georgiasbookescapes's reviews
434 reviews

All That We Know by Shilo Kino

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Māreikura is a young Māori woman living in Aotearoa, New Zealand and without ever meaning to, has found herself constantly in the spotlight for her accidental activism. Battling ADHD, her best friend abandoning her for a mission, managing a new relationship, she also is reclaiming her language. Her activism continues to take off in exploring the consequences of colonisation. 

This book is wonderful! A deeply reflective piece on the effects colonisation continues to have on First Nations peoples. In saying that, as a person whose heritage is that of colonisers, I cannot speak properly to how this book reads as a First Nations person. But I loved exploring the different forms of activism and how social media is playing a role in all of this. Māreikura feels like so many people I see in the world and makes her incredibly relatable in that way. Highly recommend!
Jilya: How one Indigenous woman from the remote Pilbara transformed psychology by Tracy Westerman

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dark emotional hopeful informative medium-paced

5.0

Part memoir part educational non-fiction, Dr Tracy Westerman is a Nyamal woman, the first ever Aboriginal clinical psychologist and the founder and director of Jilya which is a program supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples training as psychologists. I read this on Kaurna Country. This book is incredible and should be a must read for all so called Australians. Westerman doesn’t just share how she became the first ever Aboriginal clinical psychologist or how she has been developing Aboriginal culturally safe specific mental health assessments (that the government STILL does not make us use and by us I mean mental health professionals such as myself) but the impact true culturally appropriate support has and how through her skills and the skills of Aboriginal communities together are single handedly changing the rates of youth suicide in rural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. If you need a new hero - look no further. If you want to see what grassroots work does - look no further. 
Wool by Hugh Howey

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challenging dark emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

In a ruined and unsafe land in the future, people live in silos underground. There are strict rules and procedures. But what happens to those who don’t follow properly? What happens when people question what’s really outside the silo? 

This was such an interesting read!!! Sci-fi isn’t normally my preferred genre but after rave reviews for a long while from a close friend I finally dove in! I loved the internal politics and every time I thought I would consider a DNF because it didn’t seem like it was holding my attention enough - there was another twist! EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Amazing! Is it enough to make me want to read the second book in the trilogy?? I still don’t know. Someone needs to tell me to do it I think or I just might not ever do it. 🤷‍♀️ It’s easy to see how this is such a modern sci-fi classic! 
All the Beautiful Things You Love by Jonathan Seidler

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emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

Elly and Enzo have been together for 10 years. But following their break up, Elly is selling all the possessions they own together that remind her of Enzo. Through each item, you learn more about the couple. 

This was a really interesting literary fiction piece. Because the cause of the break up is left for you to question until nearly the end. Bodily autonomy really encompasses so many things, but the one that is most questioned is the choices we can make regarding trying to have children, having children or choosing to never have children. But the societal expectation is always, women will want to have children. I struggled a lot with connecting with this book. But I adored the concept greatly. Looking at how a relationship can be shared through items gathered together was cove and inspired and one I thoroughly enjoyed. 
The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul

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dark emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

3.0

The House Of Hidden Meanings is the latest memoir by Ru Paul Charles, international star, known as a drag queen, actor, singer, the show runner of Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Ru Paul’s Drag Race is now an international series with 31 different series with a mix of being from different countries around the world, including the Phillipines, Mexico and a number of countries across Europe and down under. But in this memoir, Ru Paul delves back to the start, growing up in San Francisco as a poor, black kid in a predominantly white city. Ru Paul shares about his numerous struggles and challenges in building his brand and business. From learning to flip cars, networking and selling his brand until he got this name. If nothing else, this memoir shows how cleverly Ru Paul has managed to work through to build the brand he has and the one that has provided an international platform nearly world wide for drag queens. A previously underground world, to one that is beloved and sought after. 

Don’t let my personal star rating put you off reading this book. It’s incredible what Ru Paul has managed to achieve for himself and shows some of the powers had in consistently believing in yourself. But overall the writing is slow and there’s a lot of detailed car talk to kick off for my liking.🤣🤣
Life's Too Short by Abby Jimenez

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challenging emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Vanessa is a travel vlogger and just had her niece dumped on her. Adrian owns the building they live in and works as a lawyer. When Vanessa gains custody of her niece it’s not just her life, but also Adrian’s life, which quickly changes after he comes over at 4am and proves to be the baby whisperer. 

This book is once again bloody adorable! Jiminez does a beautiful job at creating such loveable romances that also tackle hard topics - in this case risk of neurodegenerative disease, addictions, mental health and fostering and adoption. All of these topics are huge ones to address and so can’t necessarily all hit the same way they might with lived experience. You can tell Jiminez has good intentions in addressing these heavy topics and the happily ever afters she aspires to provide them. The joy of this book cannot be undermined, long live Jesus’ abs! 😍😍 it took me a while, but it’s official, I’ve read the whole trilogy and I can’t wait to get into more of Jiminez’s books soon! 😍😍 
Two Wrongs Make a Right by Chloe Liese

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Inspired by Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing we delve into book one of the Wilmot Sisters Trilogy. Bea and Jamie are forced into the world’s most tense meeting for the two individuals at a party. But everyone else seems to see a perfect match! So cue loved ones forcing them to date. In order to get everyone understanding that these two are perfectly fine as they are, for revenge the pair begin fake dating. But will real feelings catch up?

Chloe Liese seriously is one of my favourite authors! Disability rep once again with autism and social anxiety, swoon worthy romance and beautifully, beautifully done representation of emotional abuse. The last one was done so beautifully it was luck a sucker punch to the gut personally, and that’s how I can say it was done well! I won’t lie and say there was a brief story line at the end I feel like we could’ve just skipped at the end, but I’ll allow it to remain a new favourite with it anyways! Also can someone tell me how to be able to pet a hedgehog because Cornelius sounds too cute to be true! 
Dear TUI, a warning by M. C Ronen

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Told from the perspective of Juniper starting in the year 2063 we see where the world has come to because of climate change. With time jumps throughout the 21st century we learn through Junipers life, how these changes occurred.

This was a reasonably quick read for me, in large because I didn’t find the character aspects of the story that connected. But this may be partly due to the extreme time gaps to explain how much the world changed over the course of roughly 40 years. The topic is a passion of the author and that certainly comes through and the realities she’s imagined are terrifying if they become real. It’s an interesting take, but just not one that paced out in a manner that grasped me personally. 
Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen

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emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Colie’s mum is THE Kiki Sparks - aka the global fitness guru. But she wasn’t always that person. In the past it was Colie and Katherine against the world and happily living in their bodies during what they call their “fat years”. When Kiki has an overseas trip, Colie stays with her aunt in Colby and finds herself working at Last Chance cafe. For Colie this is a chance to learn what friendship is and maybe even a chance at a first romance.

So growing up Sarah Dessen was my FAVOURITE YA author. And I’m now looking at rereading all her books again. This one I definitely remember loving when I was a teen and when I last read it about 7 years ago when I thought it was a new book, and not my beloved Last Chance copy. Unfortunately I got rid of my Last Chance copy out of self chosen niceness as I had a boyfriend at the time but me this copy. 🙄 but hey, we all make mistakes sometimes. 🤣 this book, is rampant with fat phobia. In fact it’s more or less the defining feature of the book in a lot of ways. But so is finding ways to love yourself. Being published in 2002 originally, this was where a lot of the conversations around weight were had. And thankfully I don’t really hear these conversations had around myself, but I am aware they still exist. But the nostalgia wins out on this one. I can’t bring myself to love it the way I have in the past but I can’t help but still love it now despite the problematic aspects in a changing world view. 🙊
Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

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challenging emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Celine is a conspiracy theory Tik Tok famous A leveller, Brad is an all rounder popular guy at school who is quietly managing OCD. Celina and Brad grew up as friends until high school hit. Now their friendship is having a second chance when they end up together on a two-part survival course in the woods. Or is something more than just friendship sparking? 

OMG Hibbert does it again, just this time as a YA! 😍 I love Celine’s conspiracy theory ethics (nothing that involves theories regarding someone’s death) and Brad’s realism of OCD. The romance blossoms beautifully and the camping expeditions sounded awful. What a stunner. 😍