'Everyone and Everything' by Nadine J. Cohen

 

From the BLURB: 

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.

---

'Everyone and Everything' is the 2023 debut by Australian author, Nadine J. Cohen - from Pantera Press.

I've just come off an absolute roll with a certain type of new (millennial?) women's fiction. I've been calling it 'Fleabag'-esque. I don't like the term "well-dressed and distressed," for how some of the covers are often stylised - but I'd take "Women's Fiction with Bite." So I was in a bookshop the other day with a legit legend bookseller (Jaci from Hill of Content) who knows I have devoured 'Crushing' by Genevieve Novak, 'A Light in the Dark' by Allee Richards,' and 'Search History' by Amy Taylor ... when we were browsing the shelves and she just gently placed Nadine J. Cohen's debut into my hands and said; "Trust me," and reader - she was right. 

This is the story of Yael Silver who joined the 'orphan's club,' far too young, and when the book begins has just made an unsuccessful attempt to end her life because of her latent grief over the deaths of both her parents and Nanna, an f-boy who emotionally wrecked and ghosted her and a general feeling like she's become a burden to her older sister, Liora. 

Yael is on a long and slow pathway to recovery that largely begins in earnest when she starts regularly visiting the McIver's Ladies Baths in Coogee - perched on a cliff-face and offering her a scenic place to cry and read bad erotic fiction in peace. Until she meets older woman Shirley and they form an odd and healing friendship. 

At one point Liora asks Yael; 'Is that what it's like in your head all the time?' after she shares another random and disturbing thought, to which Yael replies; 'Yup.' And this is essentially the book, too. Chapters are broken down by months spanning a whole year, but they're made up of almost vignette fragments; wisps of memory and tangents (sometimes deeply emotional, recounting her childhood or the lead-up and come-down of her Nanna, mother and father's deaths - other times pop-culture heavy; "Pacey Witter cures all ills.") It's all cogent, I must stress, and brilliantly done for reading like a patchwork of a healing mind, and the memory-squares amounting to so much insight as to who Yael is as a person. She's deeply funny and relatable (from Cher Horowitz praise to 'Gilmore Girls' marathons, she reads like a friend) but also very broken and fragile, and I found myself both smiling and crying in equal measure. 

Jewish identity is also tenderly touched on in this book in a way that I really don't feel like I've read much in contemporary Australian fiction. Like how Yael looks back on her Nanna, mother and father's mental states at various times in their lives - how she retrospectively wonders what her grandparents being Holocaust survivors must have done to those lines of generational trauma;

I think about her often fraught relationship with mum, who, like all children of survivors, grew up with irrevocably damaged parents, and six million ghosts. 

... and musing on how comfortable Jewish people are with death, compared to gentiles. 

I absolutely adored this book. It wasn't easy, but it was beautifully wrought and Yael was a fine companion.

5/5

'Crushing' by Genevieve Novak

 

From the BLURB; 

Getting over someone is not that difficult. All you have to do is focus on every negative thing about them for the rest of your life until you forget to stop actively hoping for their slow and painful death, then get a haircut ...

Serial monogamist Marnie is running late to her own identity crisis. After a decade of twisting herself into different versions of the ideal girlfriend, she's swearing off relationships for good. Forever. Done. No more, no thank you.

Pretty inconvenient time to meet Isaac: certified dreamboat and the only man who has ever truly got her. It's cool, though, they're just friends, he's got someone else, and she has more important things to worry about. Like who she is, what she wants, and what the hell she ever saw in the love(s) of her life in the first place.

Flanked by overwhelmed new mum Nicola, terminally single Claud, and eternal pessimist Kit, Marnie reckons with the question: who are we when we're on our own?

'Crushing' is the new adult fiction novel from Australian author, Genevieve Novak. 

I absolutely adored this book.

It was not on my radar, but I went into a cute little indie bookshop called 'Heads and Tales' in Barwon Heads (Victoria, Australia) and literally just asked "what's good?" and had 'Crushing' handed to me and THANK GOODNESS!

So ... look; I've been a romance reader for a while now. I read every genre of romance (save for, maybe, medical romances?) and I get my reading-recs from authors and booksellers I love who frequently and generously share their TBR's. Blogs ('Smart Bitches, Trashy Books' being a fave). General chatter on socials and Goodreads ... but nothing - NOTHING - would prepare me for what a garbage-fire of spicy chilis the TikTok algorithm's thoughts on "romance" would be.

I've struck out on that app with its BookTok recs so many times now - *especially* in romance. It's bad, bland, or downright disturbing (and yes, my generation had 'Fifty Shades of Grey' so everything is a wheel and Colleen Hoover's spoke is currently at the top, but hopefully it'll topple soon)

Why am I mentioning this?

Well, because I think 'Crushing' is a little sneak-attack for female readers especially, who need their imaginations subverted and stretched. And this is the book to do it, as we follow a nearly 30-something protagonist called Marnie who has just been dumped. Again. And this one has hit so hard it's made her look inward and acknowledge the ways she doesn't know herself. How she's warped and pretzel'ed herself into being the type of woman each one of her ex's wanted - to the point that alone again, naturally, she doesn't actually know herself.

Marnie decides to move in with a new roommate - the fabulous and instant-bestie Claud - and start filling her spare days not-working at a little inner-city (Pellegrini's-esque) cafe, with any amount of classes and gym routines until she begins to meet herself for the first time in decades.

The one spanner in Marnie's plan is the appearance of Isaac. A bloke who is definitely off-limits because he has a girlfriend, but who Marnie connects with instantly ... how can she juggle this need to find herself, while she's also keeping her eyes-peeled on Isaac? That's the 'Crushing' conundrum of it all.

So I feel like this is probably a book being called a Melburnian 'Fleabag' and if that wets your whistle and gets you onboard, then - YES! - it's a Melburnian 'Fleabag' revelling in what it means to be young and messy, not-feminist-enough, self-deprecating, isolated and isolating, and not know what to do and where to put all this love you have ... it's definitely that, and more Season 2 than Season 1 vibes to boot.

But god DAMN, is it more complex and fun than that too.

The fact that I want to press this book into the hands of so many female friends and family members, for the ways that Marnie's crisis of identity has her seeing clearly (for the first time) the way that other women in her life short-change themselves constantly;

She tugged on the arm she was holding, and Jesse was pulled into frame.

I felt guilt before I'd even identified why: my first thought when I saw him was Oh.

Nothing prepared you for the distinct blandness of someone else's boyfriend. After all their gushing and mooning, you began to expect a prince. Reality and more objective eyes eventually revealed that they were ... just some guy.

Which is SUBLIME and has the same energy as @hellolanemoore's September 2020 Tweet; "every one of my female friends is too good for her boyfriend. I don't know how to explain it, but even if I had a female friend who was just a pile of rats on a step ladder she'd still be too good for Brandon"

I don't think this is a romance book (but I also don't think it's a bad thing if readers come to this under that misapprehension either) I do think it's a very pure and glorious form of Women's Fiction ... one that will by its very virtue of sneak-attacking under the premise of endlessly pursuing romantic love; raise the bar for the genre and the reader. You'll be surprised, delighted, stretched and challenged reading this one - without feeling "ripped off" for no neat HEA by 'The End'. Because that's kinda the point. And it's a crafty point that Novak is making - with humour and heart in the right place.

Like I said; I want to press this book into so many women's hands.

5/5

'New Animal' by Ella Baxter

 

From the BLURB: 

A stunning, heartbreakingly funny debut novel from a brilliant new literary voice. Sex, death, grief, running away…only one of these makes Amelia feel like a new animal.

It's not easy getting close to people. Amelia's meeting a lot of men but once she gets the sex she wants from them, that's it for her; she can't connect further. A terrible thing happened to Daniel last year and it's stuck inside Amelia ever since, making her stuck too.

Maybe being a cosmetician at her family's mortuary business isn't the best job for a young woman. It's not helping her social life. She loves her job, but she's not great at much else. Especially emotion.

And then something happens to her mum and suddenly Amelia's got too many feelings and the only thing that makes any sense to her is running away.

It takes the intervention of her two fathers and some hilariously wrong encounters with other broken people in a struggling Tasmanian BDSM club to help her accept the truth she has been hiding from. And in a final, cataclysmic scene, we learn along with Amelia that you need to feel another person's weight before you can feel your own.

Deadpan, wise and heartbreakingly funny, New Animal is a stunning debut.

*** 

Okay. Full-disclosure; I would *not* have read this book were it not for the recommendation of Jaclyn Crupi at the Hill of Content Bookshop absolutely ~raving~ about it. I trust Jaclyn, she hasn't led me astray yet.

And yet - and yet; I looked at this cover and that blurb ("... a struggling Tasmanian BDSM club" HMMMMMMMMMM) and thought; What am I getting myself into?! Surely this is just an Australian Sally Rooney (complete with baffling BDSM segue) attempt, a somewhat hodge-podge New Literary.

Well, well, well.

I was wrong. I judged a book by its cover (and an admittedly terrible blurb) and were it not for word-of-mouth, I'd have missed out on one of the most refreshing and eclectic reads I've come across in years. A book that absolutely terrified me for the author's sheer authenticity and audacity of voice.

'New Animal' is about grief and loneliness, self-absorption and absolution. We find ourselves with Amelia, a brittle but brilliant protagonist on the worst day of her life; when the sudden loss of her mother seems to send her catapulting even further into the wilderness of her loneliness, and compulsions for fleeting connections. Around her is a Tasmania like I've never read before, a character unto its own strange self - amidst a cast of characters who are so wildly wonderful, I absolutely loved holding them close for the span of a sparse 240-pages.

What is this like?! Who does Ella Baxter remind me of? Sally Rooney comparisons will abound and that's okay if it brings people in. But I actually think the fact of a family mortuary business heralds a wonderful connection to the writing of Alan Ball and 'Six Feet Under'. It's not even the purely cosmetic connection of death-business; it's more for the beauty and absurdity that Ball and Baxter seem brilliantly able to unearth in life itself. Grotesque grief, carnal normal and pitch-perfect deadpan delivery.

I'll also say that Baxter's book would be for anyone who loves Caitlin Doughty and her non-fiction books, but especially her YouTube channel "Ask a Mortician".

I absolutely, wholeheartedly loved this book. I gorged myself on it and then wanted to go off and read absolutely everything Ella Baxter has ever put into the universe ... And the fact that it's just *this* - this one triumphant and intimidating debut novel - elicits both excitement and frustration. This is someone who writes in a fever, without fear or favour. And I'm just in awe.

Read it read it read it.
Forget the blurb and the cover.
It's a wild ride but it's worth it.

5/5

'Nine Perfect Strangers' by Liane Moriarty

From the BLURB: 

The retreat at health and wellness resort Tranquillum House promises total transformation. Nine stressed city dwellers are keen to drop their literal and mental baggage, and absorb the meditative ambience while enjoying their hot stone massages. 

Watching over them is the resort's director, a woman on a mission to reinvigorate their tired minds and bodies. These nine perfect strangers have no idea what is about to hit them. 

With her wit, compassion and uncanny understanding of human behaviour, Liane Moriarty explores the depth of connection that can be formed when people are thrown together in... unconventional circumstances. 

Okay - I went into this Liane Moriarty a *little* bit dubious, but I came out converted and all the better for having read it. 

Any hesitations I had were around the nine perspectives (there's actually more, but it works well) and because the whole 'wellness retreat' thriller-esque storyline had burnt me once with 'Fearless' by Fiona Higgins (which was *truly* awful, but thankfully 'Nine Perfect Strangers' is nothing like it). This latest from Liane Moriarty was another true joy and gem of a read; it's layered and complex, while also reading like a gossipy unravelling of human psyche and intimate relationships. I particularly loved the underpinnings of needing to choose your own happy-ending, and especially how that was characterised in the (sort of?) main protagonist of Frances, an older woman and once semi-famous romance author who has just been duped by an internet love scam. 

Frances is a bit of a conduit, I think, for Liane's experiences on the author circuit prior to becoming a NYT-bestselling author. So she has some delicious asides about gropey older male authors at writers festivals, bad reviews that claim her romance is anti-feminist for concluding with a happy ending, and the way she can't stand reading "literary" crime-thrillers without quotation marks and in which beautiful women either die or fawn over the grizzled older male detective. 

Ohhhhhhh, Liane - this is pure gold. And I think she has more than earned the right to have an author character get astutely persnickety about these things (also, can the sentence "unassuming mum from the suburbs" in relation to Liane just die already?) 

I also continue to adore how much Liane embraces Australian sensibilities. I've not ever read a US-version of her books, but I hope perfect observations like these remain; 

He loved the sound of the whipbird: that long, musical crack of the whip that was so much a part of the Australian landscape you had to leave the country to realise how much you missed it, how it settled your soul. 

Liane Moriarty continues to write at the top of her game, as a justifiable juggernaut of the publishing realm. That she's a genuinely lovely person, whip-smart author and keen observer of human interaction just makes her success that much sweeter ...

5/5

'Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World' by Michelle Scott Tucker

From the BLURB:

In 1788 a young gentlewoman raised in the vicarage of an English village married a handsome, haughty and penniless army officer. In any Austen novel that would be the end of the story, but for the real-life woman who became an Australian farming entrepreneur, it was just the beginning. 

John Macarthur took credit for establishing the Australian wool industry and would feature on the two-dollar note, but it was practical Elizabeth who managed their holdings—while dealing with the results of John’s manias: duels, quarrels, court cases, a military coup, long absences overseas, grandiose construction projects and, finally, his descent into certified insanity. 

Michelle Scott Tucker shines a light on an often-overlooked aspect of Australia’s history in this fascinating story of a remarkable woman.

So - full disclosure! - Michelle Scott Tucker is one of Jacinta di Mase's authors, and I work as youth-literature agent for Jacinta. 

Honestly though, I do not read much non-fiction, let alone historical-biographies. I just don't. So if I wasn't interested in this I just wouldn't have read it, and wouldn't say boo about it. The fact of the matter is, Michelle is a Jacinta di Mase client AND I genuinely thoroughly enjoyed this book. The two are exclusive :-) 

But I picked this one up (despite aforementioned minimal interest in the genre) because: 

1) - Even though it feels like we studied 'The First Fleet' and colonisation of Australia every freakin' year in primary school, I had no clue who Elizabeth Macarthur was. I really had zero knowledge of Australia's female founders generally. 

and 2) - the blurb had me so thoroughly intrigued: "In 1788 a young gentlewoman raised in the vicarage of an English village married a handsome, haughty and penniless army officer. In any Austen novel that would be the end of the story, but for the real-life woman who became an Australian farming entrepreneur, it was just the beginning." 

You throw Jane Austen out there, and I'm going to pick it up! 

And I've gotta say - 'A Life at the Edge of the World' 100% delivered for me, and I was so happy that I read outside my usual comforts and gave this a go. I truly found it to be such a nourishing, fascinating, and eye-opening read. Not to mention - it was just damn enjoyable, and easily one of my favourite books of 2018 so far. 

So, probably my last encounter with historical biography was my attempt at reading 'Alexander Hamilton' by Ron Chernow because of my HAMILTON the Musical and Lin-Manuel Miranda obsession. I got about 100 pages into that 818-page tome though, and had to throw in the towel. It was interesting but mired in minutiae I just couldn't pretend to care about. I will say though, that Chernow had a lot of documents and correspondence and just general first-hand pieces of information to wade through in building a picture of a man who did indeed; "Write day and night like you’re running out of time?" 

Michelle Scott Tucker has a slightly bigger obstacle in her way, in that her biography is largely built around Elizabeth's diary - documenting her marriage and voyage to Australia, and years in the established colony, and also her correspondence home. And as Tucker says early on in the book, much of Elizabeth's writing is tempered by her knowledge of an audience. She kept her diary, knowing full well it was an artefact she'd be passing onto her children so they'd have a keepsake of their life in this new land. Likewise, her letters home are slightly coloured by a wish to convince her friends and family (and put them at ease) that she and her husband John are doing fine and flourishing. 

But this biography, and indeed Michelle Scott Tucker's true talent - is in filling in the blanks, both logically and emotionally so. And you get this sense from her at the very beginning, when she goes over the fact that Elizabeth had a miscarriage during her voyage to Australia; 

Convict ship Scarborough was no place for a gentleman's daughter. Elizabeth Macarthur was cold, pregnant, and bone-weary. The Southern Ocean pummelled the ship with storm after storm and her soldier husband and infant son were both grievously ill. Elizabeth prayed. 

Somewhere on that roaring sea, exhausted by her nursing duties, and constantly pitched and tumbled, Elizabeth was 'thrown into premature labour, & delivered of a little Girl who lived but for an hour.' There was no one on Scarborough to help. No other women were on board, and the ship's surgeon was unlikely to have been sober, let alone skilled. We only know of the nameless baby's existence from a single line in a letter Elizabeth wrote to her mother, many months later. There is no record of a shipboard funeral, no record of where the small bundle wrapped in weighted canvas was delivered to the sea, and no record of Elizabeth's grief. All we have - all Elizabeth had - is that single tragic hour. 

Chills. And I knew I would be in good hands from the moment of that premise - and indeed, I was. 

Scott Tucker's empathy, interest and respect for Elizabeth Macarthur is so apparent throughout the book - it makes her story sing. I was actually surprised at the suspense created within the pages, but Scott Tucker masterfully leaves each chapter on a note of suspension and intrigue, and I did find myself rushing back to read. 

Scott Tucker also doesn't shy away from the inherent discomfort of writing about a 'founding family' of Australia, when ours is a nation of First Peoples and rightful owners. She navigates this aspect with the utmost respect and tenderness, and I was appreciative of the education she also gave me about our Indigenous historical figures - like Bennelong and Pemulwuy. As well as the (oft unheard of, because there were so few) positive interactions between colonists and First Peoples, particularly by those British who went to great lengths to learn from and about Indigenous populations - like William Dawes, who was an astronomer, engineer, botanist, surveyor, explorer, abolitionist and first person to record Aboriginal languages when he befriended a young woman called Patyegarang, who became his language teacher. And, yes, William Dawes sounds like a total spunk, his relationship with Patyegarang completely fascinating and sweet (but never improper - though one recorded phrase she taught him was; "Putuwá: to warm ones hand by the fire & then to squeeze gently the fingers of another person" and yes I SWOON!) 

I also loved that Michelle Scott Tucker doesn't try to impose a modern sensibility on Elizabeth Macarthur (who had really interesting relations with local Indigenous populations, but could still refer to them with the distressing disposition of a British invader) ... BUT, Scott Tucker does wonder if we can also judge Elizabeth by the company she kept - and funnily enough, William Dawes was a dear friend of hers, who taught her the stars. So there's that.

I rollicked through 'Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World' in a way I was never going to with Chernow's Alexander Hamilton biography. BUT - I think there is something of the Hamilton's to the Macarthur story, and certainly Michelle Scott Tucker's spirited writing of history is something I think even Lin-Manuel Miranda would applaud. I mean - the events of 'Hamilton The Musical' are going on while Australia is *just* being colonised. There's no comparison to story and narrative ... except that Elizabeth's husband (who was a bit of a moron, but whose heart seemed to sometimes be in the right place?) did LOVE a duel. And I genuinely think Elizabeth Macarthur and Eliza Hamilton would have got along like a house on fire as they commiserated over their brilliant but inept husbands who left the telling of history to the ladies and whose stories were, often, even more compelling than their famous husband's. Just sayin'! 

I really can't do justice to this book or Elizabeth Macarthur's extraordinary life! I can't even begin to tell you the ways Michelle Scott Tucker further elucidated on my abysmal early Australian history education, or the ways she bought this time and place to life for me. I love, love, loved this book and even if you *think* that historical biography isn't for you, you're guaranteed to love it too.

5/5 

'Addition' by Toni Jordan

From the BLURB:

Grace Lisa Vandenburg counts. The letters in her name (19). The steps she takes every morning to the local café (920); the number of poppy seeds on her slice of orange cake, which dictates the number of bites she’ll take to finish it. Grace counts everything, because numbers hold the world together. And she needs to keep an eye on how they’re doing.

Seamus Joseph O'Reilly (also a 19, with the sexiest hands Grace has ever seen) thinks she might be better off without the counting. If she could hold down a job, say. Or open her kitchen cupboards without conductng an inventory, or make a sandwich containing an unknown number of sprouts.

Grace’s problem is that Seamus doesn’t count. Her other problem is…he does.

‘Addition’ is a fabulous debut novel. Grace is witty, flirtatious and headstrong. She’s not a bit sentimental but even so, she may be about to lose track of the number of ways she can fall in love.

‘Addition’ was Australian author Toni Jordan’s 2008 debut novel. It is both a romantic comedy and heartfelt tale of mental health and individuality.

I have owned but not read this book since 2008, and have known of its brilliance for that long too. This is partly because Toni Jordan attended the same RMIT writing and editing course as I did (she graduated a few years before I attended though) and all my lecturers raved about her and the breakout success of ‘Addition’ – a few of my lecturers are even thanked in the acknowledgments.

And yet – 2017 is the year of Toni Jordan for me (or, well – technically 2016 was but I couldn’t remember my Christmas read of ‘Our Tiny Useless Hearts’ so … nevermind!) 2017 is the year of Toni Jordan for me. I think I’m going to read all of her books as a treat to myself, and after this – ‘Fall Girl’ will be next!

‘Addition’ is about 35-year-old obsessive-compulsive counter Grace, who is on leave from her teaching job because her counting compulsion came to the attention of parents (“they wanted me teaching their children, not counting them,” she explains at one point). Grace is high-functioning in her compulsion, so long as she sticks to routines and keeps her life patterned by numbers her world will keep ticking along … number of steps to the café, poppy seeds in a slice of orange cake, 10 bananas bought from the supermarket. Her one true love is similarly tortured-by-numbers inventor Nikola Tesla, whose photo is framed and sits by her bedside.

Then Grace steals Seamus’ banana. This is not a euphemism. She swipes it from his grocery basket while waiting in line at the supermarket – to complete her perfect 10. Over the next few days, Grace’s carefully ordered patterns seem to keep leading her back to Seamus … and the two eventually embark on a relationship (Grace’s first in three years).

What follows is both an utterly sexy and tender romance, and a heartbreaking exploration of mental health that questions conformity and normality in the most respectful and humorous ways.

And let’s make something 100% clear – this is a romance (to me, at least – Bookthingo thought differently and that’s okay). But to me – it’s also a *hot* romance. I am coming to quickly admire Toni Jordan’s sweetly sensual stories which beautifully uphold the one true romance rule for me – that is, that our female protagonist has to stand a little taller by the end of the novel. And on her own two feet, with a companion who encourages her autonomy but wishes to be apart of her journey. If I have any complaints about the book, it’s that I would have liked a little bit more – and especially scenes of Grace meeting Seamus’s family.

I am loving my journey through Toni Jordan’s backlist, and I’m not even a little sorry that it’s taken me this long to finally get around to reading her … because these are just the books I needed *right now*. To get me out of a few reading slumps, and to be companionable friends when world events start squeezing in. I’m not sorry that I’ve taken a while to join the Toni Jordan fan-club, I’m just happy that I found my way eventually.

5/5

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'Our Tiny, Useless Hearts' by Toni Jordan

From the BLURB:

Henry has ended his marriage to Caroline and headed off to Noosa with Mercedes’ grade three teacher, Martha.

Caroline, having shredded a wardrobe-full of Henry’s suits, has gone after them.

Craig and Lesley have dropped over briefly from next door to catch up on the fallout from Henry and Caroline’s all-night row.

And Janice, Caroline’s sister, is staying for the weekend to look after the girls because Janice is the sensible one. A microbiologist with a job she loves, a fervent belief in the beauty of the scientific method and a determination to make a solo life after her divorce from Alec.

Then Craig returns through the bedroom window expecting a tryst with Caroline and finds Janice in her bed, Lesley storms in with a jealous heart and a mouthful of threats, Henry, Caroline and Martha arrive back from the airport in separate taxis—and let’s not even get started on Brayden the pizza guy.

Janice can cope with all that. But when Alec knocks on the door things suddenly get complicated.

Harnessing the exquisite timing of the great comedies to the narrative power and emotional intelligence for which she is famous, Toni Jordan brings all her wit, wisdom and flair to this brilliant, hilarious novel.

‘Our Tiny Useless Hearts’ is a 2016 romantic comedy novel from Australian author, Toni Jordan.

I did read this in December last year. But I clearly have brain-fog for the entire Christmas month and cannot for the life of me remember the reading clearly … so I spontaneously decided to re-read Toni Jordan’s comedy about love and marriage, and I was absolutely rapt.

This is the first Toni Jordan book I’ve ever read, but after doing so I (must have enjoyed it, back in December?) went out and bought her other novels ‘Addition’ and ‘Fall Girl’, and now that I’ve had a rebooted reading I intend to get stuck into those ASAP too!

I won’t even try to recount the plot of this book – instead I’ll say it’s a sort of modern Melbourne suburban take on Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, except the comedy-of-manners is more a comedy-of-morons who’ve lost their heads and hearts to utterly foolish infidelities and self-inflicted heartburn. It really is wonderful!

Liane Moriarty provides an endorsement quote, calling it “cutting and clever, and yet so very romantic, as though P. G. Wodehouse had satirised life in the suburbs.” This is a very appropriate endorsee – because Toni Jordan’s novel did remind me of Liane Moriarty’s work, minus the seedy underbelly that goes with her explorations of love and betrayal. Jordan takes a much more light-hearted approach, that still manages to cut to the heart of the matter;

‘Something special, I mean. Your moment, whatever that means.’ 

He breathes out in a rush and leans against the side of the house, he tilts his head back and rests his hands on his thighs. ‘I think everybody feels like that.’ 

‘What if it never happens? What if we’re all here, getting ready, like our entire life is the night before the first day of school, and we’re waiting and waiting and the moment we’re preparing for – it never actually comes?’

Jordan’s novel is also a romance. Through and through. Which is great, and also caught me off guard because Toni Jordan is *so* beloved in Australia and especially by indie bookstores (again – wonderful! And what took me so long to get cluey?!) – but generally Melbourne publishing has an issue with romance … insofar as they don’t respect it very much. There’s no doubt that Jordan brilliantly weaves romance with marital dramas, family observations, and general suburban rot too;

‘When you ask the little boys in my class what they want to be when they grow up, none of them say “a man”,’ says Martha. ‘They all want to be boys for ever, but boys who have a magnet in their chest that prevents anything touching their heart. And that also powers their flying iron suit, so they can live in their penthouse with their car collection and play video games with their friends.’

… but all romance does this. Toni Jordan is writing contemporary romance, but I see her often getting labelled as ‘women’s fiction’ – but I hope romance readers of Australia are like me and have found their way to her hot, biting observations of the up’s and down’s of love. It’s totally worth it!

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5/5  

'Beautiful Messy Love' by Tess Woods

From the BLURB:

What happens when love and loyalty collide?

When football star Nick Harding hobbles into the Black Salt Cafe the morning after the night before, he is served by Anna, a waitress with haunted-looking eyes and no interest in footballers, famous or otherwise. Nick is instantly drawn to this exotic, intelligent girl. But a relationship between them risks shame for her conservative refugee family and backlash for Nick that could ruin his career.

Meanwhile, Nick's sister, Lily, is struggling to finish her medical degree. When she meets Toby, it seems that for the first time she is following her heart, not the expectations of others. Yet what starts out as a passionate affair with a man still grieving after his wife's death slips quickly into dangerous dependency.

Scarred by tragedy each in their own way, these warm, hopeful couples must overcome prejudice and heartbreak to prove just how much they will give for beautiful messy love.

A gorgeous, hard-hitting novel that touches on celebrity, asylum, cultural integration and family tragedy, this is a book with heart and soul.

‘Beautiful Messy Love’ is the second Women’s Fiction/Romance book from Australian author, Tess Woods.

Full disclosure: Tess is an author with the Literary Agency I work for, Jacinta di Mase. My review though, is in no way impacted by my connection to Tess (really, if I don’t like a book these days, I just don’t write about it). But I will say – I loved ‘Beautiful Messy Love’ so much, I texted Jacinta late one night, asking when Tess would have a third book out – so that’s just a little bonus to the connection!

‘Beautiful Messy Love’ is the story of two whirlwind romances that start in the most unlikely of ways, and meet their fair share of hurdles along the way. One concerns an AFL-footballer with a reputation, deciding to turn his life around right when he meets a beautiful Egyptian refugee who he falls hard and fast for. The second concerns a young medical student starting a risky romance with the estranged husband of a patient she meets during her oncology-ward rounds.

The novel is written in alternative-POV chapters from each of the four players – as we get to know all the baggage that each person brings to their new relationship, and the outside complications that threaten them all. Everything from media scrutiny to xenophobia, past-trauma and heartbreak are detailed and examined with lovely tenderness and cutting observation.

I absolutely adored this book, and gobbled it up in two days. I was actually surprised that I connected so viscerally with both couples and their stories – especially because one romance, between med-student Lily and the very tricky coupling with a grieving ex-husband Toby, sounds absolutely shocking in theory … but on the page, Woods teased this couple out with so much heat and sensuality, it was hard not to fall for them and root for them, even as all their biggest problems and obstacles were still painfully obvious.

The stand-out in this book though, is the romance between footballer Nick Harding and young refugee woman Anwar ‘Anna’. Tess Woods has written such a beautifully complex romance between them – that I also appreciated for how thoroughly Australian it is, and the bigger discussions it allowed Woods to have.

Anna has an awfully painful story of how and why she sought refuge in Australia, and coupled with the combustible media-landscape for AFL celebrities – Woods was really able to peel back a rather ugly underbelly to Australian society, media and politics that made for higher stakes in this romance, coupled with really thoughtful discussion about much bigger issues. There’s no lecture here, just a very human story that was all too believable and heartbreaking.

The book does end on a sense of … open-endedness for some that left me just a little sad to not know for sure that everyone got a happy ending. But that also felt very true, and anything neater than what we got would have felt rather disingenuous and perhaps too sickly-sweet? So I almost appreciated the sour with the sweet. But not so much that I won’t be hoping that some of these character pop up in another book – or short story/novella?

I’ve been in such a reading-slump this year, purely because I’m doing so much manuscript reading and assessing that my recreational-reading has felt a little clogged … but now I’m well and truly back in a reading rhythm, and thanks in large party to the addictiveness of ‘Beautiful Messy Love’. It’s romance that packs a punch, tender and thoughtful with a fantastic hot-streak. Tess Woods has now leapt to my auto-buy list, and I cannot wait to read more from her!

5/5

'Ballad for a Mad Girl' by Vikki Wakefield

Book received from Publisher 

From the BLURB:

Everyone knows seventeen-year-old Grace Foley is a bit mad. She’s a prankster and a risk-taker, and she’s not afraid of anything—except losing. As part of the long-running feud between two local schools in Swanston, Grace accepts a challenge to walk the pipe. That night she experiences something she can’t explain.

The funny girl isn’t laughing anymore. She’s haunted by voices and visions—but nobody believes a girl who cries wolf.

As she’s drawn deeper into a twenty-year-old mystery surrounding missing girl Hannah Holt, the thin veil between this world and the next begins to slip. She can no longer tell what’s real or imagined—all she knows is the ghosts of Swanston, including that of her own mother, are restless. It seems one of them has granted her an extraordinary gift at a terrible price.

Everything about her is changing—her body, her thoughts, even her actions seem to belong to a stranger. Grace is losing herself, and her friends don’t understand. Is she moving closer to the truth? Or is she heading for madness?

‘Ballad for a Mad Girl’ is the new young adult book from Australia author Vikki Wakefield.

Vikki is one of my favourite authors writing today. Hands down. I have loved all of her books, and even though Ballad marks the biggest departure from her contemporary backlist – it’s another one of hers that I’ll cherish and count among my new modern, Aussie YA favourites.

Where as in the past Vikki has written very gritty, realist teen narratives – Ballad is a bit of a horror/speculative-fiction change-up, in which protagonist Grace Foley finds her body inhabited by the ghost of a teenage girl who died tragically, decades ago. Grace finds her ghostly companion after a death-defying school challenge goes horribly wrong, and in the midst of her deep-seated grief over the death of her own mother a year ago.

Now Grace’s dog is wary of her and biting mad, she of – zero artistic talent – can suddenly draw haunting portraits, and there’s a girl always standing in the corner of her room at night.

Even though there are horror and gothic threads in this book, long-time fans of Vikki’s should know that they’re still getting a gritty novel from this beloved author who is celebrated for her gut-punching YA – because she knows that speculative-fiction without relatable backbone means nothing. Vikki takes the haunting and uses it as an extension of Grace’s grief and denial over her mother’s death, as well as her uneasiness over growing up and apart from her core group of friends. There were times when I felt like maybe there were one-two-many metaphoric ideas happening – between the death of Grace’s mum, and her friendship dramas, as well as Grace’s own mental health questions – but by the end all of these narratives were bought together rather neatly for a satisfying, if haunting conclusion.

Vikki Wakefield is one of the most creative and daring authors writing for young adults today. Ballad for a Mad Girl is an Aussie YA Gothic tale that smartly uses the supernatural to explore the depths of grief and growing up, and the pain to be found in both. This is a caring and keening novel, creepy but tender and wholly marvellous.

5/5

'Fearless' by Fiona Higgins

From the BLURB:

What happens when six pampered Westerners on a spiritual retreat in Bali end up fighting for their lives?

Six strangers from across the world meet on the tropical island of Bali to attend a course designed to help them face their fears. Their backgrounds are as diverse as their fears - which range from flying, public speaking and heights, through to intimacy, failure and death.

Friendships and even romance blossom as the participants are put through a series of challenges which are unusual, confronting and sometimes hilarious. A week of fun in the sun suddenly turns into something far more serious, however, when the unthinkable happens - a tragic disaster that puts the group in deadly danger, testing the individual courage of every member.

‘Fearless’ is a new fiction novel from Australian author, Fiona Higgins.

I was really excited to read this novel, as I’d thoroughly enjoyed Higgins’ ‘Wife on the Run’ back in 2014, and everything about ‘Fearless’ was broadcasting being a “great summer read” to me. But what really pushed me into reading this one was my catching the 2012 movie ‘The Impossible’ on TV one night. It’s a great movie based on a true story, about a British family on holiday in Thailand, who are separated by the destruction and chaotic aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The blurb of ‘Fearless’ alludes to ‘an unspeakable act’ happening in Bali, that throws six strangers’ lives into mayhem – and of course that’s alluding to an event similar to the 2002 Bali Bombings – but ‘The Impossible’ reminded me of the power in such stories where an unfathomable disaster happens in the middle of “paradise” … so I delved into ‘Fearless’, and hated it. Absolutely hated it.

The premise of ‘Fearless’ is these six strangers from all corners of the globe come to Bali to attend a Fearless retreat where they intend to combat everything from a snake phobia, to fear of heights and flying, to general dissatisfaction with life. We get a chapter that follows each of the six strangers, to understand the deeper meanings behind their wish to combat fear. And straight away from meeting these characters, the story started to fall down for me because there’s so much cliché … there’s Annie, an older mid-Westerner who is (of course) an outspoken devout Christian and overweight American. Remy is a Frenchman who falls for Australian Janelle while she’s wearing a rash-vest and zinc on her nose (because of course he does – Frenchmen are so very romantic). Henry is a paunchy, British bird-watcher and quintessential geek (because he’s British?). Cara is a broken mother … and even her, who has one of the more compelling and believable backstories, I wish there’d be a decision to make a subversive gender-flip and have her be a father grieving the loss of his child, just so that not every character was so darn predictable. And then there’s Lorenzo – an Italian photographer who has experienced some Bill Henson-esque backlash in his home country, amid accusations that his artistic photographs of ingénue girls are inappropriate …  his introspective story takes a bizarrely sharp turn towards the end, and I couldn’t help but feel he got lugged with this exploration on the cliché that Italian men are sleazy and pervy or something?

It wasn’t just that these characters all felt built on the most typical of tourism clichés, it’s also that they’re all kind of unbearable. At one point, the Australian Janelle puts on a saccharine “presentation” to be filmed for her bulimic teenage niece, wherein she quotes bumper-sticker philosophy while stripping down to her underwear and Taylor Swift’s ‘Fifteen’ plays from her iPod in the background. I just … my eyes were so busy rolling, I could barely focus on the page during that scene (which is also when Frenchman Remy really falls in love with her, because … of course.)

‘Of course,’ said Remy, impressed by how much Janelle seemed to care. About the orangutans of Borneo, the world’s rainforests, the gamelan orchestras of Bali, teenagers with eating disorders and, naturally, her own family. He considered what he cared about. The last time he’d cried was after the defeat of Paris Saint-Germain to archrivals Montpellier in round 32 of the Ligue 1 football season. Janelle’s compassion is more than refreshing, he thought. It’s intoxicating.

But the book was also off-putting to me for the presentation of Bali, as seen through the eyes of these Westerners … it reminded me of a Kirkus book review I read once, of Heidi R. Kling’s YA book ‘Sea’ in which the reviewer accused the story of being; “Disaster tourism masquerading as romance…” and the last line of the review was also apt for Higgins’ ‘Fearless’; “Well-meaning, but ultimately about slumming in disaster zones for a summer’s recuperative fun.” Because Higgins does present Bali as a “disaster zone”, essentially. Everything from Annie’s observations of their abuse of street dogs, to Remy watching a woman defecate in the street and all six hearing locals bad-mouth the Javanese … none of this sat well with me.

So, nothing in this book was really working for me – why did I keep reading? Well, I wanted to get to the “unspeakable act” tagline on the cover … I thought everything at the Fearless retreat and getting to know these strangers was boring or infuriating, but maybe they’d rise to the occasion in the midst of a disaster? But this plot-turn doesn’t happen until around page 220 (of a 391-page book) and it did feel utterly disjointed from the rest of the story … it felt cheap, actually – as did the whole book for me, unfortunately and ultimately.

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1/5