Category Archives: Fiction

Review: D.M. Cornish – Tales from the Half-Continent (Monster Blood Tattoo)

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Tales from the Half-Continent (Monster Blood Tattoo)
D.M. Cornish
These are two original Tales that are set in the Monster Blood Tattoo universe. Please keep in mind that I have not read the originals in this series.
‘The Corsers’ Hinge’
Bunting Faukes has a debt and no way to repay it – times are tough for grave robbers. But a way out is presented in the person of Atticus Wells, a sleuth with strange eyes that see into everything.
I was frustrated from the very beginning about the references to different things and people that I was just expected to know. Jumping into these as a set of short stories, the background was just not grabbing enough.
This story started out with Bunting, then jumped back to the sleuth, then back to the present. I would suggest that this was jarring, except that the segue back into the present was flawless.
The ending of this seemed inevitable. A possible reward against an obvious one? I only wish there had been some escape, and that something bigger would come of it.
‘The Fuller and the Bogle’
Virtue Bland is alone in the world. Packed off to Brandenbrass to serve the household of her late father’s employer, she has only her old pa’s olfactologue to remember him by. But with it she can smell monsters.
This short story resonated more firmly with me. Having gotten a basic grasp of it in ‘The Corsers Hinge’, this one went a lot more smoothly. I liked Virtue, I enjoyed the back story, and I felt for her. Not a complete loss.
I would consider reading the other novels in the series – if only someone would give them to me to review! Personal reading is just so far down the list of things I have to do.
I received this novel from Scholastic in return for a fair and honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
Book blurbs are taken from Goodreads.

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Review: Victoria Scott – Fire and Flood

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Fire and Flood
Victoria Scott
Tella is a Contender. Not that she knows what a Contender is or does. But she is one. She needs to find her Pandora, and go for the race as hard as she can, to save her sick brother. This may mean sacrifices, but at the same time she might gain something else.
There were some really mixed reviews on this novel on Goodreads. Some people compared it to The Hunger Games, and found it lacking, and others really liked. Me? I loved it. I thought it was better than The Hunger Games (my review here).
You know how in the waiting periods of The Hunger Games, there was just nothing going on? Here, there is something going on, and the back story being developed is huge. Sometimes I feel like other reviewers didn’t even get through the whole thing.
Tella is a character anyone can relate to. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, she doesn’t have any great skills, and the only thing she has that might tip the balance is her Pandora egg. Which hasn’t even hatched by the beginning of the first challenge. It’s great to see her character development as she gets more hardened, but also more questioning.
Tella, through her new friends, is able to get a grasp on the external factors. The contestants aren’t all in the dark. Another reason this hits with me, is that the whole situation is actually possible in our world. It’s an average town, with average people, and yet the outside world has other ideas.
I liked the fact that there could be more than one winner. I mean sure, people were dying, but it wasn’t quite so bad. At least they had opted in (with the ultimate price in store), and could opt out at practically any time (I think). Sacrifices needed to be made though.
The ending! Arg! I didn’t want to see the ending! I really really enjoyed reading it. So much so that I actually wrote to the author straight after reading it, and said thank you for producing such a fabulous book. I would recommend this novel over The Hunger Games personally.
I received this novel free as a review copy, but my opinions remain my own.

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Review: Sandeep Patel – A Potion

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A Potion
Sandeep Patel
I worried that the English in this book, and the language would be poor, and it was.

I felt like much of the novel really had no plot. There were some marvellous descriptions, but also some boring tracts of repetitive dogma. There were many ways of life that were introduced, and I felt like I was being thrown literally around the universe with no real anchor or connection with each of the parts.

The author informed me that this book was based on a journey of enlightenment based on his religion, and I did see some signs of that. If I look at it primarily in that light, it is no better of worse than the Bible, if a little more accessible. Eastern religions often have more life, but in this case I felt like it dragged.
I received this book as a ebook after being requested by the author to read and review it. Unfortunately, it took me quite a long time to get into the book and I did not finish reading it. Not recommended.

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Review: Anne Pfeffer – Girls Love Travis Walker

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 Girls Love Travis Walker
Anne Pfeffer

Travis is a star with girls. He’s not so crash hot at schooling, but he’s good enough at hauling brush. He needs to support his mother, who seems to be getting sicker all the time. Then he meets Kat and Zoe, and one of them will change his life.

I loved this novel. I’ve read my two new Pfeffer books in less than a week. Something about her writing is just snappy and compulsive to read. This book tackles difficult things, like depression, homelessness and being a drop-out.

Goodness knows I don’t have much experience with guys like Travis. But I can see how his charm could hit girls. I really can’t understand the girls who want just a night of sex, but maybe I just don’t understand their brains. Just as not all men are after sex, I guess not all women can be after relationships.

The cover on this is great. Just the way I’d imagine Travis to look. Lean, tanned, rakish. The thing that redeems Travis in the beginning and makes you want to keep reading, is his relationship with his mother. His other relationships seem fleeting, and it’s because he refuses to admit there is anything wrong that he can’t cope with.

This is like an older teenage version of Gracie’s Girl. This novel is obviously aimed at a much older audience, and so it has more grunt to it. Still, the ending was sweet. Somehow everything came out right. Still, I’m not sure it’s heart touching. It’s not a sappy romance. It’s raw, abrasive and not easy to read. The details Pfeffer fits into the novel makes me think she’s been in that world, it’s that good. A well recommended read for teenagers.

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Review Update: 1 December 2021 – I originally only gave this 4 stars, but I’m upgrading it to a 5 stars since I obviously reread it. It was a comfort read, and I loved Travis’ character just as much the second (or maybe third) time around. Something about the combination of purposeful overloading and yet carefully balanced life of Travis gets me every time.

Review: Shannon Hale – Book of a Thousand Days

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Book of a Thousand Days
Shannon Hale
This is told from an interesting perspective of a diary. Even though you know someone must be writing it, and you assume it is Dashti each time, you sometimes think that someone else has taken over, because the events she is writing about are too overwhelming or odd.
The synopsis for this on Goodreads suggests that the conclusion is so romantic that no reader will be left dry-eyed. I was dry-eyed. I didn’t connect with Dashti or Lady Saren enough. I felt quite empty after reading it really, and I didn’t ever feel worry.
I felt frustrated that Dashti didn’t make more of an effort to escape. She just waited until things were desperate. She’d rather stay in the tower than be exposed to men. She has a knife! Why doesn’t she protect herself? Surely she has a song to escape? The songs were good, I did like those.
I also felt frustrated in the end of the evil warlord. Dashti was very brave, but damn she’s stupid! She was doing what was noble. And right, I suppose. But damn! Why does she have to be so loyal to someone who doesn’t deserve her help? I guess she is too good-hearted.
The remote tower is a stolen idea. It was stolen from a Grimm’s fairy tale. There are so many adaptations of fairytales these days, and Hale does a lot of them (such as The Goose Girl). It makes me annoyed that no-one has any new creativity and has to resort to old stories instead of new ideas. Even some of my favourite authors are responsible for that sort of thing.
What can I take away from this story that I couldn’t have gotten out of a regular book? What girls can relate to this story and dream of their own fairytale ending? What if they are all like Lady Saren? Why is she so stupid? Get a spine! Don’t depend on loyalty to get you anywhere or magic to take a hand.
Sometimes I don’t realise how much I didn’t enjoy a book until after I have read it. This is one of those ones. It was a throw-away novel – keep your reading time for something else.

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Review: Ellen Wittlinger – Gracie’s Girl

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Gracie’s Girl
Ellen Wittlinger

Bess is a new 6th grader. She’s determined to appear different and make some cool new friends. Soon her perspective on what is important in life is going to change.

I think the relationships and development of characters is really genuine in this novel. Changing schools is a big burden, and kids do change. I would have gone with 11 being a bit young for developing boy-girl relationships, but what would I know? I completely understand Ethan and Bess’ perspectives on it, and find it funny that their third friend is the one that makes a go of it.

What this novel really does is promote social responsibility. A soup kitchen, somewhere for people to sleep out of the rain and snow. I love that it’s connected to a church, but that the church is not too churchy and preachy. I think that homelessness is more of a problem in the USA, but we certainly have our share of it here. If you have spare time, please do donate if you can.

I feel like Australian schools and parents are less pushy. In the plays I participated in, none of the stars or almost-stars were quite so Diva-y. And I was a stage manager, and it drove me nuts that people didn’t  pay attention to things, and I knew their lines better than they did. I wish I had seen more of the play. I’m not familiar with Bye Bye Birdy – maybe it is really relevant to the themes of the book? I would hope so. Charity is a virtue, and everyone should try to work to it.

I have a feeling that this novel is not good enough to jump the country divide. Grade 6 for Australians is the final year of primary school, so it wouldn’t make a difference what you looked like. Also, the majority of schools here have a school uniform. There are still uncool people, and bitchy girls, but that’s in any school. I say test it out in a classroom (because it asks lots of important questions), and see how it goes.

I have enjoyed other novels by Wittlinger, but this one falls short of the mark for me. I don’t think I’ll reread it, but I will put it on the shelf, in case I discover a home that it really needs (or that really needs it).

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Review: Anne Cassidy – Looking for JJ

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Looking for JJ
Anne Cassidy
Alice Tully just wants to live a normal life, or appear to live one. After a tragedy 6 years ago, she is obsessed with researching Jennifer Jones in the papers. Soon history will catch up with her, and all hell will seem to break loose.
This isn’t an easy book to read, or a comfortable concept. The blurb on the back is in fact a little misleading. But I can’t explain it without wreaking the book. Let’s just say there’s a child, child killer involved, and I think that some of the judgements in the first place were wrong.
The first section of the book is from Alice Tully’s perspective. Apart from her obsession with Jennifer Jones, and some strange character quirks, you would say she was an ordinary girl. This is the part where the author weaved her spell around me effortlessly, until she dropped a bomb.
Look, the second part didn’t work for me. I was uncomfortable of the way JJ was treated from the beginning and her nativity. I guess she was only 10, and she didn’t know much, but still! I totally understand her humiliation, and even some of her reactions. She’s never been taught to control her feelings in a positive way. This is where the rapport you developed with Alice Tully spills over, and made it bearable. Unfortunately, I found that I wanted to skip through this section to find out what was happening in the present, and I had little interest in the ins and outs of who was going to be killed. I actually guessed incorrectly who would die.
Parts 3 and 4 were a great ending. I was made pretty sad by part 3, and part 4 gave me hope for the future. How can your past not catch up though?
If you want more information than what I’ve given you here, DO NOT GO TO WIKIPEDIA. You will spoil the whole suspense of the book for yourself. If you want some more hints or aren’t sure this book is for you due to specific trigger warnings or something similar, email me! Just fix the address to a normal gmail address.

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Review: Rainbow Rowell – Fangirl

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Fangirl
Rainbow Rowell

Cather is an identical twin. Her twin, Wren, has been waiting eagerly for college to start – she has a partying spirit. Cather on the other hand is slightly more neurotic, and just wants to hide in her dorm room between fiction writing classes. The question is, is the anxious Cather able to have a life and love like her sister?

Cather touched my heart. I worried about her, I worried with her, and hurt with her. Now I remember why I don’t read books like these – I identify with the protagonist too much! I love the book, because it makes me feel, but then again, I hate it because I do feel!

I literally couldn’t put this book down, I enjoyed it so much. I wanted to even read it at the dinner table, but I didn’t. I finished it in two days, which for me at the moment is sort of a record. I’m surprised I got into it. Lately it’s been I get a couple of pages into a novel and give up.

The romance! The betrayal! Arg! I always knew what was happening, but some things hit me like a rock anyway. Does anyone else already see the funny thing about the twins’ names? I didn’t even notice until it was pointed out in the text.

I see character development in Cather, but not really in the other characters. That’s not to say that they are 2D character, rather they have been fleshed out, and from Cather’s perspective, it’s just the way things are. I loved Levi – I’d totally date that boy too! And the other characters who were sometimes a bit narky? Yeah, I could see why they were like that.

If your child is curious about going to college, this could be a good novel to point out the negatives of things (such as underage drinking and clubs), but also the positive things (sometimes your roommate turns out to be great!). I’d recommend for older teens, or even those already at college. It’s such a good read, especially for aspiring young authors.

Another couple of minor things that added bonus points to my reading experience? Cather’s father had a mental illness, and she was forever writing gay fic. I love variety!

I couldn’t believe that someone had gotten away with writing novels that seemed like a complete rip off of Harry Potter. And then I googled it after finishing the novel and then found out that it’s just a fictional novel that was created by Rowell. Some people say they’d love to read those books – inspired by Twilight perhaps? Not me anyway.
I would read Rowell’s novels again. I received this novel free for a review – but I opted to receive it, and it was just as good as I say it is!

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Review update: 15 December 2021 – Wow! I guessed that it had been about 7 years since I read this novel, and I was right. I very happily devoured it again over three days. I had mostly forgotten the ending, so that was good too. In my last review I commented that I wouldn’t want to read the Simon Snow novels, and lo and behold, when I read Carry On / Wayward Son, I thought it sucked! This novel gets to stay on my bookshelf, but the others can go to a different home. Still five stars from me.

Review: Jodi Picoult & Samantha Van Leer – Between the Lines

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Between the Lines
Jodi Picoult & Samantha Van Leer
Delilah has a fairy-tale that she reads, over and over and over. It has a happy ending, which is what she wants from her life. She falls in love with the main character, but will they be able to be together?
12283261This was a strangely compulsive read. I think it was mainly curiosity on my part to see what solutions Delilah could come up with. I did like the spider. Poor spider.
I seriously could not imagine why someone would want to go into a book. And stay there. For the rest of the book’s existence. WHY? WHY? WHY?
Ok yes, I get that Delilah is an outcast. But really, she could have tried harder. It’s not just that she likes that book before she can see into it. There are plenty of other books with similar story lines of losing a father. Her mother does an awesome job of raising her! I’m irritated that she doesn’t seem to know how lucky she is. I expect high schoolers to be self-centred, but really.
The whole fairytale was a neat idea. I did want to know what happened, and how things would work out. But being told not to fight? Forcing yourself not to? Putting braces on a dragon? Some of that was just sad, in a funny kind of way.
I liked the ideas behind this book, but in practice I’m not sure it entirely worked for me. What about other novels? What if they all have characters stuck? Does Delilah want to go on a quest to rescue other book characters?
This was an exceedingly easy read. I’m not sure I get enough tones from Picoult to say whether this is an accurate measure of her work, but I hope for more collaborations – surely they will be just as strangely compelling.

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Review: Ann Brashares – Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

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Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood
Ann Brashares
4 girls were united by birth dates in September. 2 summers ago, they found the pair of travelling pants that would change their summer. This is the last summer they have together before college.
Thank goodness this was a talking book or I never would have gotten through it. That’s not to say it was a good book, or that the reader was fabulous though.
The reader failed in my mind. I often couldn’t remember which of the four girls were speaking. The boys could have been a bit more male sounding too. This lead to complications when I couldn’t remember which girl wanted to do what. B and Carmen were easy to keep track of because that were in unique situations. But the other two? I can barely remember their names now. Tibby and uh, someone else?
This is a novel aimed at teenage girls. Specifically probably younger teenage girls in America. I can’t see anyone but a naive girl enjoying it. It’s all about first love, veiled thinly with concerns about going to college.
I can see this book not going down well with some parents. There are some almost sex scenes, sex is alluded to, and two opposite sex characters go swimming together in their underwear. Not to mention a childbirth scene.
I can’t remember the statistics of people being queer, by I thought it was something like 1/7. So where are the queer people I. This novel? One of the four girls could have been gay. Younger gay people need the opperyniruvti read about queer people just like themselves, those that have friends. A gripe I have with other queer books is that the main character is almost always lonely. Some have to be well adjusted with friends! I think authors are missing the minority that could make their novel a cult book.
The Pants don’t seem to feature prominently. I don’t think any if them actually rely on The Pants. They just use them as an excuse to not lie. How hard is it really?
I remember reading the first book in this series in high school after a girly friend raved about it. I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it at that point, being able to ignore the often repetitive dialogue. Perhaps I’d better reread it and see if I can rescue this series in my mind.

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