Robyn Bavati

6/10, this was an OK book that is just over 200 pages and is also a massive step up from Pirouette made by the same author yet it still suffers from flaws which I'll get into later on however I still enjoyed this nonetheless. It was an interesting stylistic choice to make this book have only one chapter that comprises the entirety of it and the only other book that does this that I know of is Changing Gear by Scot Gardner and I enjoyed that but I didn't mind that and I read on. It starts off with Jamie and Oscar trying to live normal lives after the devastating loss of their father and their mother is going away for the weekend but for some reason she doesn't arrive on time and Jamie starts to worry and then he has the biggest responsibility of taking care of Oscar as well as finding his mother which takes up most of the plot. He searches for her which actually takes him two weeks and he was away from school for quite a while and nobody notices him when he was gone and I think he even went to an entirely different state in Australia called Western Australia and he came from, you guessed it, the eastern part of Australia. The writing style and characters were fine and I could root for them but there were a lot of side characters that I really didn't care about and the only one I did care about is Jamie since he was written well.

Eventually he finds his mother but she is in a really bad coma and it turns out that she was driving in her car when a flood happened and it almost killed her if it weren't for the emergency services and she recovers from that eventually so they went back to the east of Australia and I was really relieved when that happened because I actually thought that she died and the two boys would become orphans or get foster parents or live with a relative but fortunately this isn't the case. If you like stories about journeys pick this one or Where the Road Leads Us by Robin Reul for something similar to this.… (meer)

Trigger warnings: Death of parents in a car crash

6.5/10, this book's premise was rather fascinating which was essentially The Parent Trap in book form but now looking back it wasn't even that original and even back when I read this book I still disliked it because of how predictable it was. The story begins with a car crash and wow where have I seen this one before, how familiar so anyways the twins father died first and then their mother was taken to the hospital and gave birth to them just before she died so they were orphans and I found that hard to believe because we don't even know who the parents are and the mother realistically might have survived or died, killing both twins but that outcome in the book is possible though so I didn't give much thought about that and read on. There was a time skip and after fifteen years Simone and Hannah live in the US and Australia respectively and then they meet to go to different schools but they look identical yet one of them had the idea to do a DNA test to confirm that but who would prove something that's already true. A twin had another bright idea to swap lives so each twin had a different house, family and school that they experience and what could possibly go wrong other than predictable foreshadowing. Simone and Hannah keep up the charade until it all falls apart, they apologise for that and that is essentially it. I'm not too surprised that the library kept this book for quite a while now since it's a decade old but this is normal for them to do that. If you like books about twins this one is for you.… (meer)

Excellent book set in Melbourne about 16 year old Jamie whose family is coping with the death of his father - he and his Mum have to also care for Oscar, Jamie's younger brother who has Down Syndrome. Jamie meets Zara and things seem to be moving forward as he discovers that Zara, like him, has a sibling with a severe disability-in this case, autism. Then his Mum has to fly to Perth for the weekend and Jamie volunteers to look after Oscar and take him to all his activities, even if it means catching public transport and missing dates with Zara. But then there is huge storm in Perth and flights are delayed and his Mum doesn't come home, so Jamie gets Oscar through a Monday (while trying to catch up with his accelerated Year 12 classes) with no word from his Mum, then a Tuesday...Jamie tries ringing his aunt in Perth -no answer, his Mum's phone -no answer what has happened? Suddenly Jamie is very scared - if he calls the police, social services will come and take Oscar away. Jamie has lost his Dad, possibly his Mum, he can't lose Oscar too? Soon a few days becomes a week with no word and Jamie is dipping into his own bank account to buy food for them...the reader is hooked on how Jamie will cope and what has happened to his mother and aunt.

Very realistic portrayal of what it is like to have a disabled child in your household ( speaking from experience with my autistic son) . The author also presents a feasible reason for the lack of communication by the mother and aunt- a very plausible scenario that plays heavily on the notion that parents of disabled children often become very insular and cut themselves off form others to the point that if something happens to them, only the closest family members will realise that something is wrong because they have built up a wall between themselves and the outside world. I'd be interested to know what prompted the author to write this book as they do not appear to have disabled children themselves.… (meer)