First re-read of this, so obviously the shocks and twists didn’t land the same as they did last time, but it’s still an awesome story with lovable characters, great humour, all woven together in a clever way.

Fine. Medium. It was pretty funny and very Australian. I feel like it left a lot of loose ends though.

What a load of old shit. And a colossal waste of reading time. I spent almost a month picking through this book. The chapters kept getting longer and longer, and when I looked to see how far I was from the end I still had something like a third of the fucking thing to go. Kindle was estimating I’d need another nine hours to finish it. It started fine, interesting premise etc. etc. but I just couldn’t go on once the mountains started talking and “Adam” was ejaculating over “Eve”.

Third read. I reckon this is my favouritest book ever.

Harmless but lacked substance.

Ugh I don’t know. I nearly gave this two stars, but I didn’t hate it. I’m indifferent. It took me bloody weeks to get through, I can tell you that. A very detailed story, with lots of characters and locations to keep track of. I think it’s just the subject that turned me off - I normally love detail in a story, but sneaky warfare and military stuff doesn’t work for me. Maybe I’ll watch the movie - I can imagine how it would make a good movie.

I definitely wasn’t the target audience for this one. It was a sweet story, and I’m really happy books like this exist in the world though. Maybe if it had existed/I had read it about 25 years ago I’d have given it more stars.

I follow the author’s blog, and it seemed appropriate to dig into this book - which was already sitting in my queue - having just finished that MH370 book. It’s clear the author enjoys his industry, and he’s a great communicator. I’m a sucker for “behind the scenes” stories about everyday events.

I followed the hunt for MH370 with interest, and I’ve read a wee bit about the mystery since. This author seems to have spoken to a lot of people over the last few years and makes a fairly solid case that the commonly accepted cause of the flight’s disappearance is a load of crap. The story we all know, about the rogue pilot and the incredibly accurate route he took in order to remain hidden, really doesn’t make sense to me after reading this book. At the same time, how on earth could any alternative solution have been kept so well hidden by so many people for so long?

I really enjoyed the way the stories being told met in the middle. There was a good balance between letting the reader know what’s about to happen, and keeping the next twist hidden from us. I might check out some more of this author’s work.

Fine. Medium. The letter the main character sends to his asshole dad in one of the last chapters was 👌

Och I love a good Bill Bryson book, and I’d never read this one before. I’m never in these ones for the travel - he just makes me laugh!

Had some feel-good moments, some of which came close to being eye-roll clichés, but it all held together nicely in the end. The story was overall a rather interesting concept.

This is the second time I’ve attempted this “classic”, and while I made it further this time than last time I still only got about one-sixth of the way into it before giving up, mid-paragraph, in an agitated strop. I don’t get it. How is this on every “must read before you die” list? By about the second page there’s a cast of 300 characters you have to keep a track of, and there’s almost never any link between one sentence and the next. What a load of old shit.

Great fun with an enticing premise. Made me laugh out loud several times, which isn’t something that happens very often. Surprisingly mucky in sections, not that I’m a prude or didn’t enjoy those sections… Anyway it was clever, funny, romantic (but not too lovey-dovey), and very well put together.

Ugh this was a struggle, especially on the back of that 5-star-er by Weir. That aside, I didn’t care for this one - didn’t care about the characters, didn’t care about the outcome.

Holy hell yes. This has a very similar feel to “The Martian”, with the same sort of humour and plausable science, but with a kind of… a kind of unexpected love story thrown in. I want to re-read this already!

I’m a sucker for these young adult, coming-out, self-discovery stories. They make me feel all sorts of things, and cause me to relive my own late teenage years.

Yeah a pretty easy and intriguing story once I got into it. Somewhat predictable, but just enough “gotchas” to keep things interesting. I’ve realised that I quite enjoy stories where each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character.

This was fun, and I like the way the book was structured.

Hey look - a rare 5 star-er! A beautiful story, told in an interesting way.

So much potential, but it became apparent in the last quarter that this one was not going anywhere interesting. Desperate Housewives without any of the drama or fun or unpredictability.

I’m not sure this one counts as a “book”: it calls itself a novella and it only took a couple of hours to get through. I really enjoyed it though - it was a short, sharp, funny little story focussing on our favourite characters from the Logan McRae series.

My 9th from the Logan McRae by my count. I enjoyed this one - it had fewer characters and names to keep track of than some of the books from this series, which is fine with me. Had a couple of good “wow” moments towards the end too.

Not sure about this. It was quirky and amusing to think of HRH going AWOL and making breakfast for people. The personal stories of the characters never landed though. I also felt like there was a lot of work done so that the different back-stories would intertwine, but they never did either.

I think the target audience for this is half my age, but it was fast and fun and relatable in an I’d-rather-not-remember-those-years kind of way.

It took me ages to get into this, but something told me I should persevere and about half-way through it started properly drawing me in. I’m not sure the pay-off was worth it hence my tepid review. The North Korean theme was interesting and thought provoking though, I’ll give it that.

An emotional and relatable story.

Nope. Too much war and military shit.

Yep, easily keeps it’s 5 stars after my first re-read.

Long one, but kept me interested and entertained throughout. She deserves a rant, but that wasn’t the tone of the book at all: it was calm, factual, and kept an eye on the big picture. The edition I got has an addendum Clinton added about a year after initial publication, which was excellent - nice to get her thoughts after the dust of the 2016 election had settled a bit.

I closed my review of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by saying “I bought the whole series, so I’ll certainly continue with it.” Well I tried, but it wasn’t making me happy. Not funny, not clever.

I don’t usually go for autobiographies but the topic of designing Formula 1 cars sounded interesting. As with most autobiographies, there was more than enough self-congratulations, but what’s the point of writing a book if you can’t toot your own horn eh? Most of the engineering sections were about aerodynamics which doesn’t really float my boat, but it did open my eyes to the world of competitive racing a bit.