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 […]
contemporary fiction
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 […]
Book review: How To Be Perfect, by Holly Wainwright
Holly Wainwright is a natural storyteller and she’s back with another rollicking good read, How To Be Perfect. Just like her first novel, The Mummy Bloggers, it’s packed with perceptive insights into parenting, hilarious observations on modern life and more than a few heart-in-mouth moments. It’s the perfect book to read when you want something light, familiar […]
Book review: Ghosted, by Rosie Walsh
Ghosted, by Rosie Walsh, is one of those rare gems of a book that is set in the modern world, involves a love story about two people over the age of 30 and is brilliantly written. It also comes with a killer twist. ‘Ghosted’ is a term that has been coined in recent years for […]