Kathryn's Inbox

Sarah Ayoub's second novel is a bleak story of five seemingly very different kids, a school yearbook and a tragic event that occurs at a school party. As the lives of the main characters Matty, Ryan, Tammi, Charlie and Gillian begin to intersect, all start to learn some big lessons from each other, while the reader is left to speculate about the central mystery of who comes to harm at the party at the end of the school year and the how's and why of it all. To be honest, I didn't really enjoy this one. As well the whole thing about the kids putting aside their social and class differences to become friends, I didn't care for how a number of stories within the book were resolved, particularly that of Matty. Gillian's story was sadly realistic, and the others were not interesting to me at all. So maybe I'm just not the right reader for this book. This one would probably have greater relevance to readers who are in their upper years of high school and who are ponder...

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“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…” Dr Seuss, Oh The Places You Will Go

  Sweet Valley Twins #28 April Fool After Sweet Valley High came ... Sweet Valley Twins. This series debuted in August 1986 the same month as its biggest literary rival, The Baby-Sitters Club. While the BSC would go on to set the benchmark for wholesome, feminist fiction for pre-teens, Sweet Valley Twins took the soap like shenanigans of Sweet Valley High and make it suitable for kids. In this series, Jessica, Elizabeth and their friends were twelve years old and in their first year of middle school. Many popular characters from the Sweet Valley High series appeared in this one, including Lila Fowler, Bruce Patman, Lois Waller, Todd Wilkins and Winston Egbert. (Just to name a few.) Anyway, this series has a focus on fun, shock value, lots of gossip and the occasional adventure. Oh, and Jessica is a part of a snobby clique called the Unicorn Club who are pivotal to the series, so much so that they eventually got their own spin-off series.

  Author Victoria Holt died aboard a cruise liner named the Sea Princess on 18 January 1993. No details about her death or burial have been made public, leading many to believe that she was buried at sea.   

K Woodman-Maynard takes F. Scott Fitzgerald's beloved tale of careless people and shattered dreams, and gives it a rich and decadent retelling as a graphic novel. The story is basically the same. Nick Carraway lives in a peaceful community just outside of New York. Keenly observant, Nick becomes interested in the goings on of his neighbour, Gatsby, who hosts all kinds of lavish parties. Over one summer the lives of Nick and Gatsby become intertwined, along with those of Nick's second cousin Daisy and her brutal husband Tom and a few others who seem to only be there to either show how selfish the whole lot of them are, or to become hurt along the way. Anyway, an affair between Gatsby and Daisy (with whom he'd had a fling in his younger years,) causes all kinds of trouble and reveals all kinds of things about the characters that they had tried to keep hidden in order to keep a perfect front for the others. Things all come to a head after a tragic event that has grave conseque...

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  The Garfield comic strip debuted on 19 June 1978

The third novel in Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series has a distinct Cinderella feel. Sophie Beckett is the ward of an earl. Everyone in the household knows that in reality she is the illegitimate child of the earl, however no one talks about it, and no one ever makes Sophie feel any lesser. That is, until the earl marries. His wife, Araminta wants Sophie gone, but as the earl won't allow it, she settles for making Sophie's life  miserable. Her daughters from her previous marriage are instructed to make trouble for Sophie and then, when the earl passes away suddenly, Sophie is banished to work as an unpaid domestic servant. And then comes the night of the masquerade ball, in which Sophie sneaks out to the party ... where none other than Benedict Bridgerton promptly falls in love with her. But will the couple get their happy ending? Not if Araminta can help it. This was an entertaining read. Like the previous Bridgerton novels, this one was fun and frothy and never takes itself...

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The most surprising thing about T.J. Newman's debut Falling is that it is a novel at all. I don't mean that in a negative sense at all, it is just that this one is so atmospheric and action packed, leaves the reader with such an urgency to know what will happen next, that somehow it feels more like a film. Or to be more specific, a blockbuster film, the kind that, pre-Covid would have me lining up with the masses at the Marion Megaplex on a Friday night, armed with popcorn and a coke. And afterward, no doubt my companions and I would make our way to Cafe de Vilis, because everyone would want to talk about the film, and no one would be in the right frame of mind to go home and sleep after an experience like that. That, that is just how much of a movie vibe this book has. And I mean it in the most complimentary of ways. Falling tells of an impossible situation. Bill is a trusted senior pilot. He loves his job and he loves his family, but sometimes he finds himself caught in the...

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