Category Archives: Fiction

Review: Rebecca Yarros – Fourth Wing

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Fourth Wing
Rebecca Yarros

Violet has been training to become a scribe like her father, rather than a dragon rider like her older sister, decreased brother and cold mother. At the last moment, Violet must pass the parapet and become a rider – where not all the riders will be chosen by dragons… and not all would-be riders will survive.

Character development? Not really. Amazing world-building? Yup, maybe! Fun storyline where you can’t decide whether you want the protagonist to live or die? 100%! Although I had no real prediction as to how it was going to go down, the ending was highly satisfying.

I’m not sure they are grumpy enough dragons (or that there’s enough dragon time)! I mean, when we get to the final parade in front of them, I felt like they could have incinerated a couple more of the cadets. If they aren’t going to choose them all, why not put the others out of their misery?

Winner! Another main character with a physical disability that doesn’t let it get in the way of what she wants to do (see also: A Curse so Dark and Lonely). Damn, girl! I guessed the ending just a couple of pages out from the end of the book and was 100% paranoid that the book was going to end before I confirmed it.

If you’re sensitive to, well, erotica, this might not be the book for you. Violet definitely spends a fair bit of time thinking about sex, and then it gets worse as you progress through the book! The first half is relatively safe though

For once it’s not a group of 15-16 year olds fighting it out, it’s actual adults. I really appreciated that aspect and it made the violence seem slightly less out of place? I think that the way young children are killed off in something like The Hunger Games very dystopian. It’s an uncomfortable thought to know that although that’s a fantasty world, in the real world children are dying right now anyway.

I couldn’t stop reading it and after some time has passed and the second book is published, I will be all there for a reread.

Hachette | 9 May 2023 | AU$32.99 | paperback

Review: Erik J. Brown – Lose You to Find Me

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Lose You to Find Me
Erik J. Brown

Tommy has been working as a server in a Retirement Village in the hopes of getting a decent reference letter to enrol at the culinary school of his dreams. He’s got his head down despite his sadistic boss and has a good chance of success. But then Gabe shows up – the boy that Tommy realised he was gay for – but Gabe doesn’t remember Tommy…

You just have to laugh at the puns in the blurb. Go on, I’ll wait while you go look. On this occasion, the blurb doesn’t give too much away! Phew. I remembered how much I enjoyed All That’s Left at the World, and the swift shift by this author to a new area was just fine with me. I read it the moment it came in the door.

Tommy! Yes! Go you! Don’t stand for that crappy behaviour. I mean, watch what you are doing with the knives, but don’t tolerate mixed-signals from someone who isn’t right for you. This resonated back to me with Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell where we see the catfisher’s side (is that even a term?).

I particularly liked the sidestory of Tommy’s best friend too. I did wonder what part of the USA this was in, since they seemed to be getting drunk pretty often, and I had a feeling that was a bit of a no-no in most places / hard to organise before college? Ah well, the drinking definitely reminded me of the Australian culture.

This is a fantastic addition to #ownvoices fiction. Ok, so the premise could be a little more exciting, but I still loved it and couldn’t put it down. I’m giving it 4 stars because I don’t think it’s a reread for me. It was still great fun though – even if I could have gone a few more puns!

Hachette | 9 April 2023 | AU$19.99 | paperback

Review: Adam Silvera – The First to Die at the End

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The First to Die at the End
Adam Silvera

Orion has been waiting to die his whole life from a heart condition, surrounded by people who love him. Valentino has been waiting his whole life to live and love free. A chance meeting in Times Square, and the two are suddenly End Day buddies but only one of them gets a fateful call. There’s one question: Can Death-Cast actually predict when someone will die, or is it just an elaborate hoax?

That twist! At the end! Woah! Not what I was expecting (even if I harboured a little hope in my head). I can’t say anything about it otherwise it’ll all be ruined. Is it creepy to want to know more about the Heralds? Now I vaguely want to reread the original (They Both Die at the End) in this series to see if I’ll learn anything extra about how long Heralds last etc.

I could have done without the perspectives of Matteo and Rufus, honestly. I get that this is a prequel, but it didn’t need to link together! Just hearing about the beginning of Death Cast was awesome. Does the author even know how Death Cast works? Will the Silvera’s readers ever find out?

I can’t speak for the authenticity of the Puerto Rican perspective, but from what other readers have been saying, it’s lovely to have some more gay boys of colour! More representation in Queer literature? Sign me up.

I requested this from the publisher, but wasn’t selected as a reviewer this time. I instead requested both the audiobook and the ebook from my local library. Neither is my preferred format, but I was very keen to read it! I received access to the audiobook first, and listened to it while I put dirt in gardenbeds (don’t let anyone tell you that growing your own veggies is cheap, not even The Smart Veggie Patch!). I enjoyed that it had three different readers and it made it extremely easy for even a distracted reader like me to follow along.

I’ll continue along enjoying Silvera’s excellent novels that include the What if it’s Us duology. I’ll give this one four stars – I’m not convinced it’s an immediate re-read for me, but it was still pretty good!

Simon & Schuster | 4 October 2022 | AU$19.99 | paperback

Review: Jodi McAlister – Can I Steal You for a Second?

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Can I Steal You for a Second?
Jodi McAlister

Amanda is keen to get over her last relationship – surely a break in a house full of other women and a single Romeo is the way to go? She has nothing to lose and everything to gain from a potential relationship. Or maybe she’ll find love? There’s two Dylans to choose from after all!

Mandie is such a sympathetic character. She has low self-esteem and her list of things that she is good at does at least get a little longer during the course of the book. Unfortunately, I didn’t really feel like she had made real progress. She’s definitely just fallen for a person too quickly. Being trapped with someone during COVID lockdowns in Melbourne forces quick relationships (a great example is 56 days if you are looking for a psychological thriller).

I think that the author creates understandable characters but I am left wanting more substance. I know it’s just ‘fluffy romance’ and I should be grateful for non-Caucasian, non-heteronormative relationships at all, but I wanted to see more convincing character growth in general. The marketing brief is so proud that the author is a Lecturer, rather than ‘just’ a romance writing – but I still expected more.

This book is to be read in parallel with Here for the Right Reasons. I actually think you should read this one first, as there would be less spoilers that way (but of course there’s still a happily ever after). I’ve read another romance book from this author (Valentine), and it’s clear the author has a ‘type’. But the end of this one promises that there will also be a Lily and Murray book. WHY? Move on, deliver me a new story!

I’m giving this four stars, which is perhaps a bit generous. I did definitely have some real laugh out loud moments (not a spelt-out lol) and there were several bits where I needed to share the text with someone else! Worth reading, but perhaps not worth owning unless you want to relive reality TV during a lockdown more than once.

Simon and Schuster | 5th April 2023 | AU$22.99 | paperback

Review: Non Pratt – Every Little Piece of my Heart

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Every Little Piece of my Heart
Non Pratt

Sophie has been abandoned by her bestie, Freya. Sophie’s trying to deal with her chronic illness, having no friends at school and just generally feeling abandoned. When she receives a parcel with her name on it, she can’t wait to open it. But the parcel isn’t even for her, she needs to pass it on to someone she barely knows…

It’s nice to have a character with a chronic illness that makes it difficult for her to be a main character! It’s very unfair and biased that many heroes are strong or even just plain healthy when the reality is that many people live with unseen conditions. Spoons! So in a way that almost made this book redeemable, but not quite.

This book also suffered from multiple perspectives. I say suffered because I didn’t feel like it was done particularly well. Despite flipping through the four view points, each doesn’t add anything particularly new in my opinion. Ok ok, we see four different people but I don’t think that there’s enough depth that each seemed unique. Maybe it passes for teen fiction, but not YA fiction.

Average. So, so average. And the ending was terrible – was it left open for a sequel where there’s a big happy reunion? I mean, I finished it, but only because I was hopeful that the end would answer some big questions I had. It didn’t. If you love books with open endings, you’ll love this one. I’m giving it 3 stars, which is extremely generous of me.

Review: Jenna Miller – Out of Character

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Out of Character
Jenna Miller

Cass is a fat lesbian who knows who she is and who she likes. When her mom up and leaves (for an internet guy no less) she is left a little lost and dressless (literally and figuratively). Cass has her online roleplay friends to fall back on, but she also still needs to exist in the real world. She’s finally dating her crush, but is it actually the happily ever after she was looking for?

Aw, how cute! I liked this novel because the main character was fat, and didn’t care, and was a lesbian, and didn’t care. She even had the freedom to do that! But she definitely fell into the category that she still wanted to hide some of her identity. The author didn’t harp on about her being queer or anything, which was quite refreshing. I did however feel frustrated with how stupid Cass was sometimes. I’m really not sure how you can get from being a B student to a D in the space of a term without twigging that there’s something wrong…

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I participated in some role-play forums. It sounds like it has moved on so far from that now though! Discord is the way of the future. I still wasn’t 100% sure how the logistics of the server worked or how many people were actually involved. The most similar book I can think of at the moment is Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl – go on, go and read both!

It’s truly delightful how many queer YA and teenage novels there are at the moment. Previously I might have kept reading a poor quality queer novel because I had nothing else inthe genre to read. Now I can afford to be choosy! This novel isn’t groundbreaking, but it is still comforting fiction.

Review: Chris Colfer – A Tale of Magic

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A Tale of Magic
Chris Colfer

Brystal Evergreen dreams of a world where she gets to do something other than clean houses and marry a man. She desperately wants to be specific – and she desperately tries to read every book that passes her by. Unfortunately she’s not going to fly under the radar for much longer.

This is a kiddie book! Everything is explicitly spelt (haha) out, there is no independent thought involved. The reader is told how to react to each ‘revelation’ and everything is foreshadowed so much that you can see the ending coming from a mile away! Everything every character does contains why they did it, how everyone reacts, and how the reader should react. The big secret isn’t really a secret.

The main character is of course lovely and kind and compassionate, and magic is something you pick between being a fairy and a witch (which doesn’t work, everyone knows that fairies are another species and witches are just evil humans). Also, anyone else feel a bit odd about the fact that all of the magic-users were females… except one boy who liked to play with dolls? I’ve revisited how I feel about that, and I still don’t know. I read the preview into the next book in the series, which continues to go along with the toxic masculinity vibe. Oh well, the typical, intended audience isn’t going to care.

This book was very happily gobbled up by a 11 year old girl who pronounced it ‘very good’. That’s probably the upper limit of the age for this book, as I found it too easy to read. So many words! 3 stars.

Review: Tess Sharpe – Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did)

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Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did)
Tess Sharpe

Tate and Penny’s moms are best friends. When Penny is in an accident, Tate’s mom looks after Penny’s mom. When Tate’s mom is sick, Penny’s mom looks after her. But who looks after Penny? Tate does, but what is the feeling between them? (it’s love, of course!)

Is the title long enough? The timeline in this and the in-brackets asides made this novel not really work for me. I had trouble keeping track of whose perspective I was reading, and so I didn’t really follow who didn’t like who or not? This, combined with essentially flashbacks, made it very tricky for me to follow. Ultimately it didn’t really matter though, because it’s pretty obvious how this novel is going to end. It wouldn’t be YA if it didn’t have a happy ending!

I knocked this easy novel over in a couple of hours. I was feeling uninspired to read and I wanted something simple. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this novel, but there is nothing outstanding either. It briefly covers dealing with trauma (or rather, not dealing with it) and the implications of a long-term illness. However, it lacks details and backstory that would have helped me connect better to the characters. I sympathised with both girls, but I was never really sure why the kiss hadn’t happened the first six times?

If it’s on your library shelf, sure, read it. But I wouldn’t rush out to buy it. You know what the ending will be from the blurb, and there wasn’t enough depth for me to want to reread this. I think it had potential, but failed at producing vibrantly different characters. I am going to seek out another novel from this author because I think something from a single perspective might be perfect. 3 stars from me.

Hachette | 14 February 2023 | AU$19.99 | paperback

Review: Kacen Callender – Felix Ever After

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Felix Ever After
Kacen Callender

Felix has the whole summer ahead of him to develop his application for Art school. He’s got his best friend Ezra and a handful of people that he hates to hang out with. He’s completely open about his life post gender-confirming surgery, but he still hasn’t settled into the ‘right’ label. When his pre-transition Instagram photos go public Felix is consumed with finding and blaming the person responsible.

I didn’t feel gripped by this novel. I picked up and finished a couple of non-fiction books concurrently with this one because I wasn’t drawn to Felix. The way that Felix didn’t seem to see love when he was looking for it felt true to me. I felt a little blindsided though by the ending, because I didn’t see how Felix could be so oblivious. I don’t see why a poly relationship couldn’t have worked as well.

It starts out provocatively with a gallery of Felix’s dead name and fake gender in the local art school, and follows with Felix’s confusion and pain at his evolving friendships. However, there were a number of things that weren’t likely or logical.

I was a bit grumpy over the entitled nature of Felix’s summer school. If your parent has had to sacrifice their home for you to go to a selective school, that’s probably a bad thing! And also, is everyone there Queer? Everyone is talented and fantastic! I can’t think of a single example of this in Australia. Even at talent-entry art schools (I’m thinking of the VCA) aren’t just composed of Queers. Not to mention that the idea of a scholarship to a top-tier university would be subsidised to some extent in Australia by our nominally public higher education system and integrated system of support.

I didn’t really get the connection to Felix’s mother. I felt like there could have been a deeper level of understanding here – even a sense of closure from something? He could have chased her down? What about his dad’s feelings? The poor guy seems to be struggling on trying to keep a meaningful relationship with his son and Felix is too wrapped up in his own problems to ‘get it’. Felix wants more out of everyone else and that seems unfair to me.

I cannot truly understand how it feels to be a trans individual, but I’d like to hope that by reading more and listening to more lived experiences I can be a compassionate and active advocate for Queers like me. This is particularly true in my current role where I assist science graduates with finding jobs – employment of trans and non-binary individuals is a thorny problem with no one right answer. 3 stars from me.

Review: Leila Mottley – Nightcrawling

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Nightcrawling
Leila Mottley

“Kiara Johnson and her brother Marcus are barely scraping by in a squalid East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Royal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the 9-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed.”

I could not bring myself to finish this book. I felt pretty grimey while reading it, and I just couldn’t get the point of it. Everything was so passionate and big that I didn’t know what the actual important parts were. Oh no, Kia has to turn to prostitution. Yes, it’s a dangerous ‘job’. She feels like she has responsibility for the boy next door, yet doesn’t invite him into her own home? So like, paying twice the rent she needs to?

I felt like I was slogging through the book and I couldn’t bring myself to keep reading it. Did I just miss something when people were handing out awards for this book? It’s overly descriptive and filled with metaphors that go nowhere. There’s a certain something in describing a pool filled with dog poop, but it didn’t need to come back again and again to the spotlight. Even after the reader learns why the pool is important to Kiara, it still doesn’t make sense in the wider context of the novel.

Not everyone has a happy ending, and not everyone has choices in life. That being said, I just couldn’t keep reading this. The prose was too dense, and too many topics were being covered at once. I’m tagging this as ‘literature’ – I’m sure that at some point someone will want to read and critique it. Not me though, I’ve had enough. 1 star from me.

Bloomsbury | 7 June 2022 | AU$29.99 | paperback