Literary Fiction Archives - Debbish Archive

Book review: Feast by Emily O’Grady

Friday, June 2, 2023 Permalink

The Yellow House, the debut novel by Emily O’Grady was one of my favourite books of 2018. I adore child narrators if they’re done well and O’Grady was able to bring that balance of innocence and knowing to our 11 year old storyteller. I obviously wasn’t alone in my love for her work as the book won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award that year.

Her latest novel Feast is quite different. It (also) features a dysfunctional family and explores family and relationships, but felt darker… offering less hope and redemption.

Book review: The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop

Sunday, April 16, 2023 Permalink

The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop is a novel that – I suspect – could divide its readers. Including me. I mean, it’s not that I didn’t like it because I certainly did. But my various personalities prevaricated between adoring Bishop’s glorious writing; feeling frustrated at things obviously being kept from readers or made little sense (which could potentially be plotholes); while at the same time wondering if I’m too obtuse to understand the not-necessarily-logical order in which elements of the plot flowed.

Book review: Prettier If She Smiled More by Toni Jordan

Friday, March 31, 2023 Permalink

Toni Jordan’s debut novel Addition, was one of my favourite books when it was released in 2008 and I also loved The Fragments – giving it a rare (for me) five stars. I commented then on her beautiful writing and her ability to develop complex, quirky, likeable and very real characters.

Prettier If She Smiled More features Kylie Schnabel – a judicious pharmacist and a responsible and pragmatic daughter, sister, friend and girlfriend – who’s perfectly content with her lot in life, harbouring no great ambitions for more than she has. Until it starts disappearing before her eyes.

Book review: Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder by Kerryn Mayne

Tuesday, February 21, 2023 Permalink

Lenny Sparks Gets Away With Murder by Kerryn Mayne

I assumed Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder by Kerryn Mayne was going to be cosy crime fiction. Given the title. But it isn’t. It’s actually an at-times funny but also bittersweet story about loss, grief and abandonment as well as friendship, joy and acceptance. The book’s namesake, Lenny (Helena), is an absolute delight in the same way Eleanor Oliphant, Grace Atherton and Susan Green all were.

I was smitten from the very first line, sharing the opening chapter on social media because I was deep in like. And an oversharer.

Book review: A Country of Eternal Light by Paul Dalgarno

Saturday, February 18, 2023 Permalink

A Country of Eternal Light by Paul Dalgarno is a hard book to review. It’s amazingly written. The concept is very clever and Dalgarno’s prose switch from a fairly chatty and mundane narrative to something more confronting… jolting readers out of our comfort zone and reminding us that the narrator is (in fact) dead.

Book review: Clarke by Holly Throsby

Sunday, November 13, 2022 Permalink

Clarke by Holly Throsby was inspired by the high-profile disappearance of a woman (Lynette Dawson) in Australia in the early 1980s. Although the book is centred around the police’s sudden search for the body in the yard of the house in which the fictional Ginny Lawson used to live with her husband, it’s the impact that search has on the house’s new resident and neighbours that makes this a powerful and (ultimately) somewhat poignant read.

Book review: The Sirens Sing by Kristel Thornell

Saturday, September 17, 2022 Permalink

The Sirens Sing by Kristel Thornell unfolds in two timeframes. Unlike most dual timeline books however, the two aren’t intertwined or shared concurrently. Rather – in the first half of the book, set in 1991-1993, Thornell focuses her attention on David, finishing school and preparing to go to University. For us his story starts when he befriends Heather, a year younger but with whom he shares similar interests and a passion and aptitude for the Italian language. The second half of the book takes us back to 1960s – 1970s during which we spend time with David’s mother Janet (Jan) when she’s David’s age.

Book review: Wildflowers by Peggy Frew

Saturday, September 10, 2022 Permalink

Wildflowers is the first book I’ve read by Peggy Frew and I’m torn. Frew’s certainly a talented and emotive writer but I wasn’t as enamoured as I could have been… or perhaps expected to be. I think it’s predominantly because the backcover blurb suggests that the three sisters travel to Far North Queensland to support the youngest to detox in the present. So when the book opens and we meet the middle sister, Nina, I assumed the trip (and main story arc of the book) was yet to come. But instead we discover the trip took place in the past. And that threw me a little. (Though) I’m not sure why.

Book review: Denizen by James McKenzie Watson

Friday, August 26, 2022 Permalink

Like several other books I’ve read recently Denizen by James McKenzie Watson was an award-winner before it was even published, winning the 2021 Penguin Literary Prize

I only belatedly requested a review copy after seeing others rave about it following its July 2022 release. And it’s certainly a brilliantly-written book. A confronting and challenging read in some ways and the second I’ve read in a row that tackles mental illness and self-harm.