JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Living the Dream by Lauren Berry

Emma is a rising star at the marketing firm she works at as a “creative,” but would have trouble describing what exactly it is she does all day. She pours most of her actual creative energy into a popular blog that all of her friends agree is brilliant, but she has yet to make a cent on it.

Clem is a massively talented screenwriter just back from New York, where she picked up a fancy graduate degree in film. But until she convinces an agent to take on her masterpiece script, she’s stuck hostessing at the bar she frequented as an undergrad, and the only calls she’s getting are about bills past due and overdrawn bank accounts. In their ironclad friendship both girls find a reliable break from the post-collegiate absurdities and indignities that seem to abound in life right at the moment they feel they should finally be getting it all together.

Perfect for young, creative readers who feel like they haven’t yet accomplished what they set out to do, Living the Dream is about two women in New York City who are working jobs they hate so they can pursue their dream on the side.

Emma wants to be a writer, and Clem wants to be a screenwriter. But when they both live in New York City and can’t seem to get anyone to take them seriously, their lives are far from what they expected them to be.

Emma was the more likeable of the characters, working full-time in corporate advertising and on the side publishing her writing on her blog. I felt like she was a realistic character, because most creative people need a full-time job so they can pay the rent and feed themselves. Until they ‘make it’, their creative passion probably isn’t going to make them a lot of money.

“She pressed the button on the back of her computer and waited for the techno sigh that signalled the start of the day. She typed in her password (Fresh_He11) and shoved her jacket under the desk. (DEAR ALL, Please keep your coats and bags out of sight and NOT on your chairs as they are unsightly. Thx.)”

Clementine was quite the frustrating character. Yes, she’s a talented screenwriter. But she’s not an overly smart person and I don’t feel like she has a lot of common sense. She also seems really ungrateful. She moves around between work and doesn’t try hard to actually earn any money, constantly borrowing money from her family and living at home. She also seems to immediately spend whatever money she does earn.

“Clem sat in front of the rickety piece of crap her mum called the computer and stared at her bank balance. She was fucked…Malcolm had offered her a temp job at his company, and she had politely declined. She needed some income, fast.”

There’s not much plot to this book, so I think it’s more of a character-driven story. I think it’s also got a niche target market – young creatives who understand Emma and Clem’s struggles.

I would’ve liked to have seen some of Emma’s writing incorporated into the book. She doesn’t have much luck with her love life, but it provides material for her blog…except, we never get to read what she’s posting. I think this would’ve been an easy way to bring more humour into the book.

There are definitely some humorous moments in this book, and young women will be able to relate to the characters and some of the situations that they find themselves in. Whilst the book is lacking a plot, it’s not a hard read. You don’t feel like you’re forcing yourself to keep going. This is quite a light, fun story featuring two determined, talented women.

“For the next couple of hours, Emma sat on a bench with Ross, who told her she even looked hot vomiting off a tree.”

I think if you’re someone who has ever felt ‘stuck’ in your life, whether that’s with love or work, then you’ll really enjoy this book. I also think millennials will really get Emma and Clem’s struggles. It’s definitely for adults though, because I don’t think teenagers would enjoy this book as much. They’re probably not the target readership.

Living the Dream is for all those undiscovered geniuses out there, waiting to be discovered.

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

Living the Dream
Lauren Berry
July 2017
Hachette Book Publishers

Wimmera by Mark Brandi

In the long, hot summer of 1989, Ben and Fab are best friends.

Growing up in a small country town, they spend their days playing cricket, yabbying in local dams, wanting a pair of Nike Air Maxes and not talking about how Fab’s dad hits him or how the sudden death of Ben’s next-door neighbour unsettled him. Almost teenagers, they already know some things are better left unsaid.

Then a newcomer arrived in the Wimmera. Fab reckoned he was a secret agent and he and Ben staked him out. Up close, the man’s shoulders were wide and the veins in his arms stuck out, blue and green. His hands were enormous, red and knotty. He looked strong. Maybe even stronger than Fab’s dad. Neither realised the shadow this man would cast over both their lives.

Twenty years later, Fab is still stuck in town, going nowhere but hoping for somewhere better. Then a body is found in the river, and Fab can’t ignore the past any more.

Wimmera is a literary crime novel set in a small town with a big secret. Ben and Fab are best friends, and the book explores their friendship in various stages of their lives, from when they’re young boys to when they’re older. The two boys share a secret that they don’t speak of.

The novel is broken up into three parts. The first part takes place during the hot summer of 1989, when Ben gets a new neighbour, Ronnie. Daisy Wolfe and her family have just recently left town after fourteen year old Daisy hung herself on the clothesline in the backyard. Ronnie moves into their house and Ben starts doing some odd jobs around his place as a way to make extra money.

The second part of the book is predominantly set twenty years later; Fab is still living in Wimmera noticeably unsettled by what happened the last few times he saw Ben. The reader is left in the dark, because part one ends on a rather abrupt note, and then part two picks up twenty years later. Ben doesn’t appear to be living in Wimmera anymore, and Fab’s life seems to be stagnant. As the reader, you start speculating what happened at the end of that summer in 1989.

The final part of the book follows a police investigation about a body that is found in the local river. Fab is called in for questioning.

Mark Brandi has a Criminal Justice degree and used to work for the Victorian Department of Justice, so a lot of the procedural and legal aspects of the book no doubt came from his own personal experience.

Brandi captures the atmosphere of a small town really well. Gossip gets around fast and there seems to be a darkness building in the town. Wimmera also feels like a town where lots of people talk, but no one seems to ask any questions. Daisy commits suicide and people seem fast to move on from it, especially after the Wolfe family move away from town. When Ben goes to a party and people are gossiping about why they think Daisy committed suicide, there seems to be no sense of urgency to find out the real reason. Rather, everyone goes about living their lives. This contributes to the overall melancholic feel of the book – you feel like these characters are stuck in this town and that they’re never going to leave. And then when you move on to part two, you realise that Fab is indeed stuck in this town.

“He tried to imagine Daisy’s body hanging from that old steel clothesline, creaking as it shifted in the wind. He could see her dark eyes and her legs, perfectly white, swinging in the air.”

The writing is fantastic. It’s lyrical, evocative and vivid and the Brandi allows us to really understand these characters without actually telling us a whole lot about them. Through their circumstances, and how they act in certain situations, we learn all about the boys and the nature of their friendship. Fab’s dad hits him, but Ben doesn’t really say anything about it to Fab or anyone else, and Ben’s new neighbour Ronnie really unsettles him, but Fab doesn’t trust his instinct enough to do anything about it (or ask Ben about it). At times, both characters turn a blind eye to what they don’t want to discuss.

“The first time Ben went to Ronnie’s house was to cut the grass. It was Saturday and he played cricket in the morning at Great Western and they won…When Ben got home after cricket, his mum told him Ronnie had come by and he’d have to go over there after lunch.”

The first part of the book is most definitely the strongest section of Wimmera. I actually wanted to find out more about that summer, and felt like Mark didn’t develop the boys’ friendship as much as he could have. I understand what his intention was. He wanted to end part one on a rather gut-wrenching moment, but when I started part two I was actually quite disappointed with where the book went and I would’ve liked to go back to the summer of 1989. The transition between Ben’s story in 1989, to Fab’s story twenty years later, felt rather disjointed.

Ronnie was a predictable character, and I was not surprised at all when he and Ben’s ‘friendship’ became something more. I personally felt like the police investigation and the resulting trial was rushed and was too quick, and that part of the book should’ve either been bulked up and developed further, or just cut out of the book completely. There would’ve been more suspense and intrigue if the body was found but we didn’t find out absolutely everything that happened on the night of that character’s death. The book was building up really slowly and Mark Brandi was drawing the reader in with all this mystery, and then I hit part three and all of a sudden it’s moving at 100 miles per hour and the pacing doesn’t quite match the rest of the book.

I recommend this book to people who love crime fiction. This may be quite a literary book, but at the heart of the story is a mysterious death and Mark pulls you in right from the first page. People who loved The Dry by Jane Harper or Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey will love Wimmera.

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

Wimmera
Mark Brandi
July 2017
Hachette Book Publishers

The Shark Club by Anna Kidd Taylor

On a summer day in 1988, two extraordinary things happen to twelve-year-old Maeve Donnelly. First, she is kissed by Daniel, the boy of her dreams. Then, she is attacked by a blacktip shark.

Eighteen years later, Maeve is a world-travelling marine biologist studying and swimming with the very animals that once threatened her life. Maeve is fearless in the water. On land, however, Maeve is haunted by painful memories, and indecisive about the path her life will take. When she returns to her childhood home on the small island off Florida’s coast where she grew up, she finds that her twin brother may be about to make it big as novelist, using her love life as his jumping-off point.

Will she confront her feelings about her brother’s betrayal – and forgive her childhood sweetheart, Daniel, the missteps of their youth? Or will she dive headlong back into her research and open her heart to Nicholas, the handsome colleague who shares her passion for the ocean?

The Shark Club is a bittersweet story about the power of forgiveness and the promise of true love. Ann Kidd Taylor is a talented writer, with beautiful imagery and description and a real knack for evoking certain feelings and emotions out of the reader.

“Tucking away a long strand of hair that floated in front of my scuba mask, I kicked through the blue-green waters of Bimini on the last day of my research term, keeping watch for Sylvia, a five-foot, four-year-old lemon shark I’d named for oceanographer Sylvia Earle.”

The book is part romance but also part mystery, when someone on the small island is running a shark finning operation and Maeve is determined to find out who it is. There’s definitely a bit of environmental activism coming through in the book, but not the ‘beat you over the head’ kind of activism where you feel like the author is preaching at you.

“It happened near here, didn’t it?” he asked.
‘Less than ten miles. A hundred sharks were slaughtered for their fins, and I’ve heard nothing about an investigation and only one news report – a TV reporter asked some guy on the beach about it and he basically said the best shark was a dead one. This is what we’re up against.’

The Shark Club is rich with description and setting, and Ann Kidd Taylor captures the world of underwater animals wonderfully. It’s clear that she’s done her research.

Most of the characters in the book are flawed. Maeve can’t stick up for herself when she needs to, and lets old feeling resurface. And her brother just floats between jobs and doesn’t have the drive to really stick it out or put enough effort in.

I do have a couple of pet peeves about the book. At only 274 pages, Ann Kidd Taylor doesn’t allow the reader to really understand all of the characters. There felt like gaps in the story and the plot moves a little too quickly.

“He walked toward me and didn’t stop until he was kissing me. Everything came back with strange suddenness. Memories, the old feelings, the believing, the wanting. And then a sort of deja vu.”

I found it a little unrealistic that Daniel’s daughter would have such a keen interest in sharks and would therefore bond so heavily with Maeve. I also found it unrealistic that Maeve would feel like she has to be friends with this young girl (she really should’ve told Daniel to stick it). And finally, it seemed awfully convenient that Hazel’s mother had recently just died.

I would have preferred it if Nicholas didn’t exist in the novel at all and instead, Hazel’s mother did. I think it would’ve made for a better love triangle and a more engaging power dynamic. After all, Nicholas is gone for most of the book anyway so he’s not there long enough for the reader to really get to know him. It doesn’t make us want to fight for him when Maeve has to decide which guy to stay with.

The Shark Club feels a bit like literary chick-lit, so I’d recommend this book to those of you who love a romance story with a bit of mystery on the side.

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

The Shark Club
Ann Kidd Taylor
June 2017
Hachette Book Publishers

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love — she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.

Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness-except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny, flirtatious, and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back.

There’s only one problem: Molly’s coworker, Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

Written by the author of the wildly successful Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda, The Upside of Unrequited is a sweet story about a young girl who has always had crushes but never boyfriends. Her closest relationships have always been with her sister and her two mums, but now there are two boys in her life who appear to be interested in her. This is new territory for her.

The Upside of Unrequited explores love, loss, family, friendship and growing up. It’s a coming of age story for someone who already appears to have everything in order. Because whilst Molly is strong, smart and beautiful, she’s at times insecure and worried and she lacks confidence.

Not all readers are going to relate to Molly in the same way. Some readers may not be as interested in the romantic side of the book as others, but there are a lot of other elements to this book that are really important for readers. Yes, a huge part of the novel may be about Molly trying to get a boyfriend (which in itself is a little bit frustrating because it tries to highlight that a girl can only have self-worth if she finds herself a boyfriend). But it also symbolises how hard it can be for a teenager if he/she feels like everyone else has accomplished something and you’re the one falling apart. Molly feels like everyone else has finished the race and yet she’s still at the starting line.

This book is also about growing up, and at times, growing apart. Once Molly’s sister Cassie gets a girlfriend, Molly starts to feel like she’s being cast aside. Like she’s not as important to Cassie anymore. She doesn’t quite realise that as you get older, you’re going to have to share the people in your life once they start forming relationships. The Upside of Unrequited teaches us that growing up can be tiring and overwhelming, and that not everything is always going to be easy.

“And now Cassie’s being mysterious, and it’s really fucking weird. Normally, when she hooks up with someone, she’s bursting with the details. She’s a kiss-and-teller. Maybe that’s awful, but it’s just a part of the hookup process for her. She told me once that a kiss isn’t a kiss until she tells me about it. Me, specifically.”

I personally liked Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda better, but this is still an enjoyable read. It’s also a quick read, for those of you looking for something relatively short and fast-paced. This book also teaches readers that sometimes the guy you least expect is the one who is the most suited to you. Sometimes being friends first helps you build that foundation that can lead to a relationship. Sometimes being friends first means you will be dating the person that you have the most things in common with. And for those of you who are also fans of Becky’s first novel, you should know that Simon DOES make a small cameo in this book!

If I had to point out anything about the book that I didn’t like, it would be the dialogue between Molly’s mums, Patty and Nadine. Yes, it was hilarious, witty, funny and wonderful, but it felt young. Their mums often sounded like teenagers themselves and so sometimes I felt like Becky didn’t fully capture their age in their dialogue.

“Dude, no,” Nadine tells him. “Banana’s gone. You’re SOL.”

“Hey,” pipes Nadine, “don’t let her bring that Schulmeister kid. They’re still broken up, right? Because I do not need my doorstep darkened by that little shitwiper on my wedding day. Nope to the nope.”

Despite this, I did love how present Nadine and Patty were in the novel. In a lot of young adult novels, parents are either dead, missing, or have run away and abandoned their children. It was nice to read a young adult novel where the parents had such a strong presence in Molly’s life.

One other aspect of the book that I didn’t necessarily agree with was this idea that you need to have a boyfriend to be happy, or that you need to have a boyfriend to be like everyone else. It made Molly appear quite self-absorbed at times, which I didn’t like. I would’ve liked it better if Molly realised that she can be happy alone or happy in a relationship and that she didn’t need one or the other to truly be herself.

I recommend this book to young adult lovers. It’s quite cute and sweet, and so if you’re not a regular young adult reader this may not be the book for you. However, if you’re looking for a quick read with a great romance and a great family dynamic, then this is a book you should pick up when you next go to the bookstore.

The Upside of Unrequited
Becky Albertalli
April 2017
Penguin Teen Australia

Troubadour by Isolde Martyn

Forced to flee the English court after the lecherous King John attacks her, Adela, the queen’s hairbraider, finds employment in the entourage of Lady Alys. Alys is on her way to marry the Lord of Mirascon, a fiefdom in southern France. However, the south is under threat from Pope Innocent III’s military crusade against the heretics.

After trying in vain to rally his fellow lords against invasion, Richart, Vicomte de Mirascon, makes an alliance with King John. A political marriage to the Lady Alys – the king’s discarded mistress – will allow Richart to safeguard his people from a merciless land grab and cruel slaughter.

When the bridal party is ambushed, Adela is mistaken for her dead mistress by the people of Mirascon. Adela knows she must tell Richart that she is not his betrothed, but as she is dragged deeper into the deception, she is also powerfully drawn to the beleaguered man trying to protect his people and his culture. As the savage army marches south, can Richart and Adela overcome a web of deceit and treachery and evade the bonfires of the crusaders, or will their land of troubadours and tolerance be destroyed forever?

At first, this novel is a case of mistaken identity. Adela is mistaken for the dead Lady Alys and finds herself engaged to the one man she’s been hoping to unite with since she met him at the English court: Richart. She’s happy she’s with him, but she desperately wants to tell him the truth. And then quite early on in the novel, Richart finds out for himself. The two are separated. And then it becomes a novel about survival and uncovering betrayal.

Adela is a strong, resilient character, capable of surviving even in the most dire of times. Isolde Martyn has crafted a fantastic protagonist for this book, drawing us in with her plight and her dimensional construct.

“After she had scrubbed the first of Lady Alys’ underskirts, she sat back and drew her hand across her perspiring brow. Her presence had disturbed the stream’s tiny dwellers but now a damselfly clad in iridescent armour returned, then a trio of water skaters came skimming back, anxious to reclaim their manor.”

Troubadour is a lengthy book with plenty of action and plot and underpinned by truly wonderful characters that I loved reading about. I was enthralled throughout the book, eagerly turning each page to keep reading and thoroughly enjoying every chapter. The book is filled with historical information and an engaging cast of characters. This novel has betrayal, love, trickery, and gutsy courage – everything you could want in a historical fiction novel.

Adela and Richart are star characters, as are Maud and the hilarious Derwent. Right from the beginning, you’re backing Adela. You want her to succeed and flourish and you want her to survive. She’s young and naive, but she’s also strong and intelligent and compassionate.

“Adela received him courteously, but she would have preferred to swim a filthy moat rather than describe the massacre again.”

There were a few times in the book that were heavy with historical information and I felt like it was hard to grasp. A lot of the book is based on actual events and so a lot of explaining and information dumping was needed in order for the reader to get the historical significance of what was happening. I did, at times, feel like Isolde could’ve woven the historical information into the book a little more seamlessly so that it wasn’t as confusing and heavy for the reader to understand.

What I loved most about this book is that it’s a standalone, unlike a lot of other epic fantasy books where there are a minimum of six books in the series and it’s a huge investment to keep going. This novel had perfect pacing and was the perfect length to keep me entertained, and the conclusion to the novel was satisfying and engaging. I loved that this was just one novel and not a long-winded series that you had to read to find out the fate of the characters.

I recommend this to fantasy lovers and those of you who love Game of Thrones, but I also recommend this to readers who are perhaps looking to dabble in a bit of fantasy and don’t want to commit to something too heavy. This is a really enjoyable read, and I would highly recommend Isolde Martyn.

I received a copy of this book on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Troubadour
Isolde Martyn
March 2017
Harlequin Publishers

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