Review: JingJing Xue – Shanghai Acrobat

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Shanghai Acrobat
JingJing Xue

“Jingjing Xue was born in China in 1947, during a period of civil war. Jingjing, left in an orphanage in Shanghai, was destined to a life of hardship before officials singled him out and enlisted him to train with the Shanghai Acrobatics School. Shanghai Acrobat tells the moving story of Jingjing’s rise from poverty to become an admired performer in China and beyond. Through the turbulent period of the Cultural Revolution, he realised the value of freedom. This is a story of hope and perseverance, of overcoming adversity and of finding a place to belong.”

I listened to this as a talking book after I was disappointed by the last two fiction audiobooks I tried. Unfortunately this one let me feeling a bit cheated. I expect and enjoy memiors that are filled with human nature and the feelings of their writer. This memior fails for me because it is filled with too much dry history and is quite repeditive. Someone who enjoys history will probably get more out of this book than me.

I learnt from this book that in Shanghai it is the custom to give children the same first name twice, so JingJing was originally named Jing. That’s something I’ll now be able to talk to my students about – so it’s not a dead loss!

While I admire JingJing’s devotion to ‘endure’, it didn’t seem like he could or would be evicted from the troop. This created an aura of holier-than-thou around him that didn’t seem to be cracked by the fact that many people he knew didn’t make it out of China. I didn’t get any sense of his humanity, and his relationships came off as quite sterile.

I don’t think this should be compared to Mao’s Last Dancer. While both books might cover the period of the Cultural Revolution of early Communist China, this book is more about history and Last Dancer is about the process of becoming the best. I wouldn’t recommend this book.

Review: Helen Hoang – The Heart Principle

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The Heart Principle
Helen Hoang

Anna Sun had a moment of fame performing unexpectedly at a concert where the original main attraction had had a car accident! What came from that moment was fame to a level she doesn’t know what to do with, and pressure to perform. A blind-date one-night-stand with Quan, a tattooed and dangerous-looking guy, will be just the thing to get her life back in order, and show her boyfriend that she’s not just going to accept an open relationship.

Hoang reports that she had problems completing this novel, just as her protagonist struggles to continue with her music. I’m so sorry, Helen, if I may be so familiar with you to use your first name. I didn’t find The Heart Principle to be as good as The Kiss Quotient or The Bride Test. I wanted fresh new characters and situations that didn’t feel so convenient.

You don’t need to read either of Hoang’s first novels to place this one in context. That being said, it kind of contains a spoiler for The Kiss Quotient – but not really as you kind of expect all romances to have a happy ending? I’m really keen to read more from Hoang, provided that she steps away from the characters she has already plotted with.

This novel again approaches the topic of how women’s autism presents differently to those in males. I didn’t resonate with Anna’s character or quirks at all, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t be a role model for another human diagnosed with autism or even just being on the autistic spectrum. I’m happy to see more accessible neuro-diverse novels being offered and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to any type of romance reader.

I might reread this one, but if I’m looking for a standard male-female romance, I will definitely reach for the other two first. 4 stars from me.

Review: Catherine Ryan Howard – 56 Days

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56 Days
Catherine Ryan Howard

Ciara and Oliver bump together in a seemingly-innocuous moment of time – both waiting to buy their lunch. Ciara seems shy, and is surprised that Oliver would pay her any attention. Oliver is worried about getting her attention, but it’s not clear why. When lockdown against COVID-19 occurs, Oliver invites Ciara to move in with him. 56 days later, there’s a body in Oliver’s apartment.

This was gripping! For a while, I wasn’t even sure which character was the one who had ended up dead. I was even vaguely hoping that it was a total stranger dead in there, but then I noticed the blurb, and that ruined it for me. So trust me, just pick up the book and read it, don’t read the blurb. I stayed up late and got told off – but I just needed to know what happened next!

This novel keeps twisting, but not in a way that is at all predictable. You think that you know everything about all three of the perspectives, but it turns out that 2/3 of them are only telling the reader a partial truth. I had forgotten how much I can enjoy an unreliable narrator when it’s a three-perspective novel (even though normally multiple perspectives isn’t my thing).

I’m absolutely raving about this novel. Go out and buy it. You’d think that a novel set in our current pandemic would be depressing or gloomy, but instead we see people making the most of the opportunities they have – even if it might be to get away with murder. I’ll be interested to see crime patterns in the real world in years to come too!

I can’t wait to unleash this book on others in my life. I’m going to make sure they don’t read anything about it first, and go in blind. Then I’m going to pick their brain at each step to see if they can work out the TRUTH. It won’t be quite as good as a reread for me, but I think it’s still worth it. 5 stars from me.

Allen & Unwin | 5th January 2022 | AU$29.99 | paperback

Review: Lucinda Riley – The Seven Sisters: Maya’s Story

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The Seven Sisters: Maya’s Story
Lucinda Riley

Maya’s Pa Salt has passed away unexpectedly, and Maya finds herself lost without him and his solidity in their Genevan home. Not even her five sisters can console her – Maya was the first and most beautiful of them all. Challenged to find out her true history, Maya embarks to Rio where her story somehow began.

I slogged through this one for you all – it was an almost 20 hours behemoth of a talking book, and I only got through it because I couldn’t be bothered finding a different audiobook to listen to while painting. It was that bad that I sometimes considered silence a better option. It was repetitive in parts, and it was obvious what the ending/outcome of Maya’s search would be.

The level of detail is stifling – we know exactly what they eat, but it’s lacking the visceral responses that must be there. Wooh! We are in France, we must once again eat olives, cheese and bread. Oh no, she’s sad she doesn’t have her one-true-love.

I thought I had previously read one of this series, and found it to be The Storm Sister. It looks like I didn’t really enjoy that one either. The only reason I borrowed this was because I recently saw some hype about ‘The Missing Sister’, which will be the concluding novel of the sequence. I shouldn’t have bothered. I’m giving it three stars because I finished it, but honestly you shouldn’t waste your time on it. Tighter editing and word-count limits could have massively improved this novel.

Review: Peter Sheahan – Flip (S)

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Flip
How to Turn Everything You Know on Its Head and Succeed Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings
Peter Sheahan

“Emphasizing flexible, counterintuitive decision making, Flip calls for a new way of doing business in an economy where conventional wisdom won’t get you anywhere.”

Let me set you straight from the beginning. I read this as an audiobook and it was pretty average. There is nothing new on offer in this book. I had to force myself to keep listening – I didn’t even really want to finish it because then I would have to review it.

I believe the whole point of the book was that in business you need: fast, good, or cheap – pick 3. The idea was that it’s not good enough to have only 2 of these in your business, you need all 3 and then even a 4th which sets you apart from your competition. Besides that, the rest of the points are examples of businesses that have done things differently.

Unfortunately it doesn’t actually give you any insight to take away with you. It had a few good stories that you listen and tune into, but others I found myself no longer paying attention to them. The stories didn’t seem to link back to any points, sometimes the main point, but usually didn’t link it to anything. The difference between the start, middle and end of the book is absolutely nothing. It’s all just one big blob on the same thing. Throughout, it gives a lot of stats and I mean A LOT, but they are not meaningful. They are not put in a way that makes that statistic seem astonishing. I particularly found myself tuning out at these times.

It might have been better for the time that it was released but now the book is getting outdated as it was released in 2008 – over 10 years ago now! I know the author makes a point that the overall theme of the book is still true and relevant. But when the author goes into so much detail explaining MySpace, it’s hard to make this connection.

The author also jumps around a lot with the stories, they really just seem randomly thrown in. He mentions Toyota at least 6 times, so you would think I would come away knowing a bit about Toyota. But instead the message is lost and it’s hard to make sense of it. The Toyota examples could have been all together in a Toyota case study style not scattered throughout.

I wouldn’t recommend this book. 2 stars
.

Chris d’Lacey – The Last Dragon Chronicles Series (A)

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The Last Dragon Chronicles Series
Chris d’Lacey

“When David moves in with Elizabeth Pennykettle and her eleven-year-old daughter, Lucy, he discovers a collection of clay dragons that come to life. David’s own special dragon inspires him to write a story, which reveals the secrets behind a mystery. In order to solve the mystery and save his dragon, David must master the magic of the fire within – not only with his hands but also with his heart.”

This is a review of all five books in the initial series, written by a 12-year old reader who was promised a trip to the library if she wrote one! Who am I kidding, we would have gone anyway… I’ve had to reword slightly so that it isn’t filled with spoilers.

I really enjoyed these novels up until the last book. The other four were compulsive and absorbing reading, but the ending of the fifth ruined the series for me. There was a lot of death and it didn’t seem like a good ending.

My favourite parts were the clay dragons and the short stories, anything with a dragon would be good enough for me. My favourite character was Liz because she was good at making clay dragons. I could have done without Dr Bergstrom’s character. He didn’t do anything and disappeared with no explanation.

I’d recommend it to anyone who likes characters dying. It’s aimed at my age or slightly older. It’s for dragon lovers because they are awesome dragons. 3.5 stars for the series because the ending was terrible.

Guest Post with Jonathan Durham on ‘Building a Small Universe

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A Guest Post with Jonathan Durham, author of Winterset Hollow.

I’m so excited to be bringing you a guest post today from Jonathan! He’s been kind enough to write us a really detailed piece on “Building a Smaller Universe”. Take it away!

When most people talk about the concept of “universe building” as it relates to stories, the conversation usually focuses around large-scale narratives that deal with completely alternate realities—books or films that have almost literally built their own universes like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. But what about smaller, more contained stories? They most certainly have their own universes too, so why don’t we ever talk about how they’re built? Why don’t we ever discuss the finer points of making them feel real and tangible and like they could actually exist? Well, as luck would have it, I happen to deal in stories of a less…shall we say…grand scope…so I figured I’d take a moment to share some of my thoughts on the subject in the hopes that it might be of some aid to some of you out there who share the same proclivity.

The universe of your story is always important…and it doesn’t really matter if you’re inventing a galaxy that doesn’t exist or a town that doesn’t exist. It doesn’t even matter if you’re not really inventing anything at all, you still need to paint a picture that feels complete and accurate within your story’s logic…and you need that picture to be a framework that allows your narrative to thrive. So, how do you fill that canvas when you don’t have a big story to work with? How to make that portrait feel real and interesting when you have a limited cast of characters and a limited list of locations and even a limited period of time? Well, in my experience, it’s all about thinking in different literary dimensions.

You may not have space…but you always have time. What I mean by that is that there’s never any limits on history, and history can be an extremely powerful force when it comes to telling a story. Successes, failures, traumas, love, loss, abuse, childhood, adolescence, first times, last times—think about all of the pieces of a character’s history that have been stitched together to make them who they are, and ask yourself whether or not investigating them within your story would help to build your universe. Think about the footprints of the past. Think about the specter of what’s come before. Think about the residue of the history of the story that you’re telling…and think about how you can use those things as mortar to your bricks.

History has always been a huge part of my writing. It’s been so integral, in fact, that almost everything I write features a dead character that plays a major role in the lives of the living. And if you think about it, those that have passed play a part in our lives long after they’ve left us—our parents, teachers, relatives, lovers, children—their footprints don’t disappear when they take their last breath. In fact, they continue to help define who we are long after their departures, so wouldn’t it help a piece of fiction to feel a little more real if it featured the same mechanic? History defines our present in the real world, so for my money, it should act no different in the literary world.

If you can’t build outward, build inward. Get introspective. There’s a whole universe between each of your character’s’ ears, too, and sometimes the exploration of those spaces in just as interesting, if not more so, that the exploration of the space that surrounds their ears. I mean, you could spend your whole life writing about a single person’s mind and never run out of things to say…it’s literally a limitless framework that contains limitless stories…so if it makes your narrative stronger, don’t be afraid to dig down when there’s no room to go up. If there’s not a whole lot of room to talk about where characters are going or what they’re doing or even what they’re saying…try talking about what they’re feeling and see if it doesn’t help to bring a little balance to your tale.

And last but certainly not least, find the authenticity in little moments instead of relying on big-picture believability. Large-scale stories often feel believable because their large-scale connective tissue feels believable—the social structures and world functionalities and languages and that sort of thing, but small-scale stories don’t have those frameworks, and so you need to be doubly sure that the little moments feel real. You need to double down on the attention that you pay to conversations and reactions and voicing and emotions, because those things are your connective tissue…and they need to be strong.

There’s no right way to tell a story…and there’s no ‘best’ size for a story’s universe…but you can make even the most contained narrative feel just as grand as the most epic fantasy ever written as long you paint that portrait with care, and as long as you understand that the journey isn’t necessarily shorter, it’s just drawn along different roads. And remember, whether your tale takes place across a galaxy, a country, a city, a town, or even just a room…you’re always always always building a universe.

About the Author

Jonathan Edward Durham was born near Philadelphia in one of many satellite rust-belt communities where he read voraciously throughout his youth. After attending William & Mary, where he received a degree in neuroscience, Jonathan waded into the professional world before deciding he was better suited for more artistic pursuits.

He now lives with his partner in California where he writes to bring a unique voice to the space between the timeless wonder of his favorite childhood stories and the pop sensibilities of his adolescent literary indulgences.  His debut novel, Winterset Hollow, an elevated contemporary fantasy with a dark twist, is mined from that same vein and is currently available everywhere. You can find it at all of these links:

Interview with Alex Robins

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An Interview with Alex Robins, author of The Broken Heart of Arelium

Alex Robins hails from the sunny Loire Valley in western France, surrounded by imposing castles and sprawling vineyards. The Broken Heart of Arelium is his first novel. He’s generously offered to answer some review questions

What is your favourite dragon in literature?

Hi there, Rose, and thank you for putting these questions together!

This is going to sound terribly cliché so I apologise in advance, but probably Smaug. The Hobbit was the first fantasy novel I ever read, drawn to John Howe’s brilliant depiction of the dragon on the cover.

For a more unconventional answer, my second favourite is Silvara, a silver dragon in Weis & Hickman’s Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Silvara’s tragic romance with Gilthanas is truly heart-breaking and it was probably the first time I realised that fantasy novels could tell character-focussed stories that are just as deep and meaningful as any other genre.

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 hard drive!). Have you been able to reshape yours, or have you abandoned it for good?

I do have a couple of false starts sitting on a hard drive, yes! Neither has been abandoned nor are they anywhere close to being presentable.

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

It’s only been two years since I started writing regularly, but already in that time, I feel I’ve improved in leaps and bounds. In fact, I was rereading part of my first novel with my editor recently and we both remarked that it almost seemed like it had been written by a different person compared to the subsequent books in the series!

I think the most important thing that’s changed is that I’ve managed to find a style that accommodates the type of story I want to tell. I love fast-paced novels, yet when I started writing the first book in the series I was under the (false!) impression that epic fantasy had to be at least 800 pages and full of long, descriptive paragraphs. It doesn’t. Epic refers to the story being told not the length of the book! My later novels flow a lot faster and, in my opinion, make for better reading.

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?

A bit of both. The idea for this series of novels has been percolating for a while, which means that now I’m finally ready, writing it down comes fairly easily.

I think it also depends on the type of prose. My prose is, by choice, the opposite of lyrical. I want it to be fast and snappy. This style of writing is generally easier than a more poetic, deeply descriptive style.

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)?

Definitely digital. What’s great about having a laptop is that you can write almost anywhere. My favourite place by far is in a comfy armchair by the fire, my feet propped up on a stool and my laptop on my knees.

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 am exceedingly lucky! I have loving family members who not only read my books but also seem to really enjoy them (or they are amazing actors). That was especially important for my first novel when I hadn’t yet established a fanbase of any sort.

I now have 4 or 5 readers who have been following me from the first novel and who are the first to read my latest efforts.

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 never, ever read digital. Unfortunately, living in France means I don’t really go into bookshops any more (unless travelling to the UK), but I order physical copies of everything I read. It’s also why I’m adamant that all of my books should be available in paperback as well as digital, despite the additional cost and hassle that involves. Some readers may not know this, but an indie author like myself will probably make more money from the digital version of their novel than the paperback, and this is more likely to be true the longer the novel (more pages mean higher printing costs). But not having a physical version at all just doesn’t feel right to me.

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?

Absolutely. Fantasy was my first love and will probably always be my favourite. But it would be crazy to close yourself off from all other genres, wouldn’t it? There’s so much great stuff out there! Over the years, I’ve been reading more and more sci-fi, historical fiction, and horror.

Historical fiction in particular fascinates me. The time authors must spend on research to make sure everything is correct (or what most historians believe to be correct) is mind-boggling. And some real-life historical events are far more epic than a great deal of fantasy!

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 think that makes two of us! I’m very bad at social media in general (probably because I’m over forty), something not helped by the fact that living in France means I’m in a different time zone from a large part of my reader base. I use social media very sparingly and mostly to promote current and upcoming projects, not to post pictures of my Christmas tree or my garden …

Strangely enough, the most fun I have is writing and sending out my monthly newsletter (which you can subscribe to from my website at http://warofthetwelve.com). I feel it’s easier to engage with people who like your work enough to sign up to receive information about it. The newsletter allows me to talk a bit about my personal life on top of the obligatory promotions.

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

Hah! Great question! Not necessarily recycle word for word, but some answers will of course be similar. The book that drew me into reading will never change, neither will my difficulty at mastering social media 😊

Review: Michael McQueen – The New Rules of Engagement (S)

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The New Rules of Engagement
A Guide to Understanding & Connecting With Generation Y
Michael McQueen

“WHO ARE GENERATION Y ? To some they are the tech-savvy, well educated and ambitious youngsters poised to take on and change the world. Others, however, describe a disloyal, disrespectful and demanding generation who have never learned to wait or really work hard for anything… Get set for an entertaining, revealing and insightful look inside the minds of today’s young people.”

This book was pretty good! The first half of the book goes through what a generation is and each of the generation types. Normally this is the boring part of business books where it just explains the definitions and how it currently is. I actually found this section the best part! Perhaps it was because I am a Gen Y, and so I learnt about the other generations. Or perhaps simply because it was funny and put the different generations in perspective – with different examples that we can relate to with others. The book definitely needs this first section.

The second half of the book is the “new rules”. This is the section where you are going to learn why Gen Y does what they currently do. What this means and how to communicate with Gen Y on “their terms”. I enjoyed this section of the book still, but not as much as the first. Again, as a Gen Y myself, I completely agree with everything that the author said. I also found that a lot of things I had previously put down to my personality is actually not unique to me, and is something that most Gen Y people do. I don’t think I learnt much from the second half as I knew most of it. However it’s definitely worth the read if you are not a Gen Y and are interested in understanding them.

I’m giving it a solid 4 stars, and highly recommend it for those engaging (haha) gen Y-ers across a wide range of context, not just business.

Review: Lucy Adlington – The Dressmakers of Auschwitz

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The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive
Lucy Adlington

“At the height of the Holocaust twenty-five young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp – mainly Jewish women and girls – were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers… Weaving the dressmakers’ remarkable experiences within the context of Nazi policies for plunder and exploitation, historian Lucy Adlington exposes the greed, cruelty, and hypocrisy of the Third Reich and offers a fresh look at a little-known chapter of World War II and the Holocaust.”

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel approach to World War II history in a way that made it approachable and interesting to me. For anyone who has an interest in fashion this book is going to be a great read. The author clearly had favourites! The key two women presented in a favourable light were Hanyu, who she presents as fearless and spunky, and Marta, who is compassionate for her team.

I have to complain a little that I found the multiple narrative perspectives difficult to follow. I would have much preferred that each chapter approached what a single woman faced at a time, particularly near the end. I couldn’t work out who died, or who lost their entire family – but perhaps this was deliberate to highlight the sheer number of murders in this book.

There is a lot of background information before we get to the part where the women make dresses! Since I was expecting it to focus on the fashions and specific circumstances of the dressmakers, I spent the first half of the book waiting for ‘action’. This was shallow of me, as I did learn a lot of facts about the Holocaust from a woman’s perspective, which I think has been unstudied/undiscussed in this area of work.

The old adage is that truth is stranger to fiction – in this case non-fiction is horrific enough that it’s not necessary to read a fictional horror novel! I find myself still better fascinated with true history such as this book and the upcoming Always Remember Your Name, or The Keeper of Miracles, rather than fictional novels set in the time of World War II. That being said, I did read The Kitchen Front recently which of course had a rather simplistic happy ending.

Hachette | 31 August 2021 | AU$34.99 | paperback