Summer Reading - Elizabeth Wein, Cathy Brett, Rachel Ward, Laura Jarratt, Phil Earle and Teri Terry BRING ON THE JOY.

In two weeks, I am going on what is really my first ever proper summer holiday. Beach. Ice cream. Sun. Sea. Ice cream.

This gives me the perfect excuse to kick back, relax, and spend a month's wages all in one go. Yes, it's find-some-books-on-Amazon-and-order-them-through-my-local-indie time (which adds to the financial cost, but saves on the moral one).

I've already started. I am practically drooling over here.

Elizabeth Wein's new book Rose Under Fire is out, and I am HANKERING to get my hands on a copy. I predict that this one will be finished and my face tear-streaked by the end of the two hour flight, demanding to be re-read once I get to the hotel. Those of you who have read this blog before, or indeed EVER SPOKEN TO ME, will know that I rarely shut up about Wein's last book, Code Name Verity. In fact, I like it so much that I've written not one but two review of it - on this blog and on my other blog, Space on the Bookshelf.


Then there's this one:

I'm a big fan of Cathy Brett. Quite frankly, I think she's awesome. And her new book Everything is Fine (and Other Lies I Tell Myself) is already picking up stonking reviews... (If you haven't ever heard of Cathy Brett, this might give you an idea as to her particular brand of awesome.) This book seems to me to have been packaged a little more 'seriously' than her previous books, and judging by the pace building up behind it, it's going to do great things for her. Also: one of the best titles of the year so far.

And this one...

Rachel Ward's Numbers series is something I have longed shouted about, and I was wondering what was coming next from this terrific writer - and here it is! On the surface of it, The Drowning looks very different from the dystopian thrillers of the trilogy that came before, but Numbers was always gritty, and books two and three are very dark and disturbing. I strongly suspect that when the same style and pace is taken into a contemporary thriller, the results will be unflinchingly horror-filled. (In a good way, of course!)

Oh, Laura Jarratt's By Any Other Name. I loved her debut, Skin Deep. A great British teen romance. So I can't wait to read this next one!

Phil Earle's Heroic has been picking up some great reviews, but to be honest, I'd read this whether it had great reviews or not, because his debut, Being Billy, and the follow-up Saving Daisy, were brutally honest and brilliant.

And to complete the line up - Fractured, by Teri Terry. Teri is a good friend of mine, and I read this when it was a manuscript. But I know that some exciting things happened to it after I originally read it, so I'm eager to spot the changes and just generally enjoy it all over again!

I think, seeing as I'm building my own summer reading list, that I should offer up a recommendation, too! And, without hesitation, it's Pantomime, by Laura Lam. I want, nay NEED, to review this book and shout about it to EVERYONE I KNOW, but sadly, any kind of good review would ruin the book entirely. So I'm restraining myself. But go read it. It will be different from any teen fiction you've read before.

I'd love to hear other suggestions if anyone has any! Particularly suggestions of debuts - I seem to have LOTS of follow-ups on my list!

Representing sexual diversity in YA - David Levithan, Malorie Blackman, same sex marriage and a long way to go

Tomorrow, the debate on marriage equality in the UK moves to the House of Lords. It's been an agonising wait for many, and given the coverage it's getting and the politicians who are coming right out (no pun intended) and saying that they don't see a need for marriage equality, I imagine (and fear) that those people might find themselves waiting a while longer.

Quite obviously, given the amount of time I spend talking about John Green here, this is not a blog on politics. But it is a blog about fiction for teens, and here's where culture and politics are mixing in a way that you hope can only mean better things for the next generation of adults.

A favourite author of mine, David Leviathan, has a new book coming out in August (hurry up, August!) called Two Boys Kissing. The cover looks something like this:

Two Boys Kissing is the story of Harry and Craig, two 17 year-old boys determined to break the Guinness World Record for the longest ever kiss. All 32 hours of it, to be more precise. And it's well timed, too, being published a decade after Boy Meets Boy, David's debut.

Many YA writers, when asked about the issues, sex and violence they put in their books, argue that books are an important and safe way for children and teens to explore the world. I completely agree, but I also think that books are an important reflection of the world, and that when books fail to represent significant parts of our culture, children and teens are being failed. Of course, that doesn't only go for sexual inequality - it goes for all sorts of diversity issues, and the growing representation of LGBTQ teens is only one way in which diversity in books is increasing.

A while back, I read a great article on Atlantic Wire, written by Jen Doll. In it, Levithan says:

"Every now and then there's a moment when people are grumbling and saying publishers are still scared [of books featuring LGBT characters], but from my point of view that’s 100 percent false. I have not had any experience of people not wanting to share these voices and stories. Any perceived resistance is from people who aren't plugged in, whose ideas of what the publishing marketplace is are 10 or 20 years out of date."

I feel there's a bit of a dichotomy here. Whilst I do read quite a number of American books featuring LGBTQ characters, I would say that although the numbers of similar characters in UK books are increasing, they aren't increasing very much.

One memorable British book I read recently, though, is Malorie Blackman's Boys Don't Cry, in which the main character's brother is gay, and suffering at the hands of other (school)boys for it. It's a beautifully written book, and the culmination of that particular storyline is in equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful. I read another, simply stunning book a few weeks ago that I'm dying to talk more about here but, alas, it would give the entire plot away. (Sorry. But not really. It was an awesome read.)

Doing a bit of research for this post, I found a piece on the Guardian website from a couple of years ago. It's reporting some news from the States - two authors who were advised to 'straighten out' their gay main characters in order to be published. I can't imagine that this is something that happens very often these days, but the article was of particular interest, because of a mention of Malorie Blackman in the same article:

"Although Blackman experienced only positive reactions from her agent, publisher and readers at her inclusion of a gay younger brother in her novel Boys Don't Cry, she said that, when she was starting out as a writer 20 years ago, she was asked to make a black character white."

She goes on to say (very succinctly!):

"Are we still not over this nonsense?" 

Now, I haven't written this blog because of personal experience. This is not a case of somebody getting up on a soap box to shout about something because they feel it is unfair to them personally. But nevertheless this is something that I feel passionate about.

I look at people very dear to my heart, and I think: when you grow up, I want you to be able to choose. I want you to feel free to love whomever you love, and to be able to celebrate that in the same way as anybody else.

And quite honestly, the more diversity of all kinds is represented in literature for teens, the better off we'll all be.

I'll Be There - A new perspective in contemporary YA fiction

It isn't very often that you come across something that feels entirely fresh and unfazed by the market. So, when those moments come along, you treasure them. Last week I was lucky enough to have Holly Goldberg Sloan's I'll Be There recommended to me, and it didn't take long for me to realise I wasn't going to be able to put it down any time soon.

I'll Be There is a love story, hidden deep in the folds of a family drama, and reading it really does feel like you are discovering something entirely brave and new. The story revolves around Emily and Sam, two teenagers who meet one day at a church. Emily's father has forced her into singing a solo, and she's dreading it - the only thing she is confident about it that she has a horrible singing voice. Hearing the pipe organ playing from the street, Sam walks into the same church, and takes a seat in the very back row.

From here, chance encounters and decisions made in the moment forge a path down which Emily and Sam are guided. This is a book written from an eagle-eye perspective, swooping down on character after character, each providing a small piece of the puzzle, from Sam's younger brother, Riddle, to his dangerously unhinged father, including along the way a black bear, a cattle driver and a hotel cleaning lady. Every character is observed in beautiful, subtle detail. Take Riddle, for example. Riddle is autistic, but we are never told. Instead, through scene after scene, we are shown how he likes to carry a telephone directory around with him in which he draws intricate diagrams of machines and engines, and how he bonds with Emily's family through the dog and her mother's 'dump cake'.

The story is told by a removed narrator who seems to have no emotional insight into the story he is telling. For some reason I cannot fathom, even after reading this book twice, I can't shake the feeling that this adds to the book's emotional depth. The perspective is so emotionally removed that the big scenes deliver a huge punch, more so than most first-person narratives, and if you're anything like me, you'll be dying to read it again soon after you've finished it the first time.


Sloan invites the reader to judge characters by their actions, not their thoughts, and there is something incredibly admirable about that. By viewing Emily and Sam's world from the clouds, Sloan is able to trace fate's path through their lives, examining each and every person who makes an impact on their stories.

I'll Be There seems to me an extremely important and interesting addition to the world of contemporary realistic YA, and I've spent the last few days heartily recommending it to EVERYONE.

So, you know, go read it. Go love it, go pass it on. You won't be able to resist. Promise.