Review by Giulietta Gigliotti (Girl with a Pen)

American author Jane L. Rosen’s debut novel The Dress is the kind of book you want to read cover to cover, curled up with a nice glass of red wine and a block of chocolate. The story follows a group of people, strangers from one to the next, and how their lives after coincidence connect. When the ‘dress of the season’ makes its big debut and whispers about it being ‘the dress of the season’ start to circulate, only its creator and designer believes in it. But when it starts to make its way across town and hits the news, the lives of the characters are changed forever. From the retiring designer to the runway model, the tired old secretary with a crush enduring 20 years to the girl who sell the dresses, all of their lives are changed when fate intervenes and the dress comes into their lives.

With fun, bubbly, loveable characters within the story, this is a hard book not to like. It is easy to read and understand, and has a great ending. It ends, but even so, you want more. I wanted more, I wanted to know how all of their lives go on. The writing is seductive and pulls you right into their New York lives and makes you wish you could jump on through and have your own life changed thanks to the dress of the season.

It’s quirky, romantic, and a must read if you like happily ever afters coming true.

We love Jimmy Barnes! To celebrate the release of his memoir, Working Class Boy, we are giving you the chance to win a copy autographed by Barnesy himself!

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Review by Giulietta Gigliotti (Girl with a Pen)

Winner of the 2016 Miles Franklin Literary Award, A. S. Patric’s Black Rock White City is a book with real heart. The story follows the lives of married couple Jovan and Suzana, who have settled in suburban Melbourne after fleeing from their home in Serbia due to war. While Jovan works as a janitor at a hospital and Suzana looks after a family in a private house, the couple go through the ups and downs of marriage and life after traumatising death together. With illicit relationships, an unstable character with a statement to make and language barriers proving unhelpful, Jovan and Suzana’s lives are rocked by a number of events.

This is not an easy book to read, but it is a book that needs to be read. The content within is heavy to read because of its relevance to the world today, and makes the reader look at the delicacy of their own lives and how they treat other people. Towards the end of the book, when you think nothing else can happen to Jovan and Suzana, something unexpected occurs and made me gasp out loud. It finishes suddenly, without a resounding ending, which made me want to know what just happened, why, and what the consequences are going to be for Jovan and Suzana’s life afterwards.

Through poetically written prose, Black Rock White City is filled to the brim with emotions, telling the story of life after war and the instability of life.