The One Memory of Flora Banks, by Emily Barr

I didn't really know what to expect from this novel, and blew hot and cold whilst reading it, but came out very much on the pro side in the end. It was a cleverly constructed journey that makes very good use of the unreliable narrator trope to mess with the reader, the protagonist and the entire timeline of events.

The book is about 17 year old Flora, who has little to no short-term memory following the removal of a brain tumour as a 10 year old child. She remembers things for an hour or so, but cannot commit things to memory. She's basically human Dory and is using a very Memento-ish technique of writing herself notes and remainders (on her arms, hands, in notebooks and post-its) to keep herself up-to-date with her own life. Every day when Flora wakes up, she is 10, her best friend is Paige and they both wore pig-tails on the first day of school. Every morning Flora has to read about her operation, her anterograde amnesia her medication and the fact that she is actually 17.

Flora attends a party for Paige's boyfriend Drake (yes, Drake) who's leaving to study on Svalbard. She gets confused and leaves, making her way to the quiet of the beach. Drake follows her, and kisses her on the sand. The next day, Flora remembers. She remembers their conversation, remembers him asking her to spend the night with him, remembers their kiss and the black stone she put into her pocket as a keepsake. She has retained a memory. 

When Flora's parents are called away on an emergency to Paris, Flora is left home with Paige. Only Paige skips out on the gig because she's mad, so Flora's incredibly protective parents don't know that she's alone. Fixated on her new memory, she sets off to the Arctic to find him, convinced that he is the answer to unlocking her memory.

Once Flora gets to Svalbard with the help of a Passport she didn't know she had, a notebook full of notes and her one memory, she really begins to develop as a character. She's a lovable, spontaneous, infectious person, a person that makes friends easily, does what she thinks is right and makes up her own mind. She's endlessly resourceful and determined and brave, and funny and warm. She has to grow up 7 years every day, but she's firey and independent and pretty much unstoppable. Aided by emails from her older brother in Paris, she starts to piece together her own past and Paige's dastardly betrayal begins to look like pretty small fry in the grand scheme of things. (LOVED Paige's brother Jacob, effective having him on paper only in the story, never in person. Really emphasizes his absence)

Initially, this books tricks the reader into suspecting that it could be in danger of fulfilling so many damaging tropes about disability and mental health- that True Love Cures All, that taking medication changes you as a person and suppresses the True, Authentic You. But the novel cleverly subverts those ideas and makes for a much more robust character and a more fulfilling depiction of a young woman living with neurological injuries. It's not the boy she is chasing but the memory, it just takes some new context to know that. It's not *medication* that alters personalities, but there are some things that do.

A very unique, compelling book with a wonderful main character, the Worst Parents, Worst BFF, Worst Boyfriend and Best Brother. It asks questions about memory and identity and how much we take it for granted, how much memory builds the people that we are and the decisions that we make. Also, interesting plot point about the gas-lighting of vulnerable people and on a related note, trying to seduce a woman that believes she is 10 and hopefully won't remember tomorrow is probably the creepiest move I have seen in YA fiction all year. Just wanted to get that in.

Sophisticated, carefully crafted and brilliantly characterised. Very much recommended.

Release, by Patrick Ness

I will read anything that Patrick Ness writes and I will love it because I am predictable and he is wonderful. I love his characters, his style, his general ability to just make you understand and feel absolutely everything his characters think and feel.

Release, like Mrs Dalloway that partially inspired it, takes place in one day (also, wonderfully, with the protagonist mentally resolving to buy the flowers themselves). This is Adam’s Worst Day. A catalogue of Objectively Bad Things happen, but it is also the day that it begins to dawn on him that the golden (though not always plain sailing) time of his youth is drawing to a close and there are unknown, scary, grownup things looming on the horizon of adulthood.

I did feel bad for Adam. Heartbroken, rejected Adam. Adam, harassed by creeps. Adam that knows he’s not being completely present with the people that care for him. Adam that is examining his romantic life and his home life and is beginning to form the conclusion that maybe he just doesn’t deserve to be loved. He’s lost and in pain and vaguely aware that he is hurting people that don’t deserve it, so hating himself a bit more. It sounds a bit melodramatic, but doesn’t feel that way on the page. It just feels painful and raw and exhausting. I loved how authentic Adam felt- it was a very real sort of anguish that any reader would connect with.

I LOVED Adam and Angela, the BFFs relationship that really, this book is about. Tiny statured, pizza toting, bouncy Angela who is so completely honest and refreshing and fun. Such a good, wholesome, platonic love. I loved that they both really wish they were attracted to each other so could just get solve the “Finding a Life Mate” problem but no, it doesn’t work like that and you both have to suffer instead and trial and error your way through the relationship minefield like every other chump. This is where the Forever inspirations are a bit more evident. Angela is fairly open about her sexual experiences and how disappointing and unremarkable they were, how something so apparently culturally significant could just be a bit of an awkward but not particularly regrettable episode that is un-noteworthy in almost every way. Adam too is open about his sexual history, ranking somewhere between a Monk and Byron, his recollections are frank and kind of informative, without being traumatic or sensational. It’s some incredibly skillful writing.

I can’t not mention Linus, Adam’s current boyfriend. I wish we saw more of him. He was sweet and attentive and understanding, he got mad enough at the way he was being treated to show he has integrity, but was understanding enough to show that he is a Genuinely Nice Person and I just hope it works out for the two of them and what this book lets us see is a reasonably rocky day in what will become a solid and loving relationship. I liked that it is not at all a Coming Out Story, which there are approximately 3 million of. There’s unspoken knowledge that Adam’s parents know he’s gay- he knows they know, and he knows that they don’t approve and believe that it’s a choice and a sin. It doesn’t build up to a big, dramatic revelation. He isn’t learning to live with his sexuality or coming to terms with how people treat him because of it. He’s just kind of getting on with life in spite of the unfortunate reality of Religious parents who are very hypocritical in the way that they dish out carefully portion-controlled helpings of their love. It's Coming of Age, not Coming Out and it is much more complicated than who you are attracted to.

I will say that I could have 100% done without the super hench Faun and the trippy Meth Murder victim and her identity struggle with the Pond Queen, but I read this a couple of weeks ago and my brain has sort of revised the whole thing to just be Adam and his Bad Day which works much better for me.

It's such a well crafted book that wears its influences on its sleeve, features complex, crisis-surviving teenagers that feel real and authentic, and though it is bittersweet and painful, the reader does kind of come away from it feeling that things will get better.

The New York Trilogy, by Paul Auster

A proper head scratcher.

The New York Trilogy comprises three apparently separate stories about people going missing, being searched for or possibly not actually existing in New York City. Apparently separate but also possibly connected. I'm not sure I got it TBH.

The first, City of Glass, is narrated by an isolated writer called Daniel Quinn who adopts the identity of Detective Paul Auster in order to take on a case. He writes under a separate pen-name, just for added layers). The case involves tracking a recently released abusive father and ensuring that he stays away from his psychologically damaged adult son. It sounds quite normal when you say it like that. But the narrative becomes a murky, confusing sequence of events that ends with Quinn's descent into a type of madness. An invisibility. The segment ruminates on themes of identity, authorship and the ease with which a person can remove themselves from the world (in a non-death sense). Quinn becomes obsessed with the released father, mapping his movements through New York, divining messages in his routes, basing his theories on obscure readings of Classic Literature and scripture. The name Henry Dark, who may or may not be fictional, is floated for the first time. Paul Auster shows up in his own novel with his real life (then) wife and actual kids. As you do.

The middle section, Ghosts, is about a private eye called "Blue", former protégée of "Brown", who is tailing a man named "Black" on Orange Street for a client named "White". Orange Street doesn't get air quotes because that seems to be a real actual street in Brooklyn. Blue, who starts the story as a regular detective, stakes out Black's apartment, composing written reports to the unknown and unseen White. White pays with regularity and keeps Blue installed in an apartment on the other side of the street to his target. Black seems to mostly read books and write at his little desk. After weeks and months staring at the ordinary, secluded Black, Blue begins to lose his grip on his identity, spiralling into madness and falling out of his old life, becoming obsessive about the increasingly mysterious Black.

The last story, Locked Room, features an unnamed narrator, a critic, who is unexpectedly contacted by the wife of an estranged childhood friend. Her husband, Fanshawe, has disappeared and left instructions to contact the narrator. After a certain amount of time has elapsed, he has instructed them to publish his life’s works- poems, plays, three novels. As the narrator smoothly installs himself into the home, marriage and family of the missing writer, tracing the lost years of his former friend becomes an obsession.

I can't work out if Auster (the author, not the fake detective OR the on the page Auster from the first book) is reusing names, or if there really is some connection between Henry Dark, a name two characters adopt and a third claims to have invented, if the Paul Stillman in Paris is either of the Paul Stillman (Stillmen?) from the first story...or if they're all the same person? I fell like I don't have the mental stamina to connect all the dots. If there are dots. It's possible he's just messing with us. It's possible it's vastly important. The paranoia!

The books are excellent at making the reader question everything they've read. The narrators are unreliable to the EXTREME, so you develop a constant cagey-ness to everything. They make for incredibly unsettling reading, but so atmospheric. I loved the recurring themes of authorship, of the act of writing and recording daily lives and how this meshes or clashes with our notion of identity and self. Such themes feature heavily in all three segments, as does the central idea that it is in fact incredibly easy to just remove yourself, or simply fall out of your own life. To ghost your own existence. In the latter third, how easy it is to just insert yourself into the life of another, to take up their still-warm space when they unexpectedly desert it. Perhaps this ghosting is especially easy in a city as enormous and as impersonal as New York.

Though I’m pretty sure there was much more going on in the book than I was able to grasp, I massively enjoyed this unique take on the PI genre. As a reader, I rarely read crime thrillers, but these slow burn, research and investigation heavy old school Maltese Falcon style detectives doing loads of legwork stories I am here for. It kept me guessing. It kept me wondering. It exposes something about people and the inexplicable, contrary, self-destructive little creatures that we are.

The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly, by Stephanie Oakes

I love books about cults and/or survivalists. I think I secretly want that post-apocalypse grow-your-own veg and build your own house self-sufficiency lifestyle, only without the murderous religious extremism.. After reading the excellent After the Fire earlier this Autumn, I decided to try The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly. Also excellent.

The story begins with a girl kicking a boy half to death and being cuffed and loaded into a police vehicle. Only the officers struggle to cuff her because she has no hands- her arms end in sore, angry stumps. So how did this mutilated girl get to be under this bridge on the outskirts of Missoula, in the snow, kicking a boy to mush? The format of the story is quite similar to the aforementioned After The Fire. Minnow, sentenced to imprisonment in Juvie, recounts to an FBI doctor the story of her decade in the Community, a secluded, polygamous collection of ‘saved’ people, living in the woods under the sketchy doctrine and rabid regulation of the Prophet. These Prophets. It seems that their gods always want them to have absolute authority and to sleep with young girls. Funny that. Anyway, Minnow escaped the cult, somebody burned it to ashes, and there’s a chance Minnow might know what happened, but she isn’t talking.

My favourite thing about this book was Minnow’s relationship with her convicted murdered cellmate Angel, a cornrowed, cynical lifer and long-term resident of ’the system’. As unlikely a friendship as you will ever read, Minnow brings out the softness in her- Angel helps Minnow learn to read and swear properly, to navigate the cliques and gangs of the detention centre, and encourages her to hold on to her hope, having never really grasped her own. In Juvie, Minnow sheds her naivety and becomes this strong, impressive young woman full of excitement at all these new ideas and things to learn. Though she has always been low key rebellious and resistant to the Prophet’s dogma, this scared, betrayed girl is galvanised by exposure to a tiny slice of the real world into this woman who refuses to be a victim and learns to think for herself. She was so resilient and admirable, still wanted things and had hopes and plans and drive.

I really liked how much emphasis the book put on the complexity of families, how a certain amount of love and loyalty can still exist despite violence, regret, loss of agency and harm. It focuses too on consequences of actions and the failings and labyrinths of the criminal justice system, the moral minefields are the differences between murder and self-defence and the impact of physical and psychological torture on a person’s behaviour. It asks is murder ever justified? What about in self-defence? What if a murder prevents a horrible crime?

I must also add that I absolutely adored the writing- it was beautiful. The prose was full of Minnow’s pain and longing and the intelligence that she had never been allowed to cultivate. I loved the sections on the stars, how she kept returning to the stars as her anchor point in the world. First they were a divine certainty, then a celestial mystery and it was through learning about anything and everything that she came to realise that not having answers is okay. I was completely swept away in Oakes’s prose and constantly found myself rereading lines and paragraphs that were particularly stuffed with beautiful images or almost tangible thoughts. I loved the scene in the pear orchard where Minnow sees her only friend from the outside world- there’s something not quite right about him and afterwards, having read the scene in which she saw him last, I’m pretty sure I was right about what that scene was supposed to be- I don’t want to give too much away, but it was composed and reflected on very well within the story. The reader is forced to do a bit of a reappraisal of that scene which I thought was an unusual move and worked well.

In summary, a very good addition to the Cult genre that I enjoyed hugely and would certainly recommend. Loved the characters, loved the pace. Loved that the story was not so much about the cult, but about the recovery from indoctrination and the healing process. Thoughtful, inspiring, bloody, beautifully written, full of growth and maturity and makes you realise that broken people can be put back together to become super-strong heroes and that horrific torture and life-altering mutilations aren’t enough to keep some people down.

How Not To Disappear by Clare Furniss

A gorgeous, heart-breaking story about family, being let down, making decisions and identity that manages to be tragic and poignant but also funny and life affirming at the same time. It’s a coming of age story and also about THE CIIIIIIIIRCLE OF LIIIIIIFE and paying particular attention to the relationship between the beginning of and end of life. I loved the way the auth
or handled the subject of aging and dementia- sensitive and empathetic, but without any kind of sugar coating.

17 year old Hattie is pregnant- she knows it, we know it very quickly too. Her flaky, charming, debonair friend Reuben doesn’t know it though, and he’s the father. He’s currently drinking and seducing his way through Europe. In an attempt to avoid having to have the “baby or abortion” conversation with herself, Hattie instead finds distraction in a long lost great aunt named Gloria.

Contacted via a neighbour, Hattie learns not only that Gloria exists, but that she is also not in good health. Upon their initial meeting, scathing, cold Gloria seems drunk and cruel- and not that keen on Hattie. Hattie is trying to dig up details about the dead father that she barely remembers, but Gloria is being deliberately difficult. She seems to be struggling with the early stages of dementia and lashes out, resulting in Hattie revealing that she’s pregnant. Pregnant and miserable. After she storms out, Gloria becomes keen to make amends- suddenly Hattie Is more interesting, and Gloria suggests a trip for the two of them. A bucket list trip where Gloria gets to revisit places that have impacted on her life. She considers to herself that as the only keeper of her secrets, the truth about her family and her past is quickly receding from her memory- and once she forgets, the secrets, and technically Gloria will cease to exist.

I loved the dual narrative- Gloria takes us back to her adolescence, her spirited teen years and her first love with Sam. She reveals her story bit by bit, claiming forgetfulness when it gets too painful and doesn’t want to go on. Gloria’s memories are full of fascinating social history and cruel glimpses into the prejudices and attitudes of the post war era. Her home life sounds awful, but her love for her sister Gwen, Hattie’s Gran is obvious- we puzzle why they lost touch and why Gloria didn’t attend the funeral. Hattie becomes a historical detective, determined to uncover Gloria’s history. It’s a gripping, devastating mystery that seems so cruel and unfair. I loved that the growing trust and (sometimes begrudging) affection between Gloria and Hattie is the crux of the story- not romance, or revolution. It's a private, slowly burgeoning relationship built on the balance of experience and age, and youthful enthusiasm. 

I loved Gloria. I loved how stubborn she was, how arch and sarcastic. Partially to protect herself from her increasingly vulnerable neurological state, partially because she’s not going to stop being a sassy devil any time soon. She’s old school glamourous, suffers no fools and needs only herself and a gin sling to be happy. As the story goes on, her strength and bravery becomes more apparent, and the reader’s heart breaks for how much she has been through, resolutely refusing to let it crush her. The secondary women in this novel are all brilliant too- they have their own temperaments, flaws, life goals, agency. Edie is brave and wonderful… Alice, Hattie’s little sister is basically a micro Gloria, and Hattie’s best friend Kat and her Mum too; we just don’t see enough of them. I want more interesting, flawed, opinionated women just *being* together. It’s something I don’t think happens enough in literature.

How Not To Disappear manages to touch on so many issues, but manages to avoid being preachy. It feels very real, very true, and imbued with that sort of barely-believable, tragic ‘scandal’ that blights the past of most families. The problems encountered by these characters feel real, the characters feel real. We feel invested in the consequences. The importance of the decision making process is really highlighted- it is suggested that a person can never feel real regret if they made the decision that was right at the time. The book deals too  with decisions that are taken away or made for someone.

In conclusion, How Not To Disappear is a wonderful dual narrative story about estranged relatives getting to know each other. It’s about how society and social attitudes change, but they don’t change enough. It’s about doing the right thing for yourself, admitting responsibility and letting yourself be open to people, to heartache and to pain. It’s about me memory and emotional trauma and how unfair life can be. There are wonderful characters, funny dialogue and one of the most badass old ladies in YA fiction.

Mister Memory, by Marcus Sedgwick

An odd, fascinating detective mystery with all the twisty, turny brain wringing that the reader would expect of the Masterful Marcus Sedgwick. Known mostly as a Young Adult author, Sedgwick brings his unpredictable plots and spiraling scope to adult fiction for the second time.

As a youth, Marcel Després drifted to Paris from the wine producing villages of the south. At the urging of his artist neighbours, Marcel turns the one skill he has (but didn't realise was out of the ordinary), perfect recall, into a cabaret act; Mister Memory is created. Night after night he stands on stage, remembering everything, each bottle and hat removed, each digit on a blackboard- a neat trick. Except there is no trick; Marcel has an infallible memory that stretches back completely and entirely, with all its network of supporting memories and tangential avenues, to before his actual birth.

Marcel is also widely believed to be both a murderer and insane. What initially seems like an impassioned killing of an adulterous wife by an enraged husband is not as straightforward as it might seem. Incarcerated in an asylum, without any kind of investigation, Marcel Després admits to the murder, remembers it in vivid detail. complete and absolute detail, right down to the mouse droppings on the landing. The asylum's physician, Doctor Morel sees Marcel as the case of a lifetime- a book waiting to be written. Morel also discovers that in addition to his astounding memory, the patient is incapable of lying.

Meanwhile, hearing of the hushed up, too swift resolution of this broad daylight murder case and infuriated by the idea of a wife-killer escaping the guillotine, young detective Petit's curiosity and desire for justice is powerfully aroused. Reprimanded for poking around and frustrated by his superiors' lack of interest in justice, he sets about conducting a thorough, though off the record investigation of the murder of Ondine Després, alongside the somewhat unlikely partner of Dr Morel. With his assistance, Petit begins unraveling the night of the murder, depending on Marcel's perfect memory to recall every tiny detail. But how can a man who remembers every detail of every moment of his entire life sort the evidence from the everyday? The more Petit digs into Marcel's memory, the more untoward the investigation becomes: police corruption, sexual depravity, switched identities, deception and a scandal big enough to galvinise the political landscape of France; a secret that powerful men are proving themselves willing to murder for.

I loved how brilliantly MS crafted the seedy, decadent cesspit of Paris in the dying months of the 19th century; the cafes, the cabarets, the filles publiques, the booming business of photographic pornography and the promise of the dawn of a new era. This book felt a step above most historical fiction- fin de siècle Paris is a common setting, but rarely does it feel as alive and as grubby as Marcel's Paris. The detail about the contemporary police force and their chains of command and Judicial system were particularly thorough and lent an authority to Petit's below-board investigation. There are moments of shocking discovery and genuine tension as Petit's guesswork and predictions solidify into trials of hard evidence. I particularly enjoyed the scene in Paris' Archives of Hell with the librarian, guardians of the national shame. I loved that Petit was surprised and a bit disappointed that the library of confiscated "Indecent material" just looked like a regular library, with files and boxes and shelves. There are a lot of light, comedic little touches that season an otherwise quite intense read.

Though there are a lot of characters, each one is colourful and plays their part in the expansive web of connections that makes up Marcel's extraordinary case. The watery eyed doctor Morel who for the first time in years finds himself caring about a patient, wanting to cure him rather than idly minding them for their own safety. The misanthropic Boissenot,  senior police detective, who is convinced that Paris's crime rate, highest ever, indicates nothing other than the end of the world. The waddling Cavard, an old fashioned secret communist, good guy and ultimate hero- the guy who brings the police to account from within initially seems to be a grumpy pencil pusher, but evolves into quite the justice warrior.

I struggled in parts with the pacing, it very much comes in fits and starts and there is the occasional dry spell where not much happens, either with Petit's investigation or with Morel's probing of Marcel's mind. That might be my fault though, as I read in uncharacteristically short bursts over an unusually lengthy period of time... For the vast majority of the novel, Mister Memory is a whip smart, very satisfying historical crime detective story with a unique premise, an array of interesting and nuanced characters, and a deft hand guiding a twisting narrative that might seem, under a lesser writer, to be extravagantly far fetched. To discover the twist, the murderer, the motive and the fall guy by the halfway point and still keep the reader hooked is quite an achievement.

Unboxed, by Non Pratt

A devastating little novella from the queen of kitchen sink teen drama, Non Pratt. I've loved both of Non's full length novels for their wit and warmth, and for the fantastic way she writes friendship and dialogue. Naturally, Unboxed was no different.

Narrated by Alix, the plot follows four friends as they face the prospect of an awkward reunion in their one time hometown- they are retrieving their buried time capsule from the school's roof. Having drifted apart over the last 5 years, each going off and doing their own thing, nobody is sure if the others will show. The reunion follows the death of Millie, the sweet, happy girl that held them all together. She was the one who made her surviving friends promise that they'd meet up- promise that they'd reunite.

After the stilted greetings and small talk and the clumsy retrieval of the box, we begin to see the friends relax into each other's company a bit more. As they go through the carefully selected memories that each of them chose to preserve, the four reflect on how much they have changed over the five years. They examine their motives for allowing their friendships to crumble. For Alix, it's guilt that she was never able to come out to her best friends. First fearing rejection, then consumed by guilt for not trusting them, she found it easier to drift away.

I really loved this story and was amazed at how much emotion and feeling can be squeezed into such a small book. Who has never looked at a photo of their schooltime squad and lamented "we all used to be so close and I haven't spoken to any of these for years- what happened?" maybe not at 18....but definitely somewhere along the way. I love how Alix voices her insecurities about how people change- relationships change, what people need from and are able to provide for each other changes. Out expectations change. Our priorities and values; guess what? They change too.

It was really satisfying to see a mismatched group of kids- kids that didn't seem like they ever would have been friends at all, be truly honest with each other in a way that requires the sort of maturity and self awareness that you just don't have at 13. It seems unlikely that as story that begins with a nightmare social situation; a person surrounded by ex friends they've outgrown could possibly end with four renewed friendships, cracked, but healed stronger than before. Like bones. And all the way through, the tragic absence of Millie, the missing piece, the one who orchestrated the whole thing from beyond the grave, hangs sadly over the whole thing.

Gorgeous and touching and utterly, utterly real. I genuinely do not know how she does it.

Unconventional, by Maggie Harcourt

Lexi Angelo, the High Priestess of the Order of the Clipboard has been helping her dad run his events company since she was old enough to hold a walkie talkie. Juggling college, running convention operations and dealing with being a teenager is proving kind of difficult, but Lexi is taking it in her stride. With the power of immense organisation skills, lots of lists and a clipboard- she is somehow managing to get together enough Comic illustrators for the June panel and do an essay on Napoleon on the weekends that she isn’t attending one of her dad’s conventions all over the country.

Anybody who has ever been to a convention, or even been a fan of anything, will relate massively to the general *atmosphere* that is celebrated in this novel. There’s something genuinely life-affirming in being in the same room (yes, sometimes big, noisy, sweaty room with lots of swords and boardgames) as people that are like you. People that understand what it is to be a fan. This novel celebrates fandom in such a lovely way. I also loved that Melinda Salisbury made an eyebrow-raising appearance and the rowdiest table in the post-con bar were the YA authors. 'Surely not!' I hear you cry.

One of this book’s biggest strengths is Lexie- she’s a brilliant character. Frustrating, yes. Insecure and flappy and on the verge of bossiness, but also passionate, capable, a massive ball of geek and fangirl enthusiasm. Anybody who has ever read a book and thought ‘this was literally written for my exact eyes’ will be able to relate to her, con veteran or non-con. Lexi is good at what she does, and she enjoys it. And she enjoys being good at it too, which is absolutely ok. She counts her ‘real’ friends as the other con kids, the ones working operations with her, keeping everything running; Nadiya, Bede and Sam are her literal work family, the friends she sees a handful of weekends a year, but with whom she gets to be her authentic self.

I liked that we as the reader get time to get to know her before she embarks upon her Swoony Romance. We get what makes her tick, her insecurities and her dual persona; college Lexie and Con Lexie. It’s all in a day’s work when she, clipboard in hand, turfs out an unauthorised bod from the green-room and he’s kind of a swaggery jerk to her. “What a dick” she thinks, then goes home to read proof copy of a book that will change her life.

I quite liked the romance as it played out in this book. Ever an insta-love naysayer, I was pleased that Lexi and Aidan started off disliking each other, then slowly evolving from there. They seem drawn together, but reluctant to let anyone else in. It’s awkward and angsty and kind of adorable, in a condescending grown-up way. It’s a gradual, tentative romance; emails and second guessing and trying to divine motives and intentions based on a conversation you’ve re-run 15 times in your head. We knew already about Lexi’s two versions of herself, but in Haydn Swift/Aiden Green we literally get two people. A cocky, spotlight loving bestselling author, then a quiet art-nerd that pales at the thought of the stage. Pretty much everyone has different personas that they arm themselves with to deal with life, and it’s an interesting dynamic to see these two people work out if the real Lexi fits with the real Haydn/Aidan. I really liked Aidan as a character; he was sweet and smart and nowhere near as annoying as a lot of YA male protags who think they’re charming and funny.

A funny, enjoyable, fandom-galvanising read, featuring an intense, slow-burn romance,  good chemistry, well created supporting characters and a good coming-of-age realisation that, at 17, nothing is decided yet and there is still all the time in the world to work out who you are and do whatever it is that you want to do. Definitely a must for fans of Rainbow Rowell (on account of the fandoms) Non Pratt (on account of the lolz) and Alice Oseman (on account of the creative angst, identity themes and general well-crafted, real life teens).

Goodbye Stranger, by Rebecca Stead

Really, really enjoyed this, and I can see it becoming quite the go-to Middle Grade book for quite a catalogue of events and issues.

Set in contemporary New York, Goodbye Stranger tells the story, in the first person, of Bridge Barsamien,a 7th grader, car accident survivor and medical marvel. It also occasionally jumps forward several months to another story, in the second person, of an older teen, an unnamed girl who is skipping school in an anxious attempt to avoid the consequences of a terrible mistake.

But first Bridge. Convinced she survived her earlier accident for a reason, Bridge is having a bit of an identity crisis- why is she here? What does she bring to the world? Who is she, really? A bit of an oddball, she has recently started wearing cat ears to school. Best friends Tab and Em think it's a bit odd, but whatever- both have their own things to deal with. Em is now a rising soccer star and the recent owner of some new curves that are starting to get her noticed by older students. Tabs is busy excelling at languages, getting into human rights and civil disobedience and gobbling up a (somewhat outdated, 1970s flavoured) feminist agenda from her worshipped teacher Ms Burman. Bridge is quite confused and put out by the focus and talents of her friends, and find herself drifting to the Stage Crew as an after school activity where she meets Sherm, a kid she lives really close to, goes to school with yet has somehow never actually spoken to.

It's a beautifully written book, with gorgeous, evocative prose that washes over the reader. Though not terrible plot driven, it is incredibly realistic and does an excellent job of showing what it must be like to be 12 or 13 in the modern era. The three central girls are working out who they are and what matters to them, whilst trying to navigate the rough seas of adolescence. The book asks some really interesting questions about identity and what makes a person *them*- can you be the same person now that you were 5 years ago? Will your future self be the same person? Can you be two people at once, one that dud something terrible and regrets it, and simultaneously one that understands and would probably do it again?

A lot of middle grade fiction has the trials and tribulations of friendship at its core. The way that friendships can break apart, evolve or become toxic and damaging. We get to see that via the unnamed second person voice, how friends can change and become people that seem like strangers. Bridge's trio fare better throughout the book. Though they have their ups and their first downs, the girls' friendship seems to weather the storm of the 7th grade.

Though not an issue driven book, Goodbye Stranger still offers the opportunity for valuable conversation around important issues in the lives of modern tweens. There is the perennial issue of friendships being made and broken and how to deal withe the emotional fallout, embarrassing, fraying or broken families and the stresses of school, but we also see the emergence of more modern issues- 'sexting', slut shaming (though neither terms are specifically used) and the way girls in particular are expected to behave, scrutinised and judged. There's a lot to unpack for such a short book- I particularly liked how Em's picture being leaked was presented as quite a complicated thing. She was mortified, rightly or wrongly, but still liked the picture and how she looked in it- something that Bridge is baffled by . Em explains "the bad part wasn’t that everyone was looking at the picture. I mean, it was weird and not great. But the bad part was that it felt like they were making fun of my feeling good about the picture. Of me liking myself". It's a big thing to have to think about, surrounded by sub themes of consent, self love and agency.

All in all, it's a wonderful, dual story that points out that age does not always come with wisdom and that older kids make mistakes too,  Nobody is infallible. Some friendships will survive and some will go bad. New friends eventually become old friends. Past and future are mysteries. Teachers will always spend their own money to make things that they care about a success. Girls and boys will, however unfairly, be subjected to different treatment.

The Dark Half, by Stephen King

So my investigation into the works of Stephen King continues with The Dark Half, a 1989 novel about SK's favourite type of character- the Author. This particular author is Maine native Thaddeus (yup, really) Beaumont, a well-reviewed but not exactly best selling author of two novels and creative writing professor. He is also, secretly, the man behind the wildly popular and incredibly violent Alexis Machine novels, writing under the "Nom de Plume" of George Stark. Despite his fake author bio, his fake author shots and his fake name, George Stark has been paying Thad's bills for years. Following the birth of twins and after a blackmail attempt from a would-be whistle blower, Thad decides to kill off his alter ego and put an end to Stark. His next book will be under his own name, for better of for worse. 

The book begins with an 11 year old Thad having a tumour removed after a series of sensory abnormalities and a fit- only it's not a tumour, it's a partially absorbed fraternal twin lodged in Thad's frontal lobe. Twins and their inherent mirror-traits are pretty recurrent themes throughout this book.

When somebody begins murdering people connected to Thad- his handyman; one of the partners in his publishing firm; the would-be-whistle blower, the assistant who gave the whistle blower information...and leaving Thad's prints all around the crime scene things get a bit paranormal. Enter one of King's specialities- the lovable cop who has trouble connecting the evidence with what's in front of his face. Much like Sheriff Bannerman of Dead Zone, Sheriff Pangborn is a stickler for evidence and good, solid police work and struggles accepting things which turn his whole understanding of reality inside out. Alan Pangborn is almost front and centre in this novel- though the audience kind of knows what's going on earlier, it's his acceptance of the unlikely facts that we are rooting for. Personally I think his character evolves the most; from a jumped up I'm-the-Sheriff-now-boys type to an almost intimate friend of the family. It was for his preservation that I found myself most eager.

The Dark Half an interesting insight into an author's head- that constant walking of the line between fantasy and reality, the dangerous ability to plumb the depths of human behaviour for inspiration and the effect that it might have on the person doing the plumbing. Thad strikes the reader as a clumsy, fairly likeable guy. Ordinary, loves his family, laughs at his own jokes a bit. But it's obvious that he has a great capacity for darkness. His wife Liz hates him when he writes a George- he changes. He drinks a lot and becomes short tempered and cold. Though George is Thad's own creation, she is afraid of the similarities that exist between them.

As ever, a really enjoyable read and I think it's undeservedly overlooked. It's certainly not one of King's most famous books, but it's really worth a read just to hear such a prolific writer's experiences of the writer's process, though they are in this case fictional. Despite this, it's obvious that King's own experiences with pseudonyms is bursting to the forefront. I felt like I really understood how a writer must feel, living with another world, other people existing in their head and the tricks that it must play on their reality.

The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo, by Catherine Johnson

Sexually assaulted on the Bristol road, a dark-skinned young lady has had her fill of suffering. Broken hearted, abused and mother to a dead child, she has suffered immensely. Instead of choosing suicide, like many ruined, impoverished girls of the 19th century, Mary chooses to disappear. She vanishes, leaving instead the Lady Caraboo- a haughty warrior princess; fearless, exotic and fascinating.

Taken in by the Worrals, a prominent middle class family hell bent on integrating themselves into society, Caraboo is befriended by daughter Cassandra, reader of romantic novels and general Victorian tween. She is obsessed with dresses and ribbons and dances, and the apple of her eye is currently her brother's boorish friend Edmund, who is something of a womanising brute. Mrs Worral is a keen anthropologist and is fascinated by Caraboo, who she assumes is some sort of Eastern Princess based on her headwrap and her proud, defiant carriage. What starts off as a quick way to secure a bed for the night becomes a larger deception as Caraboo goes along with it; making up a language, crafting a bow and arrow and shooting pigeons, climbing trees and praying to her made up, exotic gods. She is a thorough, gifted actress and master of deception, a true con artist. While her actions could be seen as wrong, the reader knows that she doesn't mean any harm by it, and is just trying to escape herself and her meagre lot for a while. Mary is a stronger person when she is Caraboo- she is brave and powerful, and more importantly, she has no history. No lost child, no broken heart.

Caraboo is authenticated by "experts", men of science and experience who are no more real or genuine than the pretend Princess- proof that our reality is built on shaky foundations and that the Princess, though a fraud, is not gaining by her deception. She is an honest forgery, where these experts are not. There's two romantic sub-plots woven into Caraboo's exhibition and attempts to validate or expose her; Cassandra's dreamy romance with the in-keeper's son; a dalliance that Caraboo knows can never end happily. Mary also plots something of a deliberate bewitching of Cassandra's brother Frederick- aiming to avenge, even slightly, the countless women all over the world that are drawn to society men with gifts and promises- then ruined. She aims to get him to fall hopelessly for Caraboo, then disappear, breaking his heart in payment to all the ruined women. Needless to say, it doesn't go to plan.

TCTotLC is an enjoyable historical novel that I think will be brilliant for fans of Tanya Landman and Mary Hooper. The author has built a beguiling novel around the bones of a real historical mystery. I loved the how the book questions identity, how do we tell what is real when everyone is playing a role in society. Though Cassandra and Will's infatuation doesn't add a huge amount to the plot, I thought Caraboo and Fred made a much more interesting pairing. Fred, previously shown to be quite the regular at brothels around his school, is much improved by his relationship to Caraboo. He becomes more thoughtful, more caring- it's the real Frederick showing through the laddish nightmare. In his case, the fiction really is better than the truth, and it's the fiction he tries to desperately to hold on to.

My favourite aspects of the novel is when it begins to question gender roles, particularly via the Phrenologist fool, constantly spewing facts about the tiny female brain. Frederick too comes to realise the disparity of his own future compared to that of his sister. Caraboo demonstrates how capable women can be, and it's a surprise to them all. Also, I liked that an English set historical novel had a POC as their main character. I loved this attempt to redress that lack of diversity.

Tough it's a very well crafted, enjoyable read with an appealing romantic twist on a fascinating true story, I'm not sure it has the same impact or relatability as some of the other YA Book Prize shortlisted titles. Caraboo is a wonderful creation and an engaging character.

The Portable Veblen, by Elizabeth McKenzie

The Portable Veblen is a unique story about marriage, family and identity. The book opens with Veblen (named after a Norwegian economist and sociologist) accepting a bumbling proposal from the sweet-seeming Paul, who surprisingly turns out to be a neurologist. It's a story about the complexities of relationships and family and that inescapable task of having to blend the bride's family and baggage with the groom's family and baggage.

Growing up with an overbearing, Dickensian hypochondriac mother, a father in a psychiatric institution and a no-waste culture of unspecified guilt, metaphorical debt and carer responsibilities, Veblen gives the impression of an overgrown child. She's suffered her mother's whims and tempers, her perceived illnesses, her wounded pride. Veblen has never been anybody's first priority and has spent her life so far pacifying her tempestuous mother and henpecked stepfather. Her mum expects a lot from Veblen, whom she considers to be one of the only decently-raised people on the planet.

Never finishing college, a professional temp, amateur translator and secret expert on squirrels and Thorstein Veblen, namesake Veblen has never really been able to forge her own identity, so instead has complied a mixture of tics, obsessions and fascinations to form herself upon. She is coming to terms with her impending marriage and is anxiously worrying about whether her world-view is compatible with Paul's, whether their families will get along and whether or not she is lovable and she's worried that practical Doctor Paul is too dismissive of her whimsical attachments to squirrels.

The book follows Paul and Veblen in their attempts to combine their families, to find some sort of common ground on which they can agree to a wedding, and it provides a bit of back story into why the two characters are like they are- it's news to them too, as they freely admit that they don't know an awful lot about one another. My favourite bit of the whole novel was young Paul's childhood escapade with the screaming snails and the science fair, and the getting accidentally high on spiked cider and fumbling around in the woods with his middle school girlfriend. That was the only part of the book that seemed real and seemed to carve out a real time and place. The rest of the book felt like a weird fairytale, complete with overgrown cottage, the villainous witch and the furry-loving princess.There is a prominent plot thread concerning Paul's invention of some sort of cranial hole punch to perform field-based neurosurgery for the military- so Veblen's musings on the happiness-based, anti-consumerist social values of Thorsetin Veblen are contrasted against a stark background of medical ethics, corporate corruption, biotechnology and the whole messy relationship between big cooperation, the medicine industry and the military in america.

I couldn't understand what this book was trying to do. Was I supposed to laugh? Is it serious? Is it literary fiction's answer to chick lit? I'm not sure that's a thing. I didn't know if I was supposed to believe that Veblen could talk to squirrels or not, or whether believing she could commune with rodents was one of her coping mechanisms for a gently traumatic childhood. Part of me just wanted to shake her and tell her to get a grip. I don't mind a free spirited protagonist, but Veblen was vague and dreamy to the point of frustration and was steering very, very close to Manic Pixie Dream Girl territory. She's incapable of making up her mind, alternates between trying to please everyone and being very single minded and I honestly, truly could not see how Veblen and Paul worked as a couple. I'm not saying couples need to have the same interests and world-views and politics on everything- but aside from resenting their parents for a perceived lack of attention (Paul due to a disabled older brother, Veblen due to her mother's self-obsession/hypochondria) they had literally no common ground at all. Paul wants a load of money, stuff and an impressive house as a middle finger to his hippy parents, Veblen wants a simple, happy life with minimal waste and much quirk.

I really don't know how I feel about this book. I read it speedily enough and was never reluctant to pick it up- but already I'm struggling to remember the plot or conjure any reaction at all. It seems to exist purely to define the forbidden, hated descriptors "kooky" and "quirky". Veblen, as a character, is so quirky that it's not long before she seems to be comprised entirely of odd behaviours and notions. It's original, I suppose in its style- a ponderous, descriptive prose that really takes the time to appreciate the taken for granted little things in life. I don't think it's one for the casual reader- though the themes of family and marriage might appeal, its forays into the technicalities of brain surgery, the ponderous jaunts into the life and times of sociologist Thorstein Veblen and the musings of living an ethical life in the consumerist dystopia of 21st century America might alienate slightly

It's not the sort of thing that I'd probably recommend as it's not my usual style- to be honest I'm surprised it made the shortlist when there were other such thought provoking novels to choose from.

The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers

I'm going to start off by saying how surprised, refreshed and downright overjoyed to see legit, air-lock requiring, deep-space wandering science fiction on the longlist for a major literary prize. Reason number 49 to love the Bailey's Prize. *heart eyes*

Anyway. The Long Way to A Small Angry Planet starts with the Mars-born-and-Raised clerk Rosemary embarking upon a new chapter in her life. It's evident that she's escaping something, with an illegally doctored ID file and a head full of secrets, she's taken a job on the Wayfarer, a long-haul tunnelling ship. It's what it sounds like- a ship that drives manually from A to B and punches a wormhole through space. Galactic road builders if you like.

The characters in this novel are its true strength. The multi species crew on board the Wayfarer is an eclectic bag of sapients, a glorious mix of oddballs rattling around in space. The motley crew is strange, flawed, and extremely likeable (with one obvious exception who even so proves his worth by the end). These are all complex, developed characters belonging to various species with long and complicated histories. The author did a really good job of capturing the communal spirit of the ship- to live and work at close quarters with a small bunch of people has its pros and cons and it worked wonderfully. The dynamics of the ship's crew was balanced and despite it all quite realistic. I especially loved Sissix the navigator, member of the lizard-esque Aandrisk race.

The majority of the plot is the Wayfarer's long haul journey to a big, life changing job that could provide the capital for upgrades and a better class of job, jobs not usually done by lowly humans. The contract involves punching a tunnel from Hedra Ka, home to a volatile and inherently violent species that have recently and controversially joined the GC, linking them to central space. As the mission progresses, certain secrets and truths about the crew come to light.

I loved how diverse the universe of this book is. To begin with, we have the multi-species crew aboard the Wayfarer. There's a lot of being observant and sensitive to other cultures, habits and opinions that seem pretty alien to members of other species. It's a harmonious crew though, with lots of mutual love and understanding, very little persecution and effort is made to bridge those cultural gaps among friends. I liked the inclusion of some wider political context too- the reader learns quite a lot about the GC, the Galactic Commons, how its organised, who joined when, the unofficial hierarchy of species. It's refreshing to see a narrative that doesn't hold the human race up on a pedestal as the conquerors of space. In this novel, humans, an immature, squishy species that stupidly populated their home planet to death are begrudgingly admitted as to the GC by its founding species (the Aandrisk, Aeluon and the one with the tentacles) after first being taken on as refugees, fished out of space on the life-boat ships. The Exodans, they became known as. Either way, they're a minor species in a Universe and that was quite refreshing.

My one criticism of the book would be a slight underdevelopment in the character of Rosemary. She serves as the reader's introduction to this new world, describing the patchwork hotch-potch of the ship, the appearances of the species, the sights and smells of these new planets...Yes, she is more familiar with the future than the reader, but being born on privileged Mars, she has never been to multicultural Central Space. She has studied languages and cultures but never been exposed to them directly. Though Rosemary is the rookie, sharing all these first encounters with the reader, her character remains quite flat in comparison with the others. There is such vibrancy in the Grungy human Kizzy, the reptilian sass of Sissix, the homely compassion of 6 legged Dr Chef. Even Captain Ashby, the liberal, ambitious and incredibly empathetic captain seems more three dimensional than Rosemary. She is our eyes, but has much less to hold on to than her shipmates. I hope she can be fleshed out in the upcoming (and much anticipated) sequel.

Some elements such as the claustrophobic confinement and parts where characters attempt to describe physics (I mean ??) reminded me a little of Interstellar. The Universe itself is quite reminiscent in a good way of Futurama- all these different races and species going about their daily lives, space travel being the norm, a multi planetary, bureaucratic universe of commerce and rogue technology. The technology angle was really interesting also- there's a species-wide ethical debate about what does and does not cross the technological line of danger and decency and all kinds of interesting bio-metric questions there...

In conclusion, I really, really enjoyed reading this. I haven't enjoyed a Space Sci-Fi this much since I read Stanislaw Lem's Solaris. Obviously they are vastly different books, but both hugely enjoyable. TLWTASAP is funny, humane and heart-warming book about prejudice, friendship and the world beyond our sky. The book manages at once to be an action packed space adventure and an emotional story of identity and belonging. It also raises questions about colonial histories, racial discrimination and the pointlessness of racism, the politics of unions in which there are several clashing cultures and the value of the individual. Despite its population of alien races, it's an incredibly human book.

Brilliant. I hope it makes the Shortlist. I hope it wins. I hope everybody reads it.

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.

In A Land of Paper Gods, by Rebecca Mackenzie

Born in China to British missionary parents dedicated to saving the souls of the Chinese peasantry, Ming-Mei is bundled off at the age of 6 to the Lushan school. Perched on a staggeringly beautiful misty mountain of spiritual importance, Lushan is a boarding school for the children of British missionaries, somewhere that offspring can be conviniently stored whilst the parents are off continuing God's work. Despite most of its pupils being being born and raised in China, Lushan is strictly English, and Henrietta S. Robertson is to be Ming-Mei's name from now on. She is to learn to be a good Christian so that she too can grow up to bring the Gospel to the more overlooked and remote corners of the globe. The main section of the novel opens in 1941 and concentrates on Etta's story from the age of 10.

A wildly imaginative daydreamer, Etta is somewhat alienated from her dorm-mates, many of whom are quite humourless and pious; middle aged women in little girl costumes. She craves attention from Dorm mistress Aunty Murial, a young Scottish missionary who takes the girls on brisk mountain walks and paints their portraits in watercolours. Etta immediately strikes the reader as an incredibly lost and lonely girl, adrift from her idolised parents (snapped like the symbolic red string of Chinese departure custom) and noticeably different from the other girls. She is desperate to be special, revealing herself a prophetess in direct contact with God and subsequently she sets about making prophecies, declaring the others Prophetesses too (Hark, it is the Lord's intent) and unknowingly laying the foundations of tragedy, trouble and ostracism. From the very beginning she suffers from a bit of an identity crisis; she is Etta to her peers, Henrietta to the Lushan staff, Samantha the Prophetesses during the days of the Prophetess club, self declared 'Mother' to Twelve, a local toddler she befriends and Ming-Mei when outside of Lushan. Whilst Etta as a character is mischievous, funny and strong willed, her identity is paper thin and is constantly being switched and altered.

I really liked Etta as a character, her voice was incredibly strong and full of life and humour. Yes she makes some bad decisions, but she's been so unguided and left to find her own route through her most formative years. Her imagination gets her into trouble; good intentions have tragic outcomes. The other girls are curious about her vivid games and she has no trouble enticing them to join in, but they're lightning fast to point the finger when things go wrong, quick to declare her fantasies 'silly games'. She's a very vivid person, full of plans and ideas, she climbs trees, gets her knees dirty and indulges in mean thoughts about people then worries for her immortal soul. I especially liked her clashes with Big Bum Eileen, Dorm A's queen bee and unofficial opinion-influencer. So chosen because of her burgeoning womanly figure, Eileen is bossy and eager to see Etta ridiculed or punished, safe in the knowledge she has the backing of the rest of the weak-minded girls. It was not difficult to Empathise with Etta, born into a doctrine she appears to have no heart for, left to fend for herself, fighting it out with the other girls for the approval and affection of Aunty Muriel. I like that she went her own way and pleased herself, no matter how much trouble it got her into, or how unpopular it made her

I loved Mackenzie's descriptions of the wild peaks of China, the lush forests and the living mountain, the mists, waterfalls, crumbling temples and the delicate flowers. I loved the idea of the 'Thin Places' where people are spiritually closer to the other world. Lushan, for all its strange evangelical inhabitants, seems like paradise. It makes the war, gathering pace around them, seem all the more remote and impossible, until it is right at their door. When the war arrives and evicts the staff and the children from their home, Etta has to grow up rapidly. The third portion of the book shifts the narrative to a Japanese civilian interment camp and we see a child's eye view of malnutrition, black markets and berri-berri, which reminded me a little of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, only without the building of the railway. Interred with the rest of Lushan's staff and students, the only relationships Etta has ever known crumble; Aunty Muriel is now just Muriel, no longer her guardian, she is now someone who looks after the sick, her Dorm mates are now just 'other girls'. She's no longer a pupil, not really a daughter. She's totally on her own.

With its themes of religion, identity, war, isolation, displacement and being caught between two vastly different cultures, I was really impressed with In A Land of Paper Gods and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I loved Mackenzie's mystical and evocative prose and her Huck Finn-ish protagonist, a parent-less girl left to navigate the boundary between right and wrong. I found that the structure of the book really worked too; the inclusion of a few pages from Muriel's diary were really interesting additions as it showed how repressed she was, how much she cared for her girls but wan't really supposed to show it. Muriel became a much more rounded character during her time in the Japanese camps, when she stopped being a Missionary and became a survivor. It's such a compelling and haunting story, part coming-of-age, part love letter to China, part boarding school tales. The second Sino-Japanese War is an interesting and eye-opening backdrop, an era and a War that I didn't even know happened and seen from the perspective of a child, it's fascinating. 

Lorali, by Laura Dockrill

I was somewhat dubious about a Young Adult book featuring mermaids...our underwater sisters seem so much more at home in Middle Grade fiction, picture books and fairy tales, so I was unsure whether or not they could make the jump into YA. Turns out they can and just haven't had the chance yet. Enter Lorali.

The book starts with Rory moodily nursing a bag of chips and brooding on the beach over his dad's abandonment of him and his mum. It's his 16th birthday and in the past his dad would've be there too, sharing some chips and a can of larger. Not any more. Rory's 16th is different in another respect too- he discovers a naked girl under the pier, huddled up but still alive; mute and fragile. That's a new one.

Gobsmacked, suddenly responsible and without any other immediate plan, Rory gives the girl his clothes and smuggles her back to his mum's house, convinced she's some sort of traumatised runaway. Gradually she thaws, begins talking, demonstrates boundless enthusiasm for cake and raw butter. When Rory finds her swimming in his neighbour's pond, he begins to wonder who this girl really is and where she came from. Drawing a blank, he takes her to his friend Finn and his loopy granddad in their lighthouse home, desperate to hide her and keep her safe, Rory is just looking to share his burden. What he gets in a lot of answers and an impossible conclusion. Lorali is a surfaced mermaid and Finn's granddad, Iris, is very much a land-based expert in the Mer folk. Who knew?

What starts off as a literal fish out of water story becomes a tale of desperate first love and the events that conspire to keep Lorali and Rory apart; greed, revenge, pirates. The pirates. I loved the Ablegares so much- for supporting characters they were so vividly drawn and so insanely out of place in 21st century Hastings. I loved how proud and hearty the 5 brothers were and the sections of the book in which they appear take on a weird Captain Hook via All Saints vibe that is totally unique. It's a joy to get to know Lorali as she experiences everything for the first time (sleep, wearing clothes, seeing herself with dry hair) and as she starts to establish her place in the World. It's just the right amount of inspired by Ariel, but entirely and unmistakably its own thing. In many ways Lorali experiences the same things as any non-Mermaid teenager; first love, confusion, not knowing where she belongs in the grand scheme of things. Under water she's always been told she is special, a miracle. Now she is the same as everybody else and she feels at home at last.

There are some new elements to Mer lore that I've not encountered before that I thought Dockrill wove into the narrative beautifully; the idea that Mer are not born but 'salvaged' as drowning victims deemed worthy of a second chance, that their tails are actually tapestries that tell their stories, their personalities and interests and that when they become Mer they lose their memories of life on land. The reader finds out more about the Mer people, and about Lorali and her past as the book progresses, and we eventually learn what drove the daughter of the Mer Queen out of the Sea and into Rory's life.

Lorali is an unusual book, not only because of its as-yet-unbroken magical creature territory, but in its style and approach too. Dockrill's prose is so adaptable and multi-functional, capable of any challenge or task. She demonstrates her range brilliantly- there's tenderness and brutality, violence and beauty. I loved how sensory some passages were, particularly when Lorali experiences flavours and sensations for the first time, it's so immediate and visceral. I loved the contrast between Rory's resigned and self-deprecating style, a teen with no plan and no prospects that's just winging it and Lorali, who's brand new. Full of secrets and pain and confusion, she is lost in this new world but overjoyed to have found Rory to guide her through. Her chapters are narrated with such fire and bravery and sheer nerve that it's impossible to not love her immediately.
I loved that the Sea narrated some chapters too, the pages splodged with moisture. Her ancient, lyrical voice added amazing depth and age to the story, filling in the parts that characters did not witness, providing both a location, an opinion and a beautifully enthralling narrative voice. It seems that on and in the Sea, time doesn't really exist, there are no ages. Pirates and sea monsters still roam the waves, the Mer stay at the age they were when salvaged...after all, we have explored more of the Moon than the Deep Sea, so who knows?

I think it's fairly safe to say that I adored this book for a lot of reasons. For its prose, for its characters, for its daring to open up a whole new underwater world to the YA readership. Its little digs ar patriachy and the materialistic celeb lifestyle. I like that LD was ballsy enough to deny a traditional happy ending (will say no more). It's been vampires and dystopias for so long it was genuinely a refreshing surprise to read something that's out there on its own, the first of a new kind of YA. Excellent.

If you liked this, I would also recommend Magonia, by Maria Dahvana Headley which uses similar fantastical themes; another unknown, hidden race, a narrator leaving one world for another and hleaving her old life behind, the love interest that can never be and the wry, relateable narrative style. Go read it because it's also very good

Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot, the internationally famous detective and esteemed moustache-sporter, is recalled to London unexpectedly and so boards the Orient Express in Istanbul, the location of his most recent (successful, ovbs) case. The train is unusually crowded for the off season, but he manages to secure a berth with the assistance of his friend Monsieur Bouc, a director of the train company.

Poirot observes (and silently judges) his fellow passengers over dinner on the first night, habitually noting their arrangement, demeanour and behaviour. An impressively ugly but intimidating older lady; an upright British Colonel type; a prim and pretty young governess; an unpleasant American and his younger travelling companion and valet; a meek Swedish missionary; a handsome young couple that look quite wealthy; a large Italian man; a dowdy German woman; a fussy middle aged American woman and a suspiciously nondescript Brit. During the journey, Poirot is approached by an unpleasant passenger whom he has observed being generally disagreeable, a brash and ruddy faced American called Mr. Ratchett. The businessman claims his life is in danger and requesting the services of Poirot to protect him from harm. Poirot, who does not like Mr. Ratchett's face declines the job, informing him honestly of his reasons.

During the night Poirot is disturbed by a scream and a stationary train. He emerges from his carriage and peers into the corridor and observes the conductor in conversation with a succession of other passengers and sees a woman retreating in a scarlet Kimono. The next day, he awakens to find that Ratchett is dead; stabbed 12 times in his sleep. Bouc suggests that Poirot solves the mystery and deduces who the murderer is, convinced he or she must still be on the snowed-in train. Poirot goes about interviewing the passengers and collecting evidence in order to mull it over in his "little grey cells".

This was a re-read for me, so the big reveal was already known- however I had forgotten the details, so it was still an immensely enjoyable read. I love Agatha Christie's sparseness, how composed her prose is and how rigidly plotted. There is not an ounce of fat to be trimmed from her narratives; everything is so tight and precise, nothing superfluous or overladen. 95% of the book is Poirot collecting evidence and thinking aloud, then he wraps up the solution in the dying pages, much to the characters' and readers' surprise. It is a meticulous process, as one shifty individual after another is brought before the detective to have their evidence picked apart with tweezers. Christie has a knack for making such far fetched motives and crimes seem totally reasonable, and it's a genuine pleasure to try and attempt to unravel the web of lies and all-too-convenient alibis.

Modern readers are sometimes uncomfortable with Christie's perceived xenophobia, occasional sexism and racism, which is evident in some of her characters (for example Bouc is convinced only an Itialian could stab with such fury and passion, which Poirot agrees with as a sentiment, if not as a solution, and that a woman would never be capable of such strength). You can't get away from the fact that this book was written in 1934, so there will be some sentiments expressed that would not be acceptable today...books are products of their time after all...but it's worth a read in spite of its flaws. Can you call it flaws if a book merely reflects contemporary attitudes? Either way, AC truly is the undisputed queen of the detective procedural, and it's a truly iconic story of things not being what they seem and the nature of injustice. The conclusion raises interesting questions about justice and revenge, and whether or not vengeance can sometimes be justified...

One, by Sarah Crossan

One is the story of 6 months in the lives of Tippi and Grace, 16 year old conjoined twins living in New Jersey. Two heads, four arms, two hearts, two legs; they are joined at the hip. Though they share a body, Tippi and Grace have vastly different personalities, though luckily they get on most of the time. The book is narrated by Grace; quieter, more thoughtful and less antagonistic than her twin, she sometimes struggles to assert herself against her sister, often leaving the talking to Tippi. Personally I think telling the story from the perspective of the quieter twin was inspired, as the reader gets to see the strongest character, the brash, opinionated, sassy Tippi through the eyes of the one person in the world who truly knows her the most. A person that has literally never left her side for a second.

The twins fight everyday to be accepted as individuals, while at the same time living with the difficulties and the logistical impossibilities of inhabiting the same body. What if one chooses to smoke and the other doesn't? What if one gets ill and is bedridden? Though each has their own hobbies, opinions and personality, they come as a package and their bond is more than just skin and bone. Theirs is a literal, unbreakable bond that runs even deeper than sisterhood or love; it’s at the core of who they are. It's interesting to see them as individuals but also as two members of a team that need to work and live together. I loved Grace's musings on all the potential crimes she could hypothetically commit, knowing she could never be imprisoned as Tippi would have to go to prison too, making any conviction illegal. I was charmed Grace's romanticism, her loyalty and her dry sense of humour.

Having previously always been homeschooled, Grace and Tippi are enrolled in High School for the first time when their mother loses her job and their already unemployed father falls further and further into alcohol dependence. Though they make friends (brilliant, wonderful friends in Jon and Yasmin, by the way, glorious, foul-mouthed weirdo outcasts) being out in public is a harrowing experience; as well as the stares and the comments, there are the blatant photos and covert recordings wherever they go. As if being a new kid in school isn't horrible and difficult enough. When the family's financial situation gets desperate, Tippi and Grace decide to do what they'd always sworn not to; sell their story, their lives, their privacy to a documentary film-maker, who records around the clock.

I really liked that the rest of the family is unfolded through this documentary too- we get to see the effects of having conjoined twins in the family through grandma, mum, dad and younger sister Dragon. Dragon especially must have it tough- the third wheel, the one that has to make the sacrifices for both sisters, and does so without resentment. We might witness Tippi's therapy sessions (though not hear them- headphones) and we have a front row seat for Grace's sessions, but there seems to be very little outlet for the rest of the family. Where do they go to talk through the strain? The cost of the medical bills, the weight of the worry? We see what a responsibility Tippi and Grace inadvertently, but inescapably are on the family, how they try to keep everything together for the sake of their version of normal. It made me furious to see how Grace's family struggled financially, like being a conjoined twin was an extravagant lifestyle choice.

A few months into the semester Tippi and Grace are faced with a life altering decision. Following a bout of Flu and a couple of blackouts, Grace contracts an infection that means her heart has stopped functioning properly. The twins need to decide- do they attempt a surgical separation, and risk dying? Or do they stay as they are, together until the end- an end that is a certainty and not very far away at all. Watching them have to make such a decision is heartbreaking, and really makes the reader think about the random, mysterious pot-luck that is life, and all of the unfair, unlikely and unknowable things that happen along the way to people that just don't deserve it.

The end section is so unbelievably sad- the verse just makes it even more so. With verse, there's no need to conform to normal storytelling, no need to be tied to the narrative or the restraints of what makes sense and what doesn't. What the verse allows, at the end, is just pure, overflowing raw emotion, and it's perfect. It really is a beautiful, extraordinary book. To be able to tell such an affecting, emotional and complete story with so few words is an incredible achievement. Every word, every line is essential and the whole narrative is alive with this delicate, lyrical poetry that makes reading this novel a truly illuminating experience. We understand what it might be like to live a life without ever having experienced a moment of privacy or isolation, even if we have never been there ourselves.

I really loved The Weight of Water, and while Apple and Rain was good, I felt it lacked the emotional punch of the former. One packs that same punch. Probably a slightly weightier one. I'm getting ahead of the game and putting this down as a certainty for next year's Carnegie. After two shortlistings in the last 3 years, I think 2016 is Crossan's year.