Review: Swallow the Air by Tara June Winch

May is desperately searching for ... something. Her mother has passed away, her father disappeared years ago. May and her brother were taken in by Aunty, but her brother leaves following a domestic violence incident and May soon finds herself looking for him. And for her dad. However, as she journeys through Australia she soon learns what will give her a much needed sense of belonging.

This was a difficult book for me to read, mostly because it left me feeling a deep mix of sadness and anger. Presented as a series of linked short stories, we meet May Gibson. The daughter of a Wiradjuri mother and an absent white father, something about May's life feels doomed yet filled with strange little moments of hope. Most of the supporting characters feel underdeveloped, as did May at times. However, where the novel truely stands out is through its look at what it means to belong, and a connection to people and country.

Recommended.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feature and Follow Friday Feature blogger!

Image
Good grief! It's 8am, I've just jumped on the bus, checked my emails and discovered that I'm one of this week's Feature and Follow Friday feature bloggers! So, welcome everyone, and thanks heaps to Parajunkee and Alison Can Read ! This week's question is:  Confess your blogger sins! Is there anything as a newbie blogger that you've done, that as you've gained more experience you were like -- oops? For me, probably being a bit too hard and critical in my reviews than what the author deserved. I used to think that I was failing as a reviewer if I didn't point out at least one thing that was wrong with the book. As I've grown more experienced, I've realised that sometimes that said more about my skills as a reviewer/critic than it did about the authors work. 
Read more

Review: Binding 13 by Chloe Walsh

Image
I picked up a copy of the first novel in the Boys of Tommen series assuming that it was set in a university. Turns out that I was wrong. The characters are all in high school, though as per the note in the front, the novel is pitched at readers over the age of eighteen. The setting is quite dark and topics addressed include alcoholism, physical abuse and bullying. The romance, pairing a fifteen year old girl who is small for her age and described as having a childlike appearance with a boy who is physically mature, sexually active, who invades her privacy and is not far from his eighteenth birthday seems questionable.  After suffering through years of bullying at school, some of which put her in hospital, Shannon has transferred to a private school, one so expensive that her mother has to take out a loan to pay all the fees. Things are going well, she has friends at her new school, there are strong anti-bullying rules in place and everything at Tommen College seems well, nicer ... ...
Read more

Review: Stiff Upper Lip Jeeves by PG Wodehouse

Image
A sequel of sorts to The Code of the Woosters, Stiff Upper Lip Jeeves finds Bertram Wilberforce Wooster an unwilling (and unwanted) guest at Totleigh Towers with his ever-impressive valet Jeeve's in tow. Bertie's job is simple--to steal an ornament that Sir Watkyn Bassett bought at an unfair price, and return it to the previous owner at the insistence of Sir Watkyn's niece Stiffy, who wants revenge on the family matriarch for the fact that he won't give her fiancé, Rev Harold 'Stinker' Pinker a vicarage. Meanwhile, there are other problems afoot--chiefly in the form of Sir Watkyn's daughter Madeline, who believes that Bertie is still in love with her. She is also busy forcing her own fiancé, Gussie Fink-Nottle, to become a vegetarian against his will, which leads to Gussie falling in love with the new cook--who is none other than Pauline Stoker's younger sister Emerald, who has fallen on hard times. In the hands of many writers, such a shallow, farcical...
Read more