Review: Anzac Treasures: The Gallipoli Collection of the Australian War Memorial

Anzac Treasures: The Gallipoli Collection of the Australian War Memorial by Peter Pedersen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

April 25: ANZAC Day. A day during which we recognise the Australian and New Zealand men and women who have fought (and are today fighting) in conflicts around the world. If you've ever been to a dawn service, you'll know how incredibly stirring this day is, and how important it is to us as a nation. We are proud to honour those who serve(d).

The Australian War Memorial in Canberra hosts an extensive range of relics from all the conflicts Australia has taken part in. This book focuses on the collection commemorating the Gallipoli landing of April 25, 1915, but takes the time to tell us the stories that go with each item.

It's brilliantly compiled and, accompanied by photographs, it creates a very realistic picture of how the campaign went, and its lasting impact across time.

It's not exactly 'fun' reading, but it is particularly fascinating to read the personal stories, see photographs and read letters written by the men in the trenches. I was particularly impressed by their eloquence, and it's such a poignant reminder of just how much times have changed.

I also thought it was written well, in the sense that there's no grandness to the actions - the author doesn't stray from mentioning how people were afraid, and to defend the actions of those considered cowardly at the time, and how mistakes were made. This is a behind-the-scenes glimpse of all the heroism we hear about; a look beyond the glorified views of war. The reality is, it was messy, bloody, and terrifying.

I'll admit that I skimmed a fair bit, because it's incredibly dense, but the pictures and notes with them are enjoyable to peruse, and it's definitely something I'll go back to. There's a lot of knowledge and history here, and I think it's important for people to know these stories.

An absolute must for war-buffs, patriots and history lovers, and highly recommend for anyone interested in reading something that goes beyond the surface of Australia's military history.

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Review: The Snows of Kilimanjaro

The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This story will be better if you know nothing about it to begin with.

Isn't that always the way with short stories?

It brilliantly sets the scene, and introduces the main character, and is rich in detail considering it's only 15 pages long.

Harry is kind of a jerk, though, I'm just saying.

It muses over memories of different times and places, and evokes images well with a few choice words and phrases. Some of it flew over my head a little, but I like to read fast; this is one to take your time with, nibble each sentence before digesting and moving on.

Some intriguing symbolism, too, which is always fun.

It's well written, but the nature of the story means it'll appeal far more to the intellectuals delving deeper than those taking the story at face value.

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Review: The Year that Changed Everything

The Year that Changed Everything by Cathy Kelly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a complete mixed bag but I rather enjoyed it, overall.

Three women, three birthdays:

Callie, 50, who is betrayed and has to re-write life for herself and her 14-year-old daughter.

Sam, 40, who gives birth to her first child and is faced with the challenge of being a mother.

Ginger, 30, who is dealt a crushing blow and consequently has to face all of her self-doubt.

The storyline that hooks you the most is likely to be the one you can most relate to - for me, that was Ginger, who is a larger girl trying to deal with the pressure of living in a 'skinny girl' world. I'm not gonna lie - I could easily be described as 'curvy', and I saw a lot of myself in the way Ginger thinks of herself. Things like not eating in front of people because you know they'll attribute it to the way you look, things like hiding your shape under baggy clothes and trying to think yourself skinny in certain situations. But I also loved the way her experience at the gym was described, because that was very real - no one is judging you, and not everyone there is ripped or stick thin. It's just average people going there to work out. I guess, in summary, I just really appreciated how real Ginger's storyline was. My heart really ached for her at times, but I loved when she accomplished things, and stood up for herself. Not entirely sure how I feel about the romance angle, though, because I think such an important part of her story is that emergence of self-love, and that got a little tangled in being loved by someone else. However, I appreciated his reasons for loving her.

Sam's story bored the heck out of me. I am nowhere near having babies of my own so all this drama about becoming a mother was a yawn-fest to me. That being said, I know there are so many mothers who will read this book and love how they can relate to Sam's story. It just did nothing for me.

Callie's story had me on the fence. It was intriguing, but also a bit of an anti-climax. In fact, overall, the book felt pretty shallow. Like, there's all these dramas but nothing hugely of note happens, there's not too much suspense or big moments, and time passes pretty fast. The way everything connected towards the end felt like a bit of a sham, particularly compared to how real some of the other parts felt. Poppy was horrible in the first two chapters but then did a miracle 180? Everyone's problems were resolved so easily. Bit disappointing, really. I feel like this novel would have been better if the three stories were given their own novels with more detail and drama.

It was a decent enough read, but nothing particularly profound came out of it. I suppose it was a light romp that will hook you in depending on the degree you associate with one or more of the characters. Ginger was the absolute saving grace for me (Even if she was a bit of an idiot towards the end).

I've never read Cathy Kelly before, but I did enjoy this enough to consider picking up more by this author. I'm grateful for winning this in a giveaway, as it gave me the chance to read something I wouldn't normally pick out for myself.

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Review: The Raven King

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I've never done any hard drugs but I imagine that this is exactly what a really bad acid trip would be like.

-It's so confusing and whimsical and nonsensical and full of words thrown haphazardly around to seem poetic.
-It makes no sense.
-It repeats itself endlessly.
-At first it's kinda fun in how strange and different it is but eventually you realise you're tired and frustrated from trying to make sense of it all and you just want it to be over.

So yeah. Not my fave.

I'll stand by this positive: this series has really fascinating, fun characters. I really enjoyed them all in their individual weirdnesses, plus in this book Adam is whining much less and Ronan is far less rude so I had a lot more time for them. Henry was a bit of a random last minute draft but whatever. I'm happy to include the token Asian, he seems cool enough.

But the story? Oh my lord. It's so RUBBISH.

There is a whole bunch of random magic with no rules, everyone is doing different magic, and quite honestly I'm still struggling with the fact that this series is mostly about Latin talking trees. They're on this huge important quest to save the talking trees but they also stop every now and then to go to a class or two, or stop in to visit the fam, or do a shift at a job that otherwise doesn't seem to exist. Like, I could not grasp the sense of time because one minute Gansey is talking about how I am going to find Glendower right now and the next minute he's taking Blue and Henry to visit his parents for lunch.

There's also a ton of random supplementary characters that are introduced but never really explored properly - for example, Neeve, who went missing in the first book and then was promptly forgotten about until it was convenient to reintroduce her. Or Mr Grey, who is actually pretty cool and helps people out a fair bit but otherwise isn't really mentioned a lot. I just have so many issues with continuity and consistency.

This book, nay, this entire series tries way too hard to be fancy and it just comes across as arrogant, facetious and obnoxious. It takes paragraphs to explain things and convoluted sentences distort what's actually happening into a lump of academic arrogance that, instead of telling the story, screams in your face, 'I AM A REALLY GREAT WRITER'. There are so many metaphors and symbols. . '...gasoline and gravel in his eyes ...' PLEASE. I really wish she'd focused more on story and less on pretty sentences. It just made it so dull and by the end I was skipping paragraphs because there's only so many times I can read excessive descriptions of nature.

Also, let me moan about the story a bit more. NOTHING has shock factor. Every single big reveal had me like, 'okay? Were we not supposed to figure that out?' or 'was that not already assumed?'

EXAMPLE:

(view spoiler)[So throughout the four books they're on this quest to 'wake up' Glendower, who has been 'sleeping' for centuries. Then they finally find his tomb, and ... OHMIGAWD ... I'm in shock ... would you believe it ... HE'S DEAD. *gasp!* (Please note sarcasm). HELLO. THIS DUDE WAS BORN CENTURIES AGO DID YOU REALLY EXPECT HIM TO STILL BE ALIVE?!?! I just did not get that. (hide spoiler)]

But this is also a perfect example of why the magic was so hard to keep track of and what I mean about getting frustrated with a lack of consistency. Because (view spoiler)[ Gwen was somehow magically still alive with no explanation but Glendower wasn't? How does that work exactly? And also, what was the deal with Artemus being in the tomb? And why was he stabbed? IT WAS ALL SUCH NONSENSE. (hide spoiler)]

Now I get that it's all about dreams and how messed up they get so I guess it's kind of poetic? Creative? Clever? to be this random, but it was such a chore to keep track of everything, and there were so many things that weren't cleared up or I just didn't understand at all.

Overall, this conclusion to the series left a bad taste in my mouth. I was actually kinda just waiting for Gansey to die by the end of it, and I really like that kid.

I'm sorry to be the bad guy and dislike something that people love so much, but this one was just a little to random for me. Such a shame, because they are really great characters.

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