I am also an embarrassing companion who reads every sign at the zoo/museum/gallery/park aloud 😂😂

The concept & themes of this book were interesting to me, but it fell a little flat. The characters lacked depth and the story felt contrived. The themes of environmental destruction & grief could have been explored more deeply.

This book started off so well for me, then my interest petered out. I really liked the style & structure of this novel, but I quickly lost interest in the protagonist as a character. It's a story about his quest for meaning in his life, & in the end I didn't care whether or not he succeeded.

This is a really beautiful short story collection, looking at themes of disconnection, relationships, and the ways women are disempowered in the domestic sphere. All the characters were beautifully rich & complex, not a single dud story in the collection.

I expected to like, not love, this book & that's exactly what happened, but it's still not quite what I expected. A compelling thriller, it is succinct but still feels well developed. It's easy to imagine kids being this cruel, which is a sad thought

A lovely, melancholy, compelling story of a mother & daughter and the way their lives turn upside down while living on a farm commune. Tinged with hope & regret, it tells the story of people totally on the margins of society. I really liked it.

This is a book of digressions & tangents- our narrator talks to us about what it means to be a friend, the events & relationships that shape and colour our lives, and how a book can change us. The stream of consciousness style suited this perfectly.

A really lovely short story collection. It captures growing from adolescence to adulthood in all its glory, awkwardness & heartbreak. All the characters were complex and real, and the stories all felt timeless and relatable.

This book has ravaged my heart. Heartbreakingly beautiful, tangible and real, quintessentially Australian. It is about the way one action can throw a whole life off balance, about how we are owned by the land we come from. Please please read it!!

"She felt drawn and quartered by these men, their ideas for her, their needs. Her own ineffectuality- decades of obedience, doing what she was told and doing it well- was so painful to the touch that she could hardly even finger the edges of it." 193

A fun, dark read about the relationship between medium Alison and her no nonsense assistant Colette. The storytelling is evocative and atmospheric from the outset, there is a real sense of building suspense as we find out who these women truly are.

This was a re-read for me. This is the closest you could possibly come to literary slapstick humour, with Vonnegut's blend of philosophy, science & human vulgarity. Not the best Vonnegut & def not the place to start with his work, but I still love it

This is truly the work of a master storyteller. The way that internal monologue flows into and out of dialogue is genius, and it contains some of the best stream of consciousness pieces since Wolff herself. All the characters felt meaty and real.

This books is a concise and engaging summary of the endless string of blunders that were the Abbott years. Easy to digest even if you don't closely follow Aus politics. Any book on political analysis that can make me laugh out loud is a winner to me.

If you enjoy a book that makes you think, takes you on an adventure, and makes you laugh, I think you'll enjoy this book. I will say that Pynchon's novels are an acquired taste as his writing style is quite unique. It's not easy going, but I love it.