 Reviewed by Lena Jean Ganley
BOOK BASICS Author: David Nicholls Publisher & Pages: Hodder & Stoughton, 435 pages Audience: Adult Blurb: You can live your whole life not realising what you are looking for is right in front of you. 15th Juy 1988. Emma and Dexter meet on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows? Highlight: An easy to read novel with many humorous anecdotes. Caution: Clichéd and obvious, it is very hard to drag yourself past page 203.
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 Reviewed by Ashleigh
BOOK BASICS Author: Caitlyn Duffy Publisher & Pages: Lovestruck Literary, 318 pages Audience: Young Adult Blurb: At the age of 15, Taylor Beauforte has only met her father twice in person. After all, he is the lead singer of a world-famous rock band, constantly on the cover of music magazines and giving interviews on MTV. He pays for Taylor to attend the Treadwell Academy, a prestigious boarding school in Massachusetts, and provides her mother with monthly checks to cover her basic needs, but has never made much of an effort to play an active part in Taylor’s life. Taylor’s mom Dawn is the only family she has ever really known, and because of Dawn’s hard-partying Hollywood lifestyle, studious Taylor is happiest on the other side of the country in Massachusetts with her nose buried in a book. When Taylor’s mom unexpectedly dies the summer before Taylor starts her junior year, she receives a crash course in fame. She has no choice but to join her father and his new family on their summer concert tour before she has even had a chance to mourn the loss of her mother. Life as the daughter of a rock star seems like it would be enviable, but Taylor can’t figure her dad out. He seems like a supportive authority figure (even if he’s kind of a fashion tragedy), but she is collecting a growing pile of evidence that he’s a liar and a cheat. Her stepmother, Jill, can’t seem to decide if she wants to treat Taylor like a girlfriend or a nuisance. Having had no time to grieve and say goodbye to her childhood before being thrust into the limelight, Taylor is suddenly finding herself in situations she could have never imagined before this summer. With no one else to turn to, Taylor falls head over heels in love with Jake, the teenage son of one of the band’s touring groupies. Taylor has growing concerns about Jake’s background and the suspicious relationship between his mom and her own father, but is desperate for something real in her life onto which she can build a future. When Jake offers Taylor an opportunity to join him on a whirlwind adventure and leave her problems with her father far behind, Taylor has to decide – should she carve out her own way in the world, or try to repair the relationship she has with her only living parent? Over the course of the summer with the band, Taylor learns the depths of her own strength, the difficulty of overcoming loss, and that the definition of family means much more than shared bloodlines. Highlight: This book is a great read for girls 15+ Caution: There are some more adult themes. Highlight: Adults can enjoy this book too!  Reviewed by Ivy
BOOK BASICS Author: Kersie Khambatta Publisher & Pages: Kersie Khambatta; 1st Edition, 189 pages Audience: General Blurb: Pandu the Dabbawalla and other simple short stories. Includes: Pandu the Dabbawalla; Catch the bull by the horn; Seat 13; Justice; Deflated IV drip; The white farmer; The loser; Ferrari Spider; Oh so wild a region; King postie; The bartender; Cooking an egg; Do cars have teeth?; The mobile phone and me; Cannabis and worse; Foxie; Stick ‘em up!; Culture shock; Silverbacks; Bushfire; The rip and the orca; White river; Flashing police lights missing. Highlight: Very simple style of writing. Caution: The simplicity takes away the liveliness and dramatic imagery. Highlight: Each story has either, irony, humour, an unlucky circumstance, or a twist. Caution: A few short stories are harder to understand and grasp than others.  Reviewed by Ashleigh
BOOK BASICS Author: Louise Bagshawe Publisher & Pages: Orion Books, 480 pages Audience: Adult Blurb: Three women in search of a dream – but one of them with a nightmare in her heart. Screenwriter Megan Silver is a waitress in an L.A. burger joint, and her life is going nowhere fast. But she has an idea worth a million dollars – if only she can get someone to read her script . . . Supermodel Roxana Felix is the richest, bitchiest catwalk queen of them all. But it’s not enough; she wants to be a movie star and she’ll let nothing stand in her way . . . Studio President Eleanor Marshall is the most powerful woman in Hollywood, yet the romantic inside her longs for love – and a baby. But right now she desperately needs a smash hit to save her job . . . Highlight: An entertaining story about three independent women. Caution: Adult themes (aka many sex scenes). Highlight: Great for women who need empowerment.  Reviewed by Ashleigh
BOOK BASICS Author: Lionel Shriver Publisher & Pages: Fourth Estate (HarperCollins), 529 pages Audience: Adult Blurb: Shep Knacker has long saved for ‘the Afterlife’, an idyllic retreat in the Third World where his nest egg can last forever. Exasperated that his wife, Glynis, has concocted endless excuses why it’s never the right time to go, Shep finally announces he’s leaving for a Tanzanian island, with or without her. Yet Glynis has some news of her own: she’s deathly ill. Shep numbly puts his dream aside, while his nest egg is steadily devastated by staggering bills that their health insurance only partially covers. Astonishingly, illness not only strains their marriage but saves it. Read time: Couldn’t finish it. Caution: Writing dragged on and on and on and on and on and on... Caution: Far too much ‘purple prose’. Caution: The author really went into depth with each subject. Caution: This was a snooze-fest.  Reviewed by Ashleigh
BOOK BASICS Author: Sara Zarr Publisher & Pages: Little, Brown and Company (Hachette Book Group), 192 pages Audience: General Blurb: I was thirteen when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy’s Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night. Tommy was seventeen and the supposed friend of my brother, Darren. I didn’t love him. I’m not sure I even liked him. In a moment, Deanna Lambert’s teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of “school slut,” Deanna longs to escape a life defined by her past. With subtle grace, complicated wisdom, and striking emotion, Story of a Girl reminds us of our human capacity for resilience, epiphany, and redemption. Highlight: Deanna is the perfect example of how resilient humans can be. Caution: Sometimes the story felt a bit flat. Highlight: I could feel what Deanna was feeling. Caution: Sometimes it seems like this book was meant for studying in high school, not reading for enjoyment.  Reviewed by Ashleigh
BOOK BASICS Author: Fleur Beale Publisher & Pages: HarperCollins, 110 pages Audience: Young Adult Blurb: Mum was sick, Jude was crazy and Gina was nuts. Life was one huge, great bundle of laughs. Lily has a crushing load of problems to cope with for someone who is fifteen, and then her best friend, Jude, turns away from her for a nerd called Kev, the world’s biggest user. Her mother and young sister, Fish-face Gina, both need a heap of looking after and life becomes one long, hard drag. The bright lights seem so far away. But there are a few light spots with other friends, and help comes from surprising quarters. Will Gina be taken away to a foster home, or will the gutsy Lily win through? Highlight: Lily is an awesome example of a strong female character. Caution: There are some adult themes in this book. Highlight: The character development is fantastic.  Reviewed by Ashleigh
BOOK BASICS Author: Erica Kennedy Publisher & Pages: Arrow Books (Random House), 506 pages Audience: General Blurb: She’s found fame and fortune, but could she lose herself? In the world of hip-hop Lamont Jackson is a major player. He’s CEO of Triple Large Entertainment and he’s won his considerable reputation by signing some of the most successful and controversial young rappers in the business. But now he needs to find himself an R’n’B crossover artist to prove to his paymasters that he should succeed his mentor, Irv Greene, as head of Augusta Music. He thinks he’s found her in Marie-Jean Castiglione. Stunningly beautiful, with a voice to match, Lamont intends to mould his discovery into the perfect ghetto-fabulous superstar. But before long Mimi, as she’s to be known, is seduced by the clothes, the fame and the sophisticated lifestyle she could only dream of as a naïve young girl growing up in Toledo. Then, as her career gathers momentum, she finds herself losing control of her life. Highlight: The main character cast features mostly African-American characters. Caution: There is frequent use of cuss/swear words. Highlight: The quality of writing is very high and easy-to-read. Caution: The (greedy) male main character is extremely unlikable, as is his snobby mother.  Reviewed by Ashleigh
BOOK BASICS Author: Michelle Holman Publisher & Pages: HarperCollins, 368 pages Audience: General Blurb: What would happen if an Angel decided to play Devil’s Advocate? After a head-on collision between a glamorous sports car and a serviceable but very plain little car, a kind-hearted angel does a swap in Heaven’s waiting room. A short, feisty rugby-loving schoolteacher gets a second chance and finds herself in hospital in the body of a tall, glamorous, philandering American wife. She has a wealthy, drop-dead gorgeous husband who looks as if he’s just stepped out of a romance novel – but for some reason he can’t stand the sight of her. She thinks she’s gone crazy, and if she tells anyone they’ll know she has … and lock her up. They’ll think she’s bonkers. And she can’t run away and hide: she’s got a broken leg. Highlight: It’s certainly a unique plot. Caution: The character’s voices felt sort of flat at some points (but only in relation to the situations they were in – so I guess this isn’t really a Caution at all.) Highlight: Fully developed characters.  Reviewed by Ashleigh
BOOK BASICS Author: Rebecca Chance Publisher & Pages: Pocket Books (Simon & Schuster), 453 pages Audience: Adult Blurb: Stunning good looks, a gorgeous fiancé, a limitless trust fund: London’s leading It Girl, Lola Fitzgerald, leads a charmed life, a pampered princess whose rich father funds her every whim. Evie Lopez is just as beautiful, but she’s had to work her own way up life’s greasy pole – literally. Now she’s hooked herself and indulgent sugar daddy, Evie has abandoned her pole-dancing career, swapping New York’s seedy strip bars for a luxury Manhattan penthouse. But Lola and Evie are on a collision course with their nemesis. When Lola’s father falls into a coma, her ruthless stepmother Carin seizes control of the purse strings – and cuts off her spoiled stepdaughter without a penny. Then Carin evicts Evie, her husband’s mistress, from her fabulous love-nest and adds insult to injury by stealing her diamonds. It’s riches to rags overnight. Although they loathe one another on sight, Lola and Evie must team up if they are to defeat their common enemy: Carin, the Ice Queen. Let the battle commence. Highlight: Evie was a real badass character. Caution: Lola was a spoiled princess and very unlikable. Highlight: It was great to see two people from vastly different backgrounds work together for justice. Caution: I did get a bit bored of Lola and her life. I wanted more Evie. |
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