Kathryn's Inbox

Let me say this. Those who work in the publishing industry, in particular Samantha Shannon's publishers, need to take a long, hard look at the way that they market books. Is the Bone Season a good book? Absolutely. Is it the next J.K. Rowling? No. Samantha Shannon was twenty-one years old when she wrote the novel for heaven's sake. It is good book, not without it's failings (far too much information dumping,) but hey she's young and it's a first novel. But JK Rowling she is not. I'm afraid there is only one author who is qualified to be JK Rowling and that is JK Rowling. Or perhaps I'll make an exception for Robert Galbraith.  As a reviewer, one of the biggest problems I have with publishers is that they throw all of their weight behind one particular novel. They want us to read their books. Awesome. The trouble is, they want us to all read the same book. And so a huge budget is created and spent promoting one author. Which brings me back to Mr...

After enjoying Mandy Magro's second novel, Jacaranda, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I went back and read her debut novel, Rosalee Station. A little less accomplished than Jacaranda, Rosalee Station tells a love story between an unlikely pair of twenty-somethings against the vividly depicted backdrop of outback Australia. Sarah, who has grown up on a fruit farm in rural Queensland dreams of working in the outback and offered the chance when a cook is required at Rosalee station. Her relationship with her boyfriend soon fizzles and she finds herself attracted to the rich, gorgeous and very unavailable son of the station own, Matt. Matt has relationship troubles of his own but ... Come on. You don't really want me to tell you how this one ends, do you? This is an interesting read and paints a picture that is as vivid as it is romantic about life in the outback.

Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean...

Shout out to Anna from the Reading Room for my review copy of this brilliant novel. The Night Guest is one of this years picks for the Get Reading! Fifty Books That You Can't Put Down promotion that runs every September and to be totally honest, when I started reading the novel, I had my reservations as to why anyone would pick this slow moving and sometimes depressing novel for a campaign designed to encourage people to read more books. By the time I got midway through the book, I began to understand that this was more than a slow moving tale about ageing and female friendship. Like the tiger that Ruth thinks that she may be hearing at night, there is something far, far more sinister afoot. Is her carer Frida all that she claims to be? What is really going on inside Ruth's isolated by the beach, and is Ruth's mind really as muddled as Frida makes out? The Night Watch gives the reader clues in small portions bit-by-bit, in between the telling of Ruth's chil...

Just for something completely different this week, I thought I'd share the clip to Alexi Sayle's Ullo John Gotta New Motor . A rap of sentences, mostly in British slang, along with some spoken monologues, this one reached number 14 on the British charts in 1984, two years after its initial release. The song's eventual success was due in part to Sayle's brilliant comic role in the Young Ones as various members of the Balowski family. (And the occasional British thug.) The song has enjoyed some longevity and enjoyed the occasional replay on ABC1's music video programme, Rage . 

Well, finally, two and a half years, or perhaps closer to three, years after everyone else, I have read the sixth and final novel in Richelle Mead's brilliant Vampire Academy series, Last Sacrifice . And it's a winner. The novel opens with Rose Hathaway in jail awaiting trial for the murder of Queen Tatiana. Rose didn't do it, but a palace that wants vengeance, no one is really listening. Well, you know, apart from a few certain key characters who help to orchestrate Rose's daring escape during Queen Tatiana's funeral. And from there, a series of escapes that are fitting with each of the characters and their own part in the series ensures. Rose has to work to clear her name, the long-lost member of the Dragomir family is found, and Lissa is put through a series of challenges in the lead up to her coronation as Queen. And that's not mentioning what happens with the love triangle between Rose, Dimitri and Adrien, what happens to Victor and Sonya, just who ...

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A...

I do not usually review children's picture books, but when I received the review request for this one, I just couldn't resist. (The title drew me right in.) Candy and the Cankersaur is a picture book for kindle, suitable for reading aloud or one that kids in kids in the upper stages of junior primary would like to read alone. It tells the very cute tale of Candy, a little girl whose Dad buys her a pet dinosaur. And then the boy next door gets very jealous, leading to some surprising complications. This is a fun tale with a good moral, though there are a few "big" words in places for a picture book.

This is the original pilot for the brilliant MTV series, Daria . For obvious reasons (i.e. it was never intended to be aired,) it isn't as polished as the television series, but I love the plot here, where Kevin stupidly believes that Daria is interested in him. 

It's simple. It's kind of dumb. It's a quickie from the 1990s television series Garfield and Friends . Happy Friday, everyone.

As soon as I finished reading Blood Promise , I knew that it wouldn't be long before I picked up the next action-packed instalment in Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series. Spirit Bound , novel number five in the series opens two months after the ending of Blood Promise , with Rose Hathaway's final exams and graduation from St Vladmir's Academy. And from there it's out into the real world as the newly appointed Guardian Hathaway.  And the real world, it seems, isn't what Rose is expecting. Sure there are some amazing, action packed scenes where Rose and her friends break someone out of prison (for noble reasons of course,) but in the real world, Rose soon discovers that her actions have consequences. Chiefly in getting shafted with drudge work at Moroi headquarters. Queen Tatiania slides between being a friend and foe, there are the reappearances of some old friends such as Sydney and Abe, and Dimitri, is resurrected by Lissa in spectacular style. And ...

Just had to share this absolutely awesome clip I found on YouTube. Job well done, College Humour. Just a pity this one isn't a real movie ...

Shout out to Macmillan and the Reading Room for my very awesome review copy of this anthology! Just Between Us  is an anthology that pokes and ponders the tricky nature of female friendship. Written by a variety of Australian authors, the anthology contains both fiction and non-fiction. Some stories are happier than others, some pieces stopped and made me think about many of my own friendships past and present. Melina Marchetta's The Centre for example is a hilarious tale told totally in emails that examines past hurts, the hierarchy of female friendships and how women can manipulate the friends they supposedly care about the most. Meanwhile, Nikki Gemmel provides a thought-provoking essay on her five year old daughter's experiences at school, coupled with her own experiences of rude emails from trolls. And there are many other highlights as well (hmm, who would have thought an episode of Doctor Who would inspire two girls pretend that they are giving birth to slime?) ...

It has been quite a while between Vampire Academy novels for me--so long in fact that I didn't even have this blog back in 2010 when I read the first three novels in this series. I don't know why this is, as I enjoyed the books very much. I guess I got a little caught up in reading some of the novels that the author has written for adults, including the very brilliant and recently released Gameboard of the Gods .  Blood Promise  is the fourth novel in the series and the only one, so far, that is set almost wholly outside St Vladmir's Academy. Rose has travelled to Russia with one goal in mind. To kill her boyfriend, Dimitri who has become Strigoi (which is the evil and immortal vampires of her paranormal world). Dimitri, of course, has other ideas. And meanwhile, halfway across the country Lissa is feeling abandoned and may be finding herself in serious danger ... Reading through Blood Promise, I couldn't help but wonder why I had put off reading this one fo...