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Rating: 
Summary: An Okay First Attempt
Review: I was really intrigued when I read the first review of this book. It sounded mysterious and juicy and interesting. And then I read it. I got half way through it and didn't want to pick it back up. The main character was annoying. I couldn't like her. I couldn't get involved with her plight. In fact, I wanted to read more about the other minor characters. They were much more interesting. Unfortunately, I had to finish reading this book for my book club. Otherwise, I probably would have just put it down and never finished it. By the way, none of the members of the club really liked this book either.
Rating: 
Summary: Innocence Lost in Tasmania.
Review: In Chloe Hooper's debut novel the isle of Tasmania features prominently. Tasmania, with its colourful convict past, has been a traditional locale of Australian Gothic. The tradition continued with Mathew Kneale's English Passengers and particularly with Richard Flanagan's fabulous Gould's Book of Fish.
Kate Byrne is a young teacher in a small Australian town outside of Hobart. She has been plunged into a new career and a new way of life very quickly and it appears she is not coping well. An affair with the self centred, boorish father of her brightest pupil does not help. That her lover's wife, who may know of the affair, has just written a true crime story of a recent local murder is disconcerting. When Kate reads Veronica's book she begins to fear for her future.
Without going into the book's ending Ms. Hooper has done very well in her examination of a young woman coming into the adult world. Kate realises childhood was not so complicated and that she must adapt.
The other story in the novel is the imaginary local animals investigation into the true crime. This is fascinating and one is loath to refer to criminals as "animals" after reading their account.
This a great first novel, well written and a very good and unsettling account of the loss of innocence. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: A confusing mess
Review: Kate Byrne is an elementary school teacher in the midst of having an affair with the father of one of her students, Lucien. The child's mother has just completed a true crime book concerning a local murder-- the death of a man's mistress presumably by the jealous wife and the wife's subsequent disappearance. Of course, Kate becomes increasingly unnerved by the mother's obsession with the murder and worries about the possible danger to herself. It quickly begins to prove her undoing. Meanwhile, Lucien appears to be suffering the effects of his mother's work as evidenced by the highly violent pictures he draws. The book is a treatise on the unraveling of a dysfunctional young woman unable to fully participate in the adult world. In spite of it's brief length, this is a very dense book which can prove to be highly confusing to the casual reader. A fable of animals is interspersed in the tale, which adds to the confusion. Great books are worth taking the time to slowly read and figure out what the author was saying. This book is definitely not great and therefore, in the end, proves to be way more confusing than it needed to be.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing...better as an allegory than a murder mystery
Review: Never judge a book by the blurb on its back cover. Chloe Hooper's debut novel "A Child's Book Of True Crime (CBTC)" promised much - it was even shortlisted for the Orange Prize - but delivered little. That's because the author couldn't decide what she wanted the novel to be, a stylish murder mystery with an alternative ending and one that cleverly uses the past to mirror the present, or an ode to the nature of violence, a condition inherited from Australia's history as a penal colony. Written in an uncomfortably choppy prose, the novel makes a frustratingly uneven read. As a murder mystery or psychological thriller, CBTC fails on two levels. First, you don't get any resolution to the "who murdered Ellie Siddell" poser from the past, though luckily you do get to find out whether Kate is letting her own mounting paranoia get to her head or if Veronica is really out to repeat the true crime she is writing about with her rival. But that's not all. Readers will feel doubly cheated when they discover at the end that the Kate/Thomas/Veronica triangle is really a sideshow and that the spotlight of the story is on Lucien. This makes Kate's defiant show of concern for Lucien's welfare as played out in the closing scenes particularly unconvincing and difficult to understand. Up until then, she was only afraid for her own life. CBTC reads much better as an ode to violence as a condition inherited from the past that still haunts the present long after the original settlers have passed on. There is a lurking sense of violence bubbling beneath the surface that runs throughout the novel. Even if the farmer who helped Kate fix her broken car didn't turn out to be a pervert, there is the verbal violence heard spasmodically by Kate in the background to remind us. The psychological violence inflicted by the philandering Thomas and his chilly true crime novelist wife on their son Lucien by treating him not like a nine year old boy but as a "short adult" is truly horrific. Even the storybook animals in the imaginary story are gentler to their own kind and that's the rub. Chloe Hooper was working with great material but she lost it when she couldn't quite decide on the genre she was writing in. CBTC fell between two stools and that's a shame. A courageous but failed experiment.
Rating:
Summary: A writer of great promise
Review: Rare is it that I pause in reading a book to admire the writer's craft, his or, as in this case, her ability to turn a phrase, the well structured sentence that makes me think perhaps I should start reading poetry. Chloe Hooper's book, A Child's Book of True Crime is a story that I stopped often to admire. Less a murder mystery and more a meditation upon the banal and routine crimes committed agaiinst children as they pass toward adulthood the writing becomes at once more luminous and less attached to the "true crime" of the title. Ms Hooper moves freely among perspectives and realities-the dead make appearances and a detective agency of wildlife creatures editorialize while the story's protaganist seems in danger of becoming the victim of the crime she investigates. Ultimately what matters most in this wonderful novel is the delicious pleasure of its reading. I recommend it highly.
Rating: 
Summary: 'AN ANSWER IS WHERE THE MIND COMES TO REST'
Review: The above quote, from p. 194 of Chloe Hooper's A CHILD'S BOOK OF TRUE CRIME, is an apt one for describing the feeling I was left with after reading this novel. There are so many options presented during the protagonist's exploration of the mystery described (the murder, years before of a young woman with whom a veterinarian was conducting an extra-marital affair, and the subsequent disappearance of his wife) that the reader is pretty much left to draw his/her own conclusions -- nothing is really resolved for certain. This lends an air of doubt to the story, but it also keeps it from being 'tied up nicely' at the end. In many cases, this is an appreciated effect of good writing -- but here, it left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied. Hooper's writing is good -- especially in relation to Kate, her young central character. Kate is 23, out on her own for the first time in her life, teaching 4th grade in a primary school in Tasmania. Her uncertainties about how she should live her own life come into play very strongly here. Allowing herself to be drawn into an affair with a married man -- the father of her favorite pupil -- is only her first mistake. She comes to suspect that his wife has known about their affair for some time, and begins to feel like she might be in danger. The man's wife is a writer, having just published a 'true crime' book about the affair and disappearance mentioned above -- the crime is still vividly in the minds of people who live in the area, and they are very resentful and offended by the woman's prying into events which they would just as soon keep to themselves. The story of Kate brings out many uncertainties about life with which, I'm sure, many of the readers can identify -- her above-mentioned search for direction in her life being the most prevalent. It also astutely describes many things felt and experienced by young children -- using Lucien, the son of her paramour, as its focus. Lucien is tortured and troubled by what he sees as coldness and seperation in the lives of his parents. His father admits on one occasion to Kate (and this is very telling) that they try to treat him as 'a small adult' -- not a very realistic (or healthy) way to raise a child. Hooper has taken on a difficult and challenging topic/theme for her first novel -- it doesn't quite succeed, but that doesn't mean she's not a fine writer with a lot of potential. I'd be very interested to see what she does next.
Rating:
Summary: 'AN ANSWER IS WHERE THE MIND COMES TO REST'
Review: The above quote, from p. 194 of Chloe Hooper's A CHILD'S BOOK OF TRUE CRIME, is an apt one for describing the feeling I was left with after reading this novel. There are so many options presented during the protagonist's exploration of the mystery described (the murder, years before of a young woman with whom a veterinarian was conducting an extra-marital affair, and the subsequent disappearance of his wife) that the reader is pretty much left to draw his/her own conclusions -- nothing is really resolved for certain. This lends an air of doubt to the story, but it also keeps it from being 'tied up nicely' at the end. In many cases, this is an appreciated effect of good writing -- but here, it left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied. Hooper's writing is good -- especially in relation to Kate, her young central character. Kate is 23, out on her own for the first time in her life, teaching 4th grade in a primary school in Tasmania. Her uncertainties about how she should live her own life come into play very strongly here. Allowing herself to be drawn into an affair with a married man -- the father of her favorite pupil -- is only her first mistake. She comes to suspect that his wife has known about their affair for some time, and begins to feel like she might be in danger. The man's wife is a writer, having just published a 'true crime' book about the affair and disappearance mentioned above -- the crime is still vividly in the minds of people who live in the area, and they are very resentful and offended by the woman's prying into events which they would just as soon keep to themselves. The story of Kate brings out many uncertainties about life with which, I'm sure, many of the readers can identify -- her above-mentioned search for direction in her life being the most prevalent. It also astutely describes many things felt and experienced by young children -- using Lucien, the son of her paramour, as its focus. Lucien is tortured and troubled by what he sees as coldness and seperation in the lives of his parents. His father admits on one occasion to Kate (and this is very telling) that they try to treat him as 'a small adult' -- not a very realistic (or healthy) way to raise a child. Hooper has taken on a difficult and challenging topic/theme for her first novel -- it doesn't quite succeed, but that doesn't mean she's not a fine writer with a lot of potential. I'd be very interested to see what she does next.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing...better as an allegory than a murder mystery
Review: The title of this novel is a bit deceptive, because it does not give you a clue as to what is in store for you between the covers. Yes, there is a child's book of true crime in there--but the larger part of this novel is a psychological psuedo-thriller. Kate Byrne, an elementary school teacher in Tasmania, is having an affair with Thomas, the father of one of her students. Thomas' wife, Veronica, has just written, with much hoopla, a true crime story. This story covers the murder and subsequent mysterious disappearance of two women several years before, in Tasmania, who weer involved in a triangle which mirrors the Kate-Thomas-Veronica mess. The novel is narrated by Kate, who becomes more and more obsessed with Veronica's book and more and more convinced that she, too, will meet a terrible fate, perhaps at Veronica's hands. This novel is clever, smart and surprising. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: forgettable first effort
Review: This book is a nice, yet forgettable story about a brand new school teacher who has not grown into adulthood. I really felt for the protagonist, especially during her conversations with her married lover who tells her repeatedly that he does not care about her much. She is pathetically overshadowed by his wife, who is not only elegant, intelligent, and vivacious, but also happens to be writing a true crime novel about a woman who kills her husband's lover. She is most comfortable with the children in her class, and out of place among the other faculty. More than anything else, this story is about the humilation of a young woman who is way out of her league. Of course, there is a plot and everything, but not much happens. I couldn't reccommend this book, but I will definitely look into any forthcoming books by Chloe Hooper, because I think she has potential.
Rating:
Summary: Worst Book I've Read in Years
Review: This was a selection for a local reading group so I felt I had to make it through to the end. I kept hoping it would get better, that there would be a point to the violence, sex and twisted characters. There is nothing positive I can think of about this book, except that it is fairly short. The writing is not remrkable, the story is uninteresting, the charcters without merit and as a piece of literature its not. Save your money.
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