Book review blog
14th February 2012
Fallen in Love by Lauren Kate, Random House, February 2012
This is a lovely collection of four novellas about – you guessed it – true love, in all its guises. It’s clear from the title that Fallen in Love is designed as a companion piece to Lauren Kate’s bestselling Fallen series, and you do kind of need to have read the books to fully appreciate this St Valentine’s Day romp through medieval England. I have read them, and I really enjoyed this. It’s so nice to see a different side to some of the more enigmatic characters in the series. The geek in me enjoyed the link to Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules, too. I love the way Lauren Kate writes exciting, accessible love stories with tortuous philosophical conundrums and a strong literary vein – there for those who wish to find it, but not intrusive for those who don’t. I did get confused at one point by the chronology of Fallen in Love in relation to Passion and the forthcoming Rapture. Lucinda’s attitude to Bill in Fallen in Love comes across a little oddly given the revelations about him at the end of Passion. I suspect this means that I need to re-read the series to disentangle this confusion, so I’m looking forward to that already. There is a sneak preview of Rapture, too – exciting!
31st January 2012
Daylight Saving by Edward Hogan, Walker Books, February 2012
Daniel is not expecting much from this (enforced) holiday with his father to the Leisure World Holiday Complex. Not only does Daniel’s dad have a penchant for wearing socks with his flip-flops and very dubious taste in music, he hasn’t been the best company since Mum left. And Daniel knows that, even though he won’t admit it, his dad blames him for everything. There is the small matter of having been suspended from school, too. This is destined to be no ordinary holiday, but when Daniel meets Lexi – smart, beautiful Lexi – he takes a turn down a much darker path than ever before…
I read Daylight Saving in less than two hours: it moves at a cracking pace, a crime thriller fused with a ghost story of haunting sadness. What Hogan does so well is that very Stephen King trick of rendering an ordinary, humdrum world gradually more and more sinister – the plastic and desperate Leisure World – until you genuinely believe that this could really happen. Daniel is an excellent main character. More familiar from the adult thriller/crime genre, it’s refreshing to see a breed of world-weary hero with issues and a weight problem deposited into fiction for this age group, which is populated mostly by the extraordinarily attractive. Cynical and self-loathing, but gentle and truly brave to the last, Daniel is a real hero. Hogan has a voice all his own, but in an effort to describe it, I was reminded at times of Carl Hiaasen – Hogan isn’t as outright funny and obviously doesn’t intend to be (not a criticism, by the way), but both writers share the same talent for ruthlessly excoriating the surface layers of society to reveal both the horrors and the raw human emotions – the truly great and the horrifying – that lie hidden beneath.
17th January 2012
The final draft of Here Among Us has been fired off to my editor (only one editor now that the amazing Ellen has gone off to Hachette; Denise is brilliant as ever, though, and I can’t wait to hear what she has to say…!). So here’s what I read over Christmas and New Year: a proper children’s book to start off 2012…
The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop, Kate Saunders, Scholastic, Feb 2012
Lily and Oz’s family have, under mysterious circumstances, inherited a chocolate shop and the twins can’t wait to move in. The only trouble is, their new home is full of ghosts and talking wall paper… I loved this book – it’s aimed at a slightly younger readership than books I usually review, but it’s such a great old fashioned children’s book with so much adventure and magic, and really loveable main characters. The magic is beautifully blended into the story, to the extent that it seems that magic might be just around the corner in real life. The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop also contains one of my hallmark favourite things – a truly complex and interesting villain who keeps you guessing right till the end of the book. I think it’s so important not to draw characters as simply good or purely evil – life isn’t like that. Of course, it makes for a much more interesting read. I very much enjoyed the detail about the science of making chocolate, too – the level of research struck just the right balance: adding interesting detail without overwhelming the story. There are also some more contemporary issues woven into the book; challenges that children today actually face, like coping with dyslexia, but this is very cleverly done – it’s totally part of the story and I never felt preached at. All in all, a fantastic tale told with that elusive quality – genuine charm.
20th December 2011
Ooh, I’ve got some great novels coming my way – the new Ally Kennen! I can’t wait. This isn’t a review today but just a book-related blither of excitement. My friend Rosie is going to publish her first picture book in April, so this is one for the tinies. I am dying to get my hands on a copy because she’s a genius artist whilst also being a doctor, doing about 4,000 exams and having a small child. Amazing. She even found time to be my medical consultant for Dangerous to Know so I could be sure I had all the details right. Superlative…!
Read on below for the books I’ve reviewed over the past few days, and here is something Christmasish – it’s nothing to do with reading but a treat for your ears as you peruse the reviews. My favourite is Shepherds at the Manger at 5.21. Beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7svSLECrgM
18th December 2011
Pride and Premiership, Michelle Gayle, Walker Books, May 2011
And now for something completely different…
OK, I shall admit that when I started reading this book I was worried it was going to annoy me. Remy, the main character, wants to be a WAG. It’s her ultimate aim in life, just the same as her big sister… Mailbu has a permatan, long blonde hair and a jaded attitude to the male sex. (Remy and Malibu? I started to suspect early on that Michelle Gayle was enjoying herself and having a bit of a laugh here). Anyway, Malibu is determined that Gary Goldenballs the footballer will be her meal ticket to a celebrity lifestyle, and Remy is absolutely sure she wants to find a footballer of her own. Is this how far we’ve come since the 1960s? Girls with one aim in mind, to marry well? Isn’t that all a bit 1813? But it’s very funny, so I read on and started thinking, wow, this is like being inside the head of Lydia or Kitty Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, the sillier of the younger Bennett sisters, but this is really quite good fun… Oh wait. The title! Yes. I’d had too many Christmas cocktails and my brain was a little addled: it took me till nearly a quarter of the way through the book to realise that it’s a modern-day take on Jane Austen’s seminal offering. And like Pride and Prejudice it’s light and breezy with serious parts, and very amusing. It was fun growing up with Remy and realising, along with her, that all in the world is not as it seems. Without wanting to give away the plot, it turns out that Remy is a great role model for girls in 2012 after all. Good fun, and you definitely don’t have to have read any Jane Austen to enjoy it.
13th December 2011
Woo! I’m on a reviewing roll now after my break. In fact I probably should be doing editorial changes this very moment, but I started reading Wintergirls last night and finished it two hours later. Yes. One of those. You start reading and you can’t stop. But before I get on with that, here’s my guest post at the lovely Overflowing Library. Judging by one of the comments, it looks like Will might get a few commissions making bookshelves if he’s not careful!
http://www.overflowinglibrary.com/2011/11/bookcase-showcase-author-katy-moran.html
Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson, Marion Lloyd Books, Scholastic, January 2011
Lia’s best friend Cassie is dead. And the night Cassie died, she called Lia 33 times. Lia didn’t pick up the phone. But not only must Lia struggle with the enormity of her guilt, she has another cross to bear. To everyone else, Lia is extremely ill, a young woman who has starved her own body to the brink of physical collapse and survived several hospital admissions. But Lia doesn’t see it that way. It took her years to get this tiny. She’ll do what the doctors say to get people off her back, but Lia is cleverer than her parents and the doctors. She knows she’s just thin. With a small frame and a fast metabolism. Right? Being thin is what Lia does best, better than anyone. Better than Cassie. But Lia’s problems go deeper even than anorexia. Because even though Cassie is dead, she’s not gone. She’s here with Lia, right now.
This is a terrifying and gripping book. The anatomy of Lia’s illness is laid bare in minute perfection, utterly believable. It’s more complex even than anorexia, too, and Lia’s other issues are drawn with frightening immediacy. Alongside all this is a portrait of high school life everyone will immediately recognise. I think that’s what the author has done so well: there’s the horrific and overwhelming detail of Lia’s illness, but this is tempered with the everyday story of life: high school cliques, a little stepsister struggling with long division. There are enough of those vital bright touches in Lia’s existence to ensure the novel isn’t a total misery-fest: the grey eyes of a boy who wants to help, the sweet relationship between Lia and her step-sister. Wintergirls handles a difficult subject with real skill and a degree of dark humour – the plot is perfectly balanced and all the characters well-drawn, like people you might really meet, even when they appear only briefly. Very highly recommended.
11th December 2011
To Be A Cat, Matt Haig, Random House, February 2012
Being bullied at school by other kids is bad enough for Barney Willow, but now the evil headteacher has got it in for him too. Could things really get any worse? The answer is Yes. Barney is about to discover that, sometimes, getting what you wish for is the worst thing that could possibly happen – especially when you’ve just expressed the desire to become a cat… Matt Haig’s novel moves along at a speedy pace – it has obvious similarities to Martyn Bedford’s Flip, but with a slightly younger feel, and I enjoyed the dark humour here, too. To Be A Cat is fast and funny, but there’s a serious undertone about the danger of not really liking yourself very much, and the importance of real courage. When Barney is bullied by evil Gavin Needle, he crumbles inside, but his best friend Rissa is able to shrug off equally nasty comments about her hair or unconventional lifestyle because her parents have given her the priceless gift of genuine confidence. It would have been easy to err into schmaltzy self-help wiffle here, but Haig gets the balance just right. It’s daily life and the real problems children and younger teenagers face, with a perfectly realised and believable twist of true magic.
1st December 2011
Phew – first draft of new book has been handed in and now I can get back to really enjoying other people’s! Here’s one I actually read whilst I was finishing Here Among Us, but didn’t have time to review…
Wonder, by R.J. Palacio, Random House, March 2012
Ten-year-old Augie lives in New York City. Inside, he feels just like any other boy. But on the outside, he is unique. Augie will never be just another boy: a rare genetic mutation has given him a face like nobody else’s. He will go through life being stared at, sometimes even publicly vilified – or just the subject of misplaced and often patronising pity. Augie’s warm and loving family have shielded him from a lot, but now it is time for Augie to take his place in the wider world. It’s time to start school…
I started this book one morning and couldn’t stop reading. I had to go and work in a cafe, leaving the book back at the house, such is the power of this story. I loved the differing narrative perspectives – you really get to see the situation developing from all angles. The chapters told by Augie’s sister, Olivia, are especially gripping. Augie’s face is so different from everybody else’s, so shockingly ugly when seen through the eyes of most people, that you fall in love with his charm and black humour, his lack of bitterness. Sure, he’s not Pollyanna and it’s not as if Augie doesn’t wish he just looked like everyone else, but you never think about the effect of a genetic condition like this on siblings, or at least I didn’t. Olivia’s perspective is shocking and insightful. What really makes the novel work, I think, is R.J. Palacio’s expert knowledge of the ten-year-old mind, and her understanding of the ten-year-old tribe: Augie’s unusual face aside, it’s a fantastic and totally realistic insight into starting a new school. Without wanting to give away too much, one of my (very) few minor criticisms is that although there should be people in the world like Summer, they must be very few and far between, if indeed they exist at all. I hope they do. Perhaps it’s just that Summer’s initial motive isn’t quite fully sketched in enough to be a hundred per cent believable. But this is a small and perhaps uncharitable niggle (maybe I’m just jealous!). Either way, this is a wonderful book and I couldn’t recommend it more highly. Do not attempt to read it when you have a work deadline, that’s all I’m saying. What fantastic stuff.
25th October 2011
Exciting news for all Lauren Kate fans, and a great insight for anyone interested in the writing process. A few weeks ago I interviewed Lauren at the UK launch of Passion and here’s what she had to say…
KM: The historical research in Passion is so well done; accurate but never overwhelming – how did you go about this, and was it all planned out from the beginning of the series?
LK: Most frequently, I researched through literature. I was able to do some travel (Chitzen Itza, Versailles, and Milan), and of course there was some necessary historical research (fact checking online and such), but mostly, I read and reread novels set in the eras and locations I wanted to write about. When writing about Luce in Milan during World War I, I reread Farewell to Arms. When she’s in Moscow, I pulled from Bulgakov’s incredible The Master and Margarita. For her life with Daniel in Victorian Helston, I looked at North and South and The Woman in White. I went back to Shakespeare; I looked at Aida. This literary voyage was the most enjoyable research I’ve ever done, and I ended up with a very dynamic and exciting understanding of the journey Luce had to go on.
KM: The atmosphere in each book is totally different and equally captivating each time – do you have a favourite location?
LK: Each life Luce visits teaches her something she couldn’t have learned any other way. I loved writing the Milan life, as well as the Versailles life, and I really loved filling in the gaps with Daniel’s experiences alone. Helston was special because the prologue of Fallen was set there and those pages have served as a sort of tease all through the series. I loved going back to that parlor scene and fleshing it out, especially now that I’ve grown so much closer to Daniel’s character. I particularly feel for his side of the story—his agony—in that setting.
KM: The changing balance of Luce and Daniel’s relationship is continually fascinating – was Daniel surprised by Luce perhaps being less submissive in this lifetime because now she has grown up in a culture which treats women more equally?
LK: In each lifetime, I think Daniel expects to know and understand Luce completely—and of course he never can, because she’s been faced with new challenges in each one of her growing-up experiences. So it keep things interesting in their relationship.
KM: Are the ups and downs of Luce and Daniel’s love story planned or do they sometimes take control as characters and steer the narrative?
LK: By now, Luce and Daniel are almost entirely holding the reins of the story when it comes to the emotional pitch of their relationship. I know they have to get from point A to point B with a stopover in Tahiti, but it’s up to them to determine how they feel about that, how they are getting along, and whether they want to make any unexpected detours. I trust them to get all three of us lost for a little while within the narrative. Passion was the first time I felt like that though—it’s been a long progression from the way I interacted with them in the earlier books in the series.
KM: I love how there is a darker side to sunny privileged Shoreline – why did you decide to include the scholarship students acting as waiters to their fellow students?
LK: I once had a scholarship to a writing retreat that require me to serve food to some of the other participants at the workshop. It created a very strange dynamic when we were actually in the workshop setting and it’s probably been sitting in a corner of my mind since then. I didn’t consciously think of that when I was writing Shoreline—but clearly it was always there. Anything to add to possibilities for narrative drama in a story about the way people engage with one another is a good thing for a writer.
Thanks so much to Lauren K for giving me such great answers, and to Lauren B at Random House for arranging it. I enjoyed this a lot – I think I might have to start interviewing more people! It’s also reminded me that I really want to read The Master and Margarita and return to some of the other great classics Lauren mentions, especially The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, who wrote the first English detective story. All modern crime novels are in some way influenced by his creation – amazing.
24th October 2011
Legend, Marie Lu, Puffin, November 2011
I’m having to be brief with the reviews at the moment because of a deadline roaring towards me like a high speed train, but I’ve been meaning to write about Legend for a few weeks now. Now, to be honest, I had decided I really needed a break from dystopian fiction, but when Amanda from Puffin sent me this book, I guessed my chances of feeling like I’d read the novel before were slim – we used to work together so I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be disappointed. Yes, Legend is set in a post-apocalyptic world (a divided North America, in this case) and, yes, it’s a familiar landscape of urban desolation. What I found immediately interesting, though, was the division between those at the top of society and those at the bottom – in this futuristic Los Angeles, June’s family – what’s left of it – have almost reached the top of the pile, and live in luxury, whilst Day struggles to survive in the slums. The world of Legend is only a couple of steps sideways from our own. Lu has something to say that resonates beyond the gripping pace of the story: I don’t think it’s going too far to suggest the whole book is a pretty searing criticism of the way we live now. I love this kind of subversive rebellious fiction. June and Day are opposite sides of the same coin, each is from a different side of the track, both radiate charisma; following their story, I forgot I was reading another dystopian thriller. The world we live in needs rebels like this: June and Day refuse to accept that life isn’t fair, but they fight oppression with intelligence and compassion rather than brutality. Highly recommended, and I’m not surprised this is being made into a film: I could see every moment of the book in my mind playing out like a cross between Bladerunner and the Bourne Ultimatum.
19th October 2011
I’m so excited! A few weeks ago, I went to a party for Lauren Kate, author of the breathtaking Fallen series. We did a great interview – and then I discovered my dictaphone hadn’t worked. Lauren, though, was brilliant and has just answered my questions all over again. Her take on the whole writing process and the way her much beloved Luce and Daniel have developed is fascinating, and I will be posting the interview over the next couple of days.
17th October 2011
Oops, a bit lax recently. Blame it on the impending and scary deadline. Never mind, the one I squeezed in was well worth the time…
Flip by Martyn Bedford, Walker, March 2011
Well, this is a funny situation: Martyn Bedford was my tutor at uni. He gave me a rubbish mark for the novel I handed in as my MA thesis and here’s my chance to wreak a terrible revenge (cue wicked cackle). OK, OK, he was right – my MA really was just a bit rubbish. Anyway, now here I am reviewing Martyn’s first novel for teenagers and it’s ruddy brilliant, so my gothic plans for revenge are totally scotched. Never mind.
Imagine waking up in someone else’s skin. You’re you – thoughts, feelings and memories present and correct – but the room you wake up in is a stranger’s. The body you wake up in is unrecognisable. The family downstairs belongs to someone else. Bundled off to school by a mother you’ve never seen in your life (who, by the way, is totally bewildered and pretty irritated by your confused rambling), you go to classes and have to speak a language you’ve never even studied. Even if you were to go home, your real home, no one there would recognise you, much less believe your story. And if you’ve ended up in someone else’s body – in Alex’s case, one previously inhabited by a boy called Flip – what has happened to your own body?
Flip is such a great idea, and really well executed. This is a very exciting book – right up till the final moments, you still don’t know how on earth Alex is going to ultimately deal with finding himself in Flip’s body. Nothing is glossed over or fudged: by the end I almost believed it could really happen (actually, I did believe it could happen whilst I was reading the book). Every practicality is dealt with – girlfriends, Alex’s complete lack of ability in sports at which Flip excels, and there are also moments of excruciating horror; the idea of being forcibly ejected from your own life, but not actually dead, is terrifying when you look at it closely. Able to see your friends and family but never recognised by them, never able to really go home. Flip raises all sorts of labyrinthine questions about what it really means to be yourself. My only minor quibble is that I didn’t get on too well with some of the dream sequences – I think it was really those which were present tense – I don’t know why, so this isn’t a proper criticism, just a personal thing. It’s very funny, too – I loved the quip about dads and dishwashers. So creepily true. How does that happen, I wonder. All in all, Flip is excellent. It’s reminded me how much I enjoyed Houdini Girl, and that I really must read Black Cat.
27th September 2011
Oof – I’ve been busy. Just got back from celebrating the brilliance of Lauren Kate down in London! It was a great night and cool attending a publishing bunfight as a reviewer after loitering variously as a bookseller, an assistant to a mad but brilliant (and nameless) publisher, a desk editor then author. I did feel a bit like some kind of industrial spy being a writer from another publishing house – heeehe! It was lovely to meet other reviewers, the groovy people at Random House, one gatecrasher, and of course Lauren herself who was really nice and very interesting to talk to – there was nooo way you’d have guessed she’d just come over on an all-night flight.
Heard some very exciting Lauren Kate news, too – before the appearance of book four, Rapture, RHCB are publishing a special collection of intertwined love stories about some of our favourite angels and demons. Fallen in Love is due to appear in February 2012, just in time for Valentine’s Day.
And in the meantime, I’m amusing myself by picturing wings for everyone I meet. If you’ve read the books you’ll know what I mean – if you haven’t, well, you should.
Here’s what kept me up till the wee small hours when I got back to my old stamping ground in Hackney (not Hughie’s beetroot and beef burgers – sounds weird but you should try that too, it really works – aaanyway)…
Eight Keys by Suzanne Lafleur, Puffin, August 2011
I may as well just start by saying that I think this book is exquisite. I started reading it last night and couldn’t stop till the end. This is becoming a bit of a theme in these reviews – actually, I half wonder if it is because I don’t have time to finish books that don’t completely suck me in. But even amongst all these other novels that have captivated my enfeebled-by-lack-of-sleep brain, Eight Keys really stands out. It’s a simple premise: Elise has just moved up to middle school. Her new locker partner squashes her lunch every day. Her best friend Franklin cannot seem to stop unintentionally humiliating her. She is drowning in a tsunami of homework. And, finally, there are questions about Elise’s past she finally needs to answer. But the end result is a perfectly crafted story about growing up and negotiating the minefields that lie in wait: wanting to be cool, mean bullies, and the intricate politics of friendship. Eight Keys is so beautiful and I couldn’t recommend it more. Particularly great for nine year old girls and up.
12th September 2011
Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, Alfred A. Knopf, October 2010
I’m coming to this late in the game – nearly a whole year late in fact – but it was worth the wait. What a completely charming love story. Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares begins with a red notebook, left as bait in a famous New York bookshop. Lily knows that only the right kind of boy will pick it up and read the message she has left inside. And only the right kind of boy will dare to play her game…
This is a novel so much about character: Levithan and Cohn didn’t plan the book at all, but just let Dash and Lily have free rein around New York, rollicking around like a proper pair of larrikins. This approach works wonderfully well with a few minor exceptions. Dash and Lily are both beautifully drawn. I found Dash’s astonishing verbosity a bit much at first but grew very fond of this bookish grouch by the end of the novel (stick with Dash if his precociousness irks you in the first few pages; I soon warmed to him). Lily is quirkier still but brilliant and endearing. I did find it hard to believe that Lily’s parents would jet off to Fji at Christmas, though, leaving Lily alone with her brother. Why couldn’t they have gone another time? Part of Lily’s problem is that her family are very overprotective, so I did struggle with this rather harsh decision to abandon a sensitive and Christmas-mad teenage daughter in the middle of the festive season. I really hated her parents, actually – they were SO patronising. This isn’t a criticism, by the way – we don’t see much of this pair but you can completely imagine them.
Hmm, what else? I did feel that Lily’s stranger side was introduced a little too abruptly (but won’t go into too much detail here or it will spoil the moment), and also that there were a couple too many handy coincidences within the plot for my jaded and weary eyes. But this is hair-splitting. Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares is a gorgeous love story – there’s no instant lust at first sight in chapter one, and that’s what makes it all so sweet. Dash and Lily get to know each other by exchanging wit and because they both love books so much. What a lovely thing to behold. I bet any money there are now little red notebooks secreted in bookshops everywhere, left by hopeful fans of Lily and Dash.
All in all, I enjoyed this book and definitely had that that all-important couldn’t-stop-reading thing, but was waylaid a few times by plotting issues. Ignore these or put them to the back of your mind if you can, because reading Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares is a fab way to spend an afternoon. New York itself my favourite character in the book: it’s a love letter to the city.
10th September 2011
Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton, Doubleday, 7th July 2011
Silla is spending too much time at the cemetery where her parents are buried, unable to forget their horrific deaths. When a mysterious book arrives, full of spells in her father’s handwriting, Silla can’t resist trying one out – she just wasn’t expecting it to actually work. But Silla’s not the only one haunting the graveyard. New boy in town Nicholas is inexplicably drawn to the cemetery, too – and it’s only a matter of time before he sees what Silla is up to. The magic raises old ghosts for Nicholas, things he’d rather forget…
This is a very dark paranormal thriller that moves at a fantastic pace: it definitely has that can’t-put-it-down quality. I know not everyone’s a fan of love at first sight – there’s a lot of people calling it “instalove” in a quite weary fashion at the moment, and after all there’s so much of this about in books now – but I thought Nick and Silla’s attraction was very believable. Also, Silla’s complete and total trauma at the horrible manner in which her parents shuffled off this mortal coil is absolutely convincing – a far harder feat for an author to pull off than love at first sight. Nick and Silla soon find themselves in a gore-spattered supernatural mess of awesome proportions, and it all got so scary that I didn’t dare stop reading till I’d finished the book at 2 in the morning, just so that I would be able to put it down with my brain firmly back in the real world.
A few things bothered me about this book, though – I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it, but there were definitely aspects I found worrying. The spells need blood in order to work. Blood Magic is obviously meant to be a disturbing book, but I felt that Silla’s bloodletting glamorised self harm without really addressing it till right at the end. Self harm is often associated with trauma, and Silla is traumatised – so the connection is there. It’s not as if the blood is simply a spell ingredient. Silla’s trauma and grief adds another dimension to the cutting. No one wants a preachy “issues” book but, call me a dunce, the cutting was addressed with a bit too much subtlety in Blood Magic. I would be very interested to hear what other people think about this. Perhaps I’m just getting a bit old and mumsy – after all, I’m not the target audience. I wish I could know what I would have felt about this at 15.
Hmm, couple of other niggles and cries of admiration: I wasn’t 100 % convinced by Gram Judy as a character – but I do wonder if that was intentional (I can’t say any more about this without giving too much away). I absolutely LOVED Nick’s stepmother. She is hilariously horrible. Actually, I just really liked Nick as a character all the way through. Nick’s always going on about how obnoxious he is, but really he’s just very funny and a bit of a softie. I thought the plot took a very odd swerve right at the end. There is a completely unexpected twist. The book is dark all the way through, but we end up in one of Stephen King’s worst nightmares, which is saying something. This sudden ratcheting up of the horror felt a bit sudden. King’s genius lies not in creating such terrifying scenarios (loads of people can do that); what he achieves so brilliantly is the slow drip-drip of the horror into everyday life. The balance seemed a bit strange in Blood Magic, but that’s just my opinion.
So, all in all, a great addictive read for lovers of romance with a (very) dark edge. I was horribly freaked out by it but couldn’t stop reading. Oh yes, and one of the best names in fiction for a long time: Drusilla Kennicott: gorgeous.
31st August 2011
Quarry by Ally Kennen, Marion Lloyd Books, Scholastic, February 2011
Ooh, it’s a cracker. I’ve been saving this one specially for ages. I actually read it on holiday but have only just got round to the review…
Scrappy’s life is literally falling apart around his ears: his mum has left, his granddad is losing his marbles and needs looking after – it’s a lot to cope with. Even his school is about to be demolished. And then he starts receiving creepy text messages – dares that Scrappy just can’t resist. As ever, Ally Kennen writes brilliantly about serious mind-boggling danger – here the motorway roars right past the salvage yard Scrappy has grown up beside, always a threat, the wrecked cars that arrive for further demolition a constant reminder of the potential for total destruction. And gradually Scrappy begins to realise that his stalker isn’t just a mate playing a trick but someone with much more serious intentions…
Taut, tense and totally thrilling, I enjoyed this book so much. I love the way Kennen draws her characters: Scrappy’s relations are all surprising, off the wall and totally maddening, his friends (and enemies) are ones you can completely imagine having yourself. But what I love most about Quarry, and in fact about Beast, Berserk and Bedlam too, is her sheer originality. I enjoy a bit of dystopia and a splash of supernatural love as much as the next bookworm, but there’s there’s no one like Ally Kennen. One of a kind and totally brilliant, just like all her heroes.
25th August 2011
After some extensive back-reading and catching up, I embarked on a real biggie: this Carnegie-winning humdinger of a novel…
Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness, Walker Books, May 2010
We’re thrown straight back into the action, rattling off at a neck-breaking pace from where Ness deposited us, breathless and terrified, at the end of The Ask and the Answer. War on New World is about to explode into another level of horror and bloodshed, with Todd and Viola desperately battling against not only their old enemy the Mayor, but also, as ever, their own personal demons.
I remember Patrick Ness describing the Chaos Walking series as being like reading His Dark Materials while falling off a cliff, but I think the series is a different animal to Pullman’s creation. Yes, both are thrilling adventure stories which also deal with serious and complex issues, but Ness focuses his unflinching gaze on the genuinely horrifying reality of war, and the moral dilemmas which must be faced by those fighting, and those who are just trying to survive. Violence is exposed is its true form – hideous, with long-lasting consequences. It’s never cloaked in glamour, which I think is the right and responsible way to write about the darker side of human nature, rather than making it seem cool or pretending it doesn’t happen.
Todd and Viola are wonderful creations, complex and utterly believable. I’ve got a bad feeling there is going to be an entire generation of girls wasting time searching for a mysterious vampire or werewolf to adore: it’s a psychoanalyst’s dream. Actually, they should all be looking for a Todd, and the boys for a Viola: loyal, trustworthy, utterly human with real human faults. I know Monsters of Men is a dystopian thriller, but my favourite thing about it is the way Patrick Ness writes about love. It’s not a fairytale but bloody hard work at times. The Mayor is my number one kind of villain, too – complex, horrendous and endlessly surprising.
Finally, there’s a lot of buzz at the moment surrounding dystopian fiction, but the weird thing is, reading this I never thought, “Oh, I’m reading another one of those novels”. I was simply too involved in the book. Monsters of Men rises above its genre. It’s horrifying, exciting, beautiful and very clever, and you should read it.
Aaah, back from the Highlands – what the the midges and mosquitos left of me anyway. It was all rather exciting. Between sailing briskly up a loch with two children under the age of 3 and getting mysteriously lost on a vertical hillside, I managed to read some great books…
7th August 2011
Emerald, by Karen Wallace, Simon and Schuster, August 2011
Have you ever reviewed a book written by your mother-in-law? No? Scary stuff – I mean, what if I hated it? Could make supper on Wednesday night a bit awkward, eh? Especially when they’re bringing the food. I was pretty confident about agreeing to review Emerald, though, because I’ve always liked Karen Wallace’s books, even before I married her son (phew). But anyway, family connections aside, here’s my take on her tale of Elizabethan treachery and head-spinning first love…
Looking at it from the comfort and freedom of the 21st century, Elizabethan England was a dangerous and uncomfortable place to be, even for the rich. Emerald St John has suffered enough. She’s already lost her father, been kicked out of the family home by her horrible scheming mother and sent to live with relatives in the Welsh borders, including the deliciously poisonous courtier to Queen Elizabeth, Cousin Arabella. Now Emerald is to marry, and the man her family have chosen is totally repulsive in every way. As Emerald desperately plots to take control of her own destiny, she’s drawn ever deeper into court politics, and hers is not the only life on the line.
Emerald is an excellent take on the intelligence and wit girls must have had to deploy to gain any control over their lives in Elizabethan England. I’m being deliberately roundabout to avoid giving away the plot, but the dangers of playing a false move are frightening to read about now, and the consequences must have been terrifying then. The game of love was literally a matter of life or death. Period detail is beautifully evoked, too – you never feel it’s rammed down your throat. It’s also a seriously pacy read with that thriller-like quality which forces you to keep reading on, late into the night. Perfect for teenage girls.
Ballad, by Maggie Stiefvater, Scholastic, May 2011
Alrighty, so I avoided YA fiction (and indeed most fiction of any genre) for many years after it became too much of a busman’s holiday – studying novels, flogging them in bookshops and then later copy-editing and having to ready the stuff for publication without any dreadful mistakes that would necessitate pulping an entire print run and THEN actually writing the stuff myself. Now I’ve become a proper bookworm again, it would seem I have missed out on an entire publishing phenomenon. Not knowing about Maggie Stiefvater is a bit Harry who? Embarrassing. Luckily for me, I’ve now had the chance to redeem myself and read both Lament and Ballad in one sitting. Actually, I was quite scared to read anything about bad fairies because (stop press), I’m writing about some myself, so it was a relief to see that the path I’ve chosen is different to the world of Ballad and Lament. I just hope I can pull it off with even a teeny bit of the same skill.
Anyway, enough writerly angst and on to Ballad. James Morgan is a prodigy, but the high-end music school he attends is a dangerous place, haunted by some extremely nasty faeries, including one who inspires musical greatness before destroying the artist. Nuala is condemned to destroy not only those who make foolish bargains in exchange for musical genius, but also herself. She burns alive every sixteen years, never remembering those she has loved. And then she meets James… Ballad is fantastical, mythical and gorgeous – I loved Pat O’Shea’s Hounds of the Morrigan as a child, and Stiefvater brings the rich canon of Irish mythology to a new generation. James’ world is so ordinary, despite his musical skill, that you’re left half-believing in faeries. This is where I think Stiefvater hits the jackpot – yes, it’s a gorgeous love story, but all the supernatural stuff is so well done that you really believe it could happen. This has been said of Steifvater’s work before, but the actual quality of the writing is superb, too – genuinely lyrical. I slightly preferred Ballad to its predecessor Lament, but that’s very personal and largely to do with which of the main characters in each book, James or Dee, you like best.
My only complaint applies more to the previous book, Lament: one evil scheming character is referred to by the hero, Luke, as “a nasty, paranoid-schizo girl who told people what to do and hurt them if they didn’t do it”. Others frequently refer to themselves (in jest) and others as “psycho”. I feel bad for flagging this up because I enjoyed the books so much, and it’s true that using such language is very authentic. It’s a tricky one really. Perhaps readers are supposed to notice and think “Hey, that’s not OK”, but I believe most people will just gloss over it, subconsciously absorbing the stereotype of mentally ill people being violent and a danger to society. I wish other words could have been found. Or is it really that I wish teenagers didn’t use “paranoid-schizo” as a term of abuse, which isn’t the author’s fault? She’s telling it like it is, I suppose. Either way, apologies for the self-righteous and probably overly-politically-correct rant at the end of a review of a great book(s).
Sorry about the long wait between posts – I’m in the midst of travelling between two remote and beautiful outposts of the British Isles: Kinloch Hourn way up in the Highlands of Scotland and the Isles of Scilly. But here are two reviews to keep you going…
24th July, 2011
Power of Six, by Pittacus Lore, Penguin, August 2011
I wish I had written this book, and not just because of the stellar sales of its precursor I am Number Four, oh and the hit film, too. Power of Six is absolutely excellent, continuing the story of alien-in-hiding Number Four, alias John Smith, as he is chased down by US government forces and the murderous Mogadorians, who are determined to extinguish the last of the Lorien race. We now have two very different Lorien heroines added to the mix: the ruthless and all-powerful Six, and quietly furious Marina, marooned in a remote nunnery hidden in the Spanish Picos de Europa mountains. Unlike the other remaining Lorien, Marina has not been running from the Mogadorians: she has been forced into hiding. But no one can hide for ever.
I always love a good thriller, and Power of Six is told at a fast and furious pace. The heroes and heroines are all different but equally appealing. I especially like the fact that writing team Jobie Hughes and James Frey have made the Lorien’s human collaborator, Sam Goode, very kick-ass for a mere human maths geek. Sam doesn’t need super powers to be heroic. But not only does the story move at terrific speed with seriously engaging characters, the quality of the writing is outstanding. In places, especially the terrifying battle scenes, the prose is hallucinogenic, really beautiful and lyrical. I couldn’t recommend this more highly.
Passion, by Lauren Kate, Random House, June 2011
Luce and Daniel are deeply, passionately in love. But Luce is condemned by an ancient curse to die in Daniel’s arms at the age of 17, consumed by fire whilst Daniel, an angel cast out from heaven at the Fall, is forced to live through the agony of her loss until Luce’s soul is reborn and he can love her again for a few short years, months or even weeks.
I’m a latecomer to Lauren Kate’s Fallen series, so I was pretty intrigued – the first book sold over 1 million copies worldwide. Passion is third in the sequence, and I can now see why it has been such a success. Kate has a great gift for tapping into the preoccupations and obsessions of the female teenage mind. I had to investigate the back story a little to make sense of what was happening, so I’d recommend reading the books in order, but Luce is a brilliant wronged heroine, unjustly accused of murder, with a mysterious destiny. At the risk of being very patronising, I’d be willing to bet that most teenage girls (and boys) feel dreadfully and unjustly wronged at least part of the time, and a good proportion would like to believe they have a mysterious destiny, too. Well, I know I did. Anyway, it’s easy to see why so many people love these books.
With the story established in Fallen and Torment, Passion is a race back through time as Luce visits her former reincarnations in a bid to find a weak spot in the curse that binds her and Daniel to their eternal love, and their eternal torment. Each century that Luce visits is skilfully brought to life without shoving too much period detail and research into the reader’s face, each former “Luce” is different to the last, a briefly and deftly drawn character. Initially, I found it weird that the immortal angels in the book speak to each other as if they are American teenagers, but actually this works well and I can see why Kate chose to do it. The series is far more complicated than a simple battle between Heaven and Hell, good and evil, so it makes sense that the characters are very easy to relate to even when they are actually quite complicated philosophical creations. Also, it was great not to be bogged down with that “Forsooth, my liege” kind of language that often gets used in situations like this.
Daniel is the ultimate mysterious boyfriend that many a teenage girl dreams of, gorgeous and yet infuriatingly unfathomable. At first I was a bit worried that Daniel seemed quite controlling, doing things for Luce’s “own good”, and didn’t think this was necessarily a great example, but as the novel progresses it quickly becomes clear that Luce is determined to take control of her own destiny and meet Daniel on equal terms with equal knowledge. All in all, a gripping and intelligent take on an ancient theme, best read as part of the series to get the fully addictive effect.
7th July, 2011
Life: An Exploded Diagram, by Mal Peet, Walker Books, June 2011
Clem Ackroyd and Frankie Mortimer are in love. If their parents ever find out, their world will be destroyed. This is more than just a tale of forbidden love, though. Opening with Clem’s birth into a fiery Norfolk apocalypse at the tail end of WW II, Frankie and Clem’s own drama is set against the snowballing Cuban missile crisis.
This is an outstanding book for older teenagers, unpatronising and completely gripping. Mal Peet treats his audience absolutely as adults – there isn’t even really a child character until a good few chapters in, but this doesn’t matter. Lingering so long with Clem’s family before he is even born, Peet makes sure we know Clem’s parents and grandmother as if we’d lived in the same village all our lives – perfectly capturing the familiarity and claustrophobia of a small town and making his reader part of it, too. I loved Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson when I was 16 – and would have been equally delighted by Life: An Exploded Diagram. Very highly recommended.
Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough, Random House, April 2011
“The doors were all bolted and
the windows all pinned
except one little window
where Long Lankin crept in”
Cora and Mimi’s mother has gone missing. Their father can’t manage, so the sisters leave 1950s London to embark on a stay of indefinite length with an aunt they have never met. To most children, this alone would be disturbing. But Cora and Mimi’s arrival in the Essex village of Bryars Guerdon wakes an evil which has haunted the village for centuries. No child is safe, especially not near the abandoned church. But, somehow, Cora and her new friend Roger can’t resist going to the one place they – or more accurately, their little sister and brother – are in the most danger.
This is a truly frightening and haunting book – I read it alone at night with two small children in the house, not the best idea. If I hadn’t been too scared to get out bed, I would have gone around the house making sure all the windows were shut. Yep, it’s really scary. Weirdly, I think I found Long Lankin more gut-wrenching now I have children of my own than I would have done as an older child or teenager. Told alternately by Cora, local boy Roger, and Cora’s haunted, damaged Aunt Ida, the story races to its conclusion, delivering side-swiping doses of pure terror along the way. I could go into more detail about these brilliantly crafted moments, but don’t want to risk spoiling them for a first-time reader. Just watch out, that’s all I’m saying.
I loved Roger: he’s an entertainingly exasperated older brother doing his best to survive in a busy household (and get out of as many chores as possible), bringing a touch of comic lightness to relieve the mounting fear and tension. Cora is a great lead character – bolshy and courageous. I enjoyed the detail of 1950s life, too – the endless washing of clothes by hand as well as the cricket teas. Cora and Roger roam more or less wherever they like, something which I assume has now become rare among children their age. Now I think about it, I’m sure there’s a metaphor here about the wisdom, or not, of trying to keep children helplessly penned in away from danger, with all the windows shut. And being a history geek, I loved this age-old marshland scene with the Norsemen of the Danelaw still evident as shadowy figures evoked by the odd surviving Scandinavian name in the village.
I was intrigued by the book jacket – it looks very adult to me – and led me to wonder what the difference is between a book cover aimed at adults and one directed at teenagers or older children. I don’t know. That said, even though we have Aunt Ida’s input, Cora and Roger’s voices place the book utterly within a child’s world, and this I loved. Long Lankin has the feel of a timeless children’s classic (albeit a really, really scary one). I will be very interested to see what this first-time author produces next.
Popular by Gareth Russell, Penguin (Razorbill imprint), July 2011
“And how are we?”
“Better.”
“Than?”
“Everyone.”
Meredith Harper rules Mount Olivet Grammar School in Belfast with beauty, charm and despotic power, aided by a small tribe of It-girls all equally as beautiful (well nearly) and just as bitchy. Cameron, six feet tall and gorgeous, is part of the clique now that he has conquered an addiction to muffins and lost the puppy fat. Obviously, it all gets complicated, but not in the way you might think. This is a very, very entertaining look at what it takes to be part of the in-crowd, especially if you’re a socialite in Northern Ireland (being featured in Ulster Tatler, for one: “Inside the magazine, Imogen was posing on the Giant’s Causeway in a ball gown, with Anastasia Montmorency beside her. They had both gone for brooding, with the waves crashing over the rocks behind them (…) in a fabulously poetic way.”). It’s an extremely funny book – I laughed a lot and kept reading bits out loud to people, which must have been very annoying but I couldn’t help myself.
Popular has the convincing weight of authenticity – at first, I thought Meredith’s friend Kerry was a caricature, but a few chapters in I started to suspect that the author knows someone exactly like her, so I just went along for the ride. Russell does mercilessly laugh at his characters quite a bit, but he chooses his targets carefully. There’s nothing funny about Meredith Harper. There are serious issues, too, which I won’t go into lest I spoil the plot for you. It’s all very well dealt with, though: nothing is clear cut or black and white, just like life. My one complaint – a small one – is that the only genuinely nice characters are boys. The girls are all pretty morally bankrupt to a greater or lesser extent, which seems a bit unfair (on the boys – why can’t they be amusingly wicked, too, instead of just confused? It looks like so much fun.) This didn’t occur to me till I’d finished the book, and didn’t spoil my enjoyment of it. There’s more to come in this series and I’ll definitely be looking out for the next serving of evil glamour.
Scrivener’s Moon by Philip Reeve, Scholastic Children’s Books, April 2011
I wasn’t intending to do this – review another book by the same publisher immediately after the excellent Blood Red Road (see below), and another dystopian one at that. But I couldn’t help it. It’s honestly not because I used to work at Scholastic, I just couldn’t stop myself from reading the book and wanting to talk about it. I promise the next review will be something very different! Anyway, one of my final tasks as a desk editor there a long, long time ago was reading the first few pages of a new book by Philip Reeve, Fever Crumb. He’d just emailed them in and it was brilliant. And now here we are with Scrivener’s Moon, the third book in a series set in the world of Mortal Engines, several hundred (or thousand?) years before the original series began. I’ve only just started reading fiction for this age group again, so I came to Scrivener’s Moon having missed out on large chunks of background. It doesn’t matter – Reeve doesn’t bash the reader over the head with history, but you’ll still know enough to make sense of what’s going on here. At times not having read the previous books made me feel a bit like I was eavesdropping on a really exciting conversation I couldn’t quite hear, but that just made me want to go back and read Fever Crumb and Web of Air – tempting rather than annoying.
To the book. It’s a race through this post-apolcalyptic disaster of a world, with – essentially – rival tribes battling for resources, and the Engineer heroine, Fever Crumb, desperately trying to uncover a secret hidden in the frozen north. Scrivener’s Moon is a thrilling, breathtaking gallop through an intricately detailed fantasy landscape full of woolly mammoths, bold brave heroines and deadly assassins. We also see the first lurching steps of a moving city. It’s perfect for the intended 10 + age group, including those legions of keen younger readers, of course (well, 10+ is the age group indicated by the publisher – who knows if Philip Reeve writes with age in mind or if he just writes. Anyway).
But Scrivener’s Moon is more than this: it’s also an acutely observed portrait of the human animal with a good splash of frivolity and humour. All is laid bare here: our monstrous greed and consumption, our curiosity and love of invention, our love for chosen others and the damage it can do. It’s all so lightly done, and so funny in places. Amazing. What I like most about Philip Reeve’s writing is his ability to create such wonderfully human characters (or not so human, in some cases). We see inside the minds of his nastiest villains, how vulnerable and horribly scheming they are, and, sadly, how misery and other people’s villainy can turn even the gentlest person into something monstrous, or how a single thoughtless action can make a person simply choose not to be good.
There are big ideas here, deftly woven into a very exciting book, including some which are likely to offend the narrow-minded, but that’s a good thing. And no child who reads Scrivener’s Moon will ever trust a politician, especially not the Mayor of London. It should be required reading for everyone in a position of power. You can’t say that about many children’s books.
Blood Red Road, Moira Young, Marion Lloyd Books at Scholastic, June 2011
I thought I’d start with a first-time author – and anyway, out of my stash so far Blood Red Road by Moira Young has easily the most arresting title and cover: splashes of blood and crows, excellent stuff. I remember a sales director telling me once that a book jacket (front and back) has roughly eight seconds in which to persuade a customer to part with their cash. Scholastic are clearly on the case with this one. No surprise, really – it’s a much anticipated release from Marion Lloyd’s boutique imprint. I couldn’t help but pick up the book: a good start. While I’m on the subject, what a brilliant title: gorily alliterative and totally eye-catching.
Onwards to the book itself. I was totally sucked in by the first line. The main character is called Saba. Saba doesn’t just leap from the page. She grabs you in a threatening fashion around the neck, flawed but still utterly absorbing. Young writes in Saba’s own very non-Queen’s English voice: imagine Huckleberry Finn has turned into a girl, got wasted on cheap whisky and come over just a little bit nasty. Saba is grumpier than someone with a perpetual hangover (justifiably, given the horrible things that happen to her). Luckily, rather than jarring the teeth, this clever use of dialect sets the scene, adding a great splash of rusty, sun-burned colour to an arid landscape of post-massive-nuclear-type-disaster. Make no mistake, sustaining such a singular and unusual voice throughout 500+ pages without annoying the reader is a mark of extreme skill.
So, how on earth to describe this place, Saba’s world? It’s like being trapped inside the set of Mad Max with overtones of Hollywood’s more sinister Westerns. Oceans of sand, dead land. Not enough water. Blood Red Road is a very good book set in a very nasty place that you see, hear, smell and feel through every pore. My favourite character is Saba’s sister, Emmi. Unlike most of the other goodies, Emmi looks, well, a bit rough to be honest, but I love how dogged and brave she is. I’ve got a bad feeling something unpleasant will befall little Emmi that we haven’t been told about just yet (or perhaps I’m reading in too much), but I shall follow her progress through the sequel cheering her on at every step.
Now some quibbling, and I’m reluctant to do it really because I enjoyed the book so much. I quibble here so that you guys trust me to give an honest opinion, warts and all. These warts are small and unobtrusive but here they are. A few things niggled: the baddies are, in my view, a shade too relentlessly horrid. I like my evildoers with a streak of common humanity; it makes their wickedness all the sharper and more tragic. Save one, the baddies are physically hideous as well, almost cartoon-like at points – it’s a tricky issue because we do see the bad guys only through Saba’s eyes and they keep doing dreadful things to Saba and her family. But still. And somewhere around the midway point, the plot hangs on a coincidence which is too convenient. Even though Blood Red Road is a book about predestiny and fate, I lost the thread for a moment: I kind of sat back and thought “Hey, that was a bit easy.” So there they are, warty quibbles all out in the open. Didn’t stop me racing through the book, though.
On reading the first few pages, two thoughts competed immediately for supremacy. “This is going to be an outstanding piece of post-apocalyptic fiction; I’m in the hands of an excellent writer,” followed swiftly by “Have I, to all intents and purposes, read this book before?” I’m a fan of Philip Reeve’s peerless Mortal Engines series and hugely enjoyed Patrick Ness’s The Knife of Never Letting Go, and there are definite similarities here. I read on, unable to stop, swept along by a plot that moves faster than a cracked whip. In answer, Blood Red Road is unmistakably of a type (and why the heck not?), but different enough not to seem derivative. Highly recommended, especially for fans of the genre. Actually, this book will almost certainly introduce new fans to the genre. Definitely an author to watch.
About the blog…
OK, so there are many amazing bloggers out there dealing with what at times must seem like an avalanche of new books published every month, but I’m devoting review-space strictly to my fellow teen/young adult authors. My first parcel has arrived with more to follow from other publishers (at least I hope so, or I’ll be shoplifting in the bookshops of Ludlow). I’ve started working my way through the pile and it’s reminded me how much I love fiction for this age group. Wild imagination, characters you fall in love with, none of the pretentiousness that’s often found in mainstream adult fiction, especially the literary stuff. The point is, you don’t have to be a teenager to love it. Plus the covers don’t usually look childish, so you won’t be embarrassed reading these books on the train if that’s the kind of thing that bugs you.
Here’s what I promise to do in the blog:
* Give a fair and honest appraisal. It’s no secret I’ve worked with/for various people in the publishing world but I’m not going to give someone a good review because of a professional connection.
* Include new/up-coming authors.
* Be constructive. I won’t be mean for the sake of it.
* At times, I’ll try and give a writer’s perspective if I think it might offer an interesting angle on a book. This blog isn’t for the purpose of wiffling on about myself (I’ve got the rest of this website to do that in), but I rent my pen for cash as well and sometimes a technical viewpoint from that side of the fence might be helpful.
Here’s what I swear I won’t do:
* Give away the godforsaken plot. Why do people do this? It drives me to the edge of reason (which isn’t very far, for someone as sleep-deprived as I am, but I digress).
On to the exciting stuff. The books…
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