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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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Review: What I At In One Year by Stanley Tucci

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What I At In One Year is an insightful account into the balance between a demanding and high profile job, and one of the most enjoyable aspects of everyday life--food. Actor Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games) keeps a daily journal in which he documents the meals cooked, eaten and shared as well as accounting various things from his working life and his personal life.  The entries are well written, keeping food and the joy of a good meal the main focus. We also see a little bit of insight into his family life and what it means to be an actor, who must travel for work, and the way he balances this out with spending time with his wife and his children, particular the youngest two who are primary school aged. The one thing that confused me was some of the references Tucci made to his wife's alleged infidelity. I don't know if this was meant to be some sort of a private joke that the couple share, or if it was an outlet to vent his concerns, but either way, it s...
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Review: I Love The Whole World! by Victoria Hannan

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It is the year 2000 and forty-three year old Leslie McDonald is a woman on a mission. Recently divorced, or, more specifically, her perfectionist husband has left her for a woman with better posture, Leslie has won a competition for a trip to Las Vegas. What starts as a holiday soon turns into a fabulous journey of self-discovery, as Leslie learns what makes her happy and how to live life on her own terms. This was an enjoyable read. Some of Leslie's antics and the author's descriptions made me giggle, while the laid back story telling let me feel as though I was on holiday as well. What I really appreciated about this one was that the author stuck to the theme of self discovery--there are no sudden marriages, or million dollar wins or Elvis sightings or anything else that may be stereotypically associated with Las Vegas. Instead, it is a warm and well written story of a woman finding herself. Recommended. 
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Review: Babel by R.F. Kuang

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RF Kuang's Babel is a dazzling and ambitious speculative fiction about history and etymology. Robin Swift is orphaned in Canton and brought to England as the ward of a man that he knows (but never dares say,) is his biological father. After years of study, he is given a place at Oxford to study at Babel, a tower in the centre of the institution from which the power of all of the British Empire flows. He soon discover that many kinds of sinister forces exist and eventually, he and his classmates discover that they have to find a way to stand up for what is right ... While this novel has received much acclaim across the globe, my own feelings are mixed. The plot is somewhat tedious in the first half of the novel and the second, while much more exciting, does not always properly address what was set up in the first half. I found the death of Professor Lovell and subsequent cover up to be quite gripping and it certainly sets up the second half of the novel, but I felt that the charact...
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