en-US Sat, 19 Sep 2026 17:13:26 -0700 60 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg ReadStatus11406597655 Sat, 19 Sep 2026 17:13:26 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/168882959 Leah has read Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones
]]> Review168882885 Sat, 19 Sep 2026 17:12:24 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/168882885 Leah gave 3 stars to The Year of the Griffin (Derkholm, #2) by Diana Wynne Jones
bookshelves: fantasy, young-adult
]]> Review1313328603 Sat, 19 Sep 2026 17:11:18 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1313328603 Leah gave 5 stars to The Grand Sophy (Paperback) by Georgette Heyer
bookshelves: historical-fiction, romance
]]> ReadStatus11406580466 Sat, 19 Sep 2026 17:07:10 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/168882864 Leah has read Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
]]> Review8954820731 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 21:18:11 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8954820731 Leah gave 3 stars to Vicious (Villains, #1) by V.E. Schwab
bookshelves: ebooks, fantasy
Very of its time, there’s some interesting things being done but I never was able to stomach much in the way of urban fantasy, and this reads like fanfic as well. A quick read. ]]> Review8954809872 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 21:10:36 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8954809872 Leah gave 4 stars to You Be Mother (Paperback) by Meg Mason
bookshelves: australian, literary, ebooks
Properly enjoyable, terribly sad and funny and charming and just a tad predictable, but in such a perceptive and complex way that it made it all the more satisfying. A book I kept wanting to read even when my bus stop was approaching and I had to go to work. Lovely stuff. ]]> Review1667248146 Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:47:07 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1667248146 Leah gave 3 stars to Uncharted Territory (Mass Market Paperback) by Connie Willis
bookshelves: adventure, fantasy
2026 reread: I found the patronising attitudes of Carson and Fin a bit less palatable than 2016 me did. The midpoint reveal about Fin was such fun, but the CJ stuff drove me up the wall this time. It felt like Willis was maybe cooking up a tricky tale about how the indigenous people were actually also colonisers, but it never got there and it all comes off as very paternalistic. One must make concessions for the age it was written in, but it would be pretty rich to claim that white people in the 90s weren’t aware of indigenous land rights and the battle against colonial culture. Left a pretty bad taste for me this time.

Great fun, intelligently deceitful, and ever so slightly too long.

Her characters are instantly recognisable for their vim and vigour and resourcefulness, their slightly one-track-minded insistence on things like naming places after them (no matter how forbidden), and for their charming obtuseness in the face of overwhelming evidence. The romantic potential is realised, of course, and the alien frontier mystery solved, but not without just a tad too much repetition of the facts for my liking.

However, it is classic Willis, and I, of course, thoroughly enjoyed it. ]]> ReadStatus11311836612 Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:46:49 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8892289540 Leah has read Uncharted Territory by Connie Willis
]]> Review8886318272 Sun, 23 Aug 2026 20:17:40 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8886318272 Leah gave 4 stars to Iluka (Kindle Edition) by Cassie Stroud
bookshelves: australian, ebooks, literary
Apart from a slightly strange style decision to use almost no contraction (always ‘it is’ and ‘we are’, somewhat stilted and formal), this is a lovely and meditative novel on families and the damage they can do and they ways people mess themselves up alongside them. ]]> Review8869334374 Mon, 17 Aug 2026 20:15:17 -0700 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8869334374 Leah gave 4 stars to Motherfaker (Kindle Edition) by Anna Brook-Mitchell
bookshelves: ebooks, general-fiction
Started out annoying and a bit on the nose (Barri’s so cantankerous it comes out like a caricature) but hooked me in with the genuineness of the people in her life and the slow realisation that her equally-caricature husband was much worse than she or the reader initially understands. Very enjoyable in the end. ]]>