Category Archives: Teenage Fiction

Review: E.K. Johnston – A Thousand Nights

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E.K. Johnston
A Thousand Nights

A desert girl gives up her life to save her sister, promising herself in marriage to Lo-Melkhiin, who had killed 300 girls on their marriage night. Instead, she tells stories every night, and continues to survive despite the odds. When she discovers she can see magic, and that Lo-Melkhiin might not be who he seems, she is even more determined to save the man she thinks she might love.24820300

This novel felt quite shallow, but at the same time it was a really enjoyable retelling of a fable. If you were looking for something new and exciting, I’m afraid this wasn’t it. But in its style, it was good. Far better than Book of a Thousand Nights, which I was disgusted with.

Magic. It makes fantasy worlds work, and in this one the author has effortlessly used it to change the story and make it more interesting. It is not just her storytelling ability that saves her, it is her strength of will. In fact, I don’t even remember her name, but I can remember the way it felt to be inside her head.

The idea that magic can push talents forward, yet also warp them is an interesting one. I’d love to see more of this discussed, perhaps in a separate story. The world-building in this one made me want to read more. The detail to the costumes, all of it came through as a properly interesting and realistic Arabian novel.

How many stars do I want to give this? Maybe 3. It’s hard to decide. It wasn’t as gripping as I might have desired, but I did keep reading it.

3star

Thanks to the lovely folks at Macmillan Children’s Books who gave me a proof copy to read.

Review: Alice Pung – Laurinda

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Laurinda
Alice Pung

Linh Lucy Lam has never seen herself as a bright scholar, but she persists in trying to please her parents. After ‘beating’ the local Asian genius to get a place at a private high school, Lucy finds herself being torn apart by who she think she is, and who she might become.

22603951I listened to this as a talking book, and I have to say the reader was pretty amazing! Even my partner enjoyed listening to it. That being said though, that was what kept me listening, not the story itself. What was the point of this novel? Why would I care about Lucy? I cared about her little brother Lamb-ey more than anything else.

What I didn’t understand for the majority of the novel was who ‘Linh’ that Lucy was writing to was. I think, and I may be wrong, is that Linh is Lucy, but her true Asian (somewhat bogan) self. I couldn’t understand why Linh would leave if she was a real person. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.

Lucy is super self-aware, and she’s aware of how stupid adults are. We see through her eyes what rich people are like – the question is whether this really how they are? I don’t know enough private schools to tell you. Bullying at high schools is normal, there’s even bullying of teachers, although perhaps not as dramatic as a tampon to the forehead… I certainly remember our public high school class evicting one poor teacher who we viewed as incompetent.

I don’t think I was satisfied by the ending. Yes Lucy managed to overcome things and become more of herself, but I wasn’t enthralled with her ‘amazing’ speech at the end. It all seemed too neat. Neat. Yes. That’s what this novel was in a nut shell. For all that it was exposing and trying to highlight the interesting nuances of multicultural Australia, it sometimes seemed to dig itself too deep a hole – then just fill it in with one well-placed sentence.

I’ll be giving this 3 stars. There are better novels out there, but if you want something easy to listen to that doesn’t require any thinking (or a light teenage novel), this one could fit the bill.

3star

Review: Gayle Forman – I was Here

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I was Here
Gayle Forman

When Meg committed suicide, her best friend Cody cursed herself for not seeing it coming and not being there for Meg. As Cody digs deeper, wanting to expose why Meg did it, she finds herself chasing down the rabbit hole at someone else’s expense.

18879761I picked this up as a talking book, expecting it to be a wonderful novel about exposing why someone would want to commit suicide. Instead I found a messed up, self-centred teenage girl who was more filled with regrets than anything else.

This novel just felt too… convenient. Girl meets boy, girl blames boy, girl gets together with boy, boy screws things up with girl, girl and boy both grump, girl and boy get together happily ever after. I was disgusted with her. Ugh! Didn’t Cody learn anything?

No no, Cody hadn’t learnt anything. Anywhere. She chases things single-mindedly, at the cost to other people, and then bails! And for her, lies and promises might as well be the same thing. I was disgusted at her. She was so bloody clueless. Depression might have a stigma about it, but seriously, get a grip!

I listened to what felt like hours of this without making any progress. The ‘action’ only really happened in the 2nd last hour, and by that stage I was only still listening because I was hoping for a redemptive ending. Failure! No redemptive ending.

The author says that this was based on some interviews she did with some suicide survivor families. There was so much more she could have done with this novel that she didn’t. Creating a happy ending didn’t make me satisfied about the amount of time I had invested in Cody doing the right things.

2 stars. I finished it begrudgingly. Don’t read it. Read Hold Still, Suicide Notes or my personal favourite, The Last Time We Say Goodbye. That last one left me wanting more, and I wanted to listen to it all the time.

2star

Review: Catherine Jinks – Theophilus Grey and the Demon Thief

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Theophilus Grey and the Demon Thief
Catherine Jinks

Philo runs a tight-nit team of link-boys whose role is to guide Londoners home in the dark. Their secondary goal is to collect information about all of the people of importance – and carry it home to their master for rewards. When thieves start dropping senseless to the ground, Philo can’t seem to get any information about it. What appears to be a simple argument between rival groups gets more complicated the more Philo thinks about it.

Philo and the boy26700148s are unique. Philo seems a very alert kid, yet unworldly in his own way. He’s far to used to taking orders! But you do see his character develop in the novel, and that’s a big thing for me. I can see the other link-boys getting more time in the sequel. They’re easy to remember the differences between them, which is important for someone like me who forgets names.

This novel twists and turns just like the streets of London. Just as you think you’ve worked out who the culprit is, the amount of information you have changes, and you are forced to reevaluate the whole situation. You feel with Philo when things go wrong, and you match his confusion with your own. I got right inside the character.

I’ve never been to London, but I have read a series of novels about being in London. Olden London somehow seems more interesting than current London to me! This noel effortlessly puts you into Philo’s shoes, and opens your eyes to the everyday life of Georgian Londoners.

There is plenty of room left open for a sequel, but at that same time I was entirely satisfied with the story. I finished it in a brief gasp, and hated that I had gulped it so quickly! The story was just so compelling towards the end that I had to keep reading.

I’ve given this a very generous 5 stars. I realise that I’m heading out of the target age zone for this novel, and so its entertainment value for me is potentially less than it was before. But it was a brilliant novel that I would suggest reading again.

5star

Thanks to Allen & Unwin for providing me with a complimentary review copy of this novel.

Review: Garth Nix – Newt’s Emerald

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Newt’s Emerald
Garth Nix

The family emerald has been stolen, and Lady Truthful’s best friends have been implicated. Lady Truthful sets out on a quest to find it, and in the mean time, perhaps find someone to steal her heart.

24737347I expected more from Garth Nix. This is too light a novel, with a protagonist who seemed weak and unlikeable. Lady Truthful is a sucker. She’s naive, and doesn’t even make an attempt to hide that. Her aunt isn’t much better. The whole thing left me wanting. Just for substance, for anything.

Ugh. This is a romance, an unconvincing girl-to-boy in disguise novel. Masquerade ball? Overdone and typical for the enemy to appear at that time. Enemy disguised as someone you trust? Tick. Being exposed as a woman in front of a shipload of men? Tick. Believe me, I’m not giving anything away here. You’ll see it coming from a mile away.

I know I should make some more comments on the structure of the novel, the world-building, the character development. Honestly though, I just can’t find enough to like about it to make those informed comments. I shouldn’t need to talk about them, the book should be speaking for itself.

I give this 3 begrudging stars. If I didn’t already know the work of Garth Nix, then it would be 3. I am tempted to give it less, but that’s just because I know his work can be so so much better.3star

Thanks to Allen & Unwin for providing me with a complimentary review copy.

Review: Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan & Deborah Biancotti – Zeroes

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Zeroes
Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan & Deborah Biancotti

Scam’s voice can say whatever he needs it to – whether to pick up a hot girl or to get himself a lift home. He never really knows what the voice says though, and it tends to get him into trouble if he isn’t specific enough about what he wants. When he ends up running from druggies and ends up with the police, he needs some of his old Zero friends to get him out. What he’s started is more messy than he imagined.

24756394The blurb on this novel simply doesn’t do it justice! Don’t read the blurb, just do what I tell you and go buy it to read right now. It’s action packed, and yet still manages to get some character development going, and swaps perspectives all the time, but I still loved it!

I hated Glorious Leader. Hate, hate, hated. He was drunk on power from the beginning! I can understand why he wants to be the leader, it’s his job, and I can understand why his power is so tempting, but ugh. As a person, I’m really disappointed in his -rich- parents and the way they must have brought him up. Or perhaps he has always been this way. You don’t get enough backstory about him to come to any conclusions for yourself.

The passing references to school, mainly from Kelsie’s perspective, made me wonder how long they had been a group of Zeroes. We know that Scam’s voice has made a mess of things, but only because someone else goaded him into it.  Scam’s power seems the more personally dangerous, and other powers more passive, but everyone knows it takes a mix of powers for things to work.

I can’t believe that the timeline of this is one week. Most novels couldn’t imagine packing in so much action into a month and still have the characters surprisingly well alive at the end of it! This novel doesn’t let you put it down, and it made me read it until I was sunburnt.

 

I couldn’t believe it when this novel finished! I needed more! I want more from this series right, right, right now. I found myself thinking that a book this good with a premise this interesting must just be a standalone, but no! It’s in a ‘thrilling new series’. I don’t think I can wait another whole year for the next one. 5 stars from me.

Of these three authors, I’ve only ever read Scott Westerfeld, and that last novel was ages ago – read my Afterworlds review here. I wish I had more reading time to devote to those other greats, because a book this good isn’t just created by one genius write with two tag-alongs. I fully expect their individuals works to be fantastic.

 

5starThis book was sadly late to me because my mailing address with Allen and Unwin was wrong. But thanks so much to the rep that resent it to me anyway!

Review: Rosanne Hawke – The Truth About Peacock Blue

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The Truth about Peacock Blue
Rosanne Hawke

Aster’s brother dies from asthma, and suddenly she is to become the scholar in the family. As a Christian family in a Muslim-majority Pakistan, going to school holds more perils than she expects. Cast into prison for a crime she didn’t commit, this is a novel told through her perspective and the blog of her Australian cousin.

26510513This novel is an expose of what can go wrong in a country mad about laws, and belittling women. It doesn’t matter what religion you are, you just need to be a woman. Women might be the majority, but they certainly have the quietest voices.

Something I liked about this novel was the way that it didn’t cringe from the realities in prison life. Just because people are thrown into jail together doesn’t mean that they are all equal or able to care for themselves. I don’t know about the legitimacy of this part of the novel, but I can hope it was well-researched.

I was not satisfied by the end of the story. I know this is based on a true story, but for something to make an impact as a novel for me, then I want a bit more of an ending. I found myself wondering after I’d finished reading it, whether I had actually finished it.

I found the letter/blog parts and the comments to be relatively boring, and the least attractive part of the novel. Blogging is certainly a good way of getting messages across, but as its noted in the novel, it doesn’t mean that you are going to be listened to, or safe from idiots.

I think this book covers a good range of topics that would be important in middle-eastern society, regardless of whether the players are Muslim, Christian or Hindi. It shows the mindlessness of the masses, and the ingrained way of doing things for years and years. For that reason, I think this novel could overtake The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif as a potent VCE teaching tool.

3star

Thanks to the folks at Allen and Unwin for providing me with this review copy.

Review: John A. Flanagan – The Tournament at Gorlan (Ranger’s Apprentice Early Year)

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The Tournament at Gorlan (Ranger’s Apprentice Early Year)
John A. Flanagan

After being dismissed as a Ranger of the King, Crowley travels with Halt to try to stop the influence of Morgarath spreading. As they discover that the rot is deeper than they thought, they must gather all the Rangers they can to confront the man facing them. As being a Ranger becomes more dangerous and the plots more costly, it’s not obvious if there will be a clear winner.

26701713I’m not sure how I felt about this novel. It had been long enough that I no longer really remembered the original Ranger’s Apprentice story, so I would say that I read this novel as a stand alone. I’m not sure I want to read the sequel to this one – I simply didn’t get vested enough in the characters.

I think something that spoke false to me, but would have been good for other younger readers, was the terminology used. There was too much stating of what the leadership role was, what fishing skills were important, and less on the actual characters’ voices.

It was too simple. I knew what was going to happen, and I never felt a sense of urgency. Everything would turn out fine, regardless of what the characters did! I felt like I didn’t really get to ‘know’ any of the characters. I certainly loved Halt. Which I suppose I was supposed to, but it helped that most of the novel was from his perspective.

For a novel that didn’t seem to have much magic in mind, the epilogue left me feeling somewhat unbalanced. There were barely any hints about it beforehand (just something that seemed like filler to expand the character).

So with that in mind, I’m giving it 3-4 stars. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing particularly outstanding either. I’ve lent this to my partner’s brother to find out what he thinks of it as a younger reader and having read all of the other books in the series. I’ll keep my twitter updated with the results!

3star

I received a complimentary copy from the wonder folks at Penguin Random House Australia.

Review: Ellen Wittlinger – Razzle

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Ellen Wittlinger
Razzle

 

Ken has been forced to move to a random place in Cape Cod – a holiday place that his parents have imagined doing up in their retirement. Summer promises to be boring and distasteful – except that a girl he meets at the junk yard promises to be interesting and photogenic. As summer progresses, Ken falls for the more deadly Harley and makes a complete mess of things.

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I confess again, that I listened to this novel, then debriefed with my partner, then took 2 months to write a review! So my ideas are quite old by this point. She’s apparently going to start recording me when I rage about novels.

Photography is the linking theme in this novel. But if you want a good novel that has photography in it for teenagers I’d personally suggest

This novel really highlights how teenage boys think. As nice as Ken is, when he’s faced with a sexy girl vs a nutter, he goes for the sexy one, much to the disgust of the reader. I can’t blame him actually.

Razzle is very odd. Yet the eventual revelation by her mother, while it shakes her, doesn’t surprise the reader. In fact, it left me feeling somewhat cheated. As a climax for the novel, it was weak and insignificant.

While the blurb suggests that Razzle might forgive Ken, I think she’d be better off not doing it! The ending pages of the book are flakey and uncertain – I’m sure this is supposed to be a metaphor for something important, or perhaps just an open discussion on friendship and love.

I gave this 3 stars straight after I had read it. I’m not going to be retracting that score, although I’d consider revising it down. It was saved only by its reader, who did a bloody good job of trying to make something of nothing.

Find it on:
goodreads_icon copyAmazon-Icon-e1335803835577-300x294 copybookdepository_icon copy3star

Review: Robin Benway – Emmy & Oliver

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Emmy & Oliver
Robin Benway

Emmy has lived in the same house for all her life. Born on the same day as her best friend Oliver, it seems like nothing will ever change. But when he is taken away from her for 10 years – spirited away by his father during a visit, Emmy and her family just have to keep coping. When Oliver returns, it seems like things haven’t changed – and yet they have in such ways that the players in the game don’t know what to do next.

24733940I honestly don’t know why I kept reading this novel. It wasn’t anything particularly special. I guess this was just a nice, easy, sort of comforting read that I knew everything would turn out ok in the end. No big revelations to shake the boat, no real climax towards the end. Everything just turned out just fine. And I’m sorry if that’s a spoiler to you, but honestly, the minute you read the first chapter, you’ll twig on it.

It’s an interesting examination of what happens after someone is abducted, and the far-reaching consequences of that. But the thing is, most people aren’t lucky enough to get to come home. Oliver’s mother has moved on without him, but Emmy obviously hasn’t. Although we only get Emmy’s side of the story, it feels as if we also get a good look into Oliver’s psyche as well.

The romance in this is clean, the characters aren’t into anything particularly bad, and it’s a nice enough novel. There’s some love interest in non-straight couples, some family love, love love love for all of the characters. If anything, Caro gets the short shift! It’s no wonder she goes completely nuts at Emmy at one point in the novel…

There isn’t anything wrong with this novel, there’s just nothing particularly spectacular about it. I’ll be giving it 3 stars, and suggesting that it’s a great novel for reluctant teenage readers.

3star