Category Archives: Fiction

Review: Katherine Paterson – Bridge to Terabithia

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Bridge to Terabithia
Katherine Paterson
Jess and Leslie are making their own secret world, where no one else can find them. It’s perfect for them, where they can escape from their problems. It is marred though as the outside world demands more of their attention. I feel like this doesn’t capture the book’s essence at all – if you’re curious (and feel up to being immersed in a childish consciousness) read it yourself! Hit the jump for more…

821162Paterson captures the childish pleasure in playing with your friends beautfiully. She paints Jess sympathetically, and I feel like she really remembers what it was like to be a child. Jess’s drawing is something that makes him unique, and you find yourself longing for him to be successful, and be able to break out of the rut of his life.

The language used by Paterson paints a beautiful picture and it is possible to imagine everything in your head. The words used by Jess typify a poorer country setting, and give the reader instant insight into what he thinks in his head. Jess realizes his insufficient grasp of English, but is unable to improve it. It’s something that you hope he will be able to improve in the future. He knows so little about everything, he isn’t well read.
I felt like the school was perhaps a little large for the area, but the very crowded classes typical of a school that brings a huge area together rang true. Also, it is distinctly American, and Australian children are unlikely to understand the importance of visiting Washington. It’s not a perfect book, but younger readers aren’t going to be able to analyse it in the same way I do either.
When I read this book for the first time in primary school I cried at the ending, and was disturbed for days. I couldn’t believe it had happened. I think it touched me so much because I come from a rural background, and so I could empathize with everything that was going on and relate it to my own childhood. Instead of being ripped away from the city, I was removed for the country, but reading this books brings back so many memories!
I believe that this has now been made into a film, but I haven’t seen it. I probably don’t want to either, as I usually find I hate the movies of books. I would be so sad if they wreaked the perfect storyline and didn’t keep the secret country as I expected it to be.
I’d recommend this book for children, and advise parental supervision and comforting if required. The ending is so sad!

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Review: Julie Anne Peters – Luna

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Luna
Julie Anne Peters
‘Luna’ tugs at your heartstrings. It is told from the perspective of Regan, Luna/Liam’s younger sister. Luna longs to transition into being a girl full-time, yet society and her family doesn’t seem ready. In the end, Luna must do what is best for her, and so leave life open for Regan. Hit the jump for more…

 

316445Regan feels like Luna is sucking the life out of her own life. Luna is a girl born in a boy’s body. Regan has been covering for her sister for years, and yet no-one else seems to notice or care – they just think Luna is gay. In the end Regan is able to accept that Liam/Luna is different, but different is good and normal in a way.
Peters uses flashbacks wonderfully to enrich the narrative. I loved seeing just a little bit more about how Luna has been different from the start, it’s not something she has grown into. The novel tries to abolish the myth that being trans is something that people ‘choose’, when this isn’t the case at all.
I love this book. It’s a wonderful, non-threatening introduction to transsexual lifestyles. I wouldn’t say it was representative of what trans-people go through, and as it is told by the sister instead of Luna the impact is less. This makes it less confusing and confronting for the reader.
The ending leave you longing for more, but at the same time satisfied. The cover of the book is well worked in with the text (or the other way around). It’s pure craftsmanship! I felt like the butterfly had so little to do with the story, but really it does. Luna must emerge from her nighttime wanderings into the light of day to find her true self.
‘Luna’ is great reading, it should open the mind of any teenager reader. It’s written sympathetically, just like the rest of Peter’s works. Any teenager should read this, and maybe some adults too in order to open their minds. At the back of the novel are some questions for broadening discussions in a high school class setting, which are probably also worth thinking about.
I will be sure to review the rest of Peter’s novels! I have almost all of them on my shelves (which I just built more of) but am missing some of the most recent hard copy ones. They are all equally heartrending and painful, yet great reading at the same time.

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Review: Christopher Paolini – Inheritance

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Inheritance
Christopher Paolini

‘Inheritance’ is the thrilling, gripping conclusion to the Inheritance Cycle. Paolini has crafted a beautiful narrative that keeps you reading until the very end. Entirely readable, very enjoyable and an almost satisfying ending! Hit the jump for more…

7664041Once again, Paolini has started to play around with the narration. At points in the novel, I found myself wanting to skip ahead to the next part where Roran spoke. In the first half of the book, he’s definitely doing a lot more exciting things than dear old Eragon. Eragon’s role does get more significant though, as indeed it must.

Initially I felt some frustration with Eragon. Him and his damn lighting up sword! Also, he still doesn’t seem to have caught on about thinking ahead. With the great golden dragon teaching him, he’s getting there, but why didn’t he just do all his learning earlier!? There are so few things he knows, and some he forgets too!

Angela and Elvi continue to be enigmas, and it’s very interesting to see Paolini gradually exposing their characters. He’s managed to fit in a lot of plot twists, and as soon as your heart has died from one trick or another, he restarts it with another shock.

The book is very readable, and I got through the first half in around 2 days of evening only reading. Annoyingly enough, I don’t let myself take it to uni with me as otherwise I find that I’ll read instead of doing work! It frustrated me all day that I couldn’t read it.

The ending is great. Even after the final battle, I felt compelled to keep reading past my bedtime. It was a relatively satisfying ending, although there are still mysteries left over. In the Afterword, Paolini says he will return to the world of Eragon for sure. I won’t be holding my breath, but I’d personally love to see first hand the showdown of Brom and Morzan, or perhaps the original time of the elves.

While I’ve tagged this for teenagers, I think this is a series that would appeal to all age groups, provided that you can get past the slightly immature writing style of the first book. This novel is a great conclusion to the series. It may lack in depth for adult readers, and skirt on the edges of too much blood-shed for children in other books, but it’s a great series overall.

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Review: Brent Runyon – Surface Tension

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Surface Tension
Brent Runyon
This is a novel of 4 summers, describing Luke’s life from 14 to 16 years, just in the summers he spends at his parents beach house. Runyon shows great control and understanding of the teenage mind, and it is as if you are stepping literally between the summers.
4418262I won’t waste your time with a synopsis, I’m sure you can find plenty of better ones on the internet. Basically, Luke spends every summer with his parents by a lake. Their neighbours come and go, but there are always some of the same feelings for Luke. Luke must change with his surroundings or be changed by them.
The thing that stood out most for me was not the growing attraction of Luke towards girls (which is there, and in some places kind of explicitly described), but how he seems to always hurt himself. It is striking that in the last summer of this book, he is able to save someone else, and this marks the turning point of his character. Finally he is growing up, and will get to be a respectable adult. 16 years seems a little late for this to me, when I think of my partner, but then I remember the maturity levels of my highschool years and I think that the males encapsulated in this book are remarkably well described.
The pace is fast, and this makes me feel that this is an ideal book for teens, particularly males. Runyon again produces a novel that makes you feel close to the protagonist. It’s amazing how he can get inside Luke’s mind. If I didn’t know better, I would have said he was writing each section from a diary of his own thoughts! The progression of the character is amazing.
While the novel is somewhat disappointing if you were looking for the depth of feeling that is present in Runyon’s semi-autobiography ‘The Burn Journals’, it’s perfectly acceptable as a novel in its own right. It is an easy read. It doesn’t really feel complete, and I feel myself longing to know more, but I know that that is unlikely to happen.
Runyon is a great author for boys who might be afraid of romancy type books. That’s not to say it isn’t suitable for teenage girls, but they are less likely to sympathize with Luke. Luke is about as typical teenage male as you can get. I have recommended it to mothers who have sons that hate fantasy. It’s angsty, but not too confronting.

Please note that on the image I have included there is a giant white blob. But that’s not there on the book’s cover in real life. It’s a nice simple cover, which I really thought suited the book, and it fits in with the rest of his books, which I will get to reviewing soon!

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Review: Peter Carey – The True History of the Kelly Gang

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The True History of the Kelly Gang
Peter Carey

This novel is metafictional – Carey has taken the facts and then changed them to suit the story if it had really happened. Instead of Ned Kelly being an unforgivable highway robber, he is a painted more as a lovable modern day Robin Hood in a way. He is set on the pathway to criminality by his mother, trying to support a huge family of Irish children with no support from Ned’s father.
110090The language of this book is hard to get into, as Carey attempts to capture the language of Ned Kelly back in the early days of Australian history. The novel is sectioned according to where Ned’s correspondence comes from. As always, Carey’s writing challenges conventions.

This book is relevant to anyone who has an interest in Ned Kelly. Sure, you aren’t going to get historical facts out of it, but if you have someone who hates Australian literature (and for good reason!) or don’t know very much about our ‘national icon’, then this is a great book to introduce them to it.

This isn’t a novel I would read of my own volition, this was yet another literature text. It was one of the more enjoyable ones to read, surprisingly since it was Australian literature! However, the language usage, although ‘authentic’, was very offputting for me.

If you had to pick a Peter Carey to read out of this and Collected Stories, I’d pick this one over it. Collected Stories gives you a nice variety, but it’s all very deep and meaningful. The Kelly Gang is slightly more lighthearted, and infinitely easier reading.

It is very sensitively written, and doesn’t contain any swearing, though of course Ned comes up with his own adjectival curses! It’s likely suitable for teens, and certainly for adults.

As with many books for my literature classes, I didn’t purchase this book, rather I borrowed it from my local library. I don’t think I would reread for pleasure, although others may feel differently.

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Review: Honoré de Balzac – Pere Goriot

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Pere Goriot
Honoré de Balzac

‘Pere Goriot’, or Old Father Goriot, is a realist text which is difficult initially to understand and read. There are a number of characters, including Goriot himself and the irredeemable Rastignac, who focalize the novel. This novel is translated from French. If you want an in-depth experience of ‘real’ Paris, this will be good for you. Hit the jump for more details…

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The first 100 or so pages of the novel are impossible to get into. It is all just setting the scene for the ‘action’. If you persevere, you will find some more satisfying plot developments, but nothing that really shouts at you to read on. In the end, I found myself reading just to see what would happen to poor old Goriot, who got the death I expected.

If you do suddenly find yourself attached to any of the characters, this novel is part of a set ‘The Human Comedy’. Balzac made it his mission to catalog the entirety of Parisian society, and most of this is contained within his published works. Balzac died before he completed it, but this is a project that I feel he probably never would have been satisfied with .

This novel is a great example of realism! There is a heavy focus on detailed settings, as if you are really walking the streets of Paris. A number of the characters seem like placeholders, while others are fully fleshed out. I don’t think anyone feels real emotion for the characters, for everything is already set out for them. They seem to not try escape their sorry lot, and Rastignac in particular is quite a repugnant person.

This is not something I would enjoy reading for pleasure. As a text in a literature degree, it was a good one to study though, as it was filled with details that I could use for analysis. My version has a set of essays in the second half of the book, which was interesting and useful reading. It is good to know some historical background before setting out into the book.

Keep in mind that this is translated from French, so each translator may potentially put a different spin on things. Also, if you’re going to buy it online, make sure to get the English version!

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Review: Christopher Lee – Turning the Century – Writing of the 1890s

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Turning the Century – Writing of the 1890s
Christopher Lee (editor)

‘Turning the Century’ is a relatively comprehensive collection of Australian authors and poets that were writing, surprisingly enough, in the 1890s. This period of time was rich in Australian literature, and played a huge part in the development of Australia. Hit the jump for more details…

4658255This is another book in keeping with my literature major, and it’s not something I would normally read. I haven’t read all the stories and poems in the collection, and I probably never will. That being said, some of the things I have read are great examples of their type. If you want to read a really good compendium of works from this timeperiod, concerning the imminent Federation of Australia, go for it!

Christopher Lee has left out some great short stories according to my study guide, as these were included in a reader associated with the unit. However, if you suddenly discover you love one of the authors of this collection in particular, you will find that many of the works are free online. I found this somewhat irritating once I had bought the book (it was a little expensive compared to my usual mass market paperback purchases).

Poetry is not normally my type of thing, and the works contained in this book are no exception to that. I have written an essay on ‘The Man from Snowy River’ and ‘The Women of the West’, and analysing those two works was quite easy, compared to some of the more obtuse poetry in the book.

This probably fits a niche market – those who love Australian literature, and those that have to study it for a major! Also, some of the poems have great rhythm, so if you’re looking to become a poet, I’d suggest perhaps looking at some of these, particularly ‘The Man from Snowy River’, if you haven’t before for some inspiration and a great example of style.

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Review: Miles Franklin – My Brilliant Career

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My Brilliant Career
Miles Franklin
Sybylla is going to have a brilliant career… in doing nothing. Out in the Australian Bush, and even in town, it’s obvious that Sybylla doesn’t belong. This is a prime example of early Australian literature, and it’s worth a read if you like that type of thing, or the poetry of the 1890s isn’t for you. Hit the jump for more…

For years I didn’t know that Miles Franklin was a woman. Upon now reading it, it’s obvious that it is! She says it’s not romantic, but in a way it is. Sybylla is lovable, in an irritating sort of way. The foreword by Henry Lawson is rather masculine, and I”m not sure it’s really in keeping with the book, but it does display the attitudes of men towards women’s writing at the time.

Before I started reading, I knew the ending because I had already read some references on the topic (hello essay topic of mateship). So I knew it was doomed from the start! I still persevered though, and in the end I was reading past my bed time because I wanted to see what the stupid Sybylla would do! There is a sequel to this book (‘My Career Goes Bung’), which I don’t think I’ll bother reading (although I am somewhat curious).
Australian fiction doesn’t do anything for me. Certainly not Australian fiction from the literary period of the 1890s. I’m sure there are better examples of Australian fiction, and I do enjoy some Australian fantasy, but novels of mateship and the hardships of the Bush don’t seem to do anything for me. UnAustralian of me, I know, I know. 
I can understand why I am set to study it, because it is a relatively good example of its kind. And it is extremely well known. This is rather reminicent of the writings of Jane Austin, which I also didn’t enjoy. However, if you enjoy fiction in the style of Austin, and don’t mind a bit of Australian slang, this is a good book to get right into it. The language isn’t particularly hard, as long as you understand the Australianisms.

I feel like I’ve given you a list of reasons not to read it, and very little on the good aspects of the book. For a first novel by an early Australian writer, it’s not that bad. The settings are well described, and you can understand the relationships of Sybylla with her family nicely. There is little action, but what there is is quite good. Sybylla seems to get into trouble over everything! And there is certainly no ‘Brilliant Career’ to speak of.

My copy was from the library, and the version of it had a surprising number of typos. Not unreadable, just that the editors seemed not to take any care. Or perhaps it was left over from the original manuscript – whatever, it was just a shame. That was reflected in the boring cover you see in the above image. The book is obviously riding on its reputation as a classic, not looking to pull readers on the basis of looks or story line alone.

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Review: Christopher Paolini – Brisingr

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Brisingr
Christopher Paolini
Brisingr continues the tale of Eragon and Roran, cousins that pit their strength to overcome the evil king. Eragon must atone for past wrongs, and Roran must fight past his misgivings. It’s a thrilling book that is going to keep you wanting to read, even if you aren’t convinced that the Varden should be winning. Hit the jump for more…

2248573This is another one of those ‘it was a trilogy but it became a four book set’, but it’s ok, because I didn’t go into it thinking it would be the conclusion! All the same, it’s a breathtaking ending that has you worrying for Arya and Eragon alike. It seems like Paolini crammed in as much as he could.

It’s interesting to finally have some insight into Saphira’s consciousness, and it is obvious why Paolini has done this. I can’t really tell you more about spoilers, but for Riders and their dragons, death is not really the end.
Paolini covers a lot of ground in the book, which is very satisfying. The dwarves crown a new King, Roran gets around to marrying Katerina, the Razac are finally killed. Eragon struggles to find a new sword, and to find himself. Others get a chance to change their own true names.
I can’t say that Paolini really changes the style of his writing, nor could I want him to. What he writes in compelling, but also easily accessible. I occasionally found myself frustrated by the repetition of seemingly meaningless details – what’s Eragon eating this time? Oh, fruit again… The characterisation is great, and there is more focus on that rather than the endless landscapes that Eragon and Roran find themselves traversing. I don’t find the shifts between consciousness jarring, which is something that not all authors can do.
In my own heart of hearts, I hope Roran gets to bond with the last dragon for himself, but I think it is more likely that his son or daughter will get the chance. Roran already has Katrina, and there isn’t room for more love in that heart. I can still hope!
I’m waiting to get the fourth book, it’s currently at my partner’s house, and I want it now! But no, I’ll have to wait, and it’s probably a good thing for getting my study done. It’s likely that from this point, the number of books I am reviewing will drop, but I will still try to post a review every two weeks. Sorry there is no better way of telling you this!

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Review: Mercedes Lackey – Changes

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Changes
Mercedes Lackey

Mags is moving up in the world. He is apprenticed to the King’s Own, and seems to be getting somewhere with catching up on his studies. Of course, that all comes crashing down as the Colligium heats up for the summer. I found it to be disappointing, but feel free to come to your own opinions. Hit the jump for more…

17018909This novel initially focuses on Kirball, which is something I actually enjoy. It’s good to see the Greys doing something other than book work! It wraps up nicely after the previous book, where Dallen has been injured and is unable to play. The novel quickly progresses to using Mags’ talents at analyzing ‘sparklies’. The novel’s progression again reminds me of ‘Take a Thief’, but it’s still nice to get some insight into the beginnings of the Collegium.

What was disappointing was that I knew how to pairings would work Bear and Lena, Mags and Amily. It was just a little too clear cut and obvious. I always thought I knew that Amily would end up being the Herald Chronicler – how could she not? The Dean of Heralds is going on about how his office is full of books, and the archives are poor, so there is a place for her, crippled as she is. I’m somewhat disappointed that the novel isn’t conclusive like I had hoped – it’s not a trilogy at all! It lied to me!

The novel doesn’t seem to have any relation to ‘Changes’ that I can see. I’m feeling very disillusioned abotu it at the moment, it’s just not as good as other Valdemar novels I have read by her. I was looking forward to reading it, and reaching a conclusion. Oh Lackey, why did you have to trade from your trilogies? I feel like the action in the second book could have been condensed more, and I could have had more meat in the second!

Another problem I have is that there are multiple typos in it. It feels rushed. Maybe Lackey or her editor didn’t reread her work? There’s one spot where it reads ‘Hera;ds’. It’s such an easy mistake to fix!

If you’re a hard-core Lackey fan, it’s worth reading. If you’re looking for something to introduce you into her finest work, this isn’t it. Please, if you read this set of books, and find you hate them, please don’t give up on Lackey. I promise there are other books by her out there that are so much better. It was ok to read, it did grab me, but it just wasn’t satisfying. Lackey, I’m disappointed.

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