Ash

This one was a dichotomy for me. It was good sci fi. It kept me going, very well done. But the story itself left me feeling ick; there's only so long you can spend in a hopeless place. It's the first in a trilogy, and I'll pick up the rest because I suspect the groundwork has been laid now.

I feel like these are getting better as the series progresses. Maybe that's partly because of the emotional attachment, but the writing has definitely improved. This one was a super compelling action-packed narrative that I couldn't put down (as evidenced by my 3am bedtime on a school night). Politics, relationship dynamics, and a minor apocalypse, what more could you want? The cliffhanger was somewhat of a flatline, but I don't especially mind. Just means we've got some unresolved drama that I can't wait to dive into in the next book.

Interesting that this one came out of the pandemic, a time when simply going to the coffee shop was considered high fantasy. It was pretty cute, I liked it.

This was fine. Good read. I'd rate four stars because I enjoyed it, though the humour did get tiring in places. But I added an extra star to negate the homophobic Karen with the algorithmically promoted Goodreads review I had the immense displeasure of reading just now. Cheers, love.

A compelling enough murder mystery, and a fun romp through an interesting world. But the way this was anchored around a young Elizabeth I—a 13 year old—narrating some fairly lewd sexcapades felt super contrived and a more than a bit tasteless.

“Queer people don't grow up as ourselves, we grow up playing a version of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimise humiliation & prejudice. The massive task of our adult lives is to unpick which parts of ourselves are truly us & which parts we've created to protect us.”

This one was a bit real at the start. Growing up gay in the Queensland public school system was fine enough, but it was a time of incredible shame and confusion and it was uncomfortable reading those early chapters. The rest of the book deals in drugs, drag and stardom, but eventually comes to a heartwarming conclusion about gender identity and self. It was sweet, and I learned a couple of things.

This was fine. Good but slow. You can practically smell the film adaptation on it.

This was pretty great. The stories are told in a highly accessible, easily digestible and occasionally humorous way. I'm not suuuper into games and I didn't know all the ones that were covered, but I enjoyed the ride.

I spotted this on a display by the entrance of Big W at a particularly low point in my life, and it gave me some joy to find a new Australian novel I'd missed. I had trouble getting into Boy Swallows Universe and never finished it because the library ebook returned itself, but this one grabbed me and I couldn't put it down. I saw someone describe it as a slice of life, which I suppose it is. But it's also a murder mystery, with some thriller elements. A bit of family drama. It's a lot of things. Very nicely done. I liked it.

This one had me hooked, reading in bed at midnight with an elevated heart rate desperate to find out what happened. I think horrible but excellent is maybe my favourite genre. It worked, and I loved it, but stylistically could the author give us a quotation mark sometime? As a treat?

“Every queer from a small town I've ever met has had an extra layer of defensiveness, an extended adolescence, while they grow into themselves, into the people they couldn't be back where they were from.”

I really enjoyed this read, it was witty but real. I just felt like it ended leaving me with a bunch of threads. Maybe that's life. And I suppose it fits with the narrator; a loose unit failing forwards with a bunch of unresolved trauma. Still.

That aside, I liked it for the lesbianic yearning, the sharp prose, and an intimate snapshot into small town New Zealand life.

Oh wow, that was very short, I didn't realise I'd reach the end until I hit the acknowledgements. But it was cute. A little heavy-handed in places, but overall a sweet found family type deal which I'm always here for.

Damn. I don't think you'd classify this as a thriller per se, but the way everything spirals out of control there's so much tension you could cut it with an analogy. I hate every one of these characters, but they're each brilliant in their myriad of flaws. And there's multiple layers of story, I find myself wanting to know what happens and dreading the inevitable conclusion at the same time. I liked it.

It was fine. It's one of those books where a whole bunch of stuff happens and then it ends. A pastiche of whimsy and world building, I wonder if that's a multiple authors thing. I don't remember reading the first, but I know I did ages ago, and I love the concept. Probably more than the execution tbh. But what the hell, four stars.

An insight. The devolution into alternative medicine was a bit uncomfortable given personal experiences, but it's understandable in the course of the narrative. In any case, this book really helped my mum.

The series up until this point has been fine but not amazing. This book was the first one that grabbed me and drew me in from start to finish. Fast paced, lots of action and suspense, politics, drama, and an interesting big bad.

I don't like Holden as a character, I think he's inconsistently written. And there was a slightly odd “we don't know how to write women” moment. But overally, the book was great.

Bit slow but we got there in the end.

Easy read, fun premise and didn't entirely go where I expected it to go. Nothing earth-shattering, but it was nice.

Maaate. I picked this up on a whim and finished it in a weekend, felt a bunch of feelings, and now I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. It's a great read, beautifully written, and a fresh kind of queer bogan representation you don't exactly see a lot of. I really loved it.

This was a perfectly fine story, but the reading of it was arduous. You know it's Literary when the author forgoes punctuation for a few hundred pages to make a point. Then switches the last chapter to first person for no discernible reason. It was just a highly irritating read and I probably wouldn't recommend it.

What's this, the fourth Thursday Next book? This one took place in “reality” so to speak, so it felt a lot more tethered and less like a short story per chapter which was my complaint with the last. Overall there's high stakes, a bunch of weird shit going down, a prophesy that's up to the protagonist to make happen, and a heap more alternative-history world building that pulls the whole thing together.

Did I cry at the end? Yeah a bit. But it was good.

Finished the first Murderbot Diaries in like, 30 seconds because it's so short. Bored, autistic-coded security robot just wants to veg out and watch soap operas. It's Sunday night and I have to go to work tomorrow so I can definitely relate.

But it's very cute and I can see why y'all like it. Though the library has a 5-week wait to check out the next one.

After the portal went nazi, I wasn't sure what to do. I've slowly extricated myself from the Internet and life is good? But in the first half the manic descriptions of terminal online-ness, the memetic brain-rewriting that comes with immersing yourself in the immer and coming out different. It was relateable. Then the fall you know is coming, which was nothing like what I expected. No spoilers, but I appreciated the stark realness in contrast. It's just a funny, beautiful, tragic story.

Zoe Kean, a science writer and communicator based in lutruwita/Tasmania takes a deep dive into why us humans are the way we are, from an evolutionary perspective. It's an interesting subject, and each chapter breaks down a big question with real-world examples.

I liked it, but it was a bit of a slog in parts. I was expecting it to be a lighter pop-sci bedtime read, but it's a bit heavier and I found myself having to reread bits or skim over others. Despite that it's a fascinating deep dive into our species' history, and what makes us ‘us'. You should give it a go.

Four kids with special abilities are sent off to a castle in Oxford to learn magic. This doesn't go where you might expect. This is probably one where you need to go in without any preconceptions, so I'm not gonna write any more other than I thought it was very well done.