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.

scary movies 101

“The game isn’t over until everyone’s played.”

The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (Henry Holt, 2021) is clever and by turns comedic and horrifying. I was as terrified as Rachel most of the way through. Also, incredulous that The Club could do these things to their friends.

nobody knows

“Give people a few convincing threads and they’ll spin the rest themselves. This story has been woven for us, more tightly than I could have done. I couldn’t untangle the knots now if I tried.”

I really liked Nobody Knows But You by Anica Mrose Rissi (Quill Tree Books, 2020). A welcome change from the mystery/thrillers I’ve read lately.

how not to write diversity

If you liked A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson (Electric Monkey, 2019) you might not like the following rant.

Finishing this trainwreck of a book was excruciating. It has a 4.3 average rating on Goodreads, when most books average 3-4. I have no idea how that happened. A theme of the book is racial profiling by police and how media coverage differs between people of colour and white victims and murderers. Pippa the student PI acts like an entitled white girl trying to save the brown boy. Additionally, Pippa gives a speech about racism at the end. If all the diversity boxes are ticked, does that make it ok?

you’re burning my life

The Book of Chance by Sue Whiting (Walker Books, 2020) has mystery, mayhem, a dog or two. What more could I ask for? No murder, sadly, but something kind of just as bad. All of it 10-12 years old friendly. Also, shortlisted for the CBCA Book of The Year Younger Readers 2021.

“I needed a dog that knew how to forge ahead and not look back.”

hollow sounds reverberating

The other week I got House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland (Penguin, 2021). The mesmerizing cover stares at me begging to be read. Yes, yes, I’ll get to you, first I have to rant about the marketing campaign for it. And the sad story of how I fell for all their tricks…

would I lie to you?

One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus (Penguin, 2017) was my first read for the other Reading Challenge I signed up for. Must be the Year of the Reading Challenge or something. Another book that’s languished on my TBR for too long.

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.”

ballad for a mad girl

“We need our monsters to know what it is to be human.”

I came to Ballad for a Mad Girl wishing for another magnificent tale woven through my soul by the hand of Vikki Wakefield. The story is entirely more strange than I anticipated. I still can’t work out if Grace could see unquiet ghosts or if she had one of those annoying mental illnesses. Grace is as confused as me.