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'After I Do' by Taylor Jenkins Reid

From the BLURB: When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they come up with an unconventional plan. They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes. Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for? This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do ...

The Secret

'Australia to Z' by Armin Greder

Received from the Publisher 

From the BLURB:

Juxtaposing words and images, the multi-award-winning author of The Island shines an uncompromising light on what it is to be Australian.



I don't normally review picture books - not because I don't read them and love them (I do, I really do!) but because I think to do them justice I'd have to dedicate an entire blog to the reviewing of them (Hey! There's an idea...) and I personally love the book blogs in which actual children review picture books (and I'll admit, their opinions hold more weight than mine!) 

But I simply have to rave about Armin Greder's 2016 picture-alphabet book, 'Australia to Z'. 

Look, all picture books are art books as far as I'm concerned. But Greder's especially feels sharp and subversive - and a perfect example of how children's picture books especially, can say so much with so little. 

In Greder's alphabet book, A is for 'Aborigine', 'Boat People' is for 'Rupert Murdoch' stands for R and 'Meat Pies' comes before 'Nationalist' (with a drawing of a man wearing an Australia flag cape ...)



Author Libby Gleeson perfectly summarises what this Alphabet Book is really all about, and how it's for everyone: "... Armin Greder has cast his critical eye on us and our symbols." Indeed he has - the good, the bad and the downright ugly (aforementioned 'Nationalist' and 'Rupert') 

This book says a lot with so little - flipping through the pages and acknowledging the chosen alphabet symbols is sometimes uncomfortable for Greder's scathing accuracy - P is for Pokies - but there's beauty alongside the brutal, and Greder's underlying message is a powerful one worthy of applause. 


'Australia to Z' is probably going to be my favourite picture book of 2016. I expect to see it winning awards in the coming months, as a celebrated picture book for the young and old - indeed, an important book for all of us to read and listen to its powerful message. 

5/5

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'After I Do' by Taylor Jenkins Reid

From the BLURB: When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they come up with an unconventional plan. They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes. Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for? This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do ...

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