don't let the barstools get you down: a farewell

Friends, I've neglected this blog so successfully for a long time. So I'm cutting it free officially at long last. Thank you for reading all my waffle since August 2009.

Since I first posted I've been a bookseller, a nanny, a student, a book reviewer, a publishing assistant, a junior editor, a bookseller, an editor, a bookseller, a production editor and a bookseller some more. And a writer.

I began with my current bests. I shall close with them too.

favourite coffee: Wide Open Road's Bathysphere coffee, but I love it best when served at Heartattack and Vine because it's the most wonderful cafe/bar/my future home.

favourite book: currently this prize goes to Dragonfly Song by Wendy Orr, which is beautiful and lyrical historical fiction set in the bronze age; Doodle Cat is Bored by Kat Patrick and Lauren Marriott, a hilariously funny picture book that espouses the benefits of boredom for children's imaginations; and Jaclyn Moriarty's story 'Competition Entry #349' from Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology by Danielle Binks (ed), which is thoroughly original and hysterical and tender.

And I'll add my current favourite news:

My debut YA novel, Untidy Towns, will be published by the University of Queensland Press in October this year. Because apparently, sometimes (if you're lucky) you get everything you ever wanted.

I ran away on a Tuesday afternoon in late March. Six pm and I was headed south-west in a train that smelled stale.

Seventeen-year-old Adelaide is sick of being expected to succeed on other people’s terms. She’s made a new plan: drop out of her fancy boarding school to read and dream. She just needs to stick it out at home for one more year and then she’ll be free.

But before she can work out her next move, Addie’s grandad offers her a job at the local historical society. It’s dusty and messy, like her hometown, like her new life. Then she accidentally kisses Jarrod, the boy who spends his days getting into trouble. But he’s as stuck as she is and Addie starts to wonder that maybe when you really want something in life, you’ve actually got to do something about it.

A heartfelt story about love, friendship and untidy towns.

Please come to the launch party at The Sun Bookshop in Yarraville on Saturday 7 October. (date TBC)

I'll be loitering on the internet at various places...
web: kateodonnell.com.au
twitters: @readingkate
insta: @readingkate

GOODBYE I LOVE YOU KEEP READING

what does the future hold?

The Future of Us, Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

A mostly entertaining story about what some teenagers might do with the information given to them by a bizarre portal to the future through a strange website called Facebook. It has a familar, funny Back to the Hot Tub Time Machine Future take on the future, borrowing cheap jokes from Almost Famous (which were cringeworthy then), Mick Jagger still rocking as an old man, etc.

FB pops up on Emma's new computer when she first loads up the Internet and she's horrified to discover the picture of an older version of herself alongside a bunch of short inane comments about her life. How vapid it can be? This is what I personally hate about social media. Contemplating highlights, attention-seeking behaviour making pathetic comments about her husband - blurg. But the character of young Emma as she is presented, I was hardly surprised that she would grow up to be that kind of FB user.

Emma isn't nice, but perhaps that's what the book is about, it holds a fifteen-years-later mirror to her face and she has to rethink the way she acts. The message and the outcome are a bit confused though. She was manipulative to the end, selfish and shallow and there was little chemistry between the two leads. I just kept wanting to shout at Josh run! get out of there!

The book's story is a love story, but I would have liked some more about the world as a whole - what has changed since 1996? Death of Princess Diana, September 11, George W, Obama, another war in the Middle East, tsunamis and floods and earthquakes. But not even just political: reality TV, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman splitting, Madonna's weird arms and hands ... it could have been really fascinating to see the world through a FB feed, links to news articles and photographs of significant events.

I wanted to love this book. A quick read, funny in parts - possibly will entertain the yooths with the outdated technology. I pretty much agree with this NYTimes review.

But speaking of disappointing and vapid ... I saw Young Adult.

I forgave Diablo Cody for Juno because Ellen Page was so damn endearing and because Allison Janney is my queen. And Young Adult had such a brilliant poster, Charlize Theron is pretty amazing and I love a good return-to-your-hometown story. Unfortunately I don't think the film was funny, nor insightful, enough to be successful. Mavis was so sad, so alone, and she needed help. She was narcissistic and mean and desperate. But nobody learned anything, nobody changed at all. So what was the point?

Not only this, but it was generally accepted that Mavis wrote YA (even though I don't know that her Sweet Valley High-type books are really YA) because she had been unable to leave her teen years behind.

Now that's a depressing thought. And so, so wrong. It is such a special gift that YA writers have of being able to remember the wonder and the joy and the angst of being a teenager or young adult. I would never want to tell any of my favourite YA authors to grow up! For it isn't about living in the past, but being able to tap into it and tell a great story. That's what Young Adult lacked. A story.