Tag: Australia

Apples Never Fall

1 Comment

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Author: Liane Moriarty
Genres: Mystery, Fiction
Pub. Date: Sep. 2021 (read Oct. 2021 on Audible)

Apples Never Fall is my book club’s pick for November. We’ve read a lot of Liane Moriarty books in the club and she does consistently write good books, but nothing has ever quite had the same impact as Big Little Lies and I’m starting to get a bit fatigued with her writing. This book was fine – I didn’t love it, didn’t hate it, pretty standard 3 star read. 

Apples Never Fall focuses on the Delaney family, Joy and Stan and their 4 adult children. They are a family of tennis players and have had a pretty decent life until a girl named Savannah shows up on Joy and Stan’s doorstep and subsequently moves into the house, puting the Delaney children on edge. When Joy Delaney goes missing a year later and Stan looks poised to take the fall for her disappearance, it stirs up old resentments in the family and brings some family secrets to light.

Let’s start with what I liked about the book. It is a pretty good character portrait of each of the Delaney’s. Sometimes things aren’t always what they appear to be on the surface and Moriarty explores the theme that every marriage has its weaknesses, no matter how stable or loving it may appear from the outside. Moriarty tackles a lot of issues, from gender roles, to mental health, to physical health, to domestic violence, to the weight of our parents expectations and how they shape children into adults. 

What I didn’t like – Moriarty tackles a lot of issues. While it’s great that she highlights some issues that you don’t often see portrayed, such as dealing with chronic migraines and the fatigue of domestic labour, I think she was a little too ambitious. I felt like she tried to cram a lot into this book and it made it all seem a bit surface level. For example, I don’t think we really ever went in depth to Amy’s mental health issues or the shortfalls in Joy and Stan’s marriage. There’s a lot to dig into, but Moriarty spreads herself too thin to do any of these issues justice.

But even though she couldn’t quite tackle everything, this book was still too long. I felt like she didn’t do the issues justice and yet she still somehow spent too much time waffling on each of the characters. I felt like there was so much thrown in that just wasn’t needed. This is a mystery novel at its core, but the pacing gets caught up in so much background information on the large cast of characters that I felt the story never really picked up any momentum. I thought Savannah was a really interesting character and I wanted to know more about her and her past, but we get so much info about each of the boring Delaney siblings that I just lost interest and when we finally do get some insight into Savannah’s psyche, it’s just a bit too late.

Because sadly I just didn’t find any of the Delaney’s compelling. Joy was by far the most interesting to me, but I had almost no interest in Stan or any of the siblings. I just didn’t care about their problems. They’re a pretty well-to-do middle class white family and it was honestly just boring. I didn’t care about their tennis drama, I was unsure why I should care about Harry, and all of it just kept distracting me from the only parts I was interested in – Savannah and what happened to Joy.

Now I want to talk about the ending though, because that was fascinating. Again, I felt the pacing was a bit off. The book seems to come to a conclusion which I found fairly unsatisfying, but I was mystified to see I still had an hour left on my audiobook after this revelation. There is a second, shocking ending which is the part I found fascinating and would have loved to have seen developed a bit more. But unfortunately it comes a little too late in the story and made me question what was the point in including it at all? It is surprising, but I felt there’s so much more Moriarty could have done with it that would have made for a much more compelling book overall. 

So in conclusion – the book was fine, but I wish it was 100 pages shorter and explored a bit of a different angle. The family dynamics were interesting, but in the long run, forgettable. 

The Place on Dalhousie

2 Comments

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Melina Marchetta
Genres: Fiction, New Adult
Pub. date: Apr. 2019 (read Jun. 2019)

Okay, first things first, it breaks my heart that this book is not currently available in Canada or the US. Send us the love please! I’ve been dying to read this since it came out 2 months ago (lol, it felt WAY longer). I finally broke down and ordered a copy from Book Depository, which is the only place us North Americans can get it as far as I can find. It is $30, which was the main reason I was reluctant to order it, but so worth it! The Place on Dalhousie was everything I was looking for from a Marchetta book and I loved it!

This is the third book in Marchetta’s companion series that starts with Saving Francesca and The Piper’s Son. In honour of her new book, I re-read Saving Francesca and read The Piper’s Son for the first time. Believe it or not, I think this may be my favourite of the three!

Saving Francesca introduces us Francesca and her group of friends that carry us through all three novels. The Piper’s Son is about Tom Mackee’s story and The Place on Dalhousie focuses on Jimmy Hailler. I struggled with parts of The Piper’s Son because I found the story and characters a little hard to follow at times, but The Place on Dalhousie was perfection. We’re introduced to two new characters, Rosie and Martha, who carry the story with Jimmy. This book has a lot of angst and heartbreak, but God, it was just so good!

Jimmy and Rosie meet in a flood in rural Australia while they are both skirting their lives and responsibilities back home in Sydney. Jimmy has always lamented never really having a family and Rosie is dealing with the death of both of her parents over the past few years. They connect briefly and then both go their own ways, not realizing the profound impact their meeting will have on one another in the future.

Rosie returns to Sydney to stake her claim on her father’s house. Seb spent years re-building the house on Dalhousie Street for her and her mom, only to have her mother pass away from cancer before the house is completed. Seb then re-marries less than a year after the death of her mother to Martha, and since Seb’s death, both Martha and Rosie are dealing with their grief, dislike of one another, and their claim on the place on Dalhousie.

I don’t want to go any further into the plot, but this story had a the markings of a good Marchetta book. It’s a character driven, family drama, made all the more special to me by the fact that it’s a new adult book rather than a young adult book. It features all kinds of friendships and relationships and it will make you feel so many things for all of the characters. I loved returning to Jimmy’s group of friends and getting to meet new friendships from Martha and Rosie’s lives. This is a book about grief, family, and growth. We don’t have to be defined or held hostage by the past. We get to make our own decisions and decide how we let the things that happen to us and around us impact our lives.

Exactly what I was hoping for from a Melina Marchetta book. Recommend to all her fans!

The Piper’s Son

2 Comments

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Melina Marchetta
Genres: Fiction
Pub. date: Mar. 2010 (read May 2019)

I am getting lax in my reviews lately. I finished The Piper’s Son about a week and a half ago and I’ve been putting off writing my review about it. I just re-read Saving Francesca and I was really excited to read The Piper’s Son, which is the only Melina Marchetta book I haven’t read, save for her newest book, which just came out.

I liked but didn’t love Saving Francesca on my first read through, but loved it when I recently re-read it. I’m wondering if I might have a similar experience with The Piper’s Son. I definitely liked it, but I did struggle to get into it for most of the novel. I love Marchetta’s writing style, but sometimes her books are hard to process on the first read through because of her unique style. I feel like Marchetta never starts her story at the beginning. I feel like her characters are already fully realized when she actually starts writing them. She doesn’t waste time on introducing us to her characters and their strengths and flaws, but rather throws them at you in all of their brokenness and let’s you try and sort out the pieces. It’s an interesting style because it is very reminiscent of real life. People are hugely influenced by all of the experiences that came before you and the result that you get is an individual that is flawed in ways you can’t quite understand because you don’t know their story. Eventually those things are teased out as you get to know someone and it becomes easier to understand how they grew into the person they are, but upon first meeting, you have no context for their behaviour.

This is how I felt with Tom and Georgie. Both of them had a lot of history and were obviously broken by it, but I didn’t understand what events happened to them to get them to that point. Tom is drowning his sorrows in things that only make him hurt more and Georgie is stuck in the past. Heartbroken and unable to forgive or move forward with her new reality. Both family members are grieving.

This is exactly the kind of character-driven story that I love. We can’t rely on the plot in this book at all, only on where the characters will take us. They make mistakes, but are human. Stuck in the past and unable to forgive the family members and people who have hurt them. I did struggle with the complete lack of plot and I struggled to feel empathy for Tom or Georgie early in the novel. I did really like the story and the characters, but I think it could maybe have used a little more plot to carry the story.

One thing I still loved though was Marchetta’s unflinching commitment to friendships. I think Marchetta writes friendships better than any author I’ve read. There’s no pinpointing the moment when Marchetta’s characters become friends. They are either already presented as fast friends with a history, or she weaves a brilliant story arc in which subtle, but lasting, friendships develop between her characters. I loved seeing all the characters from Saving Francesca flit through this book and each support Tom in their own way. The way Marchetta writes friendships makes you ache for someone who knows you so well. She’s not afraid to have her characters challenge one another and do ugly things, but those things are always deeply rooted in their character and hurts. She’s not afraid to test her characters and their relationships and I love watching those friendships grow stronger as a result.

So overall I feel like this review is a whole lot of posturing about nothing. I think I may need to pick this book up in another year or so to see what I can glean from it having already gained the perspective about Tom and Georgie’s characters. I can see how this book isn’t for everyone, but it is also largely beloved, so there’s something powerful going on with these characters.

Saving Francesca

4 Comments

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Melina Marchetta
Genres: Young Adult
Pub. date: Mar. 2003 (re-read May 2019)

This was super enjoyable to read for the second time and I actually enjoyed it more on my re-read than I did the first time I read it. I’ve been dying to read her newest book, The Place on Dalhousie, but it’s not available at any bookstores in Canada or on the kindle store, so I finally broke down and ordered a copy from Book Depository. After ordering it, I discovered that it actually includes some of the same characters from Saving Francesca and The Piper’s Son.

Saving Francesca was Marchetta’s second book, published in 2003, and The Piper’s Son was published several years after that. I believe all 3 books involve some of the same characters, but could all be read as stand-alones. The Piper’s Son is the only remaining Marchetta book that I haven’t read, so I decided to take the opportunity to re-read Francesca and Piper before I read the newest book.

I liked Saving Francesca on my first re-through, but it didn’t stand out to me. I think this is because I read it right after the first time I read On the Jellicoe Road. Jellicoe Road is one of my favourite books of all time, so after reading it I was enthusiastic to try out some of Marchetta’s other books, but Francesca couldn’t really compete with Jellicoe, so I didn’t rate it as highly. I’ve probably read Jellicoe 4-5 times since the first time I read it, but this was my first time re-reading Francesca and I really liked it a lot more. Now that I’ve had the time to separate it from Jellicoe Road and view it on its own merits (rather than just comparing it to Jellicoe), it’s actually a really good book.

Saving Francesca is about 16 year old Francesca Spinelli and her family. Francesca has always had a really close relationship with her mother and then one day, her mother basically shuts down and fails to get out of bed. She suffers from depression, which is something Francesca has never really been exposed to and struggles to understand. At the same time, Francesca has just started a new school and she misses her old friends and doesn’t feel like she belongs at her new school.

Even though none of her other books have been as great as Jellicoe Road, I have always loved Marchetta’s writing style and characterization. I would absolutely classify her as one of my favourite authors and even though I’ve outgrown a lot of YA, I don’t feel like I’ll ever outgrow Marchetta’s work. I love the way she writes teenagers and friendships. I don’t know how to describe it, but when I read her books, I feel like I’m walking into a world already fully realized. She is great at Show, Don’t Tell, and I never feel like I’m being introduced to a story, so much as just becoming immersed in it.

Her characters are so vibrant and I love the way they relate to one another. Melina is the master of the “from-hate-to-love” relationships and I love how she develops friendships in her books. Saving Francesca is a coming of age story as well as a book about mental illness. I mostly liked her approach to mental illness, with the exception of the aversion to taking medication for it. There shouldn’t be any stigma associated with taking medication for mental illness and wish it would be normalized more in books. Many people suffer from many different mental illnesses and medication really helps them. Francesca’s family was pretty adverse to it in this book, which was too bad because I think drugs could have helped Mia get back on her feet a lot faster.

But I did like her other themes about being there for one another and that having good days doesn’t mean that you’re better, but that having bad days also doesn’t mean that you’re not okay. The characters gave each other space to work through their issues and I liked that Francesca understood that while there maybe wasn’t a lot that she could do for her mother, simply being there might be enough.

One thing that really makes a book a winner for me is when an author writes well developed secondary characters. I loved all the secondary characters in this book, especially the teenagers. Every single one of them was flawed, yet they all had traits that made them special and likable. I loved Tara’s spirit and Siobhan’s unapologetic approach to life and Justine’s goodness and Thomas Mackee’s nonchalance and Jimmy’s soft understanding and support. I even kind of liked Will this time around, who I definitely didn’t on my first read through. He’s a bit of a shitty character, but I was willing to forgive him for his mistakes this time around and appreciated that he was able to grow and make choices outside of the rigid plans he set for himself.

This is a short book and subtle. I liked the honest depiction of mental illness, but as usual with Marchetta’s books, what really made it stand out was the characters. I love a good character driven book and she never lets me down. Can’t wait to read The Piper’s Son and The Place on Dalhousie!

The Dry

3 Comments

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Jane Harper
Genres: Mystery, Thriller
Pub Date: May 2016 (read Jun. 2016)

I’ve been hearing such good things about this book and after reading Kristen Lepionka’s What You Want To See, I was in the mood for another good PI/mystery story. I had no idea “the dry” was referring to the setting (although in hindsight it’s kind of obvious looking at the cover), which is set in rural Australia during the height of a years-long drought. Everything is dry and dying and after a grizzly murder/suicide, tensions in town reach on all time high, threatening to set fire to the brush around them.

Aaron Falk is a cop in Melbourne, but returns to his childhood town when he hears the news that his childhood friend Luke has succumbed to the pressures of trying to keep a farm running at the height of a drought by murdering his wife and son before killing himself. Luke has always been a bit unpredictable and his shocking death raises questions about the death of Aaron and Luke’s friend Ellie 20 years prior. Falk had no alibi for Ellie’s death, but Luke insists the two of the them were out shooting rabbits together. Aaron is never convicted of anything, but the town was never convinced of his innocence and eventually drove him out. In light of Luke’s death, Aaron starts to wonder if maybe Luke was lying to protect Aaron, or lying to protect himself.

The setting of this book is genius. You can feel the immense strain on the town. No money from farming means no money for anything else either and everyone is starting to feel the financial strain. The heat just compounds on the town’s troubles. Even after 20 years, Aaron still isn’t welcome in town, but when the new police chief, Raco, confides that he has some suspicions about how the Haddler’s murder really plays out, Aaron decides to stick around and investigate the crime.

As Falk investigates further into Luke’s life, he raises new questions about what happened to Ellie 20 years ago. I was totally intrigued by both crimes and even though it’s a common troupe, I love stories that simultaneously examine both a past and present crime that appear to be linked. It reminded me a little of In the Woods by Tana French, but with a more satisfying ending.

I didn’t have any theories about how either crime might have been committed, but I loved the ambiguity about Falk’s role in Ellie’s death. We assume he’s innocent, but Harper never really answers that question and leaves us guessing and second guessing to the very end. I had no theories about how either crime had been committed, but I was convinced I knew who might have been involved in one of them and was a little disappointed when the plot seemed to be following that suspicion (funny how you always want to guess what happened, but are disappointed when you’re right). In this case though I was not right and that made the story all the more intriguing! Half of the red herrings in mystery novels are obvious, but I love when another red herring successfully manages to lead you astray.

Overall, I loved the traditional mystery novel aspect of this with the added person vs. nature element. I’m excited that Jane Harper already has a second book published in this series and was thrilled when I read the synopsis and discovered it would be another person vs. nature conflict! Plus it’s hikers vs. the wilderness, which I find totally intriguing as someone who loves to hike!

Can’t wait for book 2!