when monsters refuse to die

“It would not be an absolute disaster until the tea ran out.”

Cats and tea, what more could I want from a book (I thought…)

Terciel and Elinor by Garth Nix (Allen and Unwin, 2021) is on the Shortlist for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year – Older Readers award. I don’t think it deserves shortlistdom, but the judges and I don’t get along (even when they change every year). My reading quest for the book shows why I rarely like high fantasy. I’m about to fall asleep from the middle boredom of it. I’ll finish as audio book, but have to wait until July for a library copy. That doesn’t bother me at all, since I need a break from Abhorsen incompetence. At this stage (p.298) Elinor should ditch the rest of them and slay the monsters herself.

on the road on fire

“Being out there on the road made me realise that people are always playing with your story, inventing you, changing who you are to suit them.”

I love Girls in Boy’s Cars by Felicity Castagna (Pan Macmillan, 2021). It’s heartbreaking and clever and full of the teen angst of growing up female. There’s a road trip, make-overs, a drowned town and more crimes than should be able to fit in one book. It’s on the Shortlist for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year – Older Readers award. I wrote this for the CBCA WA Shortlist talk this week, but I caught covid (of course I did) and handed in my words for someone else to say.

peta lyre’s rating

Peta Lyre’s Rating Normal by Anna Whateley (Allen & Unwin, 2020) is shortlisted for the CBCA Book of The Year Older Readers 2021. Providing a compelling story while giving insight into navigating highschool while neurodiverse.

“I love how he can always find a way to laugh, no matter how crap everything gets.”

AusYA Reading Challenge 2020: February

I think I could love It Sounded Better in My Head by Nina Kenwood (Text Publishing, 2019). What better time to blog here again, two years after my last rambling. I’ve been reading the whole time, but putting reviews on Goodreads. Time for some backups (and pics of my dog reading).

“Tonight, everything is still possible.”

cracked

“Then the sky cracks open and the light shines through.”

Cracked by Clare Strahan (Allen & Unwin, 2014) has all things I love in a book: a waddling senior staffy, nature, graffiti, hot ranga who rides bmx, one angry young woman. My regular refrain: how did it take me so long to find this, get around to read it. Also, how has this book not won awards?? I’ll give it one now: Fav Book I Just Finished Reading.

mistakes, mistakes, everywhere

I accidently uploaded my review of Breathing Underwater by Sophie Hardcastle before I finished it. If you momentarily saw it before I unpublished, you’ll just have to wait to read the final.

Kind of ironic when I just blogged about wanting-to-take-back-something-you-put-online of My Life as a Hashtag.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BSb87NrFEiv/

hashtags for days

This has spoilers. If you want to read with the spoilers hidden, go to my Goodreads version. (You don’t have to be a member to read it.)

Two weeks into my 2018 Reading Challenge half of January’s books changed, but I got through all four and loved my surprise additions. (No DNFing around here.) I also love Gabrielle Williams’ books, so I’ve been wanting to read My Life as a Hashtag (Allen and Unwin, 2017) for a year. It only took a reading challenge to make it happen.

“I was going to have the worst night of my life, and they should be there for it. That was what friends did for each other.”

reading challenge

I have a lot of trouble choosing what to read next from my groaning bookshelves. So I’m starting the year right by signing up to a year long reading challenge run by the Australian YA Bloggers & Readers group on Goodreads. Everyone in Australia or NZ can join in.

crying for murder

Spoilers, spoilers, everywhere

I read Cry Blue Murder by Kim Kane & Marion Roberts (UQP, 2013) four years later – nothing new there. I have so many questions and my brain is in pieces after the discombobulation of that ending. WTF!? I do love, more than words itself, an unexpected unreliable narrator. And that narrator certainly sucker-punched us all.

“And the truth lies in none but in all.”