Mortal Chaos
Author: Matt Dickinson
Publisher: OUP
ISBN: 9780192757135
Reviewed by: Bridget Carrington
Chaos Theory is the inspiration for this novel, the first in a projected trilogy. Dickinson takes the so-called butterfly effect – the most easily understandable example of sensitive dependence on initial conditions. In this aspect of the theory it is said that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in South America can cause a storm in Asia. Dickinson contrives a novel which begins, quite literally, with a butterfly in a wood in Wiltshire, and relates events which happen across the globe, apparently as a consequence of the butterfly’s wing beats.
From Wiltshire, to Nepal, through the US, Malawi and Heathrow we follow the intricate and inexorable progress of fate, which results in the deaths of some characters, and the unexpected survival of others. The chapters – 189 in total – are each no more than two sides of paper, and frequently merely a matter of lines. This appropriately reflects the domino effect of events, but sometimes leaves us wishing we had more detail about the individual scenarios, as so much is left unsaid, and situations begun, and seen in a tantalizing glimpse, are not always concluded. As many questions about the characters are raised and not answered as are resolved. Why is Will so determined to disobey his father, to skive off school, and then to hunt something down and kill? What would drive Shelton to kill his own children to get revenge on his wife’s lover?
Quite apart from these unanswered questions, there is also a frustrating lack of character development generally, with the young Japanese climber, Kuni, no more substantial than the snow on which she is climbing, and Tina, an airline pilot and one of the major players, frustratingly two-dimensional. Bakili, the young boy who guards his family fields in rural Malawi, together with his brother, is involved in a bizarre attack on them by baboons, and despite the suggestion that they are saved, we are left wondering about the longer term outcome. Despite the involvement of Tina in their rescue, this episode is less well linked to the narrative as a whole, and cries out for development as a story on its own. Sophie and her family, whose purchase of balloons triggers the final cataclysmic event, are scarcely more than names.
Despite this, Mortal Chaos is an original and gripping novel which moves with great speed and will undoubtedly engage teenage readers. It’s not really a book for children at all, as only Bakili and his brother, and Kuni, together with Sophie, Will and Jamie (schoolchildren) are not adults, while Keiron and Gary (apprentice jockeys) are probably teens/twenties. All the other major characters whose fate is portrayed as resulting from the butterfly’s movement, are adults. It’s a novel which could just as easily be enjoyed by adults, and would eminently repay adaptation for the screen.
Dickinson’s style and format are well-suited to a novel based on chaos theory, the swift transitions between events – butterfly, rabbit, horse, deer, car damage, delayed flight, unanswered call, concentration lapse, race result, balloon purchase, plane crash – often bizarre and always inviting us to reflect ‘if only’…
Whether two more novels with this remit, and in this format are sustainable is questionable, but doubtless Mortal Chaos will deservedly attract a committed readership.
Someone Else's Life
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9780857071415
Reviewed by: Nikki Beilinski
A thick book, chick lit, I wasn't too keen... but I started it and could hardly put it down.
I was hooked, lined and sinkered. I can't give the plot away without destroying the effect. But there’s something terribly heartbreaking about the possibility of being switched at birth. This is the story of two lives, unknowingly entwined, misplaced, misappropriated and misconstrued. When Rose's mum dies of Huntington's disease, Roses discovers she is not her mother's biological daughter. Then whose daughter is she? She travels to the US with her boyfriend, Andy. She finds her mother, but also her father... or does she? Most importantly though, Rosie finds her ‘true’ self. Relationships are explored, broken, fixed and broken again in a story of depth, pain and joy.
Dale has emulated the style of Jodie Picoult, writing a novel that many people will connect with emotionally. It dramatically covers issues surrounding illness, death, family and identity. The reader is constantly on edge as twists are thrown in. Some of these twists are fantastic, but others border on melodrama.
I was hooked by this emotional fast-pacer that girls will enjoy.
This is Not Forgiveness Editor's Choice
Author: Celia Rees
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 9781408817698
Reviewed by: Linda Newbery
Many of Rees’ fans know her through her excellent historical novels, including Witch Child, The Fool’s Girl and Sovay. This latest novel is a not so much a new departure as a return to the contemporary thrillers she wrote at the beginning of her career.
You know you’re in safe hands with Celia Rees. A framing device, in first person, describes the cremation service of Robert Julian Maguire, who’s been given “the modern equivalent of a pauper’s grave”. His funeral is sparsely attended, and at the end “the congregation seemed relieved to see your coffin going, as if it wasn’t a body on its way to the furnace but some dangerous biohazard”. We realise that the narrator is Robert’s brother, and that Rob has done something unforgivable. Thus we start by knowing, at least partly, how the story will end, but Rees lets the reader guess only a certain amount, and pulls off a shocking, clever and poignant conclusion that calls for a re-evaluation of the characters.
The story is told mainly by Jamie, this younger brother, but is interspersed with Rob’s voice, through podcasts, and extracts from the journal of Caro, the girl with whom both are involved. Caro is a dangerous character, but we easily see the fascination Jamie feels for her; even though he knows she’s two-timing him, he scuttles back whenever she calls. “First love, first sex, first death” is the theme of another Celia Rees novel, The Wish House, and those potent ingredients are equally, and more treacherously, significant here. Caro has dabbled in occultism but has now turned to anarchy, taking as role models Petra Schelm and Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction. She easily recruits and manipulates Rob, an ex-soldier and expert sniper, injured in Afghanistan and now invalided out of the army, left with a feeling of exclusion and a set of skills useless in civilian life. Jamie, far more innocent, is caught between the two, while the other narratives allow us to see just how explosive the situation is.
Rees’ skill is such that she creates ambivalent and constantly shifting feelings in the reader towards Rob and Caro, while making us fear for Jamie in the certainty that he will be irrevocably hurt by one or both. Absolutely unputdownable, and an accomplished addition to Celia Rees’ impressive body of work, This is not Forgiveness should certainly be on prize lists over the next year.
Taking Flight
Author: Sheena Wilkinson
Publisher: Little Island
ISBN: 9781848409491
Reviewer: Linda Newbery
This is a very assured and accomplished first novel by Belfast writer Sheena Wilkinson. Declan, fifteen when the novel opens, has the odds stacked against him – his father died when he was a baby, and he lives with his inadequate and uncaring mother, an alcoholic who has intermittent dealings with a violent boyfriend. Alternating chapters are narrated by Vicky, who is Declan’s cousin, though they hardly know each other. She too lives with a single mother, but has a far more affluent background, spending weekends with her wealthy father and his new wife. Used to being indulged, she takes her privileges for granted, especially her father’s gift of a four-thousand-pound horse and its expensive upkeep at full livery.
We know that Declan has been in serious trouble for joyriding, compounded by fighting at school and ongoing hostility towards and from another boy involved. When his mother is taken into hospital and then into rehabilitation, Declan’s future would seem hopeless if not for the concern of Vicky’s mother, his aunt. Vicky is appalled when her mother brings Declan home to stay; ashamed of his working-class background, she’s reluctant to have him anywhere near her horse or her friends, and is too preoccupied with her show-jumping ambitions and her crush on an older boy to show any sympathy for Declan’s unhappy circumstances.
The reader will be siding with Declan, for whom horses and the routines associated with them bring salvation. Work experience with Cam, the tough but fair stable owner, gives him an absorbing occupation and a chance of a possible career. Everyone but Vicky sees the good in Declan; when she sees the rapport he’s built with Flight, her horse, she taunts him with a piece of information which threatens his fragile new security. This leads to a gut-wrenching disaster, and Declan is plunged back into depression and guilt. The author skilfully involves the reader in his anguish, while Vicky confronts her own unpleasantness, and with the help of her new boyfriend (my only quibble with the book is that Rory is rather too perfect) is allowed to redeem herself.
In Declan, Sheena Wilkinson has created a memorable main character, whose anxieties, hopes and crushing disappointments will be fully shared by the reader. Pace and tension are brilliantly handled in an absorbing coming-of-age story whose appeal won’t be limited to horse-lovers.
The Girl In The Mask
Author: Marie-Louise Jensen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780192792792
Reviewer: Rebecca Butler
Sophia Williams is a young society lady of the early eighteenth century. Her expected role in life is to attend dinners and balls, to look beautiful, behave nicely and marry well. All of these niceties she cordially detests. Her heroine is Aphra Benn, playwright and spy. Sophia wishes to learn Latin and Greek and how to shoot.
Not that Sophia’s life is as pointless as that of other women similarly placed. Her father has spent over two years away in the West Indies, looking after his plantations. During this time Sophia runs his British estates with meticulous care. On account of her mastery of the business and her riding skills, the villagers on her estate call her ‘the Squire’.
Then the blow falls. Her father returns, a bully and a gambler who (we are told) has never shown his daughter a speck of love. He has returned from his Caribbean slaves to his English slave. He lifts from Sophia all the responsibilities that have given her life purpose. He is disgusted by his daughter’s way of life, her riding, her reading and her independence. There is nothing for it but to uproot the family from its Devon home and migrate to Bath, together with an aged aunt who will act as Sophia’s chaperon.
In Bath the bullying and the pointless socialising continue. Sophia rebels by climbing out of the house, befriending some servants, disguising herself as a boy and turning to the thrilling career of a highwayman – quite a significant rebellion. Will Sophia in the end be compelled to embrace her bourgeois destiny – or will she escape it?
The period narrative and dialogue of this book are sufficiently convincing. Sophia completely engages the sympathy of the reader. Her father reminds us of too many male entrenched attitudes that have survived into our times. In one or two places the narrative pace flags, but for reasons that become clear later. The book will impart valuable historical background to young readers, relating to a period not much taught in the current curriculum.
The Other Life
Author: Susanne Winnacker
Publisher: Usborne
ISBN: 9781409536086
Kindle: 9781409541707
Reviewer: Yvonne Coppard
Sherry and her family have been living in an underground bunker for 3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days. Their food has finally run out, and Sherry and her father are forced to leave the bunker to find some, or they will all starve. Outside, they discover that Los Angeles is a wasteland, taken over by the Weepers. Once ordinary human beings, the weepers have been mutated by a rare form of rabies into grotesque, ravenous beasts, who are hunting the surviving healthy humans for food. Quite soon they are in trouble, and Sherry is rescued from attack by the mysterious Joshua.
This is a story with all the ingredients to catch teen fans of dystopian novels: it is genuinely scary, with an undercurrent of menace as Sherry struggles to protect her family, work out who can be trusted and who cannot, evade the Weepers - and come to terms with the bitter-sweetness of first love. There is violence – so much of it that the frequent, graphic descriptions of gunshot wounds and torn flesh begin to lose something of their power. But I think this debut novelist has studied her market and the book will hit the spot. A sequel, The Life Beyond is due in February 2013.
Dark Warning
Author: Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 9781842556788
Reviewer: Gwen Grant
OK, fasten your seatbelts when you read Dark Warning, because you’re in for a joyous ride. Not that the story is particularly joyous, involving as it does a poverty-stricken 13-year-old, Taney Tyrell, living in early 19th century Dublin, who has the gift of second sight and who alternates between hating her gift and loving it. But ... the writing makes the book sing.
Fitzpatrick does use dialect, often difficult to get right, but this is crystal clear, bringing both period and characters to vibrant life.
Taney Tyrell, then, is a motherless child but with a Da who loves her and a step-mother, Mary Kate, who is not quite so keen. Taney’s mother died of the second sight and when her father finds she, too, has the gift, his horror of it leaves her frightened and insecure. You have to wait to find out how people die of second sight, but it’s worth the wait.
Taney loves her little step-brother, Jon-Jon, but she also loves an orphan boy with no legs, Billy-the-Bowl, the bowl made for Billy to get around in. Charismatic Billy charms everyone and intervenes when Taney is attacked as a witch by children she’d thought her friends. The relationship between the two is well drawn, exciting to Taney at first when Billy leads her into the grim world of gambling and convinces her to use her gift to enable him to win, but changing as she grows older.
When her Da loses his job and starvation threatens, Mary Kate takes Taney charring and in this way, she is introduced to the richer world of the Laceys. I was much taken by the scrupulous dissection of the Laceys’ position in the world by Taney’s friends, the Misses Kenny – that the Laceys were new money; posh, yes, but not posh enough for the old families to take much notice of them, which is why they are using Taney and her gift of second sight to attract them to the house.
There is a theft and elopement, lovely descriptions of the Lacey household, thrilling accounts of Dublin and a brilliant celebration of Hallowe’en, new to me and utterly absorbing.
Eventually, Taney learns to use her gift sensibly, the most innocent use that of reading tea-leaves, but when a murderer terrorises Dublin, it takes her into darker and darker territory. Fitzpatrick puts a couple of red herrings in our path as to the murderer’s identity but only one convinces.
Dark Warning is exciting and atmospheric. When you’ve read it, you’ll want to read it all over again. How wonderful to live in Dublin and visit the places in the book.
Don't Call Me Ishmael
Author: Michael Gerard Bauer
Publisher: Templar
ISBN: 9781848776838
Reviewer: Anne Harding
Fourteen-year-old Ishmael Leseur has multiple problems. For one, he is the only known sufferer of Ishmael Leseur syndrome, which puts him straight on the imbecile scale. He is not helped by having a younger sister who is a genius. Then there’s his father, whose ability to embarrass his son with the story of his birth, told to anyone and everyone, is on an epic scale. It’s the facts of his birth that have landed him with his unfortunate name. ‘Call me Ishmael’ is the opening line of Moby Dick, and that’s just what his parents did. But the biggest source of his woes is Barry Bagsley, a bully who plays humiliating games with Ishmael’s name and reduces him to an inarticulate heap, invisibility his chief desire.
Then new boy James Scobie sits next to Ishmael in class. James, a weird looking geek with obsessive tendencies, will get eaten alive by Barry and his cronies, and Ishmael will be made to suffer alongside him. Only that’s not what happens. James stands up to Barry, seemingly impervious to his taunts.
Against all his instincts, tongue-tied Ishmael is persuaded to join James’ debating team, on strict condition that his role is a non-speaking one. Of course, things go wrong, and at the semi-finals of the debating competition he finds himself at the podium. The presence of the lovely Kelly Faulkner in the rival team induces total incoherence. His shame does not end there.
This is a novel which tackles serious issues. It is also genuinely funny. Bauer has an enviable ability to treat teenage concerns with a humorous touch while never belittling them. He has a great ear for teenage dialogue, no doubt aided by his time as a teacher. The story is set in Bauer’s native Australia. Neither this nor the Moby Dick references will mar the enjoyment of the non-antipodean or non-literary reader.
The novel ends on an optimistic note. I suspect Ishmael has problems to come though. Ishmael and the Return of the Dugongs is due for publication in June.
Virtuosity
Author: Jessica Martinez
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9780857072849
Reviewer: Morag Charlwood
This debut novel is proving pretty popular on the teen blogs that I’ve checked. There’s plenty to attract young adult readers: a love interest, parent-child conflict, a hot-house atmosphere of competition and stress. The story has a contemporary buzz with the appeal of an American life-style easily crossing over from film, web and other media. The cover of the English edition is smart and sassy-looking, although I suspect it aims more at female than male readers. It emphasises the boy-girl relationship dilemma in its strap line “She’s winning his heart, but losing her way...” and focuses on Carmen, the heroine. Actually, I think the interest of the novel lies more in the journey Carmen takes towards believing in her right to make her own decisions.
For me the story’s plot twists and turns are the best part of the writing. They keep the reader engaged as they expose Carmen to decision-making choices that are the true grit of the piece. The relationship between Jeremy and Carmen comes across as a vehicle for exploring Carmen’s dilemmas, rather than a great teen amour. Carmen’s conflict with her ambitious mother provides another means of offering self-growth for Carmen’s character. All strands work towards Carmen’s bravery in abandoning drug support for her stage fright, daring to have a boyfriend her mother distrusts and, finally, breaking the vicious hold of competitive games-playing.
I find the ending rather rushed, but like the door to the Juilliard School being left open. It is consistent with Carmen’s returning love of music and her growing self-confidence as an adult.
The Horse Girl
Title: The Horse Girl
Author: Mary Finn
Publisher: Walker Books
ISBN: 9781406329100
Reviewer: Leslie Wilson
The Horse Girl is set in the eighteenth century. Its narrator, the dyslexic and frantic Thomas, runs home from a grammar school which has become intolerable, and, getting home, meets the mysterious and fascinating circus artiste Helène, or Ling as she is known in England. Ling, who quickly captivates Thomas, is on the hunt for her horse, Belladonna - or rather a horse she claims by virtue of love, rather than legal title. The owner of the circus she's been travelling with has sold Belladonna, and Ling will stop at almost nothing to get the horse back again.
This is a novel of high literary quality, beautifully written and absorbing. Having said that, I did find it rather hard to get into, but it repaid the initial effort and I soon found it hard to put down. I think what fascinated me was Ling's delightful voice, playful, sensitive, convincingly French (which is rare). 'Many a monsieur can read, Thomas, but cannot think. I like the way you talk because it tells me how you see the world. You like things to fit well and to be fair and you have this,' she tapped first my forehead then my chest, 'a head to match your heart.'
Of course Thomas falls in love with her, and, wonderfully to him, she returns his love. But she's not an easy love, obsessed as she is with the horse Belladonna, who she finds quickly enough - only the horse has been given to an aristocratic youth, to teach him to ride. Ling takes over as riding tutor, much to the dismay of the servants in the great house, and when it's time to actually repossess Belladonna, Thomas is very willing to take risks and help her, though he's terribly afraid for her. The penalty for horse-stealing is the gallows.
Thomas, meanwhile, has become apprentice to the painter, George Stubbs, who is living in the neighbourhood and doing the research and drawings for his book Anatomy of the Horse. This involves the dissection of dead horses, and the descriptions of this laborious and horrible procedure are not for the squeamish. Ling views Stubbs's work with severe distrust; you cannot find out about life, she says, by cutting it apart, because there is no life left to see.
I like Ling's passionate counterposition of the artistic to the scientific, but in the end, Stubbs' own work gives the lie to this apparent conflict. Having anatomised his beasts, he will paint horses more realistically than they have ever been painted before; not to mention provide material for future veterinarians up to the present day.
I like still more the way in which this novel manages to present ideas, as well as to draw the reader into the east-coast countryside and landscape, and yet maintain the excitement of the story. It's a love-story, an adventure story, and the story of a young man satisfactorily finding the place in the world he thought had been denied him.
Battle Fatigue
Author: Mark Kurlansky
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 9781408826911
Reviewed by: Anglea Solomons
Growing up in post-World War II America, Joel Bloom’s home in Haley, Massachussetts, is full of ex-soldiers. All the fathers he knew went to war and so it is expected that if needs be the new generation too will fight for their country in their turn. When President Kennedy is elected there is a new optimism in the nation - but coupled with this is the new threat of nuclear war and the fear of communism. Joel cannot understand why the Russians are perceived as the enemy most likely to bomb them, when he knows that it was his own country that dropped two nuclear bombs.
As he grows older Joel’s doubts increase. He realises he is out of step with his classmates, so keeps his misgivings to himself. When President Kennedy is shot Joel realises that not only is it the “death of hope” but the end of his childhood.
When America goes to war with Vietnam Joel knows that this will be “his war” and he will have to make the decision whether he can kill other human beings. He knows that contrary to common belief war does not make the world a safer place. He participates in peaceful demonstrations against the draft and the war, but seeing police brutality only strengthens his resolve. After college he faces the Draft Board and is passed fit to go into the army. His only options are to go to jail or move to Canada, leaving behind friends and family and his entire way of life.
In Canada he returns to his studies in biology; he at last finds a girl called Angela who agrees with his politics. They study wolves. A wolf does not kill for pleasure, only for food. He and Angela feel that they have been surrounded by war all their lives; a find of “Battle Fatigue.” In the Canadian Rockies they have at last found peace.
This was a most moving and thought-provoking book about the other side of war; it is suitable for young teenagers. Highly recommended.
The Traitors
Author: Tom Becker
Publisher: Scholastic
ISBN: 9781407109527
Reviewed by: Lauren Radburn
Adam Wilson has betrayed his best friend and is haunted by his actions. Thanks to Adam, his friend has been expelled from school and won’t speak to him – and so far Adam has got away completely scot free. That is, until the Dial calls.
It seems that those who betray others can expect the severest of punishments, and Adam has a 274-year stint in the Dial – a bleak institute for young offenders situated in a barren land accessed through a warp hole via airship – to look forward to. On arrival, the shocked and confused Adam finds himself in a dormitory where he is taken under the wing of an old hand, Doughnut, who luckily for Adam, enjoys a certain level of protection as the institute’s resident black market racketeer.
Unsurprisingly, when several hundred young people are incarcerated in an unforgiving and comfortless environment for hundreds of years, thoughts soon turn to escape. No matter that when they do eventually return home it will be as if no time has elapsed and no one else will know about their time in the Dial. Despite rumours, half-truths and breakout attempts, the prevailing belief is that escape is impossible. Adam, of course, is determined to get to the truth and find his way back home, but his resolute and single-minded approach gets him into trouble with inmates and warders alike, and the search for freedom becomes a matter of life and death for everyone at the Dial.
This novel provokes much to debate. The concepts of crime and punishment and the role of prison in rehabilitation are all highlighted and critiqued as we see that removing offenders from society, giving them very little to constructively occupy them, making them learn supposed misdemeanours by rote, and starving them of any love and affection from their families does nothing to re-educate them but simply fuels resentment and the formulation of ever more outlandish plans to beat the system.
Whether readers will suspend disbelief for long enough to accept the vastly inflated prison sentences and the otherworldly setting is up for debate, but I think they will enjoy the pace of the action, their interest will be piqued by the mystery at the core of the novel and they will get behind the protagonist, Adam. I am uncomfortable with the dénouement which struck me as a little too open-ended for a standalone novel, and (without spoiling it for those who would like to go on and read it) possibly a little too adult for the rest of the novel, but perhaps I bring too many assumptions to my reading. The book is aimed at readers of 9+ but I think it could go a little older, not least because of the many opportunities it raises for debate. The characterisation was thin in places, but I don’t think this will trouble young readers looking for an intriguing and fast-moving novel, featuring the highs and lows of living in a world of youth detention.
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15 Days Without a Head
Author: Dave Cousins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780192732569
Reviewed by: Liz Bankes
It is not often that you get a book that is as hilarious as it is heart-breaking. 15 Days without a Head is the tale of two boys’ survival for 15 days after their alcoholic mum abandons them. Perhaps not the kind of story you’d expect to be laughing at. Dave Cousins’ frank, dry humour turns it almost into a slapstick caper, but one that is punctuated, with devastating precision, by the sad and frightening reality of the boys’ situation.
Laurence Roach’s mum is struggling to keep it all together. One day she disappears – leaving 15-year-old Laurence to look after his six-year-old brother Jay and try to keep things normal. This is not easy when their neighbour Nosy Nelly is one tut away from ringing social services. Laurence has no idea that the next 15 days will have him impersonating his dead dad on the radio and dressing up as a woman. In fact, he has no idea what will happen to him and Jay if their mum doesn’t come back. A girl at school called Mina wants to help, but letting her in on the secret is a big risk. And anyway, Laurence can cope – can’t he?
I thought this book had a few echoes of Jacqueline Wilson, with the idea of remarkable and resilient kids forced to deal with a crappy lot, and because at the heart of the story was not a preachy message about bad parenting, but two boys’ wish for their mum to come back. It is not a moral tale, but a very real one.
The characters were immediately visible in my head – Laurence in all his six-foot gangliness, Jay, who on-and-off transforms into Scooby Do, and plucky Mina, with her dry northern sarcasm. I cared intensely about what happened to them and had that moment when the book ends and you have to remind yourself that they aren’t real.
In an interview at the back of the book Dave Cousins says that the inspiration for the story was seeing a drunk woman arguing in a pub, with her two sons sitting at the table with her. He started thinking about what it would be like to be them. And the book takes you through exactly what it would be like, down to the painful details like the bin overflowing and having to scrape together pennies to afford the cheapest pizza from the mini-supermarket. The reality – that there are kids who do go through experiences like Laurence and Jay’s – is unavoidable, discomforting and deeply humbling.
Saving Daisy
Author: Phil Earle
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780141331362
Reviewed by: John Dougherty
I loved Phil Earle’s first novel, Being Billy, the heartbreaking story of a young lad in the care system. His second book, Saving Daisy, returns to the theme of looked-after children, telling the back-story of one of the minor characters from its predecessor.
This is a risky strategy - in lesser hands, it could be a recipe for disaster, or at least dull repetition - but the author carries it off beautifully, giving us in the vulnerable, self-hating Daisy a very different character from the angry Billy of the earlier book.
Daisy is a teenage girl whose apparent confidence hides a shedload of guilt and insecurity. She blames herself for the death of her mother, she self-harms, there are fault-lines in her relationship with her dad, and when she falls prey to an abusive supply teacher the stage is set for a tragedy that will change her life forever.
This might sound melodramatic or clichéd, but Earle knows what he’s doing, and everything in Daisy’s account rings true. The story builds inexorably towards a disaster so great there seems to be no hope for Daisy, and then takes her through the Slough of Despond to a place where she can at least begin to rebuild her life. For all its bleakness, Saving Daisy is a story of hope - not happy-ever-after, fairytale hope, but the hope that for even the most damaged lives there is a chance of repair, and perhaps even happiness
With the notable exception of Tracy Beaker, children in care have long been unrepresented in children’s literature. It’s hard to imagine anyone redressing that wrong better than Phil Earle. If you haven’t read Being Billy, do; whether you have or not, read Saving Daisy. You won’t regret it.
The Things We Did For Love
Author: Natasha Farrant
Publisher: Faber
ISBN: 9780571278176
Reviewed by: Sheena Wilkinson
Already an established novelist for adults, Natasha Farrant has produced, in her first young adult novel, a historical story of love and war which is compelling, challenging and highly engaging.
As the novel opens, Arianne, having lost her mother to illness and her father to the war, is a frustrated fifteen-year-old in a tired, hungry village in occupied France. Her discontent is identified by her sensible cousin Solange: “‘You know what the problem is. Five years of war has made us dull. Nothing ever happens.’” But war or no war, this is the common ennui of adolescence, and like all the best stories, The Things We Did For Love is at once particular and universal. The historical background, with its secrets and suspicions, its fear of terrible consequences, is sketched in lightly: wisely, Farrant makes no concessions for youthful readers unfamiliar with her period. When the terrible conclusion does come – based on the true fate of a French village in 1944 – it is more horrific than the characters could have imagined, and genuinely shocking for the reader.
But the story opens benignly, with the timeless scenario of two teenage girls drooling over a boy, when the handsome Luc Belleville returns to Samaroux after a mysterious absence, and Farrant loses no time in telling us that Luc is destined for Arianne: “‘Not fair,’” cries Solange. “‘Did you see how he looked at you?’”
From then on, the love affair at the heart of this story of Resistance, betrayal and the suffering of the innocent and not-so-innocent develops apace. One slight criticism of the novel, which I greatly admired on the whole, is that this central relationship felt rushed to me. One could say the same of Romeo and Juliet, but with Luc and Arianne I felt that I was suspending disbelief about the strength of their feelings – it is necessary for the plot that they are deeply in love, but it wasn’t a love I wholeheartedly accepted. A teen reader, however, more swayed than I by the obvious attractiveness of our hero Luc, the ‘hot-headed young man, well-known for the shame of his collaborationist grandfather’ may have no such reservation.
In fact, though obviously marketed as a love story, from its title to the roses on its cover, the novel was very much the story of a beleaguered community, with the supporting cast of family and neighbours easily as involving – more so, in some cases, such as the entrepreneurial little brother Paul and the voyeuristic Romy – as the young lovers. Samaroux being a small village, everyone is intimately known to Arianne – and yet, after the years of occupation, even the jolly fat priest Father Julien turns out not to be all he seems. The narrative thread involving Alois, the German soldier, felt initially distracting from the main action, but I soon began to appreciate its importance in the overall scheme. Certainly Farrant is not simply trying to show – as I first feared – that there was good and bad on both sides. This novel is much subtler than that.
This uncompromising exploration of what people will do – not just ‘for love’ but for jealousy, hatred and fear – is immensely readable – Farrant’s dialogue was, for me, especially successful, often terse and charged. It’s a shame that probably only girls will pick up this novel – teenage boys will be discouraged by the title and the roses – because this is a gripping story as much of war as of love.
Words in the Dust
Author: Trent Reedy
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
ISBN: 9781847802712
Reviewer: Dennis Hamley
Zulaikha is an Afghan girl whose mother was murdered by the Taliban. Now her stepmother rules her with a rod of iron. Her elder sister Zeynab is very pretty and therefore is not allowed out of the compound unless covered up. Zulaikha longs for an education, for a life outside the village. But there is not much hope of that, for she has an unsightly hare lip and front teeth which stick out straight ahead.
The Taliban have gone, beaten back by the Americans. The village is expectant: what gifts will the Americans bring? They bring work: new building, new contracts. They promise a school to which girls can go. And they promise Zulaikha surgery, to cure her hare lip and deformed teeth for ever.
When I received this book I was worried lest I was to read a mere tract telling of all the good things the affluent Americans did for the poverty-stricken Afghans. I found no such thing. Trent Reedy was a US soldier in Afghanistan and he made it his business to understand the people and to record the story of the real-life Zulaikha. He shows a remarkable fairness and balance. The Americans are not saints: the Afghans are not barbarians. He attempts something very difficult for any male writer – a girl’s first person narrative, sustained credibly over a whole novel – and succeeds. This shows a real empathy and is very impressive. He writes a moving, even heartwarming story yet without a hint of sentimentality.
A good addition to Frances Lincoln’s young adult list of fiercely committed books.