Reviewed by Luise Toma 

There are a number of themes typical to novels aimed at young adults: first love, exploration of one’s sexuality, self-doubt, self-hatred, and struggle to find one’s place in life – to name just a few. Justine Larbalestier’s new novel Liar contains all of the above. However, although the struggles of her protagonist seem regular on the surface, nothing in this book is quite as it seems. Or is it?

Reviewed by Luise Toma 

Once upon a time it there was a town full of struggling and highly brilliant artists and thinkers, who visited each other to read and sing and play the piano. They ate expensive foods together one night then starved in their poverty for the rest of the week. The brilliant artist supported the struggling ones, the strugglers made sure the brilliant ones knew how brilliant they were. There were love affairs, deep friendships and bitter feuds. Everything was a question of life and death and nothing really mattered. And within this community of crazed genius, desperate hunts for success and ever twisting conventions lived a man called Edmund White. Who has kindly chosen to allow everyone unlucky enough to have missed this magical time to take a glimpse at the shabby Disneyworld that was New York in the 60s and 70s in City Boy.

Reviewed by Danielle Mulholland 

The Crossroads is a dark novel, entwining the lives of four characters into one major plot whilst creating stories of each character within the main focus of the narrative. The three adult characters, Rino, Corrado Rumitz (nicknamed Quattro Formaggi) and Danilo Aprea concoct a plot to rob a bank by simply tearing an ATM machine from the wall and swiftly departing with their ill-gotten gains.  As the story unfolds, the characters are evidently dreaming of great wealth, but are intellectually and psychologically unable to plan in any detail and as their plot unravels, so do their very lives.

Reviewed by Danielle Mulholland

The novel, Blade: Fighting Back, addresses the movements of a central character Blade, who has featured in a number of books previously written by Tom Bowler. Blade lives on the streets, has few friends, trusts even fewer and fears many. The novel explores the life of a street kid and gang mentalities with a fast paced plot written in contemporary slang which, from an adult’s perspective, is at times incomprehensible, but for the target audience of children and teenagers enables them to identify with the street cred of Blade.  Grinks, gobos and porkers dominate the plot as Blade’s enemies in the Beast, the city to which Blade has returned after Blade’s friend Jaz has been taken by the Grinks.  Blade is determined to retrieve Jaz but he is hampered by his like/hate relationship with Bex, a vulnerable girl who is completely incapable of taking care of herself.  Blade is forced to take on this role whilst coming up with a workable plan to rescue Jaz.

Reviewed by Danielle Mulholland

The third book in a series of six, The Revenge of the the Demon Headmaster  tells of a group of children who have previously beaten and defeated the Demon Headmaster, but are now faced with a new craze that takes hold overnight.  No one is impervious to the powerful pull of Hunky Parker, the latest fad to hit children and adults alike.  Only Dinah, who prefers books to television, is suspicious of this overnight popularity and the hostility expressed by Hunky Parker fans against those who don’t seem to be an addict or even possess a promotional t-shirt of the now infamous character. 

In 1985, Britain’s Cold War fears and the looming threat of Russian nuclear armament gave director Martin Campbell the perfect opportunity to reflect social concerns. Campbell’s television mini-series, Edge of Darkness, screened on BBC to critical acclaim and immediately tapped the cultural zeitgeist. 25 years later, Campbell’s ground-breaking television success has been superbly adapted for the cinema.  Edge of Darkness moves the action from England to Boston and is a brutal, emotionally powerful film, marking the triumphant return to the silver screen of Mad Max himself - Mel Gibson.   

Reviewed by Sue Bond 

In 1987 I spent a month in Auckland as a student at the North Shore hospital. A journalist friend drew my attention to an article in Metro magazine of earlier that year that had revealed a scandalous experiment at the National Women’s Hospital, concerning women with cervical cancer. So when I saw Linda Bryder’s A History of the ‘Unfortunate Experiment’ at National Women’s Hospital, I was curious to remind myself of this scandal, and perhaps learn the whole story.

Has the vampire ever hung around the cinema for this long? What with the Twilight craze enveloping the consumer who seems hellbent on owning every piece of merchandise connected with that most glamorous of romps, the truth of the creature itself seems to have been lost somewhere in its wake. My faithful readers will note that I named last year’s Let The Right One In as one of the best and why? That moody, atmospheric piece went right to the desolate core of what it means to be trapped in that world. Yes it’s a place these tales need to go for resonance.

Reviewed by Tim Roberts 

Pamela Grace’s study, The Religious Film makes the genre into a serious object of study. As she points out, it is odd that this book is the first full-length study on the neglected religious film genre. Grace explains how the ‘Hagiopic’ – her term for the religious film – differs from other film genres by possessing its own conception of time and space: ‘miracle time’, where ‘the blind and the lame can be cured; lowly peasants can be honored with divine visitors; the relentless march of chronological time can be stopped; and there is a sense that the fullness of time will eventually arrive’ (5). The Hagiopic, then, is radically different from the realist narrative.

Reviewed by Tim Roberts 

I am embarrassed to say that I had not heard of Joan Kerr – who died in 2004 – until I read A Singular Voice: Essays on Australian Art and Architecture. Hers is indeed a singular voice: she latched onto her targets with white-hot ferocity and defended her causes with righteous passion throughout her career. A patient defender and interpreter of the downtrodden and neglected voices of art, Kerr sought to overturn exploitative cultural hierarchies and replace them with a more democratic vision of culture.