Children’s Book Review: “Calvin Loves Calculus” by Roy Blacksher

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Rating: 3 stars

Headline: Packed with detailed explanation, the tone of voice in Calvin Loves Calculus is what holds this back from being a five star read

Review:

Authored by passionate STEM advocate Roy Blacksher, Calvin Loves Calculus puts fun and beauty into what is often seen by many as a scary topic: calculus. With a target audience of twelve to eighteen year olds, Calvin Loves Calculus sees its title character, Calvin, lead readers through various educational lessons to help make calculus more accessible, helping readers connect with the subject. The overall aim of the book is to encourage and inspire young adults in their pursuit of studies and careers in STEM fields.

Despite the shortness (coming in at just over forty pages),Calvin Loves Calculus packs in plenty of information using fun language and bright and colourful pictures. Energy and excitement bounce off every page, which is something of a rarity when it comes to non-fiction, let alone one that tackles mathematic studies head-on. Towards the end of the book, Blacksher includes a quick one-page quiz to put readers to the test when it comes to their knowledge. A fun way to round-off everything that has been covered in the pages proceeding.

First and foremost, it is worth celebrating the knowledge Blacksher has on the topic of calculus. Every page is filled, top to bottom, with insightful real-world examples and plenty of equations to get the mathematic juices following. Readers (and more importantly their parents) can come to this book confident that all the information provided here is true and correct.

Where this book does get a little lost however is in the very audience it is trying to target. The cover imagery implies a younger audience demographic, with its use of cartoon drawings and bold, vibrant colours. The book’s wording also leans into a younger, elementary (or primary) school readership, especially where it utilises the relationship between a maths teacher father and his son to explain complicated arithmetic. At times it can almost come across unintentionally babyish or as if the tone of voice is talking down to the reader. Take these two snippets as examples:

“Calvin, do you remember going to the park when you were younger?” Dad asked. “Yes, I remember. I took my bike
and had a lot of fun”, I gleefully replied. (p. 8)

“But my dad says you should think of calculus as a bridge to understanding even cooler areas of math.” (p. 21)

Sometimes it is not always obvious (and tone of voice can be really subtle), but authors penning material aimed at a particular demographic needs to be hyper aware of the language, imagery and, indeed, age bracket they are targeting.

While Calvin Loves Calculus is incredibly informative, and comes from a place of significant author knowledge, the tone of voice is what holds this back from being a five star read. A useful guide, pitched to the wrong audience.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Calvin Loves Calculus” by Roy Blacksher

Purchase Link: “Calvin Loves Calculus” by Roy Blacksher (Amazon)

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The Bass on This Ice Cream Truck is Something Else

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Humor, Humour, Swindon, Uncategorized ,

This is an old video I came across on my phone, dating back to the Swindon days. I was minding my own business when I suddenly heard a new ice cream van (truck) on the estate. Not the first ice cream van I’d heard driving around these residential streets but the bass line on the jaunty jingle, it was something else.

I’ll let you be the judge on this one, but for me the tune feels somewhat passive aggressive!

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Book Review: “Whalers” by Kyle Farnworth

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Rating: 5 stars

Headline: A gripping literary thriller, “Whalers” will have you on the edge of your seat

Review:

Whalers by Kyle Farnworth follows the protagonist Ethan Callahan, a middle school teacher in the town of New Bedford, Massachusetts (North America). Nicknamed “Whaling City” after the town’s once booming trade in whale hunting, Ethan’s existence in a economically deprived area is turned upside down when he is implicated in the mysterious disappearance of schoolgirl Aaliyah Ridgeway. In the small town of Whaling City, every action has its ripples and for Ethan those ripples come with a price.

Within the thriller genre, Whalers is a fascinating book to read, a page turner from the first page to the very last. The book itself comes in at around 230 pages, but this includes a prologue which details the history of the whaling industry in New Bedford. (At five pages, the prologue is longer than most, but does give prior background into why the townsfolk of New Bedford within Whalers are formed the way the are, and why the nickname “Whaling City” still continues to exist centuries later.

As a lead character, Ethan has all the necessary attributes to put him squarely into the category of a lead suspect in Aaliyah’s disappearance. A fed-up alcoholic who begrudgingly plods through life as a sixth grade teacher, Ethan provides the perfect tinderbox for when fingers start pointing. As an author, Farnworth does a brilliant job at creating a character that can articulately vocalise their internal and external frustrations through a first person perspective, as well as providing bold descriptions that clearly articulate the monotonous boredom of teaching the same material over and over again. In this sense, Ethan is a character very similar to that of Nick Dunne in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.

Whalers is a well written novel, with a attention grabbing plot and plenty of jaw-dropping moments, all within a number of pages that makes it easily consumable and accessible to a multitude of readers. Coupled with a beautifully designed cover (showcasing the talents of designer Victoria Heath Silk), Whalers is the perfect book for fans of thrillers and contemporary fiction alike. Five stars, through and through.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Whalers” by Kyle Farnworth

Author Website: https://kylefarnworth.com/

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The Robots are Coming for us

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Humour , ,

This one comes from when Ben and I were at Center Parcs, where several of the onsite restaurants were utilising robots to deliver food to tables.

Interesting to note that the robots were slower at delivering food, had to rely on humans to move food from the tray to the table and comically, couldn’t handle floor variations. They were good on flat, smooth surfaces, but the second stairs or crazy paving appeared (as was that case at Las Iguanas) they were more a bothersome object preventing staff from doing their job.

Still, fun to watch.

(Oh, and they adopted this strange “sleep face” while waiting to be loaded up with food. When I was a waitress I’d have been shot for dozing on the job!)

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Book Review: “Hidden Revenge” by E.K. Powers

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Rating: 1 star

Headline: Hidden Revenge is not a book that can be readily recommended, at least not in its current state

Review:

Hidden Revenge is the new phycological thriller by author E.K. Powers. It follows the story of a small cast of characters, including Ronald, an antihero holding onto a massive secret. After catching his high school girlfriend cheating with Jason, the school bully, Ronald is set on a course of revenge. Ronald’s sudden disappearance following the incident has everyone stunned, leading many to think this high school teenager has vanished for good. And yet, it turns out the initial gun shot was just the warning of more to come. When it comes to revenge, Ronald is only just getting started.

Warning, plot spoilers below (including details of the secret / twist)

Hidden Revenge is a difficult story to work through as a reader. The pacing is significantly off, with very little to no air time given to developing characters beyond 2D stereotypes. Jason is a bully, Kim, a cheerleader, Ronald, the kid that gets beaten up. Within the opening pages Ronald has gone from being bullied to sleeping with Jason’s girlfriend. The romantic chemistry between Kim and Ronald is bare to say the least, covered in one sentence.

“She’s very athletic spreading her legs wide open. One day after having s*x in the back of the boys’ locker-room right after his practice was over, that b*tch told Jason that I was staring at her in gym class while she was doing jumping jacks.”

There is so much to unpack in these sentences alone. Where has this lust come from? Why is Ronald sleeping with Kim if he also hates her? Why does he keep having frequent and lewd internal thoughts about her body?

When a page later Ronald catches Kim sleeping with her ex, Jason, Ronald is so infuriated by what he sees he withdraws a gun (with no context as to why and how long he has been carrying a gun) and shoots the mirror above Jason’s head. How was it any different when he was sleeping with Kim while she was in a relationship with Jason? Despite this violent act Ronald is able to vanish with no police report raised. There is too much here that does not add up, at least not without a lot more character development.

The book then proceeds to jump between third and first person, hopping years into the future, then years back to the point where the time jumps become confusing even to the most seasoned of readers. The tenses also slip between present and past, a subtle grammatical point that adds friction into the reading journey. Below is an example from page 15 with offending words in bold:

Her attention was not on the game or even on her fiancé, Jason, who’s on the court. Instead, her gaze is fixed on a man sitting in the row diagonally across from her.

When it comes to the twist, this feels so ridiculous that it is incredibly hard to take it seriously. Two thirds of the way through, Ronald reveals that following his high school warning shot, he made the decision to change sex from male to female. Ronald’s plan, now going by the name Veronica, is conceived on the ambition that Veronica will eventually get into a relationship with Jason just so she can literally screw him around. To say this plan is far fetched is a complete understatement. There is no development of Ronald’s mental state to understand why he would make this huge decision, let alone have approval from any medical body to proceed with it. Jason, who is painted in the early pages as a nasty piece of work, is turned into a victim of an awful scenario, one which almost results in him committing suicide when he learns the truth about the woman he thought he loved.

Hidden Revenge is not a book that can be readily recommended, at least not in its current state.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Hidden Revenge” by E.K. Powers

Purchase Link: “Hidden Revenge” by E.K. Powers (Amazon)

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January / February 2026 Recap

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The start of 2026 has been a rollercoaster, mostly spent in bed. Here is a quick recap.

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Poetry Review: “Crossing the Sea of Shattered Glass” by Robert Bunn

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Rating: 5 stars

Headline: A beautifully titled work which celebrates the thrill of life’s ups and downs

Review:

Penned by fantasy author, turned poet, R.B. Bunn, Crossing the Sea of Shattered Glass is a poetry collection that brings together all of life’s highs and lows to the forefront in drama and style. Coming in at just under eighty pages, Crossing the Sea of Shattered Glass touches on powerfully emotive themes including family, loss and rebirth, whilst also drawing heavily on emotive landscapes and dramatic storytelling. Split into three distinct sections: Disembark, Storms at Sea and Landfall, personal highlights from this collection include the poems “The Helper”, “Sorrow was her Crown” and “The Fishing Rod”.

Dripping in raw emotion, Crossing the Sea of Shattered Glass is also home to a wide variety of poetic forms, from traditional four line rhyming stanzas, to a page of pacey two line stanzas, right through to concrete poems (such as “The Bottle” which is formatted / shaped on the page as its namesake). The use of concrete poems alone is such a rarity in poetry collections like these, and Bunn’s inclusion of them here is a welcome sight in amongst the storytelling of light and dark.

With a gorgeous cover design and a beautiful title to boot, it is hard to not want to read this book over and over again, knowing that each time there will be something new for readers to reflect on. While it is worth noting the book includes themes such as substance abuse and alcoholism, the author does include this advisory at the start of the collection. These topics represent a strong backbone of Bunn’s work here, however in many places the content is weaved in such a way that it is not as hard hitting as it could have so easily been. In this regard it manages to tread a fine line with skill and grace.

Crossing the Sea of Shattered Glass has to be one of the top poetry reads of this summer. Brilliantly executed, it is by all accounts a five star read.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Crossing the Sea of Shattered Glass” by Robert Bunn

Purchase Link: “Crossing the Sea of Shattered Glass” by Robert Bunn (Amazon)

Author Website: https://www.rbbunnbooks.com/

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Jus-Rol will not get the hint on their cinnamon swirls / rolls

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) food, Humour, Uncategorized , , , ,

Remember how back in 2023 I have a review on the hideous experience Boyfriend Ben and I had while inadvertently trying out the “new recipe” formula of Jus-Rol’s cinnamon swirls? Titled What is going on with Jus-Rol’s cinnamon swirls? Yep, that one.

Well, now it feels like both Jus-Rol and Hello Fresh are out to taunt me. How? By sending me promotional material of a product I badly want to love but categorially detest (on account of the hideous move to separate pastry and filling, whereas before the mix came pre-made, so all the consumer had to do was cut the cylinder of pastry and bake).

Basically, Jus-Rol’s cinnamon swirls are a bad ex that radically changed one day and still wants me to love them. I can’t, I just can’t.

Jus-Rol has also published a how-to guide on YouTube which in my mind says it all in terms of how ‘easy’ the new method is to consumers.

I’m not stating anything as fact, just observing that behind every corporate how-to video is a mountain of calls to customer services to say “wtf?”

By the way, I notice Jus-Rol have also tried to get around the new recipe hate by changing the baby poop paste to sugar that looks like beach sand. A reminder of what the paste looked like when Ben and I tried it out for ourselves:

Call me lazy, but even moving to sugar represents a Jus-Rol’s commitment to drive down production costs at the expense of giving consumers with an inferior product. They need to listen to their markets. Although I am half tempted to compare the two now.

“…Ben!”

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Book Review: “Patches” by Dana Manoli

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Rating: 3 stars

Headline: Set in Romania, this interesting collection of stories is held back by its numerous grammatical errors

Review:

Written by author Dana Manoli, Patches is a cross-generational novel set in Romania spanning circa several hundred years. Following the lives of six women, the novel is comprised of six short stories (or “books”) which follows the plights of its female protagonists as each fight’s to reshape their destiny against a backdrop of cultural resistance. From Katarina, who is running away from a forced marriage to Dafina, a teacher treading a fine line with administering education in a multicultural school, the stories aim to challenge readers on any assumption that society has become more liberal over time. As Manoli notions, “does modern tolerance overcome past prejudices, or are we just reshaping old injustices?”

Patches is a pleasant read, with a nice use of mediums to influence the style and personality of each. Dafina’s story makes use of back-and-forth letters and Ada’s is entirely told through diary entries. This helps prevent the tales from feeling repetitive or undistinguishable. There are some great turns of phrase to be discovered in this collection of short stories, including a personal favourite, “Dafina’s voice is dry as her mother’s medicinal herbs.” The six short stories are broken up into chapters (meaning that no story is ever more than about fifty pages in length). For Eilna (number three), the story opens with “chapter nine”. Given each story is standalone, it might have made more sense to start each “book” with chapter one. For the most part all the stories are set in the present tense (more on this point to follow).

Where this book holds itself back is in its grammar. Patches is the first book this Romanian author has written in the English language which, outside of this book review, needs to be acknowledged. Manoli’s ability to write something of this standard in a second language is a challenge that few native English speakers would attempt to take on. That said, it would be wrong to consider this in isolation when it ultimately this a book aimed at an English-reading audience, battling alongside other historical novels of its type. With this in mind, the grammar is off in places, with the tenses slipping into past, incorrect use of semicolons and turns of phrase that do not quite make sense (yet might do for Romanian readers). The best way to rectify these would be to employ the use of a professional copy/line editor who is a native English speaker.

Patches is a solid book with layered meaning and merit to its strong cast of female characters. A good starting point for any future publications penned in English, a personal recommendation would be to locate beta readers or a proficient editor. This has the potential to be a five star read, yet ultimately is only hampered by the number of small grammatical errors which add friction to the reading journey.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Patches” by Dana Manoli

Purchase Link: “Patches” by Dana Manoli (Amazon)

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If (cat) looks could terrify

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Cats, Humor, Humour, Uncategorized , , , ,

Mum and Dad’s new cat, Jim, is definitely not okay with my existence, as shown by this picture.

(Before you worry too much about Jim, just bear in mind this is also the same cat who will see anything as a challenge, even an ironing board.)

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