Review: Brendan Reichs – Genesis

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Genesis
Brendan Reichs

Noah knows what the stakes are now – and he’s determined to survive at any cost. He’ll flatten team-mates and set others alight to win. In contrast, Min knows that there has to be something more to life than killing. She wants to form a community and work out the long term goals. Why can’t they leave the area? And why does killing people not make them stay dead?

I hated Noah and Min’s relationship. Honestly, I was disgusted by Noah most of the time, and I couldn’t believe that Min would fall for him. What about Tack? He would give her anything! And I’d take that any day in a killing scenario like what these guys find themselves in.

There’s a couple of twists and turns here that I definitely didn’t see coming. It is ESSENTIAL that you read Nemesis first, because otherwise you will be completely confused. How could Sarah do that? Why would they keep the psychopaths in the population?

I found it interesting that the gay couples still felt the need to justify their relationships. Maybe it’s because they won’t be able to provide offspring to somehow keep the human race alive? That’s the thing that got to me. Even if there are 64 humans left, it’s really unlikely that that is enough genetic diversity to really restart a population. And were the ones and zeros really needed? Or could those clone bodies survive on their own? I wanted to know more about the science.

I actually read an eBook copy of this as I was on vacation and had just finished Nemesis – and I needed to read Genesis right away! I have a hard copy version though which I did like originally until I realized it was the second in a series. What devastated me again after finishing it is that there is a third book. I’ll give this one 4 stars, but I probably won’t reread it before reading Chrysalis.

Pan Macmillan | 24th April 2018 | AU$16.99 | paperback

Review: Helen Hoang – The Bride Test

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The Bride Test
Helen Hoang

Khai doesn’t need relationships – he’s not lonely. Esme doesn’t think she needs to get married, since she has her daughter already. But both of them could be happier if they had someone in their lives. Esme can stay in the USA if she can marry him – but can she love him as well?

Ah, I wouldn’t have called this The Bride Test. Is Esme really tested? Or is it Khai who has to decide what he really wants? I loved reading their different perspectives and how the times almost overlapped, and that arg! How could they both think such different things about the same interactions? Well, since Khai identifies as having Autism, yes, it’s clear how that can be the case. It’s nice to see a non-neurotypical writer commenting and writing on a topic that she is surely intimately familiar with.

This novel has some HOT sex scenes that surprisingly didn’t make me cringe too much! Khai’s first time is adorable. There’s a lot of time spent thinking about penises because Khai is sexually frustrated, so if that’s not your thing, perhaps don’t pick this novel up. Esme is so comfortable with her body that it’s really freeing to read about.

GoodReads has this tagged as ‘The Kiss Quotient #2′ but it has NOTHING to do with Helen Hoang’s other novel. Yes, they both have autistic protagonists and are hot romances, but that’s it. They don’t contain any of the same characters.

You know, I read this the moment it got inside my front door like a ravaging maniac. Then I didn’t review it because I went on holidays. So then, oh, poor me, I had to read it again! And so I’ll give it 5 stars. I can’t wait for Helen Hoang’s next novel.

Allen & Unwin | 1st July 2019 | $33.99 | paperback

Guest Post: Caitlin Lynagh on ‘The Power of Knowledge’

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Lost Frequencies is a forthcoming Sci-Fi Fantasy Release from Caitlin Lynagh. I asked Caitlin to provide a guest post introducing her ideas and inspiration for the book.

Lost Frequencies is the first book in The Soul Prophecies series and is set on the ancient, planet of Iyeeka, many light years from Earth and millions of years before the dawn of mankind. Iyeeka encounters many issues which humanity struggle with today. The story follows Zerren, Ehi, Ahrl and ten other characters as they travel across their dying world to the home of a time-travelling scientist in the search for answers to their problems. Iyeeka is not the place it used to be, changing weather patterns, natural disasters and increasing global temperatures have destroyed entire continents and left the last two continents barely habitable. Water shortages have left the southern regions completely desolate and their fleeing refugees have pushed the northern regions to their limits. Millions have perished over the last few centuries and some Iyeekans have turned to violence in order to survive.

Iyeekans are not a violent species by nature; they lived peacefully for many millennia, choosing to work together from early in their evolution. Their continents are bigger than the continents of Earth, but their oceans are toxic and their lands were filled with many fearsome creatures. The Iyeekans built fences to keep the creatures out of the mainland and confined to the coastal regions. They lived by simple principles and recognised that it was better to work together towards a common goal rather than fight or kill. If an Iyeekan committed a crime they were punished, usually by banishment from their districts or sent out to work in sanitation which meant going to the coast for a period of time. It was rare.

Iyeekans lived in districts near to a supply of freshwater, similar to a village or town on Earth. Every Iyeekan family had a home and the same sized plot of land on which to grow food and bury their dead. They didn’t have a currency and hoarding supplies in any form was frowned upon – those who did were seen to be mentally deranged. All Iyeekans developed some kind of profession or skill and anything that they made or produced would be put into large warehouses where Iyeekans from their district could come and take what they needed and leave what they didn’t need. In this way supplies were shared without the need for trade, money or wars. Since there was plenty of land and all Iyeekans worked together, there was little travel between districts.

Iyeekans lived longer than humans and families were important to them. Younger generations would look after older generations and families would nurse sick relatives back to health. To be married, or ‘unified’ in Iyeekan terms, was a major decision and not one that was taken lightly. They settled with one partner for life, they couldn’t divorce so they chose their partners carefully. Bringing new life into the world for Iyeekans was seen as a great responsibility and honour so having children carried the same amount of importance and care. As a parent it was your duty to care and teach your child how to be a good Iyeekan.

This complacent lifestyle however, became a major downfall of Iyeekan society. Life was so simple and relatively easy for so long that there was no motivation or desire to change, which meant that their technological advances happened at a much slower pace in comparison to Earth. Iyeekans didn’t need to learn anything new and were not as curious as humans. They channelled all their waste into their already toxic oceans which unknowingly increased their toxicity and changed the atmosphere. The changes were gradual and happened over many centuries, and once they realised the error of their ways, it was already too late.

The last of their kind were finally finished off due to bad luck and events outside of their control. Maybe it could have been avoided had their technology been more advanced but during the final, difficult centuries, not many Iyeekans were interested in technology or space travel. Had Iyeekans known about the damage they were causing to their planet earlier, they would have undoubtedly changed their ways and tried preventing their problems.

In this sense Lost Frequencies is a book about having knowledge and foresight. There may be many problems we have here on Earth but having knowledge is our power. Being curious is one of humans’ greatest traits; it could potentially destroy humankind but it could also save us. We have knowledge of a problem here now, so we can fix it.

But we must act on that knowledge…

About Caitlin Lynagh

CAITLIN (27) was born in Cardiff and graduated from Keele University with a BSc in Biology and Geology. Caitlin won a Young Writers’ Award with Outlet Publishing in 2013 and her first two books in The Soul Prophecies series, Anomaly and Lost Frequencies – collectively Another Path, have gained much praise, as well as attention from the science community, trending on Reddit/r/Science for a while. Caitlin now lives in Cumbria, UK, works part-time in a bookshop in Sedbergh and helped organise the Sedbergh Book Town Festival in 2018. She runs several popular blogs, sketches, paints, makes bookish art and enjoys travelling. Caitlin once spent six weeks in the Amazon rainforest studying primates.

Lost Frequencies is released Nov 19th 2019 and is available to pre-order now on eBook and Paperback. You can follow Caitlin Lynagh on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads.

Review: Caroline Bond – The Forgotten Sister

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The Forgotten Sister
Caroline Bond

Cassie hasn’t thought about the fact that she was adopted. She’s been happy with her adoptive family up until this point. But are they hiding something from her? And if they are hiding something, is it for her own good?

You know, you’d think that fiction characters, particularly those that have adopted children, would learn to be more open about things. Every time I get a side conversation being held between parents I automatically think that something is going to go wrong – and unfortunately that’s normally the main plot point of the novel, just as it is here.

I found the inserts from Cassie’s dad quite distracting, and I didn’t feel like they added anything to the story. It could have equally been told from Grace’s (the mother) perspective and not lost anything in my opinion. I did like Ryan’s perspective, and Erin’s though. Overall, I could have just had the novel told to me from Cassie, Grace and Leah’s perspectives if that meant that their characters and motivations were a little more fleshed out.

I found Leah a bit… intense? And thus I found the ending quite unbelievable. I could have done without it, actually. What is with novels wanting to add a little post-script to a perfectly good novel? I didn’t find it heartbreaking or tear jerking, perhaps because I could never think of Leah anything other than a bit crazy. Going through the Foster Care system is enough to drive anyone mad! In fact, another novel I read recently was about that – Stone Girl.

This novel left me feeling a bit ambivalent, which I guess means it’s a 3 star. Not terrible, but not remarkable either.

Allen & Unwin | 3rd June 2019 | AU$29.99 | paperback

Guest Post: B.C. Sayer on ‘The Importance of Realistic LGBTQAI+ Novels’

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The Importance of Realistic LGBTQAI+ Novels

The process of figuring out who you are is both exciting and terrifying. For me, that process mostly happened during my four years of college and came to a perfect head when my anxiety, my bisexuality, and my androgyny all kicked in at once. These things opened new worlds for me to look into. I searched for hours online and read articles about people who had similar experiences to me with anxiety, sexuality, or gender. These searches often brought both positive and negative results, but either way, I learned a lot about myself and how the world tends to perceive people like me.

Writing has always been a cathartic process for me, one that helped me to understand the labels I used above before I even had an inkling that they existed. When I was younger, I would constantly get questions such as:

  • “Why is your writing so dark?”
  • “Why do you only write from the male perspective?”
  • “Is there something you feel like you need to tell us?”

My generic responses to all of these questions were, “I just know what makes an interesting story,” and “I’m always a girl, so I like writing as a boy instead.”
As is turned out, I was dark, and I am most certainly not a girl.

But as I grew to label these vital things about me and how to live and grow with them, I found myself wanting to do more research. Because now that I had labels, I could write about them more accurately. So, as any author usually does, I turned to books.

LGBTQAI+ books, to be exact.

I started writing my first gay love story (The Unseasonal Warm Front) in April of 2018. It was based off a short story I had written in high school, but my short story did not have a happy ending. It was not a love story, but a classic “gay guy falls for a straight guy” story. That was not the story I wanted to put out into the world. So, I read a lot of LGBTQAI+ young adult fiction, and I found a terrible thing: there were so few happy endings.

I thought maybe LGBTQAI+ movies or TV shows would be better.

I was terribly wrong.

After all the angry rampaging and book slamming that accompanied my disappointment, I came to realize that not only did I want to write this one happy story, where the boy gets the boy and also ends up proud of himself, I wanted to write a slew of LGBTQAI+ stories (that include mental health topics) that had happy endings with closure.

Of course, “happy endings” does not always mean the best-case scenario occurs, but it does mean that the characters are left in a realistic and hopeful place by the end of the book. I write in a world where mental illness is not cured just because someone loves you, and LGBTQAI+ people get the happy endings straight and cisgender people have been getting in literature for centuries. I want to pull the LGBTQAI+ community out of the typical literature tropes they are forced into and out into the real world where they are well-rounded and fully-faceted characters that work hard and can ultimately get what they want.

About the Author

B.C. Sayer is a self-published author who sells exclusively through Amazon. Sayer is an active advocate for mental health as well as the LGBTQA+ community, using literature as a tool to reach out to readers and spread awareness and understanding of minority groups.

Sayer is a strong proponent for the happy (yet realistic) endings that often seem to be missing in LGBTQA+ literature as well as literature about mental health, where the ending seems to be “all or nothing.”

Sayer is an elementary educator in Pennsylvania as well as an avid lover of dogs, dessert, grammar, and crafting.

Review: Gena Showalter – Firstlife

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Firstlife
Gena Showalter

Prynne Asylum is the home of underage children that won’t do what their parents want them to do – whether it’s getting married or Choosing the right Second Life provider. Tenley’s been tortured for longer than she thought was possible, but she’s determined not to Choose Myriad or Troika. The two realms are determined to get her on their sides though – and she might die anyway.

How dumb can one girl be? It’s clearly obvious which side she’s going to pick. Oh boo hoo, your boy toy isn’t from the same place. Oh no! You might war with your parents for forever! Get over it! Choose based on what you see, not what people tell you. She’s all about being strong and kicking people in the balls (literally and figuratively) and then she’s just bowled over by good old Killian because he smells good.

Let’s not forget the inclusion of a weird psychic, and a suddenly discovered clause that that means that Ten isn’t her parents’ meal ticket any more. Oh, and the fact that Ten can recover from basically any injury (and so can the other humans) within the space of what seems to be hours. She ends up dying at least twice, and then she’s brought back. So really, who cares? I couldn’t get attached.

Ten’s pretty obsessed with numbers, but honestly I think it’s a load of bunkem. Any number can be special if you would like it to be! I’m personally quite fond of the number 13 because everyone says it’s unlucky. But I could equally choose 11, because it’s the first double digit prime number, or 2 because it’s the only even prime number. Tenley’s form of swearing is to say ‘zero’ to herself!

I waded my way through quite a lot of this novel before I gave up and read the synopsis on GoodReads for it, and the following two novels. 1 star – I didn’t finish it, don’t bother.

Review: Brendan Reichs – Nemesis

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Nemesis
Brendan Reichs

Every two years Min is murdered on her birthday – but she finds herself alive again soon after, with no evidence of death left. An asteroid is approaching earth though, and weird things keep happening that might wipe out human kind. It’s good thing she has Tack by her side – and maybe the stranger Noah as well?

This novel was very, very slow and I considered giving up on it about half way through. Min and Noah are like two magnets that kept changing polarities. Oh, and then when the perspectives started changing I started feeling very irritated. Just stick with a side guys! Noah, please get over yourself, I get that you might have anxiety, but I don’t think you’re really convincing me with your character consistency.

Ok, something I really struggled with was the ending of this novel. Noah’s personality basically completely changes – and I had no idea why. Min stays her own awesome self as far as I can tell. I also really don’t get how what they think is happening could happen. I really can’t say more without giving away the twist.

This novel reminded me a little of The Maze Runner – but I think people actually die in that one! I have the second novel in this series waiting for me on my bookshelf at home, but I’m not sure I’m going to wait that long to read it (since there is an eBook copy available from my local library). I’ll give this one a healthy 3 stars, bordering on 4. I’m just not convinced about the ending.

Review: Susin Nielsen – No Fixed Address

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No Fixed Address
Susin Nielsen

Felix and his mom Astrid live in a van. It’s a pretty cool van at the beginning, but as months go past, Felix gets more and more uncomfortable. He doesn’t get to shower every day, and school seems like the only place he’s warm and safe. Felix has a chance to go on a TV trivia show though and win the answer to their problems.

I didn’t feel convinced that Felix was 13. I felt that maybe he was a bit younger? I feel like by 13 I was a bit more put together, but maybe that’s because I’m a girl and we develop slightly faster than boys. I loved his relationships with his friends! And I liked how the novel was a mix of past and present tense – initially I felt a bit hesitant of it, but in the end it made sense.

I liked how it was just a slippery slope from a month’s holiday in a van through to spending a couple of months in it. It wasn’t ‘bam’ they’re homeless. I also liked how Felix described his mother’s depression slumps. To me, I don’t think her medication was doing a great job though.

This asks the reader to consider hard questions – what makes a good parent? Is foster care the right solution to problematic homes? Is stealing ever ok? Also it wants the reader to think about what they might feel like in that situation. Also, there were a couple of times where Felix made a statement to the police, yet it wasn’t followed up on.

This was entertaining (and sad) at the same time. I was particularly fond of Felix’s classifications of different types of lie. It was a very comfortable and undemanding holiday read.that I’d absolutely recommend for middle grade readers. 4 stars for its target age group.

Review: Amanda McClelland – Emergencies Only

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Emergencies Only:
An Australian nurse’s journey through natural disasters, extreme poverty, civil wars and general chaos
Amanda McClelland

“In 2015, Amanda McClelland was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal, in recognition of an extraordinary career dedicated to making a difference. As a nurse and a humanitarian aid worker she has battled against extreme poverty, disease epidemics and natural disasters, helping to rebuild broken lives and strengthen communities across the globe.”

I expected something more like Aussie Midwives or Island Nurses with more individual nursing stories. What I got though was a discussion of humanitarian aid and her movements from plain nursing through to team management and recommendations. Everything is underlined by her compassion and practicality as well.

Ew! Some of these stories are likely to horrify a weak-stomached reader. I couldn’t stop thinking about her just casually slicing out a pus filled ulcer on her chest! Others are just horrifyingly sad – mothers who lose their lives and also their babies, or babies that can’t possibly survive. She’s not a midwife, but looking after children and improving mortality rates ends up being a huge part of her job.

In a way, this book reminds me of How (not) to Start an Orphanage – it has both what should and shouldn’t be done, and talks about the hardships on essentially white people living in third world countries. Sometimes the interventions create more problems than they solve. Amanda really illuminates how the best of intentions can lead to problems if they aren’t carried out with the community’s support and full understanding.

What upsets me in general (not about this book at all) is how sometimes things at home should have been fixed before we go elsewhere to aid others. Amanda works in an indigenous community that is filled with drug and alcohol fueled violence and horrible living conditions in places. Maybe we should try to work out how we can help our own people first?

Review: S E Grove – The Waning Age

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The Waning Age
SE Grove

Natalia has lost her empathetic little brother after a wayward comment at her workplace insults the wrong person. She’s also got a huge bounty on her head after she embarrasses a bunch of Fish. Fish are people who don’t have feelings, and also don’t follow society’s rational norms – they’re killers. Natalia is pretty sure she doesn’t have feelings left either – but she’s determined to get her brother back.

The premise of this novel is interesting. When children get to the age of 10 or so, they lose their ability to feel things. So then at high school they are taught society’s rules and norms for how to behave. Somehow people’s brains have switched off the pathways to being empathetic for others. It’s a cool idea! I’m not sure how biologically possible it is at this point though.

I’m not sure how I felt about the execution of this novel. Calvino’s essay responses add a bit of variety, but ultimately it is Natalia’s journal that carries the plot. The journal entries left me feeling like there was a lot more to be said. Now, if that was a deliberate idea on the author’s behalf, because of course Natalia doesn’t ‘feel’ things anymore, that’s ok. But I needed something more to connect me with the characters.

None of the characters I cared about died, and nothing bad really seemed to happen to them. Bad things were threatened, and people did die, but they weren’t really important. I was too sure the whole time that Natalia would win. And that ending with where Cal ends up? Isn’t that just too convenient? All those coincidences just seem to line up…

Natalia reminded me of Maggie in Disruption (I always have to look up the name of the novel, I can never remember it!). Despite everything going against her, and only the rich being able to afford the good things in life, Natalia sticks it out and kicks butt, just like Maggie! I’m going to give this 3 stars, and suggest instead that you go and read Disruption instead for a kick-ass heroine and a more convincing plot.