#AusReads Book Review: “A Kind of Magic” by Anna Spargo-Ryan

Title: A Kind of Magic
Author: Anna Spargo-Ryan
Audio book narrator: Anna Spargo-Ryan
Genre: Memoir
Intended audience: Adult
Date Read: 08/02/2023 – 22/02/2023
Rating: no rating

Review: 

I always feel a bit weird rating and reviewing non-fiction, memoir in particular. Who am I to say “3 stars for baring your soul, Anna.”? Even if it’s four or five, it still feels odd to put a numerical rating on something so personal to someone. So that’s why this review is unrated and more of a chat about my reading experience. Which I guess is basically a review. Ugh.

Ahem. Anyway.

I knew I wanted to read this book because I follow the author on Twitter and she is an excellent human being. She truly does lay herself and her struggles bare in this book, but as the blurb states, throughout it all, there is an unwavering sense of optimism.

Anna goes into detail about her experience of being mentally ill, as well as that of trying to find treatments for her various diagnoses. She also talks about how a diagnosis can impact on your very identity, and what that means when a diagnoses changes over the years. There’s also some medical science talk peppered throughout, explaining a myriad of mental illnesses.

There’s something about listening to a memoir like this read by the author. I like to think you’re hearing it as she intended for it to be heard. When the tone is sarcastic, she is definitely sarcastic. When she is describing the terror of her first psychotic episode, you feel that fear.

I guess if I had any quibbles (again, “who am I to say…”) it would be the way the timeline jumped around a lot and I had to sometimes work out where I was now in Anna’s life story. I suspect this was partially by design, at least. One of the concepts the book delves into is ‘mental time travel’ and how certain mental illnesses can affect a person’s ability to mentally construct past and future times, and she talks a lot about her experiences with this, and the fallibility of human memory.

A finaly word on triggers. This isn’t a book for everyone. It gets pretty harrowing at times. Anna describes some pretty scary experiences, both in terms of mental health episodes, as well a creepy boyfriends and bad experiences with drug use to name a couple. If you’ve had similar ones, you may wish to take stock of whether you’re in the right space for it.

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#AusReads #LoveOzYA Book Review: “The Killing Code” by Ellie Marney

Title: The Killing Code
Author: Ellie Marney
Audio book narrator: Natalie Naudus, Kelsey Navarro
Genre: Historical/mystery
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 08/02/2023 – 22/02/2023
Rating: ★★★★

Review: 

Ellie Marney is my favourite Australian YA author, so I was of course very keen to check out her latest offering (even if the book had been out six months by the time I got to it!).

I have to admit this didn’t feel like an Ellie Marney book in the way her others have to me. This may be partially because it’s the first time I’ve listened to one of her books. And hearing American accents for 9 hours made it easy to forget it was by an Australian author. It’s also set in the 1940s and while it’s not Marney’s first historical fiction. None Shall Sleep was set in the 1980s, so this was a different feel again.

That said, a codebreaking facility during the Second World War is an excellent setting for a YA crime novel, and Marney definitely makes the most of it. I love a good serial killer novel and I really enjoyed the parallels between the girls’ codebreaking jobs and cracking the code of the killer.

The mystery did seem a bit slow at times, though for the most part that was offset by the characters’ personal stories. As the blurb mentions, Kit has a secret she’s hiding from everyone (though the reader knows what it is from the end of the first chapter). I didn’t feel like Kit and Moya had quite as much chemistry as some of Marney’s other romantic pairings, but seeing their relationship blossom was lovely and I loved how it was resolved at the end of the book.

This may not be my favourite Ellie Marney book (that would be White Night), this is a well-researched and engaging addition to her repertoire.

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Book Review: “The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne” by Jonathan Stroud

Title: The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne
Author: Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Fantasy/Dystopia
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 10/12/2022 – 09/12/2022
Rating: ★★★

Review: 

Jonathan Stroud is one of my few insta-buy authors. I loved the Bartimaeus trilogy and I loved Lockwood and Co. (looking forward to the Netflix series in January!). But this book… I don’t know. I think I liked it? Hence the three stars. But it took so long to get through and I did feel a bit dissatisfied at the end.

I think the main problem was that Stroud didn’t give us enough of… anything, really.

We know that there was a “Cataclysm” and that it has broken up the UK into a series of walled “Surviving Towns”, but we don’t know what caused it. We know that it caused wild animals to turn into giant mutations of themselves, and created a race of cannibalistic sub-humans known as The Tainted, but that’s about the extent of our knowledge.

We know a bit about how various religious faiths throughout the world have sort of amalgamated into one big Faith and religious authoritarianism is huge. We know that Scarlett lost someone, possibly to one of these Faith Houses but we don’t know anything about who it was, or the circumstances.

Being a closed book is a huge part of Scarlett’s character, but it does make it hard to get invested in her. All we really see is the bravado she puts on. As she starts to warm towards Albert, we get past the exterior a little bit, but I think a bit more was needed.

Albert, tbough, is an open book and such an interesting character. He’s been raised in an abusive environment, and up until the events of the book, has never been outside the walls of that environment. He is so naïve but so genuine, though his upbringing has taught him to be sneaky in some ways. I really loved his development throughout the story.

I am intrigued enough to read the second book. I do wonder if the first book was a whole lot of set-up and the next book will be more interesting. But I’m going to get it from the library.

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“It is nearly impossibly to be sad when eating a blueberry muffin. I’m pretty sure that’s a scientific fact.” // Review of “A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking” by T. Kingfisher

Title: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
Author: T. Kingfisher
Genre: Fantasy
Intended audience: MG/YA
Date Read: 04/12/2022 – 08/12/2022
Rating: ★★★★

Review: 

This book was really cute. I love any fantasy novel where baking and magic are combined, so when this one made mention of it in the title, I was immediately sold.

Often when this concept is used, the baker/wizard in question bakes mostly sweets. Mona is a baker in the traditional sense of the word. She’s up at 4am to get the day’s bread on, and her familiar is a (possibly carnivorous) sourdough starter. I loved this twist! The way Mona’s power, which boils down to being able to persuade uncooked dough that it has certain properties, or wants to act a certain way, ended up being what saved their duchy, was impressive.

Having said that, Mona does not want to be a hero, and it’s a title that is foisted on her for doing simply what needed doing, when people far more qualified than her should have been doing it instead. This is a big theme in the book and I really enjoyed how it was explored.

And can I just say how nice it is to have a 14-year-old main character in a YA book?! So often, this age group is overlooked. And Mona definitely feels like a 14-year-old, too. Spindle, the young thief that she befriends, was also a fun character, and I really appreciated the way his handling of his sister’s death was written.

I will say that sometimes the world-building was a bit lacking. There was enough to carry the story, but it wasn’t enriched by it. And the editing was sometimes poor. There were words missng and Mona’s Uncle Albert turned into Uncle Earl for a whole chapter at one point!

Still, this was a cute and different fantasy story and I definitely recommend!

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Book Review: “The Changelings” by Elle Casey

Title: The Changelins (War of the Fey #1)
Author: Elle Casey
Genre: Fantasy
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 04/12/2022 – 08/12/2022
Rating: ★

Review: 

I don’t write a lot of 1-star reviews. Usually if a book is that bad, I DNF. But this one was for a readathon and also, with all the plane and train travel I’m doing at the moment, I had the time to commit to it despite not enjoying it.

Usually when I dislike a book this much, I am happy to say “Obviously this wasn’t for me, no book can be for everyone”. But I am surprised just how unanimous the 4 and 5-star reviews are. I would have expected them to be a bit more mixed all things considered.

To be honest, I found none of the characters that interesting. They were all pretty superficial to me. The main character, Jayne, has supposed recently been dealing with sexual abuse from her mother’s boyfriend, but the effects of this are never really delved into and it felt like it was just used as a convenient reason for Jayne to want to skip town.

I could honestly barely tell the other characters apart, and I kept forgetting which guy was supposed to be the love interest. And while most of the characters have known Jayne for a matter of four days, at the end when they have to declare the innermost desire in order to move forward, these two guys both declare they want to protect her?

Plot-wise, I felt like I was mislead. This felt like The Hunger Games or something, rather than a fantasy novel. Yes, there were supernatural creatures, but it felt more like a series of action scenes, with each one separate to the others, and no connection or cause and effect. And apparently while many of them were presented as foes, they’re actually all on the same side at the end?

I was also annoyed that Casey ignored the traditional meaning of the word “changeling”, made it mean what she wanted it to mean in her world, and then went so far as to address this, saying “oh, yeah, the meaning diverged between humans and fey over the centuries”. Whatever.

The other thing that bothered me was the casual ableism, homophobia, etc. Jayne says she can’t be blamed for wanting to laugh at the dwarf (a human with Dwarfism, not a fantasy dwarf a la Tolkien) in commando gear, and also refers to her “OCD” step-mother. Then there’s the stereotypically queer-coded vampire making leery comments, and Jayne’s outdated references to “bitchy gay guys”. Yes, the book is 10 years old. Yes, maybe the author doesn’t include this sort of thing anymore. But ugggh.

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#AusReads #LoveOzYA Book Review: “The Dragon Healer” by Tiani Davids

Title: The Dragon Healer (Chronicles of Eldras #1)
Author: Tiani Davids
Genre: Fantasy
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 14/11/2022 – 26/11/2022
Rating: ★★★☆

Review: 

I was following Tiani Davids on Instagram when she made the decision to go indie with this series, so I’ve been looking forward to reading it for quite a while. The cover is absolutely gorgeous, and you all know I’m a sucker for dragons.

The Dragon Healer is a strong series opener with strong characters and interesting world-building. I really enjoyed the history of Eldras, the supposed reasons why the dragons were expelled from there, and the way this history slowly unravelled the more the main characters investigated.

Elinta is a great main character. I liked that her strength is healing, and she consistently demonstrates the knowledge she has learned from her apprenticeship. The dynamic between her and Zhayra, the dragon, is delightful.

Lorrin, the Crown Prince, and Niles, his best friend, are fun characters, though at times they almost border on being a little too perfect. I’m sitting down to write this review a week after reading the book, and I can recall very few instances of conflict with them. Given how much time Elinta spent in the palace and how much of an outsider she was, it might have been interesting to see something come between them.

Apart from this, the main thing that lets the story down a bit is the pacing. The first half moves along quite well, but then things grind almost to a halt once Elinta arrives at the palace. The plot needed a lot of time to pass, but apart from research, there wasn’t a lot for Elinta to do to fill it.

Given the way this book ends, I don’t think this will be such an issue in subsequent instalments in the series. The characters have moved off on their adventure now, and there is lots for them to discover. I look forward to book two!

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“You don’t need anyone’s permission to be you, Yads.” // Review of “Cemetery Boys” by Aiden Thomas

Title: Cemetery Boys
Author: Aiden Thomas
Genre: Fantasy/romance
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 19/10/2022 – 26/10/2022
Rating: ★★★☆

Review: 

This book has been on my TBR ever since it came out and I actually bought it last year in my pile of “buy books during lockdown to support the bookshops!” spree. And then it’s taken me this long to get around to it, as per usual.

The plot of Cemetery Boys sadly underwhelmed me. It was quite slow-moving, and really only became gripping in the last 50 pages.

Having said that, the characters were charming and really drove it. I really enjoyed how Yadriel and Julian’s relationship developed, and the stark contrast between introverted good boy Yadriel and the more outgoing Jules.

It was delightful seeing Yadriel’s family as they prepared for Dia de Muertes, and painful to see the way they unintentionally hurt Yadriel when they misgendered him or otherwise didn’t recognise his true identity.

I got a bit teary at the end when the ghosts of Brujx past visited for Dia de Muertes and we saw just how unconditionally his mother accepted him. That was beautiful.

And on the other side of things, we had Julian’s older brother and friends, with their disparate origins but their fierce loyalty to one another.

Where it fell down for me was the plot. We have at least one dead body from the end of Chapter One, and more to come, but they mystery of how these people died seemed almost secondary. The last fifty pages or so were action-packed, but it felt a little off-balance with the rest of the book. Before that, things moved so slowly, even though the story actually only takes place over a few days. 150 pages in, I felt like very little had happened.

There’s nothing wrong with character-driven stories, of course, but this promised a bit more than that, and then didn’t deliver as well as it might have. Still, this was a debut, and I’m keen to check out Aiden Thomas’ second novel, Lost in the Never Woods, which was another of my lockdown purchases!

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Book Review – “Malice” by Pintip Dunn

Title: Malice
Author: Pintip Dunn
Genre: Sci-fi/romance
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 25/09/2022 – 27/09/2022
Rating: ★★★☆

Review: 

This was a random library pick based entirely on the cover, and I have to say, I enjoyed it!

I really liked the way the time travel was conceptualised. A consciousness being able to travel back to its past self was a really nifty idea!

Having said that, it did seem a bit silly that so much information was withheld from Alice on the basis of “Even the smallest amount of foreknowledge can change the future” when she was literally being asked to kill someone to prevent a world-ending catastrophe before it happened.

As for the characters, I was conflicted by how quickly Alice accepted the time travel – on the one hand, it was super-fast! But on the other hand, it would have slowed down the story to have her come around at a more realistic pace.

The love interest is Thai, like the author, and it was cool to get a little bit of his cultural background peppered into the story. The romance developed maybe a bit quickly for my tastes but I liked the way it was handled at the end. Damn that time travel messing things up for the characters!

The villain’s motivations felt a little cartoonish in the future compared to how we see them in the present-day setting. It was a little hard to reconcile the two versions, but I liked that the time travel didn’t create an insta-fix, and that the characters would all still have to work together going forward to make sure the world didn’t end.

The writing was engaging and I found myself looking forward to picking the book up when I wasn’t reading it. This is my first read by Pintip Dunn and I’m intrigued to check out more of her writing.

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#AWW2021 Book Review: “Eleven Pipers Piping” by Pamela Hart

Title: Eleven Pipers Piping
Author: Pamela Hart
Genre: Historical romance
Intended audience: Adult
Dates Read: 03/12/2021
Rating: ★★★★

Review:

There is definitely something to be said for historical Christmas romances and their helpfulness in getting me out of reading slumps. While I have purchased this novella separately, I also own the anthology where it was originally published, so I should remember it when I am needing a book that will pull me out of a funk.

This is a sweet little novella, full of misunderstandings and miscommunications, many based on the characters adhering to the expected manners of the time. I liked that the characters were a little bit older, Elizabeth being a widow with a ten-year-old son, rather than a young woman looking for her first husband, as is often the case.

Speaking of which, I loved young Robin!

Given that the story only takes place over the course of a few weeks, some of the character development did seem to happen very quickly, especially when it came to Elizabeth’s grief over the loss of her husband. But I really enjoyed Gavan’s realisation of his feelings for Elizabeth, and also the dynamic between him and Robin.

I wasn’t feeling terribly festive before, and having picked a whole heap of Christmas-y books for the coming month, I was feeling a bit worried. But now I can thank Pamela Hart for getting me in the Christmas spirit!

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This review is part of my 2021 Australian Women Writers Challenge. Click here for more information.

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#AWW2021 “My sisters. My blood. My skin. What a gruesome bond we shared.” // Review of “House of Hollow” by Krystal Sutherland

Title: House of Hollow
Author: Krystal Sutherland
Genre: Magical realism/horror
Intended audience: YA
Dates Read: 22/10/2021 – 24/10/21
Rating: ★★★☆

Review:

I recently asked for recommendations for creepy books that wouldn’t completely scare a wimp like me and this was one of the titles that came up. Having previously enjoyed Sutherland’s A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares, I was keen to give this one a look, too.

As I started, I absolutely loved the vibe that Sutherland had going on here. Missing sister, weird smells, strange flowers, a mysterious disappearance many years ago.

But then it started to peter out. It kept saying that things smelled weird, and that there were strange flowers, and if only Iris could remember what had happened that day ten years ago. What started strong was no longer interesting once I’d heard it so many times.

Admittedly in the final third things started to pick up as we started to really learn what was going on. Some new characters appeared and there were some revelations made. Some of those I had already kind of figured out, but there were still a few surprises.

While this definitely didn’t meet the high expectations that I had based on my experience of Worst Nightmares, it’s still a pretty solid read. I think it will have more appeal for those dipping their toe into horror rather than regular readers of the genre who have most likely seen everything in this book before.

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This review is part of my 2021 Australian Women Writers Challenge. Click here for more information.

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