If there is one Aussie YA book that you will pick up, let it be When Michael Met Mina. The way it addresses social commentary and current political issues about border control, refugees and racism has never been more important. The hardships that refugees face when they try and start a new life away from their home country. […]
Underwater is a beautiful book about courage and picking yourself up after adversity. It’s a short book that packs quite the punch and will have you rooting hard for the main character within a couple of chapters. The book follows Morgan, a girl who’s become an agoraphobic after something that she experienced at school half […]
I’m so disappointed that I didn’t enjoy One Would Think The Deep. I have given 5 stars to Claire Zorn’s other novels, but this one just felt so different to her other novels. Set in a small surfing town, the characters talk like “ridin’ waves brah” or “epic ay!”. It was difficult to get into because of […]
I’m not gonna lie, the beautiful cover of this book was what drew me to it in the first place… but I really ended up enjoying the story and the characters in this novel. It was a really heartwarming contemporary story, with some beautiful relationships between characters. First & Then is a loose retelling of Pride and Prejudice […]
This was a rather bittersweet story that focuses on the aftermath of a suicide, and the best friend who was left to discover how to continue on after experiencing such an event. The synopsis gives a bit of a Thirteen Reasons Why feeling, but doesn’t feature the angst-driven plot that the latter book employs. (I […]
If there’s anything that I wished I had at university, it is Summer Skin. Finally, there’s a book that tells you that having sex is okay without being called a slut, that it’s okay to stand up for yourself in an abusive relationship, that it’s okay to tell off misogynist men while still maintaining your values. This […]
I’m just starting to venture into the realm of graphic novels so I don’t know too much about them or which ones are popular, but I had to pick up Nimona because of the countless good things I’d heard about it (and the giant National Book Award Nominee sticker on the cover). I ended up […]
I was so delighted when I learned that the author’s previous debut work, Love Fortunes and Other Disasters, would be getting a companion sequel. Love Charms introduces a competition going on in Grimbaud for love charm-makers that want to fill in the spot that Zita left after she was defeated in the first book. Obviously, […]
I live for sad books. I love them with a passion and the more that a book can make me ugly-cry, the better. So it wasn’t really a huge surprise that I absolutely fell in love with The Honest Truth. This book is about 12-year-old Mark, who has been battling cancer on and off since […]