dirtbag little women

Follow @mallelis on the twitter.

review : beauty queens

Beauty Queens, Libba Bray* (Allen & Unwin)

Isn't it the most riotous premise? It's brilliant: a plane full of teenage beauty queen contestants crash lands on a deserted (or, rather, not quite so deserted) tropical island. Libba Bray's latest novel is firmly tongue in cheek and just brilliant. It made me cry 100% less than Going Bovine but I loved it just as much. It's Drop Dead Gorgeous meets Lord of the Flies, via Lost.

It's way over the top, a delight from start to finish. A fun satire (subtle as a tsunami) and you fall in love with the girls as they are forced to fight for survival and reassess themselves as girls and as people. Adina (Miss New Hampshire) and Tiara (Miss Mississippi) were probably my faves, as well as Petra and Mary Lou. Shanti Singh (Miss California) and Nicole Ade (Miss Colorado) were hilarious and fierce as the two people of colour determined to stick it out in the whitewhite pageant world. And poor Miss New Mexico, who suffered greatly following the crash: "half of an airline serving tray was lodged in her forehead, forming a small blue canopy over her eyes."

Referencing all the action movie tropes, and just generally being very vocally aware of their own plot and devices, our beauty queens are faced with the presence of the nefarious Corporation who are involved in a terrible plans to secure American economic interests via a war with MoMo B. ChaCha aka The Peacock dictator of the Republic of ChaCha (oh! and my favourite character - General Good Times!!!) - and the girls' lives are in the balance...with exploding hair removal cream among the weapons.

You will like this book. The one-liners were brill, the footnotes and the short chapters introducing the girls, Corporation advertisements and movie "trailers" just hilarity - I especially loved the David L. Evithan bit - great way to honour your editor, as well as basing dashing young pirates on them.

On a last note, I have to give props to Taylor. She is also a brilliantly memorable character and I cast Mandy Moore (circa Saved!) as the insane, dedicated girl warrior. "Let's not get all down in the bummer basement where the creepy things live. There are people in heathen China who don't even have airline trays."

*i enjoyed the two youngish kids looking at this book's cover at the shop the other day, completely ignoring the boobs (well done boys) and instead saying "this almost says 'library'! libbabberry libraberry librabrary."

the dangers of reading

yes. some books are very dangerous, as two blog posts have recently highlighted:

there was the post on the embarrassment of blubbering over a book on the tram, by Brand New Blogger pippy b, who some of you might remember from her review on this very blog of one of our thursdays is missing by jasper fforde (that wiley double ffer).*

here are some books not to read on the tram:

• on the jellicoe road, melina marchetta
• if i stay, gayle forman
• looking for alaska, john green
• of a boy, sonya hartnett

and the inkling, who has appeared to have rediscovered blogging with fervour, writes about the merit of mediocre-to-pretty-good books because really good books get in the way of working and sleeping.

here are some books that get in the way of regular day-to-day programming:

• the knife of never letting go, patrick ness
• his dark materials, philip pullman
• the end of mr y, scarlett thomas
• spud, john van de ruit (double whammy warning: also makes you weep like a footballer who loses a premiership, or roger federer whether he wins or loses)

and the mediocre-to-pretty-good books to read when you only have half a brain to spare but still want to be pleasantly entertained:

• circle of friends, maeve binchy
• all of sarah dessen's oeuvre, particularly just listen and lock and key

*"but," you're saying indignantly, "you said her name was arlene. is it arlene or pippy b? or is it BJ?" just go with it...her elusiveness adds to the allure.

may the force be with you, because you're worth it

lots of lovely things to read this week:

where she went, gayle forman (doubleday)

the golden day, ursula dubosarsky (allen&unwin)

press here, hervé tullet (allen&unwin)

chenxi et l’éntrangère, sally rippin (mijade)

outside of reading, there are lots of other lovely things to do this week:

• a friend of mine sent me this link to a video of sarah kay, a spoken word poet. wonderful. wonderful. watch it.

• can't wait to see howl, the allen ginsberg biopic starring james franco. if you want to go to the cinema, i would heartily recommend the new peter weir film the way back (and not just for the gorgeous jim sturgess) which was a fascinating film about a group of prisoners who escaped from a siberian gulag and walked to india (ye gads, i know!) read a review over at the joy of mediocrity.

• my reading is suffering a little because i can't stop watching outnumbered, with karen being my absolute favourite character.

karen: i think the world is unfair to women.
mum: well absolutely. i think you're right.
karen: because women can't grow moustaches or beards.
mum: do you want to grow a beard?
karen: well...i might want to be a...a...tugboat captain, or a...an ayatollah.
mum: you'd make a good ayatollah.

this clip never fails to make me laugh:

girls in publishing

the girls at black inc have written a brilliant review of the alien onion-featured 1974 novel girls in publishing.

check it out if you want a laugh.

they lived - and loved - by one rule:

there's more to a book than its cover...

happy new year!

what a nice, polite computer! this message made working on new year's day just that bit more bearable.

a more elegant hat?

comes with barrier-breaking feminist vision!

the hilarious anna over at excellent hipster-doofus greeting card able and game posted this.

"the joke's on you, narrow-minded cur!"

kiss this book

reading megan's post the other day about lending books and then getting them back (when you get them back at all) in less-than-perfect condition, i certainly understand where she's coming from. i think for me, though, i'd prefer to have my damaged copy back rather than a new one that might not be the same as my original. the original is sometimes special - an early reader's copy, a gift, something sentimental...perhaps a reason it shouldn't have been lent in the first place (but how can you not? i want everyone to read my favourites! i thrust it upon them!)

it made me think about how i treat my books. i basically love them to death. i loved it the other month when marieke hardy came out with lipstick kisses all over the book (was it catcher in the rye?) on the first tuesday book club. i kiss my books.

here's a poem (not by me):

I kiss this book
with coffee-rings
and greasy thumbs.

I kiss this book
with butter dripped
from my toast.

I kiss this book
with dog-ears
and bath-steam.

I kiss this book
and make it mine.

--adam ford, from not quite the man for the job.

here are two other ways i love my books:

dog-ears to mark interesting bits.
and underlining, so i can remember the interesting bits later on, when i've forgotten them.

and i could only laugh this morning when i got out my well-loved copy of the messenger (markus zusak) to show you all to what extent i love my books, only for this to happen:
pages 6 through to 57 all over the floor. it doesn't matter, really, i have two more (whole) copies - how does this happen, i have multiples everywhere...sorry mama bear they probably belong to you - but it did hurt my heart a little to see the story explode. it's ok. i have sticky tape.

monthly monday milf meeeem

MMM is a meeeem created by The Dugong Lady and kate.o.d in celebration of those who lurk handsomely in the background. we want you between our pages.

and this month's winner (aka hot lover) is fonsie from circle of friends*.

fonsie (alphonsus) is gorgeous: an irish-italian teddy boy in drainpipe trousers and winkle-pickers, awesome jackets and he sometimes wears velvet (this is awesome, not weird). he's naughty, totally cool and edgy with awesome taste in music. and fonsie runs the chip shop with his uncle mario - not only runs it but over the course of the book he REVOLUTIONISES IT with a jukebox and other ace stuff...making it the place to be at night (in the tiny town of knockglen where the book is set). plus, he can jive.

so he's enterprising, a dancer, awesomely cool...and irish. hot. i would definitely go there. plus, i am a heathen so no catholic guilt for me! bonus!

unfortunately i do have a feisty opponent for fonsie's affections in clodagh pine: "she had her long legs exposed for all to view in a ridiculously short skirt. She wore a lime-green dress with a black jacket over it, a pink scarf, and her earrings, which were long and dangly, were precisely the same green as her dress, and her very obviously tinted hair was held up with two black combs."

*so i know this exposes me as a total maeve binchy tragic. but i don't care. and though i think, technically, fonsie rates as almost a main character, he doesn't appear in the film at all, so booya! MILF!
**teddy boy photo from telegraph.co.uk

sew you feel like a coffee?

this is a little cafe i went to in krakow, poland.

it's a pole. and we're in poland. funny enough for me, but then the pole felt the need to declare both its being and belonging with this note:

unfortunately this hilarious pun's hilarity was lost on my french travelling companion. 'franchement, kate,' il a dit, 'qu'est-ce que tu as dans la tête?! n'importe quoi!' I guess puns don't translate.

monthly monday milf meeeeem

MMM is a meeeem created by The Dugong Lady and kate.o.d in celebration of those who lurk handsomely in the background. we want you between our pages.

and the winner of my very first Minor characters-ILF non-meme is none other than:

otis

(from mahalia, written by joanne horniman, published by allen&unwin)

otis plays the blues. when he plays the blues his whole body gets into it, the music flows through his very body and out of his guitar. but even though he plays so beautifully and with his soul, otis wants to study and be a teacher. and when otis gets a crush on a girl he starts working out, starts looking "sharp", with hollows in his cheeks and a glint in his eye. when his best mate (matt) has to pawn his guitar, otis gets it back for him. now that's a best friend. i am definitely a bit in love with him.

here's how he's described in the book:

"...otis worked hard at school. he had goals, something matt had never had. otis's ordinary, stolid, pudgy face, what the americans would call homely, was as familiar to matt as his own. an ugly black bastard was how otis had once described himself, his voice light and quick and careless, lifting his eyebrows to show he didn't give a shit what he looked like."


but in spite of this description, in my mind otis is also very sexy.

maybe something like this handsome devil --->

"while man has pores, mold has spores. it is one way to tell us apart"

Funny English Errors and Insights: Three-hundred-and-one humorous uses & misuses of written English, compiled by Troy Simpson (National Library of Australia)

this book is far too hilarious to have at work. i have been in hysterics and not doing any dusting.

the book is set out like an old-fashioned reader, with great black-and-white photos throughout.you must all go out and buy it, but i'm sure it's ok if i give you a couple of samples.

english:
"a metaphor is a thing you shout through"

law and government:
"the executor of a will kills the persons who are named therein"

vocabulary:
"nets: holes tied together with string"

miscellaneous:
"a sob is when a feller don't mean to cry and it bursts out all by itself"

why didn't the cat drink its milk?

because it had no face!

bahahahahaha!

brian's very, very bad ideas, the killer koalas from outer-space who will rip off your face, the dog-poo family...I LOVE THEM ALL. and a very bad special mention to the very bad teacher - your nightmares are real. i love her.

what a good start to thursday.

the very bad book is written by andy griffiths, with drawings by terry denton and published by pan macmillan.

oh melbourne, you sure do keep me laughing...

even melbourne's trams are pun-tastic!

a man dressed in a wolf-suit...

now that's the kind of mischief i like seeing in public!