Katharine Forsyth
Occasionally I reread a favourite Blyton, and today I decided on this one, which I don't think I've read for over twenty years. It's a lot shorter and a quicker read than I remembered, but I suppose it would be.
This is aimed at a much younger age than the middle grade books I usually read, but the author is someone I interact with a lot online, and she's really lovely, so I thought I'd support her by reading her new book. It's a sweet story about a group of friends who try to find out where a stray dog came from. And there's non-binary rep!
A lovely picture book with a few lines of text per page. I absolutely loved the detailed artwork, especially the full double-page spreads showing the streets of Grandad's village, and all the attendees of the parade. It reminded me of looking at all the details in a Richard Scarry book.
Obviously I'm not the target market for a picture book, but any book that celebrates diversity and queerness gets full marks from me. Teaching children to be accepting and kind towards others is how we make the world a kinder, more loving place. ❤️
I love middle grade mysteries, but sadly I was a bit disappointed with this book of short stories. Firstly, the title is misleading, because most of the stories aren't about murders at all, just general mysteries. Which would probably have been fine if I'd loved them more. It's always hard to rate collections of short stories by different authors, because each story could get a wildly different rating, but since most of these stories were just okay, with a few I liked and a few I didn't like, I'm going to go with the “It was okay” rating of two stars.
I'm just not feeling this one. I don't care for the characters and the writing seems a bit...stilted? I don't know, but it's not for me.
So despite it being incredibly predictable, and as cheesy-but-cute as a Hallmark Christmas movie, I really enjoyed this. It was intensely readable, even though it isn't exactly the best writing I've ever read.
I don't generally absolutely love books aimed at younger than middle grade, but Stepfather Christmas is just so lovely that it deserves 5 stars. I raced through it, and it was just a lovely warm Christmas hug of a book.
This actually had a cute story. If it hadn't been so badly written it would have been an easy three stars, maybe even four. Unfortunately the author clearly never learned how to use commas and apostrophes properly, and it was really distracting and irritating. How hard is it to find a proofreader?
3.5 stars
This book is doing itself a disservice with the cheesy “topless man” cover; it's actually much better than that! I'd market it as a cute chicklit novel in the vein of Sophie Kinsella or Meg Cabot, rather. Yes, it has sex scenes, but not as many as you'd expect from a “steamy romance”, and lots of popular chicklit novels (eg: The Wedding Date or The Kiss Quotient) have even more.
I loved so much about this book. Fake romance becomes real? Check. Sexual tension? Check. Hidden identity? Check. Interesting characters and a fun family? Check.
And my favourite thing? It's set in Australia over Christmas! Now don't get me wrong, I love me some snowy fairytale Christmas romances set in America or the UK. But I grew up in the southern hemisphere, and it was so lovely to see my kind of family Christmas as the backdrop to this story. Watermelon slices, swimming, pavlova, Santa suits being WAY too hot to wear, heat and sudden storms that blow up out of nowhere... I'm here for all of it.
Quick comfort reread of my favourite Blyton after a rough day. I feel cleansed and happy.
3.5 stars.
Starts out feeling like it's trying too hard to be cute and quirky, but after just two chapters it discovers its own natural quirkiness and just soars.
I'm really annoyed with myself for not giving up sooner, but I'd had this on my TBR list for so long, and the premise sounded so good, that I just kept trying. But around the 40% mark, what was a bit silly and meh turned into full-blown weirdness and ridiculousness. Nope nope nope.
The concept was FAR better than the execution. If the writing and plot had lived up to the premise, it would have been four stars easily.
This was lovely and very readable, but I could have done with a bit more romance and sexual tension between the main character and her love interest.
Cute story, perhaps a little longer than it needed to be in the middle, but I enjoyed it. The author's sparse use of commas really bothered me, though. They exist for a reason, Alexis! Don't be afraid to use them!
Just okay. Decent banter between the leads, but I wanted more of the “famous guy dates non-famous girl” plot, which is the whole reason I was reading it.
Also, there's some seriously cringe stuff - the main character constantly refers to her vagina like it's a sentient being, and calls it her “oonie”. Just...ugh.
Oh and FYI this book is around 85% sex, 15% story. So whether you'll like it or not depends what you're reading it for.
I picked this up at a charity shop because it was one of the many Enid Blytons I had to give away when I emigrated. They went to an excellent home with a school teacher friend, but I've always felt sad about giving them up, when I loved them so much and they were such a huge part of my childhood. Anyway, I didn't really intend to reread this book, given that it's meant for quite young children (I'll still happily reread Blyton's older novels like Famous Five and the Adventure series though). I just wanted to own it. But I looked inside to see what stories were in it, and before I knew it I'd read the whole damn thing and loved it.
What an odd book. Honestly, if I hadn't loved Jaclyn Moriarty's other books (especially “Becoming Bindy Mackenzie”), I'd have DNFed this. It does really pick up in the last 150 pages, but there's so much to get through before that!