Interview with Frederick Douglass Reynolds

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Interview with Frederick Douglass Reynolds

Frederick Douglass Reynolds is a retired LA County Sheriff’s homicide sergeant. He was born in Rocky Mount, Virginia, and grew up in Detroit, Michigan where he became a petty criminal and was involved in gangs. He joined the US Marine Corps in 1979 to escape the life of crime that he seemed destined for. After a brief stint in Okinawa, Japan, he finished out his military career in southern California and ultimately became a police officer with the Compton police department. He worked there from 1985 until 2000 and then transferred to the sheriff’s department where he worked an additional seventeen years.

Frederick retired in 2017 with over seventy-five commendations including a Chief’s Citation, five Chief’s commendations, one Exemplary Service Award, two Distinguished Service Awards, two Distinguished Service Medals, one city of Carson Certificate of Commendation, three city of Compton Certificates of Recognition, one city of Compton Public Service Hero award, one California State Assembly Certificate of Recognition, two State Senate Certificates of Recognition, a County of Los Angeles Certificate of Commendation, one Meritorious Service Award, two city of Compton Employee of the Year Awards, and two California Officer of the Year awards. He lives in Southern California with his wife, Carolyn, and their daughter Lauren and young son, Desmond.  They have six other adult children and nine grandchildren.

What is your favourite dragon in literature?

Lisbeth Salander’s dragon tattoo. Just kidding. Actually, I think my favourite dragon is Smaug, from The Hobbit.

Everyone has a ‘first novel’, even if many of them are a rough draft relegated to the bottom and back of your desk drawer (or your external harddrive!). Have you been able to reshape yours, or have you abandoned it for good?

Black, White, and Gray All Over is my first novel, but I definitely reshaped it over the years. There came a time early on that I knew I wanted to write a book, because I had seen so much misery and had experienced so much trauma. And this was even before I became a cop. I knew what the title was going to be, because that is what I felt my life had been. I messed around for a little while, jotting down ideas and notes on line-loose leaf paper that I kept in a green colored binder with the title written on a post-it affixed to the front. But I put it away when life got in the way. When two of my colleagues were murdered in 1993, I knew that I would write about that night one day. When I retired in 2017, I started writing again, only now the murders weren’t going to be the focal point of the book. They were certainly going to be a huge part of it, though, as they were such a seminal point in my life.

Over the years, what would you say has improved significantly in your writing?

Being able to hold the reader. For years as a police officer and then as a Homicide Detective, especially as a detective, writing is a huge part of the job. You have to be able to convey the story to the district attorney. What you write may one day be read and discussed in the Chambers of the Supreme Court. I worked hard on my writing, being as descriptive and detailed as possible. Before I became a cop, my ideas were a bit jumbled and in disarray.

Some authors are able to pump out a novel a year and still be filled with inspiration. Is this the case for you, or do you like to let an idea percolate for a couple of years in order to get a beautiful novel?

Well, my first novel was drawn from true-life experiences. I do know whether writing about yourself is easier, or harder. I do know that I cried several times while writing this book. I think the next book will be easier. I’m going to write a science-fiction crime novel, I think. But its going to have to get put on the backburner. A long-retired detective, who is approaching 80 years old, just dumped about 300 pages of handwritten notes about his life on me, and asked my if I could ‘fix’ it for him. So, I guess I’m going to be a ghost-writer, first. It will probably take me a year to get his notes straightened out and typed up. But I love him, and I am going to do it for him because I know how expensive ghost-writers can be.

I have heard of writers that could only write in one place – then that cafe closed down and they could no longer write! Where do you find yourself writing most often, and on what medium (pen/paper or digital)?

I won’t have that problem. I love to get up early in the morning, make a cup of black coffee and have a slice of cheese and toast in my backyard while looking at the hummingbirds feed. I named two specific ones ‘George’ and ‘Orwell’. I can easily identify them because one has red on his chest and the other one has yellow. After eating, I will break out my lap-top and begin typing. I do love writing with a thick lead pencil, but my hands and fingers stiffen rather quickly and start hurting so I don’t do it as much anymore.

Before going on to hire an editor, most authors use beta-readers. How do you recruit your beta-readers, and choose an editor? Are you lucky enough to have loving family members who can read and comment on your novel?

I didn’t have a beta-reader. There was so much that I didn’t know about this business! My wife, although she has infinitely more education that I do, doesn’t really like to read. She prefers watching sports. However, she would read certain parts of what I wrote. When it held her attention, I knew that perhaps I had written something worth reading. I knew I had her when I caught her crying as she read one part.

The publication company that I went with did editing, and we went back and forth for about two months with suggestions and changes. It was really important to me that I had the book published on August 18, because that is the date my father died and the book is dedicated to him. I got the last version back from the publishers about four or five days before, and I saw four mistakes. I asked the publishing company if the could correct those mistakes and still have the book published by the 18th. When they said it couldn’t be done, I told them to go with it as is. It was more important to me to have that publication date than it was to correct those mistakes. They cost me an award from Feathered Quill, it turns out. Someone who works for them told me that my book was one of the best ones in the contest, but their editors are sticklers for grammar. She commented on a mistake that I didn’t even catch: A quotation mark is missing from the back cover!

I walk past bookshops and am drawn in by the smell of the books – ebooks simply don’t have the same attraction for me. Does this happen to you, and do you have a favourite bookshop? Or perhaps you are an e-reader fan… where do you source most of your material from?

I love physical books. I have hundreds of them at my house, and even more in storage. E-books just don’t hold the appeal for me, either. I guess you and I are relics of the past. I don’t like the big box bookstores. I like the mom and pop bookstores, where there are one or two people working, both wearing eyeglasses, and at least one of them sitting behind the counter next to a cash register that is surrounded by dusty old books with yellowing pages. Unfortunately, these stores are fading fast and they are hard to find now. I always spend at least fifty dollars whenever I go in one.

I used to find myself buying books in only one genre (fantasy) before I started writing this blog. What is your favourite genre, and have your tastes changed over time?

My favorite genre is fantasy and science-fiction novels. I am a big fan of George RR Martin and Aldous Huxley. I worked in True Crime for so, so many years, and I would often escape from that sobering reality by reading fantasy and science fiction. Although a graphic novel, the Watchmen by Alan Moore covers both genres and is one of my favorite books.

Social media is a big thing, much to my disgust! I never have enough time myself to do what I feel is a good job. What do you do?

I use a delightful lady by the name of Monica Kelly, and she has created a very nice author’s page for me. I chose to publish my book with Mindstirmedia, and part of that package included the services of Monica for a few months. Other than that, I post information about my book on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I spend quite a bit of time on my phone now, much to the dismay of my wife, who gets livid if she is talking to me and I pick up my phone and start scrolling. And understandably so.

Answering interview questions can often take a long time! Tell me, are you ever tempted to recycle your answers from one to the next?

Boy, am I! But I realize that hardcore readers are a close-knit bunch and tend to read up on everything about an author they like or a new author that they want to get to know. Because of that, even though a lot of interview questions are similar if not the same, I try my best to give the same answers if only phrased differently.

Thanks so much for your time, Frederick! True crime always facinates me, and it’s fantastic to have you add more diversity to the books out there.

You can find out more about the author here (link) and the book on Amazon (here).

An Interview with Biff Mitchell

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An Interview with Biff Mitchell, author of Murder by Coffee and other works

Biff Mitchell lives in a hovel at the edge of the world. He has no life. He has no friends. Neighborhood children throw stones at his hovel. At night, Biff throws stones at his hovel.

Someday Biff plans to write a book about a man who lives in a house that is stoned daily by neighborhood children who—through some magical twist of events—turn into snowmen.

When Spring arrives, the man’s house melts.

What is your favourite dragon in literature?

The only dragon I like is the one I keep in my refrigerator.

I’m not going to be reviewing your newest novel, but from your other published novels, is there one that is your own personal favourite?

My second novel, Team Player, is my favorite. It was the easiest of all my novels to write and the most fun. It’s a satire on the IT industry in which a man who lives in a tree in his office helps 30 naked pagan women save the universe. I work in the IT industry so I had lots of ammunition for this one.

I wrote Team Player so long ago that the illegal software the bad guys want to put on everyone’s computers is a reality and it’s not illegal. We call it malware or any other name that makes it seem like a minor irritant. But when I wrote the novel, I was certain that anyone who would plant something like that would go to jail.

Also, apparently neutrinos have mass. They didn’t while I was writing the novel.

Everyone has a ‘first novel’, even if many of them are a rough draft relegated to the bottom and back of your desk drawer (or your external harddrive!). Have you been able to reshape yours, or have you abandoned it for good?

I burned my first novel because it was so bad. I had some second thoughts almost as soon as it started peeling off ashes, but it was written on a typewriter with no copy, so I just stared at the flames and tried not to think about what I was doing.

I might try to re-write is some day. It’s a hippie story…so…maybe I’ll just leave it as is…ashes.

Over the years, what would you say has improved significantly in your writing?

I’d have to say that my writing style became more relaxed as time marched on and I no longer gave a damn what people thought of my writing. The relaxed style goes well with the sardonic humor and all the nasty things that happen to the characters unfortunate enough to be in one of my stories.

I have heard of writers that could only write in one place – then that cafe closed down and they could no longer write! Where do you find yourself writing most often, and on what medium (pen/paper or digital)?

I do almost all my writing in coffee shops. As soon as I sit down, slurp some coffee, and turn my laptop on, I start writing because I’m in the place where I write.

The only thing that bugs me is people talking on their cell phones. They don’t talk, they yell. This is why I take an expensive pair of Bose noise cancellation headphones with me when I write. They’ve saved so many annoying cell phone addicts from getting a coffee stir stick in the eye.

I even put together a workshop on writing in coffee shops and it’s free here (link).

Before going on to hire an editor, most authors use beta-readers. How do you recruit your beta-readers, and choose an editor? Are you lucky enough to have loving family members who can read and comment on your novel?

I spent several years as a quality assurance specialist so I do my own editing. BUT…I put the finished manuscript away for up to a year and no less than six months so that I’m coming into the script as fresh as possible.

This isn’t really what I should be doing though. It’s what I tell my writing students not to do and there’s a price to be paid for doing this.

My novel, The Weekly Man, was rejected by 5,309.05 agents because of a typo type error on the first page where I wrote, “he noticed noticed that.” I didn’t notice the double “noticed” but the agents did, and that’s when they stopped reading.

I walk past bookshops and am drawn in by the smell of the books – ebooks simply don’t have the same attraction for me. Does this happen to you, and do you have a favourite bookshop? Or perhaps you are an e-reader fan… where do you source most of your material from?

I like the convenience of my Kindle reader. I can carry as many books as I want anywhere in the world and it comes in handy when I’m waiting for a dental/doctor/shrink appointment.

I get nasty glares from people with their heads buried in their cell phones. It’s like they’re saying: “Who the hell do you think you are? That’s not a phone! Put it away! Be us!”

At which point, I double down on the reading and sometimes read aloud and see if I can make their teeth grind louder than I’m reading.

I used to find myself buying books in only one genre (fantasy) before I started writing this blog. What is your favourite genre, and have your tastes changed over time?

I’ve always been attracted to speculative fiction in all its many strange forms, but not just science fiction and fantasy. I like the stuff that dips itself into an impossible story and drowns itself in a barrage of magical realism and humor.

I’d mention my favorite writers but then you’d buy their books and not mine and I’m just not that big-hearted.

Social media is a big thing, much to my disgust! I never have enough time myself to do what I feel is a good job. What do you do?

I use social media until it drives me crazy. I was already pretty far gone before social media taught me to swear like the world was on fire, which is probably will be soon.

I have a main website that’s sort of a portal to everything else. I have website specifically for my writing. I have 1, 2, 3, 4 blogs at WordPress and one somewhere else that I can no longer locate, but the blog is still there. I also have a Facebook page for myself and for each of my novels and my writing in general. Facebook just changed its interface and put me back a year or two.

I also use other social media to promote my writing; for instance, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit and Pinterest. It never stops and it’s merciless. They change the interfaces and they change the rules.

It drives me just a little bit crazier every day. In fact, I can’t believe I’m writing this without swearing and jumping up and down on my laptop.

A word of warning: If you’re going to use social media to market your books, start with one or two and get to know them inside out before going on to others. Or, just jump right in and go crazy like I did.

Answering interview questions can often take a long time! Tell me, are you ever tempted to recycle your answers from one to the next?

Every single word here has been recycled from hundreds, maybe thousands, of interviews I’ve done. Unfortunately, those were all done for my photography, so some of the words might not make sense in the context of writing. But it saves time.

About Biff’s latest novel

We live in a world teetering on mass extinctions, including humans. Blowing Up dives into both the good and the bad in this out-of-control world with a big dose of surreal situations and dark humor. The book begins with Sleeping in Ditches, the story of a man who epitomizes our increasingly fatalist attitudes towards life in the 21st Century. He attends cocktail parties, office talks in the lunch room and anti-abortion rallies (for the free food). At night, he sleeps in ditches:

“I’ve slept in ditches full of needles and condoms and barking spiders. I wear two wide swatches of red on my back from a slick of bubbling something-or-other at the bottom of a ditch by a chemical plant. I’ve seen small things flitter and flap in the darkness around rusted tin cans while they debated whether to leave me alone or eat me.”

The collection gets its title from the story 100 People, 10 Bats and 1 Car Blowing Up. This story gets into the minds of the people, the bats and the cat in that instant in which they’re blowing up in a nuclear holocaust. Their thoughts are sometimes more disturbing than the explosion:

“There were no walls, no windows, no floor. It was certainly a much different environment than it had been a few minutes before. Chloe’s Coffee Crisp bar was gone before she’d had a chance to finish it and she felt a little ripped off by the timing of things. The nerve: blowing a city up before people have a chance to finish their chocolate bars.”

Spotlight: Chopped Scene from The Last Keeper by J. V. Hilliard

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A Chopped Scene from The Last Keeper by J. V. Hilliard (interview link here!)

Lucien Blacwin, the Faxerian of Halifax Military Academy, was standing in the courtyard, watching his students practice their swordsmanship against straw-stuffed dummies. As headmaster of the school, the Faxerian was charged with not only training students in the art of war but training them for future battlefields.

There was a movement by his shoulder, and he whirled around with one hand on the hilt of his sword, an old habit from his own training, one that would never die. He found himself face-to-face with a messenger with flushed cheeks, wearing the livery of Castle Thronehelm. He relaxed his grip slightly but continued to rest his hand on his pommel, more from habit than because of any threat.

“Well, what is it?” he asked, eyeing the man. Messengers were rarely sent to dispatch good news. These days, it was more likely to be about another bandit attack than a royal proclamation about a marriage or a holy day.

“General Blacwin?”

“Aye.”

“I have orders from King Godwin Thorhauer,” the messenger looked to the scroll in his hand and touched a forelock nervously while shifting from one foot to the other as though he was anxious to be back in the saddle.

“What need does King Godwin have with an old general?”

“He has no need of you, sir,” the messenger replied. “Rather, he sends for the two princes and their cousins, the Maeglens. They’re to return to Thronehelm immediately to address the banditry which plagues the trade routes.”

General Blacwin turned from the messenger, his eyes searching the ground as though he was looking for the logic that he was surely missing.

“The king’s sons?” he questioned. “Chasing bandits?”

“Yes, Faxerian,” the man nodded.

“The princes train for the glories of war and are now asked to leave our halls to sweep for brigands instead, eh?” Blacwin had been schooling the Thorhauers and the Maeglens for a little less than a decade, waiting on the chance to send them into a real battle, a chance that he felt was long overdue. They’d completed many similar sweeps for Halifax, rooting out trollborn tribe and various cryptid creatures from the nearby Ravenwood, but he couldn’t grasp the need for such an order. Then again, he wasn’t the king.

“They’ll be ready for such a challenge,” Blacwin said, more to himself than the messenger. “They’ve been training for it ever since they crossed our threshold. This will bring great honor to the Academy.”

The messenger muttered something, but the general didn’t hear it. His words floated away on the wind and disappeared. “As long as they come back alive.”

Review: Mercedes Lackey – The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley

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The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley
Mercedes Lackey

Annie’s got an eye to shoot and a brilliant husband who doesn’t care that his wife out shoots him! In her past she’s haunted by a hungry childhood in which she encountered a He-wolf who tried to take her magic for himself. After realising that magic is real, Annie has to make a decision – to train as a magician or go back to her regular life.

It’s obvious that Lackey has been paying attention to the media in terms of trying to get more obvious acknowledgement of poverty into the spotlight. There are hundreds of people who go hungry every day, including those who starve to death. I really like it when my favourite authors try to bring visibility to these issues.

However, this was a disappointing novel. It unfortunately followed the format of many of the most recent Elemental Masters by Lackey in that a lot of time was spent on the minutiae of life as a travelling circus performer and very little on the magic side of things. The handful of encounters with ‘baddies’ were unsatisfying and average. I also think I picked up a handful of plot holes.

Three stars from me. I’m unimpressed by this latest offering and I won’t be purchasing it for my shelf. Lackey, please go back to writing your original ideas rather than trying to take existing historical figures and trying to write magic into them.

Review: Lindsey Stirling – The Only Pirate at the Party

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The Only Pirate at the Party
Lindsey Stirling

“Electronic and dancing violinist Lindsey Stirling shares her unconventional journey in an inspiring memoir filled with the energy, persistence, and humor that have helped her successfully pursue a passion outside the box.”

I had wanted this book for a long time! Finally, I remember that eBay exists and that I should be able to pick up a second-hand copy for a lot less than what it was on Amazon. It appeared on my doorstep faster than I expected and I abandoned my other reading to dive in.

I knew nothing about Lindsey’s background and it was a delight to go into this book with no preconceived ideas on what ‘should be’ covered. Thus I enjoyed it with a lighthearted joy and found myself laughing and quoting parts out-loud at times. It will likely be read by another family member, then passed onto the teenage Lindsey fan I know.

I was so devastated when I found out that Gavi died of a heart attack before the book being published. Gavi is/was such an important figure and support in Lindsey’s personal and professional life. I checked the wikipedia page for them both, but didn’t really discover very much new.

Obviously this memoir is quite old now, and I hope for an updated one at some point from Lindsey! Not however, if it’s going to delay her release of further music. 2020 was the year I was finally going to see her in concert – but the tour has been indefinitely postponed. Sad face 🙁

An enjoyable and uplifting memoir for anyone who loves Lindsey Stirling. If you don’t know who Lindsey is, go listen on YouTube right now!

Review: Deborah Cadbury – The School that Escaped the Nazis

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The School that Escaped the Nazis
Deborah Cadbury

“The extraordinary true story of a courageous school principal who saw the dangers of Nazi Germany and took drastic steps to save those in harm’s way. In 1933, the same year Hitler came to power, schoolteacher Anna Essinger saved her small, progressive school from Nazi Germany. Anna had read Mein Kampf and knew the terrible danger that Hitler’s hate-fueled ideologies posed to her pupils, so she hatched a courageous and daring plan: to smuggle her school to the safety of England.”

This book is again a tribute to all of the children and their families murdered during the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. I found myself again horrified at the sheer number of children murdered in the Holocaust. This book flips between the school as it is established in Britain, and then into its students’ origins as well. There are some children who survived largely in the ‘wild’ of Germany, and we also see their perspective.

This is not nearly as confronting as Always Remember your Name, thankfully. It’s an interesting read, and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in alternative schooling perspectives as well as those who would like to further broaden their understanding of the traumas visited on children during the wars.

It is becoming more and more obvious and acknowledged in society today that children often suffer from trauma that has repercussions throughout their lifetimes – and which may never be resolved. It is the same for the adults who managed to survive and that may never be able to recover. This can also be seen in the novel The Little Wartime Library, which briefly narrates what one of the incarcerated adults looked like after the freeing of POWs.

Reading this book was heavy going at times and it took me a number of sittings to digest it. I’m normally not interested in history, but I’m not sure that can be said of me any more! I have read quite a few books about the Holocaust now, including Always Remember Your Name, The Dressmakers of Auschwitz and The Keeper of Miracles. I have yet another waiting on my bedside table for me to read.

Hachette | 10 May 2022 | AU$32.99 | paperback

Review: Mercedes Lackey – Beyond

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Beyond
Mercedes Lackey

Duke Valdemar has always loved his land and his people. Forever watching out for the Emperor and his spies, Valdemar plans for the future – an escape to the West where the Empire does not yet reach. When he is summoned to the capital, it is up to him to deflect the Emperor’s interest from his home dutchy, and trust that the Plan can take place without him.

I liked Duke Valdemar and I didn’t have any objections to the second perspective of his sister-in-law. The opening pages make it seem as if Delia will have a big role to play, but as yet, she hasn’t achieved anything major during the novel. The Duke on the other hand has his nose poked in everywhere, and is devious to boot! His compassion and humility could read as trite, but his approach to life is always consistent.

This is the first Lackey novel I have read for a while. After reading the Collegium Chronicles, The Herald Spy and Family Spies (so bad, I didn’t even review it) I felt burnt out and disappointed. Lackey seemed to be pumping out weaker novels that didn’t follow her original pattern of duology/trilogy and were poorly edited, written and unnecessarily wordy. Thankfully, Beyond breaks that pattern in being a well-written first novel. I hope it is a trilogy and not a pentology.

The second book in the series is due to be published this year, and I await it with bated breath and the hope that it is equally as good as this one. We will see. 4 stars for this novel.

Review: Kathy Reichs – Temperance Brennan Series (books 1-8)

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Temperance Brennan Series (books 1-8)
Kathy Reichs

“Dr. Temperance “Tempe” Brennan is a forensic anthropologist, who investigates human remains at crime scenes where the flesh is too degraded for a coroner to obtain evidence (victims of arson, mutilation, advanced decomposition, etc.). She is a native of the Carolinas and one of only fifty board-certified forensic anthropologists in North America.”

Let’s hear it for a middle-aged, moderately attractive, highly skilled scientist. One of the best parts about these novels is that Tempe is highly flawed and quite relatable. I love the science that is inherent in everything she does, and I have a morbid interest in death in all its forms!

Let it be said that the only reason I decided to read these is because I enjoyed the TV series “Bones”. The reason I stopped watching Bones is very much like the reason I stopped reading these – they became repetitive. I mean sure, it’s a different victim and a different death measure, but overall the theme is the same. Temperance always catches the bad guy, and her sidekicks are always telling her she knows nothing.

These did make good retelling stories when asked to fill a silence in the car! My only problem was that I wasn’t sure how much of it was likely or true. For example, there is a case where the victim has been removed from Mt Everest in an icey form! There is a ‘Death Zone’ which is just colourful from all the jackets of people who have frozen to death there… Likely? Maybe (yes it is, and you can check out this link for more!).

I’ll give these 3-4 stars – once I started each novel, I had a compulsive need to keep reading it, but I wouldn’t go and reread them now that I know who the bad guy is!

Review: Ben Bravery – The Patient Doctor

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The Patient Doctor
Ben Bravery

“At the age of twenty-eight, with his Beijing-based science communications business doing well and a new relationship blossoming, Ben Bravery woke from a colonoscopy to be told he had stage 3 colorectal cancer…. Now, driven by his experience on both sides of the healthcare system, this patient-turned-doctor gives a no-holes-barred account of how he overcame the trauma of his illness to study medicine and shares what he believes student doctors, doctors, patients and their families need to do to ensure that the medical system puts the patient at the very heart of healthcare every day.”

Hmm, this was an interesting book, but not an outstanding one. While it was interesting to see the way that Ben-as-a-patient affected Ben-as-a-medical-student, it wasn’t anything particularly new to me. I also already had some pretty in-depth knowledge about how broken the medical system is in Australia.

The medical training provided to doctors in Australia is good in some ways (covers a lot of important information, very physiology/anatomy based) but bad in others. It seems to pay lip service to making compassionate great communicators out of doctors. As Ben exposes again in his book, there’s just so much crammed in and an idea that providing patient-centred care will take longer in a workplace where doctors are already overwhelmed.

It was fascinating to me that I saw the changing hospital/specialist centre size from both a patient (this book) and a nurse (A Caring Life) perspective. I also find it of interest because we usually assume that larger medical clinics will be better specialised to help people, even if this isn’t necessarily accurate. I felt that Ben’s attitude and understanding of his condition (and the humour he had to offer) was impacted by doctors the most. Now I’ll be waiting for a fully-fledged doctor’s thoughts on the system at the time!

I’d love to see a memoir or non-fiction from a higher up hospital administrator who is responsible for some of the funding and why student doctors / specialists / surgeons / every medical professional in the system are so overworked. I’m all for making sure doctors aren’t unemployed, but being underemployer or overworked is not good enough.

I am grateful that I live in Australia and healthcare is free. That’s reason enough that I might just be happiest with whoever I see in a hospital. What Ben advocates and encourages through his book is for patients and their families to feel confident speaking up for themselves. That’s something easier said than done, but I think it could be done.

I’d recommend this for readers interested in what it looks like to be a complicated cancer patient and the beginning trials of medical school. There’s some humour to keep it light, even if overall I think the book is a picture of the complicated nature of healthcare in Australia.

Hachette | 29 June 2022 | AU$32.99 | paperback

Review: Jennifer Niven – All the Bright Places

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All the Bright PLaces
Jennifer Niven

Finch doesn’t have a  problem, he just doesn’t want to go back into the ‘asleep’. Violet isn’t sure how to move past the death of her sister. They meet on the edge of the belltower, and talk each other off the ledge. Finch is desperately treading water, and attempting not to get expelled. As the two teenagers collide, will either of them survive?

This novel forced me to read it. I couldn’t put it down and it thoroughly distracted me from real life. I saw it while idlily looking for an audiobook to listen to on my phone. I HATE reading on my phone, but somehow I got sucked in. Then I had all of the feelings that kept me reading it.

This novel could be considered trigger warning-ed for mental illness, teenage drinking, eating disorders etc. However, I’ve read that trigger warnings aren’t actually useful, so never mind…

I didn’t want the novel to end the way it did. And yet, it sort of had to end like that. I thought that the storyline ended what seemed an inevitable downstream slide so it wasn’t unexpected. But I guess most humans hope for a positive outcome, even if realistically it’s not going to happen.

Ok, let’s talk about the problems of this novel. Other reviewers have commented about the behaviour of the adults of this novel being poor – they did nothing to aid the grief or depression of the main characters. This, for me, was actually very close to home. I emoted very strongly with Finch who maintained that there was nothing wrong with him, and kept reassuring people he was fine. I know what it feels like to be outwardly ok, but inside actually really wanting someone to care. So for Finch’s parents to be indifferent was normal. Not ideal, but that’s where this book succeeds at reflecting what high school actually looks like.

Equally, the approach by Violet to Finch’s mental illness, and her experiences at parties were quite shallow, but again, most real life instances are going to have this. A disclosure of suicidal thoughts and an indifference to them is pretty common!

It’s not a perfect YA novel, because we don’t see very much representation from people of colour, women’s worth (as anything other than a sex provider) or queer folk. However, I would argue that again, this is something that is common at least in Australian schools – the population is extremely Anglo-Saxon and we didn’t even had a token person of colour! What I’m trying to say is, this book really only tackles two issues – mental illness/suicide and grief/loss. If you’re looking for more than that, look elsewhere.