the looking for alibrandi syndrome

as far as ailments go, this is absolutely the best one to have. there are a number of YA books that i diagnose as having the LFAS and it does not mean that these books are any less important, any less well-written or deserving of praise. all i mean is that if you liked looking for alibrandi by melina marchetta, you'll like these two books i read recently:

finding freia lockhart by aimee said

freia is your average sort of girl - lives with her fairly strict parents and her slightly annoying little brother, has a best friend in kate and wants to be popular and to do well at school. but freia doesn't take to the Bs (that's belinda, bethanee and brianna) easily - 'how much fake tan, lip gloss and boy talk can (she) stand?' freia is pushed into being involved in the school play first by the girls and then - surprisingly - by her parents. but because she can't sing, her role is relegated to lighting, where she's stuck with the kind of freaky daniel (rumours are he's a druggie). i loved the way that the things freia thought her parents expected of her wasn't necessarily what they had intended, showing the common miscommunications between parent and child. said has created some nice characters, they felt very human. there was good dialogue and some funny, as well as some more heartfelt, scenes. and while i knew where the story was going from pretty much the start, i really enjoyed the tale.

dancing in the dark by robyn bavati

i was immediately fascinated by this book - i am drawn to stories of young people brought up in extreme religious sects (though am not sure what this says about me) and this is the first i've read about haredi judaism. ditty (full name: yehudit) is twelve and her family are part of the tight-knit, ultra-orthodox jewish community in melbourne. she is not allowed to watch television, read secular newspapers or attend a secular (or even modern orthodox) school. one afternoon sara, ditty's best friend, reveals that her mother has a secret television hidden in her bedroom. curious, the girls watch. it becomes a guilty pleasure and one day they catch a preview for a ballet. entranced, ditty begins to dream of being a dancer; and although her parents fiercely disapprove, she begins to take lessons, paying for them with babysitting money and some help from her freewheeling cousin linda. and she is very good. and as she disobeys her family more and more, ditty begins to question their way of life. i won't go any further at the risk of giving the plot away. bavati did a great job at maintaining the suspense - i couldn't see how ditty would get away with it. she also managed to explore this young girl's quavering faith without being heavy-handed or didactic. exceeds expectations - don't judge this book by its cover.

OTTO

i read in the paper the other day (the age, australia day) about a young guy who has designed and built a new stove-top coffee maker. it sounds incredible. the creator, craig heron, wanted to make an espresso-style coffee at his home, but found that most stove-top coffees lack body. his machine OTTO looks beautiful - all stainless steel and you can even steam milk with it.

the article was supported by the east brunswick project's coffee gurus - they approve!

you can read more about OTTO and even order it, here.

ok. bring on tomorrow and some COFFEE. delish.

daniel handler is lemony snicket

(and evelyn waugh is a man and miles franklin is a woman)

what a nice morning to get up and then get to know one of the funniest writers of the decade - thank you to the rejectionist for this interview.

i loved the series of unfortunate events A LOT because of their fast-paced and hilariously funny stories. i will have to admit to reading number 13 standing by the bookshelf in a glasgow waterstones, my umbrella dripping a puddle onto the floor because i was too cheap to buy a copy even though i really wanted to know what happened to the baudelaire trio and who the heck was the real VFD.

the composer is dead is another classic snicket - you can read my review here. i particularly love the opening:

'the composer is dead.

"composer" is a word which here means "a person who sits in a room, muttering and humming and figuring out what notes the orchestra is going to play." this is called composing. but last night, the composer was not muttering. he was not humming, he was not moving, or even breathing.

this is called decomposing.'

after january

i was very excited today to receive in the shop a copy of nick earls' after january. as you may know, this is one of my favourite books of all time. you can read about it here.

and it has a new cover - a very excellent cover - well done UQP!

so, in after january the main character - alex delaney - mentions that he wrote a short story about the girl he acted in the school play with:
"We did the play, we kissed in the school play and it all lingers in my mind like a relationship...All I have left is the fifteen episodes of our 'relationship', thirteen rehearsals and two performances, and the story I wrote two days later when she was all I could think about."

and now, in this new edition of the book nick has included this short story. i didn't know this, but apparently in 1995 he wrote 'juliet' for a short story anthology for a small publishing company jam roll press. it is the story of the play, of the kisses.

and so i bought the book and even though i have already had my annual read...i think i'll have to read it again. bliss.

beautiful creatures by kami garcia & margaret stohl

here's my professional opinion: beautiful creatures is a teen romance set in america's deep south where modern day life continues to be influenced by their civil war past. ethan is counting down the days until he can leave his hometown of gatlin - with his mother dead and his father a recluse there doesn't seem to be anything to keep him there. but now he keeps dreaming of a girl. a girl who suddenly appears at his school and turns his life upside down. there is a connection between the teenagers, who share not only their thoughts but also a frightening vision. who is lena and what is her secret? ethan is determined to find out, determined not to lose her. a love story for those twilight fans looking for something new.

and here's my personal reaction: this is a fairly ordinary offering in need of a good edit, ultimately long-winded and over-dramatic. i'll admit that having two authors really put me off from the beginning, even though in the past i have embraced books like nick and norah's infinite playlist by david levithan and rachel cohn and dear venny, dear saffron by gary crew and libby hathorn. and now, well, beautiful creatures is not a book to my personal taste, but i think that even when i look at it objectively it falls below the mark for being slow moving and repetitive. the authors tell the reader that the town was oppressive, that it held tight to its inhabitants; similarly with lena's family. but i didn't feel it: the reader just has to accept it as truth. while i really liked the dream-flashbacks to the civil war era i think the book failed to create a real sense of suspense or mystery and i always felt one step ahead of the characters - sometimes infuriatingly so. lena is a wishy-washy character that i never warmed to, and i didn't understand why ethan felt so strongly for her - i just wanted him to hightail it out of town and stop being so pathetic.

alternative reading options: for books with creepy settings and mysterious townspeople you could instead read the gathering by isobelle carmody. if you want a book about feeling some deep internal connection with another person you could go with bridge to terabithia by katherine paterson. and if it's the deep south that interests you there's always gone with the wind by margaret mitchell.

girlfriend fiction

it has been a fairly slow day at work today. i took advantage of the situation and read the latest girlfriend fiction release dear swoosie by kate constable and penni russon.

i have really enjoyed the majority of the girlfriend fiction books (special mention to big sky by melaina faranda, always mackenzie by kate constable and something more by mo johnson) and this one was very fun and touching.

poppy and india do not get along. poppy is skeptical and cynical about india's tarot-reading, fortune-telling skills, while india thinks poppy is too negative and blocked. when the pair are forced to spend a saturday in detention together they come across a bunch of letters "dear swoosie/love swoosie" and they realise their mothers had been best friends at the same high school - until a terrible betrayal tore them apart. the girls decide that they need to put aside their differences to ensure their parents' happiness as well as their own.

this is a fast-paced, funny and engaging book for teen girls (boys might like it too...but mostly girls i'd think!) about friendship and parents and bike riding and luurve. good, easy, summer reading - thumbs up.

minor issue: because i am pedantic, and also a francophile, the fact that "un petite poisson bleu" was written incorrectly bothered me a little. it should be "un petit poisson bleu" because poisson is masculine and the adjective must agree with the noun. a little blue fish!

great bloomsbury whitewash update

they are changing the cover.

honestly. i just want to know whether it was all a stunt to create buzz about this title or whether bloomsbury have stupidly made the same racist decision again. i sort of hope it was neither.

here's to proper representation of everybody in books! hourra!