Theresa Smith's Blog, page 40

Book Review: Home and Other Hiding Places by Jack Ellis

About the Book:

When eight-year-old Fin and his mum Lindy travel to spend Christmas with his Gran in Sydney, Fin assumes they’ll return to their isolated country property – the only home he’s ever known. But he soon discovers that this large and crumbling riverside house, surrounded by bush and unwelcoming neighbours, is his home now.

As Lindy’s fragile emotions fracture under the weight of Gran’s disapproval and the pressure of old memories, Fin holds onto a tenderness of spirit and the simple clarity he has learnt from his isolation on the farm – an insight that hasn’t yet been clouded by the secret codes of adulthood. But as the life he has known crumbles around him, Fin learns that no-one is coming to his rescue, and he sets off on a journey to find his way home.

Published by Ultimo Press

Released February 2022

My Thoughts:

This turned out to be quite a novel. I’m never certain when going in if a child narrator will work for me – on many occasions they haven’t – but in this instance, it was amazing. Jack Ellis is such an incredible writer. This a novel that really reinforces the damage we can do to children by not telling them what is going on with the adults around them. The instinct to protect can be strong, but children notice when things are wrong, and they do worry, even if you tell them not to, and they will also jump to conclusions that can be so far off base, magnifying the trauma of what they are experiencing and potentially placing them in danger.

So much of this story has its impact in what is left unsaid, the implicit undercurrent of the past, the anger and resentment still lingering between adults, and the shame and stigma that persists when it comes to mental illness. Through Fin, we see the resilience of children, but we also see the fear and bravado, the desperate search for something familiar to hold onto. Tender and poignant, Home and Other Hiding Places is a deeply affecting story, told with literary skill and a vivid attention to even the smallest of details. This novel is a treasure, a quintessential Australian story that affirms Jack Ellis as one of our finest contemporary writers.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

A Month of Reading: March

Is eight the new magic number for me? Eight books in February and now eight again for March. I made inroads with my 22 in 2022 challenge, ticking off another two books read for that. Still no classics…

Total books read for March: 8

All eight books were five star reads. So the quantity may be lacking, but the quality is high. I’ll take that any day!

Until next month, good reading!

The Week That Was…

Joke of the week:

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Our house is near a nature corridor, so the birdlife is plentiful, particularly the cockatoos. Normally they stick to hanging out in the trees, but this pair dropped onto the roof of the back deck for an extended visit. My son took these photos from down in the backyard, but I was in the kitchen talking to them through the window. Such curious birds, they really respond to interaction.

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What Zeus has been up to:

It’s not only birds that venture into our yard from the nature corridor. A few nights ago, Zeus alerted us to a snake in the backyard. No harm came to Zeus. Turns out he’s not just a pretty face after all…

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What I’ve been watching:

Bridgerton. I like this second season a lot more than I did the first.

This film was gorgeous. Highly recommend it if you’re a fan of movies like Good Will Hunting.

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What I’ve been reading:

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Until next week…

Behind the Pen with Genevieve Novak

I’m thrilled to welcome Genevieve Novak to Behind the Pen today, chatting about her debut novel, No Hard Feelings, which was released yesterday. You can catch my review here on the blog running alongside this interview. Enjoy!

How would you describe No Hard Feelings if you could only use 5 words?

Fun, loud, neurotic, relatable and hopeful.

What inspired you to write No Hard Feelings? Is it at all, even just a teeny bit, autobiographical?

I think it’s pretty normal for writers to draw from their life, especially with first novels. That being said, every young woman I know has a story about a partner who tells them and shows over and over again that their relationship isn’t going anywhere, and yet it never stops them trying. That’s a unifying experience!

I’ve struggled with my mental health, had difficult managers, and lost friendships. Did all of these things happen to me the same way they happened to Penny? No.

I adore my therapist, have nightmares that I quit my job and don’t get to work for my lovely manager anymore, and have never fought with my friends about boys.

Am I about to get a lot of text messages from ex-boyfriends asking if I wrote about them? Probably. They’ll be pretty disappointed when the answer is no. That’s okay — the feeling is mutual.

Do you have a favourite scene from No Hard Feelings and if yes, why that one in particular?

I always go back to the therapy scenes. They were difficult to write, but I love Penny’s therapist connecting the dots of her behaviour and its outcomes. It’s the moment that we see Penny go from a chaotic mess to a wounded creature who doesn’t know how to heal.

I also love love love love love the kitchen scene. It was one of the first scenes I wrote, and is virtually unchanged from the very first draft.

If No Hard Feelings was adapted into a movie or TV series (please let this happen) who is playing Penny and who is playing Leo? And while we’re at it, go on, what about Max?

From this post to God’s ears. Jodie Comer’s Penny would play brilliantly off Harry Styles’ Leo, don’t you think? (He acts now, right?)

Max would have to be someone so good looking you overlook how badly he treats you, so it would take a Riz Ahmed or Timothee Chalamet to pull it off.

How universal do you feel Penny’s situation is, with all the many things she was juggling to deal with, and do you think it’s unique to people in their twenties or more of a this is life for everyone nowadays sort of thing?

I’m not long out of my twenties, and I don’t know if it’s the passing of time, hard work, or pure luck that has made me a lot more relaxed than I remember myself being through that period of my life.

None of Penny’s problems are unique to your twenties, but my limited perspective tells me it’s a particularly turbulent time in your life, and you don’t have the experience, tools or objectivity to process it properly. Although I reserve the right to forego the quarter-life crisis and have an ongoing crisis forever, and so should everyone else.

Are you balancing a different career with your writing? How do you go about making time for your writing within limited hours?

It really helped that Melbourne’s lockdown was so long, and that I live alone, so I had months on end with nothing to do but write!

I still work my normal job in addition to writing books, but I always try to set aside at least one day to write non-stop every week. I’m very tired. The burnout is real and sometimes I go weeks without writing anything, feel awful about it, and then knock out 15,000 words in a weekend.

Maybe when Jodie and Harry sign onto the project I’ll be able to write full time. Until then, I’m really lucky to have a supportive manager who lets me use my leave to schedule regular writing days or blocks of time to get my projects finished.

Where do you normally write? Is it in the same place every day or are you an all over the place writer?

I prefer to work my “real job” from my office and write from my living room, but if my mind is wandering it’s easier to lock myself in the office to hammer out a few thousand words at once.

It also depends on what I’m writing. Dialogue is often hammered out on my phone while I wait for the kettle to boil. Exposition usually takes more workshopping and is less intuitive, so a double-monitor setup is more helpful there. And then sometimes I can smash out a perfect, no-editing-required scene on my phone on a commute, while other days I’ll stare at a blank document for hours and write nothing. I can’t work from coffee shops or libraries though.

Is there any one particular season of the year that you find more creatively inspirational than the others?

I set out to finish No Hard Feelings by my 30th birthday, which was about a year and a quarter from the day I started. I’d never written anything this long and I didn’t know if it would take a month or a decade, so I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to strike.

There is something cosy and familiar about pulling an all-nighter with a massive cup of tea or black coffee in the middle of winter. Maybe it just reminds me of my time at uni, and all my assignments would take me by surprise at the end of the first semester when the weather was just getting cold.

What book is currently on your bedside table? Are you more of a print, e-book, or audio book fan?

Right now I’m reading 28 Questions by Indyana Schneider, and Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, both print copies. I prefer physical books when I can. Like Leo, I like dog-earring pages with little quotes or phrases I like, and revisiting them later. There’s also nothing better than spending an afternoon in a lovely bookshop, then leaving with a sore shoulder and massive dent in your bank balance.

I live in a bookshop desert, though, so sometimes an e-book is all I can get. When I have the choice, I prefer e-books for commuting, or else I read three sentences, get distracted, then bounce off to Instagram again.

And lastly, hitting you here with the tough one, you can wear one pair of shoes for the rest of your life. What type are they and what colour?

I’m not much of a shoe girl! My mum and sister are, but they don’t get my heartrate up. Even so, I can’t go past a little black ankle boot with a block heel. I must have about ten pairs, from everywhere from ASOS to rag & bone, and I really resent Melbourne’s eight-month summers when they have to be put away.

No Hard Feelings

Hungover, underpaid and overwhelmed, this isn’t where Penny expected to be as she reached her late twenties. A sharp, smart and witty look at adulting – Fleabag meets Sorrow and Bliss with a splash of Dolly Alderton.

Penny can’t help but compare herself to her friends. Annie is about to become a senior associate at her law firm, Bec has just got engaged, Leo is dating everyone this side of the Yarra, and Penny is just … waiting. Waiting for Max, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, to allow her to spend the night, waiting for the promotion she was promised, waiting for her Valium to kick in. Waiting for her real life to start.

Out of excuses and sick of falling behind, Penny is determined to turn things around. She’s going to make it work with Max, impress her tyrannical boss, quit seeing her useless therapist, remember to water her plants, and stop having panic attacks in the work toilets.

But soon she’s back to doom scrolling on Instagram, necking bottles of Aldi’s finest sauvignon blanc, and criticising herself with renewed vigour and loathing. As her goals seem further away than ever, she has to wonder: when bad habits feel so good, how do you trust what’s right for you?

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia

Released 30th March 2022

Book Review: No Hard Feelings by Genevieve Novak

About the Book:

Hungover, underpaid and overwhelmed, this isn’t where Penny expected to be as she reached her late twenties. A sharp, smart and witty look at adulting – Fleabag meets Sorrow and Bliss with a splash of Dolly Alderton.

Penny can’t help but compare herself to her friends. Annie is about to become a senior associate at her law firm, Bec has just got engaged, Leo is dating everyone this side of the Yarra, and Penny is just … waiting. Waiting for Max, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, to allow her to spend the night, waiting for the promotion she was promised, waiting for her Valium to kick in. Waiting for her real life to start.

Out of excuses and sick of falling behind, Penny is determined to turn things around. She’s going to make it work with Max, impress her tyrannical boss, quit seeing her useless therapist, remember to water her plants, and stop having panic attacks in the work toilets.

But soon she’s back to doom scrolling on Instagram, necking bottles of Aldi’s finest sauvignon blanc, and criticising herself with renewed vigour and loathing. As her goals seem further away than ever, she has to wonder: when bad habits feel so good, how do you trust what’s right for you?

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia

Released 30th March 2022

My Thoughts:

I am really liking this new genre (sub-genre?) of which I have no name. Life lit has been taken and these novels are sharper than that, the covers striking with their photo images of the ‘fed-up woman’ (#canrelate) set against a boldly coloured background that catches the eye and makes the reader (me) instantly want to pick the book up and start reading until the end. This is the third novel of this type that I’ve read this month and I’ve loved each of them fiercely and despite the similarly themed covers, each of them has contained an entirely different story within. Inevitable comparisons are going to be made with other well-known novels of this type, but I can honestly say, No Hard Feelings more than holds its own. I enjoyed it so much I read it inside of a day – and it’s got to be a good book for that to happen with me nowadays.

Our protagonist is twenty-seven-year-old Penny. She’s got a lot of things going on, spends much of her time in denial about the real things while sweating all the small stuff. She is obsessed with mending a broken relationship, unhappy in her job, feeling uncertain within her friendships, and is reluctant about therapy because each time she goes, well, reality check: the truth hurts and is hard and who has time for that sort of introspection. I felt an instant affinity to Penny. I might not be in my twenties anymore, but I do know about starting over, broken relationships, being unhappy in jobs, and feeling uncertain within friendships; all of that doesn’t magically go away once you turn thirty. Sometimes it hangs around, other times it retreats only to find you again in your forties. So, definitely could relate to much of this despite the generation gap. Plus, Penny was just so lovely. I honestly wanted to give her a hug and tell her that she was awesome, that all of this, every single thing that was going wrong, had the potential to turn around for her. She just needed to believe in herself – as cliché as that sounds.

And herein lies the core theme of the novel (as I see it, anyway). Self-belief. It’s a thing and not enough people embrace it, particularly when they are young. Penny felt like she was a crap human and fully believed herself to be not worthy of anything more than what she was getting. Watching her plummet face first into a mess of her own making was devastating but seeing her emerge out of that funk to claw her way back up to the other side was enormously satisfying and incredibly life affirming. I love how Genevieve Novak writes. The wit is sharp, the humour is genuine, the dialogue punchy and realistic, the outrage suitably outrageous, and the feels – all the feels – really make you feel. This is an outstanding novel, one that I recommend highly for the list of ‘books you need to give to your best friend’. I look forward to reading more from Genevieve Novak.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

Book Review: French Braid by Anne Tyler

About the Book:

The major new novel from the beloved prize-winning author — a brilliantly perceptive, painfully true, and funny journey deep into one family’s foibles, from the 1950s right up to the changed world of today.

When the kids are grown and Mercy Garrett gradually moves herself out of the family home, everyone is determined not to notice.

Over at her studio, she wants space and silence. She won’t allow any family clutter. Not even their cat, Desmond.

Yet it is a clutter of untidy moments that forms the Garretts’ family life over the decades, whether that’s a painstaking Easter lunch or giving a child a ride, a fateful train journey or an unexpected homecoming.

And it all begins in 1959, with a family holiday to a cabin by a lake. It’s the only one the Garretts will ever take, but its effects will ripple through the generations.

Published by Penguin Random House Australia – Chatto & Windus

Released 29th March 2022

My Thoughts:

Anne Tyler. What is there to even say? There is truly no other author out there like her. I always feel a bit useless writing a review on an Anne Tyler novel, to be honest, because I always love them, and the nature of her writing gives little room for commentary. As with all her previous novels, French Braid has no plot to speak of, but is instead a deep character study of the members of the Garrett family through the generations. This is of course what I love most about Anne Tyler – that she can pull us into the everyday and hold us so entirely captivated for the duration. Because as with all her families, there is much to recognise within, as well as much to contemplate and think over.

‘Oh, the lengths this family would go to so as not to spoil the picture of how things were supposed to be!’

The title of this novel bears a great deal of significance and is explained right before it ends. I don’t think it’s a spoiler if I elaborate on it here, and really, it explains so much about the novel and will give you an insight into what it’s about. One of the characters likens family to the unravelling of a French braid. How the braid leaves the hair rippled for a long time after. He points out that this is similar to how families work, tightly woven for a period and then once unravelled, the ripples remain, crimped in forever. I absolutely love that. I come from a big family, a vast number of cousins, some of which I am in contact with, none of which I actually ever see, due to distance mostly. But the ripples are still there, and we are still crimped together by our shared experiences, even if we probably do all view them differently from each other.

If you’re a fan of Anne Tyler, this novel will not disappoint. If you’ve never read her before (people like this exist?) then consider this your starting place. She is, as ever, stunning, and delivers another brilliant read.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

The Week That Was…

It’s been a minute since the last weekly update. It seems like time has sped up this last fortnight and then collided with double the amount to do. My sons had their birthdays – 16 and 18 – and a good time was had by both. My daughter turns 20 this coming Wednesday. I’m surely not old enough to have a child no longer in their teens, but yikes, it seems I am.

This past week saw me buying a chest freezer, which has honestly been on my shopping list for more than a year. You would be forgiven for thinking I’ve only bought it so that I have room to store ice cream…

And these. Because flowers just always brighten every day, don’t they?

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Joke of the week:

It’s a wordy one…

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What I’ve been watching:

Two of my favourites are back with new seasons, thankfully weekly episodes so that I can pace myself and still have time for reading.

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What I’ve been reading:

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Until next week…

Book Review: Windswept and Interesting by Billy Connolly

About the Book:

In his first full-length autobiography, comedy legend and national treasure Billy Connolly reveals the truth behind his windswept and interesting life.

Born in a tenement flat in Glasgow in 1942, orphaned by the age of four, and a survivor of appalling abuse at the hands of his own family, Billy’s life is a remarkable story of success against all the odds.

Billy found his escape first as an apprentice welder in the shipyards of the River Clyde. Later he became a folk musician – a ‘rambling man’ – with a genuine talent for playing the banjo. But it was his ability to spin stories, tell jokes and hold an audience in the palm of his hand that truly set him apart.

As a young comedian Billy broke all the rules. He was fearless and outspoken – willing to call out hypocrisy wherever he saw it. But his stand-up was full of warmth, humility, and silliness too. His startling, hairy ‘glam-rock’ stage appearance – wearing leotards, scissor suits and banana boots – only added to his appeal.

It was an appearance on Michael Parkinson’s chat show in 1975 – and one outrageous story in particular – that catapulted Billy from cult hero to national star. TV shows, documentaries, international fame, and award-winning Hollywood movies followed. Billy’s pitch-perfect stand-up comedy kept coming too – for over 50 years, in fact – until a double diagnosis of cancer and Parkinson’s Disease brought his remarkable live performances to an end. Since then he has continued making TV shows, creating extraordinary drawings… and writing.

Windswept and Interesting is Billy‘s story in his own words. It is joyfully funny – stuffed full of hard-earned wisdom as well as countless digressions on fishing, farting and the joys of dancing naked. It is an unforgettable, life-affirming story of a true comedy legend.

Published by Two Roads

Released 14th October 2021

My Thoughts:

‘I didn’t know I was Windswept and Interesting until somebody told me. It was a friend who was startlingly exotic himself. He’d just come back from Kashmir and was all billowy shirt and Indian beads. I had long hair and a beard and was swishing around in electric blue flairs.

He said: “Look at you – all windswept and interesting!”

I just said: “Exactly!”

After that, I simply had to maintain my reputation…’

I am a huge fan of Billy Connolly. I’ve loved watching him most of all on his world tours where you’d get to see him just being himself, interacting with people, having a laugh, discovering interesting things, simply rejoicing in everything. He just seemed so intent on being joyous and loving life. And that’s what comes across in this book too, his first full-length autobiography, told entirely in his own words. And from the very first page, you know it’s Billy, you can hear his voice telling you this remarkable story, and you imagine as you turn the pages that you are sitting in an audience listening to him share his life story, the brutal truth cushioned by humour, yet by no means diminishing it. It is often true that behind humour is great pain and parts of Billy’s story were devastating to read.

There is a chronological order to this autobiography but only to a certain extent. Billy starts at the beginning of his life, yes, but as is the way of a great storyteller, he weaves his way back and forth, the same way in which people do when they’re simply having a yarn. His uniqueness beams off the page and his outrageousness fills me with admiration. This book is truly life affirming, filled with warmth and humility, an absolute joy to read. I laughed often, cried a little, and then laughed some more, which is probably what Billy intended. He talks about the concept of being Windswept and Interesting in the opening pages, about how it’s not something you can become, but rather something you simply are. There are no universal rules, however, Billy has written his own, and as far as inspirational quotes to live by go, these top the lot.

‘You have to genuinely not give a fuck for what any other living human being thinks of you.

Say the first thing that comes into your mind and don’t worry about what might happen to you as a result.

Seek the company of people who, when left alone in a room with a tea cosy, will always try it on.

Never turn down the opportunity to shout “fuck the begrudgers!” at the top of your voice.

And tell you story your own damn way.’

*Book 4 for my 22 in 2022 challenge*

Book Review: The Beautiful Words by Vanessa McCausland

About the Book:

Sylvie is a lover of words and a collector of stories, only she has lost her own. She has no words for that night at the lighthouse when their lives changed forever. What happened to cleave her apart from her best friend and soulmate, Kase?

Sylvie yearns to rekindle their deep connection, so when Kase invites her to the wild Tasmanian coast to celebrate her 40th birthday, she accepts – despite the ghosts she must face.

As Sylvie struggles to find her feet among old friends, she bonds with local taxi boat driver Holden. But he is hiding from the world, too.

Through an inscription in an old book, Sylvie and Kase discover their mothers have a history, hidden from their daughters. As they unpick what took place before they were born, they’re forced to face the rift in their own friendship, and the question of whether it’s ever okay to keep a secret to protect the person you love.

Vanessa McCausland’s enthralling new novel is about betrayal and forgiveness, the stories we tell, and the healing power of words.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia

Released 1st December 2021

My Thoughts:

Since it’s release, I have seen and heard nothing but love for this novel, The Beautiful Words, and now that I’ve read it for myself, I completely understand what all the fuss is about. What a gorgeous, heartfelt, deeply affecting novel this is.

‘The feelings of others were not something intellectual that Sylvie could regard at a distance, she felt them in her own body, she wore others’ scars as though they were her own. Feelings were catching things. They were alive and physical.’

This novel was so much more than what I had anticipated going in. I thought it was going to be a story about a lost friendship rekindled with some secrets from the past aired out and then laid to rest. In keeping with this, I was expecting an easy going read. But while that is the theme going in, the story rapidly morphs into so much more and the depths the author took us to was stunning, the range of topics woven seamlessly together.

When I think about this novel from here on in, it will always be as a love letter to words. That more than anything else stood out for me. Sylvie was a collector of words, inscribing them into her notebook as a means, initially, to aid her damaged memory, but later, as a way of coping when stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed. I just loved the wordy part of this novel so much. Words prefacing each chapter, Sylvie’s words that she would inscribe, the words that would pop into her head which formed part of her inner dialogue. All the beautiful words, just as the novel is named.

Please read this book. And then give it to a friend as a gift. It’s magnificent.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

Book Review: The Dictator’s Wife by Freya Berry

About the Book:

A dictator’s wife, overthrown and awaiting trial, pleads her case to a young female lawyer, while also drawing her into a tangled web of lies and dark, dangerous secrets. This dazzling and devastating debut is a Lead Launch for Headline Review for Spring 2021.

WOMAN

I learned early in life how to survive. A skill that became vital in my position.

WIFE

I was given no power, yet I was expected to hold my own with the most powerful man in the country.

MOTHER OF THE NATION

My people were my children. I stood between him and them.

I am not the person they say I am.

I am not my husband.

I am innocent.

Do you believe me?

Visceral and thought provoking, haunting and heartbreaking, The Dictator’s Wife will hold you in its grip until its powerful conclusion and keep you turning the pages long into the night.

Published by Hachette Australia – Headline Review

Released 22nd February 2022

My Thoughts:

That this is a debut novel is astounding. This is probably going to be one of those reviews that doesn’t quite do the novel justice because of my ardent love for it combined with my complete lack of objectivity. I did anticipate liking this novel, the place and time in which it is staged is one that holds a lot of appeal to me, but what I didn’t expect was the compulsive addiction I formed to reading it. So much so, I slowed right down and lingered, rereading passages, and taking my time in a way that is not usual for me.

‘She isn’t a person, she’s a puppeteer. She discovers what you are, what you can and cannot bear, and uses it.’

The author has created an imaginative Eastern European country, and has set the novel in the early 1990s, under the shadow of the fall of communism and the raising of the Iron Curtain. The fictious country of Yanussia was formerly a part of the USSR and now that the doors have been flung open, its populace are gunning for justice against the corruption of the past…or are they?

‘We choose who we allow to hurt us, in the end. The important thing is to let the right ones in.’

The legal defence team for the former First Lady, who is on trial for a myriad of corruption charges and faces the death penalty if found guilty, includes two Yanussian expats, both of whom have been selected for the case based upon their nationality – by the former First Lady. This is a complex story of displacement, both at the national and the personal level. It’s fraught with fear, of the sort that is unknown to those of us who have not lived under a communist rule. The author has recreated this sense of dark urgency, it descends over you while reading like a suffocation as you feel the terror of living with the secrets of the past, secrets that are still too dangerous to reveal.

This is a brilliant novel, in my opinion, and anyone who has an interest in reading novels about the Cold War, post Cold War, and life in Eastern Europe when it was part of the USSR, should seek this one out. The author may have used a fictious country as her setting, but the experiences and circumstances have been based on actual former Eastern Bloc countries and the people who lived there. Outstanding.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.