You get a real job.

Idea was interesting, with the spooky rites that had to be followed, but it needed more backstory as to why and a bit more agency for the main character.

Captured me from the start. Feels very different from other things I’ve read but not in an experimental high-literary way.

I’d been really looking forward to this but I just wasn’t excited. The mix of travel memoir and traditional non-fiction felt forced and I think I’d have preferred a straight travel memoir as that’s where the heart really came out.

A very creative way to write a biography and throw out a quirky parallel narrative at the same time.

This memoir comes across as confused. It skims over fertility issues in a way that feels like the author was trying to process her feelings but didn’t succeed and didn’t interrogate that block.

She is SO GOOD at the subtle, creeping psychological thriller: Dropping red flags but brushing over them because we don’t want them to be true. This is a review copy so that’s not actually the title on the cover. It’s called The Burn. (I did not kill the butterfly!!!)

Hi 👋 I’m already here!

This CHONKY SHIT tried to eat my lunch out of my container but I saw him coming and put my hand up to block. Then he stood there giving me side eye after he recovered from smacking into the back of my hand with his beak.

Citrouille, why is it always when I’m on the phone to my boss that you have epic zoomies?

In 1956, marriage counsellor Dr David Mace told the Australian Women’s Weekly, “the happiest wives, you know, are in East Asia where they have no status. It’s only in the West where you come across hag-ridden women”.

Oh, you need me as a fill in on the radio at the last minute? Say less 😅

Tonight’s your last chance to see Ulysses Dancers’ 2026 production, Alice! (Yes, we have an arts scene in Townsville. Thanks for asking)

A certain exhibition might not want my photography. Nevertheless, I persist.

Interesting to read something based around a community of bee keepers but unfortunately it didn’t deliver for me.

SO British public school. Which I guess was the point, but was too much.

I really wanted to like this but it didn’t get there. Too much exposition and unnecessary secondary stories.

The ego! The god- complex! The American exceptionalism! The weird indigenous fantasy…

The all-important jumper detail. (Yes, I still wear the woollens my mum knitted me 20+ years ago)

Fit check.

I need to set some boundaries around work events in Canberra in winter.

Inconsistent. Some of the sections are about the job, others are a back story of the person. Didn’t need ten pages or explaining before ten pages of edited interview transcripts.

Loved it. Been meaning to read it for ages and the film finally prompted it to happen.

Brutal. So good. Think you hate the Catholic Church? Not as much as Lewis.

It was fine. Pivotal text etc etc.

Mary Shelly definitely won that competition 😅 (but I get that this is a key text)

Where is the orange cat?

I’m exhausted, ate badly today because of a massive work event, and could honestly just cry without warning but sure. Remind me I’m behind on my PhD.

Pick a Bond from photos you already have on your phone

The style took me a while to warm to (it’s very explainy), but the layers within layers is what sold me in the end.