This will hurt me...

  Dude on half a motorbike, Shag Bay. August 2021. The Humans   by Matt Haig Synthesizing 'clever' and 'funny' is a tough act in a novel. Too often, what is intended as humourous can land as smug or smarmy. Or, perhaps more often, tiresome and dull. Credit to Haig here, as I found  The Humans  both smug AND dull. The whole thing was just so obvious, laborious descended into a sickly sweet tweeness that was clearly intended to be sincere and wry. Perhaps it was my mood, as looking at other reviews here, I am clearly swimming against the current. Not for me. ⭐ 1/2

Evening clouds, Geilston Bay. August 2021. Everything Under   by Daisy Johnson Remix of the classic Oedipal myth? I found it alienating, abstruse and far too tiring to become absorbed in the story. Far too often I scratched my head wondering "Which character is this now? What timeline is this happening again?" only to sigh and keep going because the whole thing is too dreary and confusing to worry too much about it. For me, the mix of bleak social realism with a neo-classical retelling of a Greek myth just didn't work. The shifting timeline, fragmented storyline and preposterous plotline were more tiresome than energizing. There is a cold and 'deliberate' artifice that never gave me a sense that the author has just relaxed into the story. What we're left with is a self-conscious and turgid mess. ⭐ 1/2

Light on the hill, Macquarie Street, Hobart. August 2021. The Keeper of Lost Things   by Ruth Hogan This is not the book for me. I found it cloying, overly sentimental and filled with banal observations and predictable twists. Crikey, I'm bored just thinking back on it. If superficiality is your thing, and you won't bristle at the guileless, dated presentation of developmentally disabled characters and lazy anachronisms in the overused flashbacks, you might find this more bearable than I. ⭐ 1/2