Tag Archives: 1-star

Review: Kirstin Ferguson – Head and Heart (S)

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Head and Heart: The Art of Modern Leadership
Kirstin Ferguson

“Leadership is simply a series of moments and every moment gives you the opportunity to leave a positive legacy for those you lead. In this ground-breaking book, award-winning leadership expert and business leader Kirstin Ferguson has written a much needed practical guide for every modern leader. Whether you are the head of one of the largest companies in the world, supervising a small team or guiding your family, it will be your ability to integrate your head and heart that will influence your success in leading others and navigating our complex world.”

This book is very slow. It spends a good chunk of the start of the book “rethinking leadership” in a modern way. Although I agree that some leaders do need to rethink how they lead, the people that have picked up this book would already agree with the title and modern leadership and do not need to be convinced.

The author’s writing of convincing the reader of modern leadership isn’t really convincing. It makes references to all people who can be leaders even in small ways or as parents. I don’t disagree with this, but I don’t think that it needs to be repeated throughout the book. Each of the eight trait chapters doesn’t explain anything tangible a leader could do to improve that area of themselves.

The examples provided have no depth. They are generic and basically say this person uses their head or heart, with no depth of exactly what they did and how they did it. I also did the test and did not find it helpful at all. It is hard enough to judge yourself but it’s particularly hard when the questions are direct and not in any context such as “Am I very aware of my limitations”. I also feel that the trait “perspective” should be a heart trait as it relates to empathy, but the author has it as a head trait.

Overall, don’t waste your time on this book. It should be titled “anyone can be a leader” as that’s the only point the author has and doesn’t get further than that.The test is like reading a horoscope. You can read whatever you want out of it. I finished it out of duty, but this is only one star from me.

Penguin | 31st January 2023 | AU$34.99 | paperback

Review: Leila Mottley – Nightcrawling

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Nightcrawling
Leila Mottley

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

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

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

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

Bloomsbury | 7 June 2022 | AU$29.99 | paperback

Reviews: Unfinished Novels #5

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I have a series of novels that I have never finished reading and in some cases, couldn’t face reading at all. In the interests of freeing up space on my bookshelves, and letting other people have a chance to read them, I have released these novels into the wild – either by giving them to people who might enjoy them, or attempting to sell them on eBay.

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

I was so theoretically excited for this novel! I saw in when in a physical bookstore and I found both the cover and the context interesting. When I was looking for an audiobook, I saw it! So I downloaded it and was ready to settle in for some engrossing reading. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. The reader sounded in pain, and the perspective of the “aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell” sounded self-absorbed and boring. I tried to listen to it on two separate occasions but I just couldn’t bare it. Maybe it would have been better if I had read it myself? Anyway, there are a lot more great novels out there waiting for me, so I’ll be passing on this one.

Believe – Sam Frost

Ugh, is there such a thing as too much positivity? I’m all about thinking in a positive way about negative environments and people, but at the same time, I’m not sure I need that much of it poured into a book. I picked this up and found myself rolling my eyes at the over-the-top nature of the book from the very first page. I also read out some snippets mockingly. Rather than continuing to read, I just returned it to the shelf and haven’t had any desire to pick it back up again. Give me a medical memoir any day.

Hachette | 30 March 2022 | AU$32.99 | paperback

Angel Mage – Garth Nix

I can hardly believe that I’m putting a Nix book in a DNF post. However, this book is really average. I picked it as a talking book for the whole family because I know Sanderson isn’t to everyone’s taste (takes too long to get into, too many characters etc). It was just so boring! Only one of the four young people is of interest, and she sounds so dopey I couldn’t enjoy it. I didn’t even hang around long enough to learn about the ending. I was vaguely interested in how Lilith was going to get the guy, but in the end I didn’t care enough to finish listening.

Reviews: Unfinished Novels #4

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I have a series of novels that I have never finished reading and in some cases, couldn’t face reading at all. In the interests of freeing up space on my bookshelves, and letting other people have a chance to read them, I have released these novels into the wild – either by giving them to people who might enjoy them, or releasing them to the community at large.

Once Upon a Crime
Robin Stevens

Um, where did this novel come from? This is set in the 1900s and is the tales of some child detectives (age 15?). I did attempt to read it, but I just couldn’t work out who the novel was for. There wasn’t enough information given that I would be able to work out the motive / killer by myself, and I didn’t enjoy the exchanges between the rival detectives. I’m going to pass this on to my 12 year old reader and see if she enjoys it. Maybe it’s a Famous Five type novel that will be ‘cool’ to the younger reading set.

Penguin Random House | 3 August 2021 | AU$14.99 | paperback

The Golden Tower
Belinda Murrell

I think I actually requested this one, to my shame. I thought that it could be a really great middle grade fiction! However when I started to read it I found the text to be information dense and uninteresting. The characters showed absolutely no depth which was very disappointing – I know it’s for younger readers, but have a little more respect for what they might enjoy reading? Again, I passed this on the the 12 year old a couple of months ago, but she hasn’t read it. Why read something that is an unknown when you can devour something by Tamora Pierce in the same age group?

Penguin Random House | 2 March 2021 | AU$16.99 | paperback

Review: Rainbow Rowell – Carry On

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Carry On
Rainbow Rowell

Simon Snow is destined to be the hero, even though he catches himself on fire pretty often and is useless at language (key for the type of magic involved). He’s going to fight off the Humdrum this year once and for all, but he’s missing his room-mate too badly to really care.

This book is filled with references to the past. It’s jumps straight into Simon’s last year at Watford School of Magicks (a boarding school of course), and the background of battling the Humdrum is just tossed in there. I couldn’t work out why I was reading it – there seemed to be no real plot at all. Thus it’s a DNF for me – I gave up and went and read something else.

Can you believe I bought this with my own money? I tolerated my way through Wayward Son because I received it as a review copy, and I had enjoyed Fangirl. I also enjoyed Eleanor and Park. This novel was such a disappointment though that I don’t think I can bring myself to read Rainbow Rowell’s work again.

I remain unfortunately convinced that fan-fic is poorer fic. Please stop essentially taking over someone else’s characters for your own desires. I can’t decide what exactly feels wrong about it to me, but it’s not right! Perhaps I view paper/published fiction as something holy, even though I’ve enjoyed online novels before. Maybe it’s that a rewrite of someone else’s work implies to me that the original wasn’t good enough. I’ll happily read a sequel if the original author has no intentions of going into that space, but even with that I feel like I’m making a compromise. Years and years ago I read Tales of MU, which seems to have somehow died on the wayside – ‘Carry On’ reminds me of it, if it had less queer characters and less sex.

Anyway, I didn’t finish this novel and I’m not sure I would recommend it for anyone. It’s a bit of queer-baiting, a bit of pathetic and a bit of self-pity. If you’re dying for a boarding school mystery there are plenty out there better than this one. 1 star.

Review: Sarah Liu – The World We See (S)

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The World We See
Leadership Lessons From Australia’s Iconic Change Makers
Sarah Liu

“The World We See is not just a compilation of leadership insights from 30 iconic Australian leaders, but a collective declaration that we will create a world where gender parity is not a dream, but a reality. In this book, female and male leaders share their life lessons and vision for a better tomorrow where every single one of us, regardless of gender, can rise up to get us one step closer to the world we envision.”

Suzi picked this book up from the library, so the following review is hers. I was after a book that wasn’t theory based for a change, and had more real life examples and stories to learn from. he title misled me, sadly. “Leadership lessons from Australia’s iconic change makers” – from this, I really expected actual lessons, stories and examples. However, what I received was 2-3 pages from each leader of wishy washy, meant to be inspiring and motivating, crap. This was the type of motivating crap that says “lighten up” or “the measure of success must be yours” or “failure isn’t falling down, it’s remaining where you’ve fallen”. This was paired with a quote on a coloured background page in between each leader’s lesson. If I wanted motivational sentences, I’d read ‘The Secret’!

To top it off, the whole book is also about gender inequality, and is aimed to be motivating to women in the workforce. I don’t have a problem with this being mentioned, but it felt like every leader had to say something empowering to women in their 3 page lesson, which was a waste and not necessary. This also included males saying they are open to women in the workforce – I bloody well hope so! I personally don’t feel that women need anymore empowering or motivating than men, and if they do they aren’t going to get it from this book. Everyone is equal, end of discussion. Gender diversity doesn’t need to be made into a big deal. Maybe it’s just my industry, but I work with more women than men, including women in high level roles, so I don’t see it as an issue.

Overall, what I got out of this book was nothing. It was a waste of my time. I felt that the leaders included could have used their few pages better to tell an actual story with a leadership lesson in it. Not fluff with coloured backgrounded quoted pages that can be found on the internet. I didn’t finish reading it. It might be non-fiction and I don’t have to rate it, but it’s hardly worth a single star.

Review: Hannah Capin – Foul is Fair

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Foul is Fair
Hannah Capin

Elle and her coven rule their high school in a mean girls’ sort of manner. All of that changes after Elle is gang raped at a party and she vows to get revenge. Her rich parents pay for her to change schools, and she hatches a plan with her friends Mads, Jenny, and Summer to kill them all. And she’s going to use the Goldenest boy of all to do it.

This book left me with an incredibly bad mouth feel. I felt violated and unsatisfied, and frankly a bit offended! This is a vague retelling of Macbeth, but Macbeth was time-appropriate, and Shakespeare! Death and madness are no longer ‘normal’ (and therapy will help with avoiding both of those things).

What irritated me about this novel was that Elle is clearly emotionally damaged, and emotionally unstable. But her parents don’t bother to get her help, and let her run along with her nasty plans. Elle keeps revisiting the rape in her mind, and is suffering from PTSD. If you’re someone who is sensitive or triggered by this kind of content, definitely don’t even read the blurb of it.

So the moral of the story? If you’re rich, basically you can get away with anything you bloody well want to. Your best friend has a lawyer dad after all – he’ll get you out of any consequences. I’m not really a fan of the death penalty in general, so why would I be keen on Elle plotting (and succeeding) at killing the entire Golden sports team? I’d have been much more impressed if she had found a way to torture them and inflict the same fate!

Feminism without filter? Unapologetic feminism? Why does feminism have to be so brutal to be effective? Feminism is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes”. That’s not what I see here. There’s no equality of the sexes, and there’s not really any women’s rights. There’s just one petty teenage girl killing off her abusers.

I was trapped under my sleeping wife on an aeroplane with no access to other books – so I finished reading it. But lest that make you think it’s worth reading, I’m giving it 1 star even though I didn’t give up. Oh, and did I mention the horrifically pink and yellow cover with a dripping blood red lipstick? Shudder.

Penguin Random House | 21st January 2020 | AU$16.99 | paperback

Review: NDF novels #2

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These are some short reviews of novels that I started and couldn’t finish. I’ll probably pass them onto a friend or attempt to sell them to a local bookstore. Sing out if you want them!

Meaghan Wilson Anastasios – The Honourable Thief / The Emerald Tablet

I started The Honourable Thief, and then abandoned it because it was so slow to get started and I couldn’t respect the aging male protagonist. I went in expecting Indiana Jones style action and tension, and got painstaking, painful details of Benedict’s surroundings (and honestly I wasn’t that interested in them).

Fast forward a year, and I found myself on an aeroplane trapped with only The Emerald Tablet to read (I’d completely forgotten about even reading the first novel). Sadly, I found that it had many of the same problems as the first. I hated Benedict Hitchens and his bumbling self-assuredness, and I detested Eris, his love interest. One of the earliest scenes is Eris pleasuring herself while she thinks about Benedict, and the whole thing made me twitch awkwardly on my seat. There was no need to go there!

Pan Macmillan | 31st July 2018 | $29.99 | paperback
Pan Macmillan | 25th June 2019 | $29.99 | paperback

Peter James – Absolute Proof

I put off reading this novel for a long time because the blurb about proving God’s exisitance and reporting it in the news didn’t sound appealing to me. Then I realised that I had enjoyed Peter James’ novel Love You Dead. So I thought I would try out Absolute Proof. Unfortunately it was just as bad as I expected. It had too many characters, too many conflicting and confusing storylines and an unconvincing protagonist (who I assume was the journalist).

Pan Macmillan 25th September 2018 | AU$29.99 | paperback

Corey Ann Haydu – OCD Love Story

I picked this up for a lighthearted holiday read, but sadly found myself irritated at the protagonist’s stupid thoughts. Obsessed by two or three guys at once? It felt like the author was making light of what is actually a very serious obsession. Bea even already has a restraining order against her! And her best friend is useless. No. Don’t touch this one. Maybe the bright pink cover should have given it away for me…

Review: Bill Bennett – Palace of Fires

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Palace of Fires
Bill Bennett

Lily and her mom have been on the run since Lily’s dad was killed in a hit-and-run four years ago. Lily has enjoyed living on the farm, and gentle gardening with her mom. But then a regular trip to the Farmer’s Market ends with tragedy – Lily’s mom is missing, and Lily thinks a scary biker is at fault.

I was initially sent the second book in this trilogy to review (Unholy) back in 2018. I hadn’t read the first book, so I put it on my shelf to be read when I could get it from the library. Then this month Penguin generously sent me all three books to read! Sadly, I couldn’t get past the first one.

The most promising part of this novel was the prologue! Lily’s ancestor is trying to keep her family alive, but the potato fields are blighted so she signs her name in blood with Satan. Then the book segues awkwardly into an elite hunter witch and her two familiars that feed on toe-nipples (no, you didn’t read that incorrectly!).

Details that should have simply been implied are spelled out and then spelled out again. The book jumps between perspectives of the witches, the hunter, the hag, Lily, Lily’s love interest etc etc. to the point that you don’t actually know which character you should care about. Of course we should care the most about Lily, but honestly I found her irritating and all too predictable. She really works hard to make herself different from everyone else, and she doesn’t even bother trying to do social niceties when they might benefit her.

I haven’t read a book that I detested as much as this one for quite a while! I mean, I hated I Always Find You, but I at least finished it. Bill Bennett’s Unholy wasn’t even tolerable for 100 pages. 1 star. I’d give 0 stars if I could.

Penguin Random House | 3rd September 2019 | AU$19.99 | paperback

Review: John Ajvide Lindqvist – I Always Find You

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I Always Find You
John Ajvide Lindqvist

John moves into a basement apartment to prepare to enter a competition of magicians and get away from his mother. Instead he finds himself adrift and poor in a city that doesn’t care about him, with people who are indifferent to everything. Except maybe whatever is hiding in the laundry room.

Who always finds John? Is it the guy calling him and asking for Sigge? What does that even mean? Does Sigge mean a particular word in Swedish? Is it actually important that John is a magician? Or would like to be one? Does anything matter? I think the answer is no.

Honestly, I’m not sure why I finished this novel .Was I torturing myself in some way? Hoping for a redemptive ending? It went from strange to weird, to even more strange. Maybe it’s all my fault for reading a second book in a trilogy out of context? But is it actually relevant since it’s Lindqvist pretending to be the protagonist in his novel?

Is this a horror story? I mean, I felt terrible for the child with the broken legs, but I wasn’t horrified by it. And the thing in the bathtub? That wasn’t horror. That was just a thing in the bathtub! I didn’t mind that things might come out of the Subway – because they never did. It seemed like the horror was just an excuse to let people be mean and nasty to each other.

I know that since I finished this I shouldn’t technically give it 1 star. But since I don’t know why I finished it, I’m not going to worry about it! Perhaps it would appeal to readers who love Lindqvist’s other novels? But for me, I know that I’m not going to touch anything by this author ever again if I can help it.

Text Publishing | 2nd July 2018 | AU$32.99 | paperback