Thuy On

Thuy On reviews 'All I Ever Wanted' by Vikki Wakefield

October 2011, no. 335 • 27 September 2011

Sixteen-year-old Jemima (Mim) Dodd lives in a dilapidated house on the edge of suburbia, with an overweight, couch-loving mother. Mim’s two elder half-brothers are in remand for drug-related offences, and she is struggling not to be sucked into her neighbourhood’s vortex of sex, crime, and violence. Mim seems to be a victim both of her hostile social environment and her dysfunctional family. F ... (read more)

Thuy On reviews 'Her Father’s Daughter' by Alice Pung

September 2011, no. 334 • 23 August 2011

It is a mark perhaps of her publisher’s confidence and her own bestselling status that the cover of Alice Pung’s second book has her name in large print, dwarfing even the title itself. Her Father’s Daughter is the sequel to Pung’s Unpolished Gem (2006), and the memoir picks up a couple of years later with the author having dusted away adolescence and now being in the midst of the equally ... (read more)

Thuy On reviews 'The Philanthropist' by John Tesarsch

February 2011, no. 328 • 04 May 2011

Fall guy Thuy On   The Philanthropist by John Tesarsch Sleepers Publishing, $27.95 pb, 284 pp, 9781740669979   The initial premise of John Tesarsch’s first novel sounds like a modern-day reworking of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol as seen through the prism of B-grade Hollywood melodrama. After recovering from a health scare, a hard-hearted capitalist suffers from nightmares in whic ... (read more)

Thuy On reviews 'The Voyagers' by Mardi McConnochie

May 2011, no. 331 • 21 April 2011

Sometimes you can get away with judging a book by its cover. Even without knowing the sub-title, a cursory glance at Mardi McConnochie’s latest novel suggests high romance, with its picture of an elegantly coiffed woman kissing her paramour against a seascape backdrop. Indeed, The Voyagers unashamedly plays with the emotions, tugging at a heartstring and releasing it momentarily before pulling a ... (read more)

Thuy On reviews 'The Golden Day' by Ursula Dubosarsky

May 2011, no. 331 • 21 April 2011

In 1967, eleven schoolgirls and their teacher take a field trip to the public gardens in Sydney. There, Miss Renshaw and her young charges meet the teacher’s friend and possible paramour – a gardener and a poet. The charismatic Morgan takes them to a nearby wet, low-roofed cave, ostensibly to see some sacred Dreamtime paintings. The girls are both giddy and alarmed at this unauthorised excursi ... (read more)