TO READ: ACID

Is it Sunday? I think it's Sunday. (This is what study leave does to brains who have trouble remembering the day of the week in normal circumstances...) Well I'm posting this whether it's Sunday or not, so deal with it. :)

ACID is the newly released debut novel of English author Emma Pass, who I have actually met. It is a dystopian thriller aimed at teenagers - and not just girls, as one might assume by the fact that the main character is female. ACID tells the story of 17-year-old Jenna Strong, who, in a future Britain controlled by strict dictatorship police force ACID, is trying to survive the high security prison she expects to spend the rest of her life in, until a mysterious rebel group break her out. Full of twists and turns you wouldn't expect, ACID could well be the next big thing in teen fiction.

Of course, it isn't perfect - I know some of my friends at creative writing club who read it had a note-passing conversation picking holes in the plot and confusing themselves with what happened there and why did this happen? However I myself didn't notice these things, and thoroughly enjoyed the book. It is fast-paced, well-written and intriguing; overall, difficult to put down. The ending perhaps fizzled out a bit, but other than that, it is a brilliant book that I completely recommend to girls and boys, teens and adults alike.

My Song Of The Day: To Take You Home

To Take You Home by British musician Frank Turner is taken from his second solo album Love, Ire & Song which was released in 2007 (he recently released his fifth album, Tape Deck Heart). At the point of the album's release I hadn't heard of Frank Turner and it's only in the past week or so I've started listening to it. I personally prefer his third album Poetry Of The Deed and to that I prefer his fourth, England Keep My Bones. Anybody seeing a pattern and willing to bet Tape Deck Heart will end up being my favourite once I've listened to it?

Well, that went off topic quickly.

To Take You Home is a quirky, heart-warming song about love which is refreshing when much of the rest of the album seems to be more anguished, even the more upbeat ones. It has something of his later song Rivers from the album England Keep My Bones but with something more epic in the drum beats and something more personal and hopeful in the lyrics. It's so cheery. :)

Frank Turner – To Take You Home

NOT TO READ: The Catcher In The Rye

First off, I would like to clarify that I am not saying this is not a good book. As a writer myself, I do not feel particularly comfortable in criticising other people's works since I know it's not nice to have people say your work is rubbish. This is not rubbish. On the contrary, The Catcher In The Rye is certainly a well-written book; the main character has a distinct and interesting voice and he is very well developed.

My main complaint with this book is its point. Or, more accurately, its lack of one. So the guy wanders round the city thinking about things. Tell me this: why do I care? If something of true consequence happened, then I might care. But nothing like this does happen. There is no true antagonist to go against the protagonist; there is no main problem to be overcome, therefore there is no building tension, no climax, no resolution. I admit that I had high hopes when I started the book; I thought, what's going to happen to this character? He implies something terrible happened to him, it must be interesting, what is it? But in the end it's... nothing. I think strange is the word I would use to describe it. Strange. Yes, I can see how these experiences might perhaps lead to the character feeling the way he does, but is it interesting enough to the reader? No, I do not think it is - I only really finished the book so that I could say I had read it from cover to cover, and in the hopes that something might actually happen.

If you look at it from an English Literature point of view, you might perhaps find something of interest than if you read it for pleasure. The Catcher In The Rye is certainly a literary venture; I wonder if it might be considered a modernist novel - a work in which the author experiments with a new way of writing narrative. In the light of this information, the book appears better, because a modernist book would tend to drop some aspect of the traditionally accepted form of a novel. Therefore, I would say that if you are planning to study it and look at it in depth, then go ahead, but if you are planning to read it for pleasure, depending on your taste, then this is not the book for you.

TO READ: The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

This is a really enjoyable read, and as far as I can remember it is suitable for anyone with an attention span long enough to read it all. It's talented 'authoress' Kate Morton’s debut novel* a romantic mystery set mostly in 1913, 1975 and 2005, in England and in Australia. It’s hard to explain much of what it’s about without giving too much away, but I’ll give it a go:

It’s the story of a young girl found alone on a ship to Australia in 1913 who cannot remember who she is or how she got there, other than something about a woman named the Authoress. It is also the story of Nell, the woman the little girl grows up to be, who in 1975 goes back to England to trace her heritage and find out what happened to her. And finally it is the story of Cassandra, Nell’s granddaughter, who follows Nell’s footsteps because of a house she didn’t know existed and the forgotten garden attached to it in Cornwall which she inherits from Nell after the latter’s death in 2005.

For me The Forgotten Garden is a captivating page turner; a very impressive debut novel which I very much recommend to anyone and everyone. Never mind werewolves, vampires and high school love triangles, I really believe young people should read more books like Kate Morton’s, and they should begin with this one.

If anyone was wondering, the name of this blog is partly inspired by this book, which is why I thought it fitting to write about it first. And next week I WILL post on a Sunday, rather than forgetting and putting it off till next Sunday. :)

*She’s written three novels since, and I can verify that all three are indeed as good as the first; they are The House At Riverton, The Distant Hours and The Secret Keeper.

A Fan-Girl Moment

I just found out that Kristin Cashore's The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy is going to be made into a film. A film! How exciting! I am very, ahem, pleased. Definitely not overreacting at all. :)

It had better be good.

No, it had better be AMAZING.

Or else.

...

On A Different Note

The sun is setting and the scene outside my window looks like one of those old sepia photographs. I didn't know the world could look like that without actually being a sepia photograph. It's strange and sort of magical.

On the other hand, it could also look slightly like the whole view has been turned orange by the glow of a nearby fire. It would have to be a pretty big fire. Which is a scary thought. Luckily this is (hopefully) very unlikely.

To Read Or Not To Read: that's a very good question...

I'm going to start posting a weekly, um, post on the subject of books, namely ones that I would recommend and ones that I would not. This will begin next Sunday.

In the meantime, the Red House Young Writers Yearbook competition is open until July this year, and this is the last year I will be young enough to enter. If anyone ever read Part One of When I Turn Forty, posted on this blog a good couple of months ago, it will never be finished but I have started a new version which I should hope is greatly improved (it's certainly a lot shorter). I intend to send this to the competition once it has been completed and sufficiently edited (and greatly edited it will be). If however I change my mind, I will post it on here instead. :)

Also, I am considering starting a blog in which I post a small amount every day from the point of view one of my characters, like a short fictional diary entry. However, this idea only entered my head today, so it probably won't ever happen. It's looking less and less likely by the second. And I'm very busy. Revision is holding me hostage and it won't let me go till June. Until then, my friends... :)