A Tangle Of Magicks - Stephanie Burgis

Summary from Amazon:

After her antics in A Most Improper Magick, Kat Stephenson is back to cause more chaos! Stepmama drags the family to Bath to find Kat's sister a new suitor. But, unknown to most of its gossipy visitors, Bath is full of wild magic. When Kat uncovers a plot to harness this magic in the Roman Baths, she finds her brother Charles is unwittingly involved. Kat must risk her newfound magical powers as she defies the Order of the Guardians to foil the plot and clear her brother's name.

~~~

 

A Tangle of Magicks is the second book in the Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson. I might say a few spoilers about the first book in this so be warned! You can read my review of the first book in the series, A Most Improper Magick *here* as well as my interview with Stephanie Burgis as part of A Tangle Of Magicks blog tour *here*.

After the events taking place in the first book, Kat's family has entirely changed. Well, not exactly, her father still doesn't say much, her brother still sleeps all the time and her step-mother is as ruthless as ever. But Kat is now a Guardian, after inheriting her mother's power, Angeline is a witch and getting better at it and Elissa is getting married to the love of her life Mr Collingwood! The wedding is ready and all the guests are here when something gasp-worthy happens! Even if the marriage continues, Kat's family (minus Elissa who goes to live with Mr Collingwood) flees to Bath to one of Kat's step-mother "acquaintances". In Bath, Kat obviously can't prevent herself to stay out of trouble!

I absolutely adored A Most Improper Magick and loved this book even more! I think this is one of the most original, interesting and entertaining series out there. Kat is quite simply unique - her voice in the book is so clear that it is an absolute pleasure to read and the most extraordinary things happen to her so you're definitely in for a ride!

Angeline is full of dark thoughts and acts very recklessly in the book and I found it really touching how Kat doesn't let her do this even if Angeline is older and should know better. We get to see more of Kat's brother Charles (and a glimpse of his past) and I am starting to like him more and more. Kat's father also shows a bit more of himself and I will repeat what I said about the first book about how much I love how family-oriented this series is. Kat would do anything for her family and has even been known to help her step-mother *gasp*!

We get to see a few more characters in this and particularly Lucy. She is roughly Kat's age and is very nice (compared to her obnoxious mother and sister). Lucy is obsessed with witchcraft (she thinks it's the ultimate cool) and is ready to get in all sorts of trouble with Kat. their interactions made me laugh out loud several times!

This book is a bit more darker than the first one. When A Most Improper Magick looked at the widespread phenomenon of highwaymen in Regency England, the plot of A Tangle Of Magicks goes into 19th century Bath and explores the theme of old magic. I always have that feeling, when entering a very old place, that there are millenia of history present between those walls, and Stephanie Burgis brilliantly captured that feeling about the Roman baths in Bath. Through Kat's eyes, there is an old powerful magic lurking in the corners of the baths, and she feels that it might not be a magic for the best of the people. The book also shows how scary those times were for young girls and how they were preyed upon by rich men. The setting is fantastic in this book and I can't wait to read the next book in the series to see where Kat will take us!

I really loved this book and this is a fabulous series for people who like their historical fiction with a funny twist. I really cannot recommend these books enough so run like the wind and go buy them in your local bookshop!

Thanks to Templar for sending me the book and for giving me the opportunity to interview Stephanie!

A Tangle Of Magicks by Stephanie Burgis | Templar | 2011 | ARC from the publisher.

A Tangle Of Magicks blog Tour - Interview with Stephanie Burgis

I am thrilled to receive today Stephanie Burgis, author of A Most Improper Magick (my crazy fan-girl review here), to talk about the release of the second book in the Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson, A Tangle Of Magicks. I have finished reading the book and I loved it so much! I'll post my review during the week so you can see how in love I am with the story :)

~~~

Hi Stephanie, 

I am absolutely thrilled to welcome you to Portrait of a Woman for the release of A Tangle Of Magicks! I was very excited to read A Most Improper Magick back in 2010 because I literally couldn't take my eyes off the cover! The book is just as original as the cover and Kat’s story is very adventurous, funny and magical. It really ticked all my boxes so I was even more excited to read A Tangle Of Magicks and see where Kat would take us next!

Portrait of a Woman: Both books mix magical elements with a Regency setting and an incorrigible main character, but how did Kat’s story come to you in the first place?

Stephanie Burgis: I was actually in the middle of writing a different book - a dark, angst-ridden adult novel. Then one day, as I was chopping onions in my kitchen, I suddenly heard a girl’s voice in my ear (it really was as unexpected and vivid as that), saying: “I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed in boys’ clothes, and set off to save my family from ruin…”

That was it! I was hooked. I abandoned the onions, ran to grab a notebook and began to write. Kat had swaggered right into my life, and I was caught up in her story from that moment onward.

PoaW: I have to admit that that first line got me hooked to the story as well! If A Most Improper Magick looks at the widespread phenomenon of highwaymen during Regency England, A Tangle Of Magicks takes us to the streets of Bath and the myths behind its famous roman baths. Why did you choose to write about this city? Did you have to do a lot of visiting and research to be able to recreate what it was like during Kat’s time? 

SB: I fell in love with the city of Bath years and years ago, well before I ever started writing about Kat - and the Roman Baths, in particular, just overwhelmed me. They are so amazing, and they feel genuinely magical to walk around even now! So when it came time to write Kat’s second adventure, I knew immediately that I wanted to send her and her family to Bath…not least because it gave me the perfect excuse to go back myself, again and again!

Luckily, Jane Austen actually lived in Bath around the period that Kat visited, so there’s been a lot of historical work done on Bath in that time period by Austen scholars, and I found all of those books and articles really helpful. I also read several tourist guidebooks to Bath that were written right around 1800. Finding those felt like striking gold!

PoaW: After reading A Tangle Of Magicks, I have been dying to go to Bath and see those roman baths for myself! I went on your (gorgeous!) website and realized that you have a very varied background in terms of studies, countries visited and work. What does this variety bring to your writing and to the themes in your books?

SB: Well, my background in academia really helped because I spent years researching late eighteenth-century Europe in connection to my degrees, as well as also reading letters and diaries of 18^th and 19^th century British women just for fun. And if I hadn’t spent a few years living in Vienna, Austria (which I loved!), I might have felt far more nervous about moving permanently from America to the UK to be with my now-husband…which directly led to writing about Kat! My first book, A Most Improper Magick, was set in exactly the area of Yorkshire where we lived as I wrote the book, and A Tangle of Magicks was inspired by our daytrip to Bath. I couldn’t have written any of these books if I hadn’t moved to the UK!

(And thanks for the kind words about my website! I’m lucky enough to be married to a fabulous web designer - Patrick Samphire, a.k.a. www.50secondsnorth.com - so I’ll pass the compliment on to him!)

PoaW: My favourite part of the book is the importance of family and I really love Kat’s evolution and how she is growing up. A Tangle Of Magicks features a bit more Kat’s father and her brother Charles and we start to see a bit more of their personalities. Are we going to see and learn a bit more about them in the next book? (why yes, this is a shameless attempt to get more info on book 3 :) )

SB: You absolutely will - especially Charles! I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but Kat 3 is definitely where Charles comes into his own. ;)

PoaW: Amazing! Can't wait to read book 3!! Kat is one of my favourite characters! She is strong, courageous and has the best personality ever! Do you have a top 5 of your favourite heroines in literature and which qualities do they need to have to catch your interest?

SB: Thanks so much! My biggest love as a reader is reserved for smart, feisty heroines who stand up for what they believe in, even if they make mistakes along the way. My top five are:

1. Amelia Peabody, the heroine of Elizabeth Peters’s Crocodile on the Sandbank and a whole series of funny mysteries set in Victorian-era Egypt. She’s smart, determined, and is never afraid to bash an evil-doer with her parasol!
2. Elizabeth Bennet, from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. She’s witty, intelligent, and refuses to give in to social pressure when she knows it’s wrong.
3. Ellie, the heroine of Joan Bauer’s Squashed (one of my favourite YA novels ever). She may be fighting an upward battle, but she’s passionate and loyal, two of my favourite qualities in a heroine - and the novel is hilarious!
4. Flora Segunda, of Ysabeau Wilce’s Flora Segunda. She’s theatrical, feisty and fabulous.
5. Jane Eyre, in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. She’s brave, analytical, and refuses to compromise her own integrity and sense of self-worth, even for the sake of romantic love.

PoaW: That's exactly how I love my heroines in books too! Young Adult literature is becoming increasingly important and as it grows, it gets regularly attacked for being too dark, too controversial and at times too influential. As a YA/MG writer, do you think there is too much darkness in YA literature these days and do you think teens need to be specifically shielded from some themes?

SB: I think kids deserve to have a wide variety of reading options. A book that’s too dark for one reader may well be the book that saves another. I personally tend to prefer writing and reading books that are bright and fun, high-spirited adventures - but I would be horrified if anyone took away the darker books from the shelves. Kids come from lots of different backgrounds and have a lot of different needs, and it would be terrible to take away a book that some kids really need just because some other kids aren’t ready for it yet.

PoaW: On the same topic, you recently participated in a panel about the importance of honesty and creativity in engaging young people organized by The Reading Agency, Bounce! and various publishing companies including Templar. What came out of this event?

SB: That event was so much fun! I really enjoyed being part of such a varying group of authors - Anthony McGowan and Colin Mulhern write very gritty contemporary YA fiction (Colin’s book is about 11-year-old cage fighters in a very freaky contemporary underworld)  while Isla Whitcroft writes glamorous, fun action adventures for a great teen heroine (and martial artist) who gets to travel around the world and use excellent spy gadgets. It was incredibly stimulating for me as a writer to get to discuss writing with such great writers who all write such different kinds of books.

PoaW: Goodreads links to Colin Mulhern's Clash (here) and Isla Whitcroft's The Cate Carlisle Files: Trapped (here)

PoaW: And last, there is a Kat book 3 in the works which will be published in 2012. Will there be more Kat books (pleeeaaase!) and do you have any other projects coming up?

SB: I honestly don’t know the answer to your first question, because it’s just too early to even guess. Truthfully, I would LOVE to write more Kat books - I have lots of ideas for where her further adventures will take her (whether I ever end up writing them or not). However, in terms of hard publishing reality, I can’t even try to sell any more Kat books until Kat book 2 has come out in America and had time to show sales figures, which won’t be for at least another year…so of course I’m working on other projects in the meantime, because I can’t bear to stop writing while I wait! I’m actually just about to send a couple of potential projects to my US editor, so I’m at the stage of feeling far too nervous to talk about them in public right now…

PoaW: I'll cross all my fingers and toes! Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions and writing such wonderful books!

SB: Thank you so much for having me here!

~~~

You can read a short story taking place between Kat book 1 and Kat book 2 on Stephanie's website.

Links:

Stephanie Burgis website : http://www.stephanieburgis.com/

Twitter: @stephanieburgis

Templar fiction facebook page

The Emerald Atlas - John Stephens

Summary from Amazon:

They were taken from their beds one frozen night, when the world was covered in snow. The silhouette of a tall, thin man has haunted Kate ever since.

Ten years on, Kate, Michael and Emma have grown up in a string of miserable orphanages, and all memories of their parents have faded to a blur. Arriving at Cambridge Falls, the children quickly realise there is something different about this place – and Kate feels sure she has seen the dark, crooked house before.

As they explore, they discover an old, empty leather book. The moment they touch it, an ancient magical prophecy is set irrevocably in motion, and the children are thrown into a dangerous alternate reality of dark enchantments and terrifying monsters. Only they can prevent the terrible event that will ruin Cambridge Falls – and stop the world from falling into complete devastation.

~~~~ 

Kate, Michael and Emma are three orphans living in very poor conditions. Moved from orphanage to orphanage, they can only rely on each other for support. When they are moved to Cambridge Falls, their love and trust for each other will be thoroughly tested by the presence of spooky characters and extraordinary events.

The characterisation is one of the strongest and best aspect of this novel. The three main characters have different personalities which are acutely depicted. Even though they all come from the same mould, their age difference (important when it comes to their parents as Kate remembers them very well, Michael a little bit and Emma the youngest not at all) is one of the factors that differenciate them. Kate, the eldest, feels the weight of the responsibility her parents entrusted in her the night they disappeared. She wouldn't change her brother and sister for anything in the world but she wonders how different her life might have been without having to take care of them. Michael is very introverted and plunges himself in fantasy worlds populated by dwarves he discovered in one of his father's books, he is also very bright and seems to know everything (much to Emma's annoyance!). Emma is a bundle of strength, courage, determination and a bit of mischief rolled into one. She hardly thinks before acting and she never backs down. Of cource, Emma was by far my favourite character :)
But the fantastic characters don't stop at the three protagonists and a real care is taken to describe all the other characters and species.

The eerie setting is almost a promise of adventure and great danger in itself. Very remote and only accessible through a boat, Cambridge Falls doesn't feel like a home to the children when they first arrive. There are way too many secrets in it and they can't quite figure out the people living in it.

I won't spoil the fun by telling you what the fantasy aspect of the story is but I really thought that the book was an interesting take on magic/time travelling/world history and it is a great beginning to a fascinating new series. There was variety in characters and events and the story was at times laugh-out-loud funny and at others moving. The constant bickering between Emma and Michael is hilarious and I'm sure kids with siblings would relate to this book!

You can feel that the writer has been working for TV/cinema because the book has a very good pace and keeps you hooked throughout the story. The twists and turns of the plot are cleverly placed and not overwhelming or unbelievable.

I was disappointed to realise that the dwarves and screechers were very Lord Of The Rings-y but I hope the sequels will bring us fascinating new fantasy species.

The Emerald Atlas is a fantastic new series for tweens (and older!). There are some great themes about family, sibling relationships, courage and responsibility which bring depth to a great adventure story. The story has a lot of potential and I can't wait to read the sequels and discover a new adventure with the characters!

The Emerald Atlas | John Stephens | 2011 | Bought and read on my kindle.

Long Lankin - Lindsey Barraclough

Summary from Amazon:

A chilling, beautiful debut novel inspired by a haunting folk song about murder, witchcraft and revenge.

Beware of Long Lankin, that lives in the moss . . .

When Cora and her little sister Mimi are sent to stay with their elderly aunt in the isolated village of Bryers Guerdon, they receive a less than warm welcome, and are desperate to go back to London. But Auntie Ida's life was devastated the last time two young girls were at Guerdon Hall, and now her nieces' arrival has reawoken an evil that has lain waiting for years.

A haunting voice in an empty room ... A strange, scarred man lurking in the graveyard ... A mysterious warning, scrawled on the walls of the abandoned church . . . Along with Roger and Peter, two young village boys, Cora must uncover the horrifying truth that has held Bryers Guerdon in its dark grip for centuries - before it is too late for Mimi.

Intensely atmospheric and truly compelling, this is a stunning debut.

~~~

This book came out of nowhere and took me completely by surprise. Rich, eerie and thrilling, the story overtakes your senses... and makes you regularly turn around to check if your window is still closed.

Cora and Mimi are being sent to live with their Auntie Ida after their mother leaves home and their father can't take care of them by himself. They arrive in the very isolated village of Bryers Guerdon and on one side make friends with local boys Roger and Pete but on the other receive a rather cold welcome from their Aunt. Slowly, Cora realises that their arrival has awakened an evil presence in the marshes. An evil presence which is irresistibly attracted to Mimi. 

The book is set in a Sleepy Hollow-esque small village in the English countryside. The life and the characters are really well described and brilliantly intertwined with the English ballad Lamkin/Long Lankin. The atmosphere created by Lindsey Barraclough becomes almost a rather suffocating character in the story, following the main characters around and biding its time before striking.

The story is pretty straightforward, while still shrouding Long Lankin with enough mystery, but the real beauty of the book lies in the writing. It is inescapably haunting and beautiful. Alternating between Cora, Roger and Auntie Ida, scenes are seen through different set of eyes and understanding, which is a very interesting way to tell this story. You also get different point of views during the same action, making you know everything which is happening except Long Lankin's whereabouts and thoughts.

The back story to the song - which I'd rather not explain for spoilery reasons - and the religious aspect of the story bring quite a lot of depth to the story (without it being too heavy). Kids and teens will love this book, but adults will also appreciate other sides to the story that might remind them of their youth. 

I really loved the characters. I felt that the living in a small isolated village and the weight of traditions and hearsay were strongly felt during the book. Even though the book is primarily the scary Long Lankin story, the whole frame carrying the plot holds its own.

I was personally not dramatically spooked, so don't automatically dismiss this book if you don't like scary stories. And if you do like horror stories and mysteries, you really shouldn't miss this truly original book. It is definitely one of a kind in the current YA market.

Note: perfect for boys and girls and anyone with an interest in folk. The scary bits are mainly psychological and there are few "violent" scenes (though not too bad) 10+

Long Lankin | Lindsey Barraclough | Random House Children's Books | April 2011

I bought the ebook version for my kindle but I also received an ARC from RHCB! 

Thanks to Rosi at RHCB for sending this book!

Lost in Translation #4 - The Prince Of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Hello everyone !

Lost in Translation is a meme, hosted here, organised to appeal to the curious international reader in you to discover foreign authors and even encourage you to read some books in their original language ! How exciting ! Wouhou !

For a presentation of the meme, you can go here or email me here (I love receiving emails!)

The meme has a few tiny rules:

- Check if the book is translated in English and available (country and online/bookstores) and specify it in your post

- It would be nice to follow the "Language Corner" where you say to which level the book is suitable for people who might want to read the book in its original language

- And finally: Enjoy and Spread the love ! 

So today I am going to break my own rule of French and Italian author to write a review about Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafón and his debut YA novel The Prince of Mist that has just been translated in English.

I discovered Carlos Ruiz Zafón a few summers ago when my mom told me to read this book. You have to know that my mom is an avid reader like me and that my parents have a bookshop/news-stand in France. Now before you start getting all jealous, there is an incredibly annoying thing: we don't read the same books at all. She just can't read anything remotely linked to Fantasy and Science Fiction (you understand now why I couldn't live under the same roof and had to exile myself to another country) and I find mystery novels and Douglas Kennedy a bit so so. 

So when she told me during a summer "you should definitely read The Shadow of the Wind", I was like "Meh, I can't, the new Harry Potter is coming out, I need to say no to social life and read it ten times". Good for me I didn't listen to myself and actually read the book (after reading Harry Potter ten times, that goes without saying).  The Shadow of The Wind is as much a great fiction book as an ode to people who like books and reading.

Anyways, all this boring and useless story to say that when I saw that one of his YA books was being translated in English (it was published in 1993 in Spain), I was just really really excited!!!

The Prince of Mist

by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Summary from Amazon:

Max Carver's father - a watchmaker and inventor - decides to move his family to a small town on the coast, to an old house that once belonged to a prestigious surgeon, Dr Richard Fleischmann. But the house holds many secrets and stories of its own. Behind it is an overgrown garden full of statues surrounded by a metal fence topped with a six-pointed star. When he goes to investigate, Max finds that the statues seem to consist of a kind of circus troop with the large statue of a clown at its centre. Max has the curious sensation that the statue is beckoning to him. As the family settles in they grow increasingly uneasy: they discover a box of old films belonging to the Fleischmanns; his sister has disturbing dreams and his other sister hears voices whispering to her from an old wardrobe. They also discover the wreck of a boat that sank many years ago in a terrible storm. Everyone on board perished except for one man - an engineer who built the lighthouse at the end of the beach. During the dive, Max sees something that leaves him cold - on the old mast floats a tattered flag with the symbol of the six-pointed star. As they learn more about the wreck, the chilling story of the Prince of the Mists begins to emerge.

I can't even begin to tell you how much I loved this book!!

Everything I loved from The Shadow of The Wind is there, with a paranormal young adult spin (aka *perfection*). I loved following Max and his sister Alicia through this adventure. The characters are very well described and they feel so real with their tiny flaws and habits that it is a real pleasure to read. This book has the atmosphere of old gothic/horror novels where the characters are in a pretty regular setting and then something unexpected, dark and frightening happens which turns the situation upside down.

Reading this story has made me think about how fortunate we are today in Europe, USA and other countries not to have a war going on inside our frontiers. Of course many of our troups may be waging war/bringing peace in parts of the world, but we don't really know what a civil war is anymore. In this book, the setting is Second World War Spain. The country had been living a very brutal Civil War from 1936 and when WWII broke out, Spain aligned itself with Germany at first but progressively adopted a neutral stance. When the story of Max Carver starts in 1943, Spain doesn't take part in the Second World War but is a dictature with a very strong repression which will only end in 1975. You can read The Shadow of The Wind if you want to have an idea on how much the Franco regime has scarred the Spanish psyche. 

Sorry, I got a little carried away here! Anyways, I *love* reading a good fiction where I learn something about history or another culture (which sort of the aim of this meme) and here I loved looking at this family obliged to move cities to avoid the war. The story is told from a third person point of view, and I liked how it seemed to give more insight to the characters' personalities. The themes of growing up are very well treated in the book, and I loved the romance which builds up between Alicia and Roland.

I have to admit that the absence of both parents from a large part of the book is what I would call quite a convenient plot development but which doesn't kill the whole story either. The universe created by Carlos Ruiz Zafón is so rich, and yet not completely overwhelming, that any weakness is instantly forgotten.


I am fervently hoping that his three other Young Adult novels will get translated soon!!


This is book is such a quick enjoyable story that it is the perfect summer read. I would advise it to anyone going to the beach this summer (since part of the book takes place on a beach during the summer). You probably won't look at those seemingly harmless shadows lurking under your feet in the water the same way. 
Just saying ;-)

Language corner:

Since the book is aimed at young adults, the language used is quite simple. I am estimating that an intermediate/upper-intermediate level would be enough to read the book.

Where to find the book:
UK: Waterstones, Amazon
USA: Barnes and Nobles, Amazon


Thanks so much to Jo from Ink and Paper and Once Upon a Bookcase for giving me a copy of this book!!!

To take part in the meme :

- Write your name

- The name of your blog

- In parenthesis if it is the first, second time or more you participate

- In parenthesis which language it is

- Link to the LiT post, not your blog !

Exemple: Caroline @ Portrait of a Woman (4, Spanish)

If what you post doesn't look like that, I will retaliate. Live in fear.

Clay - David Almond

I discovered David Almond reading Skellig. He has the incredible ability to write spooky and sinister books for younger readers as well as for adults. There seems to be a very thin line between writing children books and writing challenging books and David Almond seems to be extremely talented at writing precisely on that line.

In the same way, Neil Gaiman's books for younger readers have the same capacity to captivate children and develop at the same time very serious themes. I really love the fact that you can read these books on many different levels, depending on your age but also your personality. 

Anyways, Clay is the story of best friends Davie and Geordie who are  your regular young teenagers. They are altar boys but rebels on the inside: smoking some 'fags' and drinking altar wine (which I find hilarious). Like many groups of young kids, they are at war against another gang of kids from their small village of - wait for it - Felling-on-Tyne in Northumberland (UK), led by the horrible Mouldy who "already drank like a man". They both meet Stephen Rose, who has come to live with his aunt, Crazy Mary, and are asked to make friends with him by Father O'Mahoney. 

There is something strange and maybe evil about Stephen Rose. He makes those little figures out of clay which look very realistic, he stays by himself and he has a quite sinister personality. But he might be able to help Davie with Mouldy and his gang. Davie also lives the very first moments of love with Maria, a girl who isn't like any other and might like Davie too.

Though I prefered Skellig to this one, I think it is an incredible story. The type which makes you question your beliefs and make you think about the difference between good and bad, even when reading it as an almost adult.

It is very unusual, I believe, but I might be wrong (don't hesitate to contradict me and hit on my head with a stick), to portray such a peculiar and maybe evil character as Stephen Rose. You never really know if he is crazy or has strong beliefs or is simply right and we're all a bunch of blinded fools. You won't only enjoy reading this book but it will make you think, and not just about what you're going to eat for diner.

On the style, I really like David Almond's storytelling talent. You have to read it to believe it (I am definitely trademarking this sentence, people, no stealing it). I also liked the fact that for the dialogues, Almond wrote how the characters would have said the words, with the accent, like "Bliddy Hell" and "He's nowt to us", which makes you even more inside the story. 

Another very interesting point, which is just hinted throughout the book, and is therefore given a very strong latent power (and, yes, I just said that), is the mention of the enmity between protestants and catholics. Davie and Geordie are living in Felling, where there is a strong catholic minority and Mouldy and his gang live in Pelaw where there is instead a majority of Protestants. Though the Pelaw/Felling fight is more of a tradition for the younger ones like Davie, the entire enmity is rooted in the religious hatred that was still very vivid a few decades ago. You see Davie's father reaction when Davie comes home after a fight saying this is how it escalates into a bloody war.

I really liked this book. So if you are a YA fan, David Almond is a definite must-read, and if you like spooky disturbing stories, this one's a treat !

How I Live Now - Meg Rosoff

I was a bit early at my screening at the BFI so I decided to browse through the second hand books before the entrance. I obviously bought five *sigh*. One of them was Meg Rosoff's debut How I Live Now. I'm a total sucker for cute covers with pink flowers and butterflies so I hardly even read the summary at the back. I only registered the critic by Mark Haddon (who wrote the amazingly beautiful The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time *which you should read* *now*) saying "Magical and utterly faultless". 

What else do you actually need to buy a second hand book? 

Nothing at all, especially because this book is, as said, magical and utterly faultless. Seriously.

Since I hadn't read properly the back cover, I was anticipating this forbidden love story kind of plot. But there is so much more to this story that it should constitute a genre in itself.

      So 15-year-old New Yorker Daisy is the typical anorexic with family issues teenager. In an attempt to get her out of the way *cough* make her change air, she is sent to her deceased mother's sister in England. Little does she know that this trip will alter her life forever. 

      She meets her strangely gifted cousins: they read people's mind, can talk to animals and sense when things are going to happen. She learns to live in a farm where you eat what you grow and grow what you eat. She falls in love with her cousin Edmond, hence the forbidden love story. She gradually starts to belong somewhere somehow.

      But this peaceful situation is threatened by a war. An unknown and unexplicable war against causeless and faceless enemies. With her Aunt gone, the children/teenagers have to rely on themselves and their gifts to survive and find each other.

I can hardly explain how and why I loved this book: 

Was it the surprise of reading a profound analysis of war in a YA romance story? 

Was it the supernatural aspect of some characters that is described as normal and where no other explanation is given?

Was it the relationship between characters?

Was it the peculiar love story?

Was it the tone? The style? 

      All of this, and probably much more. Some Fantasy books over-rationalise the fantastic elements in their story, they give it a mythology, a history, a complete biological analysis, whereas sometimes it's just superfluous. 

      It makes me think of David Almond's incredible book Skellig, where the character of Skellig is present throughout the story, and no explanation of his alienness is ever given. And this is what gives the charm to the story. Same here. Like Daisy, you discover these children's peculiarity and learn to love them for it without trying to understand.

      The war context is the perfect background. This is why the "utterly faultless" critic comes in. This book is a whole, you read it from beginning to end with the same curiosity, passion and interest.
It is a definite must-read.

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

I have to admit that the only reason I bought this book was because Peter Jackson was directing the film. Not only am I a Lord of the Rings freak, but I also have been overwhelmed by his Heavenly Creatures (1994).

Alice Sebold's second book is about Susie Salmon (like the fish), a 14-year-old girl who, after being raped and murdered by one of her neighbours, narrates the story of her family and friends from her heaven. It is the story of a life which starts when it unexpectedly comes to an abrupt end.
She dies but not completely, living on in her heaven (note the possessive) and watching her family and friends as they go on with their lives, not entirely the same anymore. You witness her sister coping in her very own way, thus shifting her personality for the rest of her life. You see her parents lean into each other, break away, fade in different directions. You see her friends holding onto her or forgetting her altogether. But you see them, each of them, altered, knitting a web over memories of her. The book is beautifully written and you surprise yourself loving these struggling imperfect characters, as Susie does from her heaven.

One always tries to seek the keys of a story in the life of its author: is it autobiographical? is there a reason for this specific development? why? all the more so when you read this encounter, this clash between those two contraries that are Susie's innocence (hoping that this one word can fully embrace the concept) and her neighbour's perversity and corruption of mind. Alice Sebold has been raped during her freshman year at University; she wrote about it in a memoir, Lucky. She then used some of it in The Lovely Bones. You instantly fall for Susie, for her sweetness and originality, and you follow her in this gruesome experience that she doesn't fully understand and never grows up to.

This book feels just like a Jane Austen book or Jane Eyre for women and Farenheit 451 for human beings in general - a must-read. I wouldn't say it is a book about rape (though it is obviously a serious aspect not to neglect, be it in fiction or in real life). I see it more as a book about people, how they grieve, how they cope, and how they stand by each other.