Tag Archives: 2-stars

Review: Philippa Christian – Nanny Confidential

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Nanny Confidential
Philippa Christian

Lindsay is an elite nanny working in the homes of the rich and famous, looking after their kids so they can present their best face to the world. As an Australian far from home, her family worries about her rich lifestyle. Lindsay on the other hand has her feet firmly on the ground.

23680856I really don’t remember requesting this novel, and I can’t find evidence for it in my inbox. But I picked it up with a positive will, thinking it would be perfect pool-side reading.

Personally, I wanted less asides into the other nannying positions she had had, and more focus on a main family. I would have been enthralled by more details. As it was, it was a little too skinny for me. The blurb writes it up as a dashing romance vs a hard life of looking after children not your own, but that wasn’t the case.

The problem may have been that I’m not familiar with any of the celebrities that were mentioned, or hinted about. I understand about the limitations of working with famous people and writing not always positive things about them!

Unfortunately I felt a bit empty after reading it. Where did that time go? Did I learn something useful? Not really. Is it perfect for a light read? Yeah, maybe, if you like to peep into ‘Celebrity lives’ at home. I”m going to be generous and grant it 3 stars, because it wasn’t awful.

3star

Thanks to Allen & Unwin for this complimentary copy. As always, my views are my own.

Review: Keren David – This is NOT a Love Story

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This is NOT a Love Story
Kerin David

The world never seemed to revolve around Kitty. But when she finds herself in an entirely new environment with two hot boys to chase (not that she would ever admit to liking them), she creates a new persona for herself.

22838328This novel started out with so much promise, but failed to deliver. What you think is a horrifying lovers spat gone wrong is nothing more than a joke – on both the reader and the characters. Kitty! You stupid, selfish character. You’re so busy being ‘cool’ that you missed everything. And being cruel to the other characters is just ugh. Did not endear me to you despite you being the main character.

And this Instagram thing, which I assumed was included to ‘keep up with the times’? It just dated the novel for me, and didn’t actually do anything to further the story. Maybe if images were included, then it would have been more useful. As it was, I could have done without it, and more character development.

Considering that more than one point of view is shown in the story, you would expect to get a good grasp of the characters. But I didn’t feel like I knew any of them. Ethan was ‘moody’, Theo was ‘clever’, but apart from Ethan being constantly rude and Theo focussing on London Jewish politics, that was it. It had promise, it really did. Ah, but it was all lost.

Oh! And did I mention some of the characters were gay? Just goes to show that you need some solid story as well as some queer references to get my vote. 2 stars from me, with a sympathetic 3 if I must.

2star

Review: Alexandra Bogdanovic – Truth Be Told: Adam Becomes Audrey

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Truth Be Told: Adam Becomes Audrey
Alexandra Bogdanovic

Alex is a jilted, divorced wife. But what should make this novel different from the norm is that she got divorced because the man she loved was a trans-woman. Honestly, I don’t think the book hit all the right things in order to make this something special like it could have been.

17058464Poor, poor Alex. Dating a man for 10 years, and then suddenly finding out that he is a woman. But the person Adam was on the inside was the same, surely. Yes, he now won’t have a penis, but is sex with that all you were interested in? It frustrated me that Alex couldn’t even give Audrey the chance to explain. If anyone needed therapy, Alex certainly could have used some.

The majority of the text in this novel is devoted to talking about how Audrey and Alex met. And then about horse shows. And then about shopping to fix her feelings. And cats. And very little that was unique. It just sounded like a pity party. And hanging out with her buddies, the cops. Who cares who they were? They’re just your friends, and putting them in the novel didn’t really serve any purpose.

What didn’t come through to me was the ‘special nature’ of their divorce. It seemed like any other divorce, and why would complaining about your husband becoming a woman be a special complaint to knock down other people’s relationship woes?

Ok, so Audrey is portrayed as a grasping, lying pig. The author says that Audrey refused to cooperate with helping write the novel, and that the author didn’t want Audrey getting her grubby hands on any money from it. I think that Audrey may have been given the short shift. Why would she want to revisit her old life? Did it ever occur to the author that Audrey might have been able to move on?

The final thing that broke it for me was the fact that Alex couldn’t get Audrey’s pronouns right. As a friend to a trans-person, and sometimes making mistakes when referring to the past, then some excuses are ok. But really, she should be able to remember the correct pronouns, its simply just polite. Even if you now hate the person involved.

I was so disappointed in this novel. I had requested a copy to review, based on the hype on Twitter, but it didn’t live up to expectations. 2 begrudging stars from me, because I did manage to finish it. I so wish it had added more to queer literature like it had the potential to. It’s not as unique as it is billed to be.

2star

Review: Gayle Forman – I was Here

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I was Here
Gayle Forman

When Meg committed suicide, her best friend Cody cursed herself for not seeing it coming and not being there for Meg. As Cody digs deeper, wanting to expose why Meg did it, she finds herself chasing down the rabbit hole at someone else’s expense.

18879761I picked this up as a talking book, expecting it to be a wonderful novel about exposing why someone would want to commit suicide. Instead I found a messed up, self-centred teenage girl who was more filled with regrets than anything else.

This novel just felt too… convenient. Girl meets boy, girl blames boy, girl gets together with boy, boy screws things up with girl, girl and boy both grump, girl and boy get together happily ever after. I was disgusted with her. Ugh! Didn’t Cody learn anything?

No no, Cody hadn’t learnt anything. Anywhere. She chases things single-mindedly, at the cost to other people, and then bails! And for her, lies and promises might as well be the same thing. I was disgusted at her. She was so bloody clueless. Depression might have a stigma about it, but seriously, get a grip!

I listened to what felt like hours of this without making any progress. The ‘action’ only really happened in the 2nd last hour, and by that stage I was only still listening because I was hoping for a redemptive ending. Failure! No redemptive ending.

The author says that this was based on some interviews she did with some suicide survivor families. There was so much more she could have done with this novel that she didn’t. Creating a happy ending didn’t make me satisfied about the amount of time I had invested in Cody doing the right things.

2 stars. I finished it begrudgingly. Don’t read it. Read Hold Still, Suicide Notes or my personal favourite, The Last Time We Say Goodbye. That last one left me wanting more, and I wanted to listen to it all the time.

2star

Review: N.R. Bates – The Fall of Icarus

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The Fall of Icarus
N.R. Bates

I got this very thin paperback as part of ‘The Sharp Edge of Lightning‘ blog tour. I’m sorry to say that I delved into this one first, thinking that it would be painless and give me a good insight into the author’s style. Instead, I got concerned about the other novel I was supposed to be reviewing.

25357738Each of the short stories (there are three) has an interesting premise, although I enjoyed the the explanation about the original story of Icarus the best. The elevator was quite inspired. But like many other short stories, it left me wanting for what it really meant, or the enjoyment of it. I didn’t start reading them in order to have an active role in interpreting how it reflects a conversation on society, I did it because I thought they were light fiction!

This is a very short review, which is usually what happens when I leave a review hanging around to write for a couple of months, and also when it is a set of short stories. There are other things out there to read if you like thought-provoking short stories, I’d even suggest Peter Carey. Perhaps I should just stop volunteering to read short stories in general…

2star

Review: Kathryn Barker – In the Skin of a Monster

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In The Skin of a Monster
Kathryn Barker

Alice’s twin sister killed people in their local school. Since she was identical to Alice, people can’t see Alice for who she is, they can only see her deadly sister. When Alice is swept up into a dream world, things get even more complicated, and it’s no longer clear what is going on.

25380845DON’T READ THE BLURB. It will trick you into thinking that this novel is straightforward. Instead, you need to go into it with a mind blasted wide open, with the ability to let it stretch further. This is one very strange novel.

I would have liked a more concrete approach to dealing with things. Swapping between the different perspectives was more confusing that I would have liked. I just couldn’t grasp anything that was going on. Nevertheless, the dream-scape set up is amazing and well described. The author appeared to think of everything that could possibly exist in it – bubbles of people, monsters, everything else!

It was quite compulsive reading, despite its faults. Did I actually like Alice? No, most of the time I thought she was an idiot. Did I really understand what happened? Goodness no. Did I keep reading anyway? Yes. I ended the novel feeling completely disorientated and annoyed. Even after running over the plot with my partner, I couldn’t work out what the point of the whole novel was.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that this novel is going to expose great secrets of a person who looks like a murderer. Yes, killing people causes a great lasting impact, but people do recover. I don’t think this shows enough recovery. Mainly it shows people being stupid.

I can only think negatives about how Alice punishes herself for being like her sister. She’s committed to a mental institution for 3 years. I can understand the guilt she feels, but at the same time it should have been obvious to her that it’s not her fault and that she isn’t the same person. This got even more confusing for me as time went on, because it wasn’t clear whether Alice had demented thinking caused by the incident, or it was from the beginning. Just because you are identical to someone doesn’t mean you have to live like them.

I don’t know whether to suspend my disbelief for the story or not. In fact, unlike other novels I have read in this genre, this novel is not fiction that would fit into the everyday run of things. The attempts at making this fit into the Australian landscape fail miserably.

I mainly just came away from this very confused. There are other novels that are more awesome than this one. If you want to give this one a go, go right ahead. But if you’re looking for something with a convincing dreamscape, I’d be going for something like Dreamfire – I gave it 5 stars, go and try it out.

2star

Review: Janet Delee – Taking Leaps and Finding Ghosts

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Taking Leaps and Finding Ghosts
Janet Delee

Ginny has an Ideal Life plan. After her first 50 years of life, she wants to own her own home. Armed with a close friend who is a real estate agent, she sets out on the hunt. She needs some backup though, so she forms an ‘Ideal Life’ club, and gets together a group of misfits who want to be musicians, artists and writers, as well as a man who wants to work out his haunting problems.

25797569The book dragged on and on. I was half-way through before anything vaguely interesting happened. There were attempts to bring ghosts into things, but really the ghosts were minor inconveniences. I didn’t once feel frightened about the ghosts hurting any of the characters – it might have provided a well-needed pick-me-up for the action of the story!

The ‘twist’ in this was not really a twist. The hints towards something interesting happening? Simply hints. Nothing to see here folks, keep moving on. Just regular life ‘Ideal Life’ dreams that seem very short, and unimportant. I understand the worth of working towards something like that, but honestly it’s not very interesting to read about in a novel.

This novel was perfectly written. No, really, perfect. The problem was that there wasn’t a compelling storyline underneath it. The language choices and the sentence construction were all textbook perfect. But this also meant that the dialogue came across as ‘perfect’, and seemed quite stilted, because each of the characters used full words, and honestly, there was no distinctions in the way that made me like one more than another. If you read the text to me out loud, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which character was which.

I lie in wait this this author will bring other works out that I may love more, because the foundations for a fantastic novel are there – the author would just benefit from getting out there and grabbing a really dirty, fast-paced plot and slinking it into her beautiful writing style.

I want to give it 3 stars, and I would if I could think of an audience for it. Sadly for me, it was just so slow and boring that although I finished it, there are better things to read out there.

2star

Review: J.D. Watt – Burnt

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Burnt
J.D. Watt

Michael meets Simone at a bar, and finds himself suddenly smitten with her, despite being 20 years older. Their relationship develops through text messages, skype and emails, until Michael finds himself deeply in love with her. There’s a rival for Simone’s affections though, and what the men don’t know could harm them both irrevocably.

burntHow much do you love this cover? I absolutely loved it! It’s one that is going to get people talking, particularly if you’re reading the novel out in public. That can only be a good thing. There’s plenty of talking points to be gotten from this novel, particularly that both men and women can be unfaithful, even if it always seems to be the man’s fault to other popular fiction! These days, I think it’s equally likely in both sexes, even if men have gotten away with it with a pat on the back so far.

The blurb is probably what destroyed the novel for me. I found myself completely uninterested in the early dating stages of Michael and Simone, simply because I was promised that things would get messy and there was no chance this was actually going to work out. I wanted to see the ‘train-wreck’ happening faster! Particularly since once I worked out what was going on, it was obvious what the next stages would be.

The text message dialogue didn’t work for me at all. I found myself skimming over it, which is never a good sign. It seemed highly repetitive, and I would have much preferred traditional text. Even emails would have been preferable, as the text wouldn’t have jumped around so much, and I would have gotten more out of each dialogue exchange. Also, the sex scenes could have just been left out – they weren’t necessary to the text and I felt vaguely offended that they had been included without a real purpose.

I came away from this novel wishing that it had just somehow been ‘more’ in a way. I didn’t connect enough with the main character. I feel like that in the writing, the author’s attempts to continue distancing himself from his painful past hindered the reader’s understanding of it. Maybe it would have worked better had it not been so autobiographical?

I was lucky enough to receive this copy in return for a review. Despite my complaints about this novel, I think there is still some real writing potential and I can’t wait to see how the future pans out. 2.5 stars from me. I can’t tell you not to read it, because it truly is a one-of-a-kind book, particularly in Australian fiction, and there’s a good chance it will resonate better with someone else.

2star

Review: N.R. Bates – At the Sharp End of Lightening

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At the Sharp End of Lightening
N.R. Bates

Something poisonous is happening throughout the worlds. The sprites and humans of Oceanlight and Earth need to cross the Interface and work out what is going on, before it’s too late for themselves and their family.

25324761There are simply too many perspectives going on in this novel for me to be interested in all of them. The human I could feel empathy with, the sprites I felt completely disconnected from. Half the time I couldn’t care less whether they lived or died. And I also wondered why the human didn’t have better treatment – this is modern times – it’s really rare to have blood disorders now that can’t be treated efficiently.

The internal dialogue of the characters and the forced interactions spoiled this novel for me. I simply started reading it and immediately wanted to put it down. True to my word though, I kept reading it. By about a third of the way in, my interest was stirred a bit more, enough that i was pretty much immersed in it, but all the other books around me were just as tempting to read.

It took half the novel to even start covering part of the blurb, and it didn’t even cover the Goodreads notes. I felt like I had gained nothing from reading the text, and could have just wiki-ed it for a less painful progress. Then towards the end the jump in time periods left me grasping for purpose.

I signed up for this novel as part of a tour, thinking that someone with a strong science background would have amazing things to offer in a novel. Sadly, I was left wanting for the writing style, as firm as the novel’s progression was. This is the first novel in the series ‘Oceanlight’, so I’m ever hopeful that the author might still find his stride to start speaking through the characters rather than

I feel betrayed by the rest of Goodread’s positive reviews. I always start wondering if I’m reading the same novel. For me, this novel gets a mark of 2 stars. Is it perhaps not aimed at me? Can anyone else tell me what I missed?

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NR Bates was born in London, grew up in Wales, and lived in Canada and Bermuda. He shares his life with his wife,seven cats, one dog and the tropical wildlife of lizards, wolf spiders and ant colonies that seek out a better life indoors. He is an oceanographer and scientist, and has published more than one hundred and twenty scientific papers on ocean chemistry, climate change and ocean acidification.

He is a Senior Scientist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences and Professor of Ocean Biogeochemistry at the University of Southampton, UK. His novels focus on epic fantasy and magic realism, and inspired by his deep love of the ocean and environmental sciences.

Website: nrbates.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/NR-Bates/1536689869946441
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NRBatesAuthor

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Review: Mercedes Lackey – Closer to Home

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Closer to Home
Mercedes Lackey

Despite having a somewhat unorthodox upbringing and a shiny life respectively, Mags and Amiliy have gone though a variety of challenging situations together. Upon their return to Haven and their Whites, they have to balance their private and public selves to provide a stable face for the kingdom.

20893366Ok, so the summary I just gave you is probably a little too rosy. To confirm your dismay, once again this novel has Mags at its centre. If only this Lackey novel could have had a different hero. There’s plenty of minor meaty bits to work with, but Mags eats them all up with his low-levelview of life and his expectations.

Mag’s terrible speech continues as an ongoing annoyance. I know it’s part of his street persona, but he doesn’t need it to make him stand out from the other characters at all. The other characters seemed defined by their words, rather than their actions, even though a new mind-power mean that more actions could have been described with a hint of emotion.

It took me a little while to get around to writing a review for this novel, simply because I was searching around for other things to read that might be more compelling! I did make a note to jump start my mind for the review though – Another lackluster Lackey offering.

I’ve seen other reviewers complaining that Lackey is simply coming up with ideas for novels from things that have worked previously. In this case, it’s a Romeo and Juliet-esk drama, seen through the eyes of a small dog. Nothing against the small furry dog, just a lot against idiotic noblewomen.

I borrowed this novel from the library. Unless it’s super on sale, I wouldn’t even buy it as a mass-market paperback – nothing new to read here. 2 to 3 stars from me – a bare pass.

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