Four quick reviews

I’m hopelessly behind with reviews and I’m fairly sure I won’t have much free time between now and the end of the year… so, catching up with what I liked (or didn’t) about four recent reads.

The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook

Why, why, why have I left my review of Rhidian Brook’s historical novel, The Aftermath, so long? I had so much to say about it when I finished it in July (although, perhaps too much and that’s why my thoughts were a jumble). Anyway, it’s worth a brief review because it’s a book that I think will be among my favourites for the year.

Nonfiction November – Book Pairings

It’s Nonfiction November, this week hosted by Sarah’s Bookshelves. The task? Pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title.

I have so much fun with this topic (past post, and here), and other bloggers’ book-pairings have resulted in a lot of books being added to my TBR sack.

When relationships get messy, the band does not get back together – Bright Lights, Dark Shadows: The Real Story of ABBA by Carl Magnus Palm and Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith

In 2014, I completed a year-long 1-second-a-day project. My kids still ask to watch the seven minute result, enjoying the flashes of the everyday and odd sound-grabs. I was reminded of it when I read Dominic Smith’s latest novel, The Electric Hotel.

The novel focuses on Claude Ballard, a pioneer of silent films.

Strangers have always interested me, Claude said. The way they illuminate their own sorrows or joys when you least expect it. It might be half a second of staring into space, then it vanishes.

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Well that was a bit of fun!

You’ll see Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid popping up on all sorts of ‘best of’ and ‘beach reads’ lists at the end of the year, and I can understand why. It’s the story of the rise of a rock band in the seventies, with a particular focus on singer Daisy Jones. She’s a wild child, beautiful and talented –

So this is a girl that desperately wants to connect. But there’s no one in her life who is truly interested in who she is, especially not her parents. And it really breaks her. But it is also how she grows up to become a icon.

Royals by Emma Forrest

Imagine if Jeanette Winterson wrote episodes of Made in Chelsea, and set them in the eighties? You’d have Royals by Emma Forrest.

Royals opens with 18-year-old Steven, preparing for a street party to celebrate the wedding of Lady Diana and Prince Charles. Steven is obsessed with fashion, and dreams of leaving behind his working-class upbringing to become a designer. Steven’s mum is his greatest supporter, and his father is a violent alcoholic.

He was jealous of me and Mum. It upset him that I made her happy. He wanted her to be happy, but he didn’t know how to do it himself. He bought her perfume on her birthday and he hit her. He got her kitchen remodelled, and he hit her.

There Was Still Love by Favel Parrett

I volunteer with a palliative program as a biography writer. People tell their stories, I transcribe them. People will often say that they have ‘nothing to tell’. That’s never true, although I have learnt that the dates and facts about a person’s life are not that important. Instead, the story is in the small details and their recollections of how they felt at particular moments – that’s where the meaning is found.

Favel Parrett’s third novel, There Was Still Love, demonstrates how detail tells the story. It’s an ode to the life Favel shared with her grandparents – her fond memories are woven through a fictional account of twin Czechoslovakian sisters, separated by World War II. One stays in Prague, the other crams her life into a small brown suitcase and travels to Melbourne.

You must close up tight, protect your most needed possessions – all you can hold. Your heart, your mind, your soul. You must become a little suitcase and try not to think about home.

I want to read The Testaments by Margaret Atwood but…

Do you want to read The Testaments by Margaret Atwood but have concerns? Let me address some of the things that might be nagging you.

Bunny by Mona Awad

If this means anything to you:

then you probably ought to read Bunny by Mona Awad. But be warned, it’s a bizarre book – campus-lit meets magic realism meets what-the-hell-was-that meets Weird Science…

Three short reviews

Three ARCs that have been languishing in the TBR stack for far too long…