It‘s a sweet opposites-attract romance, with fun arts vs science content, but honestly what I enjoyed most was its familiarity. Tom and Sophie go to so many places I know, and drink at so many bars I‘ve frequented, it was like talking to someone I know IRL about how they met their soulmate. It ends a little abruptly, but it was still all-around a delightful read. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/bound-to-happen-jonathon-shannon/

The Visitors is a particularly thought-provoking read with the forthcoming Referendum in Australia, and I doubt the timing of its release is an accident. I highly recommend it to all Australian readers – and all international readers who want to know more about our history, come to that. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-visitors-jane-harrison/

I loved reading Trace as much as I loved listening to the podcast initially. Sure, it broke my heart and turned my stomach at times, but that‘s the reality of what happened to Maria James and her family. I live in hope that Brown‘s investigation, which is ongoing, brings some answers and closure for the James boys, and everyone else impacted by this horrific crime(s). Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/trace-rachael-brown/

This would be a great pick for fans of Erin Morgenstern and young adult fantasy readers ready to bump up into the books-for-grown-ups category. The tone is irreverent but somewhat self-consciously so. I found it pretty hard to sink into, before I even got to the Rube Goldberg machine of a plot, but maybe I just haven't read enough urban fantasy (or fantasy full stop). Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/masters-of-death-olivie-blake/

If all you know about Shirley Jackson is The Lottery, or her novella We Have Always Lived In The Castle, the other 24 stories in this collection will come as a bit of a surprise 😳 Most of them are just weird, maybe a little unsettling, more so than spooky or scary. They‘re much quieter than I was expecting, and on occasion a little… well, blah 🤷‍♀️ Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-lottery-and-other-stories-shirley-jacks...

I love a memoir with a twist, a unique approach that up-ends your expectations. The Vitals evokes Chris Flynn, or Laura Jean McKay – Australian authors who de-anthropomorphise perspective in their writing, with a healthy spoonful of humour to make the searing insight go down. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-vitals-tracy-sorensen/

A Good Girl's Guide To Murder is full of great mic drops 🎤 and brilliant banter between friends 🗣 but I want to lodge an official complaint about the DEVASTATING dog death in the latter half of the book 😭 It was needlessly cruel, and it had me chasing my around the house demanding snuggles. Aside from that, it was pretty good. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/a-good-girls-guide-to-murder-holly-jackson/

The Seven Year Slip isn‘t one for the world-building purists, but that‘s okay. The “magic” isn‘t the focus, it‘s the romance blooming between Clementine and the man her apartment took her seven years back in time to meet, Iwan. He‘s a time travelling manic pixie dream boy who says stuff like “When was the last time you did something for the first time?”. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-seven-year-slip-ashley-poston/

Without any real plot or drive, Monkey Grip didn‘t exactly blow me away – but there are many moments of beautiful prose, like little glimpses of Garner‘s greatness to come. It might not be the best one of hers to start with if you‘re new to her work, but if you‘re already hooked and want to see where it all began, give it a go. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/monkey-grip-helen-garner/

A steamy read, with a bonus “oh no, there‘s only one bed!” incident that had me giggling with delight. Chandler is a refreshingly sex-positive heroine, and Finn a very respectful student. Oh, and there‘s no stupid miscommunication break-up in the third act! Exceeded my already-high expectations 😍 Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/business-or-pleasure-rachel-lynn-solomon/

This is a grittier, darker read than you might be expecting 😳 I‘ve seen it billed as a YA novel, but I think that‘s just a knee-jerk reaction to so many of the characters being teenage girls. It‘s definitely one for mature readers. And, as much as I enjoyed it, I will warn you: it ain‘t subtle 😮‍💨 Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-power-naomi-alderman/

Weekends With The Sunshine Gardening Society is as light and bright as the cover. It‘s all very white-bread Australia, but the genuine affection that these women have for one another is touching. It's a pleasant and straightforward read, one that might even inspire this brown thumb to do something about the weeds currently overtaking her yard. Review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/weekends-with-the-sunshine-gardening-societ...

I think the main problem with The Time Traveler‘s Wife is exactly what I predicted: I love the film. It‘s like I looked for problems while reading the book because it couldn‘t possibly be as good as the movie. The story is just so much smoother on screen and those tone shifts are evened out, and as a result, the impact is far greater and more devastating. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-time-travelers-wife-audrey-niffenegger/

I think the story would‘ve benefited from a narrower focus. The intensity of what the Hardwicke family experiences would‘ve been more resonant without all of the other distractions. All Of Us Are Broken didn‘t quite live up to what I‘d hoped from the moral dilemma promised in the blurb. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/all-of-us-are-broken-fiona-cummins/

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is highly re-readable, and will surely give your brain a lot to chew on. Definitely more than you‘d expect from a beach read! Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/eleanor-oliphant-is-completely-fine-gail-ho...

Given the state of gun culture in the States at the moment, a novel full of gallows humour about it might seem a bit confronting, but Houser manages to endear the reader with Prumont‘s hard luck and self-deprecation. This is a challenging and surprising read, and I devoured it in a single sitting. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-prumont-method-trevor-j-houser/

There are confessions and passages in The Princess Diarist that you couldn‘t have waterboarded out of me if I were Fisher. The extracts from her diaries are C.R.I.N.G.E. I nearly died from secondhand embarrassment. There are love poems 19-year-old Fisher wrote about Harrison Ford, for crying out loud. Hats off to her! Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-princess-diarist-carrie-fisher/

12 Steps To A Long And Fulfilling Death has a great concept and a fantastic cast of everyone-sucks-here characters, but the jerky pacing and predictable outcomes made for an uneven reading experience. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/12-steps-to-a-long-and-fulfilling-death-sar...

I found The Vagina Monologues interesting on multiple levels: as cultural artifact, as feminist literature, as relatable content. My personal favourite of the monologues? I Was Twelve When My Mother Slapped Me, a composite account of first periods. Hilarious, and insightful! Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-vagina-monologues-eve-ensler/

Lowbridge just doesn‘t quite hit the beats, even though all of the essential elements are there (missing girl, suspicious locals, politics, gender roles, wealth divide). The prose (especially the dialogue) is clunky, and exposition-heavy. When the resolution came around, it was exactly what you‘d expect, with no surprises or curve-balls. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/lowbridge-lucy-campbell/

I still love Grady Hendrix. I still really enjoyed My Best Friend‘s Exorcism… except that one bit. I can‘t get past that one bit. If horror books are supposed to give you nightmares, he did his job a bit too well. Full review (with trigger warnings): https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/my-best-friends-exorcism-grady-hendrix/

Are you ready for pandemic novels? For some of us, it‘s still too soon, but for the rest there‘s Why We Are Here. It‘s one of those literary novels that goes nowhere specific, but fills the story out with achingly introspective narrative, like Joan Didion meets Maggie Nelson. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/why-we-are-here-briohny-doyle/

Rodham offers fascinating insight into Hillary‘s mind – or at least Sittenfeld‘s informed best-guess about it. The first-person point of view doubles the effect. It‘s shockingly intimate, even quite horny at times. I found it difficult to force myself to forget that Rodham is about a real person, and that she might have read this imagined version of her own life. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/rodham-curtis-sittenfeld/

Eta Draconis is like an upper-YA Australian take on The Grapes Of Wrath, complete with the misery spiral and messy teenage relationships (that Ritchie absolutely nails). The narrative was a bit nature-heavy for my city slicker tastes, though. If you want rich and evocative nature writing about the wilderness of Western Australia, it's the perfect pick for you. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/eta-draconis-brendan-ritchie/

A sweet romance with a nostalgic vibe, probably a good pick for fans of UnReal (I‘m guessing, I only ever saw half of the pilot episode) and people with fond memories of watching Disney‘s Cinderella as a kid. If you get a kick out of hate-watching The Bachelor and critiquing the patriarchal messaging, you‘ll probably enjoy it, too. Full review here: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/if-the-shoe-fits-julie-murphy/

This is a rich and insightful debut about the challenges faced by international students. I loved Malli‘s character, and I also got quite a kick out of several familiar settings featured throughout. I really hope it triggers some conversations about how we treat the people we invite to Australia to work and study. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-days-toppled-over-vidya-madabushi/

“Life is worth living! It‘s never too late!” is a nice sentiment, but I didn‘t love the overall message of The Midnight Library. It read to me like: “if you‘re just grateful and kind and hopeful, you‘ll be able to think yourself out of depression!”. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-midnight-library-matt-haig/

I failed The Terrible Event by going in with my expectations set too high. I‘ve read a lot of really good Australian satire lately, so a perfectly good read still feels like it falls a little short in comparison. I still recommend checking it out if you‘re looking for bizarre short stories that interrogate the surreality of our increasingly bureaucratised lives. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-terrible-event-david-cohen/

Fleishman Is In Trouble is multi-layered. I haven‘t re-read it (yet), but I‘m sure it‘s one of those books you can read over and over again. It's also quite a tense read, with a lot of back-and-forth (in the timeline, and emotionally). Beware of triggering depression or anxiety towards the end, particularly if you‘re prone to existential angst. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/fleishman-is-in-trouble-taffy-brodesser-akn...

Big Swiss was weirder, and more traumatic, than I expected. The literary merit can‘t be questioned, but take care if you have any sensitivity around dog-related trauma, suicide, or graphic violence against women. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/big-swiss-jen-beagin/

It's a bit trite and earnest, more like a fable or a fairytale than a novel with a plot. It‘s written in a surprisingly simple style, given the complexity of the subject matter. Some people really respond to that though and I don‘t begrudge them that. I'm not sure it lives up to the hype, but you could pick up worse from a Little Free Library. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/before-the-coffee-gets-cold-toshikazu-kawag...

The Fancies isn‘t quite as sweet and charming as The Other Side Of Beautiful. It‘s closer to Dyschronia, or one of Evie Wyld‘s novels, or even Melissa Lucashenko‘s. It‘s a story that speaks to our collective history of burying uncomfortable truths about what the world does to women. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-fancies-kim-lock/

The Likeness isn‘t a read-it-all-in-one-sitting grip-the-pages-til-your-knuckles-turn-white thriller. It‘s one to pick up when you‘re looking for a more complex story, one that weaves together police procedure and Gothic intrigue and psychological games. Even if the twists didn‘t surprise me, the whole of the novel sure did. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-likeness-tana-french/

Naked Ambition had me howling with laughter. I‘m particularly partial to Australian political satire, so I can‘t promise everyone will find it as funny as I do – but it‘s surely worth a try. I can't recommend it highly enough, especially to fans of Oscar Wilde. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/naked-ambition-robert-gott/

The Chain is such a compelling idea, I‘m not sure he really needed the main character‘s cancer diagnosis, or the side character‘s heroin addiction, or the villain‘s whole hippie commune back-story, or… Simplifying the story flies in the face of everything we‘re told about how characters should be complex, but I think it would have made the hair-raising plot more impactful. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-chain-adrian-mckinty/

I loved the letters, Lavery‘s responses, and Lavery‘s approach to Dear Prudence overall. He‘s open to admitting when, in retrospect, he gave bad advice, and offers us a version of what he could have said instead. It shouldn‘t be refreshing to see someone admit, in print, that they got something wrong – but it is! Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/dear-prudence-daniel-m-lavery/

There‘s less about his family in this collection than in others I‘ve read so far. It‘s disappointing, if only because his family seems a veritable goldmine of comic fodder (I have a particularly soft spot for his foul-mouthed brother). But When You Are Engulfed In Flames isn‘t lacking in comic characters, even if they‘re not related to Sedaris. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/when-you-are-engulfed-in-flames-david-sedar...

As the blurb promised, Search History is “a sharply funny debut novel about identity, obsession, and desire in the internet age”. But, unlike most books about relationships in tHe DiGiTaL eRa, this one actually rings true – in the way the characters think and behave, and the way their use of technology shapes their perceptions. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/search-history-amy-taylor/

Flynn is no one-hit wonder. Even though Sharp Objects didn‘t quite live up to her most popular book, it was still good. Highly readable, and darker, if you can believe it. This book mixes together the “beautiful woman with dark secrets” idea with the essence of Southern Gothic, and the results are impressive. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/sharp-objects-gillian-flynn/

Arthur and Madeline‘s relationship was beautiful and I found myself wishing that all of this book was about them. I didn‘t so much care for Teddy and Ben and Teddy‘s friend who has the hots for him. I‘ve got high hopes that we‘ll see more stories like Arthur‘s in future – late-in-life coming out is an underexplored area in queer literature, IMHO. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/arthur-and-teddy-are-coming-out-ryan-love/

I still can‘t make up my mind about this one, but what I can tell you is this: Chris and Sylvère are covered HEAD TO TOE in red flags 🚩 If I were Dick, I would‘ve set world records for how fast I‘d run away from them. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/i-love-dick-chris-kraus/

Otis‘s prose is intensely evocative; it‘s rich and lush and makes you feel as though you‘re right there in the ‘70s (and then the ‘80s, then the ‘90s). That‘s also what makes Burst such an uncomfortable read, though. Otis paints such a picture with words that the story of inherited trauma and patterns of self-abuse will feel very real. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/burst-mary-otis/

I wanted to like it, but it didn‘t live up to the promise of its premise. There are a lot of fascinating reasons why someone might not speak to their spouse for six months, but sadly the reasons for that scenario in The Silent Treatment made it seem mundane. I‘m sure there are other readers to whom this book would be better suited, it just wasn‘t for me. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-silent-treatment-abbie-greaves/

I wasn't prepared for just how dark and just how compelling One Of Those Mothers could be. It barely needs to be said, but you might want to avoid One Of Those Mothers if you‘re particularly sensitive to issues around child exploitation and abuse. But otherwise, I highly recommend this fantastic new read! Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/one-of-those-mothers-megan-nicol-reed/

This is the perfect fiction book for fans of I‘ll Be Gone In The Dark. Howard even cites that specific book as inspiration in the Acknowledgements. If you‘re looking for a book to give a true crime aficionado – or if you‘re one yourself, looking to try something different – this is the one to go with. Catherine Ryan Howard remains a must-read author for me! Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-nothing-man-catherine-ryan-howard/

Go As A River is probably best suited to readers of historical fiction who are looking for something a little more intense and survivalist than they‘re used to in WWII and Regency romances. If you‘re a fan of nature writing and nostalgic for a time before pollution ruined our natural landscapes, you‘ll love it, too. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/go-as-a-river-shelley-read/

I feel like a lone reed, buffeted by the wind but rooted firm in my conviction that – like Anna Karenina – it‘s just okay. I‘m sure studying the novel would illuminate more of it, make it feel richer and more engaging, but as a casual reader… *shrug*. I didn‘t hate it, but I‘m glad to have put it behind me. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/middlemarch-george-eliot/

It‘s a straightforward no-nonsense testament to the power of simply taking action. It‘s also a wonderful reminder that humanity and compassion should be front and center in any legislation around drugs and addiction. Don‘t skip the Appendices – I found the extracts from the visitor‘s log at the Medically Supervised Injecting Room in North Richmond the most moving part. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/you-talk-we-die-judy-ryan/

I spent most of Attachments mentally begging Lincoln to shit or get off the can – but that‘s me being a bit of a cynical snot, once again. It‘s actually a light and charming novel with plenty of ‘90s nostalgia and a wonderful female friendship. You just need to set aside your qualms about all the horrible hetero romances – and the creep factor. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/attachments-rainbow-rowell/

I enjoyed Fling for what it was: a sexy fun romantic comedy, one that went a bit over-the-top at times, but still did exactly what it said on the tin. It would be the perfect pick for fans of Marian Keyes and other Irish romance writers. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/fling-joseph-murray/