The Mountains of Instead

You Never Can Tell With Bees (Review: The Bees by Lalline Paul)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 11:10:00 +0000

The Bees
Lalline Paul
Ecco, 2015

I have to make an admission before we get started: I’m pretty damn scared of bees. They don’t instill the same mind-numbing terror as wasps or my new Taiwanese nemesis the giant hornet. Still, it takes a lot for me to get through a book whose cover is swarming in aphids. I had to touch them! From the outset The Bees was asking me to run away screaming and write a scathing review so that no-one else would have to suffer. Miraculously it’s had the opposite effect; I’m now somewhat neutral, leaning towards positive, in my attitude to bees and happy to recommend the book to all and sundry.

On the surface The Bees looks like it should belong in the children’s section. A humble bee named Flora 717 awakens within her hive and proceeds to join the work of her caste, namely cleaning, the lowest of all duties. All bees within her home are named for their birthline, from the Floras, through the humble Teasels guarding the young, to the eminent Sages who control the daily activities of the entire beetropolis.

Enforcing law and order are the bee police, sinister agents who patrol the hive in search of any transgressions. Order and conformity are of paramount importance. Any bee suffering the slightest deformity is executed and disposed of for fear of contaminating others. Any activity endangering the hive, even simply growing old, warrants death. The highest crime is daring to lay an egg. Only the queen may breed. No exceptions, no forgiveness. So when Flora begins to notice that she is somewhat different she lives in terror of discovery, struggling between her desire to keep her head down and the uncontrollable urge to explore her potential.

As you may guess, The Bees can be viewed as a fairly simple parable. It’s a tale which has been told countless times but for very good reason. Themes like the fight against conformity and the search for identity resonate with all of us, particularly those encountering them in their formative years. As such this is a book which will find a fond home in the heart of many an adolescent. It’s not just a YA work though, and the book contains enough complexity and depth to sway even an avowed melissophobe like myself.

Through excellent powers of description, Lalline Paul manages to create a bee hive which sucks us right down to their size. What feels alien at the start of the book soon becomes a living, breathing world, albeit a claustrophobic one. The release felt upon finally leaving the hive is exhilarating, just as the first encounter with the Myriad (those other insects with which the bees share their territory) is terrifying. Whether scurrying through the walls of her home or exploring the vast fields and orchards surrounding it, Flora’s experiences really come alive in the reader’s mind.

This same attention to details helps bring life and individuality to the members of the colony, a none-too-easy task given their reputation as identical clones with no sense of self. Rather than individual characters, Paul smartly focuses on bringing character to each caste as a whole. This is accomplished with particular flair in the case of the only males in the hive, the Drones. They are depicted as raunchy, dashing sky-pilots, ever in search of the princess with whom they will mate and start a colony of their own, regaling the humble sisters with tales of their aerobatic and sexual prowess. I have no idea of this was intended but I simply could not read Drone passages without thinking of Lord Flashheart in Blackadder Goes Forth. It’s uncanny, I half expected them to start saying “Woof!”

My only criticism of The Bees is that Lalline Paul injected (sorry) a little too much eco-preaching into the book. Actually in hindsight it was probably less than I thought but it smacked of the usual misinformed media/public hysteria which flies in the face of all evidence. Inconvenient truths like the fact that bee populations across the world have been increasing steadily all through this century, with the number of active hives rising around 12.5% since 2000, seems to pass a lot of people by. (Donning my flameproof suit right now)

That minor niggle aside, it’s a great book. It bounces between smothering paranoia within the hive to exhilarating flying adventures without and as a result never seems to flag. There’s always enough going on to keep you turning the page and the pay-off, while you can see it coming a mile off, is well worth the wait. This a perfect gift for the rebellious teenager in your life. Just make sure you steal it and read it once they’re finished.

This review was brought to you by Cannonball Jones. The Bees is available now and would make an excellent Christmas gift to anyone who likes good books. Thank you to the publisher for providing us with a copy of this title to review.

On a Wing and a Prayer (Review: Winger by Andrew Smith)

noreply@blogger.com (Polka Dot Steph) — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 12:15:00 +0000

Winger
Andrew Smith
Egmont, 2014

This review contains spoilers. Consider this fair warning, although we'll warn you again below, before things get REALLY spoiler-y. You may now proceed.

Ryan Dean West is 14 and, as such, Ryan Dean West has problems. Not exactly abject poverty, incurable disease, downtrodden by the powerful masses problems but problems none the less. He is in love with his best friend Annie, he is spending this term bunking in the bad boys dorm and he is at least a year younger than his classmates, leading to the aforementioned Annie not exactly seeing him as hunk material. Never mind the constant threat of physical harm by being the only player on the rugby team that's around half the body weight of the rest. When you live on the campus of an extremely affluent boarding school these are the types of problems that can play on your mind.

Our journey with Ryan Dean covers his life over a school year, the trials and tribulations, the loves and losses and the drama that, at 14, we can all remember being absolutely world-ending (for about 2 days), all peppered with quirky cartoon strips of our protagonists own making. Or at least it should have been, that would have been nice. But instead Smith felt it necessary to go SUPER HARDCORE SERIOUS in the last 20 pages, so much so that the ending genuinely feels like it is a different book involving different characters. But not to the ending just yet.

Our erstwhile host Ryan Dean is a very average 14 year old boy - he is insecure, overwhelmed and feels that all the worlds ills will be righted if he has the opportunity to rub himself up against almost anything female. Sadly though, Smith has written him very averagely. I didn't find Ryan Dean particularly likeable or even interesting which led to me having huge problems getting hooked in to this book. Not only Ryan Dean but the majority of the characters I felt were woefully underdeveloped. Don't get me wrong, they were all fine and played their parts but there was just way too much tell and not enough show from the author - I didn't understand why most of the characters did what they did or behaved the way they did which, for a book which isn't particularly short, is a mean feat to achieve. But, to be more positive, Smith's mile-a-minute narration is always fun and really aided with the pacing of the overall tale which was, at times, mildly all over the place. Ryan Dean is witty and delivers a very believable teenage view of the world which I'm sure will transport a lot of the readers back to their own school days, be that a good or bad reminiscence!

HERE BE SPOILERS. LOOK AWAY NOW IF YOU DON'T WISH TO KNOW HOW IT ENDS.

But really, this ending I just can't make peace with and I'm going to have to lay down some pretty heavy spoilers here but I feel it's important for me to vent. There is an openly gay boy on Ryan Dean's rugby team who, early on in the book, gets some agro from a group of local kids at an away rugby game. Then, in the last twenty or so pages of the book, this boy goes missing from a party and is found tied to a tree, beaten to death, just for being gay. This is such a massive step-change from the rest of the book and it happens so close to the end that there is no satisfactory response from any of the characters. We are basically told that Ryan Dean was sad and then he got over it.

For me, it seemed a little too much like Smith was set on delivering a strong morality message to end Ryan Dean's story and tried to work back, creating a story around this. Even the language in the last chapter does not sound like the Ryan Dean that the reader has spent the last few hundred pages getting to know.

Whether I was just too in love with Grasshopper Jungle to ever share my heart with another of Smith's novels is very much a possibility but I can't help leaving Winger feeling just a little bit let down. What started out as a relatively light-hearted coming-of-age meander waded in with the hard-hitting moral stuff right at the end and it just didn't work for me. In my mind it created a clunky plot, that was pretty light for much of the book, and an overall tale that doesn't seem to quite know what it wants to be. Sadly, not nearly as clever or as organic-feeling as some of Smith's other work.

This review was brought to you by Polka-Dot Steph who Splendibird hasn't seen for FAR TOO LONG. Isn't that sad? Yes, yes it is. Winger (and it's sequel Stand-Off) are now available in all places that sell good books. As are Andrew Smith's other books, which we think you should ALL read. Thank you to Egmont for sending us this title to review.

This is Halloween! Some Terrible Treats for the Weekend...

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 11:59:00 +0000

I love Halloween, I always have. I think anybody who is a reader, or who spends a lot of time on their imagination can't help but be entranced by an evening so driven by stories. Even as a very young child, I liked the sharp thrill of fear, found between safe pages and each year, I ferret out my favourite scary stories to read and re-read in front of the fire, surrounded by the deep gloom of October evenings.

This year, we were lucky enough to receive not only new editions of two all time favourites, but also a rather special book that offer both a Halloween challenge and a lot of fearsome fun.

Firstly, Alma Books were kind enough to send us two of their Young Adult Classic series:

I read both of these books as a teenager and they have remained close to my fearful heart. I was actually rather obsessed with Hounds of Doom as a child.I was convinced that a werewolf regularly stalked the field behind our house. Really. So of course, I read The Hound of the Baskervilles. It terrified and thrilled me in equal measure, feeding both my desire to see an aforementioned Hound of Doom get his just deserts and my innate love of a good mystery. The story did both and continues to do so. It is a tale that stands up well to repeated re-reads and sends a shiver down the spine every time.

Dracula is, while similarly Gothic in tone, an altogether different kettle of fish. It has the most tremendous sense of forboding from the very first page and Stoker maintains an atmosphere of malingering, yet highly seductive, murk to the last. The story is frightening, the setting ominous and the fate of all those drawn towards the titular Count highly uncertain yet Dracula sits, like a spider in the heart of his web, horribly and terribly attractive. That, of course, is where the true horror of the story lies. For those who have experienced vampires only through Buffy and the CW network, this is the genesis of all those characters you hate to love.

These new editions from Alma not only have fantastic new covers courtesy of illustrator, David Mackintosh, but also have great sections at the end of each story exploring the authors and books that might be excellent next reads for those who want just a little bit more darkness in their light. All in all, both the stories and Alma's new take on packaging them are highly recommended.

For those of you who want a little more fun on fright night, Dandy's Horrorgami is the book for you!

This is an excellent introduction to the art of paper-cutting via the medium of, well, every horror story you care to think of. The book is beautifully produced and comes with cut-out-and-make sections to help you on your way to some truly terrifying spooky scenes. I have yet to take scalpel in hand and try these out but I certainly will be this weekend and have already invested in a few copies to hand out at Christmas. As you can see below, they should keep even the most avid horror afficianado pretty happy. If not covered in band-aids (that may just be me):

I am sure that mine will look EXACTLY like those when I am done hacking away at the pages. Possibly.
Thanks very much to the folk at Midas PR for sending this unusual and challenging project our way!

Now that we've hopefully got your collective Halloween read on, don't forget to take part in the Neil Gaiman created All Hallow's Read. Any of these books would be fantastic to pass on to the nearest fan of spooky stories.

Happy Reading and Happy Halloween - don't have nightmares....

As I Try To Make My Way to The Ordinary World - Review/Interview: Patrick Ness on The Rest of Us Just Live Here.

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 11:02:00 +0000

We're both fortunate and delighted to welcome Patrick Ness back to these here hills to talk about his new book The Rest of Us Just Live Here.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here takes the idea of a Chosen One (Harry, Buffy, Katniss, whoever) and asks: what about everyone else? What about the kids just trying to make it to graduation? What about the boy trying to figure out where he fits in while desperately hoping that his school stays intact this year? Protagonist Mikey is just that boy and as another Chosen One fights another battle that may or may not end in the apocalypse, Mikey has his own battles to fight, his own mundane existence to navigate and his own extraordinary, ordinary life to live.

Walker Books invited Splendibird herself to interview Patrick but sadly London was too far a trip this time. Sean, publicist extraordinaire, thus promised to take a list of our questions, put on a wig and a Scottish accent and pose as Splendibird in what was sure to be the interview event of the year. For some strange reason, this didn't happen. Instead he got Patrick to perform his own interrogation on behalf of The Mountains of Instead. Despite the tragedy of a wigless interview, it undoubtedly worked out better this way. Without further ado, we welcome Patrick Ness and The Rest of Us Just Live Here (oh, and in another plane of existence, Splendibird likes to go as Sya - which is SIGH-ah):

As a riff on the Chosen One genre, The Rest of Us Just Live Here is both clever and extremely funny not to mention pretty meta. For all of you out there who have ever loved a Buffy, an Elena, a Clarke or a Clary (not to mention a Jace, a Percy, a Katsa or a Sabriel - Ness really has a point about these names), the opening sections of each chapter will resonate loud and clear while also making you laugh to the point of tears.

However, The Rest of Us Just Live Here isn't a Chosen One book, it's a contemporary story about one boy figuring out how he fits into his own life. It is a story that will speak to all those who have ever felt like the least important, the lesser friend, the hardest work. It will speak to teenagers and adults alike in that we have all felt ordinary in an extraordinary world, all felt insecure and all negotiated the kind of close friendships that require the best kind of hard work. Finally, The Rest of Us Just Live Here is about family - the ties that bind. Ness writes the relationship between Mikey and his sisters in a way that is both hopeful and life-affirming and it is a pleasure to read a book that focuses on a bond that is so often passed over or written into cliche.

It is with great pleasure therefore, that we at Mountains of Instead, are able to recommend yet another Patrick Ness book without hesitation. He's our favourite, he really is. For those of you just coming across him for the first time, you can find reviews of his earlier work and a previous interview he kindly granted us by clicking on the Patrick Ness label at the bottom of this post. Read the reviews, then buy all the books because they are the kind of books you will want to have on your shelves FOREVER. For those of you returning to his writing, you won't be disappointed: go out, buy this book and set aside a couple of days. You're welcome.

This interview/review were brought to you by Splendibird. Thank you to Patrick for interviewing himself so gallantly and to Walker Books for providing us with a copy of this title for review. Finally, thank you to Sholto, best baby brother, for editing the video. The Rest of Us Just Live Here is available TOMORROW (27.8.15).

A Pirate's Life for Me (Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 11:31:00 +0000

Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier is one of my top five favourite books. I have re-read it once a year since I was about 16 which means that I've read it more times than I am willing to admit here. Yet as entranced as I have always been with Rebecca, and Maximilian and the young Mrs. de Winter, I had never been tempted to read anything else by Du Maurier until recently. What prompted my long overdue interest was an email from Little, Brown who have re-released Rebecca, Jamaica Inn and Frenchman's Creek with some gorgeous new covers and who were wondering if I'd like one to review. It seemed like the thing to do. So here we are, part of the Du Maurier blog tour. I urge you to check out all the stops on this one as, rather than just focussing on one book, it's focussing on several and each one is a classic. I know this because, having read Frenchman's Creek (thanks to Little, Brown) I sought out and read all three (including Rebecca. Again)....

Frenchman's Creek
Daphne Du Maurier
Little, Brown 2015

Dona - the Lady St. Columb - is entirely fed up with the tedium and hypocrisy of city life under the reign of Charles II. Being a woman who knows her own mind, she ups and leaves (kids in tow) to spend time in her husbands long abandoned Cornish estate, Navron. Rather than finding the house a dusty haven, however, she finds it inhabited by Jean-Benoit Aubery - a French pirate of disrepute, who has been holding the entire Cornish coast to ransom with his dastardly companions. Aubery, however (like all the best pirates), turns out to be imbued with a shrewd wit and undeniable charm and Dona soon finds herself, entirely understandably, under his spell. Shenanigans ensue.

Ah, pirates! Don't you just love them? There are surely few stories which would not benefit from a pirate thrown in for extra flavour. And Aubery is up there with my favourites. Move over Jack Sparrow, move over Long John Silver - Jean-Benoit is where it's at. Reckless, handsome and entirely tempting it's easy to see why one might run away to sea with him. Aubery makes escape from the mundanities of everyday life seem utterly possible, easy even, and as a reader for whom literature itself is a great escape, he is a hugely appealing character.

It is his offer of a better, more exciting, less dutiful life that seems to be what appeals to Dona, also. Married young to a kind yet far artless husband, Dona is desperate for something different. In taking her reluctant children to Navron she grants them a childhood far more innocent and fun-filled than any on offer in the city but her awareness that freedom of this sort is short-lived is tangible and Frenchman's Creek tells the story of her one grasp at living a life unencumbered by obligation. What makes her such a brilliant protagonist is the juxtaposition of her impulsivity and adventurous spirit up against her sure and certain knowledge that any adventure will surely be temporary. She's a joy to read.

As with Rebecca, there is a languid quality to Du Maurier's prose that belies the adventure at the heart of this novel. Her storytelling is dreamlike, Navron a place of endless sunshine and hidden treasure, billowing romance and seaswept kisses all underpinned by the knowledge that real life is just out of sight and inescapable. This style of writing, combined with such poigniancy leaves readers with a novel that is at once a romance, an adventure and a coming of age story to be enjoyed by all. For those of you yet to be convinced, it should be noted that it is set in Cornwall. Yes, THAT Cornwall! Where handsome young men sheer the verges in their pants! Also, it is entirely acceptable to envision Aubery as looking EXACTLY like the Dread Pirate Roberts. Or not. As you wish. Either way, pick up Frenchman's Creek. Hell, pick up all the re-released titles because each is equally good and will improve the looks of your bookshelves no end and you can find our more about them all by taking a peek at the other stops on the Du Maurier tour. Happy reading.

This review was brought to you by Splendibird who entirely enjoyed her brief sojourn on the Cornish coast and highly recommends you 
join Dona and Aubery there before the end of the Summer. Thank you to Little, Brown for sending us this title to review.

You Were Made for Me (Review: Made for You by Melissa Marr)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 11:43:00 +0000

Made for You

Melissa Marr

Harper Collin’s Childrens 2015

When Eva is victim of a hit and run in her sedate North Carolina town, she is confused. Who on earth would hit someone with a car and not stop? Who would want to hit her? Eva is, after all, Little Miss Popular with a locally noble lineage and all the right sort of friends. However, the matter of who hit her takes a back seat to the fact that she has woken from her accident with a strange ability. She can now, through touch, foresee how those around her are going to die. While her new gift seems at first a curse, she quickly realises that she was only the first victim of a killer who will stop at nothing to get to her and that her death sight might be the only chance she has of saving not only herself but also her friends. At her side stands Nate, an old not-quite-the-right-sort-of-friend, who has drifted back into her life after a long absence. Together they find themselves locked in a struggle with an unknown assailant – one that could easily end in both of their deaths.

Eva is a perfectly nice character. Born into a life of privilege, she’s very aware of her status and influence but hasn’t let it go to her head. However, she does have an air of superiority about her – particularly in terms of her peers. You get the impression that she finds them all a bit vacuous. To be fair, they seem a bit vacuous. From the jealous ex-boyfriend, to the cadre of giggling girls, they are all vaguely irritating and at times you wonder why she hangs out with them at all. Yet she seems to genuinely care for them and they for her, in their own way, and when she starts envisioning their imminent deaths her panic is palpable.

Luckily, Eva has Nate who is by far the most multi-faceted character in the whole shebang. There is something terribly attractive about any character who is told the unbelievable and solidly, loyally believes and Nate is one of those. Luckily, Marr has made him smart, caring and slightly mysterious rather than painting him as a love-sick puppy. He is not, in fact, unlike Wicked Lovely’s Seth – another Marr creation of definitive swoon. While Made for You’s narrative largely stems from Eva, it is interspersed with a first person narrative from the mystery killer whose rambling reasoning is all unsurprisingly disjointed and creepy. However, these sections are one of the novels failings as they somewhat quickly clue readers in to who the killer is. Perhaps this was intentional but removing this core mystery just leads to a lack of general suspense – something that Made for Youwas already sadly lacking.

Melissa Marr has proved her writing chops with the fantastically detailed and compelling Wicked Lovely series. However, Made for You falls pretty flat in comparison. It’s surprisingly short and at times oddly over-sentimental. The core premise is a strong one but not entirely unique and what it really required was a strong, dark undercurrent or at least more of an edge than it has. Yes, the killer is creepy and yes Eva’s ability has interesting repercussions but it’s hard to care about a cast of characters that, for the large part, are pretty badly underwritten. There are some great ideas that don’t really get the page time that might make them compelling (the idea of the language of flowers is a great one, but seems to get lost in the mix) and the grand denouement seems predictable by the time you reach it. The killer, while creepy in his obsession, comes across almost pantomime-like in his villainy and Eva, while readable enough, lacks any real depth of personality.

Ultimately, Made for You is a rather disappointing read from a writer who is truly excellent when on top of her game. For those looking for a genuinely compelling story of a similar ilk, I highly recommend Kimberly Derting’s Body Finder series while Barry Lyga writes a truly terrifying killer in his acclaimed I Hunt Killers. For those wanting to try out Melissa Marr as a writer, her Wicked Lovely series really is great as is her adult offering, Graveminder – start with these and perhaps leave Made for You for another day.

This review was brought to you by Splendibird really wishes that she'd liked the book more. Thank you to the publisher for sending us this title to review.

It's Pretty, But Is It Art? (Review: I'll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 14:21:00 +0000

I’ll Give You The Sun

Jandy Nelson

Walker 2015

Noah and Jude are twins, linked in that ineffable way that twins so often seem to be. Inseparable for their childhood, things start to change as they get older and I’ll Give You The Sun tells their story from two points in time and alternating perspectives: Noah at thirteen and Jude at sixteen. Hugely talented artists, we see them as they compete and negotiate, taking nothing off the table – not the moons, the ocean, the stars… not even their mother. As we read their wildly different realities it quickly becomes clear that they are telling their story from opposing sides of a terrible tragedy and that, for all their trading of the world and everything in it, there is far more at stake than the sun.

Noah’s narrative voice is strikingly resonant and entirely unique. An artist, his world is a painting made real, a kaleidoscopic whirlwind from the palette of a mad painter, swirled through with emotion and confusion, ambition and longing. Struggling with worn down truths and surprising new edges, not least the boy next door who gives him whole new universes, Noah longs for his sister even as she drifts from his reach. He is a character that is extraordinarily alive and his battle with himself is shot through with moments of sheer joy that will lift reader’s hearts even as his world darkens.

Seemingly the less talented twin Jude, in the three years between Noah’s narration and hers, has changed from the punchy, adventure seeking, rebellious sister that Noah watched with such awe and dread. Instead, she lives in a world that has been muted and drained of colour. Everything she touches seems to crumble and she seems haunted by what might be an angry ghost or what might be her own suffocating conscience. She’s a sculptor, encased in her own stone prison, endlessly reaching for a brother she no longer recognises nor is sure she deserves. Her grief and wearisome guilt is tangible on every page yet so is her latent passion and she’s a fascinating character to get to know.

In fact, I’ll Give You The Sun is filled with fascinating characters, all of whom are beautifully drawn by Nelson’s unique hand. Interweaving the story of Noah and Jude is a father who comes into focus differently depending on whose eyes view him; an erratic, all-consuming mother; a dead, yet surprisingly vocal grandmother; a boy with a face like a cracked mirror and a bowler pitching meteorites. All are compelling although if there is one weakness in the book it is the twins’ father, who is seen so differently by each of his children that he never entirely comes into focus for the reader.

The writing, as with Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere, is exceptional. Weird and truly wonderful, her prose lifts from each page and is vivid, visceral and lush, allowing the reader to transcend the basic plot and envelop themselves in a world that is a splurge of winding words and heavy metaphor. It shouldn’t work, particularly the level to which that heavy metaphor is used in each and every sentence, but it does. Magical, yet real, readers will find themselves entranced by this imagining of traded suns and grandmother’s who float by propelled only by magenta parasols.

While Nelson, as with her debut, riffs on sex, death, life, love, lust and identity – and does so with thought-provoking aplomb – what I’ll Give You The Sun is really about is the intangible relationship between twins: the endless push and pull, ebb and flow of two distinct hearts wrestling for ownership of a shared soul. It is fascinating, different and brilliant. For lovers of the gorgeous madness of Andrew Smith’s Grasshopper Jungleand the billowing prose of E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars this is surely a must read. For everyone else, if you love words and those who use them beautifully, this is your book of the year. Highly recommended.

This review was brought to you by Splendibird who spent her morning stroll along the beach searching for red sea glass and sand dollars, so thanks for that Jandy Nelson. You can read her equally glowing review of The Sky Is Everywhere here. I'll Give You The Sun is available now. Thank you to Walker Books for providing us with a copy of this title to review.

Secrets and Lies (Review: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher)

noreply@blogger.com (Polka Dot Steph) — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 16:00:00 +0000

Thirteen Reasons Why
Jay Asher
Razorbill 2007

Slightly late on the uptake - story of my life - but I have been looking forward to this for a while now. Goodreads reviews are hugely mixed and there has been a fair bit of controversy banded around. So is the fuss justified we rightly ask?

Clay arrives home from school to a package on his doorstep. The package has no sender or return address and contains 7 cassette tapes explaining the 13 reasons why Hannah Baker, Clay's schoolmate and object of his affections, chose to end her life. The tapes are being sent on a "round robin" to each of the people involved in the reasons for Hannah's decision, meaning that Clay knows almost from the opening of the book that he has, in some way, contributed to the suicide of a friend. And the vast majority of this book is simply the reader listening in real time as Clay hears these tapes for the first time.

And I loved this. The reader is given next to no context to this story - we know very little of Clay and all we know of Hannah is really what she chooses to divulge from her own perspective. The reader is essentially a voyeur to one night that changes Clay's life, after which we are left to draw our own conclusions as to how he has been affected by what he has learned. So what has he learned? What could a teenage girl believably have thought of as justification to take her own life? Well, as you may have expected from a teenage girl and to avoid any specific spoilers, a lot to do with friends, or the lack of, boys and the way she is perceived by others. At the time of reading each "tape", I remember clearly thinking that a fair few of the 13 reasons when considered in isolation were ridiculous. But considering, as Hannah calls it, "the snowball effect", suddenly I was completely invested and convinced of the downward spiral of this poor girl. Factor in the helplessness of Clay who is hearing Hannah's reasoning for the first, and voice for the last, time, the effect is pretty unique and utterly entrancing.

And so to one of the more controversial discussions points, the elephant in the room. There are bloggers, publishers, parents and others who believe, in some cases very loudly, that Thirteen Reasons Why glorifies suicide. I disagree. Whist I can see that Hannah being our narrator, and a very eloquent one at that, along with the odd manic-pixie-dreamgirl trait would have some people think she is exuding control from the great beyond, I don't think this is a glorification of her choice. Hannah had a story to tell that, for many reasons, she didn't have the opportunity to tell in life and so chose to tell it afterwards. As she says herself, the tapes are not about revenge, she has forgiven almost all who are mentioned in them, they are about the chance to be heard and it is so important for us to remember that that is the one thing so many in similar circumstances do not feel they have. To suggest that anyone, even a fictitious character, does not have the right to share their story with the world after taking a decision which was theirs and no one elses, I can't help but think would send a dangerous message, a message that would read, "You made the choice so your story doesn't matter".

For me, Thirteen Reasons Why isn't primarily a book about suicide. It's a story of grief and acceptance and acknowledgement, the acknowledgement that our actions, however small, directly affect all of those around us and we must use them wisely. But, mild controversy aside, a really strong read. I enjoyed it greatly. It's accessible without being simple and thought-provoking without being preachy (which I am aware I have more than made up for with this review). Proof that a small leading cast of really well written characters along with some fantastic scene setting gets you far. Good work Mr A, looking forward to reading your other offerings soon.

This review was brought to you by Polka-Dot Steph. Who is worried that she's been a bit ranty. But we believe it's an articulate and interesting rant. So, er, there.

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Childhood/Teen Books that I'd like to Revisit.

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 16:00:00 +0000

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme run by The Broke and The Bookish. It involves lists of, well, top tens. We like lists. This week's Top Ten on the Mountains of Instead is brought to you by Splendibird.

The problem with loving to read is that there are so many, many books in the world and so very little actual time in which to read them. This means that while I most certainly am a re-reader, I don't often get the opportunity to revisit the books that I would like to, including those that I re-read repeatedly as a child and teenager. This was by far the easiest top ten I've taken part in yet because these books lurk constantly, tempting me to turn away from the endless TBR pile and towards the past.

Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enwright

This was a book that I read a lot at about the age of eight. Until recently I couldn't remember what it was called but managed to track down the title with the help of the brilliant site What's That Book When I think of this book I have images of butterflies over a swamp, a rock inlaid with garnets and a hot and dreamlike summer filled with all the very best kind of things. I remember it so fondly that I am almost scared to return to it and ruin the memories I have of a halcyon read.

Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer

I've always been a sucker for time travel, for which I blame Doctor Who and also for boarding school stories for which I blame the Chalet School series. However, perhaps I should be laying the blame elsewhere as Charlotte Sometimes, a much beloved read of my childhood, contains both. When Charlotte heads off to boarding school she inadvertently heads off to the past at the same time where she appears to be an entirely different person. If you haven't read it, this is all you need to know. Head off and get a copy now. Really. Off you go.

The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen

This is cheating as I actually revisit this one all the time. I have always loved the story - it is absolutely my favourite fairytale. However, it is the specific edition that I had as a child that I particularly love, entirely due to the absolutely stunning and frighteningly magical illustration by Errol le Cain. Google them, they're beautiful.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

Because who doesn't want to have a boat and no parental supervision and an island and pirates and general shenanigans. I mean, seriously.

Remember Me by Christopher Pike

When I was a teen, there wasn't much in the way of Young Adult literature and what there was, from my hazy memories, revolved largely around the Point Horror stable of horror-lite, Caroline B. Cooney and Christopher Pike - all of whom I adored. Remember Me was my very favourite Pike book (although Weekend gave it a decent run for its money) what with the dead girl and the MURDER and the twist. I'd like to see how it stands up to the YA titles of today.

The Dark Half by Stephen King

In lieu of a large YA section in my library, I floated (like so many teens in the '90's) towards Stephen King. While I don't think The Dark Half was the first King title that I read it was absolutely the one that captured my imagination the most and I've been meaning to re-read it for years. The idea of a fictional character becoming an enraged reality still fascinates me and, to this day, I happily admit to getting creeped out by sparrows. Especially if they are flying. Again.

The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico

I have only very vague recollections of this story but what I have are enchanting and also sad. I remember feeling utterly transported as it was read to me, possibly because it was one of the very last books read aloud to me before I insisted on reading to myself. I'd like to see how it would make me feel now.

The Chronicles of Pantouflia by Andrew Lang

I could actually revisit this right now, as I bought it recently for my daughter. It's a wonderful selection of stories that includes seven league boots and a princess who attracts bees because she wears flowers in her hair and many other wonders. Also, I loved that cover as a small girl - I can remember just gazing at it because I thought it was so beautiful. I might read this tonight, actually. I have no doubt that it will be just as good as it was thirty years ago.

Cliffs of Fall (Review: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 12:59:00 +0000

Into Thin Air

Jon Krakauer

Pan Books 1997

Edmund Mallory, one of the first and keenest adventurers on Mount Everest was once asked why he wanted to climb it. He famously answered, “Because it’s there”. And people have been climbing it, because it is there, ever since. Not all with success. Mallory himself was killed before ever reaching the summit and his body languished on the frozen slopes for many years before it was recovered. This may sound gruesome yet it is not uncommon. Everest is veritably littered with bodies, lying frozen and forever inert their locations making recovery and burial nigh on impossible. Among these unfortunate souls lie several who met their end on the 10^th of May, 1996. Of the many who attempted to summit Everest that day, Jon Krakauer was one. A writer by trade and a keen and experienced climber, he was commissioned to write about the commercialisation of Everest and joined one of several guided expeditions heading to the summit. Into Thin Air tells the story of several groups on Everest that season, primarily focussing on the tour Krakauer joined, Adventure Consultants and one other, Mountain Madness.

Into Thin Air is incredibly compelling. The story is constructed carefully, slowly even, with Krakauer expertly weaving mountaineering history, techniques and philosophy into the build towards the fateful summit attempt. His story is full of strong characters and the members of each group slowly come into focus from the leaders, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer to the hugely varied clients whose only common ground often seems to be their desire to conquer the mountain. However, those looking for a cut and dried explanation of a terrible tragedy will not find their answers here. High altitude and terrible weather don’t lead to exact recollections and while Krakauer clearly spoke at length to all the major players both on the mountain and in the aftermath he himself admits that the accounts vary sometimes wildly. Everyone, it seems, remembers events slightly differently. Yet it all makes sense, in a terrible sort of way, and certainly it would be hard to reach the end of Into Thin Air without forming at least a vague opinion about why things went so terribly, terribly wrong.

Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air just six months after the events of 10^th May and his account lacks any real objectivity. His words are raw, often angry and he himself admits that (due, apart from anything, to the aforementioned effects of high altitude on actions and memory) he is a far from reliable narrator. He clearly has very strong views on certain aspects of the expedition he was part of and particularly focusses on Anatoli Boukreev, a Russian guide on the Mountain Madness expedition, whom he feels contributed in large part to the problems of May 10^th. It is worth noting that Boukreev co-wrote The Climb, his own account of the tragedy which gives readers a fascinating counterpoint to Into Thin Air. Jon Krakauer’s writing, though, is excellent. He draws you into a stark and alien landscape planet and skilfully shows why it is so attractive to so many. He allows you to feel the biting cold, trudge through the endless ice and breath the failing air. It’s a visceral reading experience.

Searing, brave and laden down with survivor’s guilt, Into Thin Air is a paean to the lost, a desperate plea to those left behind and the compulsive storytelling of a man for whom the tale will never end. I came to this book a mountaineering novice but since finishing it have read many more explorations of that intangible drive that makes us lift our eyes unto the hills and particularly towards Everest. I understand now, I think, why people look to that height of all heights and dream of ascension. They do it because they are alive; they do it because they can; they do it because they are looking for something regardless of risk; they do it because they are foolhardy; they do it because they long to dichotomously illustrate man’s dominance and insignificance. But mainly they do it because it’s there. Read Into Thin Air and I defy you to feel otherwise. Highly recommended.

This review was brought to you by Splendibird who is, by the way, now totally considering a trek to Everest Base Camp. Not UP the mountain. Well, probably not. Well, maybe... She also highly recommends The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt and Touching the Void by Joe Simpson.

Gon Out, Bizy, Back Son.

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 12:12:00 +0000

For the last few months I've had whooping cough. Whooping sounds like it should be fun, but it turns out it's rather crap. Anyway. I've not finished a book in nearly three months due to tiredness and lack of concentration. This is TERRIBLE. Obviously, this means a distinct lack of reviews. While I am now back at work, I'm also only JUST back to reading and it's a surprisingly slow process. Therefore, for the first time in nearly five years, The Mountains of Instead will be out of action until March 2015. I have lots of brilliant books to read and review and Polka Dot Steph and Cannonball Jones are also still avid contributors but for the moment we'll be lost in the depths of radio silence. Please don't forget about us and we'll see you in the spring.

Wake Up

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Sat, 20 Dec 2014 11:14:00 +0000

I don't do art. I mean, I like it, but I'm not terribly GOOD at it. However, Maggie Stiefvater last week launched an art contest to create a piece inspired by her Raven Cycle. I planned to sadly ignore the whole thing until I walked into The Royal Museum in Edinburgh and came upon a skeleton of an Irish Elk. So how could I not give it ago. I took some pictures, fiddled about with them and came up with this:

It speaks to me of my very favourite moment in a series that has been filled with favourite moments and if you haven't read The Raven Cycle then I hope this intrigues you enough to pick up the first book. And then the second. And then... well, you get my meaning.

Small print: This image is created from an original photograph and copyright belongs to me. All my own work. Yup, me - doing art for the first and probably the last time.

Ghost in the Machine (Review: Echo Boy by Matt Haig)

noreply@blogger.com (Polka Dot Steph) — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 10:46:00 +0000

Echo Boy
Matt Haig
Random House 2014

Space year 2115 - the future! Travel the globe and beyond in seconds, live forever thanks to insatiable advancements in medical science and, if you like, never leave the safety of your home again whilst living a better virtual life on-line! I know, what's not to like, right? Well, murderous robots, that's what. When Audrey emerges from her on-line school lesson one rainy morning to find her family's Echo standing over the bodies of her parents holding a bloodied knife, the future isn't looking quite so bright.

In a world of constant advancement, Audrey's father resists technology as much as possible. He is concerned that there will inevitably come a time when the robots so widely accepted in every home will become too intelligent, too dangerous. This is a contentious point of view in 2115, especially when your brother happens to own one of the largest manufacturers of Echos (friendly neighbourhood synthetic humanoids) in the world. At the very least it makes Christmas dinner really awkward. Audrey's uncle on the other hand is the King of the robotic revolution - where people want help there is money to be made and Alex is more than happy to take it from them. In a world of grimy and decaying cities, Alex is literally the man in the ivory tower.

And it is during a period of bizarre enforced seclusion at her Uncle's mansion after fleeing the scene of her parents' murder that Audrey meets Daniel, an Echo that, as it turns out, isn't quite what he seems. Can Daniel help Audrey uncover the truth about her parents' deaths? And can he really be nothing more than a walking computer programme when he seems to be so much more?

It's sci-fi, it's romance, it's a crime thriller but in all honesty, it was all just a little too much. I have heard Matt Haig describe Echo Boy as an amalgam of everything he loved as a teenager but sadly, this doesn't seem to gel quite as he would have hoped. The world building, whilst vivid, seemed clunky and overly elaborate and it just killed the pacing for me. At points I became so bogged down that I lost enthusiasm to even pick it back up. But the biggest disappointment for me was the lack of the wonderful black humour that we have come to expect from Matt - It was all a little relentlessly grim. The characterisation was really lacking for me also - whilst I can forgive Daniel being a little flat (you know, seeing as he's a robot) there was really no excuse for me not to feel any connection with Audrey. She is really the only constant human character and, for such a lot of page time, there seemed to be very little effort made in getting the reader to engage with her. Latterly I just felt that I was reading a series of events that were happening to these 2 individuals, I had next to no interest in Audrey and Daniel's fate.

Whilst there is no denying that Echo Boy explores some very relevant themes very eloquently; namely morality of advancing technology; it is questionable as to whether it really hits the spot as a work of young adult fiction. A little dry, a little oddly paced and just a little low-key. A disappointing outing from Mr Haig for me, fingers crossed for his next apocalyptic adventure.

This review was brought to you by Polka-Dot Steph. Echo Boy is available now. Thank you to Random House, via NetGalley, for sending us this title to review.

Full Fathom Five My Father Lies (Review: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 10:26:00 +0000

Blue Lily, Lily Blue
Maggie Stievfater
Scholastic 2014

Blue Lily, Lily Blue is the third book in Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle. This review therefore may contain mild spoilers for the previous two books (reviews of which you can find here and here).

In the arena of 300 Fox Way, Monmouth Manufacturing, Aglionby and Henrietta the times, they are a’changing. Blue finds herself with not one but two lost parents, Adam navigates a new and overwhelming reality, Gansey frets, and Ronan dreams. Persephone guides, Calla watches, and Mr. Grey hears his life in lyrics from the stereo of a white Mitsubishi. Meanwhile, Colin Greenmantle chases both knowledge and revenge, an old Englishman appears with his ignominious dog and underground sleepers sleep, some to be woken and some never to wake.

While the first two books in Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle have focussed primarily on one character (Blue in The Raven Boys and Ronan in The Dream Thieves), Blue Lily, Lily Blueis truly an ensemble affair. But, as with both previous books, the beating heart of the story is Richard Gansey III. Previously, Gansey has been both powerfully present and strangely intangible. Here he is vulnerable. From the very start of the story, Stiefvater takes Gansey and shows him as frightened and fragile. More than ever, she paints him as a character who walks daily a fine line between life and death. Not only is he vulnerable, he is worried. Worried about his friends, about his relationship with Blue and always, always about the quest that he fears may be ending – because what is Gansey without his search for Glendower? Gansey, always a fascinating character, has never been more compelling than he is with these fears and flaws to the fore.

His relationship with Blue is heart-rending to read for of course there can be no relationship. However, rather than focus on the fact that Blue can never kiss Gansey, Stiefvater chooses to focus on the delicate balance of the group as a whole and how the secret that Blue and Gansey hold might imbalance it. Very early on, Blue muses on the fascination the characters have for each other, the intense bond that she has forged with her Raven Boys and even as she knows it is perhaps unhealthy she can no more break it than she can stop breathing. Perhaps the most likely to upset the apple cart is Adam. A character intricately drawn he is, with Persephone’s help, finding his way in a brave new world and, as he does so, slowly coming to terms with both his past and his present. In terms of character development, Adam has always been the most interesting character and this continues in Blue Lily, Lily Blue. He’s a watcher, an observer of both himself and of the others and, in Blue Lily, Lily Blue he watches Ronan. Ronan still lives with his variety of secrets – they just aren’t all as secret as he might think.

As well as the core group of characters, Stiefvater continues to excel in weaving extremely well written adults into her story. While the Raven Cycle is clearly aimed at Young Adults, Stiefvater doesn’t pander to this age range when writing adults – instead she has created complex characters who exist in her story world not just as obligatory padding (as often seen in YA) but as an integral part of the plot. Standing out from the crowd are Persephone, eerie and ephemeral and Colin Greenmantle and his wife Piper, both splendidly and entirely sociopathic.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue takes the Raven Cycleto a far darker place than it has previously ventured and also one that is more frighteningly magical. The characters literally descend to the depths and impending peril lurks in every shadow. As with the previous books, Stiefvater uses words to pull readers expertly into a world that is familiar and unique, comforting and distressing. This is a story that feels ageless yet new – much like Gansey himself. It will leave readers both gasping for more (because damn you, Stiefvater, with your endings) and frightened to read on. Mainly, it will leave them with a literary photo reel running through their minds because this is a book filled with striking imagery: a dreamer in his lonely chair; a tragedy between two mirrors; a girl stepping into a dark lake; a shadow raging against the dying of his light; a herd of skeletal impossibilities, alive in an endless cavern and a boy, sitting in a dark kitchen, touching his face for fear that death might be crawling there. It’s amazing, it’s magical and it is by far some of the best writing I’ve ever come across. Highly, highly recommended.

This review was brought to you by Splendibird. Blue Lily, Lily Blue is available now. Thank you to lovely Melissa at The Book Nut for sending me her ARC so that I didn't have to wait. Because waiting was TOO MUCH.

Introducing our Youngest Contributor and her First Book Review

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 15:00:00 +0000

We don't really review books for anyone under YA age here on MOI, but that's all about to change because we have a new reviewer: Lady M. Lady M is six and has been interested in getting in about these here hills for a while. So here is her first book review, originally written out by hand before being faithfully transcribed (under Lady M's eagle eye) by Splendibird:

My Funny Family Gets Bigger

Chris Higgins
Hodder 2013

This book is about a new school term and a baby boy being born at Christmas it is also about making Christmas lists.

The main person is Mattie who is nice and tall and she loves school. The other characters are mum, she is nice and tall and Dad who is nice and tall and V who is good at reading and is naughty and Stanley who is nice and good at reading and Anika who is nice and good and Dontie who is nice and tall and Jellico who is loud and nice and is the dog.

I liked the bit when the baby is born because I like babies. I didn't like the bit where Mattie says that the year should start in September because my birthday is in January.

I would tell my friends that the book was nice and they should read it for themselves. I am going to read more books about Mattie.

This review was brought to you by Lady M. My Funny Family Gets Bigger is available now. Lady M plans on writing more reviews but does not plan on learning to type, as she feels it is unnecessary when Splendibird is available. She applies this logic to many things.

Weighed And Found Wanting (Review: #Scandal by Daisy Ockler)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 11:50:00 +0000

#Scandal

Daisy Ockler

Simon Pulse 2014

Lavender Oaks High is online, all the time. At least the students are… and most of the staff, too. It’s a digital world, with Facebook ruling the technological roost – much like the majority of high school s in the Western world. At Lavender Oaks, the hive mind is of social media is observed, catalogued and encouraged by Miss Demeanour, a mysterious figure always on the lookout for the next scandal. Lucy Vaccaro follows Miss D. as avidly as the next person but when compromising photos of Lucy and her best friend’s boyfriend appear online, she finds herself at the heart of her very own #Scandal.

Lucy, while hardly flawless, is quick to own her mistakes and over the course of the story comes a long way in terms of maturity, friendships and perception of others. The relationships that she has with her friends and family (all of whom are exceptionally well-realised) are extremely believable as is her confusing romance with Cole, a suitably lovely if equally flawed character. Her attitude towards her sister is particularly interesting in that it has been skewed by her sister’s portrayal in the public eye which in turn has been influenced by her sister’s very real yet magnified issues. But then that is what Lucy’s story is all about – perception and communication and the overload of both in the world of always accessible social media.

#Scandalis a bit of a rollercoaster ride. It overflows with the kind of surrealist humour and youthful cynicism of Glee and Easy A and Ockler clearly has her finger on the pulse of new and less than new pop culture with references to Buffy, Veronica Mars, Twilight and The Hunger Games. Miss Demeanour is a shameless homage to Gossip Girl herself. It’s all highly knowing, more than a little bit meta and extremely entertaining. Yet Ockler, rather than merely providing readers with a bit of clever fluff (and there is nothing wrong with clever fluff) adds a murkier layer to what is ultimately a morality tale.

Cyberbullying is a pretty terrifying reality and #Scandaldemonstrates how swiftly and effectively a reputation can be destroyed, while pointing out that school administrations and adults in general need to make themselves aware of exactly what is going on in a world where the millennial generation and beyond embrace new technology in the manner of fishes and water. While highly entertaining, #Scandal is a tale of our times and I suspect we should all be taking notes.

The kids we meet at Lavender Oaks live lives that are utterly informed not only by social but also by traditional media. Facebook might be at the heart of Lucy’s scandal, but it quickly becomes clear that the lens through which she and her friends view the world is one darkened by TV, tabloids, smart phones and Twitter. They are both the watchers and the watched and they are hyper both of the power they hold as much as of the vulnerability engendered by the all-seeing eye of the modern world. Ockler skilfully explores just how much can be lost through living life online rather than face to face – a lesson that Lucy learns in time but which will leave you wondering about the rest of us. Highly recommended.

This review was brought to you by Splendibird. #Scandal is available now. Thank you to the publisher, via Edelweiss, for providing us with a copy of this title to review.

Half Bad, Half Wild... and Half Lies (Sally Green sneak peaks)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 09:32:00 +0000

Sally Green's Half Bad was the breakthrough book of the YA scene last year. Beautifully written, haunting and unique it was an extraordinary debut. So extraordinary, in fact that it holds the Guinness World Record for pre-publication translations and has now been sold in fifty languages around the world.

Half Bad tells the story of Nathan, a boy brought up in a world of black and white and one in which is is the only shade of grey. Oh, and they are all witches - but not quite as you've seen them before. After meeting Marcus, his mysterious and somewhat frightening father, and receiving the three gifts that confirm him as a full adult witch, Nathan is still running from just about everyone. Half Wild, the second book in Green's trilogy, sees Nathan searches for his friend, Gabriel, and Annalise, the girl he loves, he desperately tries to control his Gift – before it controls him.

Intriguing stuff, indeed. You can find our review of Half Bad here and if that isn't enough to tide you over you can now read the first chapter of Half Wild here. Sadly, Half Wild won't be published until March 2015 but to tide you over further, Penguin have announced the publication of short story Half Lies:

"Set in the months before Half Bad, Half Lies takes the form of a diary written by Michele, the sister of Gabriel, Nathan’s Black witch friend. Having fled Europe for Florida, Michele falls in love with a local White witch boy. There, she finds that the divide between the Black and White witch communities is just as dangerous as it was in the life she's left behind".

Half Lies will be published across all digital formats on 13th November 2014. Mark it in your diaries people, Green's writing is not to be missed!

FYA Photo-a-Day: 17 Fred Savage

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 13:40:00 +0000

Everyone knows that Fred Savage hates kissing books:

Myself, I can live with them. Me, I really can't stand...

New Adult.

The tropes that repeat, ad nauseum, in NA titles are both predictable and troublesome. There is usually a strong-willed female protagonist with a troubled past. The troubled past almost always involves sex. While she may be a virgin, she most certainly will have experienced sexual trauma of some sort. In the rare exceptions, she has been physically or emotionally abused instead or as well of the afore mentioned trauma. Either way, she has usually run off to a far distant university to escape and move on. There, she will meet a young man. This young man will be hugely handsome but will instantly ring warning bells in her head because he will be charming but edgy, often renowned for either womanising or fighting (often both) and while she will try and stay away from him he will refuse to take no for an answer be it to a date or a kiss or a sleepover (a familiar scene in NA is when he insists that they can share a bed innocently and then grinds his erection into her at every opportunity).

Later, our protagonist will fall for his insistent "charm" and he will proceed to fix all of her past woes. Usually with his dick. The end.

There are a few exceptions in the genre, there are some decent love interests who demonstrate kindness and understanding but they usually have a secret that they lie about and the stories always have a murky backdrop of assault, rape or emotional manipulation. It's not great and it misses the opportunity to look at a truly interesting and complicated period of change. So, Fred, I think it's worse than plain old kissing books. I have only reviewed one NA book (although I read several, seeking anything decent) and you can find that review below (it's one of the better ones that I read on my travails through the genre, Beautiful Disaster as pictured above, is truly ghastly on just about every level). Read the two recommended at the end - they are excellent and exactly what NA should really be.

The Secret of Ella and Micha - Jessica Sorensen

Ella and Micha have been friends forever, seeing each other through their difficult childhoods. However, after a series of tragic events, Ella realises that she needs to leave her past behind and flees to college, leaving Micha behind with no idea of where she is or whether she will ever return. While Micha has searched for her, suspended in place by the night she disappeared, Ella has spent the year reinventing herself but she can’t stay away forever and, come summer break, she finds herself returning to a house full of bad memories and the boy next door who won’t take no for an answer.

Ella is a character who will be quickly familiar to any readers of the newly minted New Adult genre. Damaged by a past that involves both violence and neglect, she’s trying desperately to change her life. Brittle, suspicious and fragile she’s also resourceful and smart – she got herself to college, made new friends, funded herself and seems to generally have her head screwed on the right way. However, she’s clearly not come to terms with the events of her past and needs someone to help her do so. So far, so NA protagonist. And she really doesn’t get much more original. The best that can be said for Ella is that she’s vaguely likeable and her character’s mental health is handled with a degree of care. Her treatment of Micha is understandable, while selfish, and her reluctance to spend time with him a measure of her desire to escape a past she doesn’t really understand.

Micha, sadly, is also all too familiar. When Ella returns he is understandably angry and hurt, as well as worried. This could have been a great way to create a sympathetic, conflicted character but instead Micha reacts by turning into the rapidly emerging stereotypical male of the genre. In order to get the attention of a girl whom he knows to be deeply damaged, he flirts with people in front of her, climbs unbidden into her bed (sadly another well-worn scenario in the world of NA), slides his hand up her skirt in public and states that he “has to have her”, seeming to truly believe that his moronic, testosterone fuelled claim on her will somehow ease her troubled past. What a PRINCE! In the few chapters in which Micha manages to get his mind away from his nethers, he actually comes across as quite a nice, thoughtful guy and later does address Ella’s long-standing intimacy issues but it’s too little, too late. To be honest, the fact that he recognises that she has intimacy issues at all only sheds an even nastier light on his possessive, pushy behaviour.

The Secret of Ella and Micha is frustrating in that it has the potential to be so much more. The issues raised are interesting, the family dynamics curious and the gorgeous best friend, desperately worried for his neighbour should be breath-takingly romantic. But this is New Adult, people, and so rather than focus on the aforementioned plot points, The Secret of Ella and Micha focuses largely on sex. Now sex scenes are fun, hell, more books should have them, but New Adult as a genre seems to use sex instead of storyline, regularly mixing it into stories in which the girls are damaged and the boys are lined up to convince them that therapy won’t work as well as a good dicking. Certainly, consensual sex has a role in these storylines, with Ella and Micha it certainly represents her starting to overcome some issues, but the way in which the men in NA push their desire onto the women is, quite frankly, a bit icky – I don’t care how gorgeous they are.

This isn’t the first NA book that has disappointed me. I keep reading the genre in the hope that one will appear that will illustrate to actual New Adults (whatever they are) that the start of your adult life isn’t necessarily filled with trauma and sexual manipulation. Thus far, the best New Adult books I’ve read haven’t been published under that particular genre label but rather remained in the YA bracket. Both Where She Went by Gayle Forman and Lovely, Dark and Deep by Amy McNamara look at issues surrounding a troubled past and an uncertain future, both feature protagonists in their late teens/early twenties and both feature sex; both, critically, handle it all far better than anything on the NA shelves, including, sadly,The Secret of Ella and Micha.

FYA Photo-a-Day: 17 Do Not Read In Public

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 13:05:00 +0000

This one was easy:

...because of all the feelings. And the tears.

Hazel Grace is dying. She’s been dying for quite a while from the cancerous tumours submerging her tired lungs and she is quietly resigned to the end of her personal story. This doesn’t stop her from getting a bit depressed (an understandable side effect, as she so succinctly puts it, of dying) and, some years after her initial diagnosis of fatality, she finds herself attending a support group for cancer kids. It’s not really her bag but she gets through each session exchanging silent cynicisms with one-eyed Isaac. Until the day that Isaac turns up with a friend, cancer-free Augustus Waters, who sweeps into Hazel’s life on one leg, a wave of bad video games and an overwhelming lust for life. He quickly inveigles his way into Hazel’s one great passion, the book An Imperial Affliction, and her desire to find out what happens after the last page.

Hazel is a character who jumps of the page and is far from the atypical Young Cancer Sufferer of other books. Partly, this is due to the fact that she has no hope of survival. From the day she was first diagnosed she has known that her illness was terminal and it is only due to a wonder that she continues to live at all. Additionally, Hazel does not Live Every Day As Though It Were Her Last. Rather, she watches a lot of America’s Top Model. She doesn’t feel the need to do great things but rather wishes to leave as few ripples as possible. She’s OK with her fate, she really is, but she’s not so sure about the fate of those left behind. Never more clearly is this seen than in her fascination with An Imperial Affliction and particularly in her desperation to know what happens to its protagonist’s mother. Hazel is fascinating and massively sympathetic without ever really engendering pity. She’s simply a unique and marvellous creation.

Augustus is less likely to watch life from the side lines. Having survived a pretty survivable cancer almost intact he is desperate to make his mark. He doesn’t know how he’s going to do it, but he’s driven to affect the world in a way that Hazel is not. He seems to be constantly searching for meaning and the way in which he latches on to An Imperial Affliction and its ideas is unsurprising. To say more about Augustus would detract from the pleasure you will find in reading him for yourself so suffice to say that he is a character of utter luminosity, he shall be left for you to discover alone. The list of additional characters is small yet they strong. From the minor (hilariously tragic and testicle-less Patrick) to the major (Isaac, eyeless and lovelorn) to the vital (every parent in the book) they are beautifully realised. Particularly mention, however, must go to Van Houten, a man introduced largely through the excerpts of his book, An Imperial Affliction. He is a tour de force of belligerent insanity and searing truth.

John Green has gone out of his way to avoid the tropes so often seen in Cancer Books (to the point where his characters witheringly decry the stereotypes throughout); apart from anything else, The Fault in our Stars is extremely funny. Even in its saddest moments, Green is able to surprise you with a scene that will have you crying with laughter. But not just laughter. Lest we forget, this is a book about a dying girl and if it doesn’t have you in floods of tears at least once then, quite frankly, you should consider the fact that you may not actually have a soul. Particularly moving are the portrayals of parents who deal constantly with the prospective loss of their only child. Hazel’s father is especially heart-breaking as a man prone to tears and reading this book as a parent was particularly difficult. The writing is, as one might expect from Green, excellent be it describing children leaping from bone to bone or petals strewn on water.

The Fault in our Stars is by far the most accomplished book yet from King of the Internets, Green. While all of his previous work has been impressive, there has been a tendency on his part to use his super-smart teen protagonists as a mouthpiece for what you have to assume are Big Ideas that have been rattling around his own conciousness. It’s always worked but has always left me with the suspicion that I’m really reading John Green being John Green (which, admittedly, is massively enjoyable). However, in TFIOS, he avoids this almost entirely. Hazel is his first female protagonist and he’s given her a fantastically strong, utterly unique, narrative voice. Yes, her and Gus are very bright and yes, they have a lot of deeply philosophical thoughts on the world but John Green saves the real existentialism for Van Houten and An Imperial Affliction, a book I very much hope he actually writes one day.

This is a book that feels like it should carry some sort of message in its worthy pages, but I don’t know it if does other than whatever the individual reader takes from it. Green is clearly a man who Thinks Deeply and would like us all Think Deep Thoughts. Well, mad props, Mr Green, you got me. On finishing The Fault in our Stars, I wiped away my tears and stepped outside to observe the universe wondering if it, in turn, observed me but above all awed at the ineffable elegance of it all. I hope that, on finishing this extraordinary book, you do too.

This review was first posted on The Mountains of Instead in 2013.

FYA Photo-a-Day 16: Drink of Choice. And no, it's surprisingly not gin.

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 17:00:00 +0000

...because who doesn't like a nice cup of tea. Makes the world a better place.

FYA Photo-a-day: 13, 14, 15.

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 10:49:00 +0000

Favourite reading spot

When the weather is nice, I like to take a cup of coffee and my book and wonder down to the end of my street where there is a nice bench and a handy wall and the sea. And don't think for a minute I don't know how lucky I am...

Best Cover

I couldn't choose. But at the moment I like these. In fact, a lot of the covers that I like involve red, black and white. You can find ten of my favourites here.

Worst Cover

I mean, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. Just before the release of the final book in this series, I was sent the first five and challenged by a publicist to read and review them in two weeks. I did. But I didn't bloody read them in public. Everything about this cover is wrong; the colours, the composition and most of all the MASSIVE FACES. I hate faces on covers - I feel like it robs me of the chance to see the characters in my head as I learn what they look like. But, in this case, that is beside the point as it is shit on a hundred different levels. Since release, the VA books have all had cover re-designs and now look a lot more palatable. Which is good, as they are actually a lot of fun and now you can have fun reading them in front of people, too.

FYA Photo-a-Day 12: A Powerful Quote

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 17:54:00 +0000

Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life—and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. Toby was Bailey’s boyfriend; his grief mirrors Lennie’s own. Joe is the new boy in town, a transplant from Paris whose nearly magical grin is matched only by his musical talent. For Lennie, they’re the sun and the moon; one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But just like their celestial counterparts, they can’t collide without the whole wide world exploding. (Goodreads)

The Sky Is Everywhere is a beautiful book both in terms of Jandy Nelson's gorgeous writing and visually. It is printed in lovely blue ink which and there are handwritten poems scrawled throughout its pages, photographed on paper cups, candy wrappers, bits of newspaper, bark and bathroom tiles among other things (all in full colour). I spent a good half hour just leafing through my copy when it first arrived – it was like a beautifully wrapped present. On getting over my sheer delight at getting an object d'art when all I'd been expecting was a book, my first thoughts were that the publishers must have thought it was some story if they put such a lot into the book design, as I don't imagine it was cheap to produce. Luckily for them, they were right.

This is in large part thanks to some quite spectacular writing. Breathtaking and beautiful, Jandy Nelson's prose billows out of the book in huge, overwhelming waves. It should be too much, but it's not. Lennie's grief for sister Bailey is not a quiet one and screams out of her in a vicious waterfall of loss, yearning, desire and love because Lennie is not dead – she is very, very much alive. While in the very depths of mourning, Lennie finds herself drawn towards Bailey's boyfriend Toby and a whirlwind of tears, lust and raw need ensues. This could have been distasteful, but instead it is gut-wrenchingly sad. Simultaneously, a new boy enters Lennie's life in the shape of Joe Fontaine – gentle, kind, happy and above all, able to offer Lennie solace and escape as someone who knew her only after Bailey's death. The narrative follows Lennie as she moves back and forth between light and shade, Toby and Joe. I am sure that many profound things have been said about sex and death and I'm not going to try and be clever about it. In The Sky Is Everywhere sex is portrayed as life-affirming in the most literal way. Toby and Lennie's desire makes them feel alive when nothing else does and in doing so makes them feel closer to Bailey, despite the horrendous guilt that it also brings. Lennie's desire and love for Joe is also life-affirming in the truer, more existential sense. He makes her feel healthy, strong, happy and hopeful. More than anything, while Toby makes Lennie feel real in that she feels close to Bailey, Joe allows her to be true to herself and therefore feel truly alive.

For me, everything in The Sky Is Everywhere is gloriously, vividly alive. The only thing dead in the book is Bailey and perhaps the sad shadow that is Toby – a character made two-dimensional in his grief only scraping a reprieve towards the last few pages. Creaking trees, magical roses, music, tears and magnificent smiles jump off the page and it is impossible not to rejoice in the sheer vividness of Lennie's everyday life. Be it what lifts you up or what tethers you down, Jandy Nelson reminds us that it is all life and is there to be embraced and above all, lived.

On a final and somewhat lighter note, I would personally very much like to have a set of Fontaine brothers. They could live in my closet. I would take them out whenever I felt sad and they would make me feel better and save on my electricity bills.

Bat. Bat. Bat.

Indeed.

All That Glitters (Review: The Jewel by Amy Ewing)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 10:30:00 +0000

The Jewel

Amy Ewing

Walker 2014

Violet Lasting is about to become Lot 197, a child-bearing commodity for the wealthy of her city who reside in the glittering confines of the Jewel. Previously ruled by four houses and now by an Elector and Electress, it has long been known that the Jewel is barren – or at least that children borne by the elite don’t always turn out as planned – and the ladies of the district now use surrogates from the poorer parts of the city. Violet is such a surrogate. Sold, by a significant amount to the Duchess of the Lake, she finds herself surrounded by beauty, wealth, cruelty and death. Destined to carry the child of a woman who plots to bring down the very society she inhabits, Violet finds herself lost, if not entirely alone…

The world that Amy Ewing has created in her debut novel is a small yet striking one, although it brings little that seems truly unique. The glittering castles and concerts halls, combined with the many Duchesses, Countesses and Ladies bring to mind a corrupted Wonderland (not at all dissimilar to the one created by Frank Beddor in The Looking Glass Wars) while the outer districts, inhabited as they are by scruffy children and the indentured poor bring to mind the streets of Victorian London. It’s not a bad juxtaposition, although hardly original with the Jewel itself being of far more interest than the muddy streets of the common folk. Still, most of the action takes place in the home of the Duchess with Violet spending only enough time outside the walls to understand that things are not as pretty as they might appear.

Violet herself is likable enough. She is clearly uncomfortable with her lot in life and shows admirable backbone when faced with the conniving coldness of the Duchess of the Lake yet she lacks passion. She is keen to escape the story that fate has written for her but does little bar sit around and wait to be rescued. When she meets Ash, a young man whose lot in life is as steeped in exploitative servitude as her own, she is believably swept up by her feelings, having had nothing to do with boys previous to her arrival in the Jewel. Ash is also very readable, not to mention a bit more interesting than Violet thanks to his own back story, but their relationship develops over half a dozen short scenes into what can only be described as the dreaded instalove.

The relationship that actually keeps The Jewel alive is that between Violet and The Duchess. The Duchess is a marvelous creation and by the end of the book has emerged as a multi-faceted villain who readers will both love to hate but occasionally find themselves pitying. The scenes between the two women spark with mutual contempt and bitterness. It is in these scenes that Amy Ewing’s writing comes alive and they kept me reading to the last page. Another arresting character is Lucien and I sincerely hope that the small amount of back story pertaining to his character is not all we get.

The Jewel is not an unimpressive debut, it flows well and the writing is compelling enough but it suffers a little from style over content. The descriptions of the glorious homes, verdant gardens and beautiful music overwhelm a plot in which very little actually happens. As in Lauren De Stefano’s Wither, the relationship that Violet finds herself in seems to be there for the sake of having a love interest and felt forced, despite the attractively troubled Ash. Additionally, the strange powers that Violet and her fellow surrogates seem to possess are so vaguely described that they become almost an irritation.

The Jewel is the first in a trilogy and while it is certainly flawed there is a lot to encourage readers to return for book two, not least curiosity about Violet’s fate the promise of more from the Duchess of the Lake. Amy Ewing has the start of a very good story in The Jewel , it’s just a shame that she took a whole book to outline the bare bones. Here in The Mountains of Instead, we recommend this title to those who enjoyed Eveby Anna Carey or De Stefano’s Chemical Garden series, The Jewel has potential to be better than both but reaches nowhere near the dizzy heights of The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood), which it has been compared to and which, if you enjoyed this, you should really pick up next.

This review was brought to you by Splendibird. The Jewel is available now. Thank you to the publisher for providing us with a copy of this title to review.

FYA Photo-a-Day 11: Fictional Love (a special addition for Shona and the YAckers)

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 10:56:00 +0000

Sebastian Scott from the Sadler's Wells series by Lorna Hill

A long time ago, back when the Mountains of Instead were mere hillocks, I wrote a post about the attractiveness of men who play music. I listed my favourites, or at least the ones that would have had me swooning as a teen. You can find them here and they are a lovely lot, but number one was Sebastian. And still is. This is why:

I first read the Sadler's Wells books when I was about nine. I was really into ballet, and that is what they focus on so I was happy (there are also a lot of horses featured, but you can't have everything). Sebastian doesn't appear in all of the books, just the first two where he plays antagonist and love interest to heroine Veronica. Sebastian is smart, wickedly so and is absolutely driven by his music. He cannot live without it, or Veronica, for whom he plays while she dances (usually in some swoony outdoor setting). He is hot – all dark hair, piercing blue eyes, slightly northern accent and long piano-player fingers. He is also a bit of a bad boy – in that he can be a bit cruel, his humour sarcastic and his judgements final. Importantly, he has some issues involving family and being chucked out of his ancestral home. For years he was all I looked for in a boy – it is no coincidence that my first serious boyfriend was an immensely talented, hugely sarcastic, slightly broken piano player. And just as Sebastian informed my choices in men then, I suspect he still does. If further proof be needed, read again that description and then feast your eyes:

It can be NO COINCIDENCE. Not only is Sebastian the reason that I am no longer a ballet dancer but still a pianist, I have been casting him in ALL THE BOOKS ever since. The first cut clearly, in this case, is absolutely the deepest. Sebastian – you got me at an impressionable age, and my heart remains with you....

FYA Photo-a-Day 10 - TEABS!

noreply@blogger.com (The Mountains of Instead) — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 11:46:00 +0000

TEABS - for the uninitiated, The End of an Awesome Book syndrome or the end of book blues. You know the ones... those times where you finish a book that has been so wonderful or which has emotionally slain you so badly that you wonder about for a week or two, listlessly picking books up and setting them down again because NO BOOK WILL EVER EVER SPEAK TO YOU IN THE SAME WAY EVER AGAIN. Those.

This was an easy choice:

He's a bad man, that Mr. Ness. With his stories and his characters and all THE FEELINGS. Each of the Chaos Walking books gave me terrible TEABS. And the short story he produced recently didn't help. You can find reviews of The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men by clicking on the links. Read them - they are truly extraordinary - but don't say I didn't warn you.