Tag Archives: 3-stars

Review: AF Steadman – Skandar and the Unicorn Thief

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Skandar and the Unicorn Thief
AF Steadman

So it turns out that unicorns are real! And, they’re limited to just a single island, everyone wants one, and they eat meat and small fluffy animals. Oh yes, and spirit unicorns are deadly unicorns that mean that if you are meant to be a spirit rider, you will fail your entrance exam to unicorn school no matter how hard you study. Skandar’s sister didn’t get a unicorn and it almost broke her – it’s up to Skandar to carry on their father’s unicorn wishes.

Seriously, if the whole island is covered with wild unicorns, how can there be any furry creatures left? There are so many plot holes. So many. Oh look, a book that will teach you everything! Oops, lost it. Wooh, got past one enemy and now assume that I’m invincible! I was very disappointed in the end of both books, particularly the second one. Has Skandar just conveniently forgotten about the other unicorn that he keeps running into?

Other reviewers have commented that it’s so unlikely that the whole world would want to believe in unicorns and watch a race once a year that determines the ruler of the magical island. I’m telling you, those people can’t be Australians! In Victoria, Australia we have The Melbourne Cup, which is horses racing around a track – ‘the race that stops the Nation’. We even get a public holiday to celebrate it! So to me, the notion that a race stopped everyone from doing anything was pretty straightforward.

I was given the first book for review, and bought the second book as a 14th birthday gift. The teenager hasn’t been raised on a diet of Harry Potter (thank goodness), she prefers Tamora Pierce, Garth Nix and other EXCELLENT books. She said that Skandar was better than Percy Jackson, the books looked attractive and there was a gift solved (the age-old gifting problem). If you grew up with Harry Potter or Percy Jackson as a child then Skandar is a weak shadow and not worth it if you are now an adult reader. It’s fine for middle-grade and teens, but I wouldn’t rate it that highly. 3-stars from me, for the right audience.

Simon & Schuster | 28 April 2022 | AU$19.99 | paperback

Quick Reviews of Fiction eBooks #2

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The In Between
Marc Klein

Tessa’s grown up in foster homes and knows to trust no one. But then Skylar enters her life, and Tessa sees some hope for the future. But what if there’s no future for them together? I’ve started sorting through teenage fiction that includes foster children in the hopes that I’ll identify some good ones worth buying and keeping for the foster teenagers that we have in our home. This one though is not it. I’m pretty sick of the foster-teen-finds surprising-love while also being-a-photographer with weird afterlife vibes. I’ve seen this same thing done slightly differently in Watch Over Me with slightly more sinister tones, and a younger version in Everything We Keep.

That Bonesetter Woman
Frances Quinn

Bonesetting was a craft before doctors became actually able to cure people! Durie has only ever wanted to be a bonesetter like her father – putting dislocated joints back into place and easing people’s strains (really, a cross between a physiotherapist and a chiropractor). Being unattractive is so hard, particularly back in the day when women were just commodities to be sold to the highest-husband bidder. I have to say though that sometimes Durie was a bit dumb, despite being smart enough to remember things! Like really? What? But I hung on and got the ending that I wanted, even if it wasn’t quite the one I needed. I’d highly recommend reading this one if you like your historical fiction with a decent working-class protagonist who isn’t beautiful.

The Passing Playbook
Isaac Fitzsimons

Hehe, the title is sort of a pun! Spencer is both trans and passing, and a soccer player and passing! Anyway, this book gave off vibes of Felix Ever After but was more solid and enjoyable to me. I appreciated the nuances the author had to deal with when creating Spencer, and I think despite part of the local problems of Spencer being marked as F on his birth certificate, this book will continue to remain relevant. This book made me think of a Queer event that I went to and someone trans asked when they could stop representing all other trans people. That’s the question, isn’t it? When will being trans not make someone a different ‘category’ of human? I don’t have the answer, and neither does this novel, but it’s a good one to add to your Queer bookshelf anyway.

Review: Alexandra Rowland – A Taste of Gold and Iron

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A Taste of Gold and Iron
Alexandra Rowland

Arasht is known for its pure currency that is determined by touchtasters. A plot with counterfeit coins could threaten the whole realm, and Kadou needs to solve it. Kadou is a bit of a mess, so it’s a good thing that he has a beefy bodyguard to keep him out of trouble. Will there ever be something more between them?

It took me ages to read this novel because 1) I thought it was the first in a series and I didn’t want to commit and 2) I didn’t notice that it had gay protagonists. Unfortunately the plot was lacking. I’m not sure why I kept reading it – maybe I got too attached to poor Kadou and his panic attacks? Then again, I hated Kadou’s ex- who was just a comical steriotype of a gay man calling everyone ‘darling’ and ‘sweetheart’. Evemer tries to be the hard counterpoint to the ex- but never really becomes a 3D character.

The plot of this novel was quite weak, and it was very easy to see where the book would end up. It was obvious who the villians were from the start, and it was clear that it didn’t actually matter if they were caught! I mean, there was a moment where they couldn’t trust anyone, but it was all good! They just pulled in a truth-seeker.

What I loved most was the use of another non-binary gender in a way that the author just created a new term. The author just rolled with it and didn’t give the reader a chance to be transphobic. The role of male partners was also curtailed by body-father (basically sperm donor) and women only giving another person law/love control over the offspring if they wanted to. Seliha is a bit dopey, but gets there in the end I guess.

This reminded me a bit of Ash Princess in the way that it had a (to me) traditional feel of bodyguard falling for a princess/prince/whoever. It was inevitable that they would fall in love, because why else would the book exist? I’m giving this a generous 4 stars since I did keep reading it, but the plot was just pathetic.

Pan Macmillan | 30 August 2022 | AU$34.99 | paperback

Review: Laura Taylor Namey – A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow

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A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow
Laura Taylor Namey

Lila had plans. Finish school, take over the bakery with her grandmother, employ her best friend to support her through college and maybe get married to the love of her life. Unfortunately she can only do one of these things for certain – suddenly the rest of her life is in upheaval and she’s shipped off to England.

I found it fascinating how much freedom Lila had! My parents would never consider sending me overseas like that to deal with a problem (in fact, they made sure I wouldn’t be equipped to do that). I can’t really imagine managing a kitchen at 18 either, but I guess it’s what you are used to. I totally saw where this novel was going, and I was perfectly happy to go there. I wanted a soft, casual read on vacation that I could drop out of at any time.

What this book also does quite well is validate creativity in baking. Sure, Lila knows her stuff well enough to out-cook the resident baker, but she knows that she has more to learn. Trades are a legitimate job choice, and I’m happy to see it being promoted here. I’m not sure what this would look like in Australia though. The restaurant industry can be very tough, particularly in the aftermath of COVID-19.

The way that Lila literally ran to deal with her feelings was quite novel. I feel like most of the time someone takes up running to be thinner, or just because they like it. Lila does state she enjoys it, but running past the point of being sick is something else. Not to mention dragging her friends in to run with her!

I enjoyed this novel as a light 3-star-worthy read. I read it as an eBook, which doesn’t help the story to stick in my head though (several months later anyway…). Highly recommended for anyone who likes a baking vibe to their fiction (eg. Caramel Hearts).

Review: Tom Rob Smith – Cold People

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Cold People
Tom Rob Smith

Humanity has been exiled to Antarctica by an alien race that cares nothing for humans. Given 30 days to race there by any means possible, the novel follows the unlikely love story of Liza and Atto, and their daughter Echo, from Announcement Day to the Days of the Cold People. Genetic experiments have bred new beings that thrive in the ice – but are they human? Do they care about humanity?

I wanted to like this novel, but I couldn’t. I generally hate perspectives that jump from character to character because often the change in tone isn’t noticeable enough. In this novel, it’s clear who the different people are, but I just didn’t care about any of them very much. I formed no emotional connections to the humans or the ice-adapted beings, and thus I didn’t really care one way or the other who ‘won’.

The world-building was beautiful and I could see the snow drifts of Antarctica and smelly human boats that stained the pure ice. I have no desire to go there! I would have been like Yotan’s friend’s family – holed up together until dissipating into energy particles. I still don’t know what the novel was trying to teach me though.

I received this novel as an ARC, so I felt as if I should read the whole thing before judging it. I’m not sure what exactly I was hoping to get from the ending, but I found it to be a letdown. Are we supposed to sympathise with the Cold People? Wish that humanity had treated the Earth better and that we hadn’t been so hard on the resources? I’m a geneticist “by trade” and I didn’t find it that interesting because it was clear that this wasn’t based on what we can do in genetics now. Since I finished it, 3 stars, but I guess you’d need to be really keen on Antarctica.

Simon & Schuster | 1 February 2023 | AU$32.99 | paperback

Review: Misa Sugiura – Love & Other Natural Disasters

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Love & Other Natural Disasters
Misa Sugiura

“When Nozomi Nagai pictured the ideal summer romance, a fake one wasn’t what she had in mind. That was before she met the perfect girl. Willow is gorgeous, glamorous, and…heartbroken? And when she enlists Nozomi to pose as her new girlfriend to make her ex jealous, Nozomi is a willing volunteer. Because Nozomi has a master plan of her own: one to show Willow she’s better than a stand-in, and turn their fauxmance into something real. But as the lies pile up, it’s not long before Nozomi’s schemes take a turn toward disaster…and maybe a chance at love she didn’t plan for.”

What a sweet little read! Don’t come here hoping for anything deep though. You’ll need to suspend your disbelief a bit, and also be willing to play along with the stupidity of some characters. I was all for ZoZo not having done anything wrong. Ok, she didn’t explain herself very well, but hey! Everyone else was happy to go along with the lie! And they blame her. Pah.

Is it just me, or did the cultural backgrounds of each of the characters not really mean anything? I knew that ZoZo was of Asian descent because of her name, but the rest? I didn’t really keep track. It’s refreshing that it didn’t matter and that I didn’t notice, but is that truly the way things are? I very briefly noticed that Arden was darker than the rest due to Willow’s make-up stash, but that was about it.

I’m not sure how I felt about Baba’s ending. Was there a right answer? I wanted there to at least be another answer. Even if hiring help just delays the problem, I thought that Baba deserved something more. Also, it’s been years since I thought about Saruko’s thousand cranes. How old is Dela in that her parents could get away with that for so long? I guess there is seeing and realising, and seeing and pointedly ignoring!

A refreshing lack of straight relationships here! I didn’t really get Max and ZoZo’s relationship – I can’t imagine being that rude to my older brothers (who would no doubt sit on me at the thought of such a thing!). The only straight relationship we see is approaching divorce. Oh, and I guess Baba and Jiji, but we don’t actually know what happened to Jiji.

Anyway, I gulped this down as an eBook from my library and now, a couple of months later, barely remember the storyline and don’t really care about any of the characters. So I guess it’s 3 stars from me.

Review: Mette Jakobsen – The Snow Laundry

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The Snow Laundry
Mette Jakobsen

“Sixteen-year-old Ally is one of 400 homeless young people who have been promised new and better lives in exchange for their votes. The once homeless children and teenagers are now warm and fed. But they are forced to work for the new administration – and their new home is really a prison. When Ally’s boyfriend Bon vanishes into thin air, her search for him leads her to discovering that the homeless kids are really lab rats intended for scientific testing. And as Ally delves deeper into her search for Bon, she learns the frightening truth behind his disappearance.”

This novel is really just another dystopia end of time book, unfortunately probably best compared to The Hunger Games. All the homeless children have been trapped/rescued into a single building where they slave away in a laundry / kitchen for the right to live.

What I don’t get is why they haven’t wiped out the undesirables of the population already. Everyone is armed, and apart from the clean up if they were shot, it doesn’t seem too different to Maslin’s end game. Is Maslin meant to be Mussolini?

Ally makes herself sick over Bon! For someone who has apparently survived on the street for a long while, she’s not very resilient. She’s got sort-of friends, and sort-of talents, but the situations and solutions she ends up in are highly improbable.

I don’t regret reading this novel, it passed the time on a very long bus ride, but I felt like there could be more substance. 3 stars, and I guess when the follow-up novel is done I might read it.

Review: Baba Prasad – Nimble (S)

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Nimble
Make Yourself and Your Company Resilient in the Age of Constant Change
Baba Prasad

“Today’s world is best described by one word: turbulence. Every leader today knows they need to be nimble, agile and resilient–but how? In this engaging and insightful new book, management strategist and Wharton Fellow Baba Prasad sheds new light on the subject, and offers practical advice for executives, entrepreneurs, and anyone else who’ll need the skills to face the unpredictability, risk, and deep uncertainty that lies ahead. Filled with vivid examples and insights from around the world and throughout history – from the Brazilian rainforest and the “frugal innovation” of 19th century Indian engineers to Ericsson, Lego, Burt’s Bees, and Zara–Nimble reveals what sets the most nimble leaders and organizations apart from the competition, presenting five types of agility that help individuals and companies not just survive but thrive in times of great change”

This book gives readers a guide to becoming more agile in today’s fast-paced business environment. The 5 agilities discussed in the book are:

  1. Analytical agility – allows a company to change the means and methods of analysis.
  2. Operational agility – helps the company gain dynamism through its operational resources.
  3. Inventive agility – enables the generation of new ideas, creative solutions, and alternate uses of resources to solve problems the company has not seen before or to take advantage of new opportunities the company faces.
  4. Communicative agility – is the skill a company has to persuade its audiences and to convey the value of its ideas through words and speech.
  5. Visionary agility – allows the company to recognize the long-term impact of the decisions it is making.

Each chapter of the book focuses on one of these agilities, offering a detailed explanation of what it is and why it matters, as well as real-world examples of companies that have successfully developed and leveraged that agility. The author’s use of business examples helps bring these concepts to life, making them more tangible and easier to understand.

The author also includes exercises and activities that readers can use to help them develop their own agility in each of the five areas. These practical exercises help readers apply the concepts to their own lives and businesses.

I recommend this book to anyone looking to succeed in a world that is constantly changing, this book is sure to be a valuable resource for leaders and professionals across all industries. If anything, it’s a great reminder to be agile in business. 3.5 stars

Quick Reviews of Non-Fiction Business Books #1 (S)

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The Resilient Leader
Life Changing Strategies to Overcome Today’s Turmoil and Tomorrow’s Uncertainty
Christine Perakis

This book is designed as a quick read that presents a good storyline, but falls short in delivering specific tips on leadership. While the book contains some generic advice, it offers nothing new or groundbreaking. However, it does have action points at the end of each section, making it a practical guide for those seeking to apply the advice presented. Overall, while the book is a fast read, it is not suitable for readers seeking in-depth knowledge on leadership or looking to learn new and innovative strategies.

Great Quotes for Great Businesses
Words That Leaders Live By
Bud Carter

This book presents a collection of quotes from successful business leaders, entrepreneurs, politicians, and sports stars. While the book has a range of quotes, it is an average read. The book covers different chapters, but there is not much variance in the content. I’m not a huge fan of quotes in general, as there seems to be a quote for everything, even contradictory.  While the book provides some inspiration, the content can be repetitive, and some quotes may not be relevant to all readers. Overall, it is an average read but it is what it says it is.

Engineer Your Business
The 6 Proven Steps to Evolve
Mike Dowsett

The book does not delve deeply into any particular concept, but instead offers a diverse range of perspectives on business systems, process, cost savings and more. While some of the sections may be familiar to readers who are already well-versed in this area, there are also some fresh insights and unique strategies that will be useful to readers seeking new ideas. It’s a nice quick read and is easy to flick through to sections you’re interested in. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick and easy read that offers a diverse array of ideas and perspectives on business.

Review: Cassandra Clare – The Mortal Instruments #1-3

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The Mortal Instruments #1-3
Cassandra Clare

Clary’s seeing things that she knows shouldn’t exist, and interacting with demons that can’t be real. Or are they? Clary’s mom has disappeared and her mom’s best friend is acting strangely, and Clary can only think of the ShadowHunters as the enemy. Or maybe Jace could be more than a friend, if only he wasn’t so prickly?

Clary is a decent enough protagonist considering her background as a regular old mundie (mundane) means that she’s at a disadvantage most of the time. Honestly though, I feel like she just kept being told she was too weak and noone bothered to train her. Also, the thing with the stele – wouldn’t you be kind of bothered if you lost it as many times as she seems to? Wouldn’t you put an AirTag on it? I don’t know how well this story will age into the future, but it’s still pretty good (10 years on??).

I picked up books 1-3 and 5 from the opshop for a grand total of $10, thinking that they could be a good fit for the emerging teen reader in my life. I thought I’d better have a quick read of them first to make sure they were good though! I’d previously tried to get into this series by listening to an audiobook (why did things happen so slowly?!?) and testing the TV series (too disconnected and visually distracting). They are pretty dense books and the action is quite slow which is why it didn’t work for me in either of those two media. This time around I knew that I had the next couple of books waiting for me so I could just gobble them up.

I’m undecided about the ‘twists’ in this novel. Ok, so I’m probably weird, but I was totally ok with the fact that they might be siblings and attracted to each other. They were raised individually, so what do you expect?! Anyway, that conundrum is sorted out by the end of book 3, which is why I stopped reading at that point.

I’m giving this three stars – pretty compelling while I was reading it, and I felt quite driven to keep reading the next two inther series. But! Once I finished book 3, I was actually ok with just putting the series down again. What more could I want than darkness vanished?