While  an impulse cover buy is nothing new for me, what is a bit more unusual is that I started reading this the very next day after bringing it home - inspired by my friend Star, who also read it the same weekend.

So, on to what's inside that lovely cover! The Brilliant Ideas of Lily Green was the 2017 winner of Hardie Grant Egmont's Ampersand Prize, for debut novels by writers of young adult and middle-grade fiction.

Twelve-year-old Lily Green’s life is falling apart. Her best friend, Violet, is more interested in the latest shade of lip gloss than hanging out. Her enemy, Zoe, is determined to beat Lily in the school science competition – and win Violet’s  friendship, too. Worst of all, Lily's precious family beauty salon – the last connection she has to her dad – has hit hard times, and her mum has decided to sell it.

When Lily accidentally mixes up a string of wild and wonderful beauty products from the mysterious plants in her neighbour’s garden, she thinks she’s found the perfect way to save the salon – and get her best friend back. But are her inventions as beautiful as she thinks?  And when things start turning … ugly … can Lily find the real ‘secret ingredient’ that will save the salon, seal her friendships, and win the school science competition?

This one sits at the middle-grade end of the mg/YA spectrum, with a 12 year old protagonist and the main themes being about friendship, family, and fitting in, but there is plenty to love for older readers too. Whilst the story has a contemporary setting, there is also a lovely twist of the fantastic to it.
I think my favourite thing about this one was the family relationship between Lily, her mum and her older sister - I feel like it really nailed that delicate balance of driving each other mad but also being furiously proud and protective of each other at the same time.   

Between the sweet characters and the fun plot I thought this was an absolute delight to read. It was funny and had a great 'romp' feel to it, which made me not want to put it down - I read it across two sittings in a single day. It is a wonderful debut, and I'm excited to see what Lisa writes next.

***  
The Brilliant Ideas of Lily Green by Lisa Siberry
Out now from Hardie Grant Egmont.

Source: I bought this one
Category: Contemporary middlegrade romp with a twist of the fantastic
Themes: Family, friendship, fitting in, honesty
Recommended for readers who loved Gabrielle Tozer's Melody Trumpet.

Find Lisa Siberry online here

I have previously written a bit about my love of literary prize lists - and how I always want to read ALL THE BOOKS on them (check out my post on the topic from this time-ish last year here), and given my love for Australian YA it is probably no surprise that the Gold Inky awards long list is one of my favourites!

In case you haven't come across the Inky awards before, they are Australia's teen choice book awards. There are two categories - the Gold Inky award is for Australian YA books, and the Silver award goes to an international YA book. The longlists - of 10 books each - were announced about 2 weeks ago, and a panel of teen judges will decide on shortlists later in year which will then be voted on by readers between 12 and 19 years of age to find the winners.


As it turned out, this year I already own 8 of the Gold Inky longlisted books, and what able to pick up the other two from my local library. I've read four of these already, and can't wait to get to the others!

Here is the list, with links to Goodreads in case you want to add them to your tbr!

The Art of Taxidermy - Sharon Kernot
This is a novel in verse, and I started reading it a few days ago.

A Thousand Perfect Notes - C.G. Drews
This is a contemporary YA which I read last year

White Night - Ellie Marney

I am out with Lanterns - Emily Gale

Ice Wolves - Amie Kaufman
This one is the first in a new series - the second book actually came out last week. I read  it last year and really enjoyed it! These read on the younger end of YA (I actually thought they were middle grade)

Hive - A.J. Betts
This was one of my favourite reads last year! I raved about it here. (I was sent a free review copy of this one for review, but enjoyed it so much I bought a finished copy for myself)

After the Lights Go Out - Lili Wilkinson
I was so excited about this one that I have ended up with two copies! I'm giving one away this week, so make sure you pop over to my instagram page to check it out if you'r'e interested!

Whisper - Lynette Noni
Another  one of my favourites from last year - check out my review here.

Amelia Westlake - Erin Gough
I picked this up as soon as it was released after seeing Erin Gough at the Sydney Writers Festival YA day in 2017.

Lifel1k3 - Jay Kristoff

I'm trying to give myself a bit of a break from the trying to read all the things all at once, but I definitely want to read these all at some stage during the year. I think I might aim for one a month until I get through them - and I'll maybe add in some of the CBCA noteables too.

Let me know in the comments - which award lists are you reading? And have you read any of these books yet? Also, don't forget to check out my instagram account if you'd like to win a copy of After the Lights Go Out!

xo Bron

When the longlist for the Stella Prize - a major literary award for women's writing in Australia - was announced I immediately logged onto my library account to start requesting some of the titles. I did pretty well - about 10 days later and my loans for 4 of the fiction titles are in already!


I wrote a bit last year about my issues with prize lists and reader's FOMO - I always want to read ALL THE BOOKS, which is obviously not possible. This year my plan is to start with the fiction books - 7 of the 12 longlisted books are fiction and I'd like to read them all. Once the shortlist is announced (on March 8) I might try to read the shortlisted non-fiction, although to be honest I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to non-fiction that is going to give me big feelings!

You can see the full longlist, and find out more about each of the 12 books on it, here.

I'll keep you posted on how I go with my Stella reading plans, and in the meantime I'd love to know who else is reading the Stella Prize longlist this year, and whether you have read and loved any of the longlisted books?

xo Bron

After spending a long time reading mostly YA fantasy, and thinking contemporary YA wasn't really for me, I've been LOVING some of the Australian contemporary YA I've read this year, and now want to read it ALL! In particular, contemporary #loveozya set in rural areas is really hitting the spot (I grew up in rural Victoria, so this should probably be no surprise haha)

Absolutely one of my favourites so far has been Kate O'Donnell's debut YA novel Untidy Towns, which I finally picked up after it was longlisted for the ABIA awards (for Book of the Year for Older Children).



Seventeen-year-old Adelaide is sick of being expected to succeed on other people’s terms. She knows she just has to stick it out at school for one more year and then she’ll be free. Instead, she runs away from her fancy boarding school back to her sleepy hometown to read and dream.

But there are no free rides. When Addie’s grandad gets her a job at the local historical society, she soon finds out that it’s dusty and dull, just like her new life. Things change when she starts hanging out with Jarrod, a boy who seems full of possibilities. But it turns out he’s as stuck as she is. And Addie realises that when you want something in life, you’ve actually got to do something about it.


I'm not sure how to describe how reading this book made me feel - I kind of want to say 'comfortable' but I'm not sure whether that's really what I mean. I slipped right into the world immediately, and loved spending time with it right from the start. Everything about it felt so authentic - the town, the families, the way people spoke to each other, and even though it isn't a book that is driven by a lot of action, I didn't want to stop reading.

Possibly my favourite thing about this one was the characters. Like I've said above, I found all the characters really authentic - I tend to find that the super wacky characters we sometimes see in fiction can pull me right out of the story, but in this case everyone felt like someone I knew. Having a daughter of my own, I have started to find that I identify more with the parents in contemporary fiction, and the mum in this book was AMAZING. Not perfect enough to be unrealistic, but total mum of a teenager goals!

I gave this one 4/5 stars, and it's become one of my go-to books to recommend for people who aren't sure they like YA.

xo Bron

***
Untidy Towns is published by UQP.
Check out the Goodreads page here.

It's awards list season here! A couple of weeks ago the Stella Prize longlist was announced (I wrote a bit about it here) and the shortlist comes out on International Women's Day (March 8), along with the longlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction, and the Aurealis Awards shortlist was released a few weeks ago too.
We've also had announcements of longlists for awards in the YA and kids' books space this week too - with the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Notables, and the Inky Awards longlists, AND the Readings Children's Book Prize shortlist.

It's so exciting to see so much wonderful literature recognised (and of course there are SO MANY other fantastic books that don't make the list), but my TBR list has totally EXPLODED with the excitement - I literally want to read everything on every list.



Today's stack is a couple of #loveozya books I own that have found themselves on the award lists this week - a couple I have read, and some that are on my exploding TBR =)

Does anyone else suffer from awards list FOMO? How do you manage it?

xo Bron

Kind of a mini stack tonight - I have a bunch of books to talk about, but only these three in my hands. These are books that have been longlisted for The Stella Prize, a literary award for Australian women's writing - both fiction and non-fiction - you can read more about it on the Stella Prize website here.

The longlist for the Stella Prize consists of 12 books, and the shortlist of 6 will be announced on International Women's day - Thursday 8th March, and we'll find out who the winner is on 12 April. Last year I bought a set of the 6 shortlisted books from Readings and really enjoyed reading them. I only got through 4 by the time that the winner was announced, so this year I'm planning to start reading from the longlist, in the hope that I'll have a couple of the shortlist read already.

So these are the three I have managed to get my hands on already, either on loan from friends or the library...