“Fup”

Is a tale of two humans, one duck and several vats of home-brewed whisky.

There’s Grandaddy Jake Santee, 99 years old, an unreformed gambler, cranky reprobate and fierce opponent of the work ethic. Thanks to his home-distilled hooch, Ol’ Death Whisper, he reckons he’s in with good shot at immortality.

And then there’s Tiny, adopted at the age of four by Grandaddy Jake, a giant young man as gentle as Jake is belligerent.

And then there’s Fup, an uncompromising twenty-pound mallard, partial to a drink herself, whose unique presence transforms the Santee household.

– Pubisher’s Blurb

Fup, has the subtitle “a modern fable”, and I’ll be honest, I think I missed whatever moral I was supposed to get out of it, but I did really enjoy the absurdness of some of the events, and the humour they create and warmth of the writing.

And it’s not to say there isn’t anything to find, if you go looking for it, Grandaddy Jake, lived quite the high-life until Tiny came into his life, drinking, gambling and sleeping his way around the country, and while in no way he becomes an angel his life does start revolving around someone else, rather than himself.

Then, Fup arrives and turns their world upside down, and changes them both, and I was still moved by the characters and their lives, but I think I was expecting a big overarching theme and that is what I think I missed.

Buy: Fup: A Modern Fable by Jim Dodge from The Book Depository

You can read my original review of The Fault in Our Stars here, (tl;dr: I loved it!) but last week I also listened to the audiobook version, narrated by Kate Rudd, and I wanted to say a few words about it.

Firstly Kate Rudd does a fabulous job of capturing both Hazel and Augustus’s voices, I never once questioned they weren’t the characters I grew to love in the printed version.

But most importantly, if you think it was an emotional experience reading the book, just wait until you her the catch in Kate Rudd’s voice as she reads the more emotional sections! I was destroyed all over again. (Maybe listening to the last third of the book on my commute to work was not such a good idea…)

Even if you’ve already read the book, I highly recommend picking up to and listening the the audiobook as well, just maybe not in public!    

Characters:	★★★★★★
Plot:	★★★★★☆
Writing:	★★★★★★
Just 5 Minutes More:	★★★★★★
Narration:	★★★★★★
Overall:	★★★★★☆

Is an exciting anthology of short graphic works by established artists and innovative newcomers in the comic and animation fields, who have each created a unique story on a central theme: a mysterious box and the marvels, or mayhem, inside.

Collected and edited by Kazu Kibuishi these well-written, beautifully illustrated stories reflect a range of styles from the humerous to the fantastic. Explorer will appeal to young adult readers already in4ouch with the comics world and warmly invite in the more reluctant readers of this age group.

– Publisher’s Blurb

Like all short-story collections, some of the stories work better than others, but the most enjoyable part of this collection is seeing how the different artists approach the concept of the mysterious box, sometimes it plays a bigger role, others it only makes a fleeting appearance.

Thankfully there is no repetition and all the stories are unique. I particularly enjoyed, The Butter Thief by Rad Sechrist and Kazu Kibuishi’s own contribution.

All the artwork was of a really high standard, and really my only complaint was in the writing, and then only because most of the stories could all have done with being a few pages longer to properly explore their story lines. But, they may well have been constrained in how many pages they could take up in the final book.

But, that is only a minor niggle, and was much more about wanting more, from the book than a real criticism. Despite the shortness, the stories within, are both deceptively simple enough to be enjoyed by even the most reluctant 9 year old, but also ask enough questions to keep the interest of older more accomplished readers.

Stories:	★★★★½☆
Artwork:	★★★★★☆
Writing:	★★★★☆☆
Overall:	★★★★★☆

Buy: Explorer: The Mystery Boxes from The Book Depository Paperback
Buy: Explorer: The Mystery Boxes from The Book Depository Hardback 

My copy was provided by the publisher for review purposes.

Explorer: The Mystery Boxes is to be published on the 1st of March

When her classmate Katie Matthews is dumped by her boyfriend, who then kills himself — possibly because he’s (maybe) gay — the entire school goes into mourning overdrive.

It’s a weird time to fall in love, but that’s what happens to Skim when she starts meeting secretly with her neo-hippie English teacher, Ms. Archer. But then Ms. Archer abruptly leaves the school, and Skim has to cope with her confusion and isolation while her best friend, Lisa, tries to pull her into “real” life by setting up a hilarious double-date for the school’s semi formal.

Suicide, depression, love, homosexuality, crushes, cliques of popular, manipulative peers — the whole gamut of teen life is explored in this poignant glimpse into the heartache of being 16.

– Goodreads Synopsis

It was an interesting read, but it didn’t blow me away.

I felt a little disconnected from it all. I liked Skim and the fact that we followed her journey of self-discovery, and some of the elements, such as the Coven/AA meeting, the development of her friendship between Katie and herself felt genuine. But I never really felt the same about her friendship with Lisa. That might be because there’s already a distance between them, as their lives start taking different directions, but it made it hard to feel sad about it.

I also liked the tone of the story and the artwork was impressive and suited the story (and the tone) perfectly, especially the full page, and transitional ‘section’ art.

In the end, both the graphic novel format and the diary entry style, meant the various story lines never quite got the attention they needed. I kept feeling I was missing something about what was going on, that’s because of course Skim isn’t telling us it. But I would have like more detail, especially on probably the most important part of the story, when Skim fall’s for her teacher.

I would definitely recommend reading it, because it does have some good elements going for it, and I know a lot of people loved it and would get on with the style a lot more than I did, but in the end I’ve read graphic novels I’ve connected with better.

Not really disappointing as such, but just a shame I didn’t enjoy it more than I did.

Buy: Skim by Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki from The Book Depository

This post from Alyce, reminded me about upcoming changes to the Google Friend Connect service. From what I understand google are pulling support from non-Blogger blogs form 1st March, which means as I’m on a self-hosted WordPress site, that my updates will no longer show up on the service.

So I thought I’d highlight the various ways you can still subscribe to my posts and receive updates.

• Email: Receive an email each time I update (no more than one a day)
• RSS: Import my feed in Google Reader (or similar)
• Facebook: All posts are cross posted to my Facebook Page
• Twitter: Links to updates as well as everything else I tweet about
• FriendFeed: Updates from my blog, twitter & goodreads etc
• Google+ Page: Much more sporadic as I have to manually add updates and links

I also have a tumblr (but that hasn’t been pulling in my feed since before Christmas. But I do post about other stuff on their semi-regualry

Fracture is told from Delaney’s perspective, and if you’ve read the first two chapters, you know that she falls through the ice in chapter one, and she wakes up 6 days later. And what happens in between—well, that’s Decker’s story. 

This is the story of those eleven minutes, and the six days that follow, from his perspective. Because while it must be terrifying to be trapped under the ice, it’s a different kind of terror seeing your best friend trapped…

Especially if it’s your fault. 

– Publisher’s Blurb

This free (as long as you tweet or make a Facebook post about it) short story tells shows us just what those never-ending eleven minutes were like for Dexter and for those six days at the hospital where they weren’t sure whether Delaney would survive or not. And what state she’d be in if she did.

Dexter’s pain and despair are fully evident as is the love he has for his best friend, he dragged her out of the ice, and he’ll drag her back to life if he has to.

If you’ve read the Fracture and want to meet Dexter and Delaney again, or what to try out Megan Miranda’s writing before buying  Fracture, then I heartily recommend posting your tweet and downloading it. There are no spoilers within it, but it will certainly add to the experience of reading Fracture.

Characters:	★★★★★☆
Plot:	★★★★☆☆
Writing:	★★★★★☆
Just One More Page:	★★★★★☆
Overall:	★★★★½☆

Download Eleven Minutes by Megan Miranda from the Facebook page.

So it had a lot to live up to when I started reading it! Thankfully it more than managed to.

The book tells the story of Delaney Maxwell, and what happens to her after she is pulled from the ice-covered lake she fell into and the eleven minutes she spent under the ice.

Nobody should be able to survive such an event, but miracles do sometimes happen and Delaney is one of them. There appears to be a price though and she feels drawn to those about to die. Drawn as in physically pulled towards them.

At her side is Dexter Phillips, her neighbour and life long best friend. It was an argument with Dexter that led her to be standing alone on the ice when if fractured in the first place, but it was also Dexter who pulled her from the ice.

Then another boy, Troy, enters the story. Troy also survived an event he shouldn’t have, and when he seems to have the same new ‘gift’ as Delaney, she is drawn to him, as she tries to make sense of everything that has happened and os happening to her.

This new friendship, starts to put cracks in her friendship with Dexter. It becomes clear that Troy’s motives aren’t what she thought they were, can she draw away from him and repair her friendship with Dexter, when their gift keeps bringing them together?

I really enjoyed this one. It’s not as it first may appear a paranormal tale. Yes there is the mystery of the ‘gift’ both Delaney and Troy have, but is much more about the complexity of relationships and the importance of living life while you have it.

Backed up by some fantastic characters in Delaney and Dexter (I’ll be honest here and admit I’ve always had a weakness for couples that have been friends since childhood, I just like the dynamic it gives them. It doesn’t always need to end in romance either, even though it’s particularly sweet when it does. I also really feel the pain when there are road-humps in that friendship.) And I so much wanted them both to sort things out.

Troy is also an interesting ‘bad-guy’. He certainly is one, but he’s also suffered like Delaney and is probably more misguided than actually ‘evil’ in his intent, making you both want to feel sorry for him and punch him in the face!

Really enjoyable.

I’ll also be reviewing the ‘prequel’ short story, Eleven Minutes, which is told from Dexter’s point of view tomorrow. (Eleven Minutes is only available as an ebook).

Buy: Fracture by Megan Miranda from The Book Depository

January’s turned out to be a pretty good reading month so far, certainly better than the last few months of 2011, when my reading mojo went on an extended vacation!

Admittedly, there’s a couple of shorter books and graphic novels in there, but still 13 books is a decent start to the year and some really good ones in there as well. In fact if it wasn’t for one particular book, there would have been 2 or 3 vying for my favourite of the month.

I’ve also done a little better on keeping up with my reviews as well with another three not yet linked here due to go live over the coming days.

• Pure by Julianna Baguette
• Switched by Amanda Hocking
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• Skim by Mariko Tamaki, Jillian Tamaki
• Eleven Minutes by Megan Miranda
• Foundation by Issac Asimov
• Fracture by Megan Miranda
• Hana by Lauren Oliver
• The Storyteller by Antonia Micharlis
• Explorer: The Mystery Boxes by Kazu Kibuishi et al
• The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman
• Mortal Chaos by Matt Dickinson
• Department 19: The Rising by Will Hill

I don’t think it’ll come as a surprise to many of you, but my favourite book last month was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green! (I liked it that much I’ve also bought the audiobook so I can experience Hazel and Augustus’ story all over again, the narrator Kate Rudd is doing a superb job with it so far.)

When a butterfly startles a young rabbit, and the rabbit makes a horse rear, it starts a chain of events, over the course of one day, that will change people’s lives …and end people’s lives.

From a climber on Everest to a boy in Malawi …from a commercial pilot to an American psycho …the chaos knows no bounds.

This heart-stopping adventure by writer, film maker and climber Matt Dickinson will leave readers breathless. It’s the book Jack Bauer would have read as a teenager!

– Publisher’s Blurb

Matt Dickinson stopped by earlier to talk about his top five extreme reads, and just a short while ago I finished his first YA novel Mortal Chaos. Taking the concept of The Butterfly Effect Matt Dickinson weaves together a number of characters lives, all affected and brought together by the single beat of a butterfly’s wings in a small Wiltshire wood.

As the book opens, we are introduced to the large cast of characters spread out around the world, initially following their ordinary daily activities, before their lives are thrown in to chaos. (Apologies to my non-British blog readers who probably won’t know the TV programme) I was reminded of the usual start to an episode of Casualty, knowing the smelly stuff is about to hit the spinny thing for many of them, they just don’t know it yet.

Told in short snappy chapters rarely more than a page in length, often less. Matt Dickinson definitely keeps things moving, and you wanting to keep turning the pages. It could be a real mess, with so many individual story lines to follow, but he pulls it off with just the right amount of cliff-hangers and red-herrings to make you think you know what is going to happen next. Even then you’ll see a few things a connection or two ahead and want to follow them though to see what happens.

My only real issue was with the characters, we spend so little time with them each visit, with some of them it was quite hard to feel a connection until nearer the end. Yet there were some like the climber Kuni, who strong from the off. But that hardly matters when you keep turning the pages just to see what the next consequence of that butterfly is, and just how the author will wrap some of the less obvious connections into the mix.

Suffice it to say, not every consequence is a primary one, and it’s a pretty satsifying mix by the explosive ending.

A perfect read for younger teenage boys, especially those who are reluctant to, or claim not to have time to read.

Characters:	★★★½☆☆
Plot:	★★★★☆☆
Writing:	★★★★☆☆
Just One More Page:	★★★★★☆
Overall:	★★★★½☆

Buy: Mortal Chaos by Matt Dickinson from The Book Depository

My work as an expedition cameraman has taken me to some pretty extreme spots (including the summit of Mount Everest) but I am NEVER without a good book. I was reading at 8300 metres on Everest—camp 6, and in the wilds of Antarctica and in Greenland. Fellow climbers think i’m nuts for carrying books up rather big hills but to me its worth it.

So my top five extreme reads for the moment would be;

THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO by Patrick Ness

I read this in Nepal recently, a novel that takes you into a gritty world of betrayal and war seen through the eyes of teenage protagonists. An awesome read so packed with themes of good and evil that it leaves you breathless. Part one of a trilogy based on an alien world that will go down in literary legends as a classic.

BLADE by Tim Bowler

Blade is a kid on the run. He skulks in the shadows, living in vacant houses and escaping from a murky past. But he can’t stop looking over his shoulder and there’s some good reasons for that.  This is fast, fast fiction which is impossible to put down. It’s edgy, contemporary and dark. So edgy it is not advisable to read it with the lights off! Great use of language and a unique take on urban nightmares.

DELLA SAYS OMG! By Keris Stainton

I have to declare a connection here—the author of Della is repped by the same agent as me. But even so it still makes it onto my extreme reads list. It’s a romantic book but it has some great themes packed into it. Della has an enemy but she doesn’t know who. Her most intimate secrets are about to be known by the entire world. So its part detective story, part love story, and a thrilling journey to the dark potential of the internet. A terrific read.

FEVER CRUMB by Philip Reeve

No contemporary writers create mythical future worlds quite as brilliantly as Philip Reeve and Fever Crumb is a great example of his work. I was completely immersed in this story, with it’s vivid, almost Dickensian descriptions of a ramshackle city split by conflict and violence. The science is compelling and mind expanding. The characters are so real you quickly feel they are lifelong friends (or enemies!)

WAR HORSE by Michael Morpurgo

Now made into a big hollywood epic, this is a timeless story which moved me greatly when I read it in South America. There’s something elemental about our relationships with horses that seems to produce great fiction—and this story of a horse exposed to the carnage and injustice of war is one of the greats. A tear jerking journey of rare power and intensity, this is one of Morpurgo’s finest books. Looking forward to seeing the film.

MATT DICKINSON

Matt is an adventure film maker and only the fifth British climber in history to have scaled the treacherous North Face of Everest (his account of his ascent, The Death Zone, was a bestselling book). His first YA book Mortal Chaos is due out 02nd Feb.

‘The Butterfly Effect ‘: the scientific theory that a single occurrence, no matter how small, can change the course of the universe forever.

When a butterfly startles a young rabbit, and the rabbit makes a horse rear, it starts a chain of events, over the course of one day, that will change people’s lives …and end people’s lives.

From a climber on Everest to a boy in Malawi …from a commercial pilot to an American psycho …the chaos knows no bounds.

This heart-stopping adventure by writer, film maker and climber Matt Dickinson will leave readers breathless. It’s the book Jack Bauer would have read as a teenager!