Theresa Smith's Blog, page 18
February 23, 2024
Book Review: The Other Bridget by Rachael Johns
Named after a famous fictional character, librarian Bridget Jones was raised on a remote cattle station, with only her mother’s romance novels for company. Now living alone in Fremantle, Bridget is a hopeless romantic. She also believes that anyone who doesn’t like reading just hasn’t met the right book yet, and that connecting books to their readers is her superpower. If only her love life was that easy.
When handsome Italian barista Fabio progresses from flirting with love hearts on her coffee foam to joining the book club she runs at her library, Bridget prays her romance ‘curse’ won’t ruin things. But it’s the attention of her cranky neighbour Sully that seems to be the major obstacle in her life. Why is he going to so much effort to get under her skin?
With the help of her close friends and the colourful characters who frequent her library, Bridget decides to put both men to the test by finding just the right books to capture their very different hearts. She soon discovers that not all romances start with a meet-cute, but they might just end in happily ever after…
Written by Australia’s most beloved romance writer, The Other Bridget is a delightfully uplifting book about books, and a gorgeous celebration of the power and pleasure of romance novels throughout the ages.
Published by Penguin Australia
Released February 2024
My Thoughts:Beloved Australian author Rachael Johns has released her first romantic comedy. Best known for her rural romance novels, she has also written several general fiction books, and those are the ones of hers that I normally read. There has been a lot of anticipation surrounding this book and so far, it’s raking in the five-star reviews.
I feel that in this novel, Rachael has put a lot of herself into it, specifically regarding Bridget’s love of romantic fiction and everything bookish. There’s also a personal health aspect that Bridget lives with that the author herself has been very open about, in terms of her own struggles throughout her life. To me, The Other Bridget feels like Rachael Johns has finally arrived at that coveted space that not many authors get to – the place where they can write what they want, the book they’ve always had inside them.
There is much to enjoy within this novel and for the most part, it’s a lot of fun, particularly the interactions between friends, both new and old. It’s very long though, just shy of 500 pages, and I’ve recently broken up with big books, so I found this hard going at times. For me, a few of the plot points were a bit redundant and I could see many places where the novel could have been trimmed down and not been worse off for it.
I chose the audio version of this novel, and the narration was quite good, the story was brought to life with enthusiasm, and it was also nice to hear from Rachael Johns at the start as she read the author note herself, setting the tone for the story. The value of reading, all things books, and the importance of libraries, are of course some of my favourite topics, so I thoroughly enjoyed all the bookish parts of this story. I recommend the audio version; it will perk up your commute and give you a proper romcom movie vibe while you’re at it.
February 17, 2024
Book Review: Juja by Nino Haratischvili (trans. Ruth Martin)
Published for the first time in English, the sweeping debut novel set in bohemian Paris, by the author of international bestseller The Eighth Life.
In 1953, a teenage girl, Jeanne Saré, jumps in front of a train at the Gare du Nord station. She leaves behind writings that to some are unreadable, but to others tell universal, unspoken truths about the lives and struggles of women. When published in the 1970s, her work triggers a rash of copycat suicides. It is hastily withdrawn from sale and eventually forgotten about.
Then, in 2004, two women from opposite corners of the globe — Amsterdam and Sydney — rediscover Jeanne Saré’s book and set out to discover who the author was and what happened to her.
Women across the ages have attached their own stories to Saré’s, often with devastating results, but the truth about her may be even stranger than the fictions they have invented.
Published by Scribe Publications
Released October 2023
My Thoughts:I was really intrigued by the premise of this novel, but unfortunately, the execution of it just didn’t hit the mark. By a long shot. The majority of this novel is a confusing mess of madness. It’s not until halfway through the book that some of the character connections become apparent, and even then, not all of them. By the end of the novel, I still didn’t know what one character had to do with anything and who another even was.
There is a lot of anger and violence in this novel as well. Obviously, the subject matter lends itself to not being rosy, however, a good deal of the violence was sexual violence which made for uncomfortable reading, particularly the contexts within which it was placed. Laura, one of the main characters, I guess you could say, she was the one investigating the book and the link to the fourteen suicides that were attributed to the text. She ends up meeting the original publisher of the book, an elderly man who is one of the characters from the 1960s. She meets this man, has heavy suspicions about him to do with the book, and then on their second meeting, begins a sexual relationship with him that rapidly spirals into a violent mess where she is beating an elderly man and his raping her and they just keep this up for the duration of the novel. It was repulsive, but more importantly, redundant to the overall storyline. I have read other novels translated from German which seem to walk this gratuitous violence line. Is it a cultural thing? For shock value? I don’t know, but I don’t think it added to the story at all. There were many other instances of violence as well, people having conversations in which one or the other gets upset – a normal occurrence – but in this story, it would also involve slapping, punching, biting…you get the impression.
I expected more from this novel. I thought it might have delved into the idea of the influence of texts, be them fiction or nonfiction, but in the sections where we were with Olga, one of the young women whose suicide was directly linked with the text, all we got was this kind of descent into madness after she had read it. There were sections of this text inserted throughout the novel, and it was mad. Literal, mad rambling rubbish. Which made it hard to understand, as a reader, what the author was trying to demonstrate, in terms of influence. Some sections of this novel read better than others, but as a cohesive whole, it failed dismally.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
February 16, 2024
Book Review: Lioness by Emily Perkins #AYearofNZLit
From humble beginnings, Therese has let herself grow used to a life of luxury after marrying into an empire-building family. But when rumours of corruption gather around her husband’s latest development, the social opprobrium is shocking, the fallout swift, and Therese begins to look at her privileged and insular world with new eyes.
In the flat below Therese, something else is brewing. Her neighbour Claire believes she’s discovered the secret to living with freedom and authenticity, freeing herself from the mundanity of domesticity. Therese finds herself enchanted by the lure of the permissive zone Claire creates in her apartment – a place of ecstatic release.
All too quickly, Therese is forced to confront herself and her choices – just how did she become this person? And what exactly should she do about it?
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
Released October 2023
My Thoughts:I really enjoyed this novel. I liked the main character, Therese, and felt quite invested in her situation. Married for more than thirty years to a much older wealthy man, everything begins to unravel for Therese when her husband’s latest development sets off a chain of allegations and subsequent investigations into his business conduct which results in directly threatening the image and viability of her own business.
“I couldn’t shake to feeling that with the contributions to scholarship funds and marine sanctuaries and so on we were somehow trying to buy something, or clear a debt that could never be paid.”
I didn’t much like Trevor, to be honest. He was, to me, definitive of an older wealthy white man who thinks he is untouchable, right down to the point where he isn’t, yet still manages to shrug and find somebody else to blame. His adult children were also entitled brats, being propped up by their parent’s wealth, yet feeling hard done by because their trust fund was under threat and their parents got divorced a very long time ago which was still evidentially causing them trauma – sure, cry me a river. Caroline, the daughter who lived closest to Trevor and Therese, irritated me the most. She treated Therese with contempt yet felt so assured of her right to do so, taking advantage of Therese with babysitting favours.
“It seemed to me that minding about being middle-class was only something you felt if you’d always been that way. I never minded.”
When everything begins to implode, Therese finds herself questioning who she is now, in comparison to who she was when she first met Trevor. She gets caught up with a neighbour, Claire, who is having her own existential crisis. I’m going to be honest here, Claire’s ‘crisis’ was nothing more than an over entitled bit of middle/upper class wankery rot. Her crisis involved giving away all of her things, covering her mirrors and letting herself go, building a stage inside the middle of her living room and getting drunk and/or high and dancing on said stage with a bunch of young randoms and Therese. She was also a mean bitch. One of those women who say whatever they want and then mock apologise about their lack of filter. Her crisis ended pretty quickly once her adult daughter decided she needed her again.
For Therese though, her crisis was of a different sort, a full analysis of her life. She didn’t deserve the contempt and judgement thrown at her by Trevor’s adult children and ex-wife. She also didn’t deserve the disrespect of Trevor’s dishonesty. She was, for me, above them all, morally and practically. She was better than Claire’s antics as well, but as sometimes happens in life, you meet the wrong people at a pivotal time, they tip you upside down for a bit but in the end, you’re better for the chaos. I feel that’s what happened with Therese and Claire.
This was a very enjoyable read for me. The pace was good, the character development great. It was set in Wellington, which is one of my favourite New Zealand cities. Windy Wellington. I’ve only ever been there in the Winter, twice now, and much of this was set over the summer, but I felt the place strongly, and there were other locations visited and mentioned that I’d also been to. I love New Zealand and it was nice to read a novel set in another country and still find the familiar in it.
Highly recommended. Book two of #AYearofNZLit.
February 11, 2024
Book Review: The Hummingbird Effect by Kate Mildenhall
An epic, kaleidoscopic story of four women connected across time and place by an invisible thread and their determination to shape their own stories, from the acclaimed author of The Mother Fault.
Longlisted for the Indie Book Awards 2024
Sydney Morning Herald Best Reads of the Year for 2023
One of the lucky few with a job during the Depression, Peggy’s just starting out in life. She’s a bagging girl at the Angliss meatworks in Footscray, a place buzzing with life as well as death, where the gun slaughterman Jack has caught her eye – and she his.
How is her life connected to Hilda’s, almost a hundred years later, locked inside during a plague, or La’s, further on again, a singer working shifts in a warehouse as her eggs are frozen and her voice is used by AI bots? Let alone Maz, far removed in time, diving for remnants of a past that must be destroyed? Is it by the river that runs through their stories, eternal yet constantly changing – or by the mysterious Hummingbird Project, and the great question of whether the march of progress can ever be reversed?
Propulsive, tender and engrossing, this genre-bending novel is a feast for the heart as well as the mind and senses. For fans of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, Michelle de Kretser’s The Life to Come and Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House, it confirms Mildenhall as one of the most ambitious and dynamic writers in the country.
Published by Simon & Schuster Australia
Released August 2023
My Thoughts:In pieces, each of the storylines were engrossing. I have long enjoyed Kate Mildenhall’s writing style. Yet, taken as a whole, this novel was ultimately confusing.
Part of this can be attributed to listening to it instead of reading it. It’s not a novel suited to audio, there were too many other elements to it. I ended up going back through the ebook version after I finished listening, looking for clues and connections that I might have missed in the audio version and there were diagrams and an illustration as well, all of which was not conveyed over audio.
I think I was expecting more from this novel, some stronger connections, not just between the characters but thematically. I ended up searching online for articles and reviews, because ultimately, I really just wanted someone to explain to me what the novel was about. What I had missed.
The Hummingbird Effect is a visionary, genre bending novel. I would recommend reading it above listening to it. Best suited to readers who like their fiction speculative and open to interpretation.
February 10, 2024
Book Review: Everyone and Everything by Nadine J. Cohen
When Yael Silver’s world comes crashing down, she looks to the past for answers and finds solace in surprising places. An unconventional new friendship, a seaside safe space and an unsettling amount of dairy help her to heal, as she wrestles with her demons – and some truly terrible erotic literature.
Funny and tender, Everyone and Everything is about friendship, grief and the deep, frustrating bond between sisters. It asks what makes us who we are and what leads us onto ledges. Perfect for fans of Meg Mason, Nora Ephron and Victoria Hannan, this is an intimate, wry and wise exploration of one woman’s journey to the brink and back.
Released September 2023
About the Book:Everyone and Everything is the very definition of my ideal read. Ever since Sorrow and Bliss, ‘sad girl’ fiction, as I have seen it referred to – also a label I don’t really like – has been coming out of the woodwork and I for one, hope it doesn’t run its course any time soon, because it has a lot to offer to many readers.
In Everyone and Everything, we spend a year with Yael as she recovers from a major mental health breakdown. The novel is split into twelve chapters, one for each month, and within each chapter we dip into past moments as well as the present, all of which forms a rich tapestry of Yael’s life, her family history, and the things, big and small, that have shaped her and also pushed her to the brink.
This novel had me alternately weeping and laughing, sometimes both at the same time. Often sad, and not without its triggers, it was written with such tenderness, honesty, and a great deal of wit and sensibility. Ultimately, it is a story about healing and connection, one of the most life affirming reads I’ve encountered in a long time.
February 5, 2024
Book Review: Seven Sisters by Katherine Kovacic
Naomi started grief counselling prepared to run for cover as soon as her therapist, Mia, pulled out a crystal or tried to align her chakras.
When Mia suggests that she join a support group, Naomi is sceptical: how could she begin to describe what it felt like to lose her sister, Jo? How could she possibly share her loss and rage to a room full of people? How could she express her helplessness that Jo’s killer walks free on a suspended sentence?
And how could she share her deepest desire to see Jo’s killer dead by her hand?
In the group sessions, Naomi finds that her experiences and her anger are shared between the other members: Gabrielle, Brooke, Katy, Olivia and Amy. Under the enigmatic leadership of Mia, a plan begins to take shape.
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia
Released January 2023
My Thoughts:I didn’t mind the premise for this novel, but it became apparent from the first chapter in, that this was not the book for me. It’s filled with rage, every page, and while that was not entirely surprising given the theme and storyline, the characters were almost aggressive with their rage, and I found it tiring to listen to. And by the third vigilante act, it also became repetitive. The characters remained wooden, and I remained uninterested in the story, right until the very end.
Goodreads shows an overwhelming number of positive reviews for this book but there are a few hidden in there that say similar to what I have. I am rapidly realising though, more and more, that genre fiction, specifically crime, thrillers, and domestic noir, are no longer for me. I should probably cut the genre some slack and just stop reading it.
February 4, 2024
A Year of New Zealand Literature
Australia and New Zealand share a similar history when it comes to literature. A rich oral tradition that predates European settlement, early colonial writing, and then in the 20th century, the emergence of a literature distinct from English literature and the writing of First Nations authors.
There are common themes too: unique landscapes, geographical isolation, participation in WW1 and WW2, and national identity, not to mention contemporary themes like globalisation, social justice and the pressures on relationships in the modern world.
In 2024, Lisa at ANZLitLovers and I want to celebrate this rich literary heritage by joining forces to spend a year discovering New Zealand fiction. Between us, we’re going to tackle our NZ TBR, and then see what else comes along!
Many New Zealand writers have international reputations, so their books are not hard to find overseas. Notable short-story writers include Katherine Mansfield, and Frank Sargeson; novelists Janet Frame, Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, and Maurice Gee, plus Booker winners and nominees Keri Hulme, Lloyd Jones, Eleanor Catton, and Anna Smaill.
Other notable contemporary authors include Catherine Chidgey, Pip Adam, Emily Perkins, Charlotte Grimshaw, Fiona Kidman, Alan Duff, Elizabeth Knox and many, many more who you can find at Wikipedia here (20th century) and here (21st century).
If you’d like to join us, share the link to your own reviews on your own blog or social media account, in the comments below, and tag us both using the hashtag #AYearofNZLit:
@anzlitlovers and/or @anzlitlovers.bsky.social@TessSmithWrites (Instagram)My #AYearofNZLit TBR:
Review Roundup
February 3, 2024
Book Review: The Search Party by Hannah Richell
Five old friends reunite for an idyllic glamping holiday on the rugged Cornwall coast, but tensions rise when a storm leaves them stranded and someone goes missing.
Max and Annie Kingsley have left the London rat race with their twelve-year-old son to set up a glamping site in the wilds of Cornwall. Eager for a dry run ahead of their opening, they invite three old university friends and their families for a long-needed reunion and a relaxing weekend.
But the festivities soon go awry as tensions arise between the children (and subsequently their parents), explosive secrets come to light, and a sudden storm moves in, cutting them off from help as one in the group disappears.
Moving between a police investigation, a hospital room and the catastrophic weekend, The Search Party is a propulsive destination thriller about the tenuous bonds of friendship and the lengths parents will go to protect their children.
Published by Simon & Schuster Australia
Released January 2024
My Thoughts:Hannah Richell’s historical fiction has long been a favourite of mine but in her latest release, The Search Party, she has taken on a new direction with her writing, the contemporary domestic crime thriller. Readers can expect the same high quality of writing, character development and intricate plotting that they are used to with any Hannah Richell release. She knows how to write an absorbing and compulsively readable tale, there are no doubts about that.
However, adults behaving badly and kids not doing what they’re told is a well-trodden path within this genre, and I’m not a fan of that particular storyline, or of domestic thrillers in general, truth be told. There is a lot going on in this novel, plenty of red herrings and convoluted storylines, characters accusing each other of this and that, old grudges coming to the fore. It’s an entertaining read and fans of the genre will no doubt love it. It wasn’t for me, but that’s a matter of personal taste and no reflection on the quality delivered by the author.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
February 1, 2024
Book Review: The Conversion by Amanda Lohrey
The conversion was Nick’s idea.
Nick: so persuasive, ever the optimist, still boyishly handsome. Always on a quest to design the perfect environment, convinced it could heal a wounded soul.
The conversion was Nick’s idea, but it’s Zoe who’s here now, in a valley of old coalmines and new vineyards, working out how to live in a deconsecrated church.
What to do with all that vertical space, those oppressive stained-glass windows? Can a church become a home or, even with all its vestiges removed, will it remain forever what it was intended to be?
For Zoe, alone and troubled by a ghost from the recent past, the little church seems empty of the possibilities Nick enthused about. She is stuck in purgatory—until a determined young teacher pushes her way into Zoe’s life, convinced of her own peculiar mission for the building.
Melanie has something of Nick’s unquenchable zeal about her. And it’s clear to Zoe that she won’t take no for an answer.
The Conversion is a startling novel about the homes we live in: how we shape them, and how they shape us. Like Amanda Lohrey’s bestselling The Labyrinth, it is distinguished by its deep intelligence, eye for human drama and effortless readability.
Published by Text Publishing
Released October 2023
My Thoughts:If it were possible for a novel to be entirely perfect, then The Conversion would easily fit the bill as the example text. How I loved this novel. I listened to it, and the narration was beautifully done, but of course, a novel has to be well written in the first place for a narrator to be able to do a good job of it. I feel like I’m rambling, but I can’t help it. This novel. My heart.
First, there is the whole part about living in and converting a church into a dwelling. This was fascinating, I had no idea this was being done, to be honest. There are a couple of churches in the city where I live that have been converted into business space, but to live in? It hadn’t crossed my mind. I dwelled often while listening to this one about how I would feel about living in a church and what I’d want it to look like if I did. I could understand Zoe’s reservations, but also understood the appeal.
Next, we have the grief. And in this, I don’t necessarily mean grief over losing a husband. Rather, grief over losing the life you thought you were living, the future you had thought you were going to get. How devastating, to have a person you have loved for so long destroy everything about your lives together and then have the audacity to die, leaving you unable to grieve in the way you would have been able to if circumstances were different.
And Zoe. How much I enjoyed her as a protagonist. I really related to her as a mother of two sons who are as different to each other as Zoe’s were. I related to her as a woman who has reached an age where she wants her work to be meaningful yet easy and stress free. I related to her own personal conversion, the exorcism of ghosts within, and the embracing of a new and slower life, filled with the things and the people that matter.
This is brilliant Australian fiction. Truly divine. It’s my first read of Amanda Lohrey but now I’m eager to read everything else she has written. She writes with a deep intelligence, inviting the reader into a state of introspection and contemplation. Every word, every sentence; it all just flowed so smoothly and was such a joy to read.
January 30, 2024
January: Read, Listen, Watch, Repeat…
I had the first week of January off, so this no doubt led to reading more books than what I usually manage in a month. One of the above was a whopping almost 800 pages long too, so I feel particularly satisfied with this month’s end result. Five titles were review ones – The Glass House, The Search Party, We All Lived in Bondi Then, Body of Lies and Bird Life – with the remaining from my own tbr, two of which were read for my book club – Prophet Song and With Love from Wish & Co. Book of the month goes to We All Lived in Bondi Then.
Listen:
Time off work meant less time driving so in effect, less time listening. The Stolen Book of Evelyn Aubrey was terrible, The Conversion was brilliant.
Watch:
A lot of watching going on this month. Partly because I was on holidays for some it, also probably owing in some part to the persistent heat wave we’ve been experiencing.
TV Shows – there was a lot of Australian TV on in my house this month with season two of The Tourist, season four of Bump, and the long-awaited premiere of Boy Swallows Universe. All quality viewing. I also squeezed in a British crime mini-series, The Pembrokeshire Murders and finally finished the last two seasons of The Crown. No prizes for guessing that Boy Swallows Universe was the pick of the month for best TV show.
Movies – another long-awaited release, Force of Nature, dropped into cinemas towards the end of January. I went to see it with my Aussie crime watching son and we both really enjoyed it. I watched Mary Shelley after reading and loving Mary Or, The Birth of Frankenstein last month. Highly recommend this film, it was excellent. I watched Peter Pan and Wendy for the nostalgia, it was a great family movie, my adult children would all have really loved these live action remakes Disney are doing if they had of come out when they were younger. The Favourite and Past Lives were movie nights for M and I. All in all, we were all very well entertained for the month of January. Movie of the month goes to Force of Nature.
Until next month, happy reading, listening and watching!
