Review: This House of Grief

This House of Grief by Helen Garner
My rating: 0 of 5 stars



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Review: The Book of Form and Emptiness

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hearing voices. Sounds like a work day in my office. However, this is such an imaginative voice with heart warming push and pull of the mother son relationship - both mourning over the same person loss. Benny eventually finds friends he feels a belonging to. His mum finds relieve from the ties of objects to the past. It’s interesting that Benny heard the voice of objects and his mum’s hoarding is an equivalent- anthropologising human qualities to objects. It reveals the humanity of those cast aside by society.

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Review: The Low Road

The Low Road by Chris Womersley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s a book very full with story. Every page something happens - someone dies or someone kills somebody. It’s not a mystery as there is no crime to solve but it kept me wondering what happened to him or her. The characters’ past are slowly revealed as the story progresses. I learnt about the author from the ABC book shelf podcast. It’s a page turner. But I did feel the last section, the killings and tortures seems unnecessary and doesn’t gives me any better understanding of Lee. It was just a little too many murders and deaths crammed in the last part of the book.

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Review: The Torrent

The Torrent by Dinuka McKenzie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gripping with twist at every turn. It’s a page turner. Each detail is purposeful and has implications. It’s such a well planned plot.

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Review: Bewilderment

Bewilderment by Richard Powers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked the story overall but I felt it a bit too similar to flowers of algenon - which was also mentioned in the book. I felt Robyn a bit like greta thunberg on the spectrum… there is a sense of doom that runs through the story so the ending isn’t that unexpected although I still thought it would have been nicer to end on a happier note

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Review: The Last White Man

The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It reminds me of Kafka's metamorphosis and Jose Saramaggo's Blindness - the overnight change of a person into a taboo of society infused with Covid paranoia. I felt the last part of the book, the aftermath of the peak of the disease, a little unnecessary. Nonetheless, the story was gripping and tight. To me, the story mostly spoke about race - racism to engrained that even a dark man despises himself. Whilst even the mother's love of her child can be tainted by these prejudices, the latter part of the book also describes how true love can see beyond the stigma and find the person underneath. Great read though not excellent.

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Review: The Child in Time

The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A twisted story of strange and tragic events, much like the way the story portrays time in a non linear twisted thing. But one idea stuck in my mind- time is a vessel for fulfilment of our desires. Childhood, adulthood, birth and death happen through the medium of time. Time carries pain but it also contains joy and pleasure. With time comes death but it also gives life - like Charles and Kate is followed by birth and new life for Stephen and Julia.

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Review: Sea of Tranquility

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a book! It must be so well planned - beginning with different characters in different times but the links are revealed in the second part of the book. What does make “life” real? Whatever life is, we are the ones living it. Whether it is 100 years ago or 1000 years from now, life is about experiences, and we have to exist in a time and a world, life is as real as we want to make it.

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Review: Losing Face

Losing Face by George Haddad
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a story of a migrant family. Each member has their own trauma and secrets hiding their weaknesses in order to hold up a face of strength to defend outside forces that tries to break apart the family. I also think the title also recognises the cynicism of this need to maintain a front - it is about pride and saving face. The topic of consent seems timely with the recent discussion over Britney Higgins case. However the themes of fitting in, family secrets, migrant identity are time less issues subtly brought out through the words and story lines

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Review: Home Before Night

Home Before Night by J.P. Pomare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a twist?! I could not stop until I finished the story. Every line was vital and an absolute page turner.

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Review: The Swimmers

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Perhaps because I’m a swimmer that I didn’t find the beginning half of the book too strange. Although the swimmers’ believes about the crack led me to think perhaps this was going into some sort of fantasy or magical realism story. That it did not. Rather, the second half of the book should have a warning for any elderly person for disturbing content! Whilst I myself frequently go in and out of aged care facilities and I can certainly understand the potential for despair, loneliness in such settings, I felt it exaggerated. It felt like she was describing a dystopian state controlling these old people and manipulating these fragile vulnerable old people for their money. I sometimes I do feel like these facilities are inhumane and money grabbing but I fail to see the point the author wants to make with the story - is it to say that anyone of us ordinary person can develop dementia and die not knowing ourselves anymore??

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Review: The Spare Room

The Spare Room by Helen Garner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In spite of the often light hearted description of the situation of the book, there is a very dark undercurrent of our avoidance of mortality flowing through the book. I love the description of the complex love and hate, demands and compromises we expect of relationships, friendships specifically. Beautiful language. I’d love to have friends like Helen Garner

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Review: Oh William!

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I know people have raged about the book - at how well she captured the conflicted emotions of marriage and intimate relationships. However having read Helen Garner’s the Spare Room shortly after, I felt Garner’s description of human relationships and use of language superior to Strout’s. Above average book and an entertaining read.

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Review: How High We Go in the Dark

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Only in the second half of the book did I realise they are short stories in and of them selves but there is a thread of connection between them. I was slightly disappointed when I realised they won’t somehow come together. But it’s a chilling theme and speaks to loneliness. Pandemic or not , we still disconnect and even more lonely after the pandemic. There is no lesson learnt…

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