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Monday, November 27, 2017

‘The Woman Who Fooled The World: Belle Gibson's Cancer Con’ by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano,


From the BLURB:
Belle Gibson convinced the world she had healed herself from terminal brain cancer with a healthy diet. She built a global business based upon her claims. There was just one problem: she'd never had cancer.

In 2015, journalists uncovered the truth: this hero of the wellness world, with over 200,000 followers, international book deals, and a best-selling smartphone app, was a fraud. She had lied about having cancer — to her family and friends, to her business partners and publishers, and to the hundreds of thousands of people, including genuine cancer survivors, who were inspired by her Instagram posts.

Written by the same multi-award-winning journalists who uncovered the details of Gibson’s lies, The Woman Who Fooled the World tracks the 23-year-old's rise to fame and fall from grace. Told through interviews with the people who know her best, it unravels the mystery and motivation behind this deception and follows the public reaction to a scandal that made headlines around the world.

The Woman Who Fooled the World explores the lure of alternative cancer treatments, the cottage industry flourishing behind the wellness and ‘clean eating’ movements, and the power of social media. It documents the devastating impact this con had on Gibson’s fans and on people suffering from cancer. Ultimately, it answers not just how, but why, Gibson was able to fool so many.

The Woman Who Fooled The World: Belle Gibson's Cancer Con’ is an Australian non-fiction book by journalists Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano, who broke the story of Belle Gibson’s multilayered fraud back in 2015 for The Age newspaper.

I didn’t know who Belle Gibson was when her “cancer con” story broke a couple years ago. I don’t follow any wellness bloggers and I can’t cook – so I was entirely remote from her Instagram/App/Cookbook world. But when she was exposed to be a fraud on multiple counts – chief amongst them that she lied about having brain cancer, and donating her followers’ money to various charities – I, like many others, became fascinated by the story. I bought the Women’s Weekly edition featuring her explosive interview where she finally admitted that she didn’t have cancer. This was where I got a lot more background information about who Belle Gibson actually *was* and what she had been peddling. And my overwhelming thought was; how did anyone believe her in the first place?!

My disbelief about Belle (and the entire wellness world she had sprung up from) was best summarized by this piece by Richard Cooke for The Monthly when he wrote; “It is weird that this startlingly transparent load of horseshit was carried as far as it was…”

‘The Woman Who Fooled The World’ is an attempt by the two journalists who first broke the story to wade through all the horseshit – and what they’ve come up with is a deeply fascinating and infuriating examination of not just one woman’s deception, but a confluence of users and abusers who have a lot to answer for. They examine rising social media alongside misinformation and – yes – “fake news”. They dig deep but still find little information on the woman herself, who remains a bit of an enigma for the journalists throughout … what saves the book from being a frustrating half-take though, is their spreading the blame (/horseshit) around and laying it at the feet of an industry that has conflated “health” and “beauty”, the rise of Insta-celebrities as snake oil salesmen, and profit over common sense. They also lay a hefty load of blame at their own door – on a new landscape of journalism that’s more interested in getting clicks than checking facts, and being first instead of being right.

I owe thanks to Carly Findlay for raving about, and recommending this book. I was a little wary of reading something that was just about Belle Gibson – we have all been touched by cancer in some way, and I just didn’t think I had the strength to read 319-pages of the authors deconstructing her hurtful lies. But I trusted Carly’s enjoyment of the book, so gave it a go myself and I am so glad I did.

It is particularly pertinent and important that Donelly and Toscano link Belle Gibson’s deception to wider consumerism and industry failings. Like the billion-dollar Swisse Vitamins business which has been proven to be nothing but a long-con (yet they still have celebrity endorsement – Nicole Kidman!). There’s a subtle link between a rise of access to information, the spread of misinformation and a general distrust of science, doctors and “Big Pharma” as a result (in this I would have liked an entire chapter devoted to the anti-vaxx movement that I see being intricately linked to “wellnesss”). Belle Gibson thrived in this environment, and we let her.

The authors repeatedly point out that the likes of Belle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lola Berry, Jordan Younger, and the late Jessica Ainscough all have several startlingly obvious features in common;

For the most part, this new breed of wellness gurus is white and female, young and attractive, engaging, and media-savvy. Some are yoga teachers, or personal trainers, or martial-arts instructors, but scant few have any qualifications that equip them to give health advice. What they do have is an Instagram account.

It is key that majority of the people the authors mention in the book are indeed young, female, thin, and moneyed. It takes money to live healthy. A lot of it. This is why socioeconomics and obesity are often intricately linked – it’s also how the likes of Belle Gibson and Jessica Ainscough were able to peddle “alternative treatments” – because they looked good doing it. It made the story that much sexier, and easier to sell. No matter how much it stunk.

Speaking of Jessica Ainscough – the “wellness warrior” who rejected medical cancer treatment in lieu of things like juice cleanses and coffee enemas and subsequently died at the age of 30 (after briefly trying a return to traditional medicine in her last months, to no avail) – is almost a secondary story in ‘The Woman Who Fooled the World’. Her story and Belle’s are similar – save for the fact that Ainscough really did have cancer – but both women peddled alternative, cancer-curing treatments to hundreds of thousands of followers (some themselves in vulnerable positions due to their own health) that were nothing more than dangerous quackery. The authors are almost careful not to be too critical of Ainscough though – since her story had a truly tragic ending, that included her mother dying of cancer two years before she did, and all because upon diagnosis she likewise refused medical treatment and chose her daughter’s holistic path. A great commentary piece by the late Sam de Brito is highlighted in the book though, and well worth a read.

‘The Woman Who Fooled the World’ at times reads like a long gossip column – particularly for the Melbourne socialite and pseudo-science set who Gibson surrounded herself with. There’s also an extensive look at the roles Penguin and Apple played in legitimizing Belle’s fame and unscrupulously perpetuating her holistic lies. In this – Apple has the most to answer for (though they never will); they were very quick to capitalize on Belle’s rise, common-sense be damned. To an extent, Apple vouched for Belle so that Penguin felt more secure in signing her … but to that I say; you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. 

The last half of the book gets pretty wild – when Belle’s lies get international attention and her world unravels … and her mother steps into the picture. Here is offered a brief but important insight into the sort of childhood Belle probably grew up with – and the one part of her convoluted narrative that might ring true. The authors themselves talk to Belle’s mother, and they get impressions from two more journalists who interviewed her and her husband (Belle’s step-father). This family unit is like a cross between ‘Struggle Street’ and ‘Shameless’, and suddenly it’s easy to see where Belle learnt to tell lies with such ease … 

And finally, Donnelly and Toscano examine the media’s role in letting Belle’s horseshit waft. They unflinchingly look at a new newsroom culture where there’s half the people doing twice the work with paper-thin deadlines. But it’s no excuse – and the number of media outlets who happily let the likes of Belle Gibson and Jessica Ainscough peddle their snake-oil sales is atrocious and part of the toxic culture that let them thrive.

Overwhelming I was reminded of Harry Houdini, while reading this book. I’m a bit fascinated by the magician and stunt-performer, particularly his later-life devotion to debunking spiritualists. In 1913 Houdini’s beloved mother died, then throughout the 1920’s a post-WWI rise of spiritualism sprung up around grieving families desperate to reunite with their loved ones. Psychics and mediums suddenly become a booming business around the world. Houdini was just as desperate as so many others to communicate with his departed loved one, and so attended séances and meeting with psychics. But here he was the world’s greatest illusionist and stunt-performer and he easily saw through the deception – and then devoted the latter half of his life to proving these people to be scam-artists, preying on the desperate and grieving. That’s what Donelly and Toscano (a couple of modern-day Houdini's!) are trying to do with ‘The Woman Who Fooled the World’ – highlighting the noxious false hope of wellness bloggers, when they peddle alternative medicine that’s not complimentary to traditional treatments, but replacing it. Much like spiritualism – the deception comes at the intersection of death and hope, and that’s why people are so vulnerable.

It’s a fascinating book and I do highly-recommend reading it not just for the way Belle Gibson’s infuriating story unfolds, but for the bigger industry discussion around “health and beauty” and distribution of information.

5/5




Wednesday, November 22, 2017

‘Almost Midnight: Two Short Stories’ by Rainbow Rowell


From the BLURB:

Almost Midnight by Rainbow Rowell is a beautiful gift edition containing two wintery short stories, decorated throughout for the first time with gorgeous black and white illustrations by Simini Blocker.

Midnight is the story of Noel and Mags, who meet at the same New Year's Eve party every year and fall a little more in love each time . . .

Kindred Spirits is about Elena, who decides to queue to see the new Star Wars movie and meets Gabe, a fellow fan.

‘Almost Midnight: Two Short Stories’ by Rainbow Rowell is a limited-edition collection of two of the author’s short stories – one appeared in the ‘My True Love Gave to Me’ anthology, edited by Stephanie Perkins and ‘Kindred Spirits’ was previously published as a World Book Day title. This special pocket-book also includes beautiful illustrations by Simini Blocker.

This book is 127-pages, and both of the short-stories are available elsewhere and have probably already been read by Rowell fans. But kudos to publisher Macmillan, they have made up for this with a genuinely gorgeously packaged book – pocket-sized it may be, but it’s hardback with a sparkly cover and Blocker’s illustrations really are stunning. The whole package is really paying service to the Tumblr and #Bookstagram communities who – arguably – played a huge role in spreading the word about Rowell’s books and put a spotlight on her stories. The fandom is real, and they will be really happy with this collectible, to be honest.

‘Midnights’ is definitely the better of the two stories – as evidenced by the little fandom that main characters Noel and Mags have accumulated since ‘My True Love Gave To Me’ came out in 2015. It’s everything that Rowell is exceedingly good at writing – awkward but loveable female characters navigating self-doubt, but ultimately finding affection from someone who wants them to just be themselves.

‘Kindred Spirits’ is set in a lousy movie line anticipating the first screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and while it is more cutesy fun it does feel like the whole short was constructed around using the (admittedly great) pun “The Force Asleepens.”

Look, I think ‘Almost Midnight’ (retailing at AU$20) is really sweet, and will definitely be snapped up by Rainbow Rowell- aficionados … especially because her last full-length book came out in 2015 with ‘Carry On’, there’s no news on what her next novel will be, her latest ‘Runaways’ comic venture isn’t necessarily going to satiate all of her fiction-fans, and her graphic novel with Faith Erin Hicks (‘Pumpkinheads’) isn’t due until 2019.

I’m going to give this 4/5, only because – from the Australian market perspective – it kinda boggles the mind that a publisher can produce a 127-page mini-book of two short stories that have probably already been bought by the readers (and it costs $20 to do so! Or AU$12.99 on Kindle!) … But, y’know what? – that’s me, I totally bought it! But for teens – they could buy a full-length YA for $16.99 and get more bang for their buck. I just think that ‘Almost Midnight’ is mostly about producing something to be shared on social media …

4/5 

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

‘The Duchess Deal’ Girl Meets Duke #1 by Tessa Dare


From the BLURB:

When girl meets Duke, their marriage breaks all the rules…

Since his return from war, the Duke of Ashbury’s to-do list has been short and anything but sweet: brooding, glowering, menacing London ne’er-do-wells by night. Now there’s a new item on the list. He needs an heir—which means he needs a wife. When Emma Gladstone, a vicar’s daughter turned seamstress, appears in his library wearing a wedding gown, he decides on the spot that she’ll do.

His terms are simple:
  • They will be husband and wife by night only.
  • No lights, no kissing.
  • No questions about his battle scars.
  • Last, and most importantly… Once she’s pregnant with his heir, they need never share a bed again.

But Emma is no pushover. She has a few rules of her own:
  • They will have dinner together every evening.
  • With conversation.
  • And unlimited teasing.
  • Last, and most importantly… Once she’s seen the man beneath the scars, he can’t stop her from falling in love…

‘The Duchess Deal’ is the first book in a new historical romance series by Tessa Dare, called ‘Girl Meets Duke.’

Yes I have finally, finally, finally read this much-anticipated book and it was indeed worth the wait.

‘The Duchess Deal’ is very much borrowing from the ‘Beauty & the Beast’ trope (which is itself, harking back to the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros), about a scarred war veteran who takes a seamstress as his wife – purely for the purposes of begetting an heir, and under the condition that there be no true love between them … which of course all unravels when they start to get to know each other.

What is interesting about this historical romance though, is how it perfectly illustrates the responsiveness of the romance genre to changing social norms and political discourse. I had read Tessa Dare talking about writing this book right when Donald Trump was elected, and how suddenly this ultra-Alpha hero she wrote just didn’t cut it anymore. She had to address the issue of a woman falling for an outwardly vile person who is actively trying to put her off falling for him … look, the Duke of Ashbury is no pussy-grabber by any means. But there’s clearly been a lot of work put into him showing his true (kind, caring) colours to wife Emma, and putting on a mask to the rest of the world. It works – astonishingly well.

What else works is the little asides that Dare throws in, referencing the here and now. Like this wink-wink that actually had be GASPING for joy;

“Forgiveness requires penitence. She was warned. Given every explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted in her sinful behaviour, and she would not repent of it.”

Yes. This is Tessa Dare at her clever best, and the romance genre proving itself as the most feminist in publishing – women writing women for women, and proving that a woman’s place is in the resistance.

This book was hot with heart, and I was 1000% here for it. I am so excited for more instalments about this group of clever and commanding women.

5/5

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

#LoveOzLit - Books Gift-Guide for Christmas!


Hello Darling Readers!

It’s November – which means Christmas is *just* around the corner. I decided to put this post together for anyone who is like me, and prefers to be super-prepared for Chrissie, rather than set foot in a shopping centre at any point during December.

Well, it was that, but also – I really wanted to put together a Books Gift-Guide for Christmas, that celebrates some of the amazing Australian Youth Literature titles we had come out in 2017. And encouraging everyone to not only buy books as gifts, but AUSTRALIAN books – because we have some serious fabulousness!

I know lots of people think that books are too personal a gift to give; because it’s all about individual likes, and dislikes (also trying to guess what’s already on someone's shelves!) but I’m with the Icelanders on this one, who – and I quote! – “have a beautiful tradition of giving books to each other on Christmas Eve and then spending the night reading.” How gorgeous does that sound?!

So, consider this your Aussie version of a Bokatidindi Books Gift-Guide! For all the young people in your life, who you’d like to gift some #LoveOzLit this Christmas!

I have restricted it to books released in 2017, and no sequels for that reason too (sorry!) And of course - this is a purely subjective list based entirely on my personal picks - though I have tried to cover a range of genres, etc. 

And – full disclosure of nepotism – the #LoveOzYA Anthology does indeed feature … but – c’mon! – it’s a book celebrating our national youth literature, with a smorgasbord of genre (so if you don’t know what the teen in your life is into it’s PERFECT!) – AND, it’s short-stories for the time-poor teen (also because short stories are freakin’ marvellous and they’ll appreciate it as something other than the Edgar Allen Poe examples they had to study/suffer in school. Sorry, Poe!)

Ummmm ... speaking of the #LoveOzYA Anthology - it's one of the books you can vote for in ABC's The Book Club 'Five of the Best' of 2017 and if you could please vote for it I would be endlessly grateful! (honestly, this is such a long-shot but if the lead-up to Christmas isn't the time to hope, then I don't know when is!) 

Without further ado – 

Happy #LoveOzLit!


  


Picture Books:

·      That Christmas Feeling by Lili Wilkinson, illustrated by Amanda Francey
·      Hello, Melbourne! by Megan McKean
·      Peas and Quiet by Gabrielle Tozer, illustrated by Sue DeGennaro
·      Yakanarra Songbook: About Our Place in Walmajarri and English by Jessie Wamarla Moora
·      I Just Ate My Friend by Heidi McKinnon
·      Under the Love Umbrella by Davina Francesca Bell, illustrated by Allison Colpoys
·      Boy by Phil Cummings, illustrated by Shane Devries
·          At the Beach I See by Kamsani Bin Salleh
·          Storm Pearl by Kerry Anne Jordinson
·          Koala Bare by Jackie French, illustrated by Matt Shanks
·          Ten Pound Pom written by Carole Wilkinson, illustrated by Liz Anelli

 

***


  

Junior Fiction:

·      Super Moopers series 
·      Pip and Houdini by J.C. Jones
·      Patty Hits the Court: Game Day! #1 by Patty (Patrick) Mills, Jared Thomas
·     Grover, Stretch and the Broken Leg 'Grover McBane Rescue Dog Book #5' by Claire Garth, illustrated by Johannes Leak
·      To the Lighthouse by Cristy Burne
·      The Beast of Hushing Wood by Gabrielle Wang
·      Party Time 'Hot Dog, Book #2' by Anh Do, illustrated by Dan McGuiness
·      Jehan and the Quest of the Lost Dog by Rosanne Hawke
·      Tashi Storybook: Special Edition by Anna Fienberg, illustrated by Kim Gamble
·      The Wayward Witch and the Feelings Monster: Polly and Buster Book #1 by Sally Rippin

  


***


   


 Middle Grade: 8-12 year-olds

·      Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
·      Accidental Heroes: The Rogues #1 by Lian Tanner
·      Marsh and Me by Martine Murray
·      The Vampire Knife 'The Witching Hours Book 1' by Jack Henseleit
·      The Fall by Tristan Bancks
·      Have Sword, Will Travel by Garth Nix and Sean Williams
·      My Australian Story: Our Race for Reconciliation by Anita Heiss
·      How to Bee by Bren MacDibble
·      The Shop at Hoopers Bend by Emily Rodda
·      The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty, illustrated by Kelly Canby
   



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Young Adult: 14+

·     Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology edited by Danielle Binks and featuring short-stories by Amie Kaufman Melissa Keil Will Kostakis Ellie Marney Jaclyn Moriarty Michael Pryor Alice Pung Gabrielle Tozer Lili Wilkinson
·     Take Three Girls by Cath Crowley, Simmone Howell, and Fiona Wood
·      Beautiful Mess by Claire Christian
·      No Limits by Ellie Marney
·      The Undercurrent by Paula Weston
·      In The Dark Spaces by Cally Black
·      Living on Hope Street by Demet Divaroren
·      Because of You by Pip Harry
·      The Dream Walker by Victoria Carless
·      Night Swimming by Steph Bowe
·      Ballad For a Mad Girl by Vikki Wakefield 
·      Frogkisser! by Garth Nix
·      Remind Me How This Ends by Gabrielle Tozer
·      Gap Year in Ghost Town by Michael Pryor
·      Untidy Towns by Kate O'Donnell
·      The Secret Science of Magic by Melissa Keil
·      A Shadow’s Breath by Nicole Hayes
·      Trust by Kylie Scott

  


***

P.S. – I’m also a big fan of Read Local, Buy Local – so if you’re looking to purchase books this Christmas, please do so from an Australian-retailer and support local businesses! Find your nearest independent bookshop via this website; http://www.indies.com.au/
And if you really want to buy books online – Dymocks and Booktopia are *great* options (who won’t hit you up with $$$ shipping fees!)

P.P.S. – if you do get books as pressies this year (YAY!) but need to clear some room from your choc-a-block shelves … or – heck! – even if you’re a Book Blogger/Vlogger who needs to do a Bookish Spring-Clean, may I please suggest you donate any unwanted (but great condition!) books to either Brotherhood Books or The Footpath Library?! Two wonderful organisations who do a lot of good in our community! Thanks :-)


Aaaaaaaaand once more, with feeling - please vote for Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology as one of the 'Five of the Best' books of 2017!