Matt McAvoy Book Review

I found this to be a somewhat surprising book, in that it taught me a lot about New Zealand and, in particular, its devastating drug-culture.  This eye-opening indictment was perhaps a little saddening, in the respect that it hits home reading that nowhere is safe from the scourge of class-A drugs – specifically in the case of this book, meth-addiction.  Incredibly well-sourced and researched, the fiction is perhaps by the bye, as Almost Persuaded focuses primarily on the country’s cultur...

This short, profound memoir is an honest and candid account of a young woman’s recollection of coming of age, against a culture backdrop of lacking direction and recreational drug use.  To the despair of her parents, as a troublesome teen, Kathy Varner has no plans other than to hang out, get high and see her favourite live bands.  The book is very matter-of-fact, with a punchy narrative, as Kathy describes how she simply allowed life to happen to her, whilst not knowing how and when to say...

This bleakly unsettling, yet triumphantly entertaining L.A.-dream-turned-sour tale, laced with sharp, very black – and sometimes side-splitting – comedy, is a real welcome interjection to the noir genre.  Addressing a subject which is vastly overlooked in our society: the scrapheap of middle-age – an age which takes everything from you, one piece at a time, it is very coarse and sour, and very, very good.

Set in the early-current decade – the post-recession Obama years – East of Li...

This short study explores and examines the multi-layered facets of human behaviour and cognitive decision-making, as if they are a very element of the physical make-up of our universe, which is a somewhat confusing, if interesting subject to get our heads around.

Using explanations of ancient philosophy, right through quantum physics and the construction of the cosmos itself, Emmanuel attempts to explain how our own differing perceptions of reality are really what directly contribute to the ...

Anthony Ranieri is a lovely author, incredibly eloquent, eager and inoffensive.  Furthermore, it is so refreshing to read a book set in the future, which focuses more on the sci-fi than on burdening its reader with doom and dystopia, its characters happy and ambitious.  The final product is a short novella about the use of technology in the business of football, set in the year 2050.

Ranieri is undoubtedly a passionate and well-experienced football fan and professional, and this shows in the...

If I am being truthful, it took me a very long time to find my feet when reading this book.  Once I did, however, I sailed through it, reading it in two easy sittings.  It is superbly written, and Lotfy is an extremely professional author – evidently well-educated and academic, yet philosophical. 

I already knew what the book was about, and it did indeed go on to confirm the blurb.  But, the confusion for me, I felt, was in the structure.  For the sum of its parts, Beyond the Prison of Bel...

Absolutely superb.

I loved this collection of poems entirely, without exception.  Ross is a fantastic, melodic linguist, who writes what I consider to be the perfect poems for kids – some with subtle moral messages, some educational, but mostly just plain fun.  They are all quite lovely, rhyming simply yet eloquently, with a vocabulary enviable to most “grown up” writing.  Ross creates poems about marriage; about animals; about fruit; about bank robbers; about bubble gum… in fact, an...

There are so many words to describe “The Wooden Man”: dark, disturbing and wonderfully engrossing are but a few.  James Truax is a fine author, and he doesn’t just present one interesting story in this self-contained tale, but several.  This extremely creative and completely absorbing novella presents as a fable for kids – yet, at the same time it grows darker, and at times genuinely more frightening, with each turn of the page.

When eight-year-old Gabe finds himself lost in the wood...

Such a wonderful book – thought-provoking, poignant and utterly compelling, Mitchell’s opus re-enters the life of asocial, intelligent Luke, in five-year instalments.  Whilst initially showing signs of a presence on the disorder spectrum, as the book proceeds through his life, you find yourself starting to wonder if Luke is really all that unusual, or is it modern life, in all its mundane absurdity, which is the problem?  Without a specific storyline, we join Luke at the age of six, and w...

Not sure quite what to make of this book by John Paul Catton.  Whilst on the one hand it is an extremely knowledgeable and well-researched work into ancient Japanese history and mythology, on the other, the huge YA aspect of this book overpowers it in many ways.  Targeted very firmly at a teenage audience, I feel that the characters are too adolescent to appeal to anybody much older.  Yet, at the same time, Catton is clearly a mature author with an in-depth understanding of Japan, presumably ...

“Myth Agent” is a lot of fun, and MacFadden’s quality is apparent right from very early on; an incredibly engaging and intriguing book, which is perfectly written by an author with a wonderful narrative voice.  This inoffensive and universal tale of time-travel is gripping, with a small streak of unidentifiable menace running beneath it, which grows very subtly in tension, eloquently setting up the reader’s anticipation by its midway point.  With its increasingly dark undertone, MacFa...

Martin’s collection of tales is both gripping and entertaining, and he does his readers a huge justice by encouraging them to use their imagination.  These thirteen stories are not really horror, as such, but they are certainly dark, with more of an air of mystery and suspense about them than anything else.  Happily, there is more than a small slice of the olde English gothic or occult influence in some of the tales, which I personally am a big fan of.  Overall, I found the collection enter...

Beautifully written and utterly engaging, right from the off, Cody’s intense attention to detail is visible throughout this book.  Whilst I have read a lot of memoirs, many of which project an increasingly bitter adulthood onto childhood trauma and don’t particularly have the desired effect of instilling empathy on the reader, Cody’s is the exact opposite of this – a tale of someone who suffered as a child, and overcame it to take control of his life.  In this boy’s case, I feel utt...

A fantastic book, by an author who is both understated yet imposing in literary stature, “Flow Like A River” is a work of unexpected quality.  Absolutely a book of two halves, the first is a bit of a slow burner, which serves well to develop its endearing and interestingly layered characters; neither overly dramatic or offensive in any way, this easy-going read was engaging from the off.  There is little need for histrionics in this book, nor for gripping violence – the menace of the an...

Although set in the 31^st century, I think it is fair to say that the science fiction element of “We Have Met The Enemy” seems somewhat incidental, as this book relies so heavily on its soapy backstory, there could really have been anything going on in real time, and the outcome would have probably been the same. 

Indeed, whilst Felicia actually has a really good sci-fi imagination, the genre does not appear to be the primary objective of her writing.  Rather, family melodrama is the most...

A very dialogue driven and bizarre comedy, with that instantly recognizable quirky, dry Canadian humour, a lot of which is so deadpan it may go over the heads of some Stateside.  “Rocky Mountain Noir” pays heart on sleeve homage to the detective pulp of Mickey Spillane, but does so with its tongue so deep in its cheek it borders on spoof.

Fast-paced and talky, this book is a fusion of pulp, action and outright slapstick, laced with a few moments so laugh out loud funny they had me cracki...

At first sight this sci-fi action fantasy hybrid seems to be similar to many others, but in reality it is quite a distance better than the average.  Set on a  terraformed planet, 600 years from now, “Dart” has not only the very current cautionary messages about the environment and the fears of mass migration, it also handles, rather intelligently, the growing concerns about potential dangers of A.I. in future, taking a more “HAL” approach to it, than “Terminator”.  That doesn’t ...

I was sent this book as a free review copy, and as I read – because I tend not to read blurb before my review reads – it became immediately clear that this was the second in a series.  Because I had also not read the first instalment, this fact did give me a few problems, in terms of context, setting and character backstory; I had to piece much of this together myself.  There were even aspects – such as the era in which it is set – which I didn’t realize until right near the end; fo...

“Dark Cure” is not really what I was expecting, but the surprise was a rather welcome one.  Whilst I was anticipating some sort of medical-corporate legal thriller, this is actually a fully-fledged actioner, somewhere between “Die Hard” and “Universal Soldier”, though with a great deal more maturity; the more fun part of me couldn’t have been more pleased!  Not to say that this book isn’t to be taken seriously: Cameron K. Moore is the real deal – a highly professional author...

“Looper” is not quite what I was expecting, but rather a pretty laid-back, inoffensive affair, telling the tale of a teenager who spend his 1980 summer break caddying on a pro golf course.  Although the tagline suggests this is a “coming of age” tale, I think perhaps the main character Ford is a couple of years too young to be described as that.  There are none of the usual puerile high-jinks which often accompany such a genre, and to be honest that is refreshing; Ford and his friends...

I have been fortunate enough to get first peek at all three books in Minin’s excellent “Monoland” trilogy, and as a collective piece of work, the premise and story are interesting and well crafted.  Bringing a sense of full circle and completeness, “Beyond the Monochrome” is a creative and satisfying end to this mind-bending fantasy saga; in my opinion, it is also the best book of the three.

With the world in the grip of nuclear war, the grey afterlife stepping stone of Monoland is...

Will Link is a brilliant author, who a fantastic use of language (both description and dialogue), which will easily relate to younger and older adults alike.  While some of his subject matter may be a little coarse for the former, just remember that it is their age group this refers to, and they know it better than our nostalgic view of it.  Older readers can reminisce about the days of their youth, while the youngers can laugh at the commonalities between us, which still characterize their g...

Greg Hickey is a wonderfully gifted author, and “The Friar’s Lantern” is extremely articulate and well-written.  Add to this that the author is also, evidently, a talented mathematician and sociologist, and you might have some idea of what to expect from this entertaining, engrossing first person role-play challenge.  Be warned, though, if you are expecting action, or the excitement of the Fighting Fantasy series, this is not what you will find; in this respect, perhaps the book’s tit...

“Ghost Dog” is a pretty entertaining, gripping crime adventure story, with a short enough word count to fit in over an evening or two.  Tim White is a pleasant and engaging author to read, though, although - for the most part - well-written in good, articulate English, his language may be a touch simplistic in nature for some; if you are expecting a dark and downbeat crime drama, you will not get that with “Ghost Dog”.  Instead, it is a quickly paced and very dialogue-driven small-tow...

Interlaced with a significant proportion of fact, “Faithful Servants” is a superbly written, enlightening and objective fictional account of one teenage boy’s resolution to integrate the ethnically divided population of New Jersey in the 1960s, against the backdrop of an explosive racial equality movement, which was described by some as “rioting” and others as “rebellion”.  In spite of many who want nothing more than to prolong the historical segregation of black and white commu...

“Gnosis” is generally entertaining and well-written by Rick Hall, even if, for my tastes, there aren’t things about it which particularly stand out.  It falls very firmly in the young-adult / sci-fi / fantasy camp and features all the usual formulaic elements of this contemporary cross-genre: the resourceful but unwitting teen heroine, with psychic abilities bordering on superpowers and shady government figures in pursuit, to either kill her or harness her ability.  The author himself, ...

In this obscure, yet wonderfully poetic metaphor, Theodor’s writing is artistic, warm and endearing, despite “Buy or Die”s darkly comic, somewhat disturbing subject.  Although the author’s English is perfectly crafted, I suspect much of the true prose has been lost a little in translation.  Yet, even in the resulting form it has an attractive, creative voice all of its own, and once I was able to level with his dry wit and surreal depiction, I started to enjoy reading it.

Set in a fr...