Nightpeople-The Darklands trilogy

title: Nightpeople
Author: Anthony Eaton
Published: 2005 Queensland Press

Saria is the last of her kind, the final child of the Darklands, a quarantined expanse of outback desert, contaminated hundreds of years earlier by the remote and mysterious Nightpeople. In a dying world, she is the last ray of hope.

Spirited away at her birth before the Nightpeople could remove her from the genetic pool, Saria, now in her early teens, is summoned to appear before the Council of Dreamers. There she discovers the story of her past, and the nightmare truth of her people's future, and as history draws the Darklanders towards an inevitable fate, Saria determines to take the only course available to her, whatever the cost.

Nightpeople, the first book of the Darklands trilogy, explores a society turned in on itself and a future which readers will find both alien and disturbingly familiar.

I love the sound of this book, fantasy and Aussie books and two of my favourite things so i thought that i was set to love this book. i met Anthony Eaton last term and the way he described it the idea sound fantastic as you'd think from the blurb pinched from his website. i was very excited when i got it for holiday reading from the library.

the book begins really well, you really want to know what's going to happen to this baby saved from the 'nightpeople', and the 2nd chapter was good as well. Eaton has you wanting to know what's going to happen and what makes Saria special, but the story seemed to fizzle out after the first 2 chapters, for me at least. i kept reading but it seemed like nothing was really happening. i tried on many occasions to finish is, but i just didn't get through it. it went back to the library unfinished. I'd like to try it again some time, because i love the idea of an Australian set fantasy and the premise was brilliant, but the writing let t down. not enough happened, or enough was given away to keep me hanging on. it seemed to drag.

this said, i plan to try some of his other novels, because he was just lovely and hilarious.

5 Parts Dead

Title: 5 Parts Dead
Author: Tim Pegler
First Published: 2010 by Penguin

Dan is 15 and had just dodged death for the 5Th time. his friends weren't so lucky. just weeks after the accident, he goes on holiday to an island on South Australia, staying in the lighthouse keeper's old cottage with his parents, twin sister, and sister's friend. angry and grieving he discovers the old lighthouse log book and a mystery that's gone unsolved for over a century. add in ghosts, romance and the 'twin thing' and you get a powerful story about friendship, death and family.

Quick Review
I LOVED it. the two time lines flow together seamlessly, making for easy reading, except for a few of the boring captain's reports about weather in the log book. this story will get inside your mind so easily it's almost scary and leave you full of questions, wondering about horrible things. the description of the car crash was literally breath-taking, i stopped reading and clutched my throat, read and you'll understand why. the description of how people reacted was perfect, though horrible and the characters were realistic and lovable. you'll fell so sorry for Dan, yet you understood what rested on his shoulders. the ghost story was a great parallel, and the romance sweet, yet sturdy. A MUST READ ESPECIALLY FOR TEENAGERS.

Babble
i feel that my quick review sums it up pretty well.
i want to talk more about the brutal honesty of this book, at least that's the best way i can think to put it.
death in books is pretty much always sad, yet it's so much more than that in 5 Parts Dead. you almost feel Dan's pain and confusion. the feeling that he is, in the smallest way possible, responsible. you know he's going to fight that for the rest of his life. the talk about death, responsibility, and just how people react was so powerful I'm still thinking about it.
it's a sign on an amazing book when you're still thinking about it 6 hours later.

i also just want to say how much I love Pip, she's so strong. she reads Markus Zusak, you guys know how much i love him. her relationship with Dan is so tender, they just need each other. she's individual, but for once that didn't mean really weird.

i also love how the book showed the effect on Dan's family as well.

all in all an amazing book, very powerful and informative. it was sad, yet the ending left me hopeful. i really want to know what happened to Dan once he went back to school, which shows just how much i love him.

please read this book-give it to all the teenagers you know.
you'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll leave with something.

Anna and the French Kiss Giveaway

The lovely Isme from the Book Slooth is having another great competition.

up for grabs is a copy of Anna & the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

this competition is open internationally. to enter go to her blog here and fill out this form.

good luck!

Straight Line to my Heart

title: straight line to my heart
author: Bill Condon
Published: to be published August 2011

Tiff and Kayla have finished school, they know things are about to change. the summer is coming to an end, and decisions are being made about the future and in one week everything is going to change. Tiff has a cadetship at the local news paper, but her boss is a crazy old man who insists everyone calls him 'the shark'. her grandad Reggie seems to be fading away, her uncle/brother Bull's girlfriend is around, her and Kayla can't stay in this small town forever, what will happen once they leave, and most importantly there's a boy who seems to be interested in Tiff. in one week Tiff's world crashes down and she builds it up again stronger than before.

Quick Review Straight Line to my Heart is a great novel. Bill Condon really hits what it's like to be a teenager on the head. without any melo-drama or soppy romance he's created a light-hearted novel all about the massive changes that occur once school finishes forever and first love. add in the great humour, and interesting characters and you've got a clear winner. i was up all night giggling while i finished it.

favourite quotes
"she could help me in my never-ending campaign. some people want to save the river or save the whales, or even save the whole planet-i just want to keep the toilet seat down" the whole book is full of funny lines like this.

Babbling Review
Bill Condon has an incredible style which doesn't fit a genre, it just seems like a real story. the characters are flawed, every character has a different personality. the blokes, Reggie and Bull, are typical Aussie blokes. the love footy, beer, action films and burping, yet they're sweet and kind.

the setting of Gungee creek is also full of character, and well characters! it's a typical town. the thing that got me was the description of footy on the weekends, it just seemed so familiar. everyone cheering, even though they play terribly. it turned out to be rugby as opposed to AFL, which is footy in Perth, but the atmosphere was the same. for us who live in Australia it'll be so familiar that you'll be laughing going 'that;s so true' and to others it'll be just as enjoyable.

i loved Kayla and Tiff's friendship. best friends since they were very young. there was very little talk, just silliness and closeness. they weren't always lovely to each other, but it was so honest.

the romance element in this novel is quite small, but important. he's an idiot, tiff admits he an idiot, but they like each other anyway. it's all awkward, yet sweet moments. it ends just leaving you wondering where it would go.

the humour is also genius. it's a simple, lovely funny novel. a perfect light read dealing some important teenage issues.

Pin-up Post: Great Books with Happy endings

in that horrible Wall Street Journal article is was suggested by Meghan Cox Gurdon that all YA novels were about "vampires and suicide and self-mutilation, this dark, dark stuff" i felt it would be good to remind people that this is far from the truth. so this Pin-up post is just to show a few Australian books which have no dark content and happy endings.

Blueback by Tim Winton
this book is set in a beautiful deserted beach town. Able grows up spending almost as much time in the water as out of it, even though his father was the victim of a fatal shark attack when able was a little boy. he lives alone with his mother as they run their farm and sustainable house. things intervene with this idyllic life of course, like school, developers, fishermen and growing up. no matter what happens though Able never forgets his friend Blueback, a giant fish.
a sweet, simple tale. short and well written, like all winton's work.

Triple Ripple by Brigid Lowry
this a stories rolled into one. the fairytale of Glory who is sent to work in the castle and uncovers some big secrets, the life of Nov as she battles through high school, and the writer who has to pull the story together. the stories blend together, giving us a great books as yummy as ice cream. it's a book that most girls would enjoy, mixing fantasy and contemporary together.
Ten things i hate about me by Randa Abdel-Fattah
as far as i can remember this book has nothing dark in it, the few mentions of death, racism and other things aren't described, but from the point of view of Jamie. Jamie is fighting to understand her father and his sexist over-protective rules. her brother doesn't have to be home before dark, why does she? through the book Jamie fights with her Muslim identity, and her identity as a person regardless of everyone Else's views. set in a typical Australian school. gives a good cultural insight (at least for me) and as far as i remember mainly very friendly to read.

this is just a small selection of great books, which i see as having nothing that would scare a 13 year old. people should actually read YA before they judge it. I've never found a community like ours :)

Dear Wall Street Journal

this is my delayed response to Meghan Cox Gurdon's article "Darkness Too Visible" and YA in the Wall Street Journal.

Dear Wall Street Journal,

I am a young adult. I read young adult fiction. As I was reading “Darkness Too Visible” I found myself wondering where Meghan Cox Gurdon had been book shopping. It seemed laughable to me that she was claiming that YA was all about self-harm, rape, drugs or incest. It was been proposed on this piece of ‘journalism’ that all teen fiction is dark, and that it is harming young adults. Not one book that fitted this description came to mind. As I thought about the books I read I had to admit that they had some serious or mature themes, but nothing I would call “ a hall of fun-house mirrors, constantly reflecting back hideously distorted portrayals of what life is.” Adolescence is a time of creating who you are, becoming an adult. This is why young adult books are about people fighting to become the person they want to be in a scary world. this is what we want and Need to read as we step out of our protected childhoods, or realise that other people have gone through bad things like we have.

Books are one of the best things in my life, and I have a very good life. Nothing bad has ever really happened to me. They allow me to enter a world of experiences I know nothing about. A good book awakes my every nerve in my body and sets it alight. It leaves me feeling charged and actually changed me. These books with there themes which ‘are too scary for teenage girls’, allow me to connect with a character who is going through something I don’t understand, and I come out of it a better person. These books are teachers. They talk to me in a way that the adults me my life don’t. At 13 I read Forever by Judy Bloom, and I will admit that is was confronting. No one had ever really talked me about Sex, I knew what it was and how it worked, but this book taught me the pressures and confusions.

The reason I look to books is because they can often explain what I’m going through. Whether they’re struggling after a horrific event or just struggling with school they sometimes know what it is that I can’t explain and help me to understand. If these books were banned young adults would lose one of the things that really helps them to express themselves and cope in a good way. When I read a good book, like If I Stay about a girl in a coma or Wintergirls about anorexia, it holds me tight as it introduces me to a scary world, it lets me experience it and then it stays with me while I gather the information and leads me to see the beauty in the ending, because both these books have life affirming endings. I now understand life a little better. I am intelligent young woman, I know when I’m reading crap. All teenagers are capable of thinking and forming an opinion; if every little thing that happens around us traumatised us then all girls who played with Barbies would end up with self-confidence issues. If I don’t agree with what a character does it just helps me to realize I don’t want to live like that.

This article really shows the fear Meghan Cox Gurdon has of the world. The problems teenagers are facing cannot be blamed on literature. These dark issue need to be discussed by parents and other people who Really influence their lives. Literature for young adults is better than it has ever been before, with more variety, good quality writing, and significant issues. Books educate, they help us to understand others and ourselves. We relate to them. They are a brilliant form of communication that can be spread globally. Articles like this are discouraging teenagers from reading, and parents from encouraging them to, which would be even more damaging. One day I want to write a book which makes a young person go “she understands me, I now know” this is my aim, to help a person by writing an uplifting book about a serious issue to show the light. The world is a dark place, and adolescence is when we discover this. YA novels just show us how to find the light.

Sincerely
Anna

Reviewer for Australian YA blog Cherry Banana Split.

After January

title: After January
Author: Nick Earls
first published: 1996 University of Queensland Press

Meet Alex Delaney, awkward teenage boy of 17 waiting for the 20th of January, the day the university offers are printed in the appear. school is over, a far off memory, the future has to wait, and here is Alex stuck in the middle. he and his mum are at their beach house, expecting a normal summer, of early morning swims, reading, pool and poetry with Len next door and cricket. as long as Alex can remember this has been summer, slowly though people have stopped coming and development has changed the little town, this summer Alex meets a girl.

this is a fabulous summer romance told from the perspective of the guy, which I've never read before. it was charming, are very realistic, it was sweet in parts, but in a believable way. i think the thing that made it so true to life was the awkwardness. this was their first relationship, there were awkward moments, meeting parents, being given money for condoms because 'protection is important' or offering to fix a car when you have no clue about engines.

Alex is a quiet, deep thinking, poetry writer, and just gorgeous. he isn't characterture, or based on a stereotype of jerky jock or unbelievably sweet, but not cute guy, which are the typical boys in romance, he fits in the middle. he can't fix a car, but he makes a great loaf of bread. it's nice to get a story that's about average people, not broken souls, like in Sarah dessen (though i love her work) this is about talking to a girl because you have noting to lose, kissing on the beach and falling asleep holding hands. NO SEX! it's a sweet novel about a summer of growth. have i raved enough yet? all the characters are unique and hold their own. the relationships they all have with each other and Alex add to the story. Len and Alex are funny, talking cricket, poetry and pool each summer, and Fortuna's mother and father and so different, yet in love.

it's also has talk of parents lives, not as parents but as people, respecting the environment/anti-development talk and what you're offering the world, where you want to go. this makes it a deep novel and is well aimed for teenagers, though i found it a touch hard to read, but i think that was my mood. it isn't exactly a page turner or an all- time favourite, but it is probably my favourite teenage romance, it's what i want from my 1st boyfriend.