We Come Apart by Sarah Crossan and Brian Conaghan

You have to be quick, 

none of this pretending to be browsing business

that some shoplifters go for. 

It's in

grab what you want

and out again. 

Published by Bloomsbury in January 2017

Pages - 324

Summary

Authors Brian Conaghan and Sarah Crossan have joined forces to tell the story of Nicu and Jess, two troubled teens whose paths cross in the unlikeliest of places.

Nicu has emigrated from Romania and is struggling to find his place in his new home. Meanwhile, Jess's home life is overshadowed by violence. When Nicu and Jess meet, what starts out as friendship grows into romance as the two bond over their painful pasts and hopeful futures. But will they be able to save each other, let alone themselves?

For fans of Una LaMarche’s Like No Other, this illuminating story told in dual points of view through vibrant verse will stay with readers long after they've turned the last page. 

***

I read this book about a month ago and it has taken me this long to decide how I feel about it and be able to put it in words. 

It's obvious from the first poem that every word has been meticulously chosen to create the atmosphere and tone of the story. This is something I've grown to expect from Sarah Crossan and it's refreshing to see it still works when in collaboration with Costa Award winning author, Brian Conaghan. 

The voices of Nicu and Jess are very distinct that I convinced that they were written individually be each author, with Sarah taking on Jess's voice and Brian taking on Nicu's.  Since hearing the two authors discussing the book at Waterstones in Brighton, I've discovered that this is not the case and there were times within the writing and editing stages that each author wrote for the other character, showing just how strongly in sync these authors were with the characters they were writing about. This verse novel is seamless. Both voices blend easily together, each pushing forward with the story, but with such distinct voices. 

Jess and Nicu both come from very different backgrounds. Each of them have struggles and their meeting creates a pivotal point in their lives. At times the poems were extremely emotional and very hard to read. Jess's voice especially hits hard when she describes events from home. Nicu has an innocence in his voice, which comes from his uncertainty and hope about the foreign country that is now his home. 

The ending killed me. It wouldn't have been an ending I would choose, but I tend to be full of hope and belief. However, I understand that the ending was right for the story. Real life doesn't always play out the way we would like it too and this book represents reality in it's harshest form. 

The verse novel is really growing on me and I wonder if these authors are opening the gates to more stories like this coming through. For reluctant readers, they are so easy to read. You find yourself half way through the book before you even realise. 

This is  a book that I will definitely be recommending. A heartbreaking rite of passage that changes two lives forever. 

I'd be really surprised if this book doesn't win awards in the future. 

Star Struck by Jenny McLachlan

I draw green daggers stuck deep in each heart and then I cover the poster with glittery blood. Just as I'm adding Romeo (dead) the door to the head teacher's office flies open and Carol sticks her head out.

Published by Bloomsbury Childrens Books in March 2016

Pages - 336

Cover illustration - James Grover

Summary

In a huge fantastic final hurrah to our lovable heroines - Bea, Betty, Kat and Pearl - Jenny McLachlan's latest book tells Pearl's story. Pearl is the 'bad girl' of the group - she drinks, she smokes, she swears - and she's mean to Bea and Betty. But she did fly halfway round the world to rescue Kat in Sunkissed. If there's one thing Pearl knows deep down, it is how to be a friend. And now, more than ever, she could really use a friend.

****

This is the last book in Jenny McLachlan's series and we finally get to change our opinion of Pearl. Let's be honest, she hasn't always been the nicest of girls. If you look back at Flirty Dancing, she was pretty horrible to Bea. However as the series has progressed, I've seen Pearl from a different vantage point. When someone is horrible, there is usually a reason for it -no one is born nasty. By being able to see into Pearl's home life, you begin to understand why she has acted the way she has. I wanted to give her a huge motherly hug from the first page of this book.
I love what happens to Pearl in this book. Well not all of it, because there are some rather grim times, but finally Pearl finds genuine happiness in her life. I don't want to give anything away because it truly is a beautiful part of the story and extremely well written by the author.
I loved Hoshi - she was a welcome addition to the gang, who fitted in perfectly. I loved reading about the Japanese girl groups and the way they dressed in public.
I can't believe this series has finished. I am really going to miss the Ladybird gang. I've loved getting to know each girl.
This series shows how important real friendships can be. You will know when you have one, because it will be easy. There will be no constant arguing and bitching, because real friends don't do that. Real friends walk by your side and lift you up high when you are falling. Real friends allow you to be the individual you are supposed to be and not a mirror image of them.
If you know any young girl who is finding friendships difficult, introduce her to the Ladybird gang, then maybe she find herself a friend like one of them.

Inspire Me with Aoife Walsh

I am pleased to welcome Aoife Walsh onto the blog today to discuss what inspired her to write about Too Close To Home, her second novel.

I don’t have to look too far to figure out my inspiration for Too Close To Home. It’s about a girl called Minny and her complicated, demanding family. Minny is truculent about her extra responsibilities: elder children in big families have always felt that way. My dad was the fifth of seven kids and his older sisters had to help bring him up (although I should disclose that those four women went on to have twenty-five children between them, so they can’t have been that disillusioned).

The thing is, sometimes in families where everybody is stretched just to manage the day to day, a child - of any age - can get sidelined. Perhaps the child that’s most likely to happen to is the one that everyone thinks is okay.

Minny isn’t, actually, the oldest in the family. Her sister Aisling is almost two years her senior - and only one school year up. By an astonishing coincidence, my two eldest have a similar gap (though they’re much younger), and, like Aisling, my eldest son is autistic. So is my youngest, as a matter of fact, though I didn’t know it when I started writing this book. My daughter is not.

Too Close To Home isn’t, obviously, about the mother of the family. Nor is it directly about Aisling. I should say outright that I absolutely agree with people who feel that there need to be more books with autistic MAIN characters, preferably written by autistic authors. 

This book, however, was always going to be about Minny, the middle child with all the pressures of the eldest. Autism is only one of the issues in Minny’s life - she’s trying to carve out an identity against a background of estranged fathers, half-sibling babies, religious scruples, elderly sex, self-obsessed friends, insensitive teachers, a boy she might fancy and a minor class struggle. 

But, to me, the relationship between Aisling and Minny is the heart of the book. And I think I wrote it mostly because I know I expect a lot of my daughter. Some evenings all she hears from me is: ‘Don’t snap at your brother like that, he gets that at school all day. Don’t ignore him even if he is telling you a fact you’ve heard seventy times before and weren’t remotely interested in the first time. Can’t you just sit in a room with him for a while, you know you’re his best friend, don’t you? Fair doesn’t mean everybody getting the same, it means everybody getting what they need…’

So this book started life as a way of paying some attention to my daughter. To my son too, and to the way they are with each other. His relationship with her, rocky though it sometimes is, is one of the most positive things in his life - and in hers, too. I guess the book is a love letter to that relationship. It’s also a way for me to tell her, I do know you have it rough sometimes. I know it’s hard to love somebody whose life is difficult, even when you’re an adult, let alone when you’re fourteen like Minny or ten like you. A lot of our family life is not set up for you. I may not always give you the positive attention you deserve, and there are times you get negative attention you don’t deserve. But I do think about you, and worry about you, and admire you and love you and even, sometimes, appreciate you.

Too Close to Home is published by Andersen Press and is available to buy now.

Summary

Meet Minny: her life is a complicated whirlwind of unbearable PE lessons, annoying friends and impossible-to-live-with siblings. Minny is desperate for some space in a house spilling over with family and hangers-on. She has to contend with her autistic sister Aisling's school bullies, whilst trying to keep her self-absorbed BFF Penny happy, and look normal in front of new boy Franklin. And on top of this, now Dad has announced that he’s returning to London - with his new girlfriend. 

Secrets, lies and home truths will out, frying pans will be burnt, and arguments will flare up in a story full of humour, honesty and minor household emergencies.

To find out more about Aoife Walsh:

Twitter

Jessie Hearts NYC by Keris Stainton.

Pages -  256

To be published in July 2011 by Orchard Books

 The book kindly sent to me by the  author for a honest review.

As the flight attendant walked down the aisle, checking everyone had their seat belts fastened, Jessie felt butterflies rise in her stomach. She'd been taking the piss out of Emma all day, but she couldn't believe they were getting to spend the summer in New York either. She'd been dreaming about it for so long and now it was going to happen. And it was going to be better than she'd imagined because Emma was going with her. She smiled at Emma who was hopping up and down in her seat with excitement. They were going to have an amazing time. And whatever happened, at least there was no risk of bumping into Taylor.


Jessie is about to embark on the trip of a lifetime. She is spending the whole of the summer in New York with her best friend Emma, at her mum's cool apartment. She is hoping the trip will help her to get over her previous disastrous relationship. Finn, a New York hottie, is having a difficult time dealing with the fact that he is in love with his best friend's girlfriend. This book tells the story of what happens when two people from two different lifestyles let fate bring them together.

From the first couple of pages, I was tingling with excitement. Jessie is living my ultimate dream.  I can remember being  the same age and desperate to go to New York. Alas it was not to be and I have still to find my way there, however through Keris Stainton's book I found that I could vicariously through Jessie's life. Jessie is the first character in a book that I have actually wanted to be; everything about Jessie just reminded me of myself at that age.

The book is peppered with references of American films and TV shows which fed my American addiction as a teenager and I found myself reading the whole book in one sitting, completely lost in a world where my biggest worry used to be whether I would pass my O levels or not.

One of the main themes within the book is fate. How chance meetings can change the future. I am a strong believer in fate and coincidences, so each time Finn and Jessie's pathways crossed, I felt instantly happy. Their new found friendship is completely serendipitous!

The book also looks closely at relationships, especially between Jessie and her mum.  To begin with Jessie's relationship with her mother Natalie, is very distant and I found myself disliking Natalie's manner. However, when they began to open up their feelings to each other, I realised that Natalie was never intentionally trying to upset Jessie; they just seemed to have a lot of crossed wires that needed to be undone.

I loved the way the chapters alternated between the viewpoints of Jessie and Finn. The author's writing gave both characters a distinct and unique voice.  Finn is rather tasty and you become desperate for Jessie to finally   kiss the gorgeous boy.  A timeless dream of most English girls regardless of age: to actually get the good looking American guy!

This book will appeal to all ages, and I would highly recommend it to 40 something women like myself who grew up on American sitcoms and movies and have still to fulfill their American dream.

I would love to see Richard Curtis make this book into a film, as I feel it has the flavour of some of his wonderfully British movies such as Notting Hill and Love Actually. Anyone have his email address????
On speaking to the author, Keris has stated that she would prefer Nora Ephron to produce the film as a book and I had to ask her who she was. Shocking I know! As I grew up on her films such as Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail too. Sigh!

I know there was a discussion on Twitter about certain mild swear words being used within the book, but to be honest, I didn't notice them at all. In fact, I must have been wearing blinkers to them as I read, because I couldn't tell you where they were within the story.

This book is utterly fabulous and I am so glad I had the opportunity to read it. I think this is a lovely, refreshing romantic summer read that needs to be read on a sun lounger by pool, with a cocktail in one hand.

Amy & Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout

Pages - 304

Published by Simon & Schuster in 1999. This edition published in 2006

Challenges - Fall Into Reading and 100 books.


I picked this book up from the library a couple of months ago and it has taken me such a long to get around to reading it. I am so glad my library allows you to keep renewing books as I hate to take them back unread.

Amy & Isabelle is one of those books that progresses really quietly until the ending where all is revealed. It looks at the relationship between Isabelle, a struggling single mother secretly in love with her boss and Amy, a shy young girl, who embarks on an affair with her maths teacher. The book details the breakdown of their relationship over one summer as the affair comes to light. By the end of the book, their relationship has moved to a new level and you witness the journey they had to travel to reach it.

This book is about real life and real relationships and how people deal with the blows that life throws at them. The relationship between mother and daughter is such a difficult one and probably mirrors thousands of similar relationships around the world where the parent and child have such differing views of life.

I loved the character of Amy, as this book witnesses her coming of age. She goes from being a very shy girl who blossoms into a woman and realises what she wants out of life. Amy ends up doing some things that I felt she wouldn't be proud of, but I feel they were part of her journey in growing up and finding herself.

Isabelle learns a lot from Amy as the book progresses. When Amy's affair with her teacher is discovered and time passes, Isabelle begins to see parallels between Amy's life and her own. Isabelle changes her attitude towards the people around her and finally lets people into her life. The book follows the journey of two lonely people who learn to embrace life and the people around them.

I really enjoyed this book, as I found I could relate to both characters. Through Amy, I could understand the difficulty of those teenage years and dealing with the strong emotional feelings that occur within us all during that time period. Through Isabelle, I could see why she kept so many secrets hidden from pubic view,but they made her appear stuck up and aloof. I preferred it when she became more open with the people around her. I have always viewed myself as quite an open book and I have always thought that too many secrets can fester. Better out than in!

The minor characters within the book are interesting too. It is made very clear within the pages of the book that the grass is not really greener on the other side. Barbara Riley appears as the epitome of everything Isabelle would like to be. Yet as the book progresses, you find that Barbara's life is not an easy one and just like everyone else, she has her own problems to deal with.

If you like books that look at the relationship between mothers and daughters,then this one is for you. You will witness both mother and daughter finally coming of age.

Other reviews of this book

The Magic Lasso