JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Miracle Mutts by Laura Greaves

Heartwarming stories of dogs that survived – and thrived – against the odds.

It’s no secret that dogs have indomitable spirits, that they’re tireless workers and have boundless energy. But it’s when everything seems hopeless that their grit and determination really shines through. Whether sick or injured, lost or abandoned, recovering from cruelty or neglect, it’s the underdogs of the world who have the most to teach us.

Dogs like Jake the bulldog, who was found unresponsive in a burning house but was revived by puppy CPR and now serves as a mascot for the fire crew that saved his life; Guy the beagle, discovered alone in the woods, desperately underweight, only to be adopted by Meghan Markle and become a four-legged part of the royal family; and Maggie, blinded by eye infections and shot 17 times, but still living her life with such relentless positivity that she provides support to stressed-out students and aged-care residents.

Miracle Mutts shares the stories of miraculous dogs like these, dogs who conquered seemingly insurmountable odds, dogs whose futures seemed bleak, dogs that weren’t expected to make it – but triumphed and thrived in the face of incredible adversity.

Miracle Mutts by Laura Greaves is the most uplifting, inspiring book for dog lovers — so many good doggos feature within these pages, so many resilient and determined young pups who experienced a catastrophic incident but turned it around and lived a happy and healthy life.

Another day, another dog book that made me tear up on public transport.

Miracle Mutts tells the story of 15 dogs who escaped possible death, from burns survivor Fergus to amputee Kali to a gorgeous greyhound called Millie whose front paw was mangled and almost completely cut off.

The dogs in the book aren’t just from Australia — Laura shines a spotlight on dogs from other locations such as Bali and Sri Lanka, and gives an insight into what life is like for dogs in those places and the limitations that they have simply because proper health and care is not always available.

“Ann’s mind raced with possibilities. What if the torrential rain had washed away his scent and he couldn’t retrace his steps? What if he’d been injured in the inclement weather? Charlie was registered and microchipped, but what if someone had picked him up and spirited him away?”

Exhaustive research and interviews have gone into this book — Laura speaks with multiple people who were involved in each dog’s journey to find out as much about what happened as possible.

In some of the chapters, the stories don’t just involve the dogs’ struggle, but their owners too. Some families experience heartache and are mourning family members, and their dogs play a vital role in helping their owner overcome grief and loss.

Your heart breaks in some parts of the book — there’s a pregnant dog who was sleeping in a field in Sri Lanka when a harvester machine accidentally drove over her and severed three of her legs. She lay bleeding for half a day before anyone found her, and then it was another half day to get her to veterinary help. Miraculously, the dog lived.

“To the man’s horror, Oscar did exactly that, launching himself over the balustrade and plummeting at least 15 metres to the ground below. Why did he do it? Nobody can say for sure, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected given his breed’s high prey drive and proficiency as escapologists.”

Readers will enjoy the story of how Meghan Markle adopted her dog, choosing him from a rescue centre many years before she married Prince Harry. Readers will also love the story of Jake, who was caught in a fire when he was a puppy and was rescued by a fire-fighter who later adopted him.

Recommended for dog lovers, and readers looking for something heartwarming. It’s hard to read this and not feel uplifted or inspired. What a joyous book of stories.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Miracle Mutts
Laura Greaves
November 2019
Penguin Random House

The Treehouse Joke Book by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton

Andy and Terry live in the world’s craziest treehouse. They like making books and telling jokes. And now they’ve made the world’s funniest jokebook!

From bears to birds, penguins to pirates and skeletons to space, there are gags galore. Perfect for fans of the Treehouse series! A bumper book of hilarity and craziness, and the perfect Xmas stocking filler.

Q: What’s grey and powdery?
A: Instant elephant mix.

Clocking in at almost 300 pages, The Treehouse Joke Book by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton is a compilation of hilarious jokes and riddles for children and adults. The Treehouse series may be aimed at children, but this joke book will not just humour kids — adults will find themselves laughing as well.

I’m almost 30 and I have no children and I found this book incredibly enjoyable. I laughed out aloud at many of the jokes, and when I next need to buy a present for a young child, this is what I’ll be getting them.

Here are a select few of my favourite jokes from the book:

Q: Why did Tigger go to the bathroom?
A: He was looking for his friend Pooh.

Q: Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the toilet?
A: Because it has a silent ‘p’

Q: Why do some fish live at the bottom of the ocean?
A: Because they dropped out of school

The book is split up into sections — Bear Jokes, Sheep Jokes, Space Jokes, Food Jokes, Monkey Jokes, etc. There are 26 sections in total. Some jokes I’d heard before, but most of these were completely new to me.

Every single page of the book features some sort of illustration from Terry Denton, and they’re the perfect accompaniment to these jokes. His illustration style is unique and recognisable, that scratchy-looking drawing style that children love to look at.

Many of the illustrations feature further words, jokes or speech bubbles, so a child could spend hours reading this book because there’s so much in these pages for them to browse through. This book is well worth the $12.99 price tag.

Recommended for parents and children.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Treehouse Joke Book
Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton
October 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Confession by Jessie Burton

One winter’s afternoon on Hampstead Heath in 1980, Elise Morceau meets Constance Holden and quickly falls under her spell. Connie is bold and alluring, a successful writer whose novel is being turned into a major Hollywood film. Elise follows Connie to LA, a city of strange dreams and swimming pools and late-night gatherings of glamorous people. But whilst Connie thrives on the heat and electricity of this new world where everyone is reaching for the stars and no one is telling the truth, Elise finds herself floundering. When she overhears a conversation at a party that turns everything on its head, Elise makes an impulsive decision that will change her life forever.

Three decades later, Rose Simmons is seeking answers about her mother, who disappeared when she was a baby. Having learned that the last person to see her was Constance Holden, a reclusive novelist who withdrew from public life at the peak of her fame, Rose is drawn to the door of Connie’s imposing house in search of a confession …

The Confession by Jessie Burton is an intimate, moving novel about the power of women, and their relationship with each other. In a letter accompanying the book, Jessie acknowledges that the book is about the physical, psychological and spiritual autonomy of women —it explores love, sex, friendship, family and work, and how these things are vital to a woman’s self-esteem and sense of self. The Confession, in many ways, is an exploration of female identity.

The book follows a dual timeline, switching back and forth between 1980s, when Elise and Connie’s paths cross, to decades later in 2017, when Elise’s daughter Rose is on a desperate search to find her mother.

Elise is beautiful, young and naive — too trusting, but also desperate for love and connection. She meets the much older Constance Holden, who is bold and confident, sure of herself and charismatic. Constance is a writer whose novel is about to be turned into a Hollywood film, and when the two being a relationship, Elise follows Connie to Los Angeles.

“Elise closed her eyes and thought about how, at dinner parties, there are always other conversations not being shared. Matt and Shara and their unseen baby, lost like a ghost inside their marriage. Elise wondered whether there was any pain left in Shara’s body now, or whether it was just in her head, an occasional guest who led her down a staircase that only she could tread.”

Elise is easily overwhelmed once she moves to Los Angeles. Connie grows a bit distant and their relationship grows strained. Soon, Elise is finding comfort in someone else’s arms — someone she shouldn’t be pursuing.

In present day 2017, Rose wants to track down her missing mother. Elise abandoned Rose and her father when she was very little, and no one has heard from her since. Does Connie know? Rose creates an alias and takes a job as Connie’s assistant, working quickly to find out what happened to Elise all those years ago.

“Connie’s eyes were moist, her gnarled fingers resting on either arm of the chair as if it was a throne. She’d spoken so much, unpacking herself, and she looked exhausted. I watched as her face folded slowly into a picture of sadness. I wanted to go to her, to comfort her, to tell her that my mother was in this room, an old love, an invisible thread, trying together the ones she’d left behind.”

The three women are incredibly complex — we meet them all intimately over the course of the novel. We see them in private moments, when they’re scared or challenged. We witness their weakest moments and their strongest.

Characterisation is one of the strengths of the novel, taking us deep inside the minds and motivations of Elise, Connie and Rose. They’re all so unique and their voices so distinct — Jessie has done an exceptional job of capturing each of their personalities so vividly.

“An electric sense of my skin, my hands and feet. I did not feel triumphant. But I did, in an interesting way, feel more free. To be always waiting and wanting had been my most natural state to be. To be yearning for something, rather than having the guts to make it real.”

The Confession is a fabulous, luminous read, tackling friendship, women, motherhood, parenting and the complexities of relationships. Fans of literary fiction, women’s fiction, and the importance of strong, female-led stories will love this. I haven’t yet read Jessie Burton’s previous works but now I plan to go out and buy her books. Her writing is seamless and evocative — her sentences structure flawless.

Highly recommend.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Confession
Jessie Burton
October 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Rescue Dog by Laura Vissaritis

A practical guide to adopting, training and living with a rescue dog, from popular dog trainer and animal behaviourist Laura Vissaritis.

Adopting a rescue dog can be daunting. With anxieties and fears from their previous life, they can carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. But all dogs deserve a second chance – and this book will teach you how to provide it.

Animal behaviourist Laura Vissaritis’s approach to training a rescue dog focuses on one side of the relationship: the human. Because to help your dog change their behaviour, first you must change your own.

By building a relationship based on mutual trust and respect, you will help your dog make the most of their new life. Explaining the underlying psychology and offering clear step-by-step guides, Laura covers everything you need to know, including how to:

– bring home and socialise your rescue dog
– establish routines for essentials like toilet training and walking on a leash
– understand your dog’s body language
– discourage unwanted behaviours such as excessive barking or jumping up
ease their stress, phobias or separation anxiety.

Giving a rescue dog a better life is one of the most emotional, uplifting journeys you can go on. The Rescue Dog will guide you on the path to success.A practical guide to adopting, training and living with a rescue dog, from popular dog trainer and animal behaviourist Laura Vissaritis.

The Rescue Dog by Laura Vissaritis is a practical, honest, glorious guide to owning a rescue dog and all the emotional baggage that can come from that. How can you best train them? Love them? Punish them when they’re bad? This is a fantastic book to keep on your bookshelf, even if you don’t own a rescue dog. Any dog owner will find use out of this book.

This book has advice for all sorts of behavioural problems — barking? biting? anxiety? not playing well with other dogs? Laura is open about the struggles she’s had with her own rescue dogs, but also the struggles she’s seen in other dogs.

Laura’s tone of voice is conversational, but also welcoming. You don’t feel stupid reading her advice. You don’t feel like a complete failure because your dog has a tendency to be a menace and you’re working really hard to try and fix it. Just this morning I yelled NAUGHTY at my dog so loud he dropped his ball and ran to his bed, frightened. Owning a dog, and especially a rescue dog who had a bad start in life, is really difficult sometimes. It’s nice to read a training guide without feeling judged.

“Once your dog understands that sitting results in obtaining a treat, you can transfer this to a range of rewards your dog may want. Your dog may want to come inside, go outside, jump on the couch, get out of the car, or play with the dog fifty metres away.”

Do you know how many dog training books I’ve read in the last couple of years? A LOT. So many books that ‘claim’ to be a training guide, that ‘claim’ to be a helpful companion to being a dog owner. And so many of them were rubbish. They gave basic advice about how a dog responded to life events, or perhaps information about their personalities, but there was no actual advice. No tips. No step-by-step instructions. And I was always so furious when I finished the books and I felt like I’d learnt nothing to help me with my dog, who is beautiful but needy and energetic and who is ‘behaved’ but not ‘well behaved’.

My major problem at the moment is my dog barks inside the house, and not for any particular reason. He only ever barks INSIDE the house, AT me. I can tell he’s trying to communicate to me, but I can’t always work out what he’s saying. Most of the time he’s confused or frustrated and so he barks. I went into this book wanting to learn a technique to stop that kind of barking. Not the kind of barking that a dog does outside at passersby, because that’s not the issue. The kind of barking that’s communicative, but because I don’t speak dog, I can’t work out how to fix the situation.

Page 19 had my answer — training tips to get rid of this exact kind of barking. And I’ve been using the technique since.

Ever since page 19, I’ve been a convert for this book. It will now sit on my bookshelf as a reference for any issues we may have in the future. Finally — a real, proper, helpful dog training guide.

“If your dog is not allowed on your leather couch, but sometimes you don’t mind if they jump up, your dog will always try to access the couch….If you punish them sometimes but allow them up at other times, then all they learn is that they can get up on the couch, and sometimes for no reason, they get punished.”

Not all sections of this book will apply to every dog owner. There were some sections, chapters, or paragraphs in the book that I skipped over because my dog doesn’t present those kind of issues (for example, separation anxiety) .This book is meant to act as a long-standing resource, so that you can put it on your bookshelf and one day, if your dog or perhaps a future dog develops any of these issues, you can go back and read and feel like you know how to tackle the situation.

An honest-to-God proper dog training guide, with actual instructions that the everyday dog owner can apply. Laura is also incredibly honest about her own dogs — their faults and their weaknesses — and it makes you feel like you’re not alone.

Recommended for all dog owners, not just those of you who have adopted a rescue dog. You’ll all be able to learn things from this resource. If you own a dog and they’re not perfect (hint: no dog is perfect) and you’re exhausted from trying different things and you’ve been through two rounds of private dog training (like me!) and you still need some advice, then buy this and keep this. You’ll feel so relieved.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Rescue Dog
Laura Vissaritis
September 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

In a large house in London’s fashionable Chelsea, a baby is awake in her cot. Well-fed and cared for, she is happily waiting for someone to pick her up.

In the kitchen lie three decomposing corpses. Close to them is a hastily scrawled note.

They’ve been dead for several days. Who has been looking after the baby? And where did they go?

Two entangled families.
A house with the darkest of secrets.

The Family Upstairs is a compulsive new thriller from British author Lisa Jewell, centring around a vulnerable family, the people they allow into their house, and how that has a disastrous ripple effect on generations to follow.

25 years earlier, the police arrive at 16 Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, London after concerns for the welfare of the inhabitants. They find three bodies inside in the kitchen, as well as a healthy 10 month old baby who has been well cared for. An investigation ensues, but the police are never able to uncover what happened inside that home.

The book switches POV between a few different characters. First, we have Henry Lamb 25 years earlier. He lives with his parents and his sister at the fashionable house in Chelsea. They’re rich and they’re happy. But over time, they spend too much money, their worth diminishes, and Henry’s mother seeks solace in something bigger than just family. She invites outsiders into their home, at first just for a short time. But then it becomes clear that these new tenants have no intention of leaving and over time, their influence over the family grows dangerous.

The reader follows Henry’s journey from child to adolescent to teenager to adult. At first, he’s spoilt and naive, and too trusting. Over time, he can see the effect that these visitors are having on his parents and the house that they’ve cherished over the years. Henry takes drastic measures to try and regain control.

We also meet Libby and Lucy, although it’s clear that their storylines are in the present — decades later.

Libby has recently turned 25. She rents an apartment but she’s struggling financially — she’s an adopted child. When she finds out she’s inherited a 3-storey mansion overlooking the Thames, she goes searching for the truth about her parents. We find out pretty quickly that Libby was the baby found in the mansion all those years earlier. Her parents were two of the three dead adults found in the kitchen. And Henry? Well, Henry must be her brother.

Lucy Lamb is Henry’s other sister, who he grew up with in the Chelsea mansion. Where is she now? She’s living in France but is homeless, and she has two young children. Slowly, she starts making her way back to London to find the baby that was left behind 24 years earlier.

“Her head, which a week ago had been filled with new sandals, a hen night, her split ends, the houseplants that needed watering, was now filled with people sleeping on mattresses and dead rabbits and a big, scary house, empty but for a large rocking crib from Harrods with strangely sinister pale blue roses painted on the sides.”

The Family Upstairs is a psychological thriller that had me hooked from start to finish. At first, it seemed a little confusing with the different POV — I got Lucy and Libby mixed up a couple of times — but I soon settled into the storyline. The mysterious deaths in the London mansion and the unclaimed baby left behind prove a fascinating premise.

The writing is tight and polished, building tension and inviting intrigue that keeps the reader entertained throughout the entire book. Each chapter gives you just enough information to make you think you know where the story is going, but still keeps enough mystery that you’re desperate to keep reading.

“What can I tell you about David Thomsen form my perspective then, as a young boy? Well, I can tell you that he was very handsome. Not in the soft, almost feminine way that his son was handsome, but in a more traditional way…I can tell you that he appalled me and fascinated me in equal measure.”

The storyline and the plot is incredibly complex, and so the pace moves really quickly because there’s a lot of history for the reader to take in. Henry, Libby and Lucy have all lived incredibly different lives and to give them due attention, we need to spend a lot of time understanding their circumstances, their motives, their next move

“Lucy hasn’t had a drink for weeks. She would die for a beer. But she can’t. She has to keep all her wits about her for the next half an hour or so. She shakes her head.”

Chilling and dark, and highly recommended. Anyone who loves a good mystery thriller will devour this book.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Family Upstairs
Lisa Jewell
August 2019
Penguin Random House Publishers

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