Early in his life child prodigy Colin fell into a habit that became a defining characteristic - he had an extremely short-lived relationship with a Katherine. Now seventeen, and freshly dumped by his nineteenth and most profoundly meaningful Katherine, Colin faces a turning point. Rapidly reaching the age where 'child prodigy' becomes 'failed to live up to his potential' Colin is obsessed with contributing something meaningful, having a 'Eureka' moment, and perhaps the Katherines can help him. In the break between high school and college Colin and his best friend, Hassan Harbish, take a road trip, wind up in the middle of nowhere, and not only undergo change but help change the lives of those around them.I'm a little conflicted about An Abundance of Katherines - I enjoyed the ride, but had several issues with the believability of several key elements. Central of these is the improbability of anyone, particularly a teenage boy, being both able to have nineteen relationships (albeit some very short-lived), all with girls named Katherine, and yet be so wholly clueless about appropriate human interactions that he closely abuts having an autism-spectrum disorder:
"Do you sometimes feel like a circle missing a piece?" his dad wondered.
"Daddy, I am not a circle. I am a boy."
And his dad's smile faded just a bit - the prodigy could read, but he could not see. And if only Colin had known he was missing a piece,that his inability to see himself in the story of the circle was an unfixable problem, he might have known that the rest of the world would catch up with him as time passed. To borrow from another story he memorized but didn't really get: if only he'd known that the story of the tortoise and the hare is about more than a tortoise and a hare, he might have saved himself considerable trouble.
His parents might also have wanted to work on that a little.
The writing was in places very powerful - on the same page as the extract above, a young Colin is portrayed trying to interact with his peers in a way that made me cringe with the recollection of a similarly socially inept school mate. If only she'd had a Hassan - he lets Colin clearly know when he's veering off into the realm of the dull with a series of "not interesting" interjections whenever Colin pontificates his way into tedium.
I also found increasingly grating on its every encounter the heavy use of 'fug' (as in 'motherfugger' and 'what the fug..'), a word not addressed until midway through the novel, when I was heartily sick of it.
By the last third of the novel I was at the point where the use by Green of specifying gender when Colin and Hassan visited a woman in a retirement home jerked me out of the narrative as much as another 'fug' would have.
I'm quite pleased to have added several new words to my vocabulary, though I suspect it'll be some time before I can use abligurition or sillage, I also found the contemplation about the adult lives of gifted children interesting, though not new - borderline gifted at school myself (enough to get placed in the gifted stream, not enough to be started out there) I was surrounded by pushy-parented prodigies.
Colin has a fascination with anagrams I don't share, and though I suspect those who do enjoyed the sections they appeared in, I skipped over them along with the mathematical formulae that evolves through the text. This last section is also discussed in a mathematical epilogue - it was all way over my head, but there's also a link to a fairly accessible Slate article on actual research on relationship formulae, if you're interested.
Despite these aspects, there was much to enjoy in An Abundance of Katherines, from the premise to the character development and the bizarre but often believable world Green's built; that may be why I was particularly disappointed by the ending, which trailed off. However, I had a similar response to Green's YA novel Paper Towns, so perhaps this is common to his work. - Alex
Eighteen-year-old Quentin has always had a mild crush on his neighbour Margo - once close, their paths diverged when they were eight and discovered the body of a man in a nearby park, for while Q was apprehensive, freaked and concerned about zombies, Margo Roth Spiegleman was invigorated. Ten years later, Margo Roth Speigelman appears at his bedroom window, like she used to, encouraging him to join her on a midnight adventure. There wasn't any question that he wouldn't do what she said, and though Q doesn't really understand most of what they're doing, he has more fun, mixed with more terror, than he can ever remember having before.
The next day Q's convinced that he and Margo Roth Speigelman have a future, of some kind. When she doesn't show at school he figures she's tired from the adventure of the previous night. But Margo's gone.
Paper Towns is in part about Q's search for Margo Roth Spiegelman, but it's also a coming-of-age novel about his search for himself, and his dawning discovery that who people are and our perceptions of them are very different things - a journey in which Walt Whitman's Song of Myself plays an integral role.
There are many things I really enjoyed about Paper Towns, from Q's clueless psychologist parents (who "generally believed that I was the most well-adjusted ... person on the planet, since my psychological well-being was proof of their professional talents") to the epic roadtrip Q, his best friends Radar and Ben, and Margo Roth Spiegelman's former friend Lacey. Mostly, though, I liked the lovely lines and valuable passages strewn through the novel, like Radar's insight that
You know what your problem is, Quentin? You keep expecting people to not be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and never being interested in anything except Margo Roth Spiegelman, and, for, like, never asking me about how it's going with my girlfriend - but I don't give a shit, man, because you're you.
Or the observation that "Talking to a drunk person [when you're sober] was like talking to an extremely happy, severely brain-damaged three-year-old." Or Margo's statement that
That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people would wwant to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfast cereal based on color instead of taste.
Although, as a believer in random capitalisation (because "the rules of capitalisation are so unfair to words in the middle") she and I will forever be at odds.
The title, incidentally, comes from a copyrighting trap of map creators, which is only one of many interesting trivialities Paper Towns furnished me with.
Despite all these elements in its favour, I did close Paper Towns with a slight sense of anticlimax, though a happy-ever-after ending would have run counter to the whole premise of the novel. I suspect that, though I enjoyed the ride, some of that was because the characters, particularly the protagonists, are far more self-aware and perceptive than feels credible, though perhaps I'm just not spending enough time with young adults. I also have a copy of Green's YA novel An Abundance of Katherines, and hope for more joy with that. - Alex
The only mystery Paul Moreaux knows of is a family photograph, taken just before the first World War, before the family moved from Quebec to New England - where his uncle Adelard ought to be was an empty space, which Paul found thought-provoking even if his father thinks Adelard just ducked. Other than that his life seems ordinary enough - he shares a bed with his older and younger brothers and the room with his sisters, his father works at the nearby comb factory and smells always of the flexible but combustible celluloid they use, and his greatest interests are performing and spending time with his Pete. That is until the summer Paul turns thirteen, when everything starts to change. It begins with the return of his aunt Rosanna - his beautiful, flirtatious, mysterious aunt, who has an intoxicating effect of the young boy. It continues with union activity and industrial action at the Monument Comb Shop. But Paul's life really changes when his uncle Adelard returns home, and explains that Paul has inherited the Moreaux family trait, passed from uncle to nephew as far back as they can trace, and kept secret from everyone else - Paul has the ability to become invisible at will, to fade. And though this seemed at first a gift, as Paul begins to see, hear and learn things better kept secret, he wonders if the fade is instead a curse.I really liked, in particular, the idea that something which seems so perfect as controllable invisibility being a bad thing. It all sounds like a great premise, though the concept reminded me more of a William Sleator novel than something by Cormier (better known for edgy but realistic young adult novels). Unfortunately I just couldn't engage with the narrative or Paul. I suspect, as the opening section is titled 'Paul,' that there's at least one other voice in the novel, but I stopped reading just after Adelard reveals the fade, so I can't say for certain. I don't know if this was because the writing seemed laboured, if it's because there's a strong hindsight aspect ("I didn't know it at the time but that was the first time I faded"), if it's because it took about a third of the novel before Paul learned of his ability... whatever it was, for the second time already this week I just couldn't be bothered reading on. And that's a shame given the prestige of the author (whose work I very much enjoyed when I was at school) and the promise of the premise. - Alex
Auden has always known what her parents expect from her – older brother Hollis is wild and untamed, but Auden is reliable and well behaved, academically minded and somber, making no demands on her remarried father and presenting no competition for her flirtatious mother who holds soirees with her (male) undergraduates. When a confluence of events causes Auden to act spontaneously, she finds herself staying with her father, annoyingly buoyant stepmother Heidi, and baby half-sister Thisbe for the summer. In the process she learns more than she thought possible, about her parents, her brother and herself, and about an enigmatic and attractive local boy.
There’s something enchanting about Dressen’s writing – she beautifully captures the voice of adolescent girls and combines this with a relatable but fresh plot that incorporates coming of age with transformation through self-realisation. Auden manages, in the space of a few months, something that many of us never manage – being able to see her parents as individuals, separate from their parental roles, flawed and human, and in the process detach from a lifetime of feeling responsible for them.
I think I could find it easy to glut on Dressen’s work, and am therefore resisting the urge to immediately go out and borrow more novels until I need a lift from a morass of less engaging and uplifting work - Alex
Through a series of anonymous letters we get a glimpse into a year in the life of a high-school boy. We see his struggle to make new friends, deal with family crisis and cope with the intricacies of sex, drugs, violence and death as he establishes his place in the world.
This book has been compared favourably to The Catcher in the Rye and I can certainly see the similarities. This coming of age story is raw, honest and beautifully written.
The main character’s confusion as to what is socially acceptable amongst his peers and his difficulties navigating interpersonal relationships is wonderfully portrayed. His lamenting the loss of that intense delight in simple things as experienced by the very young awakens similar feelings in the reader.
Ever passive, the sense that something is just a little ‘off’ with this character pervades the story. The reveal at the end goes a long way towards explaining how he has become that way and gives the reader hope that he will learn to accept and grow into who he is.
Poignant and powerful, I highly recommend this novel.-Lynn
Courtney, known to the world at large as Ace, is the poster girl for surfing supplier Ocean Pearl. A shoo-in for the team, going to training camp for selection is just a formality – she’s more concerned about her relationship with pro-surfer Tim. All he seems interested in is her body, but who will like her if they’re not together?
Georgie loves surfing, but over the past few months her enthusiasm has waned. Once she aspired to be like her role model, Ace, but now the idea of going to an elite training camp fills her with dread – something about the pressure of competition has taken all the joy of it and left only anxiety.
Georgie’s best friend Kia has a way to deal with her stress, but she can’t tell anyone. Above all she needs to show her father that she’s worthy of his love, but he’s so preoccupied with his best friend’s daughter he doesn’t ever seem to notice his own – Kia’s never met twelve-year-old Micki but she already hates her.
Micki’s been looking forward to the Elite Surfing camp for months, not only because she’ll get to hone her skills but also because she’ll get to meet Reg’s daughter, Kia. She just knows they’ll get along great. She has no idea that Kia will tell their cabin about her mother; it’s a good thing Kia doesn’t know about her dad, too.
This Australian YA novel combines narratives from each of the protagonists to create a story about surfing, competition, friendship and growth. I can see its accessibility for its target audience, and applaud Burke’s portrayal of young women invested in competitive physical activity in a traditionally male arena.
Despite this I couldn’t really get into Starfish Sisters, and not just because I managed to leave a library copy of the book on the tram (and am still hoping a kind person will return it). Perhaps I’m just too old and past the self-oriented angstyness, which I’m sure was a major factor in my missing the allure of the Twilight phenomenon. I just couldn’t get that invested in any of the characters, particularly Kia, who seems to have no redeeming features – she drops her best friend for the famous Ace, goes out of her way to make Kia miserable, and even though she’s tormented and at the end is shown to have the biggest problem of all, by that time she was so unsympathetic I really didn’t care. There’s a sequel, which I borrowed at the same time as borrowing a second copy, but I think I’ll pass on it for now. - Alex
Ed Kennedy spends his life alternating between working as a cabbie and playing cards with his three mates, Marv, who’s blindly loyal to his dilapidated light blue Falcon, Ritchie, who still lives at home with his parents, and the lovely Audrey, who dates losers and is unaware that Ed’s in love with her. When the four friends are caught up in a bank robbery, featuring possibly the world’s most inept criminal, it’s the closest thing to excitement that Ed’s known for a while. The would-be robber’s quickly caught, and Ed testifies against him, despite vows that he’s a dead man for doing so.
From this unpromising beginning arises a mission, one that Ed is conscripted into and afraid not to pursue. Following directions on a series of playing cards, Ed begins to observe a group of strangers, interfering with their lives for the general good. His interference comes at a cost – Ed is threatened, beaten up and terrified, by he feels a sense of purpose long missing from his life. And behind it all is the question – who is orchestrating it all?I really enjoyed the premise, the writing style, the character and voice of Ed, and the comedy laced through The Messenger. As Ed becomes involved in the lives of strangers he becomes more conscious of his own life, and is forced to confront truths about himself, his family and his friends that would otherwise stayed hidden.
However, I was hugely disappointed with the identity of the mastermind behind the whole thing. As a reader I was more interested in the journey than the impetus, and would probably have been relatively uncritical of a plausible, even if far-fetched, answer. Instead Zusak combines fourth-wall breaking, Literary style and a dollop of deus ex machine to create the written equivalent of Dallas's season eight it-was-all-a-dream ending – Ed is a character, the tasks were created by the author, and in the final words of the novel, “I’m not the messenger at all. I’m the message.”
Ick, yuck, moving on. – Alex
Brothers Danny and Elijah Silver used to get along well, despite - or perhaps because of - their seven year age difference. But when Elijah was seven and Danny fourteen something changed between them, and now they live almost completely separate lives - Elijah hangs out with his best friend Cal (who is not his girlfriend), smoking weed, dreaming about life and disarmingly thanking people. Danny wears a suit and tie, is the metaphorical fair-haired boy of Gladner, Gladner et al thanks to his brilliant rescue of the Miss Jane's account, and resents Danny's faultless kindness and laid back attitude. When their parents pull out of a non-refundable trip to Italy, the brothers are forced to take their place. Their parents hope it will bring them closer together, and their parents may be right. Because when Elijah meets Julia he's instantly attracted, and something about her softens the edges of both brothers.I enjoyed reading this YA novel, and particularly liked the memories it conjured up of my own, significantly less eventful, trips to Italy. The tension between the brothers is well portrayed, their characters are clearly distinguished, and the book was pleasant enough. But nothing particularly stood out for me - a little like an unexceptional gelati, perhaps - sweet, inoffensive, a little refreshing, but not piquant or particularly memorable. - Alex
Grace feels stifled by the expectations of her religious father - he's so sure about who she is and what she should do that Grace doesn't feel as though she can object. But when he considers her good behaviour of over two months is insufficient to outweigh breaking her curfew by five minute, causing her father to forbid her to go the the senior concert, Grace is primed for rebellion. Liv, her best friend, convinces Grace to go with her to a college literature class for extra credit Liv badly needs if she's ever going to escape her alcoholic parents. Slipping out part way through for a toilet break, Grace meets Michael - witty, urbane and over a decade older, Michael's a lecturer at the university.When they meet again, by chance, at a coffee shop a brief attraction becomes something different, and Grace loses herself in a relationship with a man who challenges her, attracts her, makes her feel things she never dreamt of, and who offers her a way out. The question she doesn't ask is - into what? MacLean sustains a strong degree of tension throughout How It's Done - Grace is not only torn between the traditions she was raised to respect and new mores Michael confronts her with, but also a growing awareness of her parents' marriage as a distinct entity, and the demands of a friend who expects favours Grace is uncomfortable asking for. I found elements of How It's Done reminded me of Twilight, primarily the concept of a love-starved, insecure adolescent girl who, despite the protests of her family, is bewitched by an attractive, attentive older man with a dark side. MacLean manages to illustrate some of the concerns I had with that series here. Michael is not a blatantly bad person - he doesn't beat Grace or abuse her, but his motives are complex and he's not entirely honest. However, my recollections of my reading experience are strongly overshadowed by a list of twenty discussion questions at the end of the novel. While I can see the need for analysis when a book is read for English literature class, or for a book group that's unable to come up with their own questions, or a texturally deep novel that has sold widely and that demands deeper analysis, in this case it came off to me as presumptuous and annoying. The questions weren't particularly insightful ("How are Grace's father and Michael the same or different?"), and I didn't think there was enough going on below the surface to warrant the inclusion of the questions. I am not, I acknowledge, the likely target audience of this YA novel, but it still rankled. If you decide to read it, consider stopping at the novel's end. - Alex
Sammie was happy with her life in Thornbury - her mum was cooler than most of the other mothers, she had a best friend and could slide along at school without any worries. But when her grandmother died and her Dodi came from Bosnia to live in Melbourne everything changed. She went back to being Sabiha, they moved to St Albans to be closer to family and the Bosnian community, and all of a sudden she had to start acting in accordance with community standards. Irritated by her mother's attempts at finding a suitable boyfriend, frustrated by the close supervision of a neighbourhood where everyone knows your business and reports to your family, and disappointed at the disintegration of her friendship with Kathleen, Sabiha's fifteenth year is not a happy one, and it's all the fault of her stupid grandfather. Pajalic fits a lot into this YA novel about identity and discovery. All the secondary characters have secrets and back stories that Sabiha is unaware of when the novel opens, predominantly dealing with betrayal and forbidden loves of all kinds. The reflection of how the dissolution of communism in Yugoslavia changed the cultural norms and identity of Bosnians is interesting, and I liked the way this tension was differently portrayed across the generations.For the most part Pajalic does a credible job of working this and other background unobtrusively into the text, and Sabiha's own lack of familiarity with her faith allows a degree of explanation that isn't slab-like exposition. That said, I did find the first section, where Sabiha explains why, though they're Muslim, Bosnian women don't wear hijabs and the men are neither turbaned nor bearded, a little forced.From time to time there are nice turns of phrase, like "Now I had all this Bosnian baggage to drag around and I didn't know how to carry it." I also really liked a discussion between Dido and Sabiha's mother, Bahra, about conventional medicine versus faith healing:"Have you been taking your tablets?" Dido asked.
"I don't need them any more." She smoothed her skirt.
"Why?"
"All I need is to pray."
"If you don't take your tablets you'll get sick," Dido said gently.
Mum shook her head vehemently. "I pray to Allah and I won't get sick."
"And Allah hears your prayers, but he created medicine so it helps you."
Much of Sabiha's angst is due to her forays into the world of dating, as she finds herself attracted to several boys but indecisive and unsure. Her attitude to male/female relationships is coloured by her mother's experiences as both an abandoned wife and as a sinner (at least in the eye of the community, for she dated several Bosnian men and lived with an Australian), and also by being molested a few years earlier by one of Bahra's male friends. The effects of this traumatic experience, as well as the distress caused by Bahra's illness when she was younger (and Sabiha's subsequent surveillance care taking) are well done.Despite my concerns that this might be jumping on the band wagon of recent young-Muslim-women-growing-up-in-the-West novels, The Good Daughter is readable, the coming-of-age plot is fresh, and the secondary plots are relatively substantive. There were a few loose ends (the severing of Bahra's relationship with her former closest friend is never well explained), but I'm not a fan of every little detail being accounted for, so that wasn't a problem.Yet for some reason The Good Daughter felt flat to me. While not everything was wrapped up, there is a markedly last minute transformation, as in the space of a few pages Sabiha becomes sensitive to the needs and concerns of her mother, her grandfather, her friend Brian, her cousin Dina... that seemed a little abrupt. That doesn't account for my lack of enthusiasm throughout, though. After much thinking about why, I think it's because Sabiha is not particularly sympathetic. Though self-centredness is typical for teens, Sabiha almost never sees anything except in relation to its effects on her. She seems sulky, moody and inflexible, and as the novel is told in first person this is something of an achievement by the author. The Good Daughter is certainly accessible to a wider audience, and I'm interested to see what she writes next. - Alex
Michelle didn’t even like Kevin that much but when she fell pregnant there was no option but to marry him, trapping her for life in the small Victorian town she’d longed to escape. Her life was over at age seventeen. Until, propelled by a spurt of bravery and in the midst of their engagement party, Michelle found the strength to run away.Mick knew better than to get involved in a stranger’s problems but the girl looked frozen, waiting at the petrol station before dawn, and his recent sentence meant he could read the intentions of the pair of guys in the flash car who offered her a lift. Almost despite himself, Mick found himself offering her a ride, and as they travelled north, through Australia’s landscape – virtually barren to Michelle’s eyes and filled with the richness of home to Mick’s – they got to know one another.
Published in 1993, Cross My Heart has been sitting on my too-be-read shelves through three house moves and I only got to it now because I took backlogged books away with me. It's a very Australian YA novel that could have been set nowhere else. There are loving descriptions of the land and of outback culture, and though it's set against the backdrop of the great drought, Australia's current big dry and the lack of pop culture and tech references means the novel isn't dated despite its age.
I was initially not particularly impressed with the novel, which is not particularly showy or dramatic, despite some really significant themes. But, like the landscape it describes, there are nuances and details that are missed if you don't take the time to look properly. The characters throughout are well rounded, the dialogue rings true, and there's a realistic amount of vernacular without knocking you over the head with signposts saying "we're in Australia, mate - too right!" The plot unfolds gently, and nothing stood out enough for me to note it while reading, but I ended with a mildly optimistic feeling and a little homesickness, not just for home but for the outback and rural Australia - Alex
I just wrote a long and detailed review of this novel and my thoughts about it. Unfortunately the internet seems to have eaten it and I couldn’t be arsed rewriting. So in essence:
After the suspicious death of their mother two young girls flee Prague in fear for their lives. They seek sanctuary with an estranged uncle in Australia.
Life in 1920’s Sydney is very different to their privileged upbringing in Europe but the two talented young women grasp every opportunity that comes their way. They eventually make a name for themselves in the local film industry but success doesn’t necessarily equal safety or happiness.
Basically they overcome the many tragedies of their lives, past and present and we are left with hopefulness for their futures-though a happy ever after isn’t explicitly spelled out.
I was attracted to this book by the gothic sounding plot and the 1920’s setting. Neither played a great part in the story, which was more of a coming of age/family saga kind of tale.
Though this is not the kind of story that I would normally read I found it to be nicely written.
My initial review was somewhat more erudite but since it’s gone for good, this condensed version will have to do.-Lynn
In eighteenth century England a young woman whose mother died in childbirth is raised by her reclusive father on his isolated estate. An avid student of Isaac Newton, the man aims to turn his daughter into a brilliant natural philosopher and alchemist. She is excessively intelligent and focussed, fulfilling all of his hopes for her until one fateful summer when she meets and falls in love with a charming young merchant. For the first time in her life she lets her heart rule her head-a decision that results in her being thrust into a society her sheltered upbringing has done nothing to prepare her for.
As she, at times, painfully, learns the ways of the world she also discovers that the quiet life she led with her father, the pivot upon which her life turned, was not all she believed it to be.
It is only when dealing with the aftermath of this shattering revelation that she learns to see the world as it is and to forge herself a place in it she can be truly proud of.
I was attracted to this book by its beautiful cover art, always a risk-you know the proverb-but in this case one that paid off.
This is a coming of age story that gently unfolds in an almost languid manner. Though the behaviour of a few of the secondary characters seemed questionable at times, the naivety of the heroine and her subsequent response to the events of the book are entirely believable. Some of the twists and turns of the plot were transparent; others came as a complete surprise, more so because of the obvious routes that had at times been taken. The author manages to convey the period very well with a light touch and to avoid hiding the harsher side of the era.
The ending offers hope for the heroine’s future happiness without explicitly detailing exactly where that happiness, or future, may lie. It felt a fitting end. The story was just lovely but has left me in no fervour to seek out others of the author’s works. -Lynn
Babylonne is accustomed to her life, such as it is - the motherless bastard child of a priest and a heretic, she's been raised by her aunt and grandmother with Cathar beliefs, key among which is that the world is intrinsically evil and a product of Satan. Anything resulting from copulation (including all animals, eggs, and milk) is tainted, and the only way to salvation is being a Perfect. Fish, fortunately, appear spontaneously in the water or there'd be precious little to eat. As the by-product of rape, by a Roman priest no less, Babylonne is the lowest member of their household. Chastised, punished and essentially in servitude, the last straw comes when Babylonne learns she is to be wed to a senile geriatric mortally afraid of the giant olives that bounce around his bed.
She escapes the only family she's ever known to work for the exiled faidit lords who oppose the current regime. Life there could only be better than the miserable existence that awaits her here. By chance she stumbles upon a priest who she'd previously had a run in with, on his way south. The priest is Isidore, last seen in Pagan's Scribe, who recognises her as Pagan Kidrouk's daughter. In mourning for his beloved master, Isidore
Babylonne is considerably more sheltered for her age than either Pagan or Isidore were, and (perhaps because of this or her gender) less intellectual and contemplative. The dynamic that runs through the rest of the series, or a younger acolyte initially dismissing and eventually revering an older father figure, continues, as do the snarky silent asides that made the first four books such a delight.
The key themes of the series - politics, religion, education, friendship, courage, personal growth, persecution, tolerance - are echoed in Pagan's Daughter but are less strongly present than in its predecessors, and some of the passion is absent.
Rather than a failing, though, I found this difference interesting. There's much more emphasis, particularly at the beginning, on upbringing and family, which I think reflects not only Babylonne's markedly different childhood (both Pagan and Isidore were involved with the Church) but her gender.
As with the rest of the series Jinks creates a strong sense of place, seamlessly imbuing the text with historical detail. The siege and crusade scenes are vivid and distressing, and the real presence religion had in the lives of the people and in the sequence of world events (albeit often as a pretext) is confronting for a secular reader in 21st century Australia.
I didn't warm to Babylonne as much as Pagan, who is the true heart of the quintology, but I appreciated the idea of some continuity after the epilogue of Pagan's Scribe. - Alex
For Berry Jackson Pinetta, Florida is the world - it's the only home she's known, a town where the weather moves from hot to really hot, where snakes and quicksand await the unwary, and where the Methodists and the Baptists compete every Sunday for the most cars in the parking lot and the loudest hymn singing.Nothing much ever happens in Pinetta, at least as far as Berry can see. Even after a shock revelation about Jewell Longmont (wife of the wealthiest man in town) and the Methodist preacher, Berry's thirteenth summer is fairly uneventful. That is until the tornado that blows half the town away, and - one way or another - takes Berry's daddy away as well.Kincaid's ability to convey truths to the reader without revealing them to Berry is masterful, and she beautifully conveys a sense of time and place. A great book to read in winter, I imagine the descriptions of the unrelenting heat would make summer reading of As Hot as it Was close to unbearable. The title, incidentally, is her mother Ruth's response when Berry asks her how she could allow Berry to wander around topless as a toddler and small child.Yet somehow I didn't connect with the book or its characters. While I felt a certain mild interest in discovering what happened to femme fatale Rennie, and to Ford (Berry's school principal father), and was interested in the revelation that all was not as it seemed reguading the affair, it never rose above mild interest. The novel comes with an annotated list of books Kincaid has found life changing, the reading of which contributed to her ability to write the novel, along with readers' group guidelines. When I discovered these I realised that that was part of what had been bothering me - As Hot as it Was has a foundation of would-be literary classic woven through it. The emphasis on religion and tolerance, acceptance and disapproval, the contrast between Berry and her wider community, the neighbour boy who dresses in his sisters' clothes... it's all there not for the purposes of the story itself but for textual dissection and literarty merit. I'm not a particularly astute reader, and literary elements often pass over my head. I believe, on reflection, that what bothered me about As Hot as it Was were these additions. Kincaid has tried to create another To Kill a Mockingbird, with a small town female pre-teen protagonist observing events that she doesn't fully understand but sees more clearly than many of the adults around her. I disagree with the jacket reviewer that Harper Lee would claim this novel as her own, but can see where they were coming from. A week after I read it I'm still not sure how I feel about As Hot as it Was You Ought to Thank Me (though I'm happy I won't ever have to type the title again). I was invested and interested enough to finish it, but I had no sense of satisfaction on doing so. - Alex
Heather has learned to be as unobtrusive as possible – that way she’s less likely to attract her tyrannical father’s attention – so she’s not surprised when most people at the bank where she now works tend not to notice her. When her boss suggests that she may actually be able to become invisible at will and, like her, be a witch, Heather is taken aback but rapidly becomes involved with the small coven associated with the bank. All goes well until Heather discovers that, even when she’s deliberately being invisible, a strikingly handsome computer tech can see her – Jasper’s attractive, and seems interested, but shortly after he fixes her computer Heather starts having blackouts. Is Jasper as benign as he seems?
I can’t tell how much of my disenchantment with Witch Bank comes from the dated elements (inevitable when technology plays a significant role in a book nearly fifteen years old) and how much is due to actual flaws in the text. Either way I found myself not particularly invested in the story or the outcome. Unlike Jinks’s Pagan series, Witch Bank lacks wit and humour, and though Heather grows by the end of the novel and I finally able to stand up to her dad, the other characters are significantly less well defined. Jasper in particular remains something of a cipher, which is unfortunate given the pivotal role he plays in plot development. - Alex
It's some twenty years since we last met Pagan Kidrouk, once squire to a Knight Templar and now Archdeacon of Carcassone. When his scribe Julien is taken ill, Pagan nabs Isidor, parish clerk of Merioc, in his place. Initially stunned and more than a little intimidated, it doesn't take bookish Isidore long to realise his good fiortune - here is a man who also loves books and intellectual pursuits, for all that he is intimidating. Unfortunately for Isidore, it's 1209 - the year that the Church decided to crusade south, toward Isidore's country, and root out the Cathar heretics. The crusaders are something less than picky about who actually gets killed, provided it's all int he name of religious might and right, and Isidore soon discovers more about the way the world works than he imagined possible.In the first three books of the Pagan Kidrouk series Pagan's was the voice heard; in Pagan's Scribe the roles are reversed - Pagan is the one intially feared then revered by a younger, intelligent and intellectual man. The key themes of the series - intellect versus instinct, piety versus realism, honour, faith and love - are clearly but subtly articulated, and the historical detail is closely woven into the plot wihtout any of the "I researched this" hallmarks of lesser writers.Pagan's Scribe concludes with an epilogue that is both satisfying and sad, both because it described the death of Pagan but also because of the revelation of the length of time encompassed by this wave of the crusades. Anyone convinced that military might in the name of religious righteousness is a good would do well to read this engaging and deeply rewarding series. It's so neatly wound up that I was surprised, but also pleased, to learn that there's a fifth book in the series, which I'll undoubtably read any day now. - Alex
Clary Fray’s been through a lot – in the space of just weeks she has gone from being the only child of a single mother to discovering a brother (Jace, to whom she’s strongly attracted), a father (Valentine, who tried to bring about mass destruction), and learned that she’s a Shadowhunter. Her mother’s still in a coma, and the threat of her father is unabated but the Clave’s Inquisitor is focused on Jace – her stubborn refusal, grounded in her grief and loss, to accept that Jace is working for the Clave and not for Valentine puts the entire Clave, not to mention the Downworlder population (fey, Children of the Night, Children of the Moon and others), at risk. It falls to Clary and her best friend, mortal Simon, to save them.
I thoroughly enjoyed City of Bones, the first in the Mortal Instruments series, and City of Ashes (which deals with Valentine’s theft of Maellartach, the Mortal Sword with which the Angel drove Adam and Eve out of Eden) is as strong. There’s significant world building, well integrated into the plot, which is complicated but doesn’t stretch disbelief. The dialogue is smooth and (even considering the subject matter) naturalistic, and the paranormal beings are drawn both in harmony with convention and yet wholly unstereotypically.
The series is driven by characterisation and relationships, which are beautifully designed; the sub-plots involving Simon and Clary, Clary and Jace’s mutual but forbidden attraction, and the relationship between Alec and warlock Magnus were particular highlights, but Jace’s relationship with his foster mother, and the slow devolution of Imogen (the Inquisitor), driven by her own unacknowledged bias, are also notable.
City of Ashes is only the second high demand book I’ve borrowed from my library, and I can see why it’s so popular. It’s going to be a long wait for the concluding novel, City of Glass, but I can wait. Just. - Alex
There aren’t many options available for orphan boys living in Jerusalem in the 12th century – when Pagan runs away from the monastery that raised him since he was abandoned on its doorstep as a newborn, he lives by his wits on the streets for several years, before joining the Crusade as squire to Templar Knight Sir Roland Roucy de Bam.
Jinks has done a magnificent job with this, the first is a series. Not only is the setting extraordinarily vivid, artfully laden with well-researched and well-integrated details, but the character of Pagan is magnificent. His wry internal dialogue, veering strongly toward the sarcastic, is genuinely funny, his observations of the world and events around his piquant, and his modesty combined with hero worship of Lord Roland is endearing.
I admit to being a little thrown by Pagan’s frequent curse of Christ in a cream cheese sauce (was cream cheese popular then?), but his careless blasphemy in the midst of great piety (often coupled, particularly in the case of pilgrims, with great stupidity) is beautifully contrast, and the rarity of his learning subtley highlighted. This is a series I look froward to completing with joy. - Alex.
Wrenched from Sydney and her friends in the aftermath of her father ending his marriage to live with the Slut, Rochelle has to adjust to living in Melbourne with her mother, who doesn’t want to talk about him or anything much except her new social work course. Rochelle’s already going to be a couple of days late for the first day at her new school, and when her tram reaches the private girls’ school something makes her turn around and explore the city instead. Her mother’s too absorbed in her own classes to even shop for food, let alone ask Rochelle anything more than the most generic questions about school, her mobile’s broken, and her best friends back home haven’t even written to see how she is. So Rochelle takes a holiday and browses the funky shops of Smith and Brunswick streets, then gets a part-time job at a fairy tale bookshop. As she learns more about mythology and folklore, and discovers that there’s a tale that fits everyone she meets, Rochelle starts to make sense of her new life. Until that, too, starts to fall apart.
Dancing on Knives is told a little as a fairytale itself - each section opens with a scene and a new notebook, through which Rochelle’s story unfurls. The title comes from the original version of the Little Mermaid, which she learns is significantly different that the Disney film, though its significance isn’t clear to Rochelle until the end. In the meantime she begins to discover who she is in her own right, and what she wants.
This is a rewarding coming of age tale that beautiful combines a rich background of myth, folk and fairy tale with a contemporary setting. The Melbourne details are real and vibrant without being obvious, and I thought Rochelle was a convincing character whose journey was absorbing and interesting. - Alex
