed to me a slap-dash novel of ‘let’s pick things that can be made funny, when they really aren’t’.

I had trouble picking this novel off the shelf to read, after my partner told me that it probably wouldn’t be my style. Lo and behold, it wasn’t really my style. For a major motion picture, I just couldn’t love it. I dawdled between giving it two or three stars, and I’ve decided to settle on two. Just because everyone else seems to love it doesn’t mean that I have to bow to that! I’d go for Jesse Andrews other offering, The Haters.

2star

Review: Jesse Andrews – The Haters

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The Haters
Jesse Andrews

A band isn’t a band without a road trip. Coerced into going to Jazz camp, Wes and Corey expect that nothing exciting will happen. Enter a fly-away sexy girl and you end up with a humourous mess that will carry you away for a while.

Acr297196509774415983This novel is filled with ‘F-bombs’, sex and a rather disgusting sense of humour. But that being said, I laughed out loud at some of the dialogue, and although I’d never purchase it on my own, I think it’s a good read to borrow from a friend.

This novel is irreverence to a T. If something can go wrong, it does. It’s hard to believe how much mayhem a trip can cause. I just can’t believe how much they get away with! Who sells their mother’s car and buys a bomb (not of the F variety either)?

Look, I came out the other side of this novel wondering what had happened. For a road trip book, I don’t think the characters actually learnt very much about themselves or life, despite what the blurb proclaimed. In fact, it seemed like they just continued to get into trouble! If you’re looking for a teenage novel that has the same quality of laughs, please go for The Way We Roll.

Jump for this novel for a quick laugh, just don’t expect anything more serious. I’d go for this one over ‘Me and Earl and the Dying Girl’ by the same author any day. I barely tolerated that one (review to come), and The Haters at least gave me laughs.

3star

Review: Kathleen Duhamel – Deeper

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Deeper
Kathleen Duhamel

Claire Martin has married the lead singer of Deep Blue. There’s things in his past that are yet to be faced though, and it could all come tumbling down even as Claire’s bestie falls for the other man of Deep Blue.

deeper-cover-200x300I really enjoyed the first novel in this series. I don’t think I’m the target audience, but it’s refreshing to see some good new fiction aimed at older women – I don’t think there is enough there. Too much comes under the heading of romance or literature to me – how about a novel with some body to it? This novel is it.

We get to see some more sides to the band, and the lives of the famous! Claire is constantly fighting off groupies, old flames and a complete mess. Not to mention that she wants to maintain her own career, and yet not be absorbed by it.

I couldn’t believe Claire being ordered to turn herself in. Seriously, it was a single allegation, and since there was another person there who would have vouched for Claire, I think she should have and could have gotten away with it.

Sex scenes? Yes. Are they slightly awkward for a queer reader? Yes again. But really, they are well written, add something to the characters and make a difference to how the reader thinks about the characters.

Therapy! Ah, you good thing. Promoting people to go to therapy is one of the more helpful (but annoying) things someone can do.

Now, if I was the true target audience, I’d be a rereader of this one, and the first novel in this trilogy. As it is, I’m giving it a really solid 4 stars – go and hunt this book from Amazon.

4star

Review: Neil M Hanson – Pilgrim Wheels

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Pilgrim Wheels
Neil M Hanson

Neil has taken on the challenge of riding across the USA, sometimes with a friend, and sometimes without. He quickly learns the challenges and rewards of doing it on his own, as well as enjoying some time with old friends. Let me clarify here: He’s riding a PUSH BIKE across the desert.

24820176This novel covers only part of Neil’s journey! It is astounding how much he has travelled on his trusty bike. I can’t believe it, but then I think of other people who have cycled around the exterior of Australia and straight across the middle. Still though, its amazing what one man on a tiny bike can do if he is determined.

I interviewed Neil quite some time ago (I’m too afraid to look at the date), but the novel simply hadn’t taken my fancy to read until lately. I’m on a mission to get through all the novels authors have sent me personally – if you’ve sent me a novel and I haven’t reviewed it, pop me an email please!

This is non-fiction, and as such I’ll not be giving it any stars. That being said, I think this novel would be good for people who have a passion for a ‘singular’ sport – one like cycling or running where you spend a lot of time with the scenery.

Review: Eoin Colfer – The Supernaturalists

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The Supernaturalists
Eoin Colfer

After a near-death experience, Cosmo Hill finds himself targeting blue Parasites that appear to be sucking the life out of hurt people. As the novel progresses, things become clearer at almost the same rate that they grow darker.

45432I read this novel a while ago now. I thought I had read it a long time ago (pre-blog) and so when it took my eye again while I was rearranging my shelves, I thought I’d better give it a review. Turns out I’d never read it, or I hadn’t read it closely enough.

As other reviewers have commented, this seems quite rushed. This is an older novel by Colfer, so I expected better (to me, the last Artemis Fowl book was sub-par too). I was sooo unsatisfied with the ending.

The idea behind the story was interesting, and also how the characters are manipulated by each other. However, I never felt much of a connection with any of the characters. It meant that when they were hurt or died I didn’t care. Interesting storyline, poor execution.

For that reason, I’ll be giving this novel a paltry 3 stars. Disappointing. I have two copies, and I’ll be releasing one into the wild. Maybe I’m no longer the right audience for this book, I’m simply too old?

3star

Review: Nancy Pennick – 29

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29
Nancy Pennick

Allison is settling in for a normal Junior year of high school. Little does she know that her heart will be attracted to the bad boy in her English class, and her older brother will be set on a rampaging trail to force her to betray her loved ones.

27467537Cliche, cliche, cliche. Fall for for the ‘bad boy’, get dumped, go back to the ‘safe choice’. Seriously girl, I’d be pretty worried you know what love is before you head off into the woods with someone.

I really liked the idea behind this novel, once it finally got going. Innovative, yes. Well executed? No. I was hanging out for details the whole time, and that was what kept me reading. But in fact, I basically started skimming because I no longer connected to the characters. They could all die for all I cared.

More could have been done here about the literature that was included. There should have been some importance linked to Fahrenheit 451. If there was, I missed it. With that, how did Ash possibly afford all those books she bought? Hasn’t she heard of a library? Ash is just a weak secondary character. In fact, I felt like I didn’t know much about any of the others because Allison was so absorbed in herself.

I’m giving this 2-3 stars, erring towards 2 stars. I made the mistake of starting it, and then I finished it, but it really wasn’t worth my time. It needs an update in its speed and the tell/show method.

2star

Review: Abigail Ulman – Hot Little Hands

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Hot Little Hands
Abigail Ulman

This is the debut of a ‘striking, wry, utterly fresh new voice in Australian Literature’. A collection of nine short stories cover ‘stumbling on the fringes of innocence, and the marks desire can leave’. If anything could bring me back into reading literature, I thought this novel would be it.

24681815I read at least five of the short stories (I had to say I had read half at least), and although the prose was fantastic, the characters believable, there was something about each storyline that left me grasping at anything that would give me meaning with them. I’d read each one, and feel sort of empty, not fulfilled.

For some reason I thought I would enjoy this set of short stories published by Penguin. Instead, I started them, found that I couldn’t get into them, and put it back on the shelf for a very long, and guilty time. Here I am, writing a review at least several months down the line.

I want to enjoy Australian literature, I really, really do. I feel so bad that I don’t even like my home country’s literature. Even when I studied it back in high school, and then in university, I couldn’t enjoy any of these texts (for my other reviews, see ).

Although I couldn’t finish it, I’m putting that down to the fact that I’ve stopped trying to get through novels that I can’t stand unless they belong to a specific author who has sent me a novel. I have so many novels to read that I don’t want to waste my time on something that I’m pretty sure I won’t love. I’d like to be proven wrong, but so far, this novel isn’t it.

2star

Review: David Metzenthen – Dreaming the Enemy

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Dreaming the Enemy
David Metzenthen

Although Johnny Shoebright has returned from the jungles of Vietnam, he remains haunted by the acts he was forced to carry out, and the ones he endured. He fears the living, and finds it hard to believe that anyone could possibly feel like he does.

28052051It’s the 20th anniversary after the Vietnam War. Since this novel was published and made its way into my hands I have seen a bunch of novels on the same topic. I know better than to ask for them though. I’m not even sure I asked for this one.

There’s just something about the prose and the interlacing of fact and fiction that didn’t do anything for me. The dreams of Johnny are very different to the life he finds himself in now, and I accept that it is probably a genuine choice of the author. Johnny himself is split between the person he ‘should be’ and the person he is. Brilliant execution, just not the right subject.

I think it’s just me. I’m not particularly interested in war stories (says the person who read Max, and enjoyed it), and so this perhaps never would have worked for me. I’d love to be proved wrong, but my rule of generally rejecting novels about wars seems to be the right choice for me at the moment.

I feel guilty, but I only got about half-way into this novel before I was distracted by something else shiny. I did read it solidly, paying attention to the details, but in the end, I just couldn’t bring myself back to read it. I’m giving this only 2 stars, I think that for the right audience it would be a hit – that audience is just not me.

2star

Review: bud smith (editor) – First Time

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First Time
bud smith (editor)

This novel is a collection of essays, stories and poems about the first time the authors had sex. I only bought this ‘novel’ because one of my favourite authors had written a piece for it. Sadly, it didn’t turn out anything like I hoped, not to mention the humping bunnies on the front cover

18364966By the feel of things, I think the authors had a wide scope of what they could write. For me, I hate poetry. I especially hate random poetry where I can’t work out any of what is going on. Other examples were of not-true stories. What is the point of writing expository fiction if your reader can’t connect in any way with it?

It’s stupid of me, but for some reason I thought this would be a collection of stories about queer people’s first times. I figured this because two of the authors that I knew had works in this book were gay, and I liked their other pieces. So as such, this ‘novel’ wasn’t for me. I’m not interested in the first times of straight people, generally these seem to be boring. Queer people (and I know I am generalising here) have more interesting first times, or first meetings, because half the time they don’t know what they want or if their partner will be willing, available and accepting.

Honestly, I read about half this book, picking and skipping authors that I wasn’t interested in. There is no way I would have read it in its entirety. I will be freeing it into the wild in the hopes that other people might get something out of it. If you’re queer, I’d recommend the Letter Q instead for relatable fiction. Let’s give this one 2-3 stars and call it a day.

2star