Reviews
Loading reviews...
Sign up to the Kete Books Newsletter
Join the Kete community. Stay up-to-date on the latest in new books from Aotearoa, from reviews and events to giveaways.
Loading reviews...
Join the Kete community. Stay up-to-date on the latest in new books from Aotearoa, from reviews and events to giveaways.
Read our independent reviews of the latest books from Aotearoa.
Pānuihia ā mātou arotakenga tūhake o ngā pukapuka hou nō Aotearoa.
ReviewA horrifying twist early on turns this book into a taut domestic thriller … Slow Down You’re Here is smart, of and about Aotearoa here and now, and provocative in its politics and ...
Reviewed by Dionne Christian
11 May 2022
ReviewAuthor: Robert Sullivan Reviewer: David Eggleton.Robert Sullivan's poems navigate by portents, and by the stars, to thrill and inspire us. April 2022 release
Reviewed by David Eggleton
10 May 2022
ReviewA genre-bending work of autobiographical fiction from one of Aotearoa’s fiercest and most versatile artists.
Reviewed by Angelique Kasmara
9 May 2022
ReviewMichael Steven’s Night School reads like a nostalgic time-travelling acid-soaked road-trip, formed of fragments of clarity that stab sharply out of the haze of the years between hi...
Reviewed by Dan Rabarts
4 May 2022
ReviewPainter poet Gregory O’Brien’s extremely handsome new collection, House & Contents, brings together the two modes (45 poems, 23 paintings) and encourages us to contemplate them, to...
Reviewed by Harry Ricketts
2 May 2022
ReviewAuthor: Janet Charman. Reviewer: Siobhan Harvey. Crafted, woven with feminist ideology and navigating the intersections of memory, gender and politics, Janet Charman’s The Pistils ...
Reviewed by Siobhan Harvey
26 April 2022
ReviewAnzac Nations: The Legacy of Gallipoli in New Zealand and Australia is a fascinating and timely book.
Reviewed by David Littlewood
25 April 2022
ReviewNature Boy: The Photography of Olaf Petersen probably stands as one of the most thorough and comprehensive monographs on a New Zealand photographer and one hopes it will inspire si...
Reviewed by Paul Simei-Barton
20 April 2022
ReviewChris Long’s memoir, The Boy From Gorge River, is a boy’s own adventure yarn that will appeal to teenage boys and armchair adventurers of all ages.
Reviewed by Allison Balance
18 April 2022
ReviewRaiment seduces us with its historical reenactments and leaves us eager to read the next instalment of a life bravely lived by a woman who, in the poetic adage of the time, took th...
Reviewed by Siobhan Harvey
13 April 2022
ReviewA distant land, a new life, an escape from the past - acclaimed historical fiction writer Jenny Pattrick returns with her tenth novel.
Reviewed by Jessie Neilson
12 April 2022
ReviewRuth Shaw’s resilience, optimism and willingness to always help others is to be admired; her remarkable story, told in The Bookseller at the End of the World, is to be read and ref...
Reviewed by Dionne Christian
10 April 2022
ReviewMeat Lovers, Rebecca Hawkes’s debut full-length collection, is a triumphant display of the power of words.
Reviewed by Paula Green
4 April 2022
ReviewGrand is funny, clever, beautiful, sad. It’s more of a eulogy and less of a diatribe than it could have been.
Reviewed by Ruth Spencer
4 April 2022
ReviewKurangaituku is brilliantly written. Clever. Precise. Prosaic but not cluttered. It expects you to be an intelligent consumer of words and images.
Reviewed by TK Roxborogh
30 March 2022
ReviewMany new buildings have arisen from the rubble of post-earthquake Christchurch but none, perhaps, is as remarkable as Ravenscar House in the heart of the city’s heritage precinct. ...
Reviewed by Peter Simpson
29 March 2022
ReviewSo far, for now: On journeys, widowhood and stories that are never over is a beautiful, must-read memoir from one of Aotearoa’s most treasured writers and activists, Dame Fiona Kid...
Reviewed by Caroline Barron
28 March 2022
ReviewThe Shadow Broker is a solid, compelling thriller that touches on topical issues like state surveillance, post-Trump politics and corruption in the halls of power.
Reviewed by Greg Fleming
23 March 2022
ReviewThe conclusion to Eileen Merriman’s Black Spiral trilogy, this book moves past the heady and desperate days of new romance to focus on survival, both for the protagonists and for t...
Reviewed by Jessie Neilson
22 March 2022
ReviewNo breakdown of the contents in Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2022 prepares you for the thought, beauty and disruption within the pages.
Reviewed by Erica Stretton
21 March 2022
ReviewReading Mary's Boy, Jean-Jacques and other stories is the literary equivalent of realising everyone around you has the same rich, complex internal life as you do.
Reviewed by Jack Remiel Cottrell
16 March 2022