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Review: Black Bag by Luke Kennard

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How do I even begin to review a book so delightfully clever and quirky as Black Bag by Luke Kennard? The novel opens with an out-of-work actor whose prospects seem to be going from bad to worse until he receives a surprising offer--to become Black Bag. Effectively, this involves him showing up at an university twice a week, wearing only a black bag that obscures every part of him but his feet. He is required to sit silently in one lecture and one tutorial per week, as part of an experiment to see how students will react to his presence. It is easy work. The best part? He is getting paid well and in cash. Things soon go awry. The actor becomes very attached to Black Bag, and starts wearing it outside of his work. Meanwhile, his best mate finds a way to monetise Black Bag, while a female professor at the university wants to use him as a sexual experiment. Then, well, there are lots of quirky things as everything gets worse and the novel begins to raise more questions about masculinity....
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Review: First Place (Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley Twins Vol 8) by Nicole Andelfinger and Knack Whittle

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Those wacky Wakefield twins are back in another fun graphic novel adventure. This time around, their spoiled and wealthy classmate Lila Fowler has just been gifted an absolutely beautiful horse named Thunder. Except that Lila isn't actually terribly interested in horses or their upkeep. Enter Elizabeth who adores Thunder from the moment she sees him. And she would do anything just to spend time with him. Including pretending to be friends with snooty Lila and doing far more than her fair share of work down at the stables. Meanwhile, Jessica knows that Elizabeth is obsessed. But she cannot help but feel jealous at all of the time that Lila and Elizabeth are spending together. Lila is supposed to be Jessica's friend ... isn't she? I enjoy reading the books in this series just to see how they translate to graphic novel format. In particular I was interested in the subplot between Steven Wakefield and Ted. However, just as I never really liked the original version of this one, ...
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Review: Just Watch Me by Lior Torenberg

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Dell is not in a great place in her life. She has just been fired from her job after taking a somewhat over-the-top approach with a customer who cannot reason that staff do not make up company policy and nor can they break it at their discretion. This is something of a problem, as her beloved younger sister is currently on life support. The hospital is about to pull the plug and Dell needs to come up with the funds for private care, quickly. An impulse decision leads her to start live streaming her life so that she can raise the funds. What follows is a story of how women are treated on the internet, and how some viewers try to own the very people that they claim to be fans of.  Just Watch Me is a bold look at live streaming and internet culture. I found it to be a compelling read, with certain truths revealed over the course of the plot. Dell is whip smart, but chaotic with little understanding of what she is doing and the unforgiving nature of strangers. It also becomes cle...
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Review: Karen's New Friend by Ann M Martin

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Purely by chance this week, I spotted a Baby-Sitters Little Sister book in a Street Library. I could not resist taking it home with me. I do not remember this one at all, which is unsurprising. Karen's New Friend was published shortly after I aged out of the series. And if my memory serves me right, the Australian release date of all of the BSC and Little Sister Books was usually six months to a year behind the United States.  This time around, Karen is gigundo excited for two reasons. First, she and her little brother Andrew are going to be spending two whole weeks at the Big House, which their mum and stepdad are away in Hawaii. And second, there is going to be another new kid in her class. Addie has differences which make her interesting to Karen. She has cerebral palsy, which means that she needs to use a wheelchair at school. She will be sitting in the front row of class, with Ricky and Karen. This leads Karen vowing that she is going to be the best helper that Addie could ev...
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Review: Flesh by David Szalay

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The winner of the 2025 Booker Prize is the story of one man's life. It opens with Istvan as a shy fifteen year old living in Hungry. The new kid in town, he is looked down upon by his peers. Sexually abused by a neighbour, he has little understanding of what has been done to him. From there, each event in his life seems to be a matter of chance and circumstance, as he finds himself in juvenile detention, then unemployable, then a well-respected military man, then chance leads him to him eventually moving among the circles of the wealthiest people in London. But, the funny is thing about chance and social climbing is well, everything can change in an instant. This was a well written story, detailing a number of key events that made up Istvan's life, showing the many changes in his circumstances. For me, the most infuriating part of the book was probably also the very point that the author was trying to make. Istvan is almost completely passive in his own life, except for when he...
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Review: Aubury Wants to Die by Pip Knight

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Vampires. They're cool, calm and in control, right? Well, not when it comes to Aubury. A one hundred and fifty year old vampire, she is something of a hot mess. She's living a haphazard life in London, where she has a job she hates, she's convinced that her ex-boyfriend who just dumped her is her soulmate and she wants to die so badly that she tries in all kinds of ways, but seems to have no idea that joining a group of vampire hunters might be the most dangerous thing that she has ever done. Especially when Oscar, her cruel and greedy sire shows up, intent on showing her how to behave like a real vampire ... This was an entertaining, page-turning read. Aubury is not the smartest or the most likeable of characters, but she certainly is interesting to read about. Oscar was portrayed as cruel and calculating, a creature with few, if any, morals, and I felt that the ending did not truly redeem him. More interesting was the plot about the vampire hunters, who get their just des...
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Review: Duck: When Nature Calls by Matt Stanton

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The second book in the brilliant Duck series is every bit as good as the first. This time around, the adult humans are addicted to a podcast made by the evil Eon and it is up to Duck and his friends to put an end to it. They take over the community radio station as a way of communicating their plans ...  but things go slightly awry when Dog, who only wants to be a good boy, finds himself torn between wanting to be a good boy for his friends and being a good boy for Eon. Especially when they have very different goals.  Told in a mix of prose and three frame comics, this one offers readers of all ages plenty of laughs. Okay, its supposed to be for kids, but there is still plenty of fun to be had for readers outside the target audience. Mouse's antics at the radio station are particularly amusing--in many ways Mouse feels more human than most humans. Recommended. 
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