JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman

Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self? Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years. Since childhood they have seen each other through life’s milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, the Madonna phase, REM concerts, unexpected wakes, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes, ‘Edi’s memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.’

So when Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ash’s world reshapes around the rhythms of Edi’s care, from chipped ice and watermelon cubes to music therapy; from snack smuggling to impromptu excursions into the frozen winter night. Because life is about squeezing the joy out of every moment, about building a powerhouse of memories, about learning when to hold on, and when to let go.

Catherine Newman’s We All Want Impossible Things is a poignant tale of friendship and family, and following two women as one nears the end of her life from terminal cancer. Feeling more like a novella than a novel, the story wraps in just over 200 pages.

Admittedly, I DNFed this book the first time I started it but then forced myself to give it a second chance. I can see just how many readers love this one, and whilst there were definitely some positives, there were also a lot of elements to the story that I really struggled to enjoy. And so I feel like this book is a bit middle-of-the-road for me.

“Sicilian lemon polenta pound cake is Edi’s holy grail. She bought a piece at Dean & DeLuca in the mid-1990s, claimed it was the best cake she’d ever eaten, and then could nevr find it again. Even the very next week, when she returned to the store, they didn’t know what she was talking about and had no record of such a cake in their inventory.”

I like that Edi’s terminal cancer forms a framework for the novel – we know how their story will end, and so we are anchored by the rather rapid decline in her health. It helps to maintain the pacing of the story and keeps the story on track.

However, I felt like the structure of the book wasn’t quite what I was expecting from the blurb. We were thrown into this rather chaotic story with more chapters dedicated to Ash and her family than her friendship with Edi. I thought there’d be more to establish Ash and Edi’s lives and history together but there wasn’t. As a result, I didn’t really care too much for either character. I felt like Edi seemed very small in the story and didn’t hold much presence because Ash was such a dominant – perhaps too dominant – character. Ash was also such a grating character who made rather implausible decisions that I found her rather unlikeable.

“You know when you put on a sweater in the car, and then when you get to where you’re going you can’t figure out how to get out of your seat belt? That’s what it felt like trying to peel Edi out of her clothes.”

The chaotic nature in the book was rather noticeable in the dialogue – over-the-top, somewhat contrived writing that perhaps would work on screen but not on the page (for me). I didn’t warm to Ash in the book and so her endeavours with her family and her partners fell flat for me. Whilst I can appreciate what the writer is working to establish with the trajectory of Ash and her husband’s marriage, a lot of the scenes and conversations just seemed to be there for the sake of it – lots of rambled dialogue that didn’t seem to really say anything at all.

I don’t feel there was any growth for Ash, she only cared for herself, made everything about her, and I couldn’t understand why her estranged husband would want to get back together with her at the end of the book. And her relationship with her teenage daughter felt caricature and not at all realistic.

“I’ve been friends with Jonah as long as I’ve been friends with Edi, since Edi and I were assigned, in nursery school, to take care of Vinnie, the classroom Venus flytrap. We fed Vinnie bites of bologna from our sandwiches and sang him the Jewish folk song ‘Dona, Dona’ with so much tremulous vibrato that we actually made ourselves cry.”

Whilst this book didn’t sit well with me, I am conscious how popular it is with readers and so there is definitely an established audience. Readership skewing 30+

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

We All Want Impossible Things
Catherine Newman
November 2022
Penguin Random House Publishers

Heart Bones by Colleen Hoover

Beyah Grim has only ever known a life of poverty and neglect. After surviving by any means necessary, she finally has a hard-earned ticket out of Kentucky with a full ride to Penn State. Two short months before she’s finally free, an unexpected death leaves her homeless and forced to spend the remainder of her summer on a peninsula in Texas with a father she barely knows.

Begging the summer to go by quickly and hoping to remain as invisible as possible, Beyah wants nothing to do with Samson, the wealthy, brooding guy who lives next door to her father and who couldn’t possibly understand where Beyah’s coming from or what she’s been through. But with an almost immediate connection too intense for them to deny, and futures leading them to opposite ends of the country, Beyah and Samson decide to stay in the shallow end of a summer fling, neither of them realizing that a rip current is about to drag both their hearts out to sea.

Colleen Hoover’s Heart Bones is an emotional story of two teenagers on the cusp of adulthood, both let down in life and trying to make sense of their future. Well-paced, coming of age YA fiction with a summer romance at its centre.

We meet Beyah Grim after her mother dies of an overdose, and the only person she has left in her life is her estranged father – someone she’s barely spent any time with and has never really expressed much of an interest in her life. Realising that she needs help from others, she spends the summer in Texas with him before heading to college, and there, she meets Samson. Secretive and mysterious, Samson seems to understand Beyah more than anyone else. Life seems to have dealt him a difficult hand and over the Summer, these two teenagers find comfort in each other’s presence.

“I think there’s a chance I might be wrong about him. I might have judged him a little too soon. But then again, what’s the matter if I am wrong? Things between us are awkward and I don’t see that changing unless one of us has a personality transplant.”

Overarchingly, Heart Bones explores poverty and neglect, and how this can impact a person’s actions. How do we perceive a person’s actions when they’re desperate, alone and without the appropriate means to survive?

I read Heart Bones in one sitting, impressed with the premise and characterisation. The pacing, too, is something to be commended. I was surprised to realise that this book is being marketed as general fiction because for me, it definitely feels like a YA novel. Centred around two teenagers and dealing with themes of love, identity and family, both of the main characters bond of their shared experiences in pain and heartbreak. They have to learn to let others in, knowing they don’t need to just rely on themselves.

“Samson looks over at our table. There’s a discomfort to him now. He puts his hand on the guy’s back and walks him away from the table so we can’t hear what they’re saying. I look at Sara and Marcos to see what their reactions are.”

Heart Bones follows a similar plotline to a fair few YA romances – that ‘final’ summer before college, where your path appears unclear and you’re not sure what kind of person you might become.

This is definitely more of a character-driven story than plot-driven. Among many other things, Heart Bones explores the merge of a new family and new friendships. When Beyah moves in with her father, she meets his new wife and his stepdaughter Sara. Over the course of the novel, it’s not just about Beyah bonding with her father, but the rest of the family too. She learns to let them in, trust others, and trust that she can actually have a family outside of what she was used to during her childhood.

“He doesn’t respond to that. He just watches me. He does that a lot and I like it. I don’t even care what he’s thinking when he stars. I just like that he finds me intriguing enough to stare at, even if his thoughts aren’t entirely positive. It means he sees me. I’m not used to being seen.”

Poignant and emotionally driven, Colleen Hoover’s Heart Bones is suitable for readers of YA. Romance readers will enjoy this. Readership skews female, 14+

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

Heart Bones
Colleen Hoover
February 2023
Simon & Schuster Australia

The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell

The night before
Rupert’s 30th is a black tie dinner at the Kentish Town McDonald’s – catered with cocaine and Veuve Clicquot.

The morning after
His girlfriend Clemmie is found murdered on Hampstead Heath. All the party-goers have alibis. Naturally.

This investigation is going to be about Classics degrees and aristocrats, Instagram influencers and who knows who. Or is it whom? Detective Caius Beauchamp isn’t sure. He’s sharply dressed, smart, and as into self-improvement as Clemmie – but as he searches for the dark truth beneath the luxury, a wall of staggering wealth threatens to shut down his investigation before it’s begun.

Can he see through the tangled set of relationships in which the other half live, and die, before the case is taken out of his hands?

Okay. Ooft. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve reviewed on the blog. At the end of last year, I realised I needed a break from the book reviews, just to give myself time to read some books on my shelf that I’ve been wanting to read for years. Books I’d been putting off so that I could get through all the books sent to me from publishers. For the first time in a long time, I was choosing what to read based purely on interest rather than need, and it felt damn good.

But all holidays must come to an end, and I’m back! Back requesting review copies from publishers and back reviewing some of the fantastic reads I received over the last few months. Starting with Charlotte Vassell’s debut novel The Other Half.

A suspenseful police procedural that centres around the murder of a well-known socialite and influencer, Charlotte paints a rather accurate portrait of society’s elite, crafting a large suite of absurd and wildly unlikeable characters all connected to a murder.

The most notable character, narcissist Rupert Beauchamp, organises a black-tie dinner to celebrate his 30th birthday party (upstairs at a McDonalds, hilariously). When his girlfriend Clemency is found dead not long after the drug-fuelled event, investigators must navigate their way through this incredibly elite, self-centred world to find out which member of Clemmie’s circle might’ve committed the crime.

“Nell had walked from Islington to the V&A. No better way to kill a couple of hours waiting to go on a date with your long-standing friend who you angry-shagged last night than with a brisk panic-stroll through Central London.”

The entertaining elements in this book are two-fold. On the one hand, the characters provide hilarity and laughs – they’re utterly ridiculous in what they wear, how they act and speak about others, what they do (or don’t) care about. Charlotte provides a masterclass in how to paint characters vividly in few words, and it’s remarkable that this is her debut.

And on the other hand, at its core this is a crime novel with a team of police leading an investigation to find the perpetrator. So it feels like both a character-driven and a plot-driven story, which will appeal to many readers.

“Caius was back at his desk in the incident room and had finally finished reading the full autopsy report. Clemmie’s poor mother had called, or rather sobbed down the phone to him. She didn’t appear to know her daughter at all. Nothing useful came from that interaction.”

Vassell explores elitism and London’s class system. We meet characters whose entitlement has them believing they can do whatever their want – they almost seem to be void of real emotional or realistic maturity, and it makes for an entertaining read.

I rather like Charlotte’s writing style – succinct, direct, no unnecessary description. She doesn’t bog down the story with excessive setting or character reflection. She lets dialogue carry the story, and so much of the characterisation comes through in her zippy dialogue and cunning observations.

“Caius hung up as a grey-haired man in a loose-fitting Nehro collar shirt, faded pink shorts and brown leather boating shoes unlocked the gallery door. It was reassuring to know that fifty-somethings with little pot bellies could still pull.”

The Other Half is recommended for readers of thriller, crime and mystery. Readership skews 21+

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

The Other Half
Charlotte Vassell
February 2023
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

The Resemblance by Lauren Nossett

On a November morning at the University of Georgia, a fraternity brother steps into a busy crosswalk and is struck dead by an oncoming car. More than a dozen witnesses all agree on two things: the driver looked identical to the victim, and he was smiling.

Detective Marlitt Kaplan is first on the scene. A local and the daughter of a professor at the university, she knows all its shameful history. But in the course of investigating this hit-and-run, she will uncover more chilling secrets in the sprawling, interconnected system of fraternities and sororities that empower the university’s most elite students.

The lines between Marlitt’s police work and her own past begin to blur as she seeks to bring to justice an institution that took something precious from her many years ago. When threats against her escalate, Marlitt must question whether the corruption in her home town has run off campus and into the police force, and how far these brotherhoods will go to protect their own.

Lauren Nossett’s psychological thriller The Resemblance is a police procedural investigating the hit-and-run of a promising, apparently well-loved college student at the University of Georgia.

Detective Marlitt Kaplan happens to be at the University of Georgia when a male student is hit and killed, and so she feels driven to see the case to the end. What is initially a hit-and-run on campus soon turns into an investigation into hazing, alcohol abuse, sexual assault, and university cover-ups.

“We’re both silent for a while, and I wonder if Teddy – who grew up surrounded by sisters who adored him and a mom who insisted on nightly family dinners – could ever understand what it means to lose a friend like that.”

Nossett brings an intriguing premise to the novel, exploring why the driver of the car looked identical to the victim. Whilst this is not a dystopian or paranormal read, and therefore an identical driver is not possible, it does drive intrigue among readers and invites interest from fans of crime and thrillers.

Strengths lie in the pacing and plotting, and how easily Lauren can keep us guessing. The night where Marlitt discovers the basement in the fraternity house is a particularly pivotal moment in the story, and with the stakes being so high, we can’t help but become invested in the mystery.

“Oliver gives me a look I can’t read. He’s heard me sprout my opinions about fraternities and Greek life at large. If it were up to me, the university would do away with the whole thing. They’re cesspools of underage drinking and sexual assault.”

There were some missed elements to the story – some underdevelopments that could’ve enriched the novel. The protagonist’s relationship with her parents seemed a bit surface-level, and we don’t gain further insight in their relationship until the end of the book. Marlitt’s interactions with her police colleagues felt a bit lost in the story, to the point where I kept confusing her colleagues with some of the suspects. There is also a house fire that threatens Marlitt’s life and this thread in the story felt like an add-on. The person who did it wasn’t a major player in the story, and they seemed to disappear in the book just as quickly as they appeared. Was this meant to act as a red herring?

The protagonist’s hatred of college fraternities felt a bit too dominant across the storyline. Her personal vendetta against them, whilst admirable and from a place of good intentions, felt preachy and like didacticism.

Despite this, the twists and turns in the book, the surprises, were enough to keep me engaged throughout. I devoured the book in one day and I think a lot of other readers will find themselves enthralled as well. The fraternity life isn’t something we experience here in Australia so it’s always interesting to bring a lens to another element of society.

“We all have our own ways of approaching a case – I try to picture every detail I can about the victim’s life so I can build a world with him in it and look for inconsistencies. Teddy asks as many questions as possible – finding out information but also gauging reactions and hesitations, looking for the lies and omissions.”

Recommended for readers of crime and thriller. Readership skews 25+

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

The Resemblance
Lauren Nossett
October 2022
Pan Macmillan Book Publishers

The Tilt by Chris Hammer

A man runs for his life in a forest. A woman plans sabotage. A body is unearthed.

Newly-minted homicide detective Nell Buchanan returns to her home town, annoyed at being assigned a decades-old murder – a ‘file and forget’.

But this is no ordinary cold case, as the discovery of more bodies triggers a chain of escalating events in the present day. As Nell starts to join the pieces together, she begins to question how well she truly knows those closest to her. Could her own family be implicated in the crimes?

The nearer Nell comes to uncovering the secrets of the past, the more dangerous the present becomes for her, as she battles shadowy assailants and sinister forces. Can she survive this harrowing investigation and what price will she have to pay for the truth?

Chris Hammer’s latest thriller The Tilt is a multi-layered crime story spanning almost 100 years and set in a secluded Australian town.

When a regulator is deliberately blown up, a body from decades earlier is unearthed at its base. Many think the case is too old to properly solve – whoever did it would be dead, alongside anyone else in the small town who was alive when the person was murdered. But with one body comes more, and before too long homicide detective – and former local – Nell Buchanan is on the trail of the killer.

“Nell is up with the sun, training gear on. Tulong is still asleep. She wonders if it ever wakes. The town sits flat and exposed on the long plain above the tilt, its trees punctation marks lacking a narrative. Beyond the houses to the west there is nothing.”

The Tilt follows multiple timelines and perspectives as quite a few different narratives need to intersect across the course of the novel. It does take a bit of time to comprehend how the characters and eras all relate to each other, and there are a lot of people to keep track of (particularly at the end as the conclusion nears), but Chris’ characterisation allows for easy differentiation between the main characters.

Chris moves through the chapters with seamless storytelling – he propels us straight into the action of each scene, and always manages to leave you wanting to read the next chapter. For such a large book I finished it rather quickly, which is a testament to how eager I was to find out the ending.

“I wonder what my dad would think of it. Someone blowing it up like that. Horrified, I imagine. Rolling back progress. But, then, he wouldn’t have imagined finding a body like that. A skeleton in the bottom of the regulator. All this time. I couldn’t believe it when I read about it. A skeleton. Who could have known that?”

Atmosphere, mood and setting is always a strong element of Chris Hammer’s books. The dry heat – the sticky humidity – is captured vividly and readers in Australia will be able to recognise that weather as they turn the pages. Alongside setting, Chris captures the different time periods with clarity. The golden era of the 70s was my favourite – the lovestruck Tessa and Tycho – but it was also intriguing to follow the storylines from earlier in the 20th century. The war and what it forced people to do to survive.

I do find it peculiar that most of Chris Hammer’s books seem to have a similar colouring – Scrublands, Trust and now The Tilt. All orange, making them look almost identical. A friend saw me reading this one and said they’d already read it, but then realised they’d actually already read Scrublands and thought the two books were the same.

“My dad didn’t want to go to war. Not because he was afraid, but because he was resentful. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I worked it out later. His own father had come back from the first war shattered, as if he’d been broken and then glued back together. That’s what my mum said.”

Australian crime at its finest, Chris Hammer knows how to weave together a compelling and pacey thriller. A great Father’s Day gift, as always, and a suitable gift for any level reader. Crime readers, in particular, will love this latest edition.

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

The Tilt
Chris Hammer
October 2022
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers