Five Minutes Peace

BOOK REVIEW: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

People have been recommending Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games to me for a while. Actually "recommending" isn't quite strong enough - people have been evangelical about it. When the third book in the trilogy - Mockingjay - came out a couple of weeks ago, Twitter went wild with it. And then I read that it had sold 450,000 copies in its first week of publication and decided maybe I should see what the fuss was about. 

Plot summary: 

Katniss Everdeen is a survivor. She has to be; she's representing her District, number 12, in the 74th Hunger Games in the Capitol, the heart of Panem, a new land that rose from the ruins of a post-apocalyptic North America. To punish citizens for an early rebellion, the rulers require each district to provide one girl and one boy, 24 in all, to fight like gladiators in a futuristic arena. The event is broadcast like reality TV, and the winner returns with wealth for his or her district. 

Drawing With Light by Julia Green

Reviewed by Jenni Nock

When I was a teenager I spent most of my time reading fiction aimed at adults with YA making up a smaller proportion of my book pile. I think if I'd been reading YA fiction written this well those proportions would have been very different.

Emily barely remembers her mother who left when she was a toddler. An offhand comment by her photography teacher about how much Emily's work reminds him of her mother's starts her wondering about the woman who deserted her. Everything is changing in her life - her dad's life is moving on with his new wife, her sister is finding her own way at uni and Emily herself is starting a proper relationship with Seb. Does she really want to find the answers to the questions she has about this mystery woman?

BOOK REVIEW: Della Says OMG by Keris Stainton

Now before I write any words for this review I should point out one very important fact. This is Helen writing this. Not Keris. Because for Keris to be writing a review about her own book would be odd. And quite wrong. 

Perhaps I should also point out that it is inevitable that I loved this book. I know, I know maybe as a friend of Keris I would write a positive review. But in response to (anyone saying) that, I should say that I was attracted to Keris and her writing (at Trashionista) because of her writing, that is how we became friends. As her book is written with the same humour and talent that drew me to her blog posts it is therefore inevitable that I loved her book too.

But enough of the explanations. I am way overdue in my review of this book, so I'll crack on.

BOOK REVIEW: Rich and Mad by William Nicholson

I absolutely adored William Nicholson's Wind Singer trilogy, so when I read that he'd written a teen romance I could hardly wait to read it.  

Rich and Mad is the story of - yes - a boy named Rich and a girl named Maddy (Mad for short). Both Rich and Maddy are desperate to fall in love. They're teenagers so they're familiar with lust, but love seems to them to be something else entirely. Both inevitably look in entirely the wrong places before finding each other (as, of course, the reader hopes and knows they will). 

I really enjoyed Rich and Mad. Both Rich and Maddy are bright and sweet and funny and I really wanted it all to work out for them. I only had a couple of chapters left when I went to see William Nicholson (along with Melvyn Burgess) give a (wonderful) talk about sex in YA fiction. It was clear that Nicholson wanted to write about first love and first sex in an honest and positive way and I do think he does that, but I also found Rich and Mad sweetly old-fashioned. It felt like it could almost have been written in, say, the early eighties. 

There are a couple of other points I'd like to make, but I don't want to post them here because they are spoiler-ish. All I can really say is that I think Nicholson addresses something incredibly important that I haven't seen in teen fiction before. Read it - I doubt very much you'll regret it. And then let me know what you think. 

Quick update and Luisa Plaja webchat news

Sorry it's been so quiet around here lately. Diane's actually not writing for Five Minutes Peace anymore (we haven't fallen out or anything, honest!) and my book came out last week so I'm spending a lot of time promoting it (and fretting about it). We'll be back soon, I promise. 

In the meantime, I just wanted to tell you that lovely Luisa Playa is taking part in a live webchat on Random House Publishing's Fiercebook page tomorrow – it starts at 5pm and will last approximately one hour, find out more here.

BOOK COVER: If I Grow Up

  

If I Grow Up by Todd Strasser is a young adult novel about gang violence. The cover on the left is the US paperback, the middle is the UK paperback and the right is the US trade paperback. 

When I saw the UK cover (middle), I must admit it made me sigh a little. It's just so full-on and obvious. In combination with the title, I think it's a bit too much. The US cover on the left is really interesting. I love the skyscraper shadows and the baby blocks, but it doesn't entirely make sense. Baby blocks are too young (the main character is a teenager, not a baby!) and the cover looks like an adult novel. I think the one on the right is okay - it features a teenager, at least - but it wouldn't tempt me to pick it up. 

What do you think? 

BOOK COVER: The Carrie Diaries

Are we looking forward to reading this? I'm not entirely convinced. I *will* read it, I'm sure, but I can only imagine I'll be picturing 40-odd year old Carrie at high school. Which would be weird. (In case anyone has missed this news, The Carrie Diaries is basically Carrie as a teen.)  

Cover-wise, I much prefer the UK cover on the left. What about you? 

BOOK CLUB: March - The Vampire Diaries by LJ Smith

I can report that I actually FINISHED this book (more or less) on time, so that was a good start. It was my first foray into Vampire culture (books, films, or TV) but (dun dun dun) would it be my last?

Well... possibly. The Vampire Diaries didn't convert me to the vampire cause or convince me it's an exciting sub-genre, that's for sure. If I hadn't been reading this for book club I would have put this down after a couple of chapters, and never picked it up again. Which is ironic, as it definitely gets more exciting towards the end.

My main beefs with it were that I found it unconvincing (not to mention worrying) that a 17 year old girl would fall deeply in love with a boy she barely knew. I felt it romanticised unhealthy relationships. The teen/vampire crossover has always made me a bit uncomfortable, the use of blood-sucking as a metaphor for sex, and here it was stomach-churning at times. I would rather them have had a normal sexual relationship than this well, perversity doesn't seem too strong a word. [Also, given the risk of hepatitis and HIV, I'm surprised this new edition didn't edit out a scene where a group of girls become "blood sisters". Irresponsible, or what?] If it hadn't been a teen novel, it might not have bothered me so much. But when there are so many great YA novels which promote a healthy attitude to female sexuality, why anyone would read outdated stuff like this is beyond me. (It was written in the early '90s, which explains a lot.)

Worst of all, however, I found the prose rather... purple. I probably would have thought it was well-written when I was a teenager. Now I found it overwritten in the extreme, like the worst kind of romantic fiction ("Elena felt passion surge through them like summer lightning, and she could sense the answering passion in Stefan. But infusing everything was a gentleness almost frightening in its intensity." Blah blah etc.)

Plus, it had one of those endings that goes straight into the start of the next book, which always annoys me - I think each book in a series should be complete in its own right. AND there were hardly any diary entries in it at all. Pah.

Book club questions:

Did you read the book (or have you seen the TV series)? What did you think?

Have you read/watched other vampiric culture? (True Blood, Stephanie Meyer's books, Charlaine Harris's books, Anne Rice's books or the film adaptation of Interview with a Vampire, etc.)? Did you enjoy it/them?

How do you feel about the vampire/sex metaphor? Is there any way in which it empowers women? Do you feel uncomfortable about younger teenagers reading about bloodsucking?

Are you willing to put up with not-so-great writing if the plot of a book is great, or is great writing at the heart of fun reading?

Is there anything else you'd like to add? I'd love to know, even if you totally disagree with me! :)

MARCH BOOK CLUB: Vampire Diaries (and February update)

March's book club pick is Vampire Diaries.

Vampires are everywhere these days, but this book was the original vampire series for teenagers and has recently been made into a very popular American TV programme (shown here on ITV2). The first two books of the series come in this volume, but we're just focusing on book 1 for our March read (although obviously feel free to read as many as you want if you want to keep going).

Those of you who have read Charlaine Harris, Anne Rice and of course Stephanie Meyer will have lots of room for comparison and I'd love to hear your thoughts but this is my first dip into vampiric fiction so I'm very curious to find out how accessible it is for non-fantasy fans like me.

I'm sorry to say February's book club has been postponed - I got very ill (so much so I couldn't concentrate to read - nightmare!) and didn't finish The White Tiger in time. Expect our thoughts about that book after we've discussed The Vampire Diaries at the end of March. Sorry for the delay (and for any confusion you may now be experiencing...).

BOOK REVIEW: My So-Called Afterlife by Tamsyn Murray

My So-Called Afterlife by Tamsyn Murray had me at the first line. I knew it was time to move on when a tramp peed on my Uggs. I mean, how could you not want to read the rest after that?

Lucy Shaw is fifteen and also dead. Trapped in the men's toilets as a ghost. She has been down there for six months, unable to get out above ground, invisible to the men who come down there for a comfort break. Until, that is, Jeremy comes along. Wonder of wonders, he can actually see her. After the initial shock, on both sides, Jeremy decides to help her. And gradually Lucy starts to make sense of her new world.