Book Review: Being Emily, by Rachel Gold (#LGBTReadathon)

Being Emily is the story of Chris/Emily, who has never told anyone before that she identifies as a girl, At the start of the book she decides to come out for the first time, to her girlfriend Claire, and this short novel follows her progress from that point on.

It took me a while to get into Being Emily at first, because there was quite a bit of info-dumping near the start. There are a couple of scenes in which the characters research gender and transsexualism online, featuring several paragraphs that do nothing more than detail what they learned. I already knew pretty much all of the info they find, so I found them a bit dry, and I hoped that the book wasn't going to continue along the same lines.

Happily, it didn't, and once those early chapters were out of the way I found myself getting really emotionally involved with the story, which has two points of view. Chris/Emily narrates the bulk of the chapters, but there are several from Claire's point of view, in third person. I did find this a bit jarring, but I enjoyed both, and I think it was great that they were both included.

Chris/Emily's loneliness, frustration, determination, and happiness all come across really clearly in her chapters. I felt her excitement as she explored her identity with her friends and therapist and rooted for her as she dealt with her parents and the various setbacks. I was absolutely desperate for things to work out for her and for others to accept her the way she had accepted herself.

I think Claire's chapters are a realistic portrayal of someone coming to terms with such a big revelation from someone close to them, but what was really interesting about Claire is that she is religious. Rachel Gold, the author, has a degree in English and Religious Studies, and Being Emily does not shy away from the subject of gender and Christianity at all, which was fascinating. Most of the characters that bring up Christianity in reference to gender believe that God condemns trans people, but Claire, who has a strong interest in early Christianity, finds that Bible studies and her personal relationship with God help her understand, come to terms with, and even defend Chris/Emily's identity. There were some quotes from the Bible in Claire's sections and some interpretations she provides that I had never heard before.

Online communities and gaming also play an important role in Chris/Emily and Claire's lives, and that's always great to see to in books.

I know that a lot of readers are a bit bored with coming-out stories, but Being Emily has some unique aspects that I think will make it a worthwhile read, especially for readers that don't know very much about trans issues.

My main caveat is that Being Emily has not been published in the UK, so it's a bit on the expensive side - over £10 for the paperback edition, though the ebook is cheaper and I was lucky enough to find it in my library's ebook catalogue.

Some other reviews of Being Emily that I found interesting:
My Life in Neon
erica, ascendant
Lambda Literary
The Lesbrary
Gay YA

I read Being Emily as part of the #LGBTReadathon, organised by the fabulous Faye at A Daydreamer's Thoughts. Next up: I'll Give You The Sun, by Jandy Nelson.

Book Review: Ash, by Malinda Lo

Photo by Moyan Brenn

When Ash's mother dies, her father remarries, but he doesn't live much longer himself. Ash finds herself at the mercy of her ruthless stepmother Lady Isobel and stepsisters Ana and Clara. She is forced to move away from her childhood home and work as a servant, and she copes by developing an obsession with her book of fairytales.

Ash thinks the fairy she meets in the Wood holds the key to her escape, though it may mean death and leaving everything she knows behind. But when she meets the King's Huntress, she starts to change her mind...

This is a book which is all about beautiful imagery and evocative language. The atmosphere is as important as the plot, which is pretty straightforward. The characterisation falls by the wayside a little - although Ash, Lady Isabel, Ana, Clara, and Sidhean were all very clear for me, I thought that Ash's mother and Kaisa were a bit too quickly drawn. There isn't much worldbuilding either, but traditional fairy tales don't really have worldbuilding, so I didn't mind. We learn enough to make the story work.

I loved the idea of the Royal Hunt led by the King's Huntress. It was a great way to work a female character with power and royal connections into the story, and the rituals involved in the hunt evoked history and tradition. I also really enjoyed the sections set at Lady Isobel's sister's house, where Ash is easily accepted by the other staff and joins them at the Yule bonfire. These busy scenes made a excellent contrast with Ash's many walks alone in the Wood.

If you need all your fiction to be snappy and plot-driven and don't want to spend time going on the occasional tangent and following dream sequences, Ash is probably not for you.But if you like books that are a little ethereal, give it a go.

If you are a fan of fairy tale retellings, I would consider Ash to be a must-read. I loved seeing how Malinda Lo twists and rearranges all the typical fairy tale elements. The fairy godmother becomes a slightly menacing fairy man and the three balls take place weeks apart. She also makes the traditional - and new - villains of the story seem at least partly sympathetic, which was interesting, and realistic.

I'm looking forward to reading Huntress, which is a loosely-connected prequel, and learning more about the traditions of the Royal Hunt, and meeting more of Malinda Lo's characters.

Book Review: Valencia, by Michelle Tea

Michelle Tea gives some background to her memoirs and talks about her move into writing fiction.

Valencia is a memoir by Michelle Tea, about her time living in San Francisco, falling in and out of love with a succession of girls, going to various nightclubs, parties and gay pride marches, and losing several jobs. It's split into chapters but is told in quite a stream-of-consciousness style - she'll start out telling one story but will diverge into telling us umpteen other people's stories in between. I wouldn't read this if you require a plot to get along with a book, because the narrative here isn't going anywhere, it's just a continuous description of things that happen and people the author knows.

I wasn't expecting to laugh a lot whilst reading Valencia, but although some parts were sad and some of the people described were troubled, other parts were hilarious. There are so many strange but still very real characters, and the author tells us what she was thinking at these times in her life in a really deadpan way. For example, at one point, she has a job at a courier company, and she wants to lose it, but they won't fire her. The way she talks about why she won't just quit, rationalising what doesn't make sense at all, is so ridiculous I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

I thought the introduction to this edition was particularly interesting (I studied life writing - nerd alert), because Michelle Tea writes about how writing about her own life has frozen it in time. With time and distance, we view things that happened to us differently, and she says this process has happened slowly for her, because when she performs extracts from the book, she has to inhabit the way she felt at the time, and cling onto it.

Valencia was easy to read but not absolutely compelling - it would probably be more interesting for people who are involved in similar 'scenes', and who have more in common with the ambitionless, hedonistic characters. I'm not sure whether I'll read it again,  but it has reminded me of how interesting the everyday can be when described with intelligence and humour.

Book Review: grl2grl, by Julie Anne Peters

Photo by ilouque

grl2grl is a collection of short stories about LGBT characters, mostly girls, hence the title, grl2grl. There are ten stories in the collection, and each is very different from the next, dealing with a range of issues, from coming out to being dumped, abuse to abstinence-only education. I often describe short stories as being either complete stories or snapshots from a character's life, and there are both kinds here. Julie Anne Peters tries to give each character a distinct personality, and I think that she succeeded, although the narrative styles are quite similar in some of the stories.

My favourites were 'Can't Stop The Feeling', which is about a girl who is trying to pluck up the courage to go to a meeting of the Gay/Straight Alliance group at her school, 'TIAD', about a girl who has just been dumped and goes online to a chatroom for advice and companionship, a story I really liked as I thought it was quite original - and 'Two-Part Invention', about a violinist who's in love with the cellist she plays with at summer music camp. I just love musician stories.

I don't think that every story should have had a dramatic impact - the presence of happy endings and sad endings and ambiguous endings makes the collection more interesting - but some of the stories I liked less were a bit too much like a tiny snippet from a life, with nothing really happening in them. Overall, however, the insight into the minds of the characters was compelling and sometimes really affecting.

It's a very American book, a lot of the things referred to don't really exist this side of the pond - I have only heard of a couple of schools with Gay/Straight Alliance groups here, and there are only a couple of summer camp organisations. But if you've watched American teen movies then this shouldn't cause much of a problem.

I think that in a perfect world, every library would have a copy of grl2grl. I think it's one of those books with the power to make troubled teenagers feel as if they're not alone, and as the stories are indeed short, it would be great for reluctant readers. My only complaint would be that it's such a skinny little volume, and it left me wanting to read more from the author. But that's fine, as she's already written novels!

Book Review: Empress of the World, by Sara Ryan

 Photo by uitdragerij

When Nicola Lancaster arrives at the Siegel Institute Summer Program for Gifted Youth, she doesn't plan on making any friends. Her only goal is to find out, by taking the archaeology class, whether she actually wants to be an archaeologist or not. She spends the introductory lecture drawing and writing notes about the other students, but Katrina sees her sketches and grabs her notebook, passing it around to some of the other students. It's easy for Nicola to be friends with excited, friendly, Katrina, but she finds Battle Hall Davies more confusing, intriguing, and beautiful. Nicola is plain and boring, or so she thinks. Battle could never be interested in her...but of course she's wrong.

A book about a girl who has decided to spend the summer at, well, school, may not sound exciting, but I really enjoyed Empress of the World. It's quite a short book, with only 214 pages, yet it covers Nicola's entire time at the Siegel Institute. It's written in sections that have the date, time and location at the top, like diary entries, and there are quite often several days between these reports, which sometimes include passages in a handwriting-style type, like actual diary entries. Sometimes the gaps were a bit off-putting, but Nicola usually summarises what she's been doing. I really liked the characterisation, Nicola was an engaging narrator, and I thought Katrina was fantastic, her weird fashion sense making her definitely my favourite character. The minor characters were nicely drawn, but not so intriguing that I wished they were the focus of the story instead. I have to confess that I didn't entirely understand why Nicola liked Battle so much for much of the book. I think her personality was overshadowed somewhat by Katrina's, it seemed less clear, but maybe that's the point. She is supposed to be mysterious, someone that Nicola can't quite work out. In the end I was rooting for Nicola to get the girl, anyway!

This is one of those books that I read and then thought "Was this really supposed to be controversial?". Okay, there's some drinking. And Nicola and Battle are both girls, and their relationship does get physical, off the page. But they're at a summer camp for intelligent, studious teenagers! And they all do their homework! Some people's children.

I wouldn't say Empress of the World is a must-read, it's a nice way to spend an afternoon or two, but I didn't find it to be unputdownable. I don't think it's supposed to be a thriller, but it's a gentle story of self-discovery and romance, not an emotional rollercoaster ride that keeps you turning the pages. 

Sara Ryan has also written comics featuring Battle and Katrina: Me and Edith Head, a prequel to Empress of the World starring Katrina, and Click, which is about Battle with a small appearance by Katrina, and takes place in the time between Empress of the World and the sequel/companion book, The Rules for Hearts. I definitely want to read The Rules for Hearts - it sounds like a good story, and I think it would help me understand Battle more.

Book Review: Dramarama, by E. Lockhart

Picture by gemskiii

Sarah Paulson longs for a life more exciting than the one she's got in boring Brenton. Her 'friends' are totally bland, and her parents don't understand her dissatisfaction, let alone her love of musicals. Everything changes when one day, after her tap dance class, she sees an advert for a musical theatre summer school: The Wildewood Academy for the Performing Arts. At the audition, she recognises a boy she goes to school with, Demi Howard. He recognises her, and most importantly, the Lurking Bigness that she feels she has inside her, waiting to come out and take the world by storm.

Together they reinvent Sarah as Sadye, and she feels like she finally has a true friend. Then Sadye and Demi both get into Wildewood, and they can't wait to get out of Ohio and go. But when they arrive and immerse themselves in the drama and glitter, everything becomes a lot more complicated than it was when they were best friends in Brenton. When Demi needed her as much as she needed him, and he didn't have boyfriends, or lead roles in plays. After their first few arguments, Sadye starts to feel like she's losing him. Will their friendship survive the summer? Will Sadye's Bigness ever stop Lurking?

I loved finding out. In fact, I was so excited to finally be reading Dramarama I think I squeaked as I turned the first few pages. I loved Sadye and Demi immediately. I could really relate to both Sadye's descriptions of her Lurking Bigness, and the trouble she has trying to release her potential. I thought Demi, with his incredible self-belief and talent, was a fantastic character. I also adored the whole world of Wildewood - lunch-table-top performances, rooftop evenings, gossip, glitter, and all. Sadye's roommates are a diverse, fun bunch. I love E. Lockhart's groups of friends. She gets the group dynamic so right. The teachers at Wildewood were completely believable, very flawed, but interesting. Special mentions also go to Lyle's possibly-hopeless love for Demi (I won't spoil it), the cuteness of Theo (oh E. Lockhart! How do you create so many varied and wonderful fictional specimens of attractive boy‽), and the Blake song.

I liked that Sadye struggled with fitting in, which at Wildewood is the same thing as standing out. I could see why she indulged in being cruel to her friends sometimes. And I could understand why Demi disagreed with Sadye's opinions, even though I could also understand all the misgivings she had about her teachers, and I think I would have had them too. It was great seeing Sadye develop over the summer.

Some other reviewers didn't like the ending, I know. I did think it was a bit rushed, because the pace was slower at the start of the book. It felt like there was a lot of build up, and then it was over quite quickly. I didn't have a problem with what actually happened though, it seemed realistic and necessary for Sadye's development as a person.

Dramarama is a fantastic read. Even if you don't know much about musical theatre, I'd give it a go - there are YouTube videos for almost every song mentioned and every reference can be Googled, and it's so much fun!

Book Review: Born Confused, by Tanuja Desai Hidier

To say Dimple Lala feels confused would be an understatement. She is convinced that she was born confused, and that confusion is her ultimate destiny. Her parents want her to be more Indian, but she wants to fit in with the other Americans. Everyone else has it all figured out, so they can't possibly understand her, right? Especially her best friend Gwyn, who is beautiful, confident, and dating wannabe film director Dylan, who is already at university. In fact, the only thing Dimple is sure of, besides her love of photography, is her friendship with Gwyn, even though they have been seeing less and less of each other since Dylan arrived on the scene.

It's Dimple's sixteenth birthday that sets everything on the road to change. Gwyn's present is a shiny new fake ID, so they are free to explore the bars and clubs of New Jersey and neighbouring New York together. But then her parents take her shopping, and at the mall, Dimple's mother recognises her old friend Radha, who has moved nearby with her son, Karsh. Dimple's parents decide almost immediately to set her up with Karsh, whilst Dimple cringes at the idea of dating a 'suitable boy'. She resists and complains and is convinced that their first meeting is a disaster, but when she sees him again, at a club night where he is DJing, she starts to doubt her own assumptions, and sort out her confusion.

Born Confused has a great cast of characters. Dimple's parents are brilliant, stern and hilarious by turns. I thought Gwyn was a really interesting (yet frustrating) character - the Rayanne Graff of the story - and Dylan and his best friend Julian were easy to dislike. If I talk about Kavita and Sabina and Zara in any detail I'll probably spoil a few surprises for most readers (though I saw them all coming myself), but I thought they were brilliant, and really quotable!

I'll be honest, the plot is predictable. But plot is only the backbone of this novel. Born Confused is all about the details, and even having guessed what was going to happen, it was still a lot of fun being with Dimple as she figures things out, and the writing is great.

That said, the 478 pages of Born Confused put me off starting it for a long time, and it took me weeks to finish. Now that I'm done I'm not sure that it needed all of that weight - there were some descriptive passages that were lovely but took me out of the story a bit too much - when they finished I couldn't remember what had happened before in the scene. I was flicking pages quite a lot to remind myself of what was going on.

Despite the length of the novel, I thought that some elements of the ending were rushed, particularly those concerning Dimple and Gwyn's friendship, and the issues about cultural appropriation. I also wanted to know more about Kavita's sister and her marriage. I did think that the development of Dimple's relationship with her parents was really well done though, and I love how Radha's stories shook everything up. I also feel that I should mention the punctuation. Speech marks are not used in this book, when a character is talking the sentence starts with a dash instead. E.G. -Hello, she said instead of 'Hello,' she said. This didn't bother me too much but I did find it confusing at first because I didn't realise that the dialogue continued after the next dash, rather than after the 's/he said'.

Born Confused is the second of four books I've read so far this summer set during a summer. I didn't plan to theme my reading, it just happened, and I only realised when I was on the fourth book! Right now I'm reading a fifth, so I think I'm going to have to write a post about this phenomenon, with some more summery summer reading suggestions.

The review of Born Confused at Leaving Shangri-La first inspired me to add this book to my wishlist.

Book Review: Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner

Photo by kablis

Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Mannersis a fantasy (of manners) novel set in a capital city and the almost-lawless Riverside district nearby. Neither the city nor the country are named, but the world is very different from our own. This society doesn’t have any modern technology, but they have strict laws, and a police force of sorts. The country is run by nobles, Lords and Dukes who see themselves as superior to the ordinary people. The nobles live decadent lifestyles under different laws – they go to parties, gossip, and when they quarrel they hire swordsmen to fight on their behalf, often to the death.

One such swordsman is Richard St Vier, the main protagonist of the novel, who lives in Riverside with his lover Alec. St Vier is the greatest of all swordsmen, and sought-after by the nobles. He can even, controversially, pick and choose who he wants to fight. He and Alec live as comfortably as people can in Riverside, drinking and gambling until the money runs out and St Vier needs to fight again. But this comes to an end when they get mixed up in the political plots of the nobles, who wish to use Richard to advance their own goals.

The world of Swordspoint does not have a strict moral code, some characters have tighter ethics than others, and every one is a product of the difficult, often brutal society they have been brought up in. I found all the characters very interesting, and although I wanted to know about some of them more than the others, they were all shrouded in enough mystery to keep me guessing and reading on. The characters were very believable. Although most of them didn’t develop over the course of the novel, they stayed pretty much the same; it didn’t matter because there was so much going on. The reader never gets to be ahead of the characters – so I was constantly trying to predict what was going to be revealed about who next. The story is written in third person, and follows several different characters at different times. Though the narrator doesn't seem to be a character, it has a very distinct style.

Swordspoint is quite a long book, and it took me a couple of weeks to finish it. This might be why I felt that it was over a bit too soon. It seemed to me as if the author spent a lot of time building up all this detail about the world and the characters only for the plot to turn out to be quite simple (though not predictable) and for the story to finish quite quickly. I also felt that one character, after having quite a large role in the narrative was just dropped, and it was disappointing that we didn’t get to see more of them.

However, the novel was really enjoyable, and beautifully written, with just the right amount of descriptive detail, in my opinion. I’m quite fussy about description, I need it to flesh out the world of the story and imagine it properly, but I don’t want so much that I don’t have any room to put my own spin on the way things look, and have to struggle to hold it all in my head. I love reading books that feature characters that live glamourous lives in an old fashioned way, and so I had a lot of fun reading Swordspoint. 

I am looking forward to reading the sequels to Swordspoint; The Fall of the Kings, and The Privilege of the Sword. I first heard of these books when I read Rie’s review of The Privilege of the Sword at Leaving Shangri-La.

Reading Challenges 2011

I used to set myself a challenge to read 50 books every year. This didn't work very well. The first year I didn't read enough. In 2009 I read over 90. Last year I sort of set myself the same challenge again, but having read over 90 in the previous year the pressure was off. I knew that as it was no longer my official 'job' to read and write books all day long (in 2009 I completed my MA), I had no chance of beating my previous total. I read 44 books in 2010. Well, if I counted all the picture books that I read whilst checking for scribbles and torn-out flaps (one of the perks of volunteering in a charity shop), I'd probably have read over 60. But I'm not counting picture books.

I'm not concerned by the drastic drop in numbers. I'm just bored with the 50-book thing. It's vague, but at the same time, too restrictive. For one, I always end up trying to find really short novellas and poetry books and graphic novels to read in the last 6 days of December. This used to work, but last time I found that I didn't have any left in my TBR, having used them all up in the previous years!

This year, I have decided to do several reading challenges instead, to make it all a bit more exciting. Not that reading books isn't exciting on its own, kids! I signed up for one challenge last year, the POC Reading Challenge. And I failed. I only read two out of the four books that I planned to read. So it will not be surprising to see that I am signing up for it again. All the challenges except for the POC Challenge, the GLBT Challenge and the British Books Challenge, were found via A Novel Challenge (though I'm sure the others are on there anyway), so the blogs that host them are new to me as well. Lots of new reading for the new year, yay!¹



I am signing up for Level 2 again, but am going to try to read the maximum six books.

1. Born Confused, by Tanuja Desai Hidier
2. Monsoon Summer, by Mitali Perkins
3. Noughts & Crosses, by Malorie Blackman



Entering in the Home Grown category - 12 novels, one a month ideally. This should be the easiest challenge ever because I have 27 to choose from already on my TBR, plus I find novels by British authors slightly easier to read than all other books. I will probably read more than 12 though, may even go for that 50 books Crown...what am I saying? No more 50 books goals! The books I currently plan to read are:

1. Festival, by David Belbin (it's on top of a pile on the floor, calling to me)
2. Girl Meets Cake, by Susie Day
3. We Had It So Good, by Linda Grant
4. Five Miles from Outer Hope, by Nicola Barker (one for my 'teenage protagonist in literary fiction' tag)
5. The Butterfly Tattoo, by Philip Pullman
6. Candy, by Kevin Brooks
7. Noughts & Crosses, by Malorie Blackman

GLBT Challenge 2011

You can set your own goal for this challenge, so I am planning to finish Swordspoint and read the four books (I think? There may be more lurking subtly) I have on my TBR that qualify, which are:

1. Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner
2. Dramarama, by E. Lockhart
3. Empress of the World, by Sara Ryan
4. grl2grl, by Julie Anne Peters
5. Valencia, by Michelle Tea

A Year of Feminist Classics

Not strictly a challenge, described as a 'project' by the creators, this is a good excuse for me to read the feminist books that I have lurking on my shelves. I've already read A Room of One's Own (it's awesome, by the way, and really short), and I don't think I'll be able to read all of the others, but I own copies of three of them, and should be able to get another three from my local library.



I am going to aim for level 1 - Curious, and read three books. This should not be difficult as I have 27 fantasy novels on my TBR to choose from!

1. Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner
2. Tithe, by Holly Black
3. Valiant, by Holly Black 



I am actually going to aim to complete the "Fun Size" YA Reading Challenge (20 books), because although I only have 15 YA books on my TBR, there is, of course, the library, and re-reads count for this challenge. There are a few YA books that I read in 2009 and haven't gotten around to reviewing because, although I remember that I thought they were really good books, I can hardly remember anything else about them. These include Love and Other Four Letter Words, by Carolyn Mackler, and Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta. I remember thinking that Saving Francesca, in particular, was really amazing, but I can't remember anything about it that I wasn't reminded of by looking at the blurb or flicking through my copy!

1. Festival, by David Belbin
2. Girl Meets Cake, by Susie Day
3. If I Stay, by Gayle Forman
4. The Boyfriend List, by E. Lockhart (re-read)
5. The Butterfly Tattoo, by Philip Pullman
6. Born Confused, by Tanuja Desai Hidier
7. Dramarama, by E. Lockhart
8. Empress of the World, by Sara Ryan
9. Monsoon Summer, by Mitali Perkins
10. Tithe, by Holly Black (re-read)
11. Valiant, by Holly Black
12. grl2grl, by Julie Anne Peters
13. Ironside, by Holly Black
14. Candy, by Kevin Brooks
15. A Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray
16. Noughts & Crosses, by Malorie Blackman
17. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

New Author Challenge 2011

This should be another easy challenge, most of the books on my TBR are by authors I haven't read before. Authors I have read before I tend to get more excited about, so they're less likely to languish on my TBR piles. I am planning to read 15 new authors, but I will hopefully manage more than that!

1. Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner
2. Festival, by David Belbin
3. Girl Meets Cake, by Susie Day
4. We Had It So Good, by Linda Grant
5. If I Stay, by Gayle Forman
6. Five Miles from Outer Hope, by Nicola Barker
7. Born Confused, by Tanuja Desai Hidier
8. Empress of the World, by Sara Ryan
9. Monsoon Summer, by Mitali Perkins
10. grl2grl, by Julie Anne Peters
11. Candy, by Kevin Brooks
12. Valencia, by Michelle Tea
13. A Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray
14. Noughts & Crosses, by Malorie Blackman
15.The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
16. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

2011 Book Blogger Recommendation Challenge

My method for choosing challenges for this year involved going through the A Novel Challenge blog, opening the pages for challenges that sounded interesting in tabs, and then going onto Goodreads and working out whether I had enough books - or almost enough books - on my TBR to complete them. This one was actually one of the quickest to check, because all I had to do was read through the list of titles, no fiddling around with tags or shelves was involved. I am signing up for Level I - to read five books from the list. Although I only own 4 books that are on the list, I can get one of the others from the library. Plus, the books I have are:

1. (9 on the list) The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
2. (70) The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
3. (264) Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner
4. (344) A Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray
5. (30) If I Stay, by Gayle Forman (purchased after I wrote this post)

and I read most of Swordspoint last year. I've actually finished the novel now, but I still have two short stories in the edition I have to read, and I don't count a book as read until I've read everything except the blurb, and the copyright page. Sometimes I read those too, but usually not. If it's a novel by a celebrity, I usually only read the copyright page. ;)

¹ I've taken to reminding myself regularly of all the books I don't want to read, so that I feel less overwhelmed. Legal thrillers. Amish romance. Mills and Boons. New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. Anything by Todd McCaffrey.

Book Review: Girl Meets Boy, by Ali Smith

I am reviewing this book today because it is Blog Action Day 2010, the issue this year is water, and water is a theme in the story. Please check out the Blog Action Day website and/or my post on this second's obsession for more information.

Photo by forever never comes around.

Girl Meets Boy is part of The Myths series, a retelling of the myth of Iphis, from Ovid's Metamophoses. Iphis is a girl brought up, secretly, as a boy. She falls in love with another girl, Ianthe, and when she and her mother pray to Isis for help, she is transformed into a man. Iphis marries Ianthe, and they live happily ever after. I am completely obsessed with retellings of myths, legends and fairytales, so for me this book was an absolute must read.

There are two first-person narrators in Girl Meets Boy, sisters Anthea and Imogen (or Midge), who take the helm for alternate chapters. The first to be introduced is Anthea, remembering her grandparents, particularly her grandfather, who liked to tell them stories about when he was a girl. In the present day, Anthea is struggling to find her place in the world. Imogen has gotten her a job at the company she works for, Pure, but Anthea hates it. Anthea is an essentially unconventional person, drawn to the weird and wonderful, whereas Imogen is concerned with appearances and fitting in, excited by Pure's bottled-water ambitions. Anthea is just about managing to pretend to be normal - in front of her colleagues, anyway - until she makes a faux-pas at a meeting, and on her way out of the Pure premises, meets beautiful graffiti-protester Robin.

Girl Meets Boy is primarily a love story. It's about people falling in romantic love with other people, people falling in love with life and all it's possibilities, and familial love. It's a very short book, so there isn't time for it to get overly slushy - in fact, I had mixed feelings about the length. On the one hand, I wanted more from some of the novel's elements. I wanted to know more about the grandparents - it seemed like their stories could fill a book or two alone. The initial meetings of the lovers are brushed past quite quickly, and it was a bit annoying, I actually wanted to read what happened immediately after Anthea set eyes upon Robin by the Pure sign. On the other hand, the poetic style of this writing probably works best when applied to a snapshot of lives, it could seem stilted after too long, and the very obvious messages presented in the book didn't need any more hammering home! To be honest, I always find it difficult to criticise very short books - they're quick to finish, and easy to read and re-read. Girl Meets Boy is a lovely read for an afternoon, and I will probably read it again.

I loved the characterisation in Girl Meets Boy, from the grandparents, to similar-but-different Anthea and Imogen, Robin, Paul, and the supporting cast of morally awful Pure employees and happy-to-comment passers-by. It all seemed true to life. I find it really interesting when retellings manage to do away with divine intervention, replace it with realism, but still keep the magic in the story, and Girl Meets Boy definitely achieves this.

Book Review: The Misfits, by James Howe

12-year-old overweight department store tie salesman Bobby Goodspeed and his best friends Skeezie (reformed school terror), Addie (tall, clever and female) and Joe (gay) have always been the outcasts at school. It's a situation they are all pretty accustomed to, but one day rebellious Addie brings up an idea at one of their Forum meetings: they should create a new party to run in the student elections. Things do not run as smoothly as she imagines, however, as she tries to convince the popular DuShawn Carter to run for president, and they have to go up against Brittney Hobson, who has been class president three times running. Bobby also has to deal with his relationship with his father, his co-worker Mr Kellerman, and his feelings for Kelsey, a girl in his class with a crush on Joe!

I had mixed feelings about this book. I felt it had a good, strong message - it inspired a national "No Name-Calling Week" in school in the USA - and I liked that it didn't go for the cheesy ending. I felt that Bobby was an interesting character, however, I thought that I would have liked to know more about the other members of the group and the school in general, and to see more of Bobby's emotions, it took a long time for me to feel emotionally "hooked" by the story. I think it's the type of story that would make a good film, being as focused as it is around one major event. However, there is a sequel, or 'companion', Totally Joe, from Joe's point of view (obviously), which I am looking forward to reading at some point.

I would recommend this book for 10-14 year olds, the writing isn't really sophisticated enough for older teens or adults, the message may seem a little forced to cynical minds.

Book Review: Pretty Things, by Sarra Manning

by tombream07

'Indie-emo hybrid' Charlie has decided that he and his best friend, wannabe-footballer's wife-type Brie - who thinks Charlie should be her boyfriend and doesn't believe that he's gay - will be spending their summer avoiding boredom and trying to get the best roles in the play their drama workshop in Camden will be putting on. Daisy is a lesbian, serious about acting, and learning to express herself through art. Infamous heartbreaker Walker wants to be a film director and wants to find out what it's like to be an actor.

But Walker, having gotten on the bad side of Lavinia, is picked as the male lead. Brie is the female lead, and is terrified. She doesn't understand the play - but she does have an amazing memory. Daisy was hoping to get the lead but instead she has to play a character she hates, and spend time with Walker and Brie, both of whom she cannot stand. Charlie falls for Walker, but Walker likes Daisy, and it's not so much a love triangle as a huge great mess...

This book was a fun read, I did enjoy reading it, but I'm afraid that I didn't like it as much as the other books that I have read by Sarra Manning. It is told in alternating chapters by all of the four main characters - e.g. the first chapter has Charlie as the narrator, the second Daisy, and so on. I thought the characterisation suffered from this - I never really got to know any of the characters deeply, I felt I was learning only superficial things about them - especially in the cases of Charlie and Daisy. The story didn't have so much emotional impact, and I was disappointed as Sarra Manning's other novels have always hooked me emotionally. It also lacked a real twist, I could tell how things were going to work out quite a long way before the end. I don't normally mind this but I was hoping for one with this book for some reason! The characters are appealing and there are a few laughs, so I think it would make a good holiday/beach/plane journey read for anyone all the same.