Fantasy | Lost in a Good Book

Long Lost Review: Life of Pi by Yann Martel

10 Sep 2026 Leave a comment

by Amy in 3 Stars, Classic, Fantasy, Fiction, Long Lost Reviews Tags: #llr, literary fiction, long lost review, three stars, yann martel

Long Lost Reviews is a monthly meme created by Ally over at Ally’s Appraisals which is posted on the second Thursday of every month. The aim is to start tackling your review backlog. Whether it’s an in-depth analysis of how it affected your life, one sentence stating that you only remember the ending, or that you have no recollection of reading the book at all.

Published: 11 September 2001
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Pages: 460
Format: Paperback
Genre: Literary Fiction
★ ★ ★ – 3 Stars

One boy, one boat, one tiger . . .

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan – and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.

There are books that are so big and complicated it becomes hard to review them and this might be one. It isn’t that nothing happens, there is a plot of sorts, but the story is also about a lot of ideas which can start a whole essay of meaning rather than a simple book review. It’s a well known story of a tiger and the boy in the boat but trying to remember other things that happen (and not only think of the movie) was hard.

I liked the creativity; it is a slow story but interesting. You really have to commit to the story but once you’re in it starts to flow. There are tiny details that are important and play a major role and the tiny consequences and actions having greater importance and impact are clear.

Being slow and thoughtful means it can be full of big topics to read about and get your head around. I can see how it is a modern classic. It’s very philosophical and introspective about life, the universe, and everything so we can’t fault Martel for that. The movie was pretty, it was also slow but you get the benefit of it being visually pleasing.

One thing I liked was that it makes you question what is real and what is not, and whether that is important. I enjoyed the ending which shut down the magic of the story and makes the other characters, and the reader, realise that ok, maybe there wasn’t a magical adventure, but which version would you rather have? I was there, I saw it, did it, lived it. This is my story and what do you want to hear vs what might have actually happened. It also might not be a lie, but what people want to believe and expect to understand throws it all in doubt.

I might reread this one day, to see if I gain more from it. But at three stars it wasn’t like I didn’t enjoy it, but it’s hard to find specifics to talk about.

You can purchase Life of Pi via the following

QBD | Dymocks | Booktopia

Wordery | Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible

Where You’ll Find Us by Jen St Jude

01 Sep 2026 Leave a comment

by Amy in 5 Stars, Audiobook, Fantasy, LGBTQIA, Young Adult Tags: allegra verzella, Audiobook, five stars, jen st jude, lgbt, LGBTQIA, magical realism, young adult

Published: 2 June 2026 (print)/2 June 2026 (audio)
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA/Bloomsbury YA
Pages: 384/6 hrs and 6 mins
Narrator: Allegra Verzella
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Young Adult Magical Realism
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ – 5 Stars

Calla Quick has no future. At least, that’s how it feels. Her parents disowned her via text message, and now she can’t afford to go to an all-women’s college with her girlfriend Ramona like they planned. But Calla wonders if maybe that’s for the best—because even though Calla told Ramona her parents disowned her because they found out she’s gay, the truth is, Calla has been questioning whether she’s a girl at all.

Calla wishes she had more time to figure everything out, and one night, her wish is seemingly granted. When Calla and Ramona stumble upon a mysterious farmhouse the woods, they meet five teens who claim they’ve lived there for decades. The land, which they call Amaranth, acts as a safe haven for queer kids throughout history—a place free of hate, free of violence, free of time itself. Here, Calla can be Cal, and they feel instantly accepted. They don’t have to worry about the future because at Amaranth, it will never come—until one night when the clock strikes twelve.

Now under a literal ticking clock, the housemates must find a way to stop time again or face going back to their harsh realities, but as Cal learns everyone’s story, they begin to wonder what queer people lose when their history is lost to time.

I love this book. It is a wonderful example of honesty and truth with a happy ending without ignoring reality. I got a lot of Royals vibes from this but I think that came only from the magic, timeless, mysterious, somehow alive building that catered to everyone’s needs. Not a loop exactly just time standing still.

There is a lot of potential to make the harsh realities of queer people through history better. But that isn’t the point of the house. This is a refuge, a safe haven for people to be themselves, find themselves, and work out who they are. Once they solve that they are transported back into the world they left, whatever that was.

St Jude had every chance to make these characters suffer through their hard lives – they escaped hard lives after all. There was nothing stopping them being thrown back into that prison or that relationship and have it end in tragedy even if they did die standing on their feet knowing who they are. I will not give anything away, but I do want to mention that there isn’t a ‘bury your gays’ moment. They suffer yes, but they survive. And while it is a small spoiler, I think it is important and a good thing to know going in because what they endure is hard and it reflects the lives of queers through history as they conform, are imprisoned, beaten, and are harassed for trying to exist. But they survive. It never felt unrealistic to have these endings. Someone had to survive their experiences against the odds and I think the experiences in the house helped that along.

St Jude has taken great care in how they write characters regarding pronouns and identity plus the switch between internal thoughts and public perception, and how it switches is very well done. There is a note about historical references at the start but even then there is respect to the characters and the wording of sentences carries a lot of respect while implying meaning so readers know what is happening.

Cal and Ramona are good characters and good together. I understood Cal’s internal fears and why she couldn’t say anything about her feelings. It isn’t blown out of proportion and her own uncertainty is evident. I appreciated how St Jude turns expectations on your head while never feeling outlandish either. It just isn’t the common expectation which makes conflicts and interactions refreshing.

I loved all of the characters. They are a range of personality types and being stuck in a house together forever Verzella is a great narrator and really distinguishes these characters; you get each unique voice coming through and that brings full personalities as well.

I loved the historical ranges of characters and the different eras. It was interesting to see what stays the same and what changes for queer youth and society. There is a natural discussion about the evolution of language and I liked seeing modern terminology and understanding trying to be applied to those from different eras. While you can’t always fit historical experiences into modern contexts, I liked that these characters helped each other understand their feelings that they may not have known were fully there aside from their own sense of self.

Queer representation aside, I really like the magical element and the unexpected chaos of time suddenly moving forward as an interesting conundrum for these eternal timeless people. The house rules and the laws of magic St Jude has developed make sense and the otherness of Amaranth is mysterious enough but solid in that you never need any further explanations.

This is my second St Jude book and while I really enjoyed This is How It Ends, this one is better. I loved the depth this story had which you don’t realise right away with so many characters. But it never felt big and grand but it is. It’s quietly powerful and quietly about strength and belief and being yourself, whoever that is. The safety of the house is a paradise in a way and a prison in another but the way it’s navigated after Cal’s arrival is about celebrating living.

You can purchase where You’ll Find Us via the following

QBD | Dymocks | Booktopia

Wordery | Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust

The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde

18 Dec 2025 1 Comment

by Amy in 4 Stars, Audiobook, Fantasy Tags: andrew wincott, Audiobook, fiction, four stars, jasper fforde, speculative fiction

Published: 2 July 2020 (print)/2 July 2020 (audio)
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

In an Absent Dream (#4) by Seanan McGuire

22 May 2025 Leave a comment

by Amy in 4 Stars, Audiobook, Fantasy, Fiction, Novella, Wayward Children Tags: Audiobook, cynthia hopkins, fantasy, four stars, novella, seanan mcguire, Wayward Children

Published: 8 January 2019 (print)/8 January 2019 (audio)
Publisher: Tordotcom/Macmillan Audio
Pages: 204/4 hrs and 57 mins
Narrator: Cynthia Hopkins
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Fantasy
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars

This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.

When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she’s found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.

I love the pattern of a group book, a solo origin story, another group book, and then another solo origin. It breaks up the main story, and gives the characters a chance at their own history without needing it threaded into the main plot, either successfully or unsuccessfully. Giving them space to have a book to themselves is amazing and I love McGuire’s respect to these characters. That isn’t to say some characters have their history interwoven, but these feel like extra special origins we need to give special attention to.

Lundy is a character we have of course met before, but now we get to see her story. How she found her door, how she ended up at the Wayward School with Eleanor West.

From the dark world of Jaq, to Nancy’s world, and the sugary nonsense of Confection, Lundy comes from a world of logic and reason, but also debts and bargains. I loved the Goblin Market and I loved the variation on everything having a price in the form of fair value. While Lundy gets it to work for her, there is also a reason she is no longer in her perfect world and seeing her adventure was fascinating. It is mystical but somehow also more suited into the real world in a way, especially compared to the other worlds we’ve seen.

There is a tragic past in Lundy’s story and I loved how intricate McGuire’s imagination is to create something so logical to the point of absurdity. It’s fascinating and I loved Lundy’s navigation of this world.

Like the other origin stories you can read it as a standalone, and could also skip it, but it is a great insight into a character we’ve met and tells their story and role in the Wayward world.

You can purchase In an Absent Dream via the following

QBD | Dymocks | Booktopia

Wordery | Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible

Stars Above (#4.5) by Marissa Meyer

13 May 2025 Leave a comment

by Amy in 4 Stars, Audiobook, Fantasy, Young Adult Tags: Audiobook, four stars, marissa meyer, rebecca soler, the lunar chronicles, young adult, young adult fantasy

Published: 2 February 2016 (print)/14 June 2017 (audio)
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends/Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Pages: 400/9 hrs and 28 mins
Narrator: Rebecca Soler
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars

The universe of the Lunar Chronicles holds stories—and secrets—that are wondrous, vicious, and romantic. How did Cinder first arrive in New Beijing? How did the brooding soldier, Wolf, transform from young man to killer? When did Princess Winter and the palace guard, Jacin, realize their destinies?

With six stories—two of which have never before been published— Stars Above is essential for fans of the best-selling and beloved Lunar Chronicles.

Meyer gives readers a collection of stories that could easily have been in the main books it felt so familiar. You fall right back into the world and it is like you have never left. Reading these short stories after finishing the entire series was a great way to revisit well known characters and see their origins and learn how they ended up where we find them in the main storyline. Some stories are heartbreaking, well, most are heartbreaking in their own way, while others are a fascinating exploration about details and moments that were once only snippets and moments briefly mentioned that we now get to explore more fully. Meyer has given us a chance to delve deeper and see the full story of how these characters came to be who they are.

My favourite stories would have to be the ones where we see how Cinder ended up with Scarlet’s grandmother and seeing Winter and her life in the palace. Meyer tells such a compelling story I was drawn right into the tension and the drama, fearful for young Scarlet and the secret that was hidden on the farm and loved to see Winter’s life in the palace. These aren’t necessarily stories we do not know, these histories are explained in the main story by various characters, but never at this depth; so while we learn how Cinder was kept safe, being able to read it as it happens through the eyes of Scarlett’s grandmother Michelle Benoit was a different experience entirely.

The final story is one set after the events of the novels. The entire cast come together and we learn what has been happening with everyone since the end of Winter. It was the perfect ending to the series, it wrapped it up without feeling unnecessary or rushed and being able to know the futures of this mix of characters I’d come to know and love was amazing.

This conclusion to the series goes beyond doing it justice. We’re given origin stories, answers, a more in-depth exploration of character back stories all with the same magical and familiar feel of the books. I loved every story in this, including the new stories, it was fabulous to read and work out from the clues which fairytale was being retold. This is perfect for any fan of The Lunar Chronicles and a fantastic farewell to the series.

You can purchase Stars Above via the following

QBD | Dymocks | Booktopia

Wordery | Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible