The Girls at 17 Swann Street, by Yara Zgheib is a heart-wrenching novel about Anna Roux who has been booked into 17 Swann Street by her desperate husband. 17 Swann Street is a residential treatment facility for patients with severe eating disorders. She is quickly diagnosed with life-threatening anorexia nervosa and her dangerous and difficult […]
contemporary fiction
Review: The Truths and Triumphs of Grace Atherton, by Anstey Harris
On finishing The Truths and Triumphs of Grace Atherton I dearly wanted to stand up and shout, ‘Bravo! Bra-vooo!’, clap wildly and whistle as though I were at an orchestral concert. But I would have woken up everyone in my house. So I settled for a mental fist pump instead. Grace Atherton inhabits the edges […]
Review: The Helpline, by Katherine Collette
The Helpline, by Katherine Collette is plain good fun. Set in a local council in one of Melbourne’s bayside surbubs, Geraldine is the unwilling newest employee on the Senior Citizen’s Helpline. It irritates her that some of the local residents seem to be calling just for a chat. It’s so… inefficient. The Helpline is somewhere […]
Review: Turtles All The Way Down, by John Green
I feel like writing a ‘review’ of a John Green book shouldn’t be a thing. Really there should just be a transmitted interruption to life everywhere that says, in big, bold black letters: JOHN GREEN HAS RELEASED A NEW BOOK. GO READ IT NOW. And yet, here I am. If you’ve been hiding under a […]
Review: The Girl on the Page, by John Purcell
The Girl on the Page, by John Purcell, is a highly entertaining, brilliantly written novel about the clash between popular fiction and literary fiction; 20th century and 21st century feminism; wisdom and youth. Amy is a twenty-something publisher and co-writer of the successful Jack Cade blockbuster franchise. She’s made squillions of dollars and has no […]
The Dinner List, Netflix and The Ship – Story Addict Podcast
This week on the Story Addict podcast I’m chatting about The Dinner List, by Rebecca Serle – an enjoyable, light contemporary novel involving living and dead people at a dinner party while the host tries to work through her issues with her ex-boyfriend and estranged father. All helped along by Audrey Hepburn, of course. Plus […]