SuperKickyFighter

[john-taylor-daily]

There’s this total Eurotrash clothing store in my neighborhood and I would like to offer these suggestions for the next Duran Duran photo shoot.

[john-taylor-daily]

There’s this total Eurotrash clothing store in my neighborhood and I would like to offer these suggestions for the next Duran Duran photo shoot.

[superkickyfighter]

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambellin Kwaymullina

I really liked this book. It’s like the Australian version of Animorphs. Set in the landmass of Pangaea after a catastrophic global event completely rearranged the planet- nationhood and, oestensibly, racism are dead*. Instead the last of humanity has banded together in the seven great cities (there used to be eight). Ashala and her lost-boys-esque tribe are a mix of children on the run from the…

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The Swan Book by Alexis Wright

*adapted from my dissertation* Young, mute Oblivia Ethylene lives in a wretched and largely abandoned swamp community used by the army as a dumping ground for ‘unwanted’ people. She has been raised by a white woman known as Bella Donna, who is a refugee from the northern hemisphere which was destroyed by nuclear fallout. This created the volatile weather conditions that have so radically changed…

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The Year of the Orphan by Daniel Findlay

I’m going to cut to the chase here and be upfront. I gave this book 5 out of 5 solid gold stars and I’d give it another 5 if I could. Actually I can. It’s  my blog. 10 gold stars out of 5. So there.   This isn’t to say that it is in any way an objectively perfect book but goddamn it checked all of my boxes. Every single one. The protagonist is a woman, and she and her male sidekick go on a quest…

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The Lake at the End of the World by Caroline MacDonald

No spoiler warnings, this book is 30 years old.  By a lake lived the last girl in the world (probably) who met a boy from a subterrenean doomsday cult. She kept him in a shed, thinking he was sick. He also thought she was sick. Despite this, both are shocked that the either would think that. You think I’m sick? Why would I be sick? YOU’RE sick! Etc. Imagine you’re an insane guy in the 50s and you…

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Tomorrow, When the War Began- John Marsden

If you have a strong nostalgia for this book because you read it when you were a tween, then maybe don’t read this review. I can see how the reading of a book like this when you’re exactly the right age, right time/right place, would be a very different experience to the one I had coming to it as an adult in a critical context. I’m not out to shatter any illusions or cherished tween memories. So…

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The Sky so Heavy by Claire Zorn

The main reason why I did not read young adult fiction for such a long time was because, even as a teenager, I could not relate to the teenagers in YA. I was just never that kind of kid, nor were the kids I was friends with. The few YA books I read were off putting to me because all of the girls seemed to be boy crazy, all of the boys were dumb and reckless, and their conversations with adults…

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Postscript: making peace with Peacemaker

My first review on this blog was very negative. It was what would be called in fanfic circles a flamer. But when I clicked publish on that review I couldn’t put it to rest even though I still think that my complaints about the book are legitimate. There is more that I can say about DePierres’s sci-fi western, and they aren’t criticisms. 1. Virgin Jackson is a terrible misanthrope. Just awful.…

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Dayboy by Trent Jamieson

I loved this book, which is surprising because it is a book about vampires and I just freaking hate vampires. Vampires, werewolves and aliens are the three most frustratingly lazily written stale garbage nonsense creatures to plague books and movies. I don’t think writers like Bram Stoker and Anne Rice are to blame, I think the human impulse to humanise and rationalise are. Why can’t we just have…

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Six months in is a mixed bag.

Teddy is now six months old and we are, for the most part, extravagantly happy. We’re a perfectly suited goofy pair that watch Sesame Street, play on the floor and go for walks. We have naps together. We sing songs.

Teddy is relaxed and confident, quick to laugh and approaches all of the splendid and strange new things he experiences with supreme good humour and curiosity. He eats everything you…

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My Labour Story

Bright and early on overcast and cool Monday morning Mandy and I got up at 6:30. We watched the neighbour’s escapee guinea pig chase birds around the verge as we ate breakfast. We drove  to the hospital with what we considered to be an unreasonable amount of stuff but when we arrived at the birth suite our midwife laughed at how light we’d packed. We did the usual stat checks and I was feeling…

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The Last Month: All Downhill from here?

I am 36 weeks, or 9 months, pregnant.

It’s a strange place to be, physically and emotionally. Simultaneously I feel like I have been pregnant forever, but the thought that I have less than a month to go is mind boggling. I’m exhausted and achy and hungry and tired and cranky and I need to pee all the time (and think I do even when I don’t) but at the same time I’m just so pleased and calm and…

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A Frank Discussion about Sex

Warning: I wasn’t being clever. This is, in fact, a reasonably frank discussion about sex when you’re pregnant. Close friends and family that don’t want to read about Mandy and I as sexually active adults, turn back now.

Pregnancy is in many ways a mixed bag- there’s things you love, things you could do without,  and stuff you don’t really know what to do with so you just ignore it. All of the…

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I'm so excited I can't even think of a decent title.

It’s official, we just had our Anomaly Scan and it’s officially a boy!

I may have shouted “I KNEW IT!” triumphantly. All signs have pointed to boy for a while, but we kept an open mind because genetically both of our families have always had girls first and it seemed reasonable and practical to assume that this would be the case with us too. But every baby dream I’ve had said boy. I don’t think…

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Hipster Boy, Rockabilly Girl

With our 19 week scan waiting just around the corner, I’ve been thinking a lot about the little boy or girl inside of me and what expectations and hopes I have either way. It’s hard not to get romantic, thinking about the combinations of traits that Mandy and I will bring out in this child. I do think that your character is a combination of nature and nuture. Some things are hard-wired, and…

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Glasses and Stevia make all the Difference.

Sorry for my prolonged absence. I was having troubles with migraines, but now that I have reading glasses I’m getting back on track. I scoffed the first time I read about relaxin, a pregnancy hormone that loosens your ligaments, because it was a silly name. I already had loose ligaments and I knew it would be an issue, but then I forgot to take into account the ligaments around my eyes.

Both good…

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