JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein

“We don’t pick and choose what to be afraid of. Our fears pick us.”

Tash Carmody has been traumatised since childhood, when she witnessed her gruesome imaginary friend Sparrow lure young Mallory Fisher away from a carnival. At the time nobody believed Tash, and she has since come to accept that Sparrow wasn’t real.

Now fifteen and mute, Mallory’s never spoken about the week she went missing. As disturbing memories resurface, Tash starts to see Sparrow again. And she realises Mallory is the key to unlocking the truth about a dark secret connecting them. Does Sparrow exist after all? Or is Tash more dangerous to others than she thinks?

Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein is a debut psychological thriller that explores the notion of imaginary friends and fractured memories, and learning to trust your own instincts.

Tash Carmody is an unreliable narrator. She’s not sure if she can trust her own mind, and she’s been told for the past nine years that her friend Sparrow was just imaginary. She’s been told that what she remembers from the night of the carnival — when Mallory went missing — is a false memory.

“I dig my fingernails into the seat and swallow my rising panic. I know who I think I saw, but there’s no way I can admit it out loud. Mum glances at me expectantly and suddenly I’m eight years old again, fumbling through explanations about Sparrow and the carnival, only to be met with confusion and impatience.”

One of the major strengths of the book is the dynamic between Tash and her parents. Their strained relationship and their constant concern and overbearing nature will resonate with young readers. Tash’s mum is always looking for a reason to be disappointed in Tash, or bring up her ‘condition’. I think Sarah wrote their relationship really well, and allowed it to evolve over the course of the novel.

The novel is well-paced, and moves between past and present really effortlessly. There are also chapters where Tash is talking to her therapist, and I think Sarah captured those conversations really well. The dialogue is realistic, and the pacing of the novel contributes to the overall ‘creepiness’ of the story, and the reader’s desire to get to the end of the book and find out the truth.

“Rachel and I exchange another look that tells me we’re both one hundred per cent sure any common ground we once had has been torched and decimated. She turns away from us and buries her nose in her journal.”

I think Sarah foreshadowed too much in the first half of the novel. At no point did I actually think Tash was imagining things, even when she starts to believe it herself. I thought the dynamic between Tash and her aunt Ally was a little unrealistic from the beginning, which meant I was suspicious of their relationship and what secrets it may hold.

Additionally, I think the problems between Tash and her friend Sadie were solved too quickly. Their relationship has cracks in it, and they build and build until there’s a breaking point. That is written really effectively. And then, the climax is really sudden and short and everything seems to solve itself really fast. It jolts the reader and leaves them feeling unnerved by the rapid ending of the book.

“Beside me my mother heaves a sigh, and the security team hurries away. I sink into a wooden seat and rest my elbows on my legs to stop them trembling. I can’t look Mum in the face, and she’s interested in me anyway.”

Small Spaces is perfect for teen readers. If you’re a regular reader of thrillers and mysteries, you may find the ending a little unsurprising, but it’s a fast-paced book with a lot of twists and turns, and you will be guessing until the very end.

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

Small Spaces
Sarah Epstein
April 2018
Walker Books Australia

The Lebs by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

As far as Bani Adam is concerned Punchbowl Boys is the arse end of the earth. Though he’s a Leb and they control the school, Bani feels at odds with the other students, who just don’t seem to care. He is a romantic in a sea of hypermasculinity.

Bani must come to terms with his place in this hostile, hopeless world, while dreaming of so much more.

The Lebs by Michael Mohammed Ahmad is a coming of age novel set in Punchbowl, Sydney.

This is an adult novel, but it would still be very relatable for teenagers — particularly males. It’s mostly set within a high school, and explores the relationship between Bani and his friends, and some of the girls that he meets over the course of the year.

The novel is saturated with swearing and adult themes, so I’d definitely set a 15+ age recommendation on the book.

The Lebs explores themes of race, gender, sexuality and identity, all through the telescope of male teenagers. It’s set in the wake of September 11, when most Muslim and Arabic men are labelled terrorists or rapists. The novel highlights racism in Australia, and would be particularly eye-opening for white readers.

The dialogue is sharp and blunt, and Michael Mohammed Ahmad has done a great job of really painting all of these characters through their dialogue. There are a lot of scenes featuring a large number of teenage voices, and I think the author did well to differentiate them so that the reader doesn’t get too confused when reading.

“I look onto Osama and Shaky, and they lock onto me, and onto one another, a triangle of thorns. I hear the thoughts transmitting through their gaze, telling me that this isn’t the girl from the plays we learn at school; this is the girl from the news, the girl who sends us to prison.”

The writing in this book almost feels like stream of consciousness — long sentences with very little punctuation and a real concentration is needed in order to follow what’s going on.

At first glance, not much actually happens in the book. Sure, Bani talks about his friendships and his first girlfriend and then we read as he joins a multicultural arts program. But at its core, there doesn’t seem to be a message or a theme or any kind of meaning. It’s just, meaningless teenage stuff in Punchbowl?

And then I realised, that’s the point of the book. This is about Bani navigating his school year and all that’s going on, and the reader getting a real insight into life as a student at a school where no one really seems to care about much and life is rife with hyper-masculinity.

‘Bani Adam thinks he’s better than us!’ they say over and over until finally I shout back, ‘Shut up, I have something to say!’

They all go quiet and wait for me to explain myself, redeem myself, pull my shirt out, rejoin the pack. I hold their anticipation for three seconds, and then, while they’re all ablaze, I say out loud, ‘I do think I’m better.’

I’m glad that this novel is only 250 pages, because if it were any longer I would’ve lost interest. The plot and the narration starts to drag a little towards the end, and I wasn’t as absorbed in the storyline and the characters as I thought I would be. This isn’t really my favourite book, but I still followed along and finished the story.

This book would appeal to Sydney-siders, or young teenage boys looking for a story they can relate to. Literary fiction readers might find some of the content quite confronting, but the lyricism and poetic flow of the book will probably intrigue them enough to enjoy the read.

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

The Lebs
Michael Mohammed Ahmad
March 2018
Hachette Book Publishers

The Queen of Bloody Everything by Joanna Nadin

Dido Sylvia Jones is six years and twenty seven days old when she moves from London squat to suburban Essex and promptly falls in love with Tom Trevelyan, the boy next door. It’s not just him Dido falls for, though: it’s also his precocious sister, Harry, and their fastidious, controlling mother, Angela.

Because Angela is everything that Edie – Dido’s own mother – is not. And the Trevelyans are exactly the kind of family Dido dreams of.

Normal.

Which is what Dido wants to be, more than anything else in the world. But normal is the very thing Edie can never be, as Dido – and the Trevelyans, including Dido’s beloved Tom – will eventually learn the hard way.

The Queen of Bloody Everything by Joanna Nadin is a heartbreaking and heartwarming novel about family, relationships, and what it means to be ‘normal’.

This book explores the relationship between Dido and her mother Edie. Dido doesn’t know who her father is, and so it’s always been just her and her mother. And even though she loves Edie, even a young Dido knows that there’s something dysfunctional about their family. Edie is a single mother and she’s blunt, brazen, brash and defiant. She doesn’t conform to society’s expectations of her, but over time Dido learns to accept her mother for who she is.

The book is written in second-person, from Dido to her mother Edie. At first, the positioning is a little jolting for the reader, but I eased into the story quite quickly and I learnt to accept the second-person narration.

“Though you were there, I know you were — you wouldn’t let me go alone, although that was suggested when you refused to get dressed, and then refused to get into the Daimler. But in the end you came, in your pyjamas and jumper with a tutu skirt pulled over the trousers.”

We are introduced to Dido in the 1970s when she is six years’ old, and she has the energetic but unapologetic nature of most children. It makes for a fun and enjoying read.

As Dido grows older, we follow her journey through school and university. This book is not just about her tumultuous relationship with her mother. It’s about her friendship with Harry next door, and Harry’s brother Tom. Dido’s love for Tom lingers for most of her life, but their time together always seems short and fleeting. As the reader, you grow to love each of these characters and you keep reading because you want to find out how their stories end.

The Queen of Bloody Everything explores the notion of dreaming for another life. Dido grows up wishing her family was more like the Trevelyan family. She dreams of a different mother and a different home life. When Tom starts dating other girls, Dido dreams that she was his — that it was her who Tom chose.

“Small town, small minds,” you say, as now-to-be-neighbours watch us through twitching nets as we drag dustbin bags and old crisp boxes from the back of Maudsley Mick’s Transit. I stare back defiantly as I march up the path, ignoring the trail of tampons, playscripts, a potato masher that I leave in my wake.

Dido grows up, but she continues to come home and visit Edie. Despite her mother doing some truly awful things during Dido’s childhood, Dido doesn’t ever stay away for too long. Their relationship is difficult and complex, and readers will relate to this a lot.

The novel is full of wit and heart, and I highly recommend that everyone read this book. It was definitely a surprise for me — based on the blurb, I wasn’t anticipating that I would love this novel as much as I did.

“It’s as if someone has stripped and stood me under a spotlight. I am aware of every extra inch of me compared to her. What must it feel like to him, I wonder. Like kneading dough, maybe. Probably. And yet I don’t stop him.”

The Queen of Bloody Everything is tender and humorous, warm and entertaining. The characterisation is the book’s biggest strength; the reader falls in love with Dido and her friends, and even her mother Edie. You read the book wanting to know how their journeys will end, after all the decades that they’ve spent together.

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

The Queen of Bloody Everything
Joanna Nadin
February 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum

The first thing you should know is: there’s no such thing as coincidence.

There are beings that watch over you. Some of us were like you, once. Call us what you will, guardians, agents, sentinels or perhaps spirits, angels, demons. No matter how you think of us, we have one purpose. We are architects of chance, we make coincidences.

Of course, a Coincidence Maker always has the choice: fulfil the coincidence, or refuse. So when an assignment of the highest level is slipped under the door one night, it’s immediately obvious that the choice will have to be made. A choice that could change our understanding of coincidences, of fate, free will, and even perhaps, love itself…

The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum is an imaginative novel that blends fantasy, love story and mystery. It allows the reader to experience the unknown and delve into a world we could only imagine.

Coincidence Makers exist to watch over humans — they help orchestrate life’s pivotal moments. They may cause you to spill you drink, miss your train, bump into someone, or catch the wrong bus.

However, all of these moments are orchestrated for a bigger purpose. Perhaps it’s because you’re actually a talented writer but in order for you to discover that, you need to lose your job. Perhaps you’re destined for true love, but you need to ‘meet’ them first and you aren’t capable of doing that on your own. Perhaps you’re set to make a medical breakthrough, but something in your life needs to change in order for you to do that. That’s where Coincidence Makers come in.

“Making coincidences is a delicate and complex art, full of details demanding the ability to juggle events, assess situations and responses, apply a basic lack of stupidity that is sometimes hard to find. You’ll need to use mathematics, physics, psychology…”

The reader will never look at coincidences the same, because something that we see as a ‘rare occurrence’ or a ‘chance meeting’ is actually something in the book that has been planned perfectly by someone with the skills to do it.

The main characters in The Coincidence Makers are Guy, Emily and Eric — all three of these people work for a secret supernatural organisation that creates and carries out coincidences. They spark significant changes in the lives of their ‘targets’. Assignments are slipped under their door, and they have to formulate a plan to achieve the specified goal.

The book has a really interesting and unique premise, and I actually found the book quite fascinating. It’s very clever and imaginative.

The book bends genres, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. I was so intrigued and so interested in this world that I read the book in only two sittings, flying through the pages and becoming completely absorbed in the characters and their stories.

“Pierre introduced himself as a rank five coincidence maker. Guy immediately understood what this meant. Pierre was a ‘Black Hat’ — responsible for particularly complex coincidences with extensive repercussions.”

I did think that it was a little slow to start, the pace only quickening halfway through and Yoav taking a little too long to explain the concept of coincidence makers to the reader. Once it got going though, I did really enjoy the story and the characters and how Yoav managed to weave all these different elements together.

Yoav has done a fantastic job of capturing the dynamic between Guy and Emily, and their history together. The dialogue is realistic and the narration is easy to read. The prose flows really well, and the length of the book is perfect for the story. Whilst it is slow to start, the pacing does get better.

I’d recommend this to lovers of literary fiction, but also mystery. The narrative moves around a fair bit, and there are some really surprising twists at the end of the story that would satisfy those of you who love a mystery/thriller novel.

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

The Coincidence Makers
Yoav Blum
March 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

SHE: A Celebration of 100 Renegade Women by Harriet Hall

SHE is a love letter to all the women who have thrown out the rulebook and threatened the status quo. It’s a toast to the brave, bold and brilliant women who make us proud to be ladies.

From fashion icon Coco Chanel to Queen Cleopatra, from literary legend Jane Austen to trailblazer Michelle Obama and from kick-ass activist Malala Yousafzai to the one-and-only Beyoncé, SHE honours 100 truly renegade women, from history through to present day.

SHE by Harriet Hall is a compact book highlighting 100 women from history who contributed to positive change within society. Some of these women have long since passed, but some are still alive today.

What I loved most about this book is that each woman was dedicated only two pages — one page had a black and white sketch illustration of the woman, and the other page detailed their life story. I loved that their story was summarised so succinctly.

I’ve read a lot of these types of books and I always felt like there was too much description that could’ve been edited down. Essentially, I think the reader wants a quick snapshot of how that person changed history, so a one-page summary is really wonderful.

“History paints Cleopatra as a beguiling woman who had legendary affairs with Rome’s two most powerful leaders. But this telling of events overlooks her military aptitude an an intelligence that enabled her to rule a country fragmented by male-dominated political turmoil for two decades.”

SHE transcends decades and doesn’t just stick to the same women you read about in these kinds of books. Yes, Harriet talks about Marie Curie and Maya Angelou, but she also talks about Hillary Clinton and Beyonce.

This is a really great book for young readers, because there isn’t too much reading and there are illustrations to look at. Plus, the compact size of the book will be appealing to young children.

“The work of Joan Clarke is relatively unknown, but she played a vital role in breaking the code that eventually led to the end of the Second World War.”

This book is filled with inspirational women and their amazing stories. I really enjoyed reading it — I finished it in one sitting on the train to work. It’s been curated so well and the black and white illustrations are stunning. This would make a great addition to anyone’s library.

“The only woman on the team, Sacagawea proved an invaluable member. Clark noted in his diaries that she foraged for edible plants and bought horses for travel. In one particularly dangerous moment, she saved vital cargo when the team’s boat capsized.”

I recommend this to parents who aren’t looking for something too complex for their kids to read. As I mentioned, each woman is explained with only one page so it’s easy to move through this book quickly. I imagine young girls will love reading about all these inspirational women.

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

SHE: A Celebration of 100 Renegade Women
Harriet Hall
March 2018
Hachette Book Publishers

%d bloggers like this: