2025 Book Bingo Wrap Up

30 Dec 2025 Leave a comment

by Amy in Book Bingo Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What I’ve enjoyed with my Book Bingo cards of late is reading whatever books through the year and come December seeing what I can put into my card, then trying to find something to read to fill in the final few boxes if there are any left. I think this time a few choices could be a bit stronger, and of course, one year this will backfire miserably, but for now we’re safe.

With 150+ books at my disposal to choose from I only managed to not fill in two. But the year is not finished yet, I could maybe do it, but I think we’ll call it and aim better next year. I’ll add that in as a new rule, what isn’t completed one year must be on the next year’s card. I vaguely recall that happening in the very beginning but all it resulted in is a lot of empty poetry boxes before I learnt my lesson.

Last year I was going to move more into fantasy, but I’ve not really gone the fantasy route instead there’s a lot of contemporary, my push to at least try a few romances, and of course my rereads were always fun. My diverse reads are getting better and I have found some amazing Aussie YA through my challenge and through the #LoveOzYA tag and website. Though, having said that, the point of the bingo card is to read widely so maybe I need to add poetry and fantasy back on and read more outside the norm.

I am keen to get into a new bingo card. I will say I am going to up my short story and anthology reads, I did have one, technically, but I also needed a Shakespeare spot filled and as it was a Shakespeare anthology it was a toss up which slot it should satisfy. Maybe in the final days of the year I can get through a Shakespeare adaptation and balance out the boxes. But for now, this is my list and I will link up to the reviews when they come out.

 

Debut Author: All I Ever Wanted by Vikki Wakefield

From Own Shelf: Rocking Horse Hill by Cathryn Hein

Romance: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

Chosen for the Cover: Flubby Will NOT Go To Sleep by J. E. Morris

Non-Fiction: A Night to Remember by Walter Lord

Aro/Ace Character: The Trouble by Daria Defore

Historical: The Paper Girl of Paris by Jordyn Taylor

Picked Up by Chance: The Bad Mother’s Book Club by Keris Stainton

New author: Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose

Lesbian: Say A Little Prayer by Jenna Voris

Non Human Main Character: The Duck Never Blinks by Alex Latimer

Free Choice: The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson

Different Culture: Impossible Music by Sean Williams

Fairytale: The Beast Within by Serena Valentino

On TBR Pile: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

CBCA Book: How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox

Published This Year:  The View From the Balcony by Janette Paul

Shakespeare Retelling: That Way Madness Lies by Dahlia Adler

Number in the Title: 100 Remarkable feats of Xander by Clayton Zane Comber

Own Voices: Green by Alex Gino

#LoveOZYA: Tin Heart by Shivaun Plozza

Reread A Series: Thursday Next by Jasper Fforde

TV/Movie Adaptation: The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

 

The Chalice of the Gods (#6) by Rick Riordan

27 Dec 2025 Leave a comment

by Amy in 4 Stars, Audiobook, Young Adult Tags: , , , ,

Published: 26 September 2023 (print)/26 September 2023 (audio) Goodreads badge
Publisher: Puffin/Penguin Audio
Pages: 288/7 hrs and 5 mins
Narrator: Jesse Bernstein
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
★   ★   ★   ★ – 4.5 Stars

Percy Jackson, modern-day son of Poseidon, is just trying to get through high school. After saving the world multiple times by battling monsters, Titans, and giants, Percy is now settling in at Alternative High School in New York, where he hopes to finally have a normal senior year. 

Unfortunately, the gods aren’t quite done with him yet. Poseidon breaks the bad news that if Percy expects to get into New Rome University, he will have to fulfill three quests in order to earn the necessary three letters of recommendation from Mount Olympus. 

The first task is to help Ganymede, Zeus’s cupbearer, retrieve his golden goblet before it falls into the wrong hands. You see, one sip from it can turn a mortal into a god, and Zeus would not be pleased with that result. Can Percy and his friends Grover and Annabeth find the precious cup in time? And if they do, will they be able to resist its special power?

The timelines of the Percy Jackson novels is often one I need to consult a chart for because while they can be their own series, there is a chronology to them where you can slot them into one another and have some sense of time.

This new book fits in between the events of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but before Trials of Apollo. While we know the end result if you’ve read Trials of Apollo, it is still a good read and a nice chance to revisit the original trio and see a different less dire side to this real and mythic world mix.

Being the start of a new series it is connected to at least two other novels, but Riordan has written it well enough that it can also be your very first introduction to the Percy Jackson world. There’s a lot missing, but you don’t need a full series back read before diving into this new one which could be a plus for latecomers.

Percy needs three letters of recommendation from gods to get him into New Rome University so this is the point of this new series. I enjoyed the story and this unique aspect. The balance of the myth and the realities of life playing off one another was fun. The mission the trio are sent on was interesting, it’s always nice to bring in some minor gods while still skirting around with appearances from the main lot.

It’s interesting because while it is a full length novel, it somehow feels like a short story, a little extra addition to join onto the main series and not its own fresh piece. Riordan has stated this is able to be read as a standalone so that might be why, but even so the plot is simple and feels like a fast read, despite the almost 300 pages and seven hours to listen. Not to mention it ends on an unfinished mission so not much to stand alone there. It might be the simplicity of the plot, which doesn’t take away the enjoyment, but it is a different approach to a Percy Jackson book.

Percy, Annabeth, and Grover are great as always, their mini missions bringing back the feeling of the early Lightning Thief days, but being older, wiser, and with more experience behind them. The mission in question is a lot more low stakes than saving the world, but the simplicity of it is often where a lot of the fun and chaos lies. Instead of world ending catastrophe, there’s favours and grudges to work through, not to mention temperamental minor gods you don’t want on your bad side.

It was a joy to revisit this world again, as much as I love and miss the wider group of demigods I’ve come to know and love, it was good to have the original three back again.

You can purchase The Chalice of the Gods via the following

QBD |  Dymocks | Booktopia

Wordery |  Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible

The Last to Die by Kelly Garrett

23 Dec 2025 Leave a comment

by Amy in 2 Stars, Audiobook, Young Adult Tags: , , , ,

Published: 4 April 2017 (print)/17 March 2020 (audio) Goodreads badge
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire/Tantor Media
Pages: 223/4 hrs and 43 mins
Narrator: Heather Costa
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Young Adult Mystery/Thriller
★   ★ – 2.5 Stars

It all started out as a game.

Just a way to have fun. We figured as long as we had rules, it wouldn’t be a problem.

RULE #1: Only break into one another’s houses.

RULE #2: Only take stuff that can be replaced.

It worked for a while. Whoever’s turn it was to break in got a rush, and the rest of us laughed over the trophies they brought back. But then someone went too far. Lives got ruined. Someone is dead.

And I might be next.

When I added the book to StoryGraph I was intrigued by the 2.7 average rating, it had been an engaging and compelling story so far, especially something so short, and with only an hour to go I was keen to see how it would wrap up, what big explosive end of story Garrett would come up with.

Granted, there was a surprise twist, not the twist I was actually expecting, but it was a twist. Adjacent to what you’re expecting given the lead up but also not the fun twist I thought of. From there is was…mild. From a semi-intense scene, there are little answers and a few strange choices on ending.

I didn’t like the ending, it was rushed and actually lacking a lot of clarifying details that are kind of important in these types of mysteries. It isn’t even done well enough where it’s left open to let the reader decide what happened, it feels like it was just ignored. After a long drawn out line of clues, the ending wraps up incredibly quickly, and where it ends it incredibly unsatisfying given the character journeys. I’m still not entirely sure Harper learnt anything, but at the same time, given the way they act through the story it’s a weird ending where there’s consequences, but I don’t know if there’s remorse.

There are a lot of unanswered questions. Some are weird choices to leave unanswered, even in the final standoff they’d be perfect the drop in. Once you notice one mystery isn’t going to be answered, you start to realise how many there really are. Not all important of course, but some definitely are, then there’s others that are raised and never addressed again, like the author forgot they were left open.

One thing the story had going for it was while a lot of the characters are unlikable, they were compelling which I liked. You know they are horrible people, but they have a little compassion in them, misguided or vacuous as it may be, but there is something to latch onto. All of these characters are shallow people and have no real connections with their friends which is an interesting take. They are rich, bored teens who don’t really like each other, so the detachment feels correct to be fair, though Harper could be on her way to some kind of depression or she’s never been able to form real attachments and that’s just how she is.

I am very much in the camp of not needing to like characters or narrators. What I feel let down is the ending where the motive and consequences are lacking clarification. The small bit of information we get is there to tick a box, and the rest of the unanswered questions are ignored. If you are going to write a mystery, the reveal and outcome needs a little attention as this is what the hints and clues and build ups have been for. The fact most of the book does this well, builds drama and tension to have it fail absolutely at the end was a letdown. The answers are there, but the executions could have been spread out and extended better. No real satisfying closure for a good read.

The blurb promises it to be unputdownable with a dark story and dynamic writing. At times it was there, but for all the work to build it up only to have it fall at the end makes everything leading up to the flop meaningless.

You can purchase The Last to Die via the following

 Dymocks | Booktopia

Wordery |  Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible

The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde

18 Dec 2025 1 Comment

by Amy in 4 Stars, Audiobook, Fantasy Tags: , , , , ,

Published: 2 July 2020 (print)/2 July 2020 (audio) Goodreads badge
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton /Hodder & Stoughton
Pages: 307/12 hrs and 27 mins
Narrator: Andrew Wincott
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Fantasy
★   ★   ★   ★ – 4.5 Stars

Peter Knox lives quietly in one of those small country villages that’s up for the Village Garden of the Year award. Until Doc and Constance Rabbit move in next door, upsetting the locals (many of them members of governing political party United Kingdom Against Rabbit Population), complicating Peter’s job as a Rabbit Spotter, and forcing him to take a stand, moving from unconscious leporiphobe to active supporter of the UK’s amiable and peaceful population of anthropomorphised rabbits.

 

Jasper Fforde has a fantastic way of creating alternate timelines/universes where it feels so real yet there’s always something slightly off. In Thursday Next it was the Crimean war and airships, and technology to bring back extinct creatures, in The Constant Rabbit there is the unexplained event that anthropomorphised rabbits and a few other creatures. But it happened so long ago, and has been so ingrained in society it’s its now normal.

Having an older narrator was great because being old enough to know about the before times, while having life experience behind him with the new world order worked to give a well-rounded story. There are people who know no different, and those who remember before. And the snippets of information about the years before add another element of this creative world Fforde has built.

Peter was a great character, he was perfectly suited because he was very middle of the road and accepting, but at the same time had a few opinions but still needed to be pushed into a cause. Being surrounded by such a variety of other types of people (and rabbits) was a great way to see that a regular person can make a difference without being presented to us from the beginning as The Hero.

I loved the subtle yet not subtle dig at UKIP and the characters based on certain UK politicians with their xenophobic and racists views. It felt real within the universe Fforde has created, yet mimicked their real world idiotic views. Fforde keeps it in world beautifully but still manages to pointedly state despite their loudness, they are wrong and in the minority.

One thing I adore about Fford’e writing is he’s great at giving you glimpses of future events in the story without telling you any spoilers. They are intriguing enough that you know something happens but not when why or how, and often not even if it will happen in the current book or is just there for story context. But this time we know it’s going to happen in story and it’s those little clues at future events actually makes the waiting more enjoyable because with a type story like this, anything is possible and could happen at any time.

One key highlight was the narrator was fantastic! Wincott had an absolute perfect style of reading this book that I adored from the second I started. I loved the tone used to tell the story, I can’t think how to describe it but it was perfect for this type of narrative. I don’t think it’s entirely down to the writing either (heaven knows I’ve heard some rubbish audio from brilliant texts) because while the tone and writing style of the story was fabulous, it matched perfectly with Wincott’s voice.

The mystical concept of anthropomorphised rabbits and the way society has adapted in such a short period of time was fascinating. There is so little else that is different from our world that having them coexist and the societal rules around that in terms of legislation and polite society was fascinating to read. Fforde always comes up with clever concepts but the execution and the well thought out world building and ground work he lays to have it all make sense is astounding.

There is personal drama, animal politics, and the magical realism we love from these kinds of novels. The tiny details are as important as the bigger ideas and as per usual they are interwoven and threaded together, circled back to and have more impact than you think in pure Fforde creativity.

Honestly, I have to say it again, if you can get this as an audio please do, Wincott smashed it out of the park and I enjoyed the brilliant style in which he read it as much as the story itself.

You can purchase The Constant Rabbit via the following

QBD |  Dymocks | Booktopia

Wordery |  Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible

Flubby will NOT Go to Sleep (#3) by Jennifer E. Morris

12 Dec 2025 1 Comment

by Amy in 5 Stars, The Picture Book Corner Tags: , , , , ,

Published: 21st September 2021Goodreads badge
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Illustrator: J. E Morris
Pages: 32
Format: Picture Book
★   ★   ★   ★   ★  – 5 Stars

Flubby, the cute but aloof cat, refuses to hit the hay in this gentle story perfect for bedtime!

Kami makes a new bed for Flubby, but the fussy feline won’t settle into slumber. A squishy pillow, a warm blanket, and even a bedtime snack are not enough to do the trick! Flubby finally drifts off to dreamland with the help of a friend.

I honestly could not tell you what it is about this book. It’s either the cover, or the story itself, but I have found myself picking it up and reading it every time it crosses my path at work.

Morris has already started off strong with a brilliant name like Flubby, then we get the cover image. I’m already hooked before we even open the book.

There are a lot of “animals not going to sleep” genre books which are meant to replicate the human child who it’s being read to, but this is a rare case of an actual pet not going to sleep. As an owner of a dog who also will on occasion NOT Go to Sleep, I think I resonated with this story a little too much.

I understand this is a book where children might be using it to learn to read or whatever so it’s simple, but the tone of the writing, and the deadpan look on Flubby’s face is amazing and I adore every page.

The logical options behind why Flubby won’t go to sleep are also not unheard of with my fluffball so I get it, Flubby, but it’s amazing to read every time.

I have discovered there are more in the Flubby series so I now need to seek those out and see what else Flubby has been up to.

You can purchase Flubby Will NOT Go to Sleep via the following

Dymocks | Booktopia

Wordery |  Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust

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