Kathryn's Inbox

Okay. I've snapped. Actually, many regular visitors to this blog might well argue that I snapped long ago and they may very well be right. The truth is, the whole Fifty Shades of Grey  phenomena has never sat well with me and it probably never well. Anyway, the reason for my latest burst of anger on the subject has come from a shopping trip this afternoon at a popular shopping centre in the southern suburbs. Now, silly me though that it might be nice to walk to the bookstore and browse the new releases. And what do I get? This: Fifty Shades of Grey. Three bays, filled from top to bottom with copies of Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed . And yes, that bottom poster on the right is also advertising Fifty Shades of Grey . All other new and popular releases by talented and well-respected authors such as Stephen King, Penny Vincenzi and Richelle Mead that would normally occupy this section of bookstore have been pushed a littl

Jacaranda is the perfect chill out, lift-your-spirits-on-a-bad-day read. With a strong, likable and thoroughly good heroine and a beautiful depiction of rural Australia, it is difficult not to get sucked in by this romantic read. I picked this book up on a rainy weekend when my spirits were quite low and found myself drawn in to the story of Molly Jones and her family and friends at Jacaranda Station. Molly is a single mother in her mid-20s. She has a loving home on Jacaranda station with her grandparents and her daughter, Rose. She is secretly in love with Heath, the boyfriend of her workmate and friend Jenny who died in a tragic accident. Molly knows better than to make a move on her friends boyfriend, though Heath has other ideas. He knows that although he will always love Jenny, life must go on and that she would want him to be happy. But before he can make a move, Rose's father comes back to town, further complicating Molly's life ... What I loved about this b

In which our heroine marries her abusive boyfriend and gets herself knocked up, consequently ruining her life because she is a complete idiot.  Okay, I confess. It actually took me two months to read the first three chapters of Fifty Shades Freed. Mostly this was because I was repeatedly distracted by books that I actually considered worthy of reading.  Anyway, from the perspective of the plot, Fifty Shades Freed is probably about the nicest book in the trilogy. This is the one where Christian and Ana marry and an incident involving a kidnapper finally teachers Christian that he cannot control every aspect of his life. Christian makes peace with his past, he and Ana have children, blah, blah, blah ... The same problems with bad writing, Ana's inner goddess and a talking subconscious plague the novel, along with the glamourising of abusive relationships and the gross misrepresentation of BDSM. The fact is, an abusive relationships do not have a happily-ever-after end

An old friend of mine put me on to this clip yesterday. The author, Susan Cain, is an expert on introverts. (Good old TED talks, got to love them.) Anyway, Susan's argument is that in the modern world, introversion can often be looked upon and treated as a negative thing, despite the fact more often than not, introverts are deep thinking individuals who often have the know-how to put their creative thoughts and ideas into action. As an introvert, I love her argument. Actually, who am I kidding? I think Susan Cain is not only a genius, but she has a lot of guts as well. In my own experience, being an introvert is great. My friends and family admire my ability to think for myself. In fact, I'm usually the first one that the people in my circle come to for advice when they are contemplating trying or doing something for the first time. At work, my boss and co-workers will often talk to me about creative solutions for any problems at the office. All good, right? Well,

On the stats page of this blog, I can see the search keywords that people use on the net that eventually directs them to this blog. Unsurprisingly, the most popular search keywords are: Destined to Play by Indigo Bloome Review Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James Review 1990s Nostalgia The Sweet Life by Francine Pascal Slam Book by Ann M. Martin It's all nice and reflective of the type of books that I review and what is currently popular. However, more surprising are some of the other search keywords that pop up from time to time. Here are some of the stranger ones. 4. Ana Steele pubic hair gross. Apparently, the fact that Ana Steele has pubic hair in the first two installments in the Fifty Shades trilogy has been much cause for concern and debate among some of the younger fans of the books. This makes some degree of sense, as younger fans of the series are more likely to be influenced by fashion and consider paying someone to pour hot wax on their genit

On August 7 a new novel baring the name V.C. Andrews on the front cover will be released on to the global eBook market. Incredibly, this is the seventieth (or thereabouts,) novel to bare the authors name to be released since 1979. What makes this fact even more remarkable is that V.C. Andrews, who is most famous for her gothic horror/romance novel  Flowers in the Attic , died in 1986 having published just seven novels in her lifetime-- Flowers in the Attic, Petals to the Wind, If There be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, My Sweet Audrina, Heaven  and  Dark Angel,  while a science fiction novel titled  Gods of Green Mountain  would be released many years later .  In the years that followed her death, more novels continued to be released, completing the Dollanganger and Casteel Sagas,  Garden of Shadows, Fallen Hearts, Gates of Paradise  and  Web of Dreams . It was only in 1990 that her estate finally announced that the author had died and these novels had been completed based on her

How do you want to push boundaries? What does that mean? What's different this time? What if I don't want to? How do I know I will be okay? Are you crazy? Am I crazy? - Destined to Play by Indigo Bloome Destined to Play is not necessarily a romance novel. It is not necessarily an anti-romance novel. It is a book about a woman who is persuaded by her former lover to let go of her sexual inhibitions over the course of a weekend and start a journey of self-discovery. Dr Alexandra Drake is an intelligent, capable woman of thirty-six, who is married with two children. The sexual side of her relationship with her husband, Robert, has cooled since their children were born. Enter Jeremy, Alexandra's former lover from her youth, who proposes that they meet in Sydney one weekend, while Alexandra's husband and children are away on a survival course in the Tasmanian wilderness. After recalling some of the details of some of their wild sexual encounters, Alexandra is easil

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Charles Dickens

Hooray! It's time once again for Feature and Follow Friday, an awesome weekly meme hosted by  Parajunkee's View  and Alison Can Read , which is designed to help like-minded bloggers connect. This weeks all important question is: Q: Jumping Genres: Ever pick up a book from a genre you usually don't like and LOVE it? Tell us about it and why you picked it up in the first place. Hmm. I tend to flirt and skip between genres. That said, it's rare for me to read crime novels--in fact its probably the genre I read the least. I haven't read a crime novel in a long time (the last one was The Take by Martina Cole and even that was almost three years ago,) but I'm planning on reading JK Rowling's new novel when it comes out, which is supposed to fit into that genre. 

Todays post is devoted to a comic strip that I have just recently discovered, the brilliant and very observant Retail by Norm Feuti. A strip that has been syndicated in newspapers since 2006 (Retail does not run in my hometown, hence why I have only just discovered it,) it revolves around the daily trials and tribulations of the staff at Grumbels, an average American department store. The main character is Marla, an undervalued middle-manager who seems to truly love her job. (The girl with the straight black hair in the picture above.) She is supported by the intelligent and overqualified Val and Cooper, the village idiot. Many of their troubles revolve around the expectations of their customers and those of management--troubles that any one who has worked in retail should be able to easily identify. This weeks series of comics, for example revolve around a customer attempting to return a bowling ball that was not originally purchased at Grumbles. The author of the comic, Nor

Just thought I would share the final For Better or For Worse comic. For thirty years, this strip ran in newspapers across the globe and chronicled the lives of the Pattersons, a fictional family from Canada. Over the years, the characters including children Michael and Elizabeth grew in real time, while a third Patterson child, April, was born in 1991. Eventually the comic ended with the wedding of Elizabeth and her childhood sweetheart Anthony, and this beautiful update of what happened to the characters in the years to come.