Our latest reviews
Don't Look Now: Book 1 by Paul Jennings & Andrew Weldon
Young readers will enjoy this new, light-hearted series from celebrated Australian author Paul Jennings. With two in each book, these short and amusing stories, illustrated by Andrew Weldon, are a good choice for children who are ready for their next…
Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl
Even though Roald Dahl’s masterpieces of storytelling were a constant feature of my childhood, this book (his first autobiography), along with its follow-up, Going Solo, has somehow passed me by until nearly two decades later.
Dahl’s hilarious, terrifying and…
How to be Invisible by Tim Lott
Strato Nyman, a young boy from an eccentric English family, has no friends, he’s being bullied and his parents seem to be on the brink of splitting up. In this strange and very readable story, Strato uses science to explain…
So Much Closer by Susane Colasanti
Brooke has been in love with Scott Abrams for the past two years. She’s never told him how she feels, but that’s all going to change at the junior picnic. Brooke’s plans are turned on their head though when, during…
The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn
Certain books we read as adolescents stay with us. For Claire Zorn, Louise Lawrence’s Children of the Dust planted the seed in her mind that would eventually become her debut novel about a nuclear winter. For this reader, another haunting…
The Never List by Koethi Zan
Nineteen years ago, best friends Sarah and Jennifer were in a car accident that killed Jennifer’s mother. The two girls, bound together, made a list of things to never do that would keep them safe. Sixteen years ago, the list…
A Beautiful Truth by Colin McAdam
The blurred line between humans and animals is a familiar one, both in science and in literature. In his latest novel, Colin McAdam has vividly woven these worlds together with humour and tenderness.
It is 1972, and while they live…
The Vale Girl by Nelika McDonald
Nelika McDonald’s debut novel is about a missing girl from a small town in NSW, set in the late ’80s. The author has chosen her era and setting well; the fictional town of Banville feels claustrophobic and hostile to the…
The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell
Smack beneath the buckle of Bible-Belt Missouri, the town of Arbor is populated by folk ‘God has done for, and done up good’. Alma DeGreer Dunahew, the maid, recounts to her grandson past events that still afflict the town, centering…
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
I was recommended Elena Ferrante by a friend, along with cautionary advice that Ferrante was ‘close to the bone’, a phrase somewhat akin to James Wood’s description of her writing as ‘intensely, violently personal’.
I started with The Days of…
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