Catch up TBR – August September October November December: Reading Notes 80-84

December 31, 2024December 31, 2024shallowreader 15 Comments

This IS NOT my 2024 best of list. I am just playing catch up for Wendy’s TBR Challenge. In a conscious effort to post on all the TBR topics for 2024, I put together a quick post for the previous 5 months.

Reading Note 80: August – Everyday Heroes

Hello, Stranger by Katherine Center

I became a bit obsessed with Katherine Center this year. I have yet to read one that tanked. In Hello Stranger the protagonist Sadie is a portrait artist who after winning a place in a national competition has a critical head injury when she has a fall in the middle of the street. When she comes to, the result of the fall is that she has aphasia – face blindness. Which, as a portrait artist, is a bit of an issue. While she is trying to navigate her new world, Sadie meets her grumpy neighbour Joe who somehow helps her through the various issues she is experiencing. And of course, they fall in love but not without their own issues.

Sadie has so many circumstances that go against her. An absent father, an evil step-sister, an ambivalent step-mother. A friend who seems supportive but is not at all, sometimes bordering on cruel. When Sadie gets into the portrait competitiion, Sue says to her “You’ve been tragically failing at life for years and years! We have to celebrate!” Sadie thinks “Tragically failing at life seemed a bit harsh. But fine. She wasn’t wrong.”

Continue reading →

May June July Reading 2023: Observation note 118 and Reading note 66-71

August 15, 2023August 15, 2023shallowreader 8 Comments

A belated post which will cover my three months of quiet.

Observation note 118: Pain Again. I have come to realise that winter is not my best time to write. For many years now, I start with semi-regular posts early in the year, just to drop the ball when I actually have the most time to write. I think it is because I am a sunshine person. It drives me and invigorates me and even though it is usually quite bright in winter Sydney, it still is not bright enough for me. In Observation note 117, I had discussed my couple of months of pain, having just started limping after sciatic and intercostal pain. Well, it ends up pain likes the number three because I thought the limping was muscle strain with perhaps some arthritis in my ankle, was much more. As the x-ray showed nothing, I assumed it was arthritis, so I kept moving my foot, even going to a Fat Boy Slim concert trying to get circulation to counter arthritic stiffness. I eventually I got an MRI which showed my ankle was broken (gah!!!!), and possibly I shouldn’t have tried to dance (or walked or moved).

So I was in a moonboot for 8 weeks (!). This also kept me from driving during that time because it was my braking/driving foot. Housebound in winter is crappy but this year I was living with my mum and “caring” for her. I couldn’t shop, I couldn’t clean (lucky!) so we spent the weeks talking and watching old Greek movies and soaps, as well as spending time on mum’s weirdass tiktok feed (all octagenarians should have one!!!). This was much more complex than what I write here and for the most part I was deep in busy-ness in that time. I am happy to be home again and reading again while preparing for Spring semester teaching starting in a few days. The moonboot is off and I even went for a super-long walk on the weekend.

Meanwhile, throughout May, June and July, I managed to read 18 books. I won’t discuss them all but I will point out a few which stay on my mind. And I would stop reading now if you object to spoilers. Here are some pretty book covers to give you time to look away.

Continue reading →

The fairytale, marriage and another fun read

May 30, 2021May 30, 2021shallowreader 7 Comments

I’m over 10 days late for this month’s TBR challenge having completely missed posting for March and April’s TBR. The May topic being Fairytale/Folktale and my connection to the theme is a bit of a tenuous stretch and only mentioned briefly towards the end of this post. As for how long this book has been on my TBR, I’m just going to say that I have borrowed it three times, with a three month loan period (inclusive of renewals), and I only managed to read it at the tail end of this latest loan.

A lilac shadow shaped like skyscrapers in a city as a backdrop, with a cartoon bride holding open a yellow taxi door which just doesn't make sense because there was no taxi in the wedding scene.

Book: Marriage on Madison Avenue by Lauren Layne (the third in the ˆ series)

The Blurb: Can guys and girls ever be just friends? According to Audrey Tate and Clarke West, absolutely. After all, they’ve been best friends since childhood without a single romantic entanglement. Clarke is the charming playboy Audrey can always count on, and he knows that the ever-loyal Audrey will never not play along with his strategy for dodging his matchmaking mother—announcing he’s already engaged…to Audrey.

But what starts out as a playful game between two best friends turns into something infinitely more complicated, as just-for-show kisses begin to stir up forbidden feelings. As the faux wedding date looms closer, Audrey and Clarke realise that they can never go back to the way things were, but deep down, do they really want to?

This is the final instalment to the Central Park Pact series.

How did I find this book: Lauren Layne has become an auto-read author for me since Dr Jayashree Kamblé recommended her novel Walk of Shame to me several years ago.

Meet Cute: A bit of series backgrounding first: this is a trilogy with the protagonists of each book, Audrey, Claire and Naomi having dubiously met at the funeral of their (yes – plural THEIR) dead boyfriend a couple of years earlier, having discovered that they had all been duped (ahem sleeping with) the same man. On the day of his funeral (no – they didn’t kill him), the three discover that they weren’t his only girlfriend/wife. Though horrified by their own role in being “the other woman”, they forge an unlikely friendship where they look after each other – especially when it comes to finding their true love as they all now, understandably, have trust issues. Claire and Naomi in this book are already paired up which leaves Audrey to find her love match.

Continue reading →

The Prenup: a happy read

January 29, 2021January 30, 2021shallowreader 9 Comments

It has been several years since I have felt motivated to read novels back to back. Yet here I am, finally with two books in one week! Time for cake! I want to point out before I go any further that 1. I absolutely loved reading this book and 2. SPOILERS ABOUND. If you hate spoilers (’cause these ones are not subtle), maybe just bookmark this post and come back once you too have read the book.

The cover of The Prenup includes a byline "Love wasn't part of the deal"

Book: The Prenup by Lauren Layne

Blurb: My name is Charlotte Spencer and, ten years ago, I married my brother’s best friend. I haven’t seen him since. Charlotte Spencer grew up on the blue-blooded Upper East Side of Manhattan but she never wanted the sit-still-look-pretty future her parents dictated for her.

Enter Colin Walsh, her brother’s quiet, brooding, man-bun-sporting best friend, and with him a chance to escape. He’s far from Charlotte’s dream guy as but they need each other for one thing: marriage. One courthouse wedding later, Charlotte’s inheritance is hers to start a business in San Francisco and Irish-born Colin has a Green Card.

Ten years later, Colin drops a bombshell: the terms of their prenup state that before either can file for divorce, they have to live under the same roof for three months. Suddenly this match made in practicality is about to take on whole new meaning…

How did I find this book: I loved Lauren Layne’s The Walk of Shame so I went searching for her and borrowed her only two books my library held.

Continue reading →

April with a touch of May

May 17, 2017May 17, 2017shallowreader 27 Comments

I just realised that it has been a while since I wrote in my own shallows so I am going to use April’s Bingo sheet and SuperWendy’s super convenient TBR challenge topic of “Something Different” to describe my last 2 months of life as well as my reading:

Now (contemporary)

I have been incredibly busy. After a 12 month break, I am now teaching Digital Literacies at my uni’s pathway college. The content is really engaging and it is proving to be quite a different teaching space to what I am used to.

Dark Apollo

I continue to work twice a week at a public library in a ‘burb far far far away from my home. I am in awe of the excellent study culture in the community I work for. It is such a buzz seeing youth so deeply engaged in their studies. I am also a deselector for my library and there are times when deselecting feels like I am the more ominous Apollo of the Library World. The Apollo that brings down plague and pestilence to the world. Kill me now, for I hate deselection yet it has somehow become my specialisation over the last decade of library work. There are some gratifying moments like when you get rid of a book caked in snot but pleasssse, pleeaaaaase someone in the library world give me a selection job. I miss it desperately. Deselection makes me just want to tell all authors and publishers to give it up and stop fucking writing.