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Tuesday 27 May 2014

We Were Liars

Title: We Were Liars
Author: E. Lockhart
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: May 2014
Click to buy.

I can’t lie. This is a stunning book and I tore through it quickly. Pain seeps from the pages. We Were Liars chronicles an adolescent girl’s breakdown and selective amnesia surrounding a traumatic accident (which we think could be about one thing, and then again, it might not be that at all).

Cadence Sinclair Eastman lives a decadent life among her elite, privileged Massachusetts relatives (the illustrious Sinclair family) on their privately owned Beechwood Island. We even get an island map and family tree in the opening pages. But we know at once the supposed idyll masks lies: ‘Welcome to the beautiful Sinclair family,’ Cadence writes, ‘no one is a criminal. No one is an addict. No one is a failure.’ Her beloved friends are cousins Mirren and Johnny (part of the Sinclair clan) and Gat (not a part). Cadence falls for Gat, but (inevitably, we think), at the end of the summer, Gat leaves and Cadence is found injured on her family’s island beach, with no memory of how she got there. Over the following two years, Cadence retreats into herself, succumbing to intense migraines and depressive behaviour, still unable to recount events from that earlier summer. Mirren and Johnny fail to respond to her emails and when she finally sees them again with Gat, it becomes plain that, if they do know anything, they are not telling what happened. The story is Cadence’s apparent attempt to piece together the puzzle … or is it actually something else altogether?

Lockhart writes in clipped, emotive prose that tears at you, and I don’t think I have read a YA book in which the brokenness following a failed relationship is better conveyed (not in a way that makes you gag, either), or how excessive, consuming grief and guilt can distort and cripple your thinking. The twist of the story is what I did not see coming; I placed the book down and just sat feeling numb when I had finished. There is a deep mystery that Cadence skates around, and the revelation of it isn’t melodramatic or overdone, just horrifying realisation. We Were Liars is a heartrending experience for a protagonist whose naïveté and desire to rebel backfires drastically, and a haunting book that will linger with you after you place it back on the shelf.

(Hot Key did an incredible #LiarsLiveRead of this book and collected reader responses here on their blog.)

Sunday 25 May 2014

The Bone Season

Title: The Bone Season
Author: Samantha Shannon
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: August 2013
Click to buy.
Click to pre-order the sequel (October 2014).

Set in 2059, The Bone Season is a futuristic, steampunk dystopia (marketed for adults, though I feel sure it has more YA appeal) in which clairvoyance is outlawed, but Paige Mahoney is a dreamwalker and can invade the minds of others. She sticks with a clairvoyant criminal gang in the underworld of Scion London, until she is kidnapped and brought to the hidden city of Oxford, run by a supernatural race called the Rephaim. Her ‘keeper’ is Warden, and a Beauty and the Beast relationship ensues with obvious homage paid to Jane Eyre (Helen Burns’ early assertion to Jane about the spirits surrounding her is used as an epigraph to the novel opening).

I loved this book; I finished it in one sitting last August. The narrative is compelling and the world-building is accomplished, deft and brilliant. Irish girl Paige Mahoney paints a picture of London haunted by spirits of the aether, the auras of others’ dreamscapes (distinguishable by colour) and the oxygen bars where people go for their highs. Meanwhile, the city of Oxford where Paige is taken hostage has been renamed Sheol I (apparently translating to ‘abode of the dead’). Colleges are replaced with Residences (i.e. the Residence of Balliol and Residence of Magdalen, where Paige is kept captive). South of the centre is No Man’s Land, and the land beyond the city is haunted by supernatural monsters (Emim). This enables the totalitarian reign of the more powerful Rephaim and there being, apparently, no escape for Paige or the other humans brought there. Every ten years, the Rephaim take more humans from Scion; these are their reapings, which they term ‘Bone Seasons’.

The opening to The Bone Season is riveting and the narrative never loses its gripping, taut tone, which compels you to read on and on. Perhaps my one tiny gripe with The Bone Season is that, in Twilight fashion, Warden has to be flawlessly beautiful; I do not like the rise of the beautiful male in YA fiction, but this is a subjective preference and otherwise I just love this book. There has been an incredible hype surrounding this book, but deservedly so; having followed A Book from the Beginning for a long time prior to publication, I waited a long time for The Bone Season to finally emerge in Waterstones and was not disappointed. I bought my hardback on the publication date last year, but as you can see, had to go and buy a paperback in order to get it signed at a recent Oxford event by Samantha herself. The hardback, unfortunately, I had left behind in Devon; but then one can never have too many copies of a good thing. It was great to go and meet Samantha Shannon in person last month and have my copy of the book signed.

Sunday 18 May 2014

The Glass Bird Girl


Title: The Glass Bird Girl
Author: Esme Kerr
Publisher: Chicken House
Published: May 2014
Click to buy.

Welcome to the first book review! Thank you so much to Chicken House for letting me have a proof copy to read  and review!

Orphan Edie finds herself sent to an elite boarding school, Knight’s Haddon, recruited by her strange Uncle Charles to act as a friend and ‘spy’ for wealthy Russian girl, Anastasia, also boarding at the school. Anastasia is always losing her belongings (including a glass bird, making her the Glass Bird Girl of the title), but is convinced that her things are actually being stolen from her. As Anastasia’s possessions invariably turn up in other places, pupils begin to accuse Anastasia of being a liar and a drama queen, or dreamy and absent-minded, or maybe just mad. As events spiral out of control, Edie suspects that someone in the school is trying to set Anastasia up as a mad case. It is up to her to find out quickly if it is a malicious student acting out of spite, or if something much worse is going on.

The Glass Bird Girl is very compelling and readable, and the Knight’s Haddon boarding school setting has a classical, old-fashioned vibe that put me in mind of books like A Little Princess and Charlotte Sometimes. The dark ‘edge’ to the story is Anastasia’s growing sense of isolation, and the idea that others’ perceptions can negatively impact our own self-awareness; like a metaphorical glass bird, Anastasia becomes increasingly fragile, feeling more and more that ‘I have to agree with other people’s versions of what’s going on, in order to be left alone.’ As such, Anastasia begins to wonder if she really is going mad and that perhaps she is the only one who doesn’t realise it. Edie’s determination to help her carries the story forward, and Edie makes a perceptive, loyal and likeable lead character. The mystery itself is far-fetched but this suits the spirit of the book, the boarding school mystery, and you don’t guess the culprit too quickly, as there are quite a few red herring moments scattered through the plot. The book ends with the friendship between Edie and Anastasia cemented, and the potential for more stories to come, which I will definitely keep an eye out for. A lovely debut from Esme Kerr!

Saturday 17 May 2014

“Then how should I begin …?”

Welcome to another children’s book blog; whether you came here by bedknob or broomstick, flux dart or floo powder, time turner or tollbooth, thank you for stopping by. (Book reviews are coming up soon!)