loociejj Uncategorized

Hate – Alan Gibbons

This book is on the short list for the Hounslow Teen Read Award 2015. I have never read a book by Alan Gibbons before, they all look a bit gloomy. I know that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and all that but a book with a picture of a bag of blood called Piggies just doesn’t appeal…. This one however, is different. In the blurb it tells us that the book is based on the tragic murder of a girl called Sophie Lancaster and that the main character, Eve has lost her sister Rosie to a violent attack.

The book deals with the aftermath of the attack and how each person affected copes with their grief. This isn’t just the family but a boy called Anthony Broad, who was a witness to the attack. By a cruel twist of fate, Anthony is transferred into Eve’s school to finish off year 11. Eve recognises the name and it goes on from there. Anthony is not only dealing with the guilt of not trying to stop the attack, but his mother’s abusive ex boyfriend who they have just escaped from. I’m not sure how much sympathy the author wants us to feel for Anthony, but I guess he is trying to ask ‘what would you do if it was you?’

The subplot to the book is about Eve’s best friend Jess and her brother Oli. Oli has just told his parents that he is gay, and then comes out to the whole school in a debating competition about political correctness. This debate is kind of the premise for the whole book; should we be protecting the bigots or do they have the right to express what they think, whatever hurt and upset it causes to the others? His outspoken behaviour towards another boy in Eve’s class could also put him in danger and history may be about to repeat itself…..

We have all these pockets of society today who want to be different, to escape the norm and these leads to people thinking they can bully them. So what if Rosie wants to dress in black clothes and have red and black dreads, she’s still a human being under all that make up. What gives them the right to kill her just because they don’t like her dress? Does Eve have it in her to forgive Anthony for not taking more action, you’ll have to read the book. But, don’t let other people dictate how you live your life, dare to be different, after all wouldn’t life be boring if we all looked the same?

http://www.sophielancasterfoundation.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQLGhPHzxjc

loociejj Uncategorized

She is not invisible – Marcus Sedgwick

I read this book as part of the shortlisting process for the Hounslow Teen Read Award 2015. It begins with the narrator, Laureth Peak, negotiating Heathrow’s Terminal Five building looking for the check-in desk for a flight to New York. She has her brother in tow and he is accompanied by his fluffy raven, Stan. The first line ‘One final time I told myself I wasn’t abducting my little brother’. Hmm, why would she be doing that? As he is only seven and a little bit annoying you have to ask yourself why she would want to.

The answer soon becomes obvious. Laureth’s father is an author. Laureth is not invisible but she is blind. She is 17 and helps her dad with his website. He is off chasing a story when the website receives an email saying that someone in New York has found her dad’s precious notebook containing all his material for his latest  book. His latest book is all about coincidence. Laureth knows that her dad would never go anywhere without his notebook and starts to worry that something bad has happened to him. But, she needs her brother to help her negotiate the world outside, particularly the airport and New York City.

The underlying story about her parents marriage is an interesting aside. She knows that they are problems but she is unaware of what they are. Her dad is exploring the theory put about by Jung that life is a sequence of coincidences, buoyed up by an incident that happened to him on a train. The book is based on the authors own theory about coincidence that he relates at the end. He has a favourite number (354) and it always seems to crop up. He has stayed in hotels where he has the same number room time after time, train seats, flight numbers; all contain this number. so, is it a coincidence or does the number have another significance?

I liked this book. I liked the characters of Laureth and Benjamin (and Stan). Laureth is a strong individual and dealing with her disability in a positive and enlightening way. She doesn’t want people to see her (pardon the pun) as a blind girl, she wants people to see her as Laureth. The passages from the book were a little tedious but overall it was well written. It also makes you think about coincidence. Does everything we do have a connection? or are all these random events just that, random?

Marcus Sedgwick’s books are usually pretty dark so this one was a welcome change; and it wasn’t set it Russia! Give it a go, it will open your eyes to the world of the blind teenager and how they are treated by the rest of the world.

LJJ 1114

loociejj Uncategorized

Hello and welcome….

Hello, welcome to the first post of my blog – grownupscanreadteenfictiontoo.com! A bit of a mouthful I know but, hey it gets the point across! So, the first point of order has got to be, what classifies a book as YA or Young Adult? Secondly, why is this genre so popular? is it just that there is such a wealth material or does it just mean that young people can access more challenging fiction that is written specifically for them?

Well, therein lies the problem. Who is regarded as a Young Adult? according to Wikipedia it is any person aged between 12 and 18. Does that mean that if you aren’t in that age bracket then you can’t read them? Well the answer to that is a categorical no. In 2012, a US study revealed that 55% of YA books were purchased by people older than 18 – sometimes by a considerable margin.

Some books deal with sexuality, the LGBTQA+ section is growing by the week; there is a misery lit section to rival Jodi Picoult and the romance gives Barbara Cartland a run for her money but, throw them all together and you have got a gold mine.   Film tie-ins also generate a huge response, most teens I know need  to read the book as well as the film, a great money spinner for the author.

Obviously the most famous of these is JK Rowling and HP. Some say that JK is the foremother of all YA fiction and many authors that I have met cite her as the one that sparked the YA revolution. Certainly she was the first author who openly acknowledged that she was writing particularly for the teen market and the characters in her novels follow her audience as they grew through adolescence. A neat trick which ensures that she will never have to work again.

‘Many authors say they didn’t write their book specifically for a YA audience – either it was a marketing strategy decided upon by the publisher or the YA audience found the book on its own.’ (AbeBooks.co.uk)

As a fully grown up person I can safely say that there is something in there for everyone; even if you are over 18. So, read on and I promise you, there is a book out there for you and you might just learn something about how this generation of teens tick…