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Why a Grandmother Reads Young Adult Fiction

Australian Women Writers

Why a Grandmother Reads Young Adult Fiction

June 11, 2016 by Sheree Leave a Comment
First, to clarify; I’m not that old.

Instead of a rocking chair, shawl and knitting, think professional, competent and cool—and ignore my family laughing in the background. A few years ago, the birth of my first grandchild brought home that I was approaching my mature years, but I didn’t see any reason why that should change my reading habits.

Since my age first hit double figures I’ve been reading books aimed at a wide variety of audiences, whether children, teenagers, adults, female and/or male. There were a few ‘adult’ novels I probably read a bit too early, but that’s what happens when books like that are left around the house and a voracious reader doesn’t have access to enough appropriate literature.

Since I was a kid, I never stopped reading books aimed at kids or teenagers.

I read all sorts of other things as well, but I don’t see any reason to give myself an arbitrary limit on reading material based on what publishers decide is their target readership. When I write I don’t stop writing a story because the protagonist is a particular age. I should probably re-evaluate if it’s a crap story, and that’s the same issue when I’m reading, but protagonist age, viewpoint or intended target audience don’t have anything to do with whether it’s a good story, reading or writing.

9781406311525Sometimes I read a YA book simply because it’s great entertainment, like much-lauded and much-maligned The Hunger Games. Other times they’re brilliant in every sense of the word, like Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls. There are so many excellent YA books, including a huge and growing list of Australian titles, that there’s no way I can keep up with all I’d like to read. If I’d had these sorts of books around when I was a teenager I would have read a lot less inappropriate stuff.

Books with rich subtext and emotional truth abound on YA shelves.

15757486Melina Marchetta’s novels Looking for Alibrandi, Saving Francesca and On the Jellicoe Road are three excellent examples, as are Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy. The stark realism of A.J. Betts’ Zack and Mia, or the ambiguity of Garth Nix’s Clariel give a lot of food for thought and discussion.

ClarielAmie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff’s Illuminae, written as found documents in a format which encourages reluctant readers, is a space science fiction epic which encompasses the ethical dilemmas of corporate greed, epidemics, quarrantine, and the lengths we will go to survive. Tristan Banks’ novel aimed at the younger end of YA, Two Wolves follows a boy on the run with his family and how he comes to terms with his origins.

23395680Guilt and grief are themes in Trinity Doyle’s Pieces of Sky, and it would be difficult to surpass the honesty and depth of David Burton’s memoir How to be Happy. Fleur Ferris’s Risk has authenticity 19392551and psychological sophistication far in excess of most adult novels of crime and loss I’ve ever read. There are so many more I could fill up pages, and already have.

The oldest of these books was published when I was more than a decade past the target audience, and several have been published in the past year or two, now that—let’s just say—I’m a long way past the 23603939target audience. Does that mean I should forgo the pleasure of such excellent reads?

25674284Besides, how else is a bookaholic, pop-culture loving grandmother going to keep in touch with what it’s like to be a teenager today? I have no illusions of fitting in to the teenage scene, or that the reading sub-culture represents all teenagers. On the other hand, no sub-culture represents all of them and diversity is improving.

Diversity in Australian YA books is emerging

It’s al24973955so the most accessible to me, except for Youtube and blogs, which I use but find a huge time sinkhole. The experience of reading, of seeing through a modern protagonists eyes, or even knowing what teenagers around you are talking about, helps keep perspective when the inevitable ‘this-generation-doesn’t-do-X-like-we-did’ discussions arise.

But I’ve also found that sometimes I can bring another perspective to YA books. Teenagers, naturally, read YA from the perspective of the teenage protagonists. Those of us who are older—much, much older—read with the protagonist’s perspective, but also with more life experience. One blogger I read recently talked about how her parental impulses when reading some YA books now are making her feel old, and at the time of writing she was the grand age of twenty-one (here). It’s true, though, that sometimes there are things in YA novels that are easier to see from an older, more experienced perspective.

While some teenagers may see things I don’t because they’re immersed in teen culture, sometimes I see things they miss.

I’ve come across quite a few articles disparaging adults who read YA novels. It’s strange. The arguments just seem silly. It’s like telling me I should watch Downton Abbey and trying to shame me for watching Tomorrow, When the War Began. They’re both excellent programs, so why shouldn’t I watch and enjoy both?

Sure, I read other types of books and enjoy them. As time goes on though, I’m finding that I’m getting impatient with some adult books. Not all, just some.

You see, YA novel authors have to be good these days—very good. Why?

  • Competition to be published is, as in all publishing, fierce.
  • There’s generally a limit of around 70-80,000 words, on the higher side for science-fiction or fantasy to account for the needs of world-building.
  • Stories tend to be complex (contrary to the belief of some) so there’s a lot to pack in. YA authors have to write tight.
  • Teenagers have highly tuned crap detectors. If a novel starts getting airy fairy with language that doesn’t convey a clear meaning, teenagers will call it. That doesn’t mean there isn’t beautiful writing—there is—but it also has to be rich in meaning. There’s no reading a line or paragraph three or four times to work out what it’s saying.

So, when I start a huge Booker-nominated door-stopper, and in sixty pages there’s been some lovely airy descriptions and a lot of musing, but I still haven’t reached the premise of the book… I might just use it as a door-stopper.

Once upon a time I would have ploughed on. Someone who’s supposed to know about literature thought this was a great book, so I should finish it and find out why.
Not anymore. I look ahead and realise that I have a finite number of books I can read in my life.

A boring Booker-nominated door-stopper will take up the time which could be devoted to two or three other books I could enjoy and learn from. One of them might be a different Booker-nominated novel that I love. Another will probably be a Young Adult novel.

Links
#LoveOzYa  for teachers, writers and readers of Australian youth-lit.
Inside a Dog  State Library of Victoria’s Young Adult Page (Home of the Inky Awards)

Posted in: Adult Fiction, Aussie books, Aussie setting, Australian Women Writers, Books, Children's books, Opinion, Personal, Reading, Young Adult Tagged: #aussieauthor, #aww2015, #LoveOzYA, Adult fiction, Books, Novels, Reading, Young Adult

Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club

June 5, 2016 by Sheree 4 Comments

This year at Sydney Writers Festival I attended my first TeenCon.

As we filed into the room, volunteers handed each of us a calico bag containing six books. Yes, six. Not three years old, let’s-chuck-‘em-out books, but ones published within the past year, many within the past six months. The first one I read was by Alison Goodman.

Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club was already on my radar,
as I love Alison Goodman’s writing.

However, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Descriptions in some reviews, including “Jane Austen meets Cassandra Clare”, sounded to me a lot like a Regency version of Clare’s prequel novels (The Infernal Devices). Instead I found a meticulously researched story with a heroine who is gutsy but consistent in her era.

The protagonist, Lady Helen, understands and complies with the proprieties of the time, believing in the limitations women have been socialised to accept, but though she resists the call of her growing knowledge, she steps up when it counts.

The Dark Days Club is best described as an urban fantasy
in Regency era London.

27074515The Dark Days Club begins in 1812, the second year of the Regency. Lady Helen lives with her aunt and puritanical, oppressive uncle as her parents, the Earl of Hayden and Lady Catherine, died a decade before. Rumours persist that her mother betrayed England to Napoleon.

When Lady Helen attends the palace to be presented before Queen Charlotte with other young ladies of genteel families, she is introduced to Lord Carlston, who reputedly murdered his wife three years past, though it could never be proven. So begins her entrée into the world of the Dark Days Club and the hidden perils from which it protects all of Britain.

Goodman has managed to walk a fine line.

She presents Lady Helen as a product of her age rather than an anachronistic modern feminist, while still portraying her as a strong character who doesn’t shrink from the difficult role she is being called to fulfill. Her initial reticence is a common part of any hero’s or heroine’s journey, serving only to underline her later determination.

26066905The story builds gradually, layer by layer, well-paced and well-crafted, and though this is the first in a series, provides a resolution that doesn’t leave the reader hanging.

This isn’t just a story with a Regency backdrop. Neither is it a Gothic novel, though it contains some Gothic elements. It’s a story of a Regency young woman, faced with secrets and responsibilities she’d rather not have, coming to terms with who she is in a society that has little tolerance for female non-conformity.

It’s also got some kick-ass action scenes.

I had high hopes for Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club, and it didn’t disappoint. I’ll be watching out for the second instalment, The Dark Days Pact, in January 2017.

Details
Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club
Angus & Robertson
ISBN: 9780732296094)
Pub: Dec 2015

Links
Alison Goodman’s webpage

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Posted in: Aussie books, Australian Women Writers, Books, Fantasy, Historical fiction, Paranormal, Romance, Writers Festival Book, Young Adult Tagged: #aussieauthor, #aww2016, #LoveOzYA, Alison Goodman, Book review, Books, Fantasy, Paranormal, Review, Romance, Sydney Writers Festival, urban fantasy, Young Adult

Zeroes – What’s your superpower?

October 27, 2015 by Sheree 1 Comment
If you had a supernatural ability, what would it be?
Not what you’d like it to be, but what it would be?

The fifteen-year-olds in Zeroes didn’t get to choose their abilities. While their powers let them do things others can’t, not all the effects are easy to live with. Ethan (nicknamed Scam), for instance, has a ‘voice’ that talks its way into getting anything he wants when he lets it take over, but it doesn’t take consequences into account. This time, it ends up getting him involved with gangsters and bank robbers, and the police don’t buy his lame explanations.

Though he hasn’t spoken to them since his temper got the better of him last summer, his fellow Zeroes come to his rescue. The fallout of Scam’s interference is the discovery of a new Zero, and she wants them to help find her father.

They’ll be risking more than their group. They’ll be risking their lives.

24756394Zeroes is a young adult novel by three well-established authors, Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti. It’s fast-paced action, each chapter from the perspective of one the six Zeroes characters, though all written in third person. Though each author wrote from the perspective of two characters, they blend seamlessly.

What holds the narrative together is not just the action but the relationships. All is not well among the Zeroes. They’re a diverse bunch with little in common other than their possession of a strange ability. There’s dissent, there’s friction, there’s sexual tension, all of which provide conflict and interesting places for the characters to go.

On the other hand, around half-way through the book I found myself looking for other things to read. I lost interest for a while; I didn’t feel like finishing it. This was in spite of an excellent plot with plenty of menace to keep the pages turning. It had all the right ingredients, and I really wanted to love this book.

Why wasn’t I engrossed?

After a little thought, the answer was obvious. I didn’t like the Zeroes very much. They’re interesting, complex, well thought out, and definitely flawed as all good characters should be. They’re well written. I just didn’t enjoy being with them. The suspense and ‘need to know’ were outweighed for a while by the need for space away from the characters, the way you sometimes need space away from friends who are irritating you.

If I was a newly discovered Zero they’d asked to join their group, I wouldn’t be keen. They mean well – mostly – but they’re pains in the bum. They’re a smorgasbord of self focus, arrogance, resentment and anger, and even Flicker, the mild-mannered blind girl who can see through other’s eyes, doesn’t have much compassion for her twin sister when their relationship is encroached upon by another Zero.

24885636It was also difficult to get a clear picture of the Zero, Nathan. The others call him Glorious Leader, but it was hard for me to get a handle on the nature of his power. We know it has to do with the attention of crowds, but I found it nebulous until close to the end of the book where we get a small demonstration. His nickname, Bellwether, didn’t help. I’d heard the term but had no idea what it was. I probably should have bitten the bullet and just looked it up, but I was reading a hard copy and e-reading has made me quite lazy. (I eventually looked it up, and it made more sense of Nathan’s power.)

Overall, Zeroes has a great premise, is well-written, fast-paced with a compelling plot, and full of complex, interesting characters. Eventually I picked it backed up again and finished it. The plot brought me back and I wanted to know what happened, specifically to the new girl, Mob. I liked her the most – though she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the Zeroes superpowered shed.

Though I didn’t love Zeroes as much as I wanted to, it’s still a good book. The writing is great, and it certainly wasn’t a book I could leave unfinished indefinitely. I’ll be reading later books in the series, but the events in this one have changed its characters. Hopefully that means they’ll be less irritating.

Details

Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, & Deborah Biancotti
Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 9781925266955
Published: September 2015

Links

Scott Westerfeld’s webpage
Margo Lanagan’s webpage (called Among Amid While)
Deborah Biancotti’s webpage

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Posted in: Aussie books, Australian Women Writers, Contemporary, Science fiction, Young Adult Tagged: #aussieauthor, #aww2015, #LoveOzYA, Book review, Books, Contemporary, Deborah Biancotti, Margo Lanagan, Review, Science fiction, Scott Westerfeld, Young Adult

Getting Back Into Reading. Guest Post by Morgan Bell

October 21, 2015 by Sheree 3 Comments

2Morgan Bell is a movie and book reviewer for Salty Popcorn, author of Sniggerless Boundulations, contributor to several anthologies and editor of the upcoming Sproutlings. A good friend and supporter of writers in Newcastle, she’s written a guest post for me while I’ve been under the weather.

READING FOR PLEASURE: WHY DID YOU STOP?

You used to be an avid reader as a kid, consuming books ravenously, your library card tattered and maxed out. But now as an adult you can barely concentrate on novels. You buy a lot of books with good intentions but really struggle to read them. You become embarrassed and don’t want to admit you are a slow-reader, and rarely finish books you start.

One of the most common reasons you stop pleasure-reading is that you choose to pursue tertiary education. If you have a lot of reading to do for your academic study, or as part of your job, you become a certain kind of reader who is accustomed to reading specific non-fiction formats.

You can begin to associate reading with work.
It then seems like a tiresome chore.

Academic and professional reading involves a lot of scanning and skimming. It involves gleaning for key words, bullet point lists, and subheadings. Too much time spent exclusively in the business-reading world can make it impossible for you to cope with a text that doesn’t come with an executive summary or a precis.

When you try to go back to reading novels it can be really difficult. Novels are generally free-form with little internal structure. You cannot go into them with rigid expectations.

Here are three tips to getting back into reading for pleasure:

  1. Mix up your media
  2. Rediscover the public library
  3. Start with short stories
MIX UP YOUR MEDIA

It is possible that when you grew up there wasn’t a great amount of diversity in fiction delivery. The technology didn’t exist or the cost was prohibitive or there was a social stigma about delivery modes and/or genre fiction.

We now live in a more tolerant world, where certain comic books are not the exclusive realm of nerds and losers. Where the definitions of “women’s books” or “men’s books” or “children’s books” are slowly losing their meaning.

shortstories
Audible has made audiobooks accessible to everyone. Plug in a set of headphones to your mobile phone and listen to your Audible purchases on your commute to work, while your exercise, or while you do the dishes. Listening is a form of reading.

 

Smartphones have made every phone an e-reader. You don’t need a specialised device. You don’t need to lug heavy books around in your handbag or backpack. And authors have embraced the digital format. There are Kindle Singles, individually published short stories, and electronic versions of literary journals, magazines, essays, picture books, comics, graphic novels, poetry, and zines.

REDISCOVER THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Over your life your tastes change. Your opinions change. Your values change. Maybe not 100%, but they shift, expand, shrink, skew. It is possible that what you are going to enjoy reading today is different to what you enjoyed reading a decade ago, or in your youth.

Browsing the library is the book version of free samples. Grab a few books from different shelves and sections, take your stack over to a table, and, in the relaxing cool and quiet, read the first pages of a whole bunch of books. Have a yes and no pile. The books won’t be offended.

You might start to see a pattern in what you find the most readable or intriguing. You might have new preferences for narrative voice, point of view, tense, experimentation, tropes, escapism, self-reflection, hooks, slow burns, conflicts, themes, or even happy endings.

Libraries also lend magazines, periodicals, CDs, DVDs, audiobooks and e-books these days.

START WITH SHORT STORIES

The shorter the better.

Nano, micro, vignette, flash … then maybe stretch yourself to a novella.

It can be a difficult adjustment to get back into self-motivated, self-directed, solitary reading. The studies that you have undertaken during your pleasure-reading sabbatical may have left you waiting for someone to assign you a book before you read it, and then test you on your comprehension of it afterwards.

You may feel like reading materials ought to be increasingly challenging to be worth your time. While you are relaxing into the idea of reading as a carefree exercise, you should tap into some meaningful and engaging short story collections.

My top five are:

  1. The Devil’s Larder by Jim Crace
  2. Dark Roots by Cate Kennedy
  3. The Turning by Tim Winton
  4. Our Story Begins by Tobias Wolff
  5. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

I am currently reading a paperback of An Astronaut’s Life, a collection by Sonja Dechian, listening to the audiobook of Tenth of December, a collection by George Saunders, and e-booking Snow & Shadow, a collection by Dorothy Tse.

Short stories are ultra-condensed little lessons on life, the meatiest little chunks to savour and consider. They don’t ask you for the over-investment that a novel does when you are focussed on evaluating style and messages. They respect that your time is precious, your patience finite, and your joy is inextricably linked to analysis.

I hope you enjoyed my suggestions for short story collections to read. If you would like the full list there is an Editor’s Choice Reading List as a $2 pledge reward on the Kickstarter for the anthology of flash fiction I am currently editing.

kickstartersproutlingsfacebookcoverThe paperback of Sproutlings: A Compendium of Little Fictions is just $20 delivered to your door in Australia – when pre-ordered through the Kickstarter – and features over 40 delectable slices of flash fiction about wicked plants. It might be just the thing to pull you out of your reading slump!

Find the Kickstarter campaign here.

Posted in: Adult Fiction, Aussie books, Australian Women Writers, Contemporary, Guest post, Libraries, Morgan Bell, Reading, Short stories Tagged: #aussieauthor, #aww2015, Adult fiction, Contemporary, Guest post, Morgan Bell, Reading, Short stories

And the Winner Is …

October 14, 2015 by Sheree 2 Comments

… Young Adult books!

Though the literary world seems abuzz with Man Booker fever over a novel that sounds like Stephen Hawking meets Psycho, the #LoveOzYA community is celebrating the winners of the Inky Awards. (I’m sure the MB prize winner is a great book; I’m just excited by the Inkies.) If you haven’t heard of the Inkies, don’t despair. Once upon a time no one had heard of the Man Booker Prize either – or the Oscars.

The Inky Awards are bestowed through The Centre for Youth Literature, State Library of Victoria, who promote reading as “not just something that is done as school work” and “an active, pleasurable and essential activity for all young people”. One of their projects is Inside a Dog, a website which promotes young adult literature, showcasing both Australian writers and their work and the cream of international YA literature.

Why “Inside a Dog”? It comes from a Groucho Marx quote:

insideadog-small“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

The name of the award comes from the Inside a Dog mascot, Inky, the all-round wonder-dog. The Gold Inky is awarded to a book by an Australian author while the Silver Inky is awarded to a book by an international author.

So, who are the winners for 2015?

The Gold Inky winner is:

Gold_winner_nobkgnd_1 9780732297053

The Intern,

by Gabrielle Tozer

 

 

The Intern is great book, a contemporary story of a girl in her first year of university who is pushed out of her comfort zone by an internship at a fashion magazine as part of her course requirement. You can read my review of The Intern here. Congratulations Gabrielle!

The Silver Inky winner is:

Fangirl_Pan Macmillan_0_1.previewSilver_winner_nobkgnd_0

Fangirl

by Rainbow Rowell

 

 

I haven’t read Fangirl yet but it’s on my list, and this has bumped it up quite a few places.

A quick look at the long list for this years awards shows the calibre of books that were in the running for the Inky Awards this year.

2015-Inky-longlist

Though I’ve only reviewed Clariel by Garth Nix, the quality of books is amazing. It’s impossible to keep up with all the excellent YA being produced as well as Australian speculative fiction – and that’s great news for everybody.

Links

Inside a Dog Homepage

The process of nomination and judging the Inky Awards plus previous Long Lists, Short Lists and Winners, here

Gabrielle Tozer’s website

Rainbow Rowell’s website

Man Booker Prize 2015 Announcement

 

Posted in: Aussie books, Aussie setting, Australian Women Writers, Awards, Contemporary, Opinion, Young Adult Tagged: #aussieauthor, #aww2015, #LoveOzYA, Aussie setting, Awards, Books, Contemporary, Gabrielle Tozer, Inky, Rainbow Rowell

Tower of Thorns, by Juliet Marillier

September 29, 2015 by Sheree 6 Comments
A wailing monster, a cursed land and a lady with secrets.

Add a bristling healer and her hulky companion with pasts that haunt them, and you have an enthralling story that sweeps you into its world of fey and mystery.

22567177Blackthorn is a healer and wise woman who was rescued from a death sentence by one of the fey. The conditions of her reprieve included not seeking vengeance against the chieftain who unjustly imprisoned her. With another of the prisoners, Grim, as friend and companion, she has built a new life in Dalraida.

When the Lady Geiléis arrives seeking help from the Dalraidan prince, it is to Blackthorn they turn. A monster has taken up residence in an old tower surrounded by impenetrable thorns on the lady’s lands. It howls from dawn to dusk and has cast a blight upon the whole land.

At the same time an old friend emerges with a tempting offer for Blackthorn, to bring her old tormentor, Mathuin the chieftain, to justice. She plans to go the lady’s lands and deal with the monster, then slip away from Grim and travel south to help in Mathuin’s trial. Once at Lady Geiléis’ lands, though, it becomes clear the lady and her servants are hiding something.

Tower of Thorns works as a stand-alone novel, but readers of the first book in the Blackthorn & Grim series, Dreamer’s Pool, will be eager for this second offering.

One of the strengths of these novels is the complexity
of the title characters.

They are defined by the things they have in common; their traumatic pasts that are being slowly revealed to each other and the reader, their time in Mathuin’s prison where they occupied opposite cells while enduring deprivation and abuse, and their understanding of the brokenness of one another.  Yet they also provide a contrast for one another.

Blackthorn is well-named. She’s prickly, bitter and prone to fits of temper, finding it difficult to be around other people for long periods. She’s also assertive,  as Lady Geiléis discovers once they are back on her land.

“Once Blackthorn decided to take the reins, it seemed she was blind to anything that might stand in her way.”

However, even though she finds the caring side of her healing work exhausting, she does it well. She sees herself with little to give emotionally but is so attuned to others that she can’t help empathizing and supporting them when they’re in need. Though she’s been scarred by her life, at the core she’s decent and good and does what she believes is right.

Grim sees himself with little to give in general, in spite of being able to turn his hand to anything from thatching and growing vegetables to training others in use of weapons. Though they conduct their relationship as companions, his devotion to Blackthorn never wavers. Where her focus stays on making Mathuin pay for his crimes, Grim’s is on Blackthorn and doing all his power to protect and provide for her. Discovering more of his story and who he his in Tower of Thorns was especially welcome.

17305016It isn’t easy to get stories about people with post-traumatic stress right, let alone in the context of medieval Ireland where old magic and the fey are forces to be reckoned with. Blackthorn and Grim have different ways of dealing with the traumas of their pasts, but each is authentic and rings true in the context of the time. The descriptions of Grim’s flashbacks and physical symptoms are particularly well done.

Tower of Thorns is told from three points of view; Blackthorn’s and Grim’s, both using first person, and the third from the perspective of Lady Geiléis in third person. Though the narrative style changes, it works well. Marillier’s prose flows, often lyrical, always grounded.

Not only does it feel as though this medieval Ireland of fey magic is real, but it should be real.

Though evil is there just as it is in our world, there is also a beauty and wonder in creation that has been lost for most of us. Perhaps books like this can challenge us to appreciate what we have and strive to preserve the beauty and natural wonders around us.

As I said when reviewing Raven Flight, I’ve been a keen reader of Juliet Marillier’s books since her first book, Daughter of the Forest, was published, so I tend to be well-disposed towards her books when I pick them up. So far I haven’t been disappointed. I’m already looking forward to the next in the Blackthorn & Grim series.

* I received an ARC from the author for review.

 Details
Tower of Thorns  by Juliet Marillier
Pan Macmillan Australia
ISBN: 9780451466990
Published: 3 October, 2015

Links
Juliet Marillier’s Website
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Posted in: Adult Fiction, Aussie books, Australian Women Writers, Fantasy, Folklore, Romance Tagged: #aussieauthor, #aww2015, Adult fiction, Book review, Books, Faery, Fantasy, Folklore, Juliet Marillier, Review, Romance

The Beast’s Garden, by Kate Forsyth

September 2, 2015 by Sheree 3 Comments

What does a lark and a lion have to do with Nazi intelligence and German resistance in World War II?

23702432A hint: it involves a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. Still not sure? Stay with me and all shall become clear.

A new Kate Forsyth novel is always something to look forward to, whether it’s an adult or children’s novel. I think this one, though, is her best yet. The Beast’s Garden is a compelling story of the outrage, fear and courage of a young woman and her friends in Berlin working against the all-powerful Nazi regime.

We first meet nineteen year old Ava on the Night of Broken Glass, when co-ordinated attacks were carried out against Jews and their property throughout Germany and Austria in November 1938. From the first line we know there will be two opposing forces in Ava’s life:

Ava fell in love the night the Nazis first showed their true faces to the world.

Against the instructions of her father she leaves the safety of her home to seek out the Jewish Feidlers, who have been like a second family to her. On the way she runs into a Nazi officer, Leo, and though she hates all the Nazis stand for, she can’t forget him. It’s an encounter that changes both their lives.

Life gets more difficult as she tries to help the Feidlers and work against the Nazis. Leo works in the Abwehr, the Intelligence arm of Nazi command, and he provides some protection, but how can she keep her illicit activities secret from him? But then she discovers he abhors what is happening as much as she does, as do others in the Abwehr. They’re even plotting against Hitler. Can they succeed without being discovered and executed?

This isn’t a leisurely read; it’s compelling. I read it over a few days because I made myself put it away, do other things and read lighter books. The immersion in wartime Berlin was making me way too anxious to be able to sleep.

KFquoeIt’s also very real. Kate Forsyth’s research is extensive and her attention to detail is meticulous. Apart from Ava, Leo, their families and the Feidler family, everyone mentioned in the book is a real person, and the story is told within real events. The reality of such evil, the casual sadism and disregard for human life the people there faced every day is more than disturbing.

I knew very little of the German resistance before reading this book. I knew little more about plots to kill Hitler, most of it from watching the movie Valkyre. I knew virtually nothing about the Abwehr, or that some Jewish and other ‘undesirable’ people survived, homeless and hiding, in Berlin. Reading The Beast’s Garden I learned about these things and a lot more, and have been prompted to read more widely about them.

While I was reading, though, I didn’t realise how much I was learning. I was swept away by the story.

So, finally, what’s this about a lark and a lion? Kate is well known for her expertise in the lore of fairy tales (she has a doctorate in the field) and cites a Grimm Brothers tale called The Singing, Springing Lark as a favourite. It’s an extended version of Beauty and the Beast with a heroine with more action and agency than the well-known, popularised-by-Disney version. In the Grimm tale, the heroine’s father tries to capture a lark from the land of the ‘beast’, which in this version is a lion, who is an enchanted prince.

Berlin_Tiergarten_Siegessäule_Luftansicht

TIERGARTEN, Berlin. Image By beedubz (Own work) https://goo.gl/LiuJHp

This tale provides the basic form of the The Beast’s Garden, with Leo (of course) being the lion beast who spares the life of Ava’s father, and she finds he is not such a beast at all. There is much more to the story, but – spoilers.

The title works on a number of levels which I’ll leave for you to discover, but I love that much of the novel revolves around the Tiergarten, the largest urban park in Berlin, which translates as ‘animal garden’ or ‘beast garden’. There was a small zoo at one end, but most of it was trees, paths and statues. Much of it was destroyed during bombings, and after the war it was used to grow food for a while.

This is one of those books that is not only hard to put down, but when you’ve finished you know your life has been enriched. The main characters in the novel may be fictional, but they provide a window into the lives of people who lived in the capital of Nazi power in one of the darkest times of modern European history. As a reader the question of whether you’d be able to be as courageous in the same circumstances is hard to avoid. Perhaps it’s a timely reminder to be active and outspoken about the injustices we see in our own time and place.

* I received an e-copy of this book for review through NetgalleyNetgalley badge

Details
The Beast’s Garden by Kate Forsyth
Random House Australia
ISBN: 9780857980403
Published: 3 August 2015

17283570

by Kate Forsyth

17618419

Other historical novels

Links
Kate Forsyth’s webpage
Images by Sergey Larenkov:
-Merged images from 1945 and today: brilliant. (Towards the bottom includes the taking of Berlin, one of the Tiergarten.)

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Posted in: Adult Fiction, Aussie books, Australian Women Writers, Fairy tales, Historical fiction Tagged: #aussieauthor, #aww2015, Adult fiction, Book review, Books, Fairy tale, Historical, Kate Forsyth, Review

Cloudwish, by Fiona Wood

August 27, 2015 by Sheree 1 Comment

Wishes aren’t real. Are they?

Vân Uoc knows the score. She’s a scholarship kid in an exclusive school where most of the other kids were born with silver spoons in their mouths. She’s under no illusion about fitting into the designer-clothes-and-huge-house set, but it hasn’t prevented her crushing on A-lister and rowing star Billy Gardiner.

24248906When a creative writing teacher hands around a box of items as prompts, Vân Uoc picks out a little glass tube with the word ‘wish’ on a slip of paper inside. Her wish? For Billy Gardiner to prefer her to everyone else. Afterwards she can’t find the glass tube, and Billy takes notice of her for the first time. Coincidence – isn’t it?

Though Cloudwish begins whimsically, the struggles Vân Uoc experiences between home and school feel very real. Being the only daughter of Vietnamese refugees, she feels the full weight of her parents’ expectations and the responsibility of being worthy of all the terrors they suffered and sacrifices they made so she could have a better life. Her day-to-day world is one of restriction and enforced study in their housing commission flat, carving out her small freedoms by bending the truth in translation to her barely-English-speaking parents and rationalising her dishonesty.

She doesn’t want anyone at school to know any of that, of course. She’s always tried to fly under the rader; life is easier if she’s invisible. With Billy’s sudden attention comes an unwelcome spotlight, and a few girls in particular aren’t too happy to see Billy’s affection straying outside home turf.

Billy really seems to like her, though, just for herself. She doesn’t believe wishes are real, but how else could this have happened? And can she live with that, if he hasn’t really chosen it?

Cloudwish is the story of a girl caught in the tension between two cultures. Fiona Wood immerses us in Vân Uoc’s world and we can’t help but feel the pressure from her parents and the otherness she experiences at school. The book begins with a quote from Alice Walker at Sydney Writers’ Festival:

I recognised myself in Jane Eyre. It amazed me how many white people can’t read themselves in black characters. I didn’t feel any separation between me and Jane. We were tight.

I love this quote and find it puzzling at the same time. The magical thing about stories is that they enable us to become other people, to understand who they are from the inside, to ‘look out through other eyes’ as Neil Gaiman has said. A good book is a leveller, making us all see from the same perspective, and I find it incredibly sad that some people have a racial barrier stopping that process.

The quote is perfect, though, because Jane Eyre is Vân Uoc’s hero and muse. “What would Jane do?” is a refrain throughout the story, and lovers of Charlotte Bronte’s classic will love the way Wood weaves snippets into Cloudwish.

While Vân Uoc seeks to be as brave as Jane, she suffers from the insecurities endemic in young women – or women in general – and many girls will identify with her doubts when the most popular boy at school pursues her. Is it a set-up? A joke? If not, it must be the wish.

Though most of the novel is written in third person, it perfectly fits the voice of its lead character. It’s a lovely touch that her name, Vân Uoc, means ‘cloudwish’ in Vietnamese.

I can’t help comparing Cloudwish with Looking for Alibrandi in the way it presents the life of a second generation Australian living between cultures. Reading it doesn’t feel like an education, only a great story, but afterwards I realised I understood a lot more than I had before I read it.

That’s a great book.

* I received an e-copy of this book for review through Netgalley

Details
Cloudwish by Fiona WoodNetgalley badge
Pan Macmillan Australia
ISBN: 9781743533123
Published: 1 Sept, 2015

Links
Fiona Wood’s website

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Posted in: Aussie books, Aussie setting, Australian Women Writers, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult Tagged: #aussieauthor, #aww2015, #LoveOzYA, Aussie setting, Book review, Books, Contemporary, Fiona Wood, Review, Romance, Young Adult
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