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This year‘s #StellaPrize shortlist. I can‘t believe Hydra is on there. I thought it was terrible.

This year‘s #stellaprize winner is a very strange but beautifully (if unusually) written memoir of two sisters dealing with the fall out of ageing parents. Although in this case the mother is bats*$t crazy and at serious risk of killing her dominated husband or send them both broke chasing internet scams.

It‘s the end of the school holidays here. My kids have been madly building LEGO creations - this one is a boarding school - while I‘ve been reading this remarkable memoir. #stellaprize

I really enjoyed this story, I think mostly because the characters were so good. Three siblings growing up with a very unpredictable, probably mentally unwell, father and the resulting impact of that childhood as it reverberated through their lives, each in a different way. It‘s told both from the past and the present and has a sinister mystery threaded through each storyline. #ozfiction #stellaprize

Tackling the #Stellaprize winner this week

Apart from a couple of bits that I didn‘t buy or were a bit jarring this was a really good book, my second favourite on the #stellaprize shortlist so far (but I haven‘t read the winner yet). The devastating ripple effects of twin tragedies and the complex nature to teen friendship were both dealt with honestly and with compassion. The familiar setting also made the book more real for me.

I‘ve been looking forward to this #Stellaprize short list read #indiebuddyreads

Despite the fact that this story is set before I was born there is something very familiar about it. Perhaps because I‘ve been driving over the bridge in question since I was a small girl. #stellaprize #oxfiction

I loved this memoir. Vicki Laveau-Harvie tells the story of her parents with warmth, dark humour & compelling, can‘t-put-it-down prose. Her parents are dysfunctional & her mother a villain - you could not make up these stories. Laveau-Harvie is honest about how this has affected her, but sees the comic side & is a wonderfully warm, engaging story-teller. A unique story but the family issues will resonate widely. Highly recommended. #StellaPrize

This is an enormously difficult memoir to read and is a very grim portrayal of how awful men can be. Trigger warnings for just about everything. #stellaprize