JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Careering by Daisy Buchanan

careering (verb)
1. working endlessly for a job you used to love and now resent entirely
2. moving in a way that feels out of control

There’s a fine line between on the right track and coming off the rails.

Imogen has always dreamed of writing for a magazine. Infinite internships later, Imogen dreams of any job. Writing her blog around double shifts at the pub is neither fulfilling her creatively nor paying the bills.

Harri might just be Imogen’s fairy godmother. She’s moving from the glossy pages of Panache magazine to launch a fierce feminist site, The Know. And she thinks Imogen’s most outrageous sexual content will help generate the clicks she needs.

But neither woman is aware of the crucial thing they have in common. Harri, at the other end of her career, has also been bitten and betrayed by the industry she has given herself to. Will she wake up to the way she’s being exploited before her protege realises that not everything is copy? Can either woman reconcile their love for work with the fact that work will never love them back? Or is a chaotic rebellion calling…

Daisy Buchanan’s second novel Careering follows two career-driven women and their unhealthy relationship with their jobs — from toxic environments and underpaid roles, to unrealistic expectations around how many hours to work each day. Most of us will be able to recognise elements of this in our careers.

Careering moves between Harri and Imogen, reflecting opposing sides of the toxicity of a workplace. Harri, in her 40s and boss of the media outlet, feels hurt by management’s decisions to shut her out of Panache. She’s exhausted and perhaps spent too long drinking the company Kool-Aid – maybe now she’ll realise what she really wants.

And Imogen, young and hungry. Desperate for full-time work with the magazine she’s always adored. But perhaps it isn’t what she thought it’d be — mismatched information and feedback, no clear direction, little pay, and no certainty of job security or career progression. Perhaps she’s placed Panache on a pedestal, and it’s time to chase another dream.

“On Monday, Harri was hopeful. By Friday, she’s exhausted. She’s crashing out in the Cafe Cucina — again, terrible, but so handy for the office — and trying to listen to Giles’ long list of woes, complaints and grudges, and how Giles has effectively been left to run Panache single handed.”

Careering presents us with a situation most commonplace — how hard are we willing to work for our ‘dream job’, long after the passion has dissipated? And what is an appropriate sacrifice to make to try and achieve that dream job? How long is it acceptable to work for free, or for minimum wage? What about long hours when we’re still considered junior in the company, with very little chance to progress through the ranks.

The novel also explores the pressures we can feel to fit in at a job, particularly somewhere illustrious like the fashion industry. From changed names to expensive outfits, most of the characters in this novel are presenting a facade very far from who they really are behind closed doors.

“Still, I’m so tired of doing this dance. Sam’s excuses for the lack of this imaginary job have been so creative, inventive and impressively consistent that it’s almost baffling that he’s failed to find any critical acclaim as a novelist.”

Careering heroes female sexuality and empowerment — the novel zeroes in on the importance of media outlets adapting and growing with its readers. Understanding readership is integral to launching something new, something daring, and Imogen’s writing material proves popular and timely.

Over time, Harri grows too desperate to succeed that she starts to lose sight of what she’s actually wanting to achieve. She loses sight of quality, as she hunts down quantity. While Imogen feels like the clear protagonist of the novel, Harri brings a contrasting perspective into the story and opens up the readership to an older demographic.

“To be fair, Tabitha should not have to explain herself when her outfit works as a sort of living CV. There is so much to take in, my brain didn’t fully process it all as she walked through the door. From the waist up, she’s dressed as Gene Kelly in On the Town, in a puffy white sailor blouse, with a navy blue collar.”

Sharp and observant, Careering fits well alongside authors such as Dolly Alderton, Beth O’Leary Emma Jane Unsworth and Anna Hope. Another tale about a woman taking control of her situation, in career and in love. Readership skews female, 20+

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

Careering
Daisy Buchanan
March 2022
Hachette Book Publishers

Loveland by Robert Lukins

Amid the ruins of a fire-ravaged amusement park and destroyed waterfront dwellings, one boarded-up building still stands. May has come from Australia to Loveland, Nebraska, to claim the house on the poisoned lake as part of her grandmother’s will. Escaping the control of her husband, will she find refuge or danger?

As she starts repairing the old house, May is drawn to discover more about her silent, emotionally distant grandmother and unravel the secrets that Casey had moved halfway around the world to keep hidden. How she and Casey’s lives interconnect, and the price they both must pay for their courage, is gradually revealed as this mesmerising and lyrical novel unfolds.

Tender and heartfelt, Robert Lukins’ novel Loveland explores humanity, family, history, and the secrets that bind generations together. Its two main characters, May and Casey, are the vulnerable among the volatile.

After her grandmother dies, May flees her abusive husband and travels from Australia to Nebraska to claim her inheritance — a loved but long-empty house aside a poisoned lake. Written in third person, Loveland moves between perspectives: primarily May and her grandmother Casey, but we’re also privy to one of Casey’s neighbours and once close friend, Jean.

“Casey thought the flower was quite beautiful. She had none of them on her side of the fence. The husband could be watching from the big house but what crime was there in collecting a weed? Without pausing to reconsider, she acted.”

Like other novels that centre around a woman searching the depths of their grandmother’s past, May comes to realise quite quickly that she didn’t really know her grandmother at all. Mystery surrounds her marriage, her youth and her connection to the Nebraska town she once lived in as a young wife and mother. Over the course of the story, we witness what appears to be history repeating itself — a young woman, loyal and trusting, trapped in an abusive marriage with little opportunity to extricate herself from it.

A common thread in each storyline is Jean — when a young teenager, she’s a friend and confidante for Casey, and when older, she’s the caretaker of Casey’s home and the person who helps May reconnect with the grandmother she’s struggling to understand.

May and Casey’s lives seem to parallel in a way that haunts the reader, keeps them engaged as each chapter ends. Both women almost seem tethered to each other, much like the men they’re married to. But whilst those marriages seem to be a detriment — a physical and emotional toll — the connection between May and Casey almost seems necessary for May, and also Jean, to resolve each of their demons.

“Jean’s house was among the final few on the curve before the decline to the lake. Hers was the least well kept. Not a wreck, but certainly not the tamed exhibitions of the others…Tate had made her put her hand to her heart and swear an oath that she understood her debt. The personal, unbreakable contract into which they had entered.”

An underlying theme of the book is intergenerational trauma — do we inherit trauma? Does it plague a family and its descendants, no matter what?

Whilst at times I felt the significance of the land and lake was a little lost on me, perhaps the imagery not quite as perfected as I would’ve liked, I found the characters compelling enough to continue reading. Jean was the necessary element to keep the story progressing and to keep May and Casey connected — as predicted, she held the secrets that explained why Casey liked to keep her connection to Nebraska hidden, even later in her life.

“May had flown six times in her life. To and from Sydney, once. To and from Cairns, twice. Each a family holiday that would be christened with Patrick’s disapproval over the size or state of the hotel room. He had always been the one to book.”

Steady and measured with a haunting undertone, Robert Lukins’ Loveland is recommended for literary readers. Reminiscent of Kristin Hannah, whom I love. Readership skews female, 30+

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

Loveland
Robert Lukins
March 2022
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

Hovering by Rhett Davis

The city was in the same place. But was it the same city? Alice stands outside her family’s 1950s red brick veneer, unsure if she should approach. It has been sixteen years, but it’s clear she is out of options.

Lydia opens the door to a familiar stranger – thirty-nine, tall, bony, pale. She knows her sister immediately. But something isn’t right. Meanwhile her son, George, is upstairs, still refusing to speak, and lost in a virtual world of his own design.

Nothing is as it was, and while the sisters’ resentments flare, it seems that the city too is agitated. People wake up to streets that have rearranged themselves, in houses that have moved to different parts of town. Tensions rise and the authorities have no answers. The internet becomes alight with conspiracy theories.

As the world lurches around them, Alice’s secret will be revealed, and the ground at their feet will no longer be so firm.

Rhett Davis’ debut novel Hovering is an ambitious and imaginative novel straddling the border between literary and magical realism. It feels like one of those literary novels that is so clever in its imagery and symbolism, you can’t quite capture it all in one sitting.

Rhett’s novel feels unique in its form — with short chapters resembling a staccato stylistic technique, Rhett experiments with form throughout the novel. From HTML code to chat room or forum conversations, interview transcripts, text messages and spreadsheets detailing movements and dialogue, Hovering does make you feel like you’re moving through some sort of surreal tale.

“Some on the forums recommended exercise, so if he felt an attack coming, he tried to go for a run. When he ran, the noise of his blood drowned out the noise of what he thought might be the universe.”

Anyone who has lived away from home, or spent some time living away from where they were raised, will recognise some of the feelings and emotions brought to life in this story — the strange complexity of returning home and feeling like it’s different to what you remembered.

Written in what feels like a staccato voice — short scenes and chapters — we gain glimpses of the main characters like puzzle pieces. Two sisters with damaged history, and a teenage boy who won’t speak. A town that feels disrupted and fractured, like it’s shifted in recent years. It throws the reader into a sense of (intended) unease.

“The next day, the front door of Fay and Luis Montana’s house had been moved several metres to the left. It now opened on their bedroom. Fay stood at the door in a Malinda Banksia Festival 20—t-shirt, looking out at the street in some confusion.”

Themes in the novel include climate change, climate collapse, art and identity, artistic morality and legacy. Hovering explores urban development and how a city can adapt or reconfigure over time, soon becoming something you don’t even recognise.

Admittedly, the novel feels really slow-paced, but I sense that’s intentional. The short scenes counteract this and help keep the story moving without making the reader feel like events are happening too slowly.

“Alice had left Fraser in a rage. She was angry at her sister, at her parents, at her friends, at the city itself. They were all so backwards. They wanted nothing but comfort and gourmet burgers and new screens. They lived off the proceeds of a land that wasn’t theirs and permitted it by acknowledging if before public events and occasionally raising the Indigenous flag.”

Taut and original, Hovering is recommended for readers of literary fiction. Readership skews 30+

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

Hovering
Rhett Davis
March 2022
Hachette Book Publishers

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont

In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days. Only I know the truth of her disappearance.

I’m no Hercule Poirot. I’m her husband’s mistress.

Agatha Christie’s world is one of glamorous society parties, country house weekends, and growing literary fame.

Nan O’Dea’s world is something very different. Her attempts to escape a tough London upbringing during the Great War led to a life in Ireland marred by a hidden tragedy.

After fighting her way back to England, she’s set her sights on Agatha. Because Agatha Christie has something Nan wants. And it’s not just her husband.

Despite their differences, the two women will become the most unlikely of allies. And during the mysterious eleven days that Agatha goes missing, they will unravel a dark secret that only Nan holds the key to . . .

Nina de Gramont’s The Christie Affair is an enjoyable reimagining of the unexplained eleven-day disappearance of famous crime writer Agatha Christie in 1926. This psychological thriller offers a compelling and concocted tale of why Agatha disappeared and what transpired during the days she was gone.

In December 1926, Agatha’s husband tells her he wishes to divorce her, so he can marry his mistress Nan O’Dea. After disappearing that night, Agatha resurfaces eleven days later at a luxurious hotel under a false name. In between those two events we come to understand more about Agatha and O’Dea, as their stories interweave and storylines are thrust into the past. A mysterious double murder also weaves its way into the novel — its resolution offering one of the biggest twists in the book.

“My father had grown up on a farm just outside the fishing village of Ballycotton. Since I’d been born he’d gone back to visit once or twice when his brother paid the way. But there’d never been enough money for us all to travel there.The thought of my going at all, let alone for a whole summer, was thrilling.”

Both Agatha and O’Dea are relatable, liked characters. One might start the novel sympathising only with Agatha, but over time, as we come to discover why O’Dea is desperate to marry Agatha’s husband, we learn to empathise with her plight.

Nina weaves different storylines and time periods together with ease, crafting a really great novel. The writing is slick. Observations are stark and dialogue is realistic. She does well to capture setting and atmosphere, transporting us back to the 1920s with this emotionally charged story.

“Once I became her stepmother I’d encourage her to be the sort of person who folded her clothes and put them away, who attended to her own discarded wrappings. But for now it wasn’t my place to say a word.”

There’s an omniscient angle to every chapter, allowing the story to travel beyond just Nan’s first person narration. Whilst sometimes the narration and Nan’s point of view grew confusing — Nan talks about others as if she knows everything, delving into their minds and observations and this can sometimes feel disorientating and like we were shifting POV — Nina was an incredibly complex and well-rounded character, and perhaps my favourite in the book.

In saying that, the storyline I enjoyed the most was Nan’s childhood flashbacks — 19, pregnant and living at the convent. I found her to be a lot more raw in these scenes, because she’s young and naive, and trapped in this lion’s den. I almost wished we spent more time in this setting, or perhaps if these flashbacks came earlier in the novel. It provides more context around Nan’s character, and weaves together the reasons why she’s so determined to end Agatha’s marriage.

“I thought Finbarr wouldn’t mind seeing tears. I’d never known him to mind anything. Still, I smiled dutifully at the camera, sitting on the photographer’s stool, sincere in my happiness as I imagined looking at Finbarr’s cheerful face. Some day later I went on my own to collect it. It was a pretty picture, so much prettier than I was in real life…”

Inventive, clever and engaging, The Christie Affair is recommended for readers of historical fiction. The crime element to this novel is quite small and does not take up much of the book, so this isn’t the book to pick up if you’re just looking for a crime to solve.

Readership skews female, 30+

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

The Christie Affair
Nina de Gramont
February 2022
Pan Macmillan Book Publishers

The Islands by Emily Brugman

In the mid-1950s, a small group of Finnish migrants set up camp on Little Rat, a tiny island in an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. The crayfishing industry is in its infancy, and the islands, haunted though they are by past shipwrecks, possess an indefinable allure.

Drawn here by tragedy, Onni Saari is soon hooked by the stark beauty of the landscape and the slivers of jutting coral onto which the crayfishers build their precarious huts. Could these reefs, teeming with the elusive and lucrative cray, hold the key to a good life?

The Islands is the sweeping story of the Saari family: Onni, an industrious and ambitious young man, grappling with the loss of a loved one; his wife Alva, quiet but stoic, seeking a sense of belonging between the ramshackle camps of the islands and the dusty suburban lots of the mainland; and their pensive daughter Hilda, who dreams of becoming the skipper of her own boat. As the Saari’s try to build their future in Australia, their lives entwine with those of the fishing families of Little Rat, in myriad and unexpected ways.

A stunning, insightful story of a search for home.

Emily Brugman’s debut novel The Islands is a multi-generational literary tale that documents Finnish migration to the Abrolhos Islands off the coast of Western Australia.

Although this is a fictional tale, The Islands is heavily influenced by the stories of Emily’s ancestors from 1959 – 1972, as well as extensive research into these islands and cray fishermen from the mid-20th century. The Islands is set across many decades and moves back and forth between different members of the family. Over the course of the novel, we observe each character during pivotal moments in their lives.

“A year for the Saaris was now lived in two parts: on-season and off-season. Their first season on Little Rat had been a moderate success, from an economic standpoint, and the couple looked ahead with a suspicious and careful optimism characteristic of their people.”

At its core, The Islands is about the pursuit of a sustainable and secure life. But it’s also about resilience — both physical and emotional — and perseverance. We witness what that can encapsulate whether you’re 40, 60 or 14. In this isolated and secluded setting, we meet women experiencing loneliness, experiencing childbirth for the first time. We read as their children then mature into teenagers within this barren but plentiful landscape — we follow them as they discover impulses and sexual desire. We come across men working to earn for their families, having arrived with the hope of a land that provides.

“They carried him to camp and laid him down on his side, covering him with a blanket. Hilda stood watching from a corner. Helvi was crying and so was Aiti, although she was trying not to. Hilda wanted to cry too, but she didn’t think that would be right after what she’d done. So she just stood there. And Lauri didn’t move.”

Scattered throughout the novel are Finnish verses, then translated into English. By embedding Finnish language into the novel, readers are further immersed in culture, community and these characters’ historical journey.

There is a strong sense of song and music throughout the book, and the Finnish verses also allow the characters to have a stronger connection to their heritage because it feels like knowledge is being passed between generations.

“Towards the close of his first season, Onni woke to find Little Rat covered in dead shearwaters, their dishevelled bodies in oily black heaps on the coral ground. Those shaggy mutton birds, as the Aussies called them. They flew thousands of miles every year, across open ocean, through torrents of rain and wind. They didn’t always make it, and every so often they’d wash up on shorelines in their hundreds. A wreck. That was what they called it, when they washed up like that.”

Evocative and emotional, Emily Brugman’s The Islands is recommended for literary readers, and fans of grand familial sagas steeped in wild, forbidding settings like a Hannah Kent novel. Readership skews female, 30+

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

The Islands
Emily Brugman
February 2022
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers