The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin

Four New York siblings visit a Romany fortune teller during the hot summer of 1969. A word of mouth rumour, she is reputed to be able to tell you the exact date of your death. Daniel, Klara, Varya and Simon, all under ten (ish) the Gold children scrape together their pocket money to visit this mysterious woman, drawn by their desire to Know.

They are fascinated and horrified by what they learn. Torn between dismissing it as nonsense and clinging onto the superstition, concealing their dates from one another and never mentioning it until adulthood…the Gold siblings are burdened with a knowledge that hangs over every hour of every day, a knowledge that threatens to make their choices for them and forces them to make the most of every opportunity

.

The book scrolls through the lives of the four Gold siblings in the order in which they die. We start with Simon, youngest Gold and heir to the family’s drapery business. Knowing that he will die young, he runs away to San Francisco with his wayward sister Klara and throws himself head first into living fast; the famous Gay Scene, night clubs, drugs, ballet, sex and hedonism and eventually romantic love. His date turns out to be true.

Essentially estranged from the rest of the family through a mixture of distance and flighty waywardness, Klara dedicates herself to becoming an illusionist and vaudevillian like her Hungarian grandmother. Perfecting her signature death-defying stunt, the Jaws of Life, the trick is that there is no trick, just strength and will and guts. Her secret shame is the guilt she feels at being the one that convinced Simon to come to San Francisco, she feels responsible for his death and that guilt plays a large part in the road to her death.

After Klara's death, unsure if her unknown date was accurate or not, Daniel, the sensible Army doctor sets off to find the fortune teller- gradually  becoming more and more obsessed with making her pay for the deaths of his siblings. This section ends with a slightly out-of character Thriller--esque showdown...The final Gold standing, a genetic researcher and OCD sufferer Varya is the last to narrate, the only one granted the gift of old age. Her life’s work is to extend the natural human life, but the price to pay is that her (long) life is fairly miserable, a grey existence of controlled calories and hermetic environments. Like her sister she too is defying death, but through a microscope rather than on stage. She's probably the hardest Gold to warm to- somewhat passionless and calculated, she resented her siblings their freedom and now finds herself without any of them.

I love multi-narrative books and books about siblings, so this ticked a lot of boxes for me- I loved the themes of self-fulfilling prophecy versus fate, how knowing what’s around the corner might influence and affect the decisions we make and the direction that our lives take. It’s fairy usual to discuss what we’d do if this was our last day on Earth, and we’re all familiar with the saying of “Being here for a good time, not a long time”, and this book asks whether we’d live differently, make different choices, take risks, set goals, try harder if we knew when we were going to die.

It’s concerned too with the idea of free will, and whether by setting a date in stone and obsessing over it, a person inadvertently fulfils these prophecies with their obsession, or whether it is in fact pre-determined, and the only unusual factor is the awareness of the date, a date and an event that cannot be deviated from…

The Immortalists a wonderful story about family and loss and choices, and how we decide on our life’s priorities. Is it better to live a short life full of joy and love and impact? Or is it better to live a long, safe life, controlled and protected. The dynamics of the family as they grow apart and are forced back together, a smaller circle every time is heart breaking and relatable and tragic. They are all so tortured by the awareness of their own failures; failure to act, failure to reach out, failure to try and understand. People are strange creatures and whatever we choose, we can never really win.

Very much recommended.

And the Ass Saw the Angel, by Nick Cave

Euchrid Eucrow is the last word in crazy misfits. The second born but sole surviving twin, Euchrid is born in a rusted out car to a grotesquely drunken beast of a mother and a browbeaten, cruel, brute of a father. It's mostly down hill from there. He lives in a junk heap shack on the edge of a sugarcane town in an isolated valley in the middle of nowhere. Euchrid is not a good advertisement for isolation. Probably also not a poster boy for Incest but that’s less his fault.

As an adolescent, the abused and neglected Euchrid stays out of the way of his monstrous parents, preferring to spend long hours in the hills by himself. He collects skulls, hair, blood, teeth, scabs, toenail clippings…some his own, some of the creatures his father traps and tortures, some from murdered townspeople. Keeping it varied. He constructs a grotto of his treasures, half hideaway, half shrine… He spies on the townspeople, hiding from their fists and accusing eyes. He lurks on the fringes of the town, watching, narrating and applying his own brand of logic to the town’s goings on. He's a mute, but that does not seem to prevent him from narrating his own miserable story.

The rough, neglected, mostly confused, frequently filthy Euchrid eventually becomes convinced he is some sort of emissary from God. He has never known friendship or kindness, never been an equal of anyone, never been accepted and never addressed by name, save in his own sprawling inner monologue. He is not the only apparently Godly being in the town- the foundling Beth, a child of the town, is groomed by the Ukelites for sainthood. To begin with it’s quite easy to pity the unloved and unlovely Euchrid- beaten, ridiculed and scorned as he is. However, as the book goes on he does become quite a successful serial killer and animal torturer and mutilator, and so the reader’s sympathy kind of dries up. Though he is still fascinating, it’s no longer possible to feel any kind of empathy for him as he descends into a violent, gleeful madness.

And the Ass Saw the Angel is a searing, brutal slog of a novel that maps the gradual descent into insanity of its mute protagonist. The prose is vicious and overwrought; usually shocking, occasionally very funny. It jumps around between a first person phonetic Southern dialect of Euchrid, and an effusive, detail obsessed narratorial voice that fills in the gaps. I can see why many readers have bemoaned its lack of editing and view it as a self-indulgent, over inflated short story, but I found it weirdly compelling despite its bile, and enjoyed picking out the familiar lines that were either borrowed from the back catalogue made it into subsequent songs. Fans of Nick Cave’s music will be able to spot little crossovers between his 80s songs and his prose; the moths trying to “enter the bright eyes” of bulbs from Mercy Seat, the dead first born twin, drunk mother and rural, endless rain of Tupelo, themes and images that keep repeating- religion, morality, madness, responsibility, insanity…He’s such a brilliant little weirdo.

For a first time novelist, an Australian and a guy that was about 75% heroin in 1989, it’s a remarkable, striking addition to the Southern Gothic landscape. An intense, uncomfortable read that is drenched in heat, grime and sweat, excessive violence and rage- the landscape of the narrative is brilliantly composed and the characters that populate it are typical Cave creations- fire and brimstone preachers, garish prostitutes, gibbering hobos and inebriated, inbred hillfolk.

Riverkeep, by Martin Stewart

A coming-of-age, fantasy adventure in a magical, Scotland-infused world swimming with threats and danger, magic, wonder and myth. We follow Wulliam, son of the Riverkeep and soon to be Riverheep himself, who embarks on a dangerous downriver journey to save his beloved Pappa when he becomes possessed by a river spirit. The Riverkeep’s job is to tend the river, keeping the waterways free of ice in the winter and removing and administering to the dead when they are found. Abandoning his post at the river and letting it freeze over for the first time in centuries, Wull’s only hope is to get his father to the sea, then, somehow hunt down and kill a legendary water monster whose bodily tissues and fluids are said to have healing properties and other restorative powers.

Along the river, Wull, for whom time is of the essence, meets and reluctantly accumulates some hangers on. First is Mix, a sprightly, chipper girl that has a gift for thievery and seems very easy to like. Then Tillinghast, a man who is made of straw, herbs, skin and consciousness that provides most of the comic relief with some oddly placed knob jokes. Then there’s Remedie, an on-the-run witch lady, prim and proper, cradling her strange, wooden baby. They're a motley crew, taking up too much space in bäta, a kind of (possibly semi-sentient) ceremonial rowing boat with eyes.

As they make their way down the river, far beyond Wull’s usual territory, the characters encounter various obstacles, fights, deadly creatures and other hostiles. They are forced to depend on the unique skills of one another for survival. Mr Pent and Mr Rigby, the duo of hitmen employed by the snivelling Mr Rigby reminded me of Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar from Neverwhere, a book whose influence on this one is evident. (Reluctant, slacker hero; impish girl sidekick; impossible quest to slay a mythical beast; grotesque brutish hitmen; verbose conman with certain, post demise talents- I realise Neverwhere is basically the Odyssey, yes, but the similarities are too many to not be noticed).

I felt this book left a lot of unanswered questions. Why didn’t Mix eat? What were those tattoos? How did the Mormorach’s first victim’s face get all that way up river from the estuary? What happened to Bonn, Remedie and Mix? What was the Mandrake all about? What will Wull do now? Should he get some more whale oil while he’s in the city?

This was a strange read for me. I was very aware of the writing throughout- it’s a style that forces the reader to notice; very heavy on the metaphors and the mysterious, unexpected imagery. Riverkeep’s prose is very thick and gloopy, the world-specific dialogue swamping the reader. I found myself frequently putting this book down just for a bit of a breather and respite from the constant, somewhat domineering language. I’m not sure who this book is written for to be honest. I don’t think younger readers will persevere with the overwhelming language, the slow (but effective) world building and the gentle pace of the adventure. There are episodes of action and violence, but they are spread thinly throughout a 350+ page novel. I don’t think many readers will have the stamina to get very far with this. Tillinghast’s saucy Carry On-esque comments might raise an eyebrow or two, but they are so buried in the molasses of the prose that I’m  not sure they would be understood.

As interesting as the premise sounded, and as richly gifted in imagination and prose as Stewart unquestionably is, this one was not for me. If it had not been for the fact that it was shortlisted for the YA book prize, I think I would have DNF’d. Sorry. I am delighted that a high fantasy (of the non elf and dragon variety) has made it on to the YA book prize list, and I wish debut novelist Martin Stewart nothing but good luck and success with his subsequent novels, but Riverkeep did not turn me into a fantasy reader.

The Monstrous Child, by Francesca Simon

Hel, half god half giant, daughter of Loki and corpse from the waist down is the reigning queen of the underworld. Not through choice, but because she was flung there by Odin, the one-eyed seer of everything. She's a goddess, but one with the worst gig going.

I'm not even a novice at Norse mythology. I know Thor had a hammer and Thursday and (probably) Thunder are named after him, Odin had Ravens. That's pretty much it. I found the relationships between gods and gods, gods and giants, giants and people, gods and people to be very confusing. I just wasn't feeling the mood and the atmosphere that the book conjured up. Yes it's unusual, but I'm not sure that it was enough to win me over.

I found the narrator, Hel, rubbed me up the wrong way. She starts her story with her birth, to a mother who wasn't that keen, way back before the beginning of time. I suppose it's something of a saga. She is, for me, too knowing, too sly, to bilious. Yes, even for keeper of the underworld. Where she probably thought of herself as sassy and fearsome, she just sounded like a stroppy, bratty child, lashing out at anyone who'd listen. Maybe she was. She muses on the pointlessness of poetry, references the passing of time and its ultimate redundancy for immortals such as her quite frequently, and eventually I was just getting kind of frustrated with it all. Yes, we know you're immortal. Yes we know you don't like the dead. What else is going on down here? I just found her to be overwhelmingly surly, and by the time I started to feel an inkling of sympathy for her, it was far too  late.

Hel spends the middle section of the book pining for married god-man Baldr, the one person that she encountered that wasn't disgusted by her during the brief interlude that she lived in the world above with the other gods. He spun her around once, so naturally, that must mean he is in love with her. That's about all you're going to get in the plot department, apart when things in the god world above start to get a bit end of days.

It's certainly a unique book, one with a very unusual protagonist. I found that whilst I wan't enormously keen on Hel, it might well have been entirely intentional, and I found the first person voice to be very consistent, characterful and very well executed. I felt that Hel was a whole, complete person, even if I wasn't finding her massively appealing. It's entirely possible that my lack of knowledge about Norse mythology prevented me from getting too into this. Interesting, but I don't think it was for me.

The Secret History of Twin Peaks, by Mark Frost

Disclaimer: I’m such a Twin Peaks superfan that I got two copies of this book for Christmas. I had managed to steer clear of any precursory flick-throughs in Waterstones and went in blind, so to speak, not really knowing what this book was, or how it was structured.

The Secret History of Twin Peaks is, as far as I’m concerned, the most thorough and engrossing book ever to be based on a television series. It’s not a book about a TV show, it’s essentially series 2.5 but in another format. A format that compliments the original beautifully. Some bookshops have put it under non-fiction, as “Making of” books usually are, for all the behind the scenes trivia and technical HOW DID THEY DO IT stuff, but this is brilliant, intricate fiction. It’s a document from the universe of Twin Peaks that introduces the reader to those tantilising depths that we all knew were lying dormant under the series that we saw on TV. I was 2 when the original series of Twin Peaks aired, and from what I can gather, it was one of those shows that got shifted about in the UK schedule, airing like 9 months after its US premier and it’s barely been repeated since. It got some casual viewers, it spawned some lifetime obsessives. I only watched it last year, quickly declaring it the official best TV show I’d ever seen.

This is the first book in ages that has made me genuinely excited to get home from work and continue with. I thought about it all day, craving the mysteries and the conspiracy. I don’t know if that’s due entirely to the depth and enigma of the book, or the wonderful world of Twin Peaks that I wanted so badly to get re-immersed in.

The book itself takes the format of an in-universe dossier, found at the scene of a crime in an apparently custom made metal box, triple locked. The document is large; custom bound and made up of pasted-in journal entries, newspaper clippings, photos, official reports and, threading this ephemera together, typewritten commentaries and explanations. Some of these documents seem to be 200 year old originals. The inimitable Gordon Cole, now deputy director of the FBI has assigned redacted agent TP to read said dossier, verifying its claims, making footnotes and summarising its content for their superiors. Identifying the compiler of the document, the author of the commentary, the character self-described as ‘The Archivist’ is priority number one.

I don’t want to give too much away about the mysteries and secrets within the dossier (because, as it points out, mysteries and secrets are very different things). Its contents range from previously unseen (and presumed original) pages from the diaries of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery Expedition, eyewitness reports, redacted FBI documents, official Air Force reports, personal letters written in the hands of the show’s characters, newspaper clippings, court documents, journals ect…the voice and curation of The Archivist holds the whole thing together, drawing our attention from one event to the next; from the secret societies to the ancient Native American magic, the aliens and the spirit realm, to the murders and mysteries that remain to the present. The narrative meanders from Westward Expansion era USA to Roswell and delivers cameos from President Nixon and L. Ron Hubbard, among others.

The whole thing is so solid and satisfying, like pre-series-six X Files. It’s dense and intricate, full of lore and mythology, conspiracy, government cover-ups, the occult, small-town weirdness and historical speculation. It’s an incredible whirlwind of information that is an absolute joy to work through. Almost everything in this book has been documented, truthfully or not so, in real life. Which is insane, when you think about it.

We catch up with a few of Twin Peaks’ surviving characters, a bit of a jarring tonal contrast in places, but I suppose essential inclusions. There are a couple of discrepancies between events as the books depicts them (mostly character backstory) and how they were shown in the show, but as you read, you get the sense that this is a chance for Mark Frost to do a bit of retconning and a bit of reshaping the mire-filled mess that s2 descended into. Maybe this was how it was always meant to be- there are no networks to interfere in books. Obviously not *all* questions are answered, but the reader is in no way dissatisfied.

I loved that the book delves into the lives and backstory of some of the show’s more peripheral characters; it seems that the events we witness in the Twin Peaks of 1990 are directly or indirectly dependent on things that happened in the same spot before a single log was felled. I loved that we got to see the origins of one of the show’s most enduring enigmas; the Log Lady. I loved that the town’s *ancient* Mayor Mitford is given time and space for his backstory, revealing himself to be perhaps one of the most influential and secretive hands to ever guide Twin Peaks’ narrative. Underutilized character Deputy Hawk also takes the opportunity to tell the story of Big Ed and Norma and Nadine, which is the single most hilarious segment in the whole thing.

I’m not sure that it would make a massive amount of sense to the uninitiated- I can’t imagine why the non-viewer would want to read it- but it’s an absolute treasure trove to the fans. I absolutely loved it and cannot recommend it enough.

Broadway book Club Discussion of Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

As with all the best books, or at least the ones that make for the best discussions, feelings were very much mixed about Jeffrey Eugenides’  Middlesex. Those in attendance were split pretty evenly- 3 for very much yes, 3 not so much, and 1 undecided. We were universally disturbed by how quickly Desdemonda and Lefty, brother and sister, in 1922 decided that they’d get married. Obviously this is the Big Bang moment of the whole story, and everyone’s lives are subsequently affected by this decision- but we all agreed that they were both far too up for it far too quickly. Just no. When your Husband is your brother and it looks like your son is about to propose to his cousin, one needs to intervene. More grandparents are necessary in a family.

Firstly we talked about the narrator, Cal, and their omnipotence- the way they could confidently and with detail tell a story in 1922, 60 years before their birth, how they could definitely impart the thoughts and feelings of characters they were nowhere near, divine reasons for behaviour known only to the person involved. We discussed why this could be off putting, even annoying, and on the other hand why it might separate Middlesex from other multi-generational family sagas that we’ve read. We also talked about the narrator’s Dickensian, flowery language and their choice to address the reader directly, float up and down stairs and point out that this is what they are doing. Also could be considered annoying.

One of the most consistently voiced and agreed upon faults was the book’s odd pacing. Cal spends literally hundreds of pages building his backstory, then undergoes the transformation from Callie to Cal in about a page. The book from that point- San Francisco, the Father Mike debacle, the tying up at the end- seems very rushed for such a lengthy, epic narrative. Even those of us that loved it could not deny that this is kind of the case. The transformation itself we discussed briefly, and it was raised by one member that there was a concern that the intersex/trans experience might not really do justice to such an experience and that it wasn’t handled particularly sensitively- the San Francisco section in particular felt a bit box-ticky “This is the exploitation bit, this is the bit where they’re beaten up in the park” etc. The idea of the intersex experience was barely discussed in any depth- but then Cal does make it clear that he isn’t very involved with the movement and tends to keep away from the whole thing. We had all expected gender identity and intersexuality to be a more fundamental part of the story. We all liked how Cal, as adult Cal, could look back on their life as Callie without any anger or disgust or bitterness. Callie was kind of allowed to live on in memory and was recalled quite fondly by Cal. He allowed Callie to sort of exist in her own time and context, which we all thought was a nice touch.

We talked about Eugenides’ prose and about the bits that really worked that the reader could see came from personal experience- for example, he’s from a partially Greek background, so the big, busy Orthodox Greek family and the 2^nd and 3^rd generation immigrant element was really believable and immersive. We felt that the city of Detroit was rendered really well (despite the not particularly involving riots), as Eugenides hails from Detroit himself. However, the parts that he obviously had no personal experiences with really stood out as being a bit out of his depth. Namely the intersex experience, which felt a bit haphazard and his borderline hilarious depictions of menstruation, or anxiety about unforthcoming menstruation. It’s not exactly uncommon though- male writers just can’t do periods properly and it’s perhaps unsurprising.

We briefly talked about the very indistinct sexual encounters that Callie has with the Object and the Object’s brother, neither of which seemed particularly consensual. Like many of the book’s other themes, it was very ambiguous.

One of the aspects of the novel that was considered universally effective was the author’s use of duality as a theme throughout the book, demonstrated in a number of ways. Most of the characters experience displacement and duality at some point- Cal/Callie belongs within neither gender. They are neither one thing nor the other. Lefty and Desdemonda aren’t wholly husband and wife, nor are they brother and sister any longer. Ancestrally Greek, born in a part of Turkey contested fro centuries by both nations, the Stephanides family is not wholly Greek, nor are they Turkish. The whole immigrant experience is shrouded in Duality- first generation immigrants rarely feel fully at home in their adopted nations, but neither can they remain completely loyal to their old world. 2^nd and 3^rd generation immigrants belong to their home nations more successfully, but are obliged to feel the tether of the ancestral home. Sourmelina lives a dual life as a wife and mother, and as a closeted lesbian. Middlesex is a novel full of duality, and we all agreed that this was done particularly well throughout. One member suggested that it’s more realistic for a person to be composed of contradictions, to be fluid and changeable that it is to be the same, unfaltering person day after day, using the disastrous Father Make and his permanent niceness and geniality as an example. He was definitely the worst character.

It was mentioned that the book was very dense, the characters and the themes sort of fighting for space with too much going on. Some readers wanted more time spent on Milton and Tessie’s courtship (cousins, uh-oh) which seemed to jump from having a clarinet played on her to marriage. One member mentioned also that for a book about family and relationships, it was lacking in feeling and actual emotion, perhaps because of the over ambitious timescale or the disjointed structure.

I think there were elements of this novel that impressed everyone (not always the same ones) and elements that frustrated. Though opinions were mixed, we mostly liked Cal as a character and the dense, tangent ridden, meandering Greek epic of his family narrative. Though in places it was missing details, and in places embellished with far too much- though we were occasionally frustrated by his style or his insight, Cal wasn’t the worst storyteller. Though some readers will not be rushing to pick up JE’s other books, Middlesex (despite it's bad punny title) made for an interesting discussion about structure, family, gender, consent, duality, identity and, unavoidably, the very Classical Greek ingredient of incest.

We took the opportunity to select the next four titles which will take us up to the end of 2016(!) and have gone for a nice mixture of sci-fi, war, historical fiction, YA fantasy and book club classics.

Just in case the picture won't load, they are;

September- Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut (given a C grade by its own author)

October- All The Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr (Pulitzer winning)

November- Half A Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Orange Prize winner of winners)

December/January- His Dark Materials Trilogy, by Philip Pullman (Whitbread, Carnegie and Guardian Prize Winning)

The latter of which is the only series that has ever come close to dethroning Harry Potter as my most beloved series of all time. Can't wait.

We will be meeting on Thursday September 29th at 7.00pm to discuss Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut

The Ghosts of Heaven, by Marcus Sedgwick

Four interconnected stories, centuries apart, that can be read in any order. But it's hard to break the habit of a lifetime, so I read them in order.

The first quarter features a nameless, almost language-less girl from about 40,000 years ago. The story concerns a hunt and the ritual magics that must be performed by The One Who Goes To The Cave to ensure that the hunt goes well- magics that include painting on the walls of caves- buffalo, spear-bearing hunters, uniquely marked handprints to claim your magic. Written in a beautiful, ethereal verse (because language is still rudimentary to the characters, the jagged, halting pace of verse suits well) we see the Girl miss out on her destiny but try to fulfil it anyway, in a somewhat unofficial capacity with tragic consequences. The life of an individual in 40,000 BC is short- the Girl does not fear death. What is perhaps more affecting is the death of her potential legacy. In her last moments the girl thinks up the idea of writing, but takes her invention with her to the darkness. How different could history have been if she had lived? If the written word was conceived so early in human history, where would we be now? It's questions like this, ostensibly simple but actually mind-rending questions that set Sedgwick's writing apart from his peers. He's able to pinpoint the exact moments and locations that underpin humanity, the foundations of history and just give them a little shake. The last time a book made me feel so impotent against the path of fate and time was Midwinterblood, his should-totally-have-won Shortlisted title from 2013.

The first quarter introduces us to the recurring, essential theme of the spiral. In the fronds of a fern, the coil of a snail shell. The spiral is infinite and continues its ceaseless turns- changing, closing, but never stopping. Over the next thee quarters we see the spiral occur in the 1630s when a beautiful, spiral haired woman is accused of witchcraft, in an apparently progressive 1920s Long Island asylum and eventually in the far future, in the final quarter about a man travelling through space to find the New Earth on a ship called the Song of Destiny. I loved how the new doctor's daughter discovered an account of Anna's witch trial in a book in the asylum library and I especially loved the final quarter. It reminded me partially of David Jones' brilliant film Moon and a bit of Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem,- a claustrophobic science fiction nightmare of lies, discoveries and horror that demonstrates the dangerous isolation of space and asks whether such exploration is essential or essentially pointless.

The quarters aren't long and complicated, but each one is filled with questions, realisations, unbearable tensions and sad inevitabilities. The characters are brief flashes in time, but they are solid and memorable- the lunatic patent Dexter who is terrified of the spiral, the mercenary Father Escrove who vows to purify Godless villages by scapegoating the innocent. Each story is engrossing and so ridiculously vivid, but together they make up a whole that is simply incredible- a bitesize summary of our species' need to either fear or to conquer the unknown.

So much of this book feels so primal, like the reader carries memories of the long-dead (or far away) characters in their unconscious. The cave paintings, the madness, the capacity for violence, the helplessness- it makes you realise that for all our supposed sophistication and progress there's only a couple of lucky flukes separating us from apes, or from extinction. Sedgwick is able to cast an eye over the whole of human experience, sift away most of it, and thread together the parts that seem so fundamentally essential; the need for legacy, exploration, our talent for persecution, the double edged sword of knowledge, the idea that any individual that has ever existed. The idea of the spiral being the core of the Universe is so compelling and seems so reasonable. I don't want to sound melodramatic but this book feels like an epiphany. I got chills, seeing the bigger picture emerge.

I loved it. In my humble opinion, it's an utterly flawless novel. To jump from one setting, one voice, one time to another so fluidly is impressive, to do this whilst subtly lining up the themes of all the quarters, slowly building up to almost an equinox of discovery and revelations. It defies genres, it defies conventions, it's insanely ambitious and it takes no prisoners when it comes to keeping up with what's going on. Incredible.

This is my winner. I am formally and officially nailing my colours to the mast, and those colours are Marcus Sedgwick colours. The Leonardo di Caprio of the Carnegie- this is the 6th time around on the Carnegie Shortlist, I hope 2016 is the year that it happens.

There Will Be Lies, by Nick Lake

There Will Be Lies, is Lake's third appearance on the Carnegie list since I've been following it, but I have to confess that TWBL is the first one I've read. The book starts of ordinary enough- modern day Arizona. A dry, dusty, infinitely flat place that has been Shelby Cooper's world since she moved from Alaska as a baby. Homeschooled by her mother and obsessively shielded from the outside world, Shelby is intelligent, naïve but with an appealingly defiant, snarky attitude. The book's other location, "The Dreaming" shows up later on- a mythical space that exists beyond time and before our World and is inhabited by figures from Native American folklore, some of which can pass into the real world.

When the over protected, apparently super-vulnerable Shelby is knocked down by a car when standing outside the library, a coyote appears with the message that "There will be two lies. And then there will be the truth". This cryptic, bizarrely delivered message starts off a chain of events that ultimately highlights how fragile our sense of identity is. Shelby discovers that everything her world is built upon is nothing more than a flimsy web of lies and deception and that her whole reality is threatened by the newly revealed truth. Though I don't want to give too much away, I do want to mention that the final section of the book, post truth, I found to be the most thought provoking and certainly the most emotional. How do you deal with a discovery like that? It's a really unexplored perspective of an unusual crime. 

The theme of identity runs thickly throughout the book. Do we change as we get older? Are we always the same person? What makes us the person that we are? What does a person take into account when building their identity? *Do we* build our own identity or is it built for us? What's left when somebody takes those things away? Do we ever really know ourselves or the people around us?

I really liked Shelby as a character, she was sarcastic, clever and kind of lippy which makes her a really believable, authentic feeling teen girl. I liked her little asides to the reader (the one about her mom's Pyjama jeans especially made me laugh). When Shelby discovers she can enter The Dreaming, she is given a mission by Coyote (Capitalised, as in the archetypal trickster or lore, and AKA Mark, hot library guy). Shelby must rescue the Child and kill the Crone, or the world will end. It seems fairly high stakes and there isn't much contextual information available. It transpires to be a quest with more personal consequences to Shelby than it initially appears.

In the possibly real, possibly metaphorical world of The Dreaming, the Crone has kidnapped and imprisoned the Child to give her more power. Archetypally evil character that she is, this is preventing the rain from falling, parching the land of The Dreaming and starving its majestic wildlife. It's a fairly by-the-numbers quest, complete with animal helpers, flimsy frayed rope bridge and slavering wolves, but it takes on a new significance as Shelby starts to unravel the lies in her own world. I liked that it's never really made clear how concrete the Dreaming is, but the mirroring of the Draming's problems and Shelby's real-life crisis is skilfully managed and it adds a new dimension to the plot. Whilst I found the real-world Thelma and Louise scenario to be much more gripping to read, I can see what this fantastical fantasy world added to Shelby's story, and it provided her with the perspective and the tools to do what she needed to do in the real world. 

It's hard to talk about this book without giving too much away. It's a twisty, intelligent and original thriller that throws some surprising twists at the reader- there are a lot of OMG moments that the reader needs to feel for themselves in order to even attempt to grasp the extent to which Shelby must be reeling. The story is at first glance quite far-fetched, but it's constructed in a way that makes the whole thing quite believable and ultimately tragic. 

I really enjoyed this novel, though oddly I'm not in any hurry to backtrack and read his other titles. There was something about the frantic, mysterious concept of this novel that appealed to me in a way that the others didn't. It really is a very clever book that asks questions about identity, family and love. Shelby's mother, a character I've not really talked about because she's the one that all of the titular lies are orchestrated by, is a really interesting character- she's a good example of how duplicitous and contradictory a person can be, You can never really know. If you enjoyed this, I'd recommend Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley, another book that features a dual reality, a protagonist with a quest and a disability (that only applies in one of the Worlds too, snap) and a really likeable, believable teen girl at its centre,

I do think it will make the Shortlist but I'm not sure about taking home the title- we'll have to see who else makes the final 9.

Land, by Alex Campbell

In 2014 the oceans rose and consumed most of the Earth's land. Cons, just a little girl then, set sail with her family with the hope of survival. She, her mother and her uncle were the only ones to make it to Land, after three months afloat and after many burials at sea. Here, along with a handful of other survivors, they built the beginnings of their new world. Deciding that what they needed most was Order, the survivors elected a leader who gave them what they wanted- order. He made the hard decisions that furthered the success of Land, that made their small society more likely to survive and eventually, to thrive.

Two generations later, Land still has Order. Populations, occupations and mobility are strictly monitored, for the greater good. A rigid class system keeps everybody in check- everybody knows their place, and knows that their loyalty lies with Land, their home and their saviour. Christy, though the great-niece of Land's founder, lives an impoverished life with her grandmother Cons. Cons is a Grey, a midwife of the Semi Skilled Worker class. The Browns are manual labourers, Greens students, Whites are slaves and the Blues are elite- thinkers, scientists and Government. Christy makes it clear that her and Cons' life is a struggle; cold tenement blocks, curfews, brutal punishments for non-conformity, ill-made clothing and little food to go around. But they are the rules, and rules are what keep you safe and secure in Land. The rules decide how you will live, how you will serve the state and when you will die.

With rebel activity on the rise and more and more dissent amongst Browns and Greens, civil unrest is bubbling beneath the benevolent smiles of the Land lower classes. The government's retaliations are harsh and fatal. When Christy discovers the reason behind her upbringing, the path that was chosen for her by her Rebel father, she must make hard decisions and make sacrifices. Starting with being unexpectedly Paired to a male citizen, forever. She must choose between the safety of a life of conforming to Land's rules and expectations, or she must choose danger, death and destruction and attempt to bring Land and its dictators down. A naturally sensitive and loving person, Christy needs to learn to close off her heart and follow her head as all around her, a war erupts between the citizens of Land and its elite.

What attracted me to this book initially was its unique set up- I loved the idea of the risen seas and the last ark of humanity attempting to survive on a tiny piece of ground; no animals, no minerals to make building materials, no way of recreating lost technology...It reminded me a bit of The Book of Dave. So I was a little bit disappointed that apart from creating an isolated community held to ransom by its leaders, the sea level idea was just an establishing thing. I was hoping that the unique premise might have had more of a part to play in creating the landscape of Land, like their society might have been shaped more by their circumstances and past and seem strange to readers; perhaps evolving a slightly different dialect, or having bizarre rituals that make Land seem inescapably alien. But anyway, that's my fault for guessing instead of reading. It was still an excellent story, even if it wasn't what I'd been expecting from the premise.

What I liked most about this book was its main character. I thought Christy was a brilliant protagonist, and had all the attributes that a good revolutionary needs; she's brave, stubborn, capable and determined to succeed. She grapples with her conscience, which makes her human (if a slightly bad assassin) and she is conflicted between her hatred for the regime and her love of the people close to her; it starts off as just Cons and Kara, but she eventually comes to care for One, her mentor, Salinger, his assistant and Tobin, her state selected Pair and approved breeding partner. I really liked Kara too, and would have liked to have seen more of her. Also Ellie was a little micro butt-kicker and I want to know what happened to her after the war.

The book sort of put me in mind of quite a few other books that deal with similar themes. After all, girl becomes reluctant symbol of impending revolution is a fairly familiar narrative, particularly in the Post-Hunger-Games dystopia landscape of Young Adult fiction. The physical city itself, with its concentric circles of colour-based class reminded me of the Wind Singer series, which I read years ago and had forgotten about. The sense of surveillance, the culture of informing and the 'agree with our brainwashing or we'll kill you' was a bit 1984, a bit The Handmaid's Tale- I liked how effectively the author generates tension and paranoia. Some parts are genuinely nerve-racking. Land makes the ideology of dictatorship more accessible and understandable, the fear is palpable, and this culture of 'Damn or Be Damned' does feel particularly pertinent when you think of how being accused of 'Quietly Condoning' something looks like it might become akin to terrorist activity soon. I liked too how rebellion against tyranny is seen as the only logical thing to do- I always like messages that suggest action even if it results in failure is better than no action at all. The idea that the oppressed will eventually fight back is always a welcome one and I thought that Land showed the chaos of rebellion well.

Land is a solid, engaging stand-alone novel with a lot of emotional depth. It takes an important and relevant combination of political rebellion flavoured YA themes, makes them understandable and ties them up with a unique initial concept and a brave and complex protagonist. It makes the reader think hard about their own society and how social mobility, wealth and opportunities are distributed amongst the population. There are obvious nods to the Holocaust, the Government echoing the Nazis' methods of identifying, controlling and execution of 'undesirables' but the book doesn't refer to it directly. I think teen readers are going to love it and I'm definitely getting a couple of copies for the library.

If you read Land and liked it, can I also suggest The Wind Singer, by William Nicholson for another colour-based dystopian society (and awesome protagonist in Kestrel Hath), and also Seed, by Lisa Heathfield which has similar ingredients (Nature, small isolated society, overthrowing of dominant ideology, forbidden romance) but puts the elements together in a totally different way.

Magonia, by Maria Dahvana Headley

To begin with, this book seems to tread fairly familiar territory. The main narrator, Aza Ray, has defied all medical odds by surviving to be almost 16. A professional ill-person, she's been in and out of hospital constantly all of her life. Living with a rare respiratory problem, so rare that the medical world has named it after her, Aza is constantly breathless, vaguely blue tinted and starts every day knowing she could expire at any moment. She struggles to speak, to breathe, to walk. It doesn't appear to bother her much morale or personality wise- she's just getting on with being a teenager and playing the 'Dying girl in class' role as dramatically as she can manage. Even from the first page, the reader has to admire her attitude.

Firstly, I loved the character and the voice of Aza. She's witheringly sarcastic, sharp as anything and impressively clever. She's taking dying in her stride. Her best (only?) friend Jason is appealingly weird too- spouting facts and snippets of trivia, inventing things, creating ciphers...the two of them are completely on the same wavelength and it's obvious from the beginning that they're meant for each other, even if one is a ticking time bomb of fatal mystery lung ailment.

Aza freaks out one day during class when she claims to have seen floating ships in the sky, calling her name. When she's calm, she writes it off as hallucinations, new meds- but isn't convinced by her own story. She's not the only one to have seen ships in the sky and Jason isn't the first to make the connection between these sightings and abnormal weather patterns. This was one of my favourite aspects of the book- the mythology, weather and magic mix. Jason really delves into the mythology of sky-objects and freak weather (raining frogs etc) and does his research really thoroughly. He falls down a Wikipedia manhole well and truly, as each discovery leads to a new question or a new answer- all adding up to something more than a hallucination.

The novel shifts its horizons suddenly and shockingly when Aza dies on her way to the hospital after an episode- surrounded by her family and a distraught Jason, she slips out of the world and into another. The book then develops into something that's a fantasy whirlwind of mystical bird-people, sky pirates and hidden worlds. The ship communities, with their unyielding laws, intimidating, corrupt captains and ruthless lifestyles are reminiscent of Philip Reeve's Predator Cities, with the Daemons of His Dark Materials (re-imagined as canwrs, internalised bird harmonisers and companions) and with the whole Gaiman-ish question of "What if other worlds were hiding from us in plain sight, and we're just not looking in the right places?". It's Neil Gaiman-esque fantasy for The Fault in Our Stars generation really. Though some elements feel familiar, they add up to a very original concept and a really believable world that has its own struggles and politics. There's something quite 'Return to Oz' about it. The reader gets the impression that Aza has been called home at kind of a bad time. I also really liked that the Magonians' use singing as a sort of life-force. I don't really get it, being a certified non-musical-human, but it's a new one. Like a musical Chi.

I really, really liked the characters in this novel. They all had their little quirks and personalities, and even if they didn't feature for a huge chunks of time in the narrative, it felt like they continued existing away from the action. They were real, and completely tied up in the story. I was moved by Aza's relationship with her family too- she knew her illness took its toll on them but she always tried to stay strong for them. The book conjured a real life family, with it own complications- the idea that mothers can be partially absent through work, but still fiercely loved. That sisters are your best friend and source of most of your earthly frustration, and that Aza's father is an absolute hero to her. So many YA books have their protagonists risking their lives for their significant other- it's nice here that the author remembers that family is worth fighting for too and she's determined to get back to them. Aza's family were so supportive and unflappable- the scenes of them, and Jason, at her funeral were properly heartbreaking.

I loved the book's eco message about climate change and the destructive, pollutant-riddled lifestyles that we've pursued on Earth. It reminds us that there are bound to be consequences of our industry and appliances. There is a bit of a tendency in much Sci-Fi to set up a non human species in opposition to humans based on their unsustainable habits or generally destructive nature, but you can't deny that we, as a species, have a bit of a problem with that. However, the Magorians' use of slaves can hardly go without disapproval. No society has it totally worked out, obviously.

I hope it's the beginning of a series. This novel was a very personal journey of self-discovery and identity for Aza- she got a lot of her questions about herself answered, but now she needs to find out which world she really belongs in and what her presence there means. Whichever world she's meant for- what's her role? Why that world and not the other? I'm very much looking forward to an all out war between the Magonians and the Drowners, which, even now, feels almost inevitable.

The Fastest Boy in the World, by Elizabeth Laird

Eleven-year-old Solomon loves to run and dreams one day of being an olympic medal winner, a celebrated national hero like the world class athletes he and the rest of Ethiopia looks up to. Even though he lives in a remote area and is ragged and barefoot, he knows he is born to run.

Solomon lives in a hut with his family and their livestock- it's not bleak exactly, but it's hardly luxurious. Warm and safe. When his grandfather announces, to everyone's surprise, that he's going to take Solomon to Addis Ababa, Solomon can't wait to see the big city. Having lived in a small village all his life, the biggest town Solomon has ever seen is 5 miles away where he goes to school. The glass, pollution and people of a city seems to overwhelm him before he even gets there. As luck would have it, the Ethiopian national running team will be doing a victory parade through the city that day, so Solomon is overjoyed at the thought of a glimpse of his heroes. They set off on the 23 mile walk together.

The trip is a revelation to Solomon. Not only does he see his heroes, make a friend for life and discover the crowds and bustle of the capital, he learns too something that he cannot believe. Something about his stoic, wise and revered grandfather. When this new, heroic grandfather collapses, just as Solomon begins to see him with new, awe-struck eyes, the boy knows that getting help from his village is now his responsibility. It's a twenty-odd-mile run from the city to home, now the bus has broken down and his grandfather's life could be at stake. Solomon must prove his ability as a runner, barefoot or not.

This is a swift, tightly plotted story that is enjoyable and revealing. The author does a good job of sculpting and comparing the locations in this novel- the dusty plains of farmland Ethiopia are contrasted with the bustling anonymity of the capital city with great effect. It's easy to warm to Solomon, a little boy with a big dream embarking on a confusing new phase of his life. As a character, he's very likable, with rural good manners and a healthy respect for his elders.

The Fastest Boy in the World is a solid, family-centred Middle Grade fiction that sees a character beginning to understand and define his own relationship to the world. The prose is competently and fluidly written, with a very accessible vocabulary and gives a believable insight into a world and a way of life that might be very new and unfamiliar to younger readers, so that's definitely a good thing.

Whilst it is an enjoyable story with an appealing message about pursuing one's dreams, working hard to achieve and the importance of family and responsibility, I can't help but feel that it just doesn't pack the same punch of previous Carnegie winners, or some other titles on the shortlist. That's not to say it's an inferior book, I'm convinced many younger readers will love it-it would make a really good class read for year 7s or 8s, as it encourages the reader to think about how life is lived in other cultures and in other countries. I just can't see it winning this particular award, though I can see it being enjoyed by many.