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This book won the Carnegie Medal in 2015. It follows the story of Charlotte, a young black slave living on a plantation in the Deep South. she is an orphan and the only family she knows are the other slaves that surround her. After the American Civil War the anti slavery laws are brought in and all the slaves are emancipated overnight. I’m sure that in Washington this sounded like a humane and clever thing to do, but the reality (as we learn through Charlotte) is that the slaves had no idea what to do once they had been emancipated. They had no money, nowhere to live and no hope of getting a job. This is the grim reality for Charlotte and her ‘family’.
After witnessing the hanging of the other two slaves and a narrow escape she decides that she needs to leave and the only safe way to do this is to disguise herself as a man. The changes of her staying alive are greater, and she won’t be raped. Her next move after trying and failing to earn a living is to join the army. she reinvents herself as Charley and join the Buffalo Soldiers; a group of black men defending the frontiers from marauding Indians and protecting the new settlers as they journey west. She falls in love but the man (thinking she is also a man remember?) panics and runs away. The irony of black men defending white men from Indian men is not lost on the reader, which I think is the point.
Bearing in mind that this a book written by a white English lady the tone and pathos (look it up people!) of the book is fab. The main narrator is a girl living in a very difficult time, in a man’s body and she is a likeable, warm person who you want to have a happy ending. She is living in a time in America where there was a lot of change and lawlessness, it kind of brings home to you how BIG America is; there are huge parts of it that no one lives in and that are not controlled by anyone – mob rule only. it also shows the lack of respect that the black soldier got from the rest of the army; this lazy, deeply embedded racism that seems to be the norm amongst them even though they are doing exactly the same job and at the end of the day, the enemy is going to kill them all no matter what colour they are.

I want to tell you that the ending is happy but I think it suits the book. It has enough reality to make it believable. It reminds you that we are very lucky to be living in the age we are with the rights that we have – and a good historical read into the bargain. Further reading would include anything about the American Civil War, Roots by Alex Haley and 12 years a slave by Solomon Northup.

http://www.buffalosoldiers-amwest.org/history.htm

This is the second Holly Bourne book that I have read but this is her debut novel.
Its the story of Poppy, a fairly cynical 17 year old girl living in Middletown, a very suburban town somewhere in England. Poppy has a generic group of friends that we can all relate too; Lizzie the supportive writer, Ruth the cleavage flashing flirt and Amanda the shy one who has an equally shy but devoted boyfriend. They go to college, hang out in coffee shops and once every couple of weeks they go to the local club and watch a band. This could be mine (or your) teenage life.
The difference is that there is something wrong with Poppy. She keeps having these blackouts and fainting spells where she thinks she is going to die. Other than that Poppy is pretty bored with her life and wants something interesting to happen. oh, also she isn’t interested in boys because there isn’t any in Middletown that can live up to her expectations. Until one night when Lizzie tells her that there is a new band playing at band night, Growing Pains, and the lead guitarist is ‘fit’, so they must all go, drink lots of rum and coke and check him out. Of course Ruth flashes her cleavage and thinks she will win the prize but Noah (for this is the fit guitarists name) stares longingly at Poppy instead and, bam, a chain reaction is started.
There were bits that I really liked; she is a fantastic writer and her descriptions and sense of place are really good. The end did also make me cry (but don’t tell anyone!) but, and it is a massive but, you can tell that this is a debut novel by the quality of the writing. Also, the amount of times that she tells us that Noah is beautiful and stunning and amazing did get a bit tedious. The premise is good; two people that are soulmates that could also destroy the world if they have sex, awkward much?! It has a lot of potential and maybe it’s one of those books that she will look back and think ‘I wish I could rewrite that with a little less cheese’.
Having said all that, it was an enjoyable read and I cannot rave enough about this author, she is brilliant. She can really make you experience that feeling of falling in love and the dream like quality of it. And wouldn’t we all like to think that there was someone out there that was made specifically to love only us, unconditionally, forever? without the world being destroyed obviously!
Read it, as the blurb says, it will make you cry (I won’t tell anyone…)

First of all, credit where credit is due, thank you to Jodie Lee for recommending this.
In one sense this is a stereotypical teen novel. Geek girl in posh school who has a intellectual best friend (Holdo after Holden in Catcher in the Rye for goodness sake!) and in love with her English teacher who teaches them Larkin (the sweary one) writes really bad prose about suicide and self harms. Then she decides that she is going to go all ‘Mean Girl’, have an amazing makeover (who knew she was so pretty?) and infiltrate the popular gang. She realises that they are maybe not as mean as she thought and that they are struggling with their own set of problems. All the time that she is making her life more interesting she is blogging about it.
There is some amazing writing in this book. The literary references are also pretty good; the aforementioned Larkin, some Alan Bennett, Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird; the main character is also reading Ulysses; and enjoying it! The author is spot on with some of her character descriptions: Hugo the rugger bugger, Jassmine the beautiful girl that they all want to be, Gemma the nasty one who isn’t too pretty so takes it out on everyone else. the only one I wasn’t really comfortable with was Bree herself. I felt she was a little one dimensional. I liked her, but not enough. Also, I have worked in a girls school, went to a girls school and am a girl and I have never met anyone called Bree or Jassmine! They are really American names which I didn’t associate with rich British kids. to the point where I thought the book was set in America for the first few chapters! Mr Fellowes also bothered me because he never is held accountable for what happens. I won’t spoil it for you but I wish the author had explored that a bit more.
But, having said all that, I liked it. she is right, I left school twenty years ago and I still remember the names of all the girls who I wanted to be friends with. the horrible ones in my class who spent their time being horrible about everyone else to cover up their own insecurities. The saddest part of all is that what happens at school can affect your whole life and these horrible people don’t get that. You meet all sorts of people on your journey through life and you have to have coping strategies in place for when you do, so I guess that’s what school prepares you for. And the educational stuff as well I suppose!

Quote of the book: ‘He is like an air bubble in a coffin’ – see what I mean? Amazing prose!

PS. Go and have a look at the ugly Duchess – she sure is ugly! Or a man!

https://priyapiggle.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/the-manifesto-on-how-to-be-interesting/

I’m not sure where to start with this book. I chose it because it intrigued to me – a boy who wants to be a girl and how he deals with that. It is a short book and the lines are really spaced out so I read it in a an hour or so. I am not really sure what I thought of it and that’s unlike me because I usually have a strong opinion one way or the other. Several things about it bother me:

1. Who is it for? The cover is all primary colours and the style of the writing is fairly simple – what age group are we targeting here?
2. What is the author trying to say? How is he trying to make us feel?
3. I didn’t really know how to feel at the end of it – uplifted? Sad? Disappointed with society? Impressed at the bravery of a 10-year-old?

Let me explain: George is a boy. He is 10 years old and lives with his mom (we are in America here folks) and his brother Scott is a small town in Upstate New York ( I think, again it’s in America so my geography is going to be terrible!) His mom and dad are divorced and his dad lives quite far away. Scott is a stereotypical alpha male; he drinks juice straight from the carton, smells funny because he doesn’t wash, plays video games and American football. You couldn’t get any more manly than Scott. His mom works hard and is generally quite cross. His best friend Kelly lives with her Dad (not sure where her mom is) and he is a musician – they have quite a retro lifestyle. George and Kelly are in a school where the world is divided into male and female. Boys line up separately, sit separately and try out for the school play separately. Girls play the girl parts and boys play the boy parts. Everyone fits into their gender roles. Except George. We are told about his struggle to go to the bathroom, play sports etc. We are also told that he cries a lot, a common girl trait.
The author wants everyone to fit in except George because he wants us to see how difficult it is for George. This annoyed me, it was a little bit like he didn’t expect us to come to this conclusion ourselves. The problem is that I liked George. I wanted him to get the lead in the school play, I was excited for him when he went on his trip with Kelly’s uncle. I just didn’t like the way the book was written and, as an adult I worry that sometimes kids have too much information and too much choice and they are sometimes railroaded into making huge life decisions before they are ready. I also didn’t like the sanctimonious way it was written. All the adults struggled with it except the head teacher and the kids all thought it was cool. Maybe this is true, but maybe it isn’t. Everyone is different.
There are loads of other fantastic LGBT books out there that deal with things in a sensitive and mature way – sadly this isn’t one of them.

The last Patrick Ness book that I read was More than This – it was amazing so I had high expectations! This one is a twist on the usual; it’s about the normal kids who are not fighting the aliens or saving the world, the kids who just want to get on with things, finish school and go to college. Mikey, Mel, Henna, Jared, Meredith and Nathan are having their own problems. Mikey is super clever and is the same year at school as his sister Mel, who has had some health issues (she was bulimic) and has spent some time in hospital. Jared is the gay best friend and Henna is the love interest. The book mainly focuses on Mikey.
If you read the chapter description you will see that is the sub story in the book. It describes the ‘Indie Kids’ and their battle to save the world. I didn’t take too much notice of these at first so I was a little lost at the beginning and wasn’t sure what was happening! Basically, the Indie Kids are like the super heroes and they are frantically working to save the world from an alien attack which our kids are mostly unaware of. They know that about once a generation some evil force comes to take over the world and the Indie Kids battle to save it, culminating in the complete destruction of the school, which Mikey is desperate not to happen so that they can all graduate without any problems. I guess they are just struggling to be normal like most teenagers!
Jared and Mikey are best friends and spend a lot of time hanging out in various cars. Jared is the son of a God and cats are seriously attracted to him, he has the power to control them and they worship him (!)
I like the characters in this book. I like the fact that they are the normal ones and the super kids are the ones that are not getting all the attention. In the blurb it says ‘not everyone has to be the hero’ and that is kind of the point of the book. Not everyone is amazing but we are all trying to get on with it in the best way we know how. I can relate to Mikey and his wish to get out of the suburbs and off to college with no problems.
His mum is a State Senator and isn’t really too interested in the lives of her children (even though one has OCD, one is bulimic and one is a child prodigy) and their father is an alcoholic who doesn’t really appear much. It’s clever, well written and amusing but it didn’t grab me like More Than This. It was also quite short so almost as soon as you got into it it finishes.
look out for the scene with the deer and the car crash and then what he finds out afterwards…

I am reviewing these two together because I read them one after the other and it seemed like a plan! So, the idea behind this series is that Dorothy went from Kansas to Oz where she met Glinda the Good Witch. They killed the Wicked Witch and everyone was supposed to live happily ever after. Except that Dorothy is human and power corrupts. She saw that there was magic to be had and magic makes you powerful, so she decides to take it. From everyone. By force. So Oz is not a nice place anymore, its ruled by an evil dictator in blue gingham.
Along comes Amy Gumm, also from Kansas, also picked up by a tornado and deposited in Oz. But her experience is very different. She is recruited by the Order of the Wicked after seeing a Munchkin vaporised and the battle begins. she is on a mission: to Remove the Tin Woodman’s heart. Steal the Scarecrow’s brain. Take the Lion’s courage. Kill Dorothy. In that order. She meets some interesting people on the way and, as is life, has to make a few choices.
The end of the first book was a bit frustrating; she partially achieves her mission and you think that some more will be resolved in the next one. it’s up to you whether you think it is or not. I liked these books but there was something missing. I can’t put my finger on what it was, but there you go. The character of Amy wasn’t as interesting as I wanted her to be, the love interest was a bit too brooding and dismissive. The story should have been more attention grabbing then it was; it’s a good twist on the original story but it’s almost like the author got bored half way through. I’m not sure if I fancy reading the next one, this is a classic case of being seduced by a snazzy cover – all style and no substance as they say.

Wish of the Wicked

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