Book review: A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

Monday, August 30, 2021 Permalink

Zimbabwean-born, London-dwelling author Paula Hawkins is best-known for her debut novel, The Girl on the Train, a book which seemingly paved the way for a slew of unreliable narrators in popular fiction.

A Slow Fire Burning is her third novel and again she offers us strong, flawed and sometimes-unlikeable female characters. In fact there are several on offer here as – like Hawkins’s second book, Into the Water – this unfolds from multiple points of view all offering very different voices, personalities and views on life.

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four-stars

Book review: Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

Sunday, May 24, 2020 Permalink

I don’t read non-fiction. On the whole I dislike memoirs intensely. I hear great things about some, such as Michelle Obama’s Becoming or Reckoning by Magda Szubanski. And yet… I avoid them like the plague. I’ve made some recent attempts (Bri Lee’s Beauty and Clare Bowditch’s Your Own Kind of Girl) but they either feel like a university case study or I struggle with their logic and structure. Although, perhaps I’m just too self-absorbed to be that interested in someone else’s life. Who knows?

I would normally have eschewed Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld, assuming it to be yet another memoir. But thankfully a book-blogging friend Simon (Written by Sime) had mentioned this book and his love for it a while ago. So I knew it was fiction. About the road not taken. A reimagining if you like.

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four-half-stars

Book review: The Second Wife by Rebecca Fleet

Thursday, March 5, 2020 Permalink

This book wasn’t at all what I expected. Given the title I was expecting some first wife vs second wife battle rife with petty jealousy and sneaky sabotage.

Had I been the sort of person to check the backcover blurb before reading I would have had a better idea what was coming, but I tend to dive straight in when I choose my nightly reading fodder, so I was pleasantly surprised (as am a bit over bitchy wives’ tales).

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four-stars

Book review: Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Saturday, July 21, 2018 Permalink

I don’t tend to read historical fiction unless it’s intermingled with the present, so this book didn’t jump out at me when it arrived (despite the Australian edition’s beautiful cover). However, I decided I’d give it a go as there was something about the blurb that made me think about Agatha Christie’s A Caribbean Mystery, Evil Under the Sun or The Mystery of the Blue Train.

Fatal Inheritance by Tammy Cohen (writing as Rachel Rhys) wasn’t really a hardcore whodunit requiring a Belgian detective or woolly but whip-smart spinster however. Instead it’s an intriguing story with delightful characters and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.

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four-stars

Book review: Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

Friday, April 28, 2017 Permalink

I had the opportunity to read The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins much earlier than its release here in Australia. Although I enjoyed the book and quite liked our heavy-drinking dog-with-a-bone protagonist Rachel, I was surprised by the book’s success. But then again I said the same about Gone Girl, so that possibly says something about my taste…

Both to me had rather unsatisfying endings. I don’t mind a bit of ambiguity or a last-minute twist but I think there’s usually some expectation of justice. Or karma. Or something.

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four-stars