The Stars at Oktober Bend - Glenda Millard

The Stars at Oktober Bend - Glenda Millard

there are no capital letters on the first page of the stars at oktober bend. nor, indeed, on many pages of the novel. my auto-correct does not approve but my heart jumped a little. my eye, at first, couldn’t decide whether to side with my heart or the auto-correct. soon enough, my eye was swimming along very happily with my heart.

the stars at oktober bend - Glenda Millard

I love a novel that has an unusual voice.  I also like dual narrators whose voices are clearly distinct and interesting. The Stars at Oktober Bend delivers on both counts for me and I love it just a little bit for that. I love it a little more for telling and interweaving at least two uncomfortable tales about damaged bodies and injured souls.

The main story, and indeed the narration that carries the novel, is Alice’s story. At age twelve, Alice is attacked and left with a brain injury that affects her ability to speak clearly. It probably does a few other things too because she is given “mediocre-making” pills and is considered a forever-twelve-year-old. This plays around in her head when she is fifteen and it is at this point when we pick up her story. Alice also makes fishing lures and writes little poems that nobody reads: I loved the way Alice’s narration keeps unexpectedly moving into poetry. From here, Alice’s story and her “fishbone stiches” starts to unravel and spill out. And this is where the second narrator comes in.

Manny’s voice is more upright and less enchanting than Alice Nightingale’s wounded lyricism, but as you learn more about him, it really starts to fit.  Manny is a child refugee from Sierra Leone who now lives with a couple who have taken him under their wing, offering him a safe space. But finding a safe space is difficult when he is grieving deeply but also seeking redemption.

While there is a lot going on with the narration, there is also a suspenseful plot moving things along, particularly in the closing chapters.

Issues raised in the novel include having your voice heard (and accepted, tolerated, understood), rape, child soldiers and retribution. Despite these difficult topics, the novel’s lyricism adds an enchantment and the humour in Alice’s thoughts adds moment of light relief, making it suitable for some younger readers too.

I am so pleased to have found this novel. It might well prove to be my little gem on this year’s Carnegie nominations list: lyrical, alluring and quietly heartbreaking.

The Stars at Oktober Bend is the first novel published by independent publisher, Old Barn Books.

****

Publication details: Old Barn Books, 2016, UK, paperback

This copy: review copy from the publisher

Paper Butterflies - Lisa Heathfield

Paper Butterflies - Lisa Heathfield

Paper Butterflies is an immersive, shocking, beautifully hopeful and single-sitting read. From the first to the last sentence, I loved reading Paper Butterflies. From the first to the last sentence, Paper Butterflies was an emotional experience.

The novel starts with June when she is ten and where we find that she is heinously bullied by her stepmother, Kathleen, and stepsister, Megan. Her stepmother’s behaviour towards June is so awful, it’s really unbelievable. She can’t be doing that, can she? And me asking myself this question is important because it holds a central point of this novel. Will anyone believe a child who claims an adult is doing this to them? Nobody could be so cruel, could they? And if she is, then Kathleen must be a monster.

A few years ago, I read Blood Family by Anne Fine, which also explored child abuse. It was a really dark read and it’s an understatement to say I was not particularly fond of it. I was worried that Paper Butterflies would have the same effect on me, but it didn’t.  It didn’t because Paper Butterflies – although teen novels don’t get much darker than this – threw in a beautiful and enduring hope. This came in the form of a home-schooled boy who made paper sculptures in a field of old trailers. His name was Blister and he lived with the chaotic family of Wicks.

Blister is a fantastic character. He’s welcoming, fascinating, thoughtful, kind – and he’s often scared (of the dark and rollercoasters). He is just what June and the reader needed. Together, June and Blister form a fictional relationship that, for me, rivals that of Maddie and Queenie in Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity (also published by Electric Monkey!). While this is a novel that explores difficult physical, psychological and moral issues linked to abuse, it is also a novel about a beautiful and blossoming friendship.

Paper Butterflies is straightforward storytelling and the writing flows effortlessly. A before/after structure adds a little suspense to the plot but it also offers the reader some clues as to where this novel might take them.

I finished this novel and went to sleep but I kept waking up in the night playing things over in my mind. Notably, this is not a customary habit of mine in response to a novel. But here I was, pondering and a bit heartbroken. I really wanted time to turn back - for June. Oh yes, this was a fiction. I forgot.

Highly recommended.

Some questions that the novel raises (for me)

• Where does blame or fault for abuse lie? Where does it begin and where does it end?
• What makes a functional or dysfunctional family? Is it biological parents? Is it families who send their children to school? Is it nothing to do with the form and more to do with their behaviour?
• Was Kathleen a monster? How about Megan? Or June’s dad? Or June? And what do you think about June’s dead mom?
• Can monstrous actions be excused?
• Because of the age of the characters throughout, is this really YA? I think it is and that the age of characters isn’t always the most important aspect.
• On a light note, can you use glue when you make paper sculptures?

****

Paper Butterflies has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal 2017.

Publication details:

Electric Monkey (Egmont), London, 2016, paperback

This copy: review copy from the publisher

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock - M's review

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

Reviewed by M

It’s Leonard Peacock’s eighteenth birthday. He’s on his own, he’s wrapped four gifts in pink paper as parting presents for four people, he’s quite distraught about his life, and he’s planning on taking a gun to school. Tough stuff and the gun business put me off at first. If you feel similarly to me on that, persevere like I did: it could go either way for you.

This novel reminded me of two things: The Catcher in the Rye (novel) and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (film adaptation since I haven’t read the novel – but Little M has). Despite the miserable and uncomfortably controversial subject matter, Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock is a very thought-provoking, quick and compelling read – and remarkably, its tone is light (Warm? That really depends on you!).

The narrative structure is slightly unusual. Leonard’s first person narrative takes us inside his head as he tells us his thoughts as his eighteenth birthday progresses. This is enhanced (perhaps?) by footnotes at the bottom of the pages. These do provide background information and some deeper digressions into something he has said or thought. I skipped a fair amount of them – the type was small and I’m not a footnote fan.  These first person accounts of Leonard’s eighteenth birthday are interspersed with some letters from people who’re operating a lighthouse in the future. These letters are interesting and intriguing at first, then their raison d’être becomes clearer and finally they add an extra touch of ambiguity to the novel. For me then, they worked well and add a bright spark of debate to the novel’s end.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock bears many similarities to The Catcher in the Rye, which I reread recently. Both novels deal with identity, alienation and mental health issues for ‘gifted’ teenage boys and character comparisons between Leonard Peacock and Holden Caulfield (the main character in Catcher) are easy to make. Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock is an extra-ordinary day-in-my-life novel and similarly, Catcher is an extra-ordinary weekend-in-my-life novel. Other elements of the plot (hotels, girls, suicidal thoughts, absent parents) and some caring adult characters (an elderly man and a male teacher) also share parallels with Catcher (Herr Silvermann, Leonard’s holocaust teacher, is a great character with an interesting story of his own).

Like Salinger, Matthew Quick has deployed contemporary speech usage to denote similar things nad these bounced out at me. For example, Leonard is surrounded at school by ‘ubermorons’ while Holden was burdened with ‘phonies’. As a reader, if you weren’t sympathetic to Holden, you’re probably not going to be overly sympathetic to Leonard either (although his story provides more ‘justifications’ for his actions than Holden who was arguably just a lot more selfish).

A significant difference between the two novels is in the plot details and sub-plots. To me, Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock is much more about suicide, bullying and sexual abuse whereas, The Catcher in the Rye is more about grief and social class. For me, Forgive Me. Leonard Peacock also stresses the need for tolerance of difference much more – and maybe even forgiveness.

I think I preferred The Catcher in the Rye (partly because of it's lighter subject matter, it's clean monologue and it's my classic read from my teen years) but mature teen readers today may prefer Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock. It addresses contemporary issues in a hardhitting way but at the same time it is also funnier and softened by what I think is occasional and well-placed sentimentality: nothing ubergooey, mind you, and it is definitely not a soft novel.

 

Publication details: Headline, London, 15 August 2013, hardback

This copy: uncorrected proof received for review from the publisher

Blood Family - M's review

Blood Family by Anne Fine

 

Reviewed by M

 

One thing Anne Fine doesn’t do in Blood Family is beat about the bush. This is a story about the lasting and complicated psychological and emotional damage and trauma that domestic violence can induce for both adults and young children. It is also about breaking and making (and even forsaking) families as well as addiction.  

Seven year old Eddie has been hidden away with his mother in a filthy apartment for years and is terrified of him (Bryce). Rescued by the police and social services, he seems to have escaped the years of physical violence that have fallen upon his mother. But social services and new foster families know that psychological damage can be deeply hidden and longlasting. The novel explores the effects of this on Eddie and the different coping strategies that he (and others) use right through to his late teenage years.

Blood Family is a grim read – and uncomfortably - it’s compelling even though the subject matter of this novel is not pleasureable. The plot itself is not exciting, gratuitous, glamorous, disneyfied, rose-tinted nor everyday (except of course, it may well be more everyday for more children than I’d like to think, and for me, that’s the point of the novel).

However, multiple point-of-views presented in short spurts keep up the pace and add tension. These views from the different people 'assigned' to give Eddie a new life also help to build up a complex picture of the highly-charged practicalities of the child protection and social care system. A foreboding atmosphere permeates the book. Although terrible, terrible things have happened at the outset, there’s always a sense of danger: will Eddie’s father find him, can we trust his mum, can we trust Eddie, will he fall through the nets? The book blurb alerted me to this and I anticipated a twist. There is one, and for Eddie, it is shattering but it was less so for me, the reader. I did start skipping bits in the last part of the novel.

Despite the grim story, and without giving much of it away, Blood Family does offer up hope and suggests the chance of happiness for abuse and addiction survivors. The focus of the novel is also less about the whys, wherefores and specifics of abuse, and is more upon the lasting effects and the long, painful and painstaking paths of recovery.

Unfortunately, I didn’t connect with any of the characters in the book – I imagine many other readers will. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t cry. My face was probably deadpan and I bet my emotional level was pretty flat the whole way through too – except for the first chapter. In Blood Family, one of the foster parents wails: the system says we must do it this way - but what about Eddie? What about Eddie? Ironic that for me as the reader, the child got a little lost in the issues.

If you can move yourself away from the child abuse issue (which many readers should be able to do), the novel also delves into the realities of addictions and the question of family and identity. How much of your personality is determined by your genes, your blood family? Will you be like them? How much of 'you' can you shape and determine yourself? And who cares about you the most? Is it yourself? Will your blood family love you the most, protect you the most? And if they don’t, can anyone else step in to do it better?

Would I recommend this novel? Holey moley, that’s a tough one. For any adults working with young people or children, yes, I’d recommend it. For anyone thinking about following a career in public services or with young people, yes. Teenagers who simply want to read for pleasure? Only if I knew them very well. Although the first few pages of the novel are the most shocking in its details, the rest of the novel is definitely not for the feint-hearted (nor for those who’ve suffered abuse and may be susceptible to trigger points).

Another novel for teenagers that deals with the aftermath of child abuse is If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch. Its tone is softer and the novel has a melody although the issues and effects are just as harsh and harmful as those explored in Blood Family. Two very contrasting novels. If you can handle the issues, worth exploring these two side by side for a very different reading experience.

Publication details: 2013, Doubleday, London, hardback

This copy: received for review from the publisher

Go and read Little M's interview to find out more about Anne Fine.

 

 

Friday Brown - M's review

Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield

My expectations for this novel were high but I was also anticipating that they would be dashed. They weren’t. My expectations were exceeded as Friday Brown threw out a few surprises, intakes of breath and a raised eyebrow or two. Friday Brown left me bereft. Not empty; but as if I’d lost something special. There aren’t that many novels that leave me like that. I want it back please.



Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield

Set in Australia, the novel is about a teen called Friday Brown. Her mother thought calling her Friday would protect her from the family curse which goes that all the Brown women die from drowning on a Saturday. When Friday’s mother dies, she takes off and starts all over again, the one thing that she has been doing all her life. Just this time, she’s doing it on her own and she’s in search of her dad whom she’s never met. And then, a train station incident changes everything and the novel took me places I’d never expected and at times I was a little afraid to follow – but I’m so glad I did. Had she known, I’m sure Friday would have changed things....I wish she had.

One of the standouts of this novel for me was the characters. There are quite a few of them: Friday, Silence, Arden, Darcy, Carrie, Bree, AiAi, Joe, Malik and Wish.

Other than Friday, you don’t get to know too much about their pasts other than that they were troubled. At the same time, you really get to know them in the way that you might get to know someone in real life (you know how you often don’t actually interview someone when you meet them).  For me, Silence and Arden really are the most interesting characters of all, partly because there’s so much left unsaid about them and you just know that there is so much to say. Silence is a terribly endearing character. Arden, well, what can I say! Bree is interesting, living a double life. That is curious. Wish. I feel like he was a bit of a superfluous character. However, I suspect that other readers, especially teen readers, may feel that he is a very important character.

Friday Brown is a very contemporary psychological thriller and a novel that deals with big and unsettling topics: like mental and sexual toying, mutism, homelessness, death, abuse and worse. But it is not gritty. As Arden (one of the characters in the novel) does with her ‘children’, Friday Brown reels you in with its warm, beguiling charm, spinning you like a yoyo. Up and down, up and down....leaving you dangling...and up again....and down – and then it cuts the string.

One of my favourite novels this year,  I have a feeling Friday Brown could be one of those novels that in ten years time I’m still pulling its name out of the bag when someone  asks for a recommendation. Good for young teens right through to adults.

Silence is silver and then I wished upon a star.

 

PS. The author, Vikki Wakefield, set out to explore very different themes to those that I identified. Reading is so interpretive and its iteration continues to reproduce something different.

 

Publication details: July 2013, Hot Key Books, London, paperback

This copy: uncorrected proof received from the publishers for review

Friday Brown was originally published in 2012 by Text Publishing, Australia.

 

If You Find Me - M's review

If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

If You Find Me is a chilling but beautifully written story about two sisters, Carey and Jenessa, who have been brought up in a camper van in some rural Tennessee woods. They don’t know much about life anywhere else and they have hardly met any people in that time. They are backwoods. Now, they are being moved and must negotiate a potentially dangerous situation as well as learn to adapt and deal with their past and their futures. But from the first few pages, you know there is something else, something much bigger going on. If You Find Me is a dark story with a tone to match as it tells of child abuse and more. A compelling and challenging read.



If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

The novel is told by Carey who is fifteen. She interweaves her current voice, her memories and woods voice, and her before-the-woods voice (yeah, can you find her in all of that and can she find herself?). This gives the reader clues about what happened in the woods, and before that time.  A bigger picture (as well as reader suspense) builds up slowly but, this novel is not a thriller. It doesn’t have that fast adrenalin pumping feel that thrillers tend to have. It’s much more dramatic and slower.  This doesn’t mean it’s a slow read. Quite the opposite. It’s a quick and compelling read. Wonderfully, it doesn’t leave you hanging until the end. Even though you might be able to fill in most of the details of Carey’s story before the end (some readers might not), you’re still hungering to find out all the nitty gritty bits. And the end, well it’s definitely thought-provoking. It ties the story up well but leaves just enough for you to wonder – and debate with other readers - about the reality (and ethics) of what happens next (or should or could).

There are two clear parts to the plot. The main plot is about Carey and Jenessa fitting into a new ‘civilised’ life. This new life has its own problems and a dangerous undercurrent runs through it. However, this plot also introduces the sorts of storyline and issues that appear in many teen novels – being put into new environments but feeling like you don’t fit. This part of the novel is warm and almost sugary, which is quite a contrast to the sub-plot which explores the terrible past. The story of the past (and possible future) is very sinister and full of trauma. Emily Murdoch deals with it sensitively but she doesn’t hold back much on detail either. Really, it’s all one plot but the novel’s structure shifts backwards and forwards in time so that it seems like two plots.

What surprised me is how much it reminded me of Amity & Sorrow by Peggy Riley, which is most definitely an adult novel. Both novels are dealing with controversial issues and explore a similar situation: two sisters have been deliberately secluded from the rest of the world. For me, this is the most interesting aspect in both novels. The problems and delights that people who have been abused deal with while experiencing social reintegration and self acceptance is a familiar theme. However, combining it with characters who are almost foreigners in the country that they have been living in is fascinating. It’s almost like a refugee story.

Overall, this felt like an adult novel. The themes, the details of implied and actual sexual abuse, the writing style and plot structure (multiple flipping from past to present within scenes), create that sense. The middle section of the book, however, introduces plot elements of school, making friends and dealing with being an outsider. My least favourite parts of the novel are introduced here (maybe I'm too old!). I’m not sure if I believe the whole story that surrounds Ryan. I also never really warmed to Delaney but that might have been the whole point about what her character has gone through too (Carey and Jenessa aren’t the only ones who’ve been affected by their past).

I really enjoyed If You Find Me and would recommend it to older teens. If You Find Me is dark and explicit but it is also hopeful and explores justice as a concept. Other novels suitable for young adult readers that explore questions of justice in a similar vein are Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield (forthcoming July 2013).

Publication details: 2 May 2013, Indigo, London, paperback

This copy: uncorrected proof received for review from the publisher

Amity & Sorrow - Daddy Cool's review

Amity & Sorrow by Peggy Riley

 

reviewed by Daddy Cool

 

Please note: this is an adult fiction review

Amity & Sorrow by Peggy Riley

 

This is my first ever book review so please forgive my (un)literary analysis.....

I took part in We Sat Down’s 24 hour readathon and thought now was the time to try and move away from those fast action packed books that I am so used to reading (by Lee Child, Matthew Reilly etc). I decided to experiment with Amity and Sorrow and what a brilliant book it was.

The book is written around a mother and two daughters who have run away from their father and a religious sect. As you read on you start to understand how disturbed the values of the religious sect were and the affect on the daughters / mother. All along, I wanted to know how and why the family had to run and were so desperate to stay away. I loved the way the reader is leapt backwards and forwards in time to piece the story together.

I would say it’s one of those thought provoking books where you really believe the story could happen if you absorb yourself into a small community cut off from the other ways of living. This book has given me an appetite for more thought proving books rather than just the action packed hero books I am so used to.

 

Publication details: 28 April 2013, Tinderpress, London, hardback

This copy: uncorrected proof (pushed into my hand by M!)

You can read M's review here.