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Showing posts from August, 2019

Review: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

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It is a crazy world, and the poor little rich girl at the centre of this novel would like to escape from it. No, not in that way, she just does not wish to do anything for a little while. With the aid of an extremely questionable physiologist, she doses herself up on pills that hinder her from having to interact with anyone. The plan is to do this for a year. The reality is something much darker. This one is a black comedy about how a person can have all the material things in the world, but it will not make them happy. Through the unnamed narrator, we learn of the events that led her to this point--her parents who never truly saw or understood her, the self-centred older boyfriend who is in love with himself, not her, and Reva, the best friend who, though she envies her, is probably the nicest one of the lot and could probably do a lot better as far as friends go.  I cannot say I enjoyed this one, but much like the pills that are narrator takes, something about the novel i

Review: After We Collided by Anna Todd

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Poor, suffering innocent Tessa Young and her bad boy ex Hardin are back in After We Collided , the sequel to Anna Todd's fan fiction turned bestseller After .  After discovering the sordid secret that Hardin and his posse of so-called friends have been keeping from her, Tess knows that she has to get away from him, and fast. What follows is a huge emotional rollercoaster as both Tess and Hardin struggle with the sudden collapse of their relationship and the weight of his actions. There is a lot of splitting up and getting back together, along with a love triangle that ends up pushing Hardin to the edge. Meanwhile, we get to meet his mother and learn a little bit more about his tragic history. I'm not going to pretend that this one is hardcore literature, because it isn't and it was never intended to be. What it does, and does well, is offers readers an entertaining and occasional sexy story that is very much driven by the emotions of the two lead characters. Har

Corella Press Blog Tour

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Hi Everyone, today I am absolutely delighted to be a part of the Corella Press Blog Tour. Corella Press is an exciting new not for profit imprint from the University of Queensland. In this post, Despina Kalatzis gives us an interesting behind the scenes glimpse of her journey into the publishing industry through Corella Press. I loved her story and I hope that you do too ~ Kathryn. Corella Press TM BLOG TOUR My experience with Corella Press TM  has given me a keen insight into how the writing, editing and publishing industry operates. Corella Press TM  instilled in me the professionalism and self- confidence to partake in various facets of the publishing industry—from acquisitions, to transcription and editing of a nineteenth century manuscript, to marketing and launch preparation. This internship fostered my ability to balance a leadership role, as well as a peer role. Corella Press TM  reinforced the importance of working within a highly collaborative team that h

Review: Tidelands by Philippa Gregory

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Philippa Gregory is one of the most beloved authors of historical fiction today and it is not at all difficult to see why. Many of her novels are set during some of the most controversial points in British history, and feature strong heroines who often find themselves victims of circumstances. Take, for example, her Tudor novels which detail the lives of King Henry the eighth's six wives (and one mistress,) in a manner that is both historically accurate and delivered with a whole lot of empathy. Without Gregory's novels, I probably never would have heard of Mary Boleyn, discovered that Kateryn Parr published two books, or found myself wanting to learn more about the Tudors and reading novels by other authors. And now, with Tidelands , the first book in the Fairmile saga, Gregory moves to a different point in history. The year is 1648. There is a civil war raging in England between the King and the Parliament. That should have very little effect on Alinor, a twenty-seven

Review: The Silhouette Girl by V.C. Andrews

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The unreliable narrator genre gets the V.C. Andrews treatment in The Silhouette Girl , a lacklustre and slightly crude tale of a nurse who is being stalked by someone who identifies herself only as Scarletta. Pru Dunning is, a successful nurse who is living and working in LA. The future looks bright--Pru is good at her job and well-liked by her patients. She is forming a serious relationship with a lawyer whom she met on the job and has no reason to be unhappy ... but for the fact that she keeps receiving creepy answering machine messages from someone called Scarletta who seems to know far too many of Pru's secrets. Turn to the second chapter and we meet stalker Scarletta as a teen, a poor little rich girl, with a domineering mother whose boorish ways make Scarletta and her father a laughingstock around town. Scarletta's story mostly revolves around her mother's sudden departure and her father's creepy behaviour. The story arc is typical VCA ghostwriter fodder,

Around Adelaide (Best of Kathryn's Instagram)

View this post on Instagram At Woodcroft Shopping Centre, they have photos on the inside walls of what the area looked like before someone built a shopping centre on it. Not sure that a big cement building with several empty shops is an improvement 🤔 #photography #woodcroftshoppingcenter #woodcroft #fleurieupeninsula #cityofonkaparinga #adelaide #southaustralia A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathryns_inbox) on Jun 9, 2019 at 7:56am PDT

Review: After by Anna Todd

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Sometimes, it can be the strangest ideas that have the biggest impact. Some years ago, One Direction fan, Anna Todd, became intrigued by a particular type of One Direction fan art that started popping up on the internet, art which, bizarrely, gave the mostly clean cut band members a punk makeover. Todd decided to take the concept a step further, and turned to Wattpad, where she began to publish a One Direction Fan Fiction that starred Harry Styles as a tattooed bad boy who was attending college in the United States, where he encounters Tessa, a sweet and innocent young woman who is away from home for the first time. The result? Todd's story racked up more than a billion hits, making it the most successful story to ever appear on Wattpad. An offer of publication--with the names of the band members changed--was made by Simon and Schuster.  The result of that? A five book series, a two-book spin off and plenty of weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. And, of

Friday Funnies (Providing You With the Worst and Occasionally the Best Memes and Comics From the Web)

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Title of post says all.