April is my birthday month, so between getting some books as presents from others and feeling like I 'deserve' to buy myself a few extra treats, it is generally a pretty big haul month. This time around there have also been a couple of events I've shopped for/at (although, after not purchasing a single book at Speculate yesterday I'm feeling quite well behaved haha). So, the new books that have made their way into my possession this April....

I picked up The Queen's Rising because I find it pretty much impossible to pass up a book being sold as "perfect for fans of Six of Crows and Sarah J Maas" (yes I'm a marketer's dream haha). This comparison wasn't far off the mark - The Queen's Rising delivered a tough young woman main character and a bunch of espionage and political intrigue.

The Last of the Bonegilla Girls is a brand new novel (released today!) that ticks a whole lot of boxes for things I like to read - it's historical fiction, it's the story of 'ordinary' women, it's set in Australia, and written by an Australian women. Beyond this I wasn't really sure what to expect from this book. What I got was a sweet and sometimes sad story that gave some insight into what it might have been like for the hundreds of thousands of 'new Australians' who came here after the Second World War.


The book starts with four young women at Bonegilla Migrant Camp - three migrants recently arrived from different parts of Europe, and the Australian daughter of the camp director. We follow their friendship from their first meetings in the camp in 1954 to the modern day, and through alternating perspective chapters we see some of the highs and lows of each woman's life.

I am a bit of a fan of story telling through alternating perspectives, and in this case I thought it worked especially well since it not only helped me to understand each woman a bit better, but I also loved how I could see the secrets they kept from each other (and, oh, there were some secrets!)

The book touched on some pretty serious issues - as you can probably imagine given what these families went through before arriving, and some of the treatment they got once they did - but in a reasonably light/superficial way. While the women were touched by some awful events, the parts of the book I found most moving were the 'ordinary' things - things like love and loss and betrayal and illness.

I thought it was interesting to see not just a 'European migrant' experience, but how that experience might have been different depending on a person's background. Also, how difficult it must have been for these young women who arrived as children or teens and grew up in a kind of a limbo between their traditional families and a new and changing Australian society.

And, of course, I loved the friendship - the way the women supported each other through difficult times, and how even if they hadn't seen each other for years they seemed to fit back together so easily.

I gave this one 3.5 stars, and would recommend it for anyone looking for a read about women's friendship that is light-ish but will still give you feels - a bit heart-warming and a little bit heart-breaking too.

xo Bron

***
The Last of the Bonegilla Girls is out today from Harlequin Books. I received a free ebook through NetGalley, but all opinions here are my own.

Sarah Epstein's debut novel Small Spaces - a YA psychological thriller about a girl with a 'gruesome' imaginary (or is he?!) friend - was on my list of most anticipated #loveozya for 2018, so I was absolutely thrilled when the lovely people at Walker Books sent me a review copy! Also, check out how cool the ARC looks *insert heart eyes emoji here!*

• It was TOTALLY CREEPY! Like, I felt uneasy right from the start and couldn't stop reading because I just HAD to know what was happening.
• The characters - and their feelings - felt pretty authentic to me. Trish's constant doubts about herelf (and others), they way her best friend had her back, and her mum's attitude of being frustrated with but protective of her daughter at the same time. I also liked the settings - they felt like places I have been.
• The ending was totally satisfying! I didn't see it all coming, but when you found out what was happening it made sense (does that make sense haha?) - I can't stand when you read a thriller and the ending comes out of nowhere. Like, literally nowhere - as in, you couldn't possibly guess the end because there are no clues, and the solution just appears.  This was not like that - I found the ending twisty and fulfilling.

Happy Friday everyone!
I'm extra excited this week, since it's my birthday next week AND I have the whole of next week off, PLUS I have something bookish to look forward to every weekend from now until mid-May.
On top of all those reasons to be excited,  today is AUTUMN COSY READING NIGHT!

Cosy Reading Night is a readathon hosted by the lovely Lauren from Lauren and the Books. While readathons are often about reading as much as you can over a set time, I feel like cosy reading night is about making a special effort to enjoy your reading time - setting aside some time to getting comfortable and just reading. Lauren hosts (virtually) a number of cosy reading nights across the year - obviously autumn is the best time for cosy reading, which makes this one even more lovely than usual.

I thought it would be fun to share my cosy reading night essentials for tonight - I did the same last April, if anyone is interested in looking back you can see it here =)

Hello! Welcome to top ten Tuesday (on Wednesday!)

Top ten Tuesday is hosted each week by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week was a 'choose your own theme' freebie. I thought I'd share 10 books from my TBR that are new and upcoming releases that publishers have kindly given me - either in physical copies or ebooks. The links will take you to the publisher's page for each title. Keep an eye out for more about each of these on my blog soon!

In all my time reading and loving to talk books with others, I have never ever been part of the kind of book club where you all read the same book and then meet to discuss it! So when my local bookstore announced that they had a book club starting up this month I was super excited to be a part of it. It helped, of course, that the first book assigned was not only by an Australian author, and not only was the author also a woman, but it's also a young adult book (my three favourites right now!) - this month we read Shivaun Plozza's Tin Heart.

When Marlowe gets a heart transplant and a second chance at life, all she wants is to thank her donor’s family. Maybe then she can move on. Maybe then she’ll discover who she is if she’s no longer ‘The Dying Girl’.

But with a little brother who dresses like every day is Halloween, a vegan warrior for a mother and an all-out war with the hot butcher’s apprentice next door, Marlowe’s life is already pretty complicated. And her second chance is about to take an unexpected turn…



Several of the characters in this were quirky to the point of being a bit caricature-ish, which I found made it a harder for me to engage with - I always felt that I was 'watching' the story unfold, rather than feeling immersed in it - but they, along with some of the slightly over the top events in the book - were certainly entertaining, and several times made me laugh. There were also a few bits that I found really moving (yes I had a tiny cry on the bus haha).

Overall, this was a fun read that dealt with some pretty full on issues in a light and often humourous (but not flippant or dismissive) way. The writing was super accessible, and I think this would be ok for readers towards the younger end of the YA demographic and up.

And my first book club experience? I had such a good time! Claire from Harry Hartog did a wonderful job hosting, and there was a good variety of views on the book. Tin Heart was a great pick for a book club discussion, since it touches on a bunch of issues, and also I think that being a book about a family gives a couple of different perspectives to consider (I always think it is fun to hear which characters people relate to). I'm super excited for next month (we are reading Whistle in the Dark). I'm planning to take better notes as I read this time, so that I can remember some of my favourite scenes & quotes better!

xo Bron

Hello! Happy Sunday!
This week's #BookishBloggersUnite is being hosted by Tina from TBR, etc, and the theme is 'Best Literary Opening Lines.

This was a tricky one for me! I love beautiful language and clever passages in books, but have absolutely zero memory for literary quotes - most of the ones that came to mind were because they are well known as quotes, rather than from my own reading of the books. After a bit of thinking (and maybe a quick flick through some of the books on my shelves) I did come up with one...

The Raven Boys - Maggie Stiefvater


I adore this entire series, and it had me intrigued from the very first line...

"Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she'd been told that she would kill her true love"

Aaaah it makes me want to read this one over right now!

During my thinking time for this prompt I did come across one other first line that I think should get a mention, for a book that is on my TBR (I'm hoping to read it in May). The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is a new release by aussie author Holly Ringland, and opens with

"In the weatherboard house at the end of the lane, nine-year-old Alice Hart sat at her desk and dreamed of ways to set her father on fire."

That one sentence feels so powerful, and has me ready to have my heart destroyed by this book!

***

For more favourite opening lines, pop over to Tina's post and check out the linky!

xo Bron

It's TBR time! Here's my stack for April...

The start of April means we are already a quarter of the way through the year! This week (actually last week, insert embarrassed eye-roll emoji here haha) in our #BookishBloggersUnite posts, we thought it would be fun to have a look back at the year so far. The host for the week was Laura from That Library Lady - make sure you pop over and check out her blog and post for everyone's first quarter check-ins!

So, here are a few highlights from my year so far...
As of the end of March, I'd read 26 books so far this year - 6 in January, 12 in February, and 8 in March. Only one of the books I've read so far was written by a man (The Woman in the Window) - all the others by women! And 10 have been LoveOzYA books.

In terms of challenges, the main one I'm doing this year is the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. At the end of March I've read books against 8 of the 24 prompts, so I'm a tiny bit ahead. You can follow my progress over on my Read Harder page.

I've also challenged myself to read books that have been long or shortlisted for a couple of awards, including the Stella Prize (I'm halfway through the shortlist) and the ABIA Book of the Year for older children (I've managed to get my hands on 7 of the 8 so far - that's them in the stack there - and of those have read 2 so far).



As well as these I'm keen to read more Australian books in general, especially by indigenous writers - I'm planning to do this by reading against the prompts for the Aussies Rule Reading Challenge, over on Doddy about Books - this needs more attention, as I've hardly read any so far.


I mentioned above I've read 10 LoveOzYA books so far (and another one since then) - I'm pretty pleased with this, and have loads more in my TBR pile.

I was planning on choosing a couple of favourite books so far, but it is so HARD! haha! There are 4 books I have given either 4.5 or 5 stars to so far though (some of these I've raved about already):

• Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertali
• If I Tell You - Alicia Tuckerman
• Draekora - Lynetter Noni
• Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

I also have 2 favourite bookish things I've done or been doing so far, the first being my new habit of going to read at a cafe with a croissant and coffee before work about once a week (you might have seen on me going on about this on my Instagram feed if you follow me over there), and the other was the preview screening of Love, Simon. It was such a wonderful weekend, first reading the book pretty much in one sitting on the Saturday and then the movie with a friend on Sunday - so lovely!
April is going to be a big month for bookish events and I am SO EXCITED!

Another case of me having a book on my TBR FOREVER, and finally reading it so I can see the movie/tv adaptation - a friend gave me Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda (which has been retitled Love, Simon, to match the movie) I  think for my birthday in April last year (it could have been longer ago!). There has been so much buzz about the movie that I definitely wanted to see it, and when a friend had tickets to an advance screening on Sunday I jumped at the chance - and so I spent Saturday binge-reading the book =)

I think this book deserves every single bit of gushy praise I have seen it given everywhere. The writing is so readable and the story is super sweet. I thought the characters were very realistic (as opposed to the caricatures/super quirky characters we sometimes see in contemporary fiction - which can also be great, just different to this). I loved every single page of this.



The movie was super well done - I mean, I had literally JUST read the book (the previous day!) and it totally captured what I loved about the book. It was really cleverly done, in that even though I knew how the book ended I had no idea whether the movie was going to end the same way - and without getting spoiler-y, let's just say it isn't exactly the same! The casting was SO PERFECT - Simon was kind of Ferris Bueller charming, Martin was even more Martin-y than I had imagined him when I was reading and Jennifer Garner & Josh Duhamel were probably my favourite parents of teens in anything I have seen (ok except the dad in 10 Things I Hate About You - but that was for totally different reasons haha).

My favourite character in both the book and the movie was Leah, and I am so busting to get my hands on her book - Leah on the Offbeat - which I believe is coming out in April. I am actually keen to read everything Becky Albertalli writes - including The Upside of Unrequited (which came out last year and I bought this week) and she has a book coming out that she has co-authored with Adam Silvaris.

I gave this a big shiny 4.5 stars, and recommend getting out to see the movie too!

xo Bron