Review: The Toll Bridge by Aidan Chambers

Dear blog,

Summary (from Goodreads): Fed up with parents and friends trying to decide on his future, Jan attempts to escape the pressures of home by taking a job as a toll-keeper. Going to live in the country - alone in the house on the toll bridge - Jan hopes to find out who he really is. At the toll bridge Jan meets Tess and Adam. Their friendship works well for a time, but they all have to face a turning point, and for one of them, the result is devastating.

Review: Although Postcards from No Man's Land left me kind of underwhelmed,  I'm quite the Aidan Chambers fangirl these days. When he writes well, it's stunning.  This is All and Now I Know are two of my favourite books; In their own ways they've totally influenced my life or the way I look at the world.  It probably sounds pretty corny, but imagine this: when I read a book, an entirely average novel I quite liked, it drifts around as the centre of my thoughts for a pretty short amount of time.  But TIA and NIK both stuck around in my head for weeks.  But The Toll Bridge fell short for me.  That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. I did.  But when you have such high expectations for an author, it's pretty hard to live up to them.  It was a good book in many respects.  

It's not as...deep, I guess, as some of the other books in the sequence.  I guess it's a more "normal" book on many levels, but there were still proper moments of philosophical contemplation.  It's a pretty universal book; I think all people, whether in their teenage years or not, feel like they just need to disappear from their everyday life and work out where they fit into the universe/make a proper change to their lifestyle/find out what it is that they really want from their life.  This book describes that pretty fantastically.  Adam, Jan and Tess all feel like this but they all have very different attitudes towards their lives and what they feel they should be doing with themselves.

I suppose the plot was the main issue I had with the book.  I enjoyed the beginning, the way all the characters were introduced, but the middle felt like quite hard work.  It's like everything suddenly ran out of steam.  It's only around 200 pages, so it shouldn't have taken me four or five days to read, should it? It felt like it dragged somewhat, like it was an effort to read.  There was  a sense of foreboding in the writing style, so for the longest time I felt like I was waiting for something exciting to happen.  Reading the scene at the party, which I can't really say much about in case I give things away, I felt kind of underwhelmed.  Is that it?  Is that really all the action that's going to happen?   In parts it felt kind of...apathetic.  Events were occurring, things were happening, or could have been happening, but things like the tension and the dynamics between the characters seemed to have dissolved almost completely, and it felt like there was no drive behind the story and no way for things to keep going.

Thankfully, things picked up again at the end, and there was a fantastic twist.  Is it possible to be pleased by an event that's so devastating and has such a big impact on all of the characters?  It makes me feel slightly sadistic, but the ending made me happy because things were happening again, there were things to think about and puzzle over and wonder where things would have gone if things had been slightly different, and what happened after the conclusion.  It's a very open ending, which seems very fitting to the book; there are so many different paths that it could take.

So, I guess I'm glad I read it, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone as their first Chambers novel in case it put them off from reading any more of his novels, in which case they would be missing out on a fair amount of awesomeness.  But if you have, then I do think that it's not to be missed.

In Three Words: original, surprising, anti-climatic.
Recommended for: people who've already read some Aidan Chambers.
Rating: 3

In My Mailbox 26 or The One with the Mighty Tomes

Dear Blog,
In My Mailbox is hosted by  Kristi over at The Story Siren.
I got a fair few books this week, which makes me happy.  A few of them are something of an epic length and will no doubt take me a little while to read, hence the title of this post.
 Note: Sorry the picture isn't very good, and has acquired something of a holga effect.  There's some sand or something stuck in the lens which means it doesn't open all the way anymore.  This will work well next time I want to take some black-and-white photographs, but alas not for actual proper pictures that I want to share with cyberspace.

FOR REVIEW

Eragon, Eldest and Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

BOUGHT

Underworld by Don DeLillo

FROM THE LIBRARY

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan- not pictured, because I had to return it to the library.  Review to come.
Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald- Because I'm partaking in the Vlogbrother read, and if John Green likes it then I should read it, because in my eyes he can do no wrong. 

Daisy Miller by Henry James

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell- because I love .  We and Anthem and the film Metropolis are
among some of my favourite books/films/ forms of recreational media, so I'm totally looking forward to reading this.

Well, there you go.  Did you get any good books this week? 

Also, in relation to the new blog design; what do you think?

Foreign Language Friday: In The Sea There are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda

Dear Blog,

Original Title: Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli

Original Language: Italian

Translated by: Howard Curtis

Summary (from Goodreads): One night before putting him to bed, Enaiatollah's mother tells him three things: don't use drugs, don't use weapons, don't steal. The next day he wakes up to find she isn't there. They have fled their village in Ghazni to seek safety outside Afghanistan but his mother has decided to return home to her younger children. Ten-year-old Enaiatollah is left alone in Pakistan to fend for himself. In a book that takes a true story and shapes it into a beautiful piece of fiction, Italian novelist Fabio Geda describes Enaiatollah's remarkable five-year journey from Afghanistan to Italy where he finally managed to claim political asylum aged fifteen. His ordeal took him through Iran, Turkey and Greece, working on building sites in order to pay people-traffickers, and enduring the physical misery of dangerous border crossings squeezed into the false bottoms of lorries or trekking across inhospitable mountains. A series of almost implausible strokes of fortune enabled him to get to Turin, find help from an Italian family and meet Fabio Geda, with whom he became friends. The result of their friendship is this unique book in which Enaiatollah's engaging, moving voice is brilliantly captured by Geda's subtle and simple storytelling. In Geda's hands, Enaiatollah's journey becomes a universal story of stoicism in the face of fear, and the search for a place where life is liveable.

Review:  When I sat down to start reading this book, I wasn't sure how many boxes of tissues I was going to need.  Surprisingly, I didn't need any- the story was told in a very straightforward manner, without  much strong emotion at all.  But although it didn't make me cry, it was still an entirely hard-hitting and harrowing book.  There were some moments now and again that just struck me as particularly horrifying, perhaps because of the unadorned and almost casual way they were described, as if they were nothing exceptional to Enaiatollah.  It reminded me a little of The Book of Everything in that respect; having things just told as they are, without any exaggeration, strong emotions and such put in, makes the events seem entirely shocking.

Enaitollah talks about human trafficking, the extremely hard time police across the Middle East and southern Europe give him and the desperate measures he'll go to in order to go abroad in such a frank way I want to just grab him and trap him in a massive bear hug.  Still, I think that was only because of his experiences; sometimes I wished that there had been more of his own thoughts and emotions included.  Although it's a very direct book, like he's sat right across the table from you telling his story, it would have been nice to have felt what he felt, as well as see what he saw.

In The Sea There are Crocodiles reminds me a lot of the Breadwinner trilogy by Deborah Ellis, which were some of my favourite books a few years ago (I read the whole trilogy in about three days). It's very insightful into the world of illegal immigration, and if I hadn't read this book then I  wouldn't have been aware of how it works in any detail. As well as that, there were things like the places Enaiat worked; for fourteen hours a day in a stone-cutting factory, and running all the errands for a hotel, that reminded me how lucky I am to be able to just babysit once a week and still be able to eat three meals a day, sleep with a roof over my head and get a good education.

Still, it's not entirely without hope, which was a pleasant surprise.  Enaiatollah, once he reaches Italy, recounts how he managed  to (gradually) settle down and live an ordinary life.   Enaiat was so resilient and just kept on going whatever life threw at him.  He did such brave and resilient things aged ten or eleven that, as a teenager, makes me feel hopelessly ditzy and (hypothetically) incapable of surviving in such a harsh world.  His fearlessness and determination to keep going, through five years and six countries, will stay with me for a very long time.

In three words: Insightful, hopeful, direct.
Reccommended for: Armchair travellers.
Rating: 3.

Thank you to Random House for sending me a copy for review.

Things Dystopian Novels Have Taught Me

Dear blog,
I'm one of those people who worries about the end of the world. A lot.  I am also one of those people who reads a lot of dystopian novels, perhaps as a way of preparing myself for the future state of mankind.
Thankfully there are a lot of books that serve as an entirely handy guide to surviving rising sea levels/nuclear kersplosions/creepy governments/insert other grim demise of humanity here. 
Here are some of the words of wisdom that I think are particularly essential, from some of my favourite novels of the dystopic variety.
Be warned: There are a few spoilers here, so proceed with caution.

Life as we Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

You need food.
And water.

If you're not sure if you've got enough, obtain more of these things.

The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Cities are the worst place to be in an apocalypse.

For the love of God, don't go in a lift when the electricity system in your building is unreliable.
No matter how many inhalers you have, they still cannot ultimately save you from your asthma.

Gone by Michael Grant

Kids are very creepy when they want to be.
Do not live near a nuclear power plant.
You are probably a superhero mutant freak waiting to happen.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Life sucks.
Ultimately there is no hope for humanity.
You are either going to die or go slightly crazy on an island. But probably both.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Wasps are the most efficient way of killing off your enemies. But make sure you're out of the way first.
Despite the fact your government is evil and corrupt, there are always plenty of shallow hair stylists you can hang around with to lighten your mood.
Your dead villains will come back to haunt you as mutant wolves. 

The Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd
Being an English teenager in the years to come will be pretty harsh.
Carry a torch with you at all times.
Keep pigs.  They're amazing.

The Declaration by Gemma Malley
There will always be a slightly too-good-to-be-true boy available to sweep you off your feet and tell you how bad the world is.
Life's not fair and everyone hates you.
There are probably a ton of revelatory secrets about you/your family that you do not know.

Siberia by Ann Halam
Your cute little critter companions may be the one thing that will save your life when you're on an epic trek across a bitterly arctic Europe.
Sweden, the place roughly described as Sloe's ultimate destination, is the place to be (Also, I have proof, because I went to Sweden when I was eleven and it was amazing).
You should listen to everything your mother tells you.

Riding Tycho by Jan Mark

Knitting gets boring very quickly if you have no Ravelry to supply you with fresh exciting patterns, and you are eternally doomed to knit stockings all your life.

Your friends are superficial, two-faced and not worth your time.
Especially when there are Welsh singers available who can open your eyes to the wider world.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

See The Declaration.
Don't sweat it if you're worried about your authoritarian government stopping you from having a good time; as a general rule, you should be able to sneak out to the country for a party.
You need a motorbike for the ultimate escape to be achieved.

Exodus by Julie Bertagna
If you're unsure if you live on high enough ground to escape the rising sea levels, move higher up.
Do not eat raw fish in unclean waters.
If possible, befriend or fall in love with the son of one of the most powerful men in your city.

Zenith by Julie Bertagna
Greenland is the place to be when the sea levels rise.
Do not get pregnant when you're having a hard enough time fighting for your own survival.
There is always a light at the end of the tunnel.

Review: Pink by Lili Wilkinson

Dear blog,

Summary (from Goodreads): Ava Simpson is trying on a whole new image. Stripping the black dye from her hair, she heads off to the Billy Hughes School for Academic Excellence, leaving her uber-cool girlfriend, Chloe, behind.

Ava is quickly taken under the wing of perky, popular Alexis who insists that: a) she's a perfect match for handsome Ethan; and b) she absolutely must audition for the school musical.
But while she's busy trying to fit in -- with Chloe, with Alexis and her Pastel friends, even with the misfits in the stage crew -- Ava fails to notice that her shiny reinvented life is far more fragile than she imagined.

Review: This is one of those books that totally proves why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.  I was expecting this to be a light, fluffy sort of novel.  But it was so much more than that.  Although Pink is pretty lighthearted in a lot of ways, I quite enjoyed that: it was pretty refreshing to read a LGBTQ novel which isn't just about the protagonist coming to terms with their sexuality, coming out etc. A lot of the YA novels I read about sexual identity are pretty heavy going, which I do understand, but the general take on Ava being a lesbian in Pink seemed quite...relaxed, if that makes sense.

Ava already has a long-term girlfriend, but she's actually wondering if she's not gay.   She likes the colour pink, things haven't been going so well with her girlfriend Chloe of late and she doesn't see the appeal with hanging out with their edgy radical friends anymore.  She was an entirely likeable character for all her flaws, and I think that absolutely anyone could relate to her in one way or another. I'm sure everyone at some point in their life wants to be different, wants to fit in with the right crowd.  Throughout the book Ava made a lot of mistakes in her attempts to be accepted. She could be pretty selfish and thoughtless at times, and although I often facepalmed at her actions, I still totally understood why she did the things that she did.

The thing I loved best about this book by far was the characters.   Except Chloe.  Although I had high hopes for her when Ava mentioned she read Anaïs Nin (because anyone who likes Anaïs Nin is generally an awesome person in my book), alas that was not to be. She was mean.  Her remarks to Ava were so cutting and bitter I had a hard time understanding why the two of them were still going out.  Anyway, in the respect that she was totally three-dimensional and believable, yes, she was a good character. All the supporting characters were good.  Seriously, how do Australian authors do this?!  Jaclyn Moriarty and Margaret Wild have the most incredible cast of characters as well, and they both live Down Under.  It must be all that sunshine.

The Pastels were, again, characters I disliked, but were totally believable.  It's like Lili Wilkinson has gone into a school with a video camera, filmed everyone's comings and goings and then broadcast them on a giant outdoor television screen. Everything feels exposed, from the settings to the character dynamics.
Also, the Stage Crew, i.e Screws. They are awesome, although in their anti-Glee win and discarding of pecking order in their school, they made me feel slightly guilty for  being one of those people who loves singing on stage, and whose only pair of high heels is a pair of character shoes.  Still, reading the scenes with all their highly entertaining banter and trivia, it feels like you're painting the sets with them or half-asleep at the movie marathon (by the way, that was one of my favourite scenes in the whole book). 

 So, if the rest of Lili Wilkinson's books are as awesome as Pink, I'll definitely be reading more of her novels in the future.

In Three Words: light-hearted, excellent, refreshing.
Reccommended for: Anyone who's willing to see past the bright pink cover.
Rating: 4.5