Miscellaneous Monday: 2011 Aussie Author Challenge

I've been feeling as if my blog is a little aimless lately, so to remedy that I'm going to start doing a few personal memes to keep me on track. Miscellaneous Mondays is the meme where I can write about new books I've borrowed/bought or cool book related things I've stumbled upon. There will be other memes as the week goes by but that's another story for another day.

To kick off the first Misc Monday (as it will now be known because typing miscellaneous is a pain in the ass) I've decided that I don't read nearly enough books by Australian authors and I'm going to rectify that by participating in the 2011 Aussie Author Challenge hosted by Booklover Book Reviews.

The idea is to read and blog about Aussie books and share your reviews with other bloggers be they Australian or International. As an Aussie I will be participating in the True Blue category, which means I am going to have to read 12 books by at least 9 different authors! I've worked that out to be roughly 2.4 books a month. That seems doable....

So far the books I have chosen are:

1. Good Oil by Laura Buzo.
2. Graffitin Moon by Cath Crawley.
3. On The Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.
4. Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres.
5. Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar.
6. Solace and Grief by Foz Meadows.
7. The Outcast by Patricia Bernard.
8. Wolfborn by Sue Bursztynski.
9. The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta.
10.My Big Birkett: The Sweet, Terrible, Glorious Year I Truly and Completely Lost It by Lisa Shanahan.
11. Madigan Mine by Kirstyn McDermott.
12. Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody.
This is all I can think of so far. The list might change depending on whether I enjoy the book. My policy of not forcing myself to read a book I don't like still stands. Wish I'd thought of doing this sooner because I could have included Thyla by Kate Gordon and Mercy and Exile by Rebecca Lim which would have knocked off three books!

Better go get reading!

*** THIS CHALLENGE HAS BEEN COMPLETE ***

Review: Exile by Rebecca Lim

Title: Exile
Author: Rebecca Lim
Genre: Paranormal YA
Release Date: May 2011

Summary:

Exile is the second book in Rebecca Lim's Mercy series and takes up shortly after the events in the conclusion of the first book.


Mercy 'wakes' inside the body and life of eighteen-year-old Lela Neill. Mercy has little recall of her past life, except her memories of Ryan which come back to her after a particularly insistent push from her immortal beloved Luc. In order to find Luc, Mercy must make contact with Ryan, whose feelings for her haven't dulled despite their untimely separation.
 

My Thoughts:

I started reading EXILE thinking that it would be written in the same formula that MERCY was. That it would be a mystery wrapped up in a bit of romance and soul searching on Mercy’s behalf. I turned out to be both right and wrong.

EXILE is a lot more laid back than MERCY was and the plot is much less pace driven. It is a very introspective book and Mercy spends a great deal of her time travelling the celestial universe in search of answers to who she really is.  Once again the author’s prose is infallible and  I think the way the author writes saves EXILE from being a little on the slow side.  

Mercy’s new body host is Lela Neill, a young lady struggling to hold on to the shreds of her life while her mother is fighting a losing battle with cancer. Lela works at the awesomely named Green Lantern café where most of the novel is centred. I won’t put in any spoilers but it’s fair to say that from the get go, Lela seems to be a genuinely nice person and I was saddened by the ending. The supporting characters are a mixed bunch of equally lost souls, who I came to really care about by the end of the book. Luc’s presence is less dominant in this book and I was glad for that because I have started to really dislike him, if not for his pushiness, than because of what Mercy’s brothers have been trying to tell her about him. Ryan continues to be a source of much swooning for me, but I will admit that even my very accepting YA mind finds it difficult to grasp that he and Mercy could be so much in love after less than two weeks of knowing each other. Maybe I’ll just focus on how gorgeous he is.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed EXILE and would definitely recommend it.  Am very much looking forward to the next book in the series.