Book Reviews
Emily's bookshelf: read
Amari Amazing is right! (Iykyk)
Amari and the Great Game is the sequel to middle grade supernatural spies-meet-magic fantasy story Amari and the Night Brothers. Book 1 was a great read but this installment really takes it up another not...
Imagine you're pregnant having one last holiday when you wake up unexpectedly in labour in an isolated BnB... but all the doors are locked... and your phones are missing...
I mean, that's a gnarly premise, right? If there's one thing yo...
4.5/5
Amari and the Night Brothers is a fun engaging middle grade fantasy that blends magic world and spy school elements into something completely new.
12 year old Amari is devastated when her older brother goes missing. But then she ...
"...cults prey upon vulnerabilities that are core to our species: our need for acceptance, to be part of a group, to connect, to feel safe. Cult leaders themselves manipulate, dominate and control because, sadly, those are also very huma...
We meet Telium in the midst of trying to violently escape prison and certain death, after being betrayed by her queen, for whom she served loyally as an assassin. Years later, she lives alone in a deep forest, battling to understand her ...
This is the third book centred on the fictional band Midnight in Dallas, this time featuring dual POV between band member Derek and new character and love interest Jo. Although you can absolutely read this as a standalone, I think alread...
Desmond is an urban planner who needs to impress his stepdad with a big commercial project. But his presentation is crashed by a literal manic fae dream girl who insists that the Fae are all turning into monsters because of the human rel...
Ashoka is a world where magic is a way of life - but it's a finite resource and unbeknown to the general population, it's running out. This story centres on Vira - just 18 years old and cast into the ruling role of maharani after her mot...
Wicked Walking picks up after that stomach dropping twist at the end of Lovely Dark and Deep, the effects of which are reverberating throughout the family and the small town community.
In this one we have a body-possessing dark creature...
Stella's family is a bit of a shambles and she's feeling a bit stink, although she tells everyone (including the reader) that she's PERFECTLY FINE thank you. But then Isaac happens. The only catch is, he has a girlfriend who's the most p...
Review for Of Werewolves and Witches (arc provided)
3.5 stars rounded up.
Characters from two different worlds, a witch and a freshly minted werewolf, are drawn together into the mysterious world of faerie to try and rescue young child...
Wow people are harsh on here! I thought this was a super fun little graphic novel!
The MC is a straight laced, pedantic lawyer who tries out impulsivity on the urging of her best friend and manages to pull the king of the faeries out of...
Absolutely loved this!!
We meet Ruth as her Sydney home is being sold out from under her by her workaholic son Michael and she's dumped in a retirement home. When she finds out her lifelong friend Gladys is dying in Brisbane and Michael...
Rich and popular high school girl Alice and under-the-radar Iris in small US oceanside town Castle Cove are forced together when Iris is paid to tutor Alice. But when Alice's former bestie turned boyfriend stealer Brooke goes missing, th...
A teenage girl found dead on the grounds of a fancy boys school. It has some of the hallmarks of a couple of sadistic local murders... but in some ways it doesn't match completely. Is the serial killer evolving methods or did something e...
4.5/5
"When one was scared, the hearts of the others knocked. If you cut us open and peeled back the skin, I was sure you'd find something strange: one organ shared, somehow, between three girls."
Three little girls disappear at midnig...
I have never read the original story this is based on and didn't have a clue what it was about! I definitely enjoyed this adaptation and feel like I have a good overview understanding of the story now, without having to wade through a cl...
3.5/5
"Self-actualization isn't in achieving - it's in peace. It's in contentment and being who you are, celebrating who you are and knowing who you are. So few people know that."
Everyone knows about the gradual type of change - that ...
"Our ancestors knew that the way of nature is balance. There is no balance for a people who have had all they cared for stolen. All that was precious and sacred taken."
This is the story of a tenacious Maori detective racing to track do...
"'Keep going' was a plan of sorts, and that's what they needed right now, Mary-Kate decided. Plans were good, even if they were as simple as that. Keep going. One red sparkly footstep in front of another."
Some things make 9 year old Ma...
"Before we can grow and change and emerge renewed, we must let go of the things that hold us back. Of the things we cannot control."
On the continent of Aileryan, humans and fae live uncomfortably in the same world. Humans stick to thei...
Cece, broke and desperate, drunkenly applies for dating reality TV show Marry Me Juliet. She doesn't expect to find love, but hopes it might catapult her into the influencer life and solve her money problems. Problem is, she's more Hot M...
A pied piper retelling sounded interesting but this was just weird and confusing? I often didn't really understand what was happening, especially around the climax of the story. I feel like something got lost in translation here, in putt...
4.5/5
In the third installment of the Curse of the Cyren Queen quartet, Roh's quest to become queen continues, along with her motley crew of companions. That's all I'll say plot-wise to avoid spoilers!
I thoroughly enjoyed this one! Th...
Um. Why did I unexpectedly LOVE this??
So I have to admit, I could easily have passed this right over. The cover and synopsis made me think it might be some kind of "man book" full of military jargon, ops and politics that would go way ...
Seren has been raising her siblings after their parents' death, their life simple but full of love. Until Seren turns 18 and starts to discover she has healing powers. She gets arrested for witchcraft and taken away from her family. Even...
4.5/5
This book is really super hard to put words to. It's an incredibly unique and visionary collection of five short stories, set in a world where society is heavily controlled, memories are currency, and being anything outside the im...
Ten Thousand Aftershocks is a unique and very personal memoir, in which Tom uses the stages of an earthquake as structure and metaphor for exploring her complicated family history, and her own experience of the major Christchurch earthqu...
I really enjoyed Griffin's debut, The Nature of Witches, when I read it on Netgalley, with no idea at the time how much success it would garner! So I was thrilled to be offered access to her second standalone, Wild is the Witch. Luckily ...
Sorceline is a sumptuously rendered middle grade graphic novel full of magic and whimsy - a school for magical vets on a mysterious island, a vampire, lots of magical creatures, a curse, a mystery to solve - it's all here!
Notable is th...
4.5/5
Oliva was sent to prison for a crime her husband framed her for. Finally she's getting out, having missed 5 years of not just her own life, but her daughter's. Will she be satisfied with trudging through life being treated like an...
Eleven year old Tulsi lives and works in a travelling Australian circus with her mum and dad. Tulsi's mum Merry can do "big magic" (actual magic, not tricks) but she refuses to teach Tulsi yet. In desperation to save the failing circus, ...
This is an atmospheric, character driven novel about Sophie, who grew up with a father figure who turned out to be a prolific serial killer. At least, a jury thought so. When he's diagnosed with a terminal illness in prison, adult Sophie...
A detective puts photos of four people in front of Ruby. She's killed three of them, and she doesn't feel bad about it at all. Will it be the one she didn't kill that finally catches up to her?
The marketing material in the front of my ...
Virozone is a debut indie-published YA dystopia about a 16 yo girl in a world that has been divided into zones. Air, Soil, Water and Fire zones struggle for survival, while Prestige Zone has everything. When Lawlie's mother is poisoned, ...
Ollie, stymied by his low self esteem, is bumbling through life, until his friend goes missing. Fearing for her safety, he makes a choice to look for her - and gets drawn into a dark and bizarre underground world, The Neath.
This is an...
Imagine you're at a dinner party and you end up seated next to an English botanist absolutely passionate about plants, and he fervently rambles your ear off about them all night. He happens to occasionally work on crime scenes to use his...
4.5/5 (GR give us halves already!!)
Have you ever raced through a book and then immediately regretted it, because you keep wanting to dive back into it but then you have to remember you finished it??
That's exactly how I'm feeling with...
3.5/5
Rachel escapes her abusive husband and small town, and makes a new start in the city with her 6 yo daughter Lily. She manages to get a great deal on an apartment because the previous tenant skipped on the lease suddenly and disapp...
"'I guess we all have to face up to who we are, at some point,' she says. 'And figure out... who we might want to be instead.'"
17 year old Priscilla Daalman comes from a long line of Hollow Warriors, sworn to protect the world and the ...
Two women with crappy husbands live in a gated estate. In the prologue we see a policeman observing a man injured or dead on the floor and wondering if the wife did it. For most of the book the reader is left wondering which man and wife...
I think this book definitely had value as part of my journey, but I felt there wasn't as much of practical usefulness as I'd hoped. I guess I'd hoped to nail things down in a practical way a little more. I thought it was funny that the i...
3.5/5
In the picture perfect neighbourhood live the picture perfect families, their perfect lives filled with gossip and ennui. That is, until 5 year old Billy never makes it home from kindergarten. Look deeper and the perfect veneer sh...
This is a fun modern take on Greek mythology, focusing on Persephone and Hades with a little Psyche and Eros on the side. As you probably know, this story was originally a webtoon that has been picked up for physical publication in graph...
"Apparently, other people's grandpas bring them sweets and read them stories. Mine drags me through the Nine Realms of space and time because a sword told him I'm destined to save the universe. Go figure, right?"
Wednesday Weeks is just...
It's hard to review a book that's just... okay.
The hook for this one was so promising - a troubled ED nurse with a cop boyfriend notices a pattern in women turning up dead with a cross cut into their body. Sounds like the recipe for a ...
3.5/5
Oof this is a tricky one. This was a very easy reading, engaging book that I thought I was really loving as I was reading it. But.
Hannah is a legal student who transfers to a new University to volunteer on the Innocence Project ...
"I believe in a kind of Book Fate. That certain books, like certain people, come into and out of and back into your life at just the right time and for just the right reason."
I was shelving at the library when this caught my eye, and w...
In his foreword to this graphic novel adaptation of classic Dune, Brian Herbert describes the original book as "the most beloved novel in science fiction." Look, I know the author was ya dad, Brian, but I think that might be overstating ...
3.5/5
This book starts off with a 12 year old child who was abandoned by their parents being unexpectedly attacked by an otherworldly creature while on a school field trip to a museum. Then they end up going to a magic school.
If this ...
There's quite a lot of interesting food for thought in this book, and some exercises that I believe can be a great springboard to personal growth. I did actually quite enjoy reading this book and contemplating the ideas presented. I did ...
4.5/5
What if Snow White's stepmother wasn't actually evil? What if she was trying to rid the world of a monster...?
This is an adult (!) graphic novel that subverts the story of Snow White into something very dark and twisted and I am...
4.5/5
My 10 yo daughter picked this one for me at the library. I admit, I didn't realise until I started reading it that it is a DC comic set in a universe with Superman and Aquaman. The cover doesn't really scream *superhero story*!
W...
4.5/5
I've enjoyed this whole series but this was the most enjoyable yet.
I loved the island setting in this one, loved the reappearance of Ant and the brothers' complicated relationship dynamic. I found the whole mystery aspect easier...
Phew, unpopular opinion time.
I was actually quite intrigued by this book in the beginning. It starts off with enigmatic Atlas meeting all six of the characters and recruiting them to join this mysterious society because of their high l...
4.5/5
Really enjoyed this cute little story!
Josiah and Deja see each other every Halloween, when they work together at the pumpkin patch (which, for any non USians like me, seems to be a kind of autumn themed seasonal fair - like the ...
4.5/5
Caleb Zelic has a new motto - Make Good Decisions. After almost losing everyone he cares about in the last book, he's getting therapy, rebuilding his tenuous relationship with ex-wife Kat, connecting with the Deaf community, and ...
And fire came down from heaven and devoured them.
~ Revelation 20:9
And Fire Came Down, the second in the Aussie crime series about deaf PI Caleb Zelic, opens as its predecessor did - straight into the action. A woman seeks Caleb out w...
The Girl and the Galdurian is a sweet and cosy middle grade fantasy graphic novel and I thought it was lovely.
In this world it is constantly daylight - something happened to the sun and now they live by the light of large constructed l...
4.5/5
I loved The Guest List, so when I saw that Foley's next book was available on Netgalley, I jumped at the chance to read it. And phew, it did NOT disappoint.
British Jess comes to Paris to crash with her brother Ben in the fancy o...
4.5/5
Well known Australian author Christos Tsiolkas says about this book:
"This is a terrific book and the writing is sharp, punchy, visceral and propulsive. The story grabs you by the throat from the opening pages and it never once ...
While I found the first book in this series clumsy and confused about its own metaphor, this one flowed vastly better.
Now that Aster is allowed to pursue witchcraft, the plot is able to move in a new direction. In this one we meet a ne...
I really wanted to like this middle grade graphic novel - Witchcraft! Exploring gender constructs in children's literature! Cute art style!
Unfortunately I just couldn't ignore the number of ways this one didn't quite work for me.
In t...
This is SUCH a hard book to rate.
The problem is that the first half to three quarters is just not great, in my humble opinion. The pacing is all over the place. The first few chapters involved sparse dialogue interspersed with PARAGRAP...
4.5/5
LOVED!!
I read the Kingdom of Curses and Shadows series by this author and thought it was really fun. But this one takes it up a notch. Definitely my fav read from Leitao so far.
This one is kind of like a dark-tinged fairytale....
I read the original verse novel of this last year. I thought the premise was incredible and the story powerful, but I didn't quite love the verse as much as I'd hoped... I can be a bit fussy about verse.
But THIS graphic novel adaptatio...
4.5/5
I enjoyed A Lair of Bones well enough. The unique worldbuilding and setting was great, although I didn't quite warm to Roh, the MC, in that book.
But I feel this second book is where this story really comes into its own. It begin...
4.5/5
Oh my god. Or should I say, Goddess.
This book was WILD and then that ENDING and now I have to wait until *2023*???
I have never read this author before - I was vaguely aware she has written some books that I thought were YA va...
I thought this one sounded cute. Annalisa doesn't realise that the lovely guy she has connected with online and the guy representing the big corporation that's driving her small hardware store out of business are one and the same. Recipe...
The premise here is great - holiday themed meet cute short stories. But a short story is meant to be a snippet of life. It doesn't mean that you have to cram the entire falling in love and planning a future together into the first five m...
I wish I had known this book was a cozy mystery.
I went into this book knowing very little about it. I was gifted an advance copy by the publisher and I feel the UK cover and the arc cover have kind of more thriller/suspense vibes. Read...
4.5/5
Often with graphic novels, I'm left feeling like I read someone's idea for a novel that just wasn't quite developed properly. A poorly written graphic novel can feel too rushed, too superfluous, like you've only skimmed over the t...
You're home sick from work or school, you're listlessly channel flicking (is that even still a thing??), and you settle on one of those daytime movies. You know, there's a sweet young boy who loves chickens and has a sad story, and he ma...
If I tell you I've just read a book about UFOs, you might assume it's just some ravings of a kooky crackpot. Certainly in this post-covid world, I think for many of us, our tolerance for conspiracy theories is at an all time low.
Howeve...
"She was a good person, your mum."
"I know. And so is Lilith. But being good isn't enough sometimes, is it? It didn't keep her safe."
My interest in this book was piqued not only by the politically feminist blurb, but also because someo...
Giving me serious The Guest List and One By One vibes, Hide by Nell Pattison is a classic "specific group of people in an isolated location and someone just got killed and omg is one of us a killer??" story. I'm a big fan of this trope s...
I run my fingers through the sand
dirt is dark
bush is thick
air is cold
No melting heat here
no days so hot
you can taste the dust
This place is not like home
I could get lost here
This is a beautiful, heartbreaking middle grade novel...
You know those books that are not *bad*, they're pretty *okay*, but you can put it down and honestly not care a fig if you never pick it back up again?
Unfortunately, this was one of those.
There were so many promising elements to this...
3.5/5
If I had to describe this poetry volume in one word, it would be: unflinching.
It opens with a quote about an artist's duty being to reflect the times, and that's certainly a duty Clarke has taken on board here.
While ostensibl...
A solid and respectable 3.5/5
This is a pretty gritty YA angsty teenage love story with ghosts. It does not shy away from the topic of self harm, so be warned. I actually found its willingness to "go there" kind of refreshing.
Amy and ...
3.5/5
This story was very much told in fairytale fashion. The art was kind of dark and gritty - personally it wasn't really a fav style. The world building was interesting but I'd have liked more, and I think I felt the same about the s...
It's really hard to sort through my thoughts on this one and turn them into a coherent review.
It's certainly a feat of writing, no doubt. I just didn't *enjoy* it.
Reading this book felt like trying to listen to someone explain the me...
The perfect book doesn't exi---
Oh hang on. Heartstopper Volume 4 DOES exist and it's the best, healthiest, most wholesome goddamn thing to ever pass a printing press.
I knew from the previous volumes that anorexia and mental health is...
3.5/5
I hate to say it, but somehow I was expecting more.
I have heard such fantastic things about this author's first two books, but this was my first read of his and it fell a little flat for me.
I would call it a domestic suspense,...
4.25/5
Hunger Games meets Throne of Glass, but in a magically air-filled undersea lair full of bones and music, populated by cunning and brutal cyrens.
Ya with me??
Roh is the daughter of one of the biggest criminals in cyren history ...
3.5/5
It's nearly impossible to talk about this book without spoilers for book one. So, you've been warned.
Having to go back into the brutal, depressing compound after a small taste of freedom is as frustrating for the reader as it is...
POV: you're a teenager in 1999, sitting in detention in your small town Queensland high school. BOOM - suddenly a super creepy faceless guy bursts in and kills your principal with a ball of magic. What?? The weird key in your pocket, tha...
3.5/5
Oh hi, did someone order a steaming bowl of fake dating in rural Western Australia, with a generous helping of Not Like Other Girls?? Well, your order is up!
Henri (don't call her Henrietta) is an agricultural pilot who ends up h...
“Hateful day when I received life!” I exclaimed in agony. “Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?”
Frankenstein is a name that everyone has heard before - perhaps it even conjure...
3.5/5
This is a cute little novella that uses the story of the 12 dancing princesses as a jumping off point. One of the princesses and her new husband are cursed to forget the love they share, but then they're forced to go on a quest to...
Rick is a massive music snob - oops, I mean journalist, who's having a crappy day. He's quite a crappy person so that seems kinda like karma to me tbh but of course he feels so hard done by and stuff, as mediocre men do when their medioc...
Set in an Ethiopian-inspired setting and drawing (vaguely) on elements of classic Jane Eyre (I would not consider this a retelling), Within These Wicked Walls is a dark story of love and terror in a haunted house.
Andromeda, a scrappy s...
I'm dubbing this one Rick and Nick Make a Porno (... Riordan and Sparks that is :-P).
My feelings about this one are roughly how I imagine a dude would feel buying a high brow girlie magazine for some jollies and then realising the arti...
"If this scenario was created by the government, where do we turn for protection?"
The Hush is a haunting near future dystopian thriller that hits uncomfortably close to home. In this post-COVID, climate change besieged Britain, a new c...
3.5/5
It's Nottingham in 1906 and Marietta is a Lord's daughter who's expected to get married and be a society lady. But she's a headstrong girl who dreams of nothing but dancing her life away as a professional ballet dancer, something ...
Cass is a real life modern day witch, and she lives with her witchy family near the woods, isolated from a wary small town who like to mostly pretend they aren't there.
But then small children start going missing in the woods.
Is ther...
Ask me not if God exists, but why he's such a prick.
So openeth this weighty missive, and if that already has you reaching for your pearls, you're gonna wanna strap 'em on tight and cling for dear life, or step far far away from this bo...
Wow!! This book was SO good!!
I am a fussy reader and stingy with my full 5 star ratings, but I enjoyed this one so much, it can earn nothing less.
Usually I start out a review with a quick summary of the story, but I went into this st...
This is a contemporary fiction novel about two grandmothers who, despite hating each other, decide to run away with their 4 year old granddaughter, whom they fear is being abused. With a great-grandmother and periodically mentioned dog i...
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