REVIEW: The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr

The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr was ... a very different read.  It was unexpected.  And I definitely think that how different I thought this book would be is the reason that I was so attracted to reading it in the first place.  And while I did like it, I wasn't entirely blown away by the story of by Flora Banks. But I wanted to be.

This is the story of Flora Banks, 17, and she is someone who has anterrograde amnesia, which means that she has no permanent memories before 7 years ago when she was in an accident.  She can only hold new information in her head for a very short period of time, at the most several hours.  So to get by, she writes notes on her arms and post-it notes, takes pictures on her phone, writes in a diary etc filling herself in on the events and important stuff between then and now. She's on medication, she's well looked after by her parents and her best friend. We meet Flora at a party, her hands say 'Be brave' and she goes onto leave the party and kisses a boy on a beach.  Unfortunately it happens to be Flora's best friend's boyfriend who she kisses but the thing to be taken from that night is that Flora remembers the boy, she remembers the kiss, the beach, all the details of that interaction.

The thing with her memory though means that as the narrator to this story, Flora loses a lot of information.  Which she then relearns shortly after and that makes Flora's story really quite repetitive in parts which felt grating in the middle.  I also found Flora's voice to be hard and factual which made it difficult for me to warm to her. I also wasn't thrilled with the idea of her chasing down a boy with her 'this boy will save me' thoughts but I felt like that was at least handled towards the end.  The only relationship I wanted to explore more (as I didn't love Drake with the same fervour as Flora!) is the one with Jacob, her brother.  This book needed more Jacob, in my opinion.

I think the thing in particular that I loved the most about Flora is that she is courageous.  She really takes that 'Be Brave' on her hand to heart and instead of cowering indoors where she knows she'll be safe, she continuously tries to do different things, change herself, her circumstances and her life.  Going so far as trying to track her brother, Jacob, down, as far as experiencing new things and tracking a boy down to the Arctic in order to find out more answers about why this kiss stuck in her head when other memories did not. I loved that about her.  I wish more people were a little bit more Flora.

This book was a definitely interesting read. I'm glad to have to read it, I just wish things had been slightly different.

This book was read and counts towards the British Books Challenge 2017. 

REVIEW: Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

It was on a whim that I requested Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon from Netgalley.  I hadn't heard anything about the book before I saw it listed there and I believe Nicola Yoon is a debut author. But for whatever reason, I did request it and it wasn't long before I decided to read it.  And boy am I glad that I did.

Right from the start this book grabbed my interest and didn't let go right up until that very emotional ending.  I loved the two main characters and getting to know them both. Just everything from the characters to their relationships to each other to this whole situation had me feeling all the feels. All of them. And it's been awhile since I felt so incredibly absorbed into a story like I did with Everything, Everything.  It was a really amazing experience reading this book.

Everything, Everything is the story of teenage girl Madeline who has a very rare and unusual condition in which she is allergic to practically everything. In order to survive, she hasn't left her house in 17 years and is cared for by her mother (who is a doctor) and a nurse, Carla, who comes in daily. To be honest, Madeline has no real issues or complaints about her life, she studies online and she feels happy to spend time with her mom watching films and playing made up board games. And she gets on great with Carla (and their friendship is so adorable!).

That is until Olly and his family move in next door. And Olly and Madeline unexpectedly start up this friendship online that progresses into more. And with the arrival of Olly, Maddy starts having all these other thoughts about wanting more of her life than what she has.  She starts to question what it means to live and what's important to her and she starts to realise everything that she's been missing and what things mean so much to her that she'd risk her health for.

One of the things that I absolutely loved about this book is the diversity in it. Obviously Maddy has this unusual condition but she's also mixed race and everyone (the two people in her life) are people of colour and that is what's normal for her. So much so that the fact that Olly is white is pointed out for being odd person out. I loved that. And more mixed race main characters, please.

Another thing I really loved about Everything, Everything are all of the relationships.  Carla and Maddy's friendship was really sweet. It's quite clear that Carla is more than just a nurse to Maddy. There's friendship there but she's also sort of a mother figure as well, someone who is really trying to look out for Maddy and someone who does stuff like bring Olly into the house so that Maddy can experience new things. I loved Carla.

I also really enjoyed this complicated relationship between Maddy and her mother. You can see a lot of the cracks appearing in this mother-daughter relationship as this story progresses and as Maddy pulls away from her mother. She's growing up and becoming her own person which makes less room in her life for her mother's opinions and protection. It all really made sense.

But at the heart of this story is this incredibly sweet new friendship that turns into more between Maddy and Olly. I actually really love that theirs is a relationship that starts mostly with them talking online, sending messages and emails back and forth. They are impossibly cute together. And then when they start meeting in person? My heart almost burst at that exciting/nervous stage of new relationships. ARGH, the feels.

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon is definitely a book to keep an eye out for. It's emotional and romantic and diverse. It has a wonderful cast of characters and relationships that are fascinating and complicated. I'm definitely excited by this book!

Domestic Violence in YA

I've just read two books in a relatively short period of time which have elements of a much larger issue and I've found it interesting enough that I wanted to talk a little bit about it today.

Over the past month, I've read both The Baby by Lisa Drakeford about teenage pregnancy and parenthood and also The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle a sort of magical realism novel about there being a season of accidents that affect one particular family that involves death, injury and general misfortune.  These two books don't have a great deal in common. They aren't issues books, the main focus of the story of either book is not domestic violence. But both books contain elements of violence between a couple.  And it really surprised me to see both of these books at least mention these types of relationships.  I count this as a step in the right direction as we have a bigger discussion about domestic violence and unhealthy relationships.

There have been other books I've read about violence amongst teen relationships. And I mostly 'enjoyed' these books too. Books such as Bitter End by Jennifer Brown and Dreamland by Sarah Dessen. There is But I Love Him by Amanda Grace and Stay by Deb Caletti. and those are just the books that *I* have read. If you have any recommendations, please do leave them in comments! One of these books in particular, (sadly I can't remember which!) the author has purportedly chosen to tell her story in reverse to stop readers from objecting and to show how complicated matters of domestic violence are and that it isn't always easy to point to a specific time and place and say 'a line has been crossed here, I will not accept this' and move on but is in fact a series of lines crossed and minor things happening until gradually things become more serious and reach a point where there isn't an easy way for the victim to extract herself.

And while I do think these stories are important, I also think sometimes focusing on something like domestic violence specifically means that usually just the most extreme stories are told. So while I think that these books should exist, so should the other stories in which domestic violence is mentioned alongside the other themes of  a larger story. Because I would hate for readers to read a more extreme case and think 'this isn't what is happening to me, so it must not be domestic violence.'

I really like that this is happening.  I like that I'm coming across topics and themes that I think are really important and I really do hope to see this continue!

Interview with Catherine Johnson, author of The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo

Today I'm very happy to have the very lovely Catherine Johnson on my blog talking about books historical fiction and diversity and her latest book, The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo, which is publishing 2nd July from Corgi.  I've been looking forward to reading this book for quite some time so I'm really happy both to have already read it but also to have Catherine on the blog too!

To find out more about Catherine Johnson or The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo, do visit the following websites:

Catherine Johnson ... Catherine on Twitter ... The History Girls

Hello and welcome to Fluttering Butterflies! Could you please introduce yourself and your book, The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo.

Hello! I am Catherine Johnson, the woman with the most boring first name/second name combination in children's books. I have been a writing for a long time, (I used to have a career making films and videos but that was a million years ago) and I've written lots of books mostly YA, people might know Sawbones. But I also write for film and TV - including Holby City - and a film called Bullet Boy.  

The Curious Incident of The Lady Caraboo is a story about lies and love and was inspired by the true story of Mary Wilcox, a cobblers daughter from Devon who passed herself off as a Princess from the South Seas.

 It's about as close to a romance as I've ever got. But it's mostly about lies - who we are and who we'd rather be.

What struck me the most about this book is everyone's reactions to Caraboo. Why do you think there was this fascination with cultures and people of colour in a distant way but such a different reaction to the idea of her being a poor local?

Although the village where the story is set, Almondsbury, is not far from Bristol, the idea of a lost Princess was probably the most exciting thing that had happened in living memory. And a major part of why people believed that Caraboo was real was that Mrs Worrall, the local lady of the manor, wanted her to be real. I think, from my reading, that Mrs Worrall was bored out of her mind. She was an intelligent woman, born in America, who loved anthropology but because of the time she had no outlet for her interest.  It must have been a coup for her having such an interesting house guest, being able to invite professors and experts (which the real Mrs Worrall did) and be at the centre of a real cause celebre. 

I do love that this book is about a person of colour set in a historical time period and that Princess Caraboo is proudly on the cover - both of these being representations I don't see very much of. What are your thoughts on the levels of diversity portrayed in YA fiction in recent times? 

I do think there is more diversity now - especially in regards to sexuality - and I think authors and publishers are making an effort, but there is still a long way to go. I would like to see more authors from different backgrounds, not just race but class too, being published and promoted. Of course the books need to be good but I do think this is vital to get a range of different stories out there. But if we are going to get publishers to respond and publish more widely we need readers to read more diversely too! Part of the push for change we've had in recent years has come from readers and bloggers. So lets have more of everything, please and open minds everywhere!

At one point Caraboo says something along the lines of 'and weren't stories more rewarding than life?' What are some of your favourite books and stories? 

There are so many! One of my all time favourites is Susan Price's Sterkarm Handshake which is historical and science fictiony and brilliant. Also Holes by Louis Sachar, which is utterly brilliantly plotted and it never gets tired.  Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is a big favourite and also Pao by Kerry Young, a book set in Jamaica in the first half of the Twentieth Century. But the one  that just breaks my heart every time I read it is The Long Song by Andrea Levy. That book is absolutely brilliant, tour de force of point of view as well as a view of history we hardly ever see. There are about a million other books too.....

Mary Wilcox and Princess Caraboo are based on actual events in history! Can you share with us any other incredibly fascinating lesser-known, real-life historical women? 

Women and minorities are always hidden in history. The poorer and less powerful - and women of colour are always at the  bottom of the heap - rarely have their stories told, but there are some and plenty of lives ripe for folding into stories. Here are a few;

Nanny of the Maroons, a real folk hero. She lived in the early 17th century and was kidnapped into slavery as a child in Ghana and bought to Jamaica. She endured terrible and inhumane treatment and ran away into the hills, where she organised free settlements of runaway slaves in the mountains and carried out raids on the British. The town that bears her name still exists.

Adelaide Hall, an American born singer, who was part of the Harlem renaissance who lived the greater part of her life in the UK. In 1941 she was the highest paid entertainer in Britain. I almost wrote a novel based in wartime Soho, she'd have definitely have had a walk on in that...

One last thing. Where I used to live in Hackney was a big old house, long since divided into flats. This was the Ayahs home, a home for Indian nannies employed by British families on the long voyage back from India but then abandoned in London without any money and unable to get home. This went on well into the 20th century. It's really worth finding out more just about where you live...

In fact, historical YA isn't something that I know a great deal about, do you have any recommendations or suggestions? 

YES! Lots. I belong to a brilliant joint blog called the History Girls which features writers like Celia Rees (Witch Child, Pirates!), Mary Hoffman (David, Stravaganza) Penny Dolan (A Boy Called Mouse) Tanya Landman (Apache, Buffalo Soldier) and Lydia Syson (Liberty's Fire, A World Between Us) - there are many more on there too. Another one I would recommend is Jamila Gavin's classic Coram Boy or any of Mary Hooper's work - Newes From The Dead, The House of The Magician, Poppy. Every one of those books is utterly brilliant.

I kind of love the fact that Mary creates Princess Caraboo into a person that she'd like to be and makes her own sort of Princess Rules. What would at the top of your own list of Princess rules?

Princess rules! What a great idea... 

1. Everyone to have their own pony and/or swimming pool although not a pony in a swimming pool....

2. I would like my own dedicated wool shop just like the new one in Stoke Newington High Street. I am a demon knitter. I used to have a stall in Portobello market when I was a student.

3.

All libraries to have extended opening hours and all the books I want in whenever I visit.

4. Plenty of custard. I am partial to custard.

There are so many lying liars in your book! Do you have any favourite literary liars?

Lies make stories -and I love a good unreliable narrator like Cadence in E. Lockhart's We Were Liars too. But I'm going to recommend an absolutely stunning non fiction book here stuffed full of the most professional liars of the 19th and twentieth century. I love stories of Con men and grifters - The Sting is a brilliant film, do watch it - and that film was based on a really fascinating book - a non fiction academic study by a linguist in 20th century America who was studying criminal slang. That sounds dry but the book really isn't. David Maurer, the author, interviewed all of the con men of the late 19th and early 20th century for his book, The Big Con, and it is totally absorbing.

And finally, The Curious Tale of Lady Caraboo was one of my most anticipated UKYA reads in 2015. What are you most looking forward to reading? 

That's so blush making! I hope it didn't disappoint.... I am a big fan of Sarra Manning's books, YA and adult. I think she's doing a historical next, set in  WW2, and I cannot wait. And I am looking forward to the next Malorie Blackman. Now she's retired from laureating I do hope she'll have plenty of writing time to finish the sequel to Boys Don't Cry...

REVIEW: The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo by Catherine Johnson

I'd really been looking forward to reading The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo by Catherine Johnson for awhile now.  So I was very happy to get a copy sent to me and jumped in straight away.

And I really liked this story.  It's based on a true story of an actual young woman called Mary Willcox who managed to convince a wealthy family that she was a princess from the South Seas and that makes this story even more fascinating to me.  I know that Catherine Johnson did change some aspects of the story but I still think the original basis of what happened to Mary Willcox to be incredibly interesting.  As is this book! I really didn't know what was going to happen throughout the story and I was really intrigued from the moment I started reading.

The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo has sort of a harrowing beginning. As we see poor Mary Willcox in bad shape and she is further attacked by some men and in that moment she decides that things will be different from now on.  And that's what happens.

She pretends to be this different person, this princess from Java. And it becomes quite an elaborate lie that is spun as Caraboo manages to convince this local wealthy family, the Worralls,  that she is in fact royalty and they take her in for several months. An entire language is created as well as a religion and a style of dress and mannerisms that Caraboo creates herself. At times both Caraboo (and surely the reader!) are sort of preparing for this lie to be caught out and for Caraboo to be sent packing ... but things carry on for a very surprising length of time.

I really liked the character of Caraboo that Mary Willcox pretends that she is.  Caraboo becomes this fierce warrior princess who hunts and climbs and does what she likes. It really felt like she had decided not to be held back by her gender or her (lack of) wealth and just decided to become this person she and society had never allowed her to become until one day when she just makes that decision and a transformation happens.

As well as being incredibly interested and invested in Caraboo's character and how she gets on, I was also really fascinated to see the changes within this family that Caraboo is staying with and the different reactions they all have to Caraboo's intrusion into their lives. There is Mrs Worrall, who seems to relish the attention as well as the fact that she is at the centre of a scientific investigation and has scientists of the day from phrenologists to electricity experts, coming into her house and that she is able to participate in something larger than her in her every day life.

And then there are the Worrall children: flighty Cassandra and skeptical Fred who in turns befriend and question Caraboo's sincerity and actions. Cassandra and Fred really shouldn't be likeable characters. They are both overly privileged and entitled and yet still, I found myself warming to both characters a great deal.  I liked that Cassandra and Caraboo formed this friendship and that Fred seemed to struggle with his relationships with women after a comment made to him by a prostitute. I also loved the juxtaposition of Cassandra's love affair with that of the reluctant growing of feelings that happens for Caraboo.

I thought Lady Caraboo's story was an incredibly fascinating story. It felt like a story of choices and love and about being the person who most want to be. I loved this glimpse into a POC historical figure and time period and I was swept away by the circumstances of Caraboo's life. Really enjoyed this one!

REVIEW: Truckers by Terry Pratchett #TerryPratchettBlogTour

Truckers by Terry Pratchett is the first book in the Bromeliad trilogy aimed at children focusing on nomes. It was first published in 1989 and has recently been repackaged into this brightly coloured edition with lovely cover and accompanying illustrations by Mark Beech.

I had a lot of fun with Truckers. I knew very little about the book before I began - only that it is a children's book and that it is not Discworld-related. And this book was a very fun surprise and there was much to find interesting and amusing, especially coming to this book as an adult reader. There is so much humour and thoughtfulness in Terry Pratchett's writing and in his stories.

Trucker is the story of nomes, these little creatures only 4 inches tall that live in places that humans do only without the humans knowing. Truckers follows Masklin and his small band of other nomes who have been living Outside and have left to explore, carrying along an important artifact called The Thing. They stumble across this huge colony of nomes living in a department store and at first there are some clashes between the two sets of nomes but they eventually band together after learning that there is very little time before the store closes down for good.

I can't say that Truckers has the biggest amount of plot ever. And while there are this core group of nomes that become influential in organising the knowledge and materials required for this mass exodus from the store, they aren't that well-developed, aside from perhaps Masklin. Perhaps that changes throughout the the two other books in the trilogy though? I'm not sure. I mention this, but it also didn't particularly make that much of a difference to my enjoyment of the novel!

What it does do though is have is a wonderful mix of humour with very clever and interesting ideas. I'm sure some children might read this story and enjoy it for what it is: a funny, adventurous story of a collection of nomes working together towards a common goal. But there is also this other layer to the story in which Terry Pratchett explores topics such as gender and leadership and belief systems and language in really thoughtful and interesting ways.

These subtle explorations of really big ideas is the real draw to this story for me.  I've read other books in which Terry Pratchett points out some of the confusing (and therefore hilarious) elements to the English language and in Truckers he again pulls this off beautifully. There was a scene towards the end involving the highway code and road signs that actually made me howl with laughter.

And there's also a bit about gender and outdated ideas about women and education and it was lovely to see Grimma's transformation as she begins to read and plays a large part in moving the nomes towards their ultimate goals.  Other scenes bring up the importance of faith and also challenging long-held belief systems and there are other characters who champion knowledge and literacy and it all just made me happy. That there is such an intelligent and thought-provoking book.  For children.

Truckers by Terry Pratchett was a really fun and worthwhile read. It was clever and funny and I do very highly recommend it!

REVIEW: Urban Legends by Helen Grant (Forbidden Spaces #3)

Urban Legends by Helen Grant is the third and final book in the Forbidden Spaces trilogy that began with Silent Saturday and Demons of Ghent. This series has been about a teenage girl, Veerle, and about her on/off relationship with Kris, and about the complicated dynamics of her family. It's been about urban exploration and about Veerle and Kris's run-ins with serial killers.

It's all very tense and thrilling but also emotional. I was so very excited to read the conclusion to this trilogy and my heart was in my mouth at several points as I was really, truly worried about the outcomes of these two amazing characters.  Helen Grant gave us a very tense story with Urban Legends but also one filled with heart-breaking scenes and plenty of surprises!

The rest of the review may (and probably does!) contain spoilers for the first two books in the trilogy. Proceed with caution.

Urban Legends follows shortly on from the end of Demons of Ghent with Veerle moving back to the small village where she lived with her mother. She's re-enrolled in school and is hoping to keep her head down, study, and get her diploma after failing the previous year. She's still sort of seeing Bram, even though he's still living in Ghent, and Veerle has promised her dad that she wouldn't see Kris.

As with the previous two books, Veerle's narration is interspersed with short, slightly disturbing chapters from the perspective of the serial killer which gives the reader an indication of what might be happening next. In Urban Legends, there is also a third perspective from a group of urban explorers who gather in abandoned buildings and locations in order to tell each other urban legends and scary stories but this group of storytellers is being picked off one by one. And soon, all three of these of these threads begin to overlap.

I really loved this story.  I'm so emotionally invested in Veerle's life and in her relationship with Kris that I was actually desperate to read this story and to find out once and for all. I felt like in the previous two books in this trilogy there was at least one parent figure around most times. But in Urban Legends, Veerle is now 18 and technically an adult. She's living alone and relies only on herself to keep safe and protected. And that made it scarier for me.

The tag line on this book is 'No one is safe' and I felt very aware of that fact whilst I was reading.  It really does feel like nobody is safe. And I worried. Something happened quite early on in this book that made me do this weird, wailing 'Nooooooo! That didn't happen, right? Surely not.' and had me furiously reading ahead to make sure that that really did not just happen. But all the stakes are raised in this book. The body count is much higher and we have a killer on our hands who will stop at nothing to take out the two people getting in his way: Veerle and Kris.

And then there's Veerle and Kris. They've been through so much together and yet they aren't together.  It's hard for them both and the reader can see how really difficult it is for them to navigate around the obstacles standing in their way: a current boyfriend, the ghost of an ex-girlfriend. My heart ached throughout for these two.

Urban Legends was an exciting end to the trilogy. There was heart-stopping action, surprises that shocked me, this intense relationship, plenty of creepy abandoned buildings and plenty of atmosphere. Fantastic ending, one that I really recommend. If you haven't discovered the Forbidden Spaces trilogy, what are you waiting for?!

Blog Tour: Urban Legends by Helen Grant - The Real Life Locations that Inspired Urban Legends

It is my great pleasure to welcome back Helen Grant to Fluttering Butterflies! Helen is no stranger here and it is with excitement that she is here today. Today she's sharing a really fascinating look into some of the locations that inspired her latest book, Urban Legends. Urban Legends is the third and final book in the Forbidden Spaces trilogy and I've loved this trilogy right from the beginning!  It's a definite favourite of mine and if you haven't read read Silent Saturday, Demons of Ghent or Urban Legends which will be published officially this week, I really urge you to do so now!

Here is the product description for Urban Legends and some links in case you want to know more about Urban Legends, the Forbidden Spaces trilogy or Helen Grant.

A group of story-tellers are disappearing one by one.

A young woman is haunted by her past.

A serial killer has one target he is desperate to hunt down.

Veerle is trying to lie low, to live as 'normal' a life as she possibly can. But when you've thwarted a serial killer, it's hard to do this. Especially when he wants revenge . . .

Helen Grant ... Helen's blog ... Helen on Twitter ... Helen Grant Books Fanpage on Facebook

Urban Legends: the real life locations that inspired the book

by Helen Grant

Location is very important to me as a writer. I find atmospheric places inspiring, and I try to bring the settings of my books to life by researching all the little details. My books are set in foreign places where I have actually lived: Germany and Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium). I fell in love with those places when I lived there; I found everything about them fascinating, and I love sharing that experience with readers.

For my Forbidden Spaces trilogy I did a lot of location research. The first book, Silent Saturday, opens with a scene in a Flemish bell tower, so I visited several village churches and went up the towers (including one that wasn’t supposed to be open to the public, cough). For Demons of Ghent I spent a week in the city of Ghent, touring all the main sights including the Sint-Baaf cathedral and the Gravensteen castle, both of which appear in the book.

It’s very important to me to experience the locations I use myself. I want to see and listen and touch and sometimes smell! You pick up all sorts of details that you would never get from looking at photographs. Often parts of the plot will suggest themselves to me when I am visiting a location. I see the place as being like a stage set, waiting for the action to begin. I like to soak up the atmosphere and imagine what is going to happen.

Urban Legends is the final book in the trilogy so I wanted a really amazing finale. I had to find some exciting and unusual locations – not necessarily beautiful ones either, because this is a gritty story. It’s not going to be pretty! The brutal serial killer who calls himself The Hunter is back, and he’s pursuing a personal vendetta against the heroine, Veerle, and her friend Kris. The environment of the book reflects that. We’re done with opulent expat mansions and gorgeous Gothic cathedrals. Urban Legends gets down and dirty in some very nasty places indeed.

While I was researching for the book, I went out with some experienced urban explorers and visited an abandoned factory that was about to be demolished. That was a fascinating and creepy experience. The demolition work had started so the entire side of the building was off; it was like looking into a dolls’ house. There was a lot of rubble outside. The whole area looked like a bomb site; it made me feel as though I were in some kind of apocalyptic movie. We weren't the only ones visiting the place. Now and again we would see shadowy figures flitting around inside, but we didn't talk to them and they didn't approach us. That was quite unsettling. Large parts of the inside of the factory were pretty much as they had been on the day work finished. There were posters on the walls in the workshop areas and soft drink cans and files. Everything was covered with a very fine layer of dust.

I think the interesting thing about that visit was that it was so creepy even though it was a relatively modern building and you don’t tend to think of a factory as a scary place. I've used a lot of obviously scary locations in my previous books – old castles, graveyards, ruined houses and stuff like that. You expect your flesh to creep a bit in places like that, but not in a factory. There was a very strong sense of desolation and decay which was strongly in contrast to the practical purpose of the building.

Out of all the places I visited during research for Urban Legends, the other one that really stands out in my mind was the Brussels sewers! I saw them via the Musée des Egouts de Bruxelles (Brussels sewer museum), which is sadly now closed for an indefinite period. The museum is in a part of Brussels called Anderlecht and if you didn’t know it was there, I’m not sure you’d notice it. There’s a big traffic intersection with roads and tram lines crossing it, and on either side of it are two identical buildings in a sort of Roman style with columns on the front. You have to go into one of these and buy a ticket, and there’s an exhibition about sewers and the history of the ones in Brussels. Then you go down into the sewers and when you eventually come up, you’re on the other side of the traffic intersection, in the other building!

The day I went to the museum I was the only visitor so I had to go through the sewers on my own. The staff who sold me the ticket were teasing me a bit when they told me about coming up on the other side, saying “if you come up”, etc. Gosh, thanks guys! So, what is it like in the sewers? Well, it’s niffy, as you’d probably expect, and it’s also very dark, although the sewers museum bits have lighting. You can hear water running. Well, I say water…

The Brussels sewers come in all shapes and sizes – there is a very big wide channel where the river Senne (which ran through the city) was covered over. You could pretty much sail a boat down that. There are also some much smaller tunnels. A person could walk down those but it would be quite difficult if the water was more than a few inches deep as the bottom is rounded and quite slippery.

I’ve read that the sewers are the most hostile urban exploration environment there is. Apart from the creepy crawlies (ew), the rats (yikes!) and the obvious sewage nasties, there can be pockets of poisonous gas and flash floods. And if your light goes out, well, you’ll probably wander around in the dark forever. In fact, the sewers are such a horrible place that only a very hard hearted author would send any of their characters down there. So, did I? You’ll have to read the book to find out…

About Helen:

Helen Grant writes YA contemporary thrillers. She has lived in Germany and Belgium, and her novels to date have been set in those countries. She now lives in Scotland with her husband, two children and two cats, and is working on a new thriller set there.

About Urban Legends:

Urban Legends is Helen Grant’s sixth novel and the third in her Forbidden Spaces trilogy. It is published by Corgi (26th March 2015).

YA Books About Suicide

I've noticed that there's quite the trend with books involving suicide. Especially being published at the beginning of this year.  I've read three of the four books pictured and the fourth is one that I'm really hoping to read soon.  I think that they all say something different about suicide and actually, I really like that this topic is one so prevalent in young adult fiction lately.  I think that a lot of teenagers struggle and that a lot of teens could benefit from reading and exploring the subject of suicide in a safe manner.  Different angles and takes on the subject are always good, I feel, and I'm glad that these books exist.

I Was Here is the latest offering from Gayle Forman, one of my favourite authors.  I didn't know anything about it before I picked it up to read because I requested it from NetGalley based on the author's name alone.  But it's the story of a girl whose best friend has committed suicide and she tries to uncover what happened in her friend's last few months as their friendship sort of drifted apart.  While it didn't reach the same emotional height, for me, as If I Stay or Where She Went, I still thought it was really interesting and emotional.  It kind of showed how messy and complicated things like family and friendships and relationships can be.  Plus, it also touches a bit on suicide support websites which is something that the other books on this list also do. Published 29 January from Simon and Schuster

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven is an incredibly beautiful book, one that absolutely broke my heart.  I was pulled instantly into this story and felt incredibly emotionally invested in the two main characters. This story is told from a dual perspective from both Violet and Finch. And as the story begins both characters are on the top of the school's bell tower considering jumping.  One talks the other from jumping and the rest of the story is of their friendship.  Published 8 January from Penguin.

The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell is my favourite book from this list. It's set in Japan and tells the story of Sora, a teenager who has a motor neurodegenerative disease that means his quality of life is being slowly compromised by his condition. What I loved about this book so much is how it discusses how suicide rates in Japan is much higher than the rest of the world and some of the reasons for that. This book is very much a book about friendship and family and about finding hope and strength in difficult times. It's a beautifully written debut book and I very highly recommend it. Published 29 January from Random House.

My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Varga is the most recent book I've read being published early this year concerning suicide. This book was sent to me unsolicited so I didn't know that's what it was about when I sat down to read it. I was mostly just attracted to the unusual title and interesting cover. But this story is one of a suicide pact between two teenagers who meet via another suicide support website. They set a date in a month's time but then spend that month getting to know each other and finding out each other's stories and what led them both to wanting to commit suicide. It was quite a sweet book and while I wanted the ending to be slightly longer, I did really enjoy the story, the characters and the message portrayed in this book. Published 10 February by Hodder.


Other books involving suicide that you might want to look out for: This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales, Undone by Cat Clarke, Kite Spirit by Sita Brahmachari, Saving June by Hannah Harrington and Fall For Anything by Courtney Summers.

What do you think about books involving suicide?

REVIEW: Love Hurts edited by Malorie Blackman

Love Hurts is a collection of extracts and short stories concerning all types of different love and is edited by the marvellous Malorie Blackman.  I was very excited to hear about this collection a few months ago and I quickly downloaded my copy of the book from Netgalley.

I originally thought this book would contain all original short stories from this amazing array of teen authors, however, there are only 5 new stories in Love Hurts and the rest of the book is filled with two other short stories that have appeared in other collections and also extracts from other YA books already in print.

Besides the introduction from Malorie Blackman, which I was always going to read, my original plan for reading this book (once I realised about the format of the book and the extracts) was to skip over all the extracts and just read the new material.  However, once I started reading this book, it made me feel all fuzzy and happy and hopeful that I couldn't pass up reading the extracts, even if I'd already previously read the books.  I won't mention all of the extracts specifically, but it was nice to return to some old favourite stories (like the extracts for Noughts and Crosses, Northern Lights and I Am the Messenger) and new favourites (like the extracts from Trouble, Midwinterblood, Forbidden and Heroic) and to also discover some authors and stories that I haven't yet read but now want to (specifically the extracts from Grasshopper Jungle but I also must get a move on and read More Than This already and also more David Levithan).

There were also two short stories that have appeared previously in other collections: Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat by David Levithan, which appears in How They Met and Other Stories and Endless Love: the Valentine of Daniel and Lucinda by Lauren Kate, which appeared in Fallen In Love.  I had already read the Lauren Kate story and really enjoyed it, but I hadn't read the David Levithan before now.  I thought Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat was a really fun and interesting story about a girl's consuming relationship with another girl and the realisations that she comes to when things don't quite work out.

But while I found myself utterly surprised by how much I enjoyed the extracts it is really the original short stories that really stood out while I was reading this collection.   Because of the diversity.  There are characters in these short stories (and extracts) who are gay or bisexual, transgender, there are people of colour and some characters that are differently-abled or have chronic illness.  At least one of the extracts mentions the Sikh religion (I believe?) and all I want to do is stand here and applaud this level of diversity within this book.

I'm only going to mention my absolute highlights but know that I really enjoyed The Unicorn by James Dawson about the forbidden relationship between two men in the Navy during the Korean War and also The Liar's Girl by Catherine Johnson about another forbidden relationship from London in 1829 between two people from very different backgrounds.

Humming Through My Fingers by Malorie Blackman is the first story in this collection and it is about two people having a conversation at a sports day and tentatively agreeing to a first date. It's quite cute with some awkward and mortifying moments that I couldn't help but smile at these two.  But things aren't quite what they seem and motivations are questioned.  I loved that surprise.

Then there's Tumbling by Susie Day which made me smile endlessly.  I love that the majority of this short story is about one girl obsessing over her first meeting with her crush. Worrying, second-guessing herself. I can completely relate.  And a lot of this story is about two fangirls who come together which just makes me happy.  Because while I have not watched one single episode of Sherlock after reading this short story, I really wanted to.  This story was so sweet and cute and I nearly cried at the end.

But it was Gentlewoman by Laura Dockrill that made me cry actual tears.  Good ones, though.  Gentlewoman starts with two old friends not having a serious conversation.  Not speaking the words that need to be said because those words are already probably known.  I loved this story so much.  I found it amazing how much was said in so few words.  And it is the ending, in which there was so much acceptance that made me shed tears.  It's not perfect because that's the world we live in, but acceptance from those that matter to us is what's important and I love that that was found in this story for these characters.

The thing that sticks out the most from reading Love Hurts is that love it out there for everyone and that love is one of those things that can be both really amazing and also really painful.  And this book shows it all to us from awkward first meeting to first kiss to all-consuming relationships to real heart break.  And everyone deserves love - soldiers, siblings, girl and robot, friends, strangers, online acquaintances and these romantic pairings can come in all sizes and shapes.  I really enjoyed this collection and I hope you pick it up too!

REVIEW: The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell

The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell is a beautifully-written debut book.  It made me happy and sad and hopeful all at the same time.  It's an absolutely incredible story and I definitely do hope that you'll pick it up and fall in love with this story, these characters and their relationships just like I did.  I really can't say enough positive things about this gorgeous book!

This is the story of Japanese teenager, Sora.  Sora is 17 and has been diagnosed with a progressive neurodegenerative disease called ALS (or Lou Gehrig's disease).  This means that over time, he will begin to lose control of his muscles and limbs which will eventually lead to death.  He lives at home with his mother and already there have been major changes to his life and to his mother's because of his condition.  And thinking about his life and his mother's and what will happen to them both is something that Sora thinks about quite a lot.

Being sort of isolated from other people his age, Sora turns to the internet and finds two things. First, he meets some friends that he's able to talk and joke with that know nothing about his ALS and they are able to connect with him over normal, teenage things. And second, he receives these anonymous emails about suicide and the growing population of people in Japan who contemplate and/or commit suicide. Which makes Sora start to ponder the idea and how others historically have deal with great challenges.  A lot of my favourites aspects in the first half of this book is Sora discovering the poetry of wounded samurai which I found incredibly fascinating.

I think the thing I loved the most about this book though is Sora's relationships with the people in his life.  Probably especially the one with his mother.  There are some really difficult scenes between them: things difficult to witness in Sora's worsening condition and also some really raw and powerful and emotional scenes between a mother and son who love each other a great deal.  Sora and his mom KILLED ME especially in the second half of the book.  But I also really loved Sora's friendship with these two people he meets online.  I love that he's able to make some great friendships in which ALS is not at the forefront of every conversation and activity.

I think The Last Leaves Falling is an incredible debut book. So very emotional and powerful and ultimately hopeful.  I love that it's a book set in Japan and that it focuses so much on friendships and family.  This is a beautiful book, one that I hope you'll go out immediately and read. I recommend it.

Disabled Characters in YA

I've recently written on this blog about my commitment to reading and supporting diversity within young adult books and one of the things I was quite keen to read and see more of in YA are differently abled characters.  I really don't read very much about people in wheelchairs or that have chronic illness or characters with vision/hearing impairment and so on.  But I'd like to.

The books I've listed below deal with disability in different ways. Blindside by Aidan Chambers looks at the way being involved in an accident that leads to a loss of mobility would be a challenge to deal with and The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell is the story of a teenager who has a neurodegenerative disease and what that means for his quality of life as well for his friends and family.  There's also There Will Be Lies by Nick Lake and an anthology called Love Hurts edited by Malorie Blackman that features at least two stories/extracts that features differently abled characters.

And while I have managed to come across four books published this month that I feel discusses disability in YA fiction, I'm afraid that I haven't found anything else throughout the rest of the year. If anyone knows of any books with prominently disabled/differently abled characters being published in 2015, I would love to know about them!

Blindside by Aidan Chambers (15 January, Barrington Stoke)

An emotionally challenging and beautifully written drama that confronts the messiness of life head-on. Pete's a brilliant runner and dreams of athletic stardom - but fate intervenes. Pete is blindsided when he is involved in a horrific bike collision and his whole life is knocked off course. Stuck in a hospital bed and lamenting the loss of his mobility as well as his shattered dreams, the other people on his ward help Pete see that giving up on life is not the answer. Particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant and dyslexic readers aged 12+

The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell (29 January, Random House) 

And these are they. My final moments. They say a warrior must always be mindful of death, but I never imagined that it would find me like this . . .

Japanese teenager, Sora, is diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Lonely and isolated, Sora turns to the ancient wisdom of the samurai for guidance and comfort. But he also finds hope in the present; through the internet he finds friends that see him, not just his illness. This is a story of friendship and acceptance, and testing strength in an uncertain future.

Love Hurts by Malorie Blackman (29th January, Random House)

Malorie Blackman brings together the best teen writers of today in a stunningly romantic collection about love against the odds. Featuring short stories and extracts about modern star-crossed lovers from stars such as Gayle Forman, Markus Zusak and Patrick Ness, and with a brand-new story from Malorie Blackman herself, Love Hurts looks at every kind of relationship, from first kiss to final heartbreak.

There Will Be Lies by Nick Lake (1st January, Bloomsbury)

In four hours, Shelby Jane Cooper will be struck by a car.

Shortly after, she and her mother will leave the hospital and set out on a winding journey toward the Grand Canyon.

All Shelby knows is that they’re running from dangers only her mother understands. And the further they travel, the more Shelby questions everything about her past—and her current reality. Forced to take advantage of the kindness of unsuspecting travelers, Shelby grapples with what’s real, what isn’t, and who she can trust . . . if anybody.

Award-winning author Nick Lake proves his skills as a master storyteller in this heart-pounding new novel. This emotionally charged thrill ride leads to a shocking ending that will have readers flipping back to the beginning.

Do you have any recommendations for YA books that feature a disabled character?

REVIEW: The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

When I first heard about this new series by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, I was both really intrigued and excited. I was really curious to see what a combination of ideas from these two impressive authors would be like and also how different it would be to their previous stories and to the other well-known middle grade fantasy series it has been compared to (Harry Potter).

Despite my excitement and as with any book I have high expectations for, I was also a little bit nervous to start this book. And while I did find the beginning to be a little bit slow-going as the characters and this new world is being introduced, I also quickly came to enjoy it.  I very much enjoyed the friendship between the three central characters, I loved the introduction of some magical creatures and also discovering some twists and surprises at the end.

The main character of this story is Callum Hunt who has just celebrated his 12th birthday.  Because his is a magical family, he has been invited to take a test at the Magisterium that will determine if he has the magical ability to attend their magic school and apprentice with a powerful mage at the school.  But Callum is not like other prospective students with the school. He has been raised by his single father who hates magic and is determined for Callum to fail his magic tests and to avoid magic at all costs.

But that is not to be for Callum Hunt who has been picked as one of three apprentices by the most powerful mage at the Magisterium.  Together with new friends, Aaron and Tamara, they explore the school, manage deathly-dull tasks set by their mage and get into a fair bit of trouble.  I love that Call is so reluctant at first to join in and has such misgivings about everyone around him but slowly he grows to love magic and makes some solid connections with the other students.

I think that a lot of people have already spotted that there are similarities here to the Harry Potter series: a trio of magical students who enter magic school who are training towards defeating an evil wizard.  There's even a 'chosen one' and a Malfoy-esque arch-nemesis.  But if you get past all of that, and not let that distract you, this story is one that is worth reading.  It is fun and exciting and has a diverse set of characters and some twists that you probably won't see coming. I do recommend it!

REVIEW: Out of Tune by Beth Reekles

Out of Tune is the third book by teenage Wattpad sensation, Beth Reekles. I really enjoyed her previous two books, The Kissing Booth and Playing Dice. All of the books so far by Beth Reekles have been fun contemporary love stories and Out of Tune was everything that I expected from it: sweet and cute with a nice message about friendship, identity and love.

Out of Tune is the story of Ashley Bennett, a high school junior, who has everything going for her: she's smart, popular and has a wonderful boyfriend. But then a new family moves in next door to her and with their arrival, Ashley begins to see some of the cracks in her perfect life. With the help of Todd, the boy next door, she begins to realise that she can't talk to her friends about many things, her boyfriend keeps pressuring her to have sex and that Ashley desperately misses her ex-best friend who stopped being her friend once Ashley started dating her boyfriend.

I thought Todd was a cute character and a nice love interest and best friend for Ashley.  I like that he's bookish and shy and that there's an obvious awkwardness to him that makes him seem standoffish and aloof in the beginning.  He at least does have other extracurricular hobbies as he plays the guitar and writes his own songs. I liked the inclusion of some of Todd's song-writing and some of the initial tension between Ashley and Todd is pretty cute.  The fact that they are next door neighbours is used well throughout the story with their windows facing each other. Aww.

Like I said, I thought this book was very cute and sweet. I thought that sometimes the development of the secondary characters wasn't very strong and I don't believe that Ashley's parents were very believable in the things they said or did, but overall, I really enjoyed the story. I do like how much the story revolves around Ashley making changes in her life and having a bit of a realisation that some things just aren't working or making her feel happy any more.  I would have liked Ashley to be a little less passive in her own life and for her to rely less on Todd's observations and use some of her own agency to make things happen. I'd really like for her to have joined a club or taken up a hobby or something so that this book (and by extension, Ashley's life) has a bit more substance to it as opposed to everything in Ashley's life hinging on her relationship with a boy, but that is just a minor quibble I had with this book.

While I did want slightly more from Ashley's character and for there to be more in the way of story away from her romantic life, I did really enjoy Out of Tune and read it fairly quickly.  It's a nice, light read perfect summer-time reading for fans of contemporary YA love stories...

Six Things I Can't Write Without by Jonathan Stroud #YALCreadathon

Hurrah! Another day in the #YALCreadathon and another guest post by one of my favourite authors! Today, Jonathan Stroud, author of the Bartimaeus series as well as Lockwood and Co, is here talking about his writing essentials.

Jonathan Stroud writes really wonderful blends of fantasy, adventure and humour and I can't recommend his books enough.  If you haven't already read The Screaming Staircase then I highly suggest you do something about that.

Jonathan will be at YALC on the Saturday doing a panel event alongside Frances Hardinge, Amy McCulloch and Ruth Warburton entitled 'Bring Me My Dragons: Writing Fantasy Today' at 15:30 to 16:15 (and it sounds amazing, what a line-up!)

If you want to know more about Jonathan Stroud or his books, do visit the following websites:

Jonathan Stroud ... Jonathan Stroud on Twitter ... Jonathan Stroud on Facebook

Six Things I Can't Write Without

by Jonathan Stroud

1. Pen and Paper 

Okay, strictly speaking that’s two things. But they’re the basic tools of all my scribbling. It’s true that when writing a novel I type straight on to  my computer, so that I’m able to edit, reorder, cut and paste and generally fiddle to my heart’s content. But all my hard, important, conceptual thinking is done by hand (for instance, this fine article’s being composed that way...). I like to make notes in different colours, draw diagrams, figure out the structure by drawing arrows between chapter summaries, and so on. It’s messy, it’s involved, it’s the nitty gritty of novel creation and scarcely any different in feel to the way I made little books when I was a kid. There are just slightly fewer Berol pens involved now, so my fingers aren’t stained every colour of the rainbow.


2. The Ability to Touch Type

Okay, that’s not actually a thing. It’s a skill.  Substitute ‘computer keyboard’ if you’re feeling pedantic. But acquiring the ability to touch-type was seriously the most useful month’s work I ever did, teaching myself with a how-to manual my grandmother had given me, and bashing away on an old-style typewriter. It was just after leaving university, when in the manner of English graduates the world over I lacked both a job and a clear idea of how I was going to get one. I surmised, however, that touch-typing might be an asset. Not so. It’s been an essential. It allows me to work and communicate at top speed and save my brain for other things.


3. A Quiet Room 

It’s true that sometimes I do wilfully upend myself and go to a café to sit and write notes (see 1) surrounded by general hubbub and the blast of coffee machines. That’s just so I see human beings occasionally. It helps to keep me sane. But in general I need solitude and lack of distraction. I fact, I should probably have put ‘dull, quiet room’ because it needs to have nothing in it that might pull you from the task in hand. Bland pictures, files of accounts, preferably a blank wall in front of me. And no music. What’s with these writers who play music as they work? I don’t see how it can’t interfere with the rhythms of the language. Nope, strictly dullsville is what works for me.


4. Slightly Uncomfortable Chair 

Was it Balzac or Thackerary or Trollope who always wrote standing up? Or someone completely different? Well, whoever it was, they knew a thing or two. And probably got terrible varicose veins. I don’t myself go that far, but I do have a rather decrepit chair that used to belong to my sea-faring grandfather. The horsehair stuffing’s gone in the seat and both the arms are broken off. It’s simply not very comfy, which keeps me at my task, and prevents me dozing off between 2 and 4 pm (the most dangerous time of day).


5. An Optimum Page-Count

 When writing a novel, I always aim for 5 pages a day. This target (almost always unattainable) spurs me on. Even if I don’t make it, it gives me a context within which my activity can be judged.


6. Dozens of Secret Vices 

Rereading the above I was dumbstruck by how remarkably tedious the act of writing actually is. The exciting stuff (hopefully) is confined to the page: the mechanics of achieving it relies, unfortunately, on regularity and repetition. To redress the balance, I evidently need to acquire a large number of colourful, slightly dubious pastimes. Insert the proposed vice of your choice right here: _____________ and send your suggestion in on a postcard, which I’ll read at precisely 11.00 a.m. when I have my cup of tea.