Magic Realism
Written by Rachael Craw
Fantasy, Magical Realism, #LoveNZYA
368 Pages
Published November 1st 2018
Thank you to Walker Books Australia
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★★★★☆
When the Rift opens, death follows.
For generations, the Rangers of Black Water Island have guarded the Old Herd against horrors released by the Rift. Cal West, an apprentice Ranger with a rare scar and even rarer gifts, fights daily to prove he belongs within their ranks. After nine years away, Meg Archer returns to her childhood home only to find the Island is facing a new threat that not even the Rangers are prepared for. Meg and Cal can’t ignore their attraction, but can they face their darkest fears to save the Island from disaster?
Black Water Island is immersed in tradition, a millennia since The Rift emerged causing the mountain to fracture. The residents of Black Water are isolated from the mainland, without television or internet access to maintain the fragile ecosystem of the island. Every four years, hunters descent on the intimate pastoral community to participate in The Cull, the resident generational Rangers responsible for the Old Herd while young deer are harvested by Nutris Pharmaceuticals for their medicinal properties.
The narrative centralises upon the intimate, isolated Black Water Island and the community, the reluctant agreement with Nutris Pharmaceuticals, the Rangers and unscrupulous corporation. Fisherman's son Cal West is a Ranger, his appointed position a rarity among the Ranger ranks, the position considered hereditary and a right of passage among the generations of Black Water residents. Cal carries the Sight, an ability to sense distress among the Old Herd he is sworn to protect.
Meg Archer is returning to Black Water Island, nine years after moving to the mainland with her mother, a cancer survivor. Growing up on the island, Meg was determined to join the ranks of the prestigious Rangers, her father elevated to Sargent and carrying the honoured tradition from his predecessor. Meg and Cal were once childhood friends, inseparable as they explored their island home. After a tragic incident upon the mountain, Meg was removed from the island and assumed Cal had been taken by protective services, the young boy orphaned and alone. Having returned, Meg is now torn between her attraction towards Cal and her resentment, as he remained on the island and trained as a Ranger. Their tentative reconnection bound by the scars they share.
I really enjoyed the intense connection between Meg and Cal. Cal able to connect to the Old Herd through the ability of Sight comes with a hefty consequence, he can also sense death. Through touch, he feels the life force of those around him, especially within Meg's vicinity.
I really enjoyed the intense connection between Meg and Cal. Cal able to connect to the Old Herd through the ability of Sight comes with a hefty consequence, he can also sense death. Through touch, he feels the life force of those around him, especially within Meg's vicinity.
The Black Water Island is majestic, separated by the Rift and ley lines that thrum with positive energy and spirituality. The premise is fascinating, a blend of fantasy and intricately woven magical realism. The Rift is a tear in the atmosphere to another dimension beyond the island, Rift Hounds appear as apparitions and materialising throughout the mountain as large, savage beasts. The Rangers entered into a reluctant agreement with Nutris Pharmaceuticals who farm the island for antlers from the low lying Herd to create a potent medicinal concoction known as Actaeon’s Bane. Like all large corporations, they have a stranglehold on the community in exchange for maintaining the island and providing an income for the residents. Corruption and underhandedness result in Nutris Pharmaceuticals demanding more than the island can provide, creating a deadly atmosphere and with The Rift only moments from opening, alliances will be fractured and secrets revealed.
What surprised me most was how beautifully atmospheric The Rift is. The writing holds a stillness and spiritual like quality rarely seen in fantasy young adult novels. That quiet intensity slowly lured me in and held me captive. The Rift is wildly imagined and beautifully portrayed, a new direction for Rachael Craw that will no doubt enchant international audiences. She's outdone herself.
What surprised me most was how beautifully atmospheric The Rift is. The writing holds a stillness and spiritual like quality rarely seen in fantasy young adult novels. That quiet intensity slowly lured me in and held me captive. The Rift is wildly imagined and beautifully portrayed, a new direction for Rachael Craw that will no doubt enchant international audiences. She's outdone herself.
Written by Emily X.R. Pan
Contemporary, Magical Realism, Own Voices
480 Pages
Published March 27th 2018
Thank you to Hachette Australia
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★★★★★
Leigh Chen Sanders is sixteen when her mother dies by suicide, leaving only a scribbled note, 'I want you to remember'. Leigh doesn't know what it means, but when a red bird appears with a message, she finds herself travelling to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time.
Leigh is far away from home and far away from Axel, her best friend, who she stupidly kissed on the night her mother died, leaving her with a swell of guilt that she wasn't home, and a heavy heart, thinking she may have destroyed the one good thing left in her life.
Overwhelmed by grief, Leigh retreats into her art and into her memories, where colours collide and the rules of reality are broken. The only thing Leigh is certain about is that she must find out the truth. She must remember.
With lyrical prose and magical elements, Emily X.R. Pan's stunning debut novel alternates between past and present, romance and despair, as one girl attempts to find herself through family history, art, friendship, and love.
Identifying her environment with colours, Leigh Chen Sanders reminisces the brightness of laughter, the gentle caressing of keys as the house is bathed in music, the hues of romance muted, the darkness slowly pulling her mother into depression.
Leigh is a biracial, a Taiwanese Irish American young woman, an artist of smudging and hues. Once a house awash with the melodious sound of her mother is now enveloped by despair, returning home to find her mother unresponsive, her life taken by clinical depression.
The nonlinear narrative accompanies Leigh in the moments after discovering her mother, despair reverberating throughout the family home. Dorothy Chen Sanders was diagnosed with depression, characterised compassionately and reiterating that mental illness is an incurable, continual and indiscriminate diagnosis.
I try to think of a colour to match it, but all that comes to mind is the blackness of dried blood. I can only hope that in becoming a bird my mother has shed her suffering.
The nonlinear narrative accompanies Leigh in the moments after discovering her mother, despair reverberating throughout the family home. Dorothy Chen Sanders was diagnosed with depression, characterised compassionately and reiterating that mental illness is an incurable, continual and indiscriminate diagnosis.
Here is my mother, with wings instead of hands, and feathers instead of hair. Here is my mother, the reddest of brilliant reds, the colour of my love and my fear, all of my fiercest feelings trailing after her in the sky like the tail of a comet.
With a discarded note and a promise to remember, Leigh is doused in shades of sterile white, her colours now depleted. Leigh will journey to Taipei to uncover a life shrouded in whispers, perusing the elusive crimson feathers her mother has adorned after passing. The infusion of Taiwanese mythology is ethereal. As Leigh immerses herself in the Taiwanese landscape, she experiences moments of dissociation carried on the whispers of foreigner by curious bystanders, raised without the influence of her Taiwanese parentage.
The journey to Taipei is cathartic and although abandoned by her father on arrival, her grandparents Waipo and Waigong are welcoming and affectionate towards their granddaughter despite the language barrier. Her father is a contentious aspect of the narrative. A sinologist and scholar fluent in Mandarin, her father prioritised his career preferably to the deteriorating mental health of his wife. As her father increasingly travelled abroad, Leigh assumed the responsibility of primary caregiver and upon his return, he remained inaccessible and isolated. He continuously chastised Leigh for her creative medium, creating tension and frustration.
The racially and sexually diverse characters are wonderful. The narrative also pertains to the American Asian identity and the sense of acceptance towards biracial, multiracial and migrant communities.
The journey to Taipei is cathartic and although abandoned by her father on arrival, her grandparents Waipo and Waigong are welcoming and affectionate towards their granddaughter despite the language barrier. Her father is a contentious aspect of the narrative. A sinologist and scholar fluent in Mandarin, her father prioritised his career preferably to the deteriorating mental health of his wife. As her father increasingly travelled abroad, Leigh assumed the responsibility of primary caregiver and upon his return, he remained inaccessible and isolated. He continuously chastised Leigh for her creative medium, creating tension and frustration.
The racially and sexually diverse characters are wonderful. The narrative also pertains to the American Asian identity and the sense of acceptance towards biracial, multiracial and migrant communities.
My mother's hands have turned to wings. Her hair, to feathers. Her pale complexion now red as blood, red as wine, every shade of every red in the universe.
The Astonishing Colour of After is exquisite. The Mandarin Chinese dialect complements the affluent and atmospheric tapestry of Taipei and Taiwanese elegance. Debut author Emily X.R. Pan is extraordinary, a lyricist captivating readers. An impeccable read.
Contains sensitivities such as mental illness and suicide
Written by Victoria Carless
Contemporary, Magical Realism, #LoveOzYA
256 Pages
Published June 27th 2017
Thank you to Hachette Australia
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★★★☆
The weight of a secret can drag you under.
Sixteen year old Lucy Hart has been counting the days till she can get the hell out of Digger's Landing, a small Queensland fishing hamlet home to fifteen families, a posse of mongrel dogs and Parkers Corner Store. No apostrophe and nowhere near a corner.
But just like the tides, Lucy's luck is on the turn, and as graduation nears her escape plans begin to falter, her best friend, Polly, is dropping out of school to help pay the bills, and Tom has been shipped off to boarding school, away from the flotsam of this place. And then there's Lucy's nightlife, which is filled with dreams that just don't seem to belong to her at all...
When the fish stop biting, like they did when her mum was still around, Lucy realises she isn't the only one with a secret.
Digger's Landing is a barren landscape of decrepit dwellings, residents livelihoods flowing with the tides of the local creek that sustains the small coastal town. Sixteen year old Lucy Hart is grieving for her spontaneous and spirited mother, her body salvaged from the water forsaking those she leaves behind. Lucy walks among the subconscious minds of slumbering Digger's Landing residents, observing their aspirations and desires sharing a prevailing theme. Lucy's mother.
Digger's Landing is an underprivileged socioeconomic community in Far North Queensland and sustained by the local creek. Lucy and her widowed father are residents of the predominantly Australian and Indigenous Australian community, where the emphasis is placed upon labour of the land rather than education in order to support those living in impoverished conditions. Lucy aspires to leave Digger's Landing, displaced since the suicide of her mother while her father is disengaged. The relationship between Lucy and her father is constrained and Lucy feels progressively isolated.
I enjoyed the friendship between Lucy and friend Polly, a wonderful young lady who is believed to be Indigenous or Torres Strait Islander. While Lucy continues her education, Polly abandons school to financially support her family. Mutual friend Tom is an interesting character and potential love interest for Lucy. Comparatively, all three adolescents experience the burden of parental expectations of varying degrees.
The magical realism elements were captivating. Since a car accident months prior, Lucy has been able to walk among the dreamers of Digger's Landing as a bystander. It's through the subconscious minds of others where she is able to see her mother, a woman who had a profound effect on the small coastal community. The narrative also explores impoverishment, suicide, environmental sustainability and parental neglect. Often confronting whilst challenging the privilege of readers.
The rural location was breathtaking and incredibly atmospheric, although I found the narrative languished at times and was disappointed the Indigenous Australian aspect wasn't further explored. The Dream Walker is a confident and enchanting debut novel from a fresh and wonderful new voice in Australian young adult literature.
Written by Patrick Ness
Contemporary, LGBT, Paranormal
288 Pages
Published May 4th 2017
Thank you to Walker Books Australia
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★★★
Inspired by Mrs Dalloway and Judy Blume's Forever, Release is one day in the life of Adam Thorn It's a big day. Things go wrong. It's intense, and all the while, weirdness approaches...
Adam Thorn is having what will turn out to be the most unsettling, difficult day of his life, with relationships fracturing, a harrowing incident at work, and a showdown between this gay teen and his preacher father that changes everything.
It's a day of confrontation, running, sex, love, heartbreak, and maybe, just maybe, hope. He won't come out of it unchanged.
And all the while, lurking at the edges of the story, something extraordinary and unsettling is on a collision course.
Adam Thorn is sensitive, compassionate, beautiful, complicated. His grief is palpable, poignant and often confrontational. The Thorn family believe in the capacity of faith. To rehabilitate and to offer judgement especially concerning Adam's sexuality. Emotionally depleted after his relationship dissolved, Adam is navigating the parameters of a new relationship, desperate to find love once more.
Adam identifies as gay, his father using his faith to thinly veil his homophobic beliefs and whilst his sexuality isn't acknowledged categorically, he is often discussed as being dishonourable and needing to rediscover his own faith. Adam is nursing the heartbreak of first love while trying to commit to a new relationship. Adam's narration was wonderful, profound, often poignant and takes place over the span of a single day. Throughout his narration, Adam questions his own faith by being in a same sex relationship and when reaching out his evangelist father, he is ridiculed and dismissed.
Release touches on issues such as homophobia, substance abuse, manslaughter, sexual assault and the religion verses sexuality contention. Courageously and compassionately. The incorporation of sexual relationships was wonderful, a mature inclusion rarely seen in young adult novels accentuating same sex relationships.
The emphasis of Release is familiar relationships and in particular, the relationship Adam shares with his father. LGBTQIA teens and adult readers as an extension may find these particular passages confronting as it explores homophobia and erasure. Adam's family is homophobic, expressing the view that gay love is fraudulent.
Release touches on issues such as homophobia, substance abuse, manslaughter, sexual assault and the religion verses sexuality contention. Courageously and compassionately. The incorporation of sexual relationships was wonderful, a mature inclusion rarely seen in young adult novels accentuating same sex relationships.
The emphasis of Release is familiar relationships and in particular, the relationship Adam shares with his father. LGBTQIA teens and adult readers as an extension may find these particular passages confronting as it explores homophobia and erasure. Adam's family is homophobic, expressing the view that gay love is fraudulent.
It's not real love. Everybody's convinced themselves that it is, but it isn't. And it never will be.Angela is a tremendous support to Adam, compassionate and maternal. Angela's adoptive family are wonderfully inclusive of her Korean ancestry, supporting Angela who identifies as bisexual and offering sanctuary to Adam.
The magical realism elements of Release were enchantingly lyrical, perplexing and synonymous within Patrick Ness narrations. A Queen infused with the spirit of a young women, dying from asphyxiation by her narcotic effected partner. Her companion is an anxious Faun. The two narratives converge and although peculiar and lyrically enchanting, the significance was nonsensical other than two characters seeking release.
Patrick Ness is a magnificent author and Release is a tender and compassionate read, confronting and captivating until the final page.
Written by Ursula Dubosarsky
Middle Grade, Historical, Magical Realism
180 Pages
Published April 2017
Thank you to Allen & Unwin
RRP $19.99
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★★★☆
A boy stood in the playground under the big fig tree. 'He can't speak English,' the children whispered.The air raid siren wails throughout Sydney harbour while American Warships dapple across the horizon. The war has reached the Australian shoreline with the Japanese military threatening a hostile destruction of the land. For Columba this is simply how we survive, we live in each moment.
Sydney, 1942. The war is coming to Australia, not only with the threat of bombardment, but also the arrival of refugees from Europe. Dreamy Columba's world is growing larger. She is drawn to Ellery, the little boy from far away, and, together with her highly practical best friend Hilda, the three children embark on an adventure through the harbourside streets. A journey of discovery and terror, in pursuit of the mysterious blue cat...
While the city of Paris falls to the Germanic forces, European refugees are migrating to Australia, fractured and displaced by conflict. Ellery is a Jewish boy, withdrawn and unable to verbally communicate. Children are remarkably resilient and Columba was a wonderfully compassionate young girl and curiously, approaches Ellery.
I had never heard Ellery laugh before, not out loud. I loved the sound, it filled me up. It tinkled like a magic bird.
Ellery and Columba engage in apprehensive smiles and amiable silences, a tentative companionship leading to adventure. Columba is influenced by friend Hilda, a young girl fond of telling tales and repeating rumours. I found Hilda's character quite manipulate and relentless, insisting Ellery has migrated from Germany where his mother had perished, a casualty of war. The narrative being told through the narration of a young girl although charming, is unreliable.
At the essence of the narration is a stray Blue Cat, suspected to have escaped from the Warships dappled throughout the harbour. The role of the feline is of little significance, temporarily residing at an elderly neighbours residence when it disappears into the night. Is the Blue Cat mere symbolism for a greater relevance? Bringing communities together? The infusion of magical realism felt incoherent and as though an integral aspect of the storyline was absent, creating an incredibly abrupt ending.
The Blue Cat is beautifully written, lyrical and delicate, within the nineteen forties atmospheric Sydney harbour. Although the narrative required direction, author Ursula Dubosarsky has created a wonderfully Australian ambiance, breathing life into our historical city landscapes.
Written by Laura Ruby
Contemporary, Mystery, Magical Realism
Published March 2017
400 Pages
Thank you to Allen & Unwin
RRP $19.99
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★★★★★
Everyone knows Bone Gap is full of gaps, gaps to trip you up, gaps to slide through so you can disappear forever. So when young, beautiful Roza went missing, the people of Bone Gap weren’t surprised. After all, it wasn’t the first time that someone had slipped away and left Finn and Sean O’Sullivan on their own. Just a few years before, their mother had high tailed it to Oregon for a brand new guy, a brand new life.
That’s just how things go, the people said. Who are you going to blame?
Finn knows that’s not what happened with Roza. He knows she was kidnapped, ripped from the cornfields by a dangerous man whose face he cannot remember. But the searches turned up nothing, and no one believes him anymore. Not even Sean, who has more reason to find Roza than anyone, and every reason to blame Finn for letting her go.
In the small country town of Bone Gap, seventeen year old Finn O'Sullivan insists that Roza was abducted by by a nondescript male who emerged from the cornfields surrounding their small rural property. As time lapses, the residents of Bone Gap believe that Roza abandoned Finn and Sean in similar circumstances to their mother while Sean places the responsibility on Finn for allowing her to leave.
My Thoughts
Finn O'Sullivan is a quiet and reserved young man, reliant on his brother Sean who assumed the position of guardian after their mother abandoned her son's. The reader is introduced to Finn and Sean's relationship in the present, fractured and distant while Sean continues to grieve the loss of his relationship with the effervescent Roza. While Finn continued his education, Sean abandoned aspirations of becoming a doctor to care for Finn, now a paramedic and remaining in the lazy town of Bone Gap.
Roza is found sheltering, bloodied and beaten in the O'Sullivan barn and although hesitant, will reside in the small and self contained apartment on the property. Roza didn't abandon Sean and Finn O'Sullivan. Finn attests he has witnessed Rosa's abduction, a man who has emerged from the silent cornfields, nondescript and unsubstantiated. Finn cannot recall his face and labelled as a simpleton while Sean holds Finn responsible for allowing Roza to leave.
Rosa's journey from Europe to North America is harrowing, violent and confronting, exploring her abduction. Her nonlinear narration blended suspected delusions with magical realism, the unreliability created intrigue, vulnerability and a suspension of disbelief.
Rosa's journey from Europe to North America is harrowing, violent and confronting, exploring her abduction. Her nonlinear narration blended suspected delusions with magical realism, the unreliability created intrigue, vulnerability and a suspension of disbelief.
Finn and Sean's relationship and interactions with the Bone Gap community were fascinating. While Sean is respected, revered within the community, Finn is tormented and perceived as simple and oblivious, branded by the small, ignorant town. Although I enjoyed Sean's character, he was consumed by grief. Finn is an isolated young man who is dependent on Sean and I was disappointed that Sean disregarded Finn's emotional and mental health.
The gentle friendship between Finn and the beekeepers daughter Petey was lovely. Both teens share an understanding of the harm placed upon labels and being ostracised by their peers, labelled as promiscuous. Petey is a formidable character who refuses to conform to the ideals of the Bone Gap community, intelligent, perceptive and wonderfully abrasive.
Bone Gap is fantastical and enigmatic. A fusion of contemporary, magical realism and a beautifully written, lyrical narrative that will enchant readers until the final page. Simply breathtaking.
Novella Series
Written by Cassandra Clare and friends
Fantasy, Romance
Published November 15th 2016
656 Pages
Thank you to Walker Books Australia
Add to Goodreads
★★☆
An illustrated collection of ten stories about Simon Lewis, star of Cassandra Clare's internationally bestselling series The Mortal Instruments, as he trains to become a Shadowhunter.
Simon has been a human and a vampire, but after the events of City of Heavenly Fire left him stripped of his memories, he isn't sure who he is any more. When the Shadowhunter Academy reopens, Simon throws himself into this new world of demon hunting, determined to find himself again. Whomever this Simon might be... Join him on his journey to become a Shadowhunter, and learn about the Academy's illustrious history along the way, through guest lecturers such as Jace Herondale, Tessa Gray, and Magnus Bane. These moving and hilarious short stories are perfect for fans who just can't get enough of the Shadowhunters. The series features characters from Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments, Infernal Devices, Dark Artifices and the upcoming Last Hours series.
Once a vampire and now a mundane, Simon Lewis has enrolled at the Shadowhunter Academy with fragments of a bewildered memory. Simon will decide whether to remain a Mundane or become a revered Shadowhunter, his reputation as a saviour paving his path to becoming an elite scholar despite being unable to recollect his role in Alicante, the Glass City and capital Idris. With the support of his childhood friend Clary and he's beloved yet estranged Shadowhunter girlfriend Isabelle, Simon will begin his journey to becoming the ultimate protector while uncovering the memories of a former life.
Who is Simon Lewis?
My Thoughts
Simon Lewis, former vampire now a mundane in vintage band shirts and awkward sharp angles is embarking on a new adventure as a Shadowhunter. The first few novella installments were wonderfully written, charming and engaging. It wasn't until I had reached Nothing But Shadows, where the storyline became tedious. Among the copious amount of historical information about characters from both The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices series, Simon's narrative becomes increasingly frustrating and his journey as Mundane to Shadowhunter is overwhelmed by monotonous tales.
The appeal of Simon's character is that of a humble, boy next door quality and it was disappointing that although his character is on a journey of self discovery, spent most of it bitching. His recollection of significant events may be lost, but he's been given a second chance at life, an opportunity to make a difference and he has a smoking hot girlfriend. Stupid Mundane.
As I was unable to read the finale instalment of The Mortal Instruments series due to the overwhelming number of new characters being introduced, Tales of The Shadowhunter Academy has helped bridge the gap between the Shadowhunter franchise and Lady Midnight, I enjoyed seeing Emma and Julian's Parabatai ceremony. The reader is also introduced to Helen and Mark Blackthorn and the Blackthorn family chronicles, characters from Lady Midnight. James Herondale and Matthew Fairchild, Will and Tessa from The Infernal Devices and the creation of Valentine's circle.
The allure of Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy is Alec and Magnus.
The appeal of Simon's character is that of a humble, boy next door quality and it was disappointing that although his character is on a journey of self discovery, spent most of it bitching. His recollection of significant events may be lost, but he's been given a second chance at life, an opportunity to make a difference and he has a smoking hot girlfriend. Stupid Mundane.
As I was unable to read the finale instalment of The Mortal Instruments series due to the overwhelming number of new characters being introduced, Tales of The Shadowhunter Academy has helped bridge the gap between the Shadowhunter franchise and Lady Midnight, I enjoyed seeing Emma and Julian's Parabatai ceremony. The reader is also introduced to Helen and Mark Blackthorn and the Blackthorn family chronicles, characters from Lady Midnight. James Herondale and Matthew Fairchild, Will and Tessa from The Infernal Devices and the creation of Valentine's circle.
The allure of Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy is Alec and Magnus.
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy will appease fans, but little more. It was a blend of Simon whining and historical chapters of information that I found incredibly boring. I loved Lady Midnight but apart from Alec and Magnus, I won't return to the original Shadowhunter world again. I commend Cassandra Clare for listening to her readers and providing new adventures but the series has been exhausted.
Written by Emily Gale
Middle Grade, Contemporary, Magical Realism
Published June 1st 2016
320 Pages
Thank you to Emily Gale
Published by Random House Australia
Add to Goodreads
★★★★★
Summer is trying to recover from a tragedy, but it seems impossible when her family is falling apart around her. Having an extraordinary best friend like Mal helps a little, but Summer's secret source of happiness is a link to the past: one very special guitar.Now her dad's plan to save them is turning Summer's life upside down again. The next thing she knows, they've moved to the other side of the world.In Australia, Summer makes an unlikely friend, who seems to be magically connected to her guitar. Is this for real? Has a mysterious boy been sent to help Summer? Or could it be the other way around?This sweet and spellbinding story about family, friends and believing in yourself will warm your heart.
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