Boys will be Boys - Four of the top guys in contemporary YA fiction

Let's face it: a lot of the recent big commercial YA fiction has been written by women. The ones you hear about in the news, I mean. The ones that turn up at the cinema. Stephanie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, Moira Young. What are the boys doing while all this is going on?

Writing some genius fiction, that's what.

When you step into the world of contemporary realism - gritty, honest books - you find that guys own a HUGE chunk of the limelight. Seeing as I blogged a few weeks ago on my favourite kick-ass girls, I thought it was about time I ventured into the world of boys! (Read into that what you will...)

So just for you, here are some of my favourite books written about guys, by guys.

Melvin Burgess, Phil Earle, Keith Gray and Dave Cousins - Masters of contemporary YA

1 Kill All Enemies, by Melvin Burgess. Melvin Burgess is a God amongst contemporary YA authors. He's a flipping genius - one of those authors most people know of, but haven't always read. (If you haven't read any of his books before, go and find one, even if it means stealing one from the nearest stranger.) Kill All Enemies is his most recent, and I loved it. The story is told by three characters: Rob, Chris and Billie. They're all stuck in various cycles, carrying them further away from the people they'd like to be and the lives they'd like to have. Burgess never goes easy on anybody. He throws stuff at these guys until you are gasping for breath at their fortitude and, well, balls. At the same time, he has a certain knack for pinpointing the humanity in everybody. People just like these characters exist - they're out there, fighting against the rest of the world, and that thought is terrifying - something Burgess isn't afraid to play on.

"Isn't it amazing how just thinking something can change your whole life? That's what a miracle is. Not flashing lights and choirs of angels and people coming back to life. It can happen in a moment and no one would ever know but the person it's happening to."

2 Being Billy, by Phil Earle.  I was given this for review, and it quickly (like, within about 20 pages) became one of my favourite debuts of 2011. Make no mistake, this is an AWESOME book. There's something unbelievably stark about this novel - you can't escape the hell that has become Billy's life. He hates it, and the worse it gets, the harder he fights. And boy, does he know it. You sense right from page one that Billy is just waiting for someone to offer to save him, but you also sense that as soon as they do, Billy will fight them all the way. Considering that Earle doesn't pull back from the tough stuff, he is capable of absolutely pummelling you with emotion. Every time Billy talks to his twin brother and sister, you want to leap right in, scoop the lot of them up and put them somewhere the world can't reach them any more. Surely even the most manly of manly men will be cuddled up with the kleenex by the end?

"My arm was sore. But, to be honest, everything aches after a restraint. Not just your muscles either, your brain, your guts, everything. It's difficult to explain. You feel lopsided, out of kilter, just wrong."

3 Ostrich Boys, by Keith Gray. I don't know what it is about Keith Gray. Every time I pick up one of his books, I get sucked in before I know what's happening. Ostrich Boys opens with Blake, Kenny and Sim hiding in a garden with a can of spray paint, desperate to do the right thing by their best friend Ross, who died after being hit by a car. They're angry - his funeral was depressing, not fit for Ross at all. So the three boys make a plan: they'll take Ross to Ross, and so begins the sort of adventure you'd expect when 3 teenage boys embark on a 250 mile journey carrying an urn full of ashes. There are a lot of surprises along the way, though. Blake, for a start, isn't your typical main character. He's seriously overweight and uncomfortable with himself, but he's brilliant, and as much as he puts himself down, you hope he isn't too far from seeing just how brilliant he really is.

"Our best friend Ross was ash in a jar. Ross was dead. Kenny, Sim and I were learning to live with it."

4 15 Days Without a Head, by Dave Cousins. Small confession. I got a review copy of this late last year (it was officially published earlier this year), and soon afterwards went on to meet Dave Cousins at a conference. If you are reading this, Dave, I apologise. I gushed. This book is GENIUS. I love it. I envy it. More than anything, I wish it had been around when I was a teenager. Fifteen Days is the incredibly well-told story of fifteen year-old Laurence and his little brother Jay (who thinks he's a dog), and the day their mum doesn't return home after work. They're left to fend for themselves - or rather, Laurence is left to fend for the both of them. This is a funny, genuine, heart-breaking window into the life of a modern teenager, and you won't want to put it down. Ever. (As a small side-note, the introduction to Laurence and Jay's mum is one of the best character intros I've read - seriously! I recently found myself surrounded by writers for a weekend, and that character intro is all we were talking about. Well, that and cake.)

"By the time I get to school, the playground is empty. I've missed registration and assembly has started, so I have to go to the office and sign the Late Book. I make it back just in time to join the queue lining up for first period - out of breath and sweating like a kebab."

It's summer - go and treat yourself to a new book! (Disclaimer: the sun was still shining when I wrote this. It may now, in fact, be chucking it down. In which case, go treat yourself to a new book.)

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.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, right? Er… hang on a minute - where have all the strong girls gone?

Let’s face it, we all need a hero. Whether you’re the girl being cornered at school, or the girl going home to a less-than-perfect family, or sod it, just having to get through, it’s nice to have someone to show you how it’s done. Yet if you asked a reader to name their top five YA girl protagonists, I’d bet anything that they’d all be from fantasy or sci-fi books – girls placed in extraordinary situations, rather than extraordinary girls. There’s been a hell of a lot of scrutiny of this in YA books recently, the girl at the top of the hit list being Bella Swan, the insipid, pass-the-bucket ‘heroine’ of the Twilight series. I don’t remember there being any girls like that in books I read as a teenager – and believe me, I wasn’t exactly reading Dostoyevsky.

So where have the true heroines gone? ‘Strong girl’ now seems to go hand in hand with the ability to swing a sword and save the world – in other words, a strong girl equals a superhero. Where are the girls who simply live, without needing to be the centre of a love triangle in order to feel valued? Where are the girls who can’t change the world, or don’t want to; the girls who don’t do anything extraordinary other than be themselves? They are out there, though, these girls, and instead of ranting on for an entire blog (which wouldn’t be difficult), I thought I’d list some of my personal favourite contemporary kickass YA girls.

1 Hilly – Sisterland, by Linda Newbery. It’s rare to read about this kind of girl. She isn’t popular, but she isn’t unpopular either. She does her homework, cares about school, loves her family and is equally exasperated by them. She’s not especially feisty, but she knows what she wants, and she deals with what she can when it comes along. When her home dynamic is unsettled by the arrival of her Alzheimer-suffering gran, Hilly changes. She discovers that people aren’t everything they seem, but that what they are is largely out of her control. It’s watching Hilly allowing her world to change around her whilst making sure she’s still firmly part of it, that makes her fantastic.

“I keep thinking about my map of the world – how it’s changed, and still changing. It’s bigger and it’s smaller than it used to be.”

2 Daisy – How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff. Daisy is a bit of a one-off. I know I blogged on Meg Rosoff last week, but Daisy herself is absolutely worth a monition here. She’s full of weakness. She’s stroppy, mouthy, is filled with self-doubt, and has no idea how to fit in with people. But she’s also brave, in the way only teenagers really can be – she has a way of leaping into things other people would talk themselves out of. As war breaks out, Daisy doesn’t have any thoughts of saving the world – she barely stops to think about who they’re at war with – all she does is the best that she can, and when she needs to, she settles with what she’s got.

“…I was coming round to the belief that whether you liked it or not, Things Happen and once they start happening you pretty much just have to hold on for dear life and see where they drop you when they stop.”

3 Jem – Numbers, by Rachel Ward. First off, I will say that this book is AMAZING. I love it, and Jem is far and away one of my favourite ever characters. She’s just awesome. On the surface, this is a fantasy book – the premise is that Jem can see the date on which people will die in their eyes. But I’ve included it here because Jem doesn’t rise to the plot – she’s entrained by it. Jem is unbelievably strong. She’s street-smart, people-smart. She’s spent her whole life keeping herself to herself, which means you can’t look away when she finally decides to let someone in. Jem perfectly encapsulates that feeling of teenage isolation, and she’s just fantastic. (Apologies for the photo - this is actually book 2, because I can't stop lending people the first one...)

“Made me feel lonely, seeing a snapshot of other people’s lives. They were warm, secure, there were cooking smells wafting out, soon be dinner time, they had people, they belonged. I made myself move on – no good thinking what other people had…”

4 Neesha – Falling, by Sharon Dogar. Neesha has a complicated life – she’s mute, for a start, and her family are anything but supportive. She’s often left to the hand of superstition and tradition, with her mother busy arranging a husband for her ‘odd’ daughter. Neesh feels helpless, but she is a quiet fighter; she wants something good for herself. As Neesh tries to get what she feels she needs, she is aware of the consequences of her actions on her family and friends, and spends a lot of timing weighing up her options – she’s considerate and generous in the face of undeniable adversity, which is what I love about her.

“Suddenly it doesn’t feel funny any more. It feels dangerous, like the sun suddenly dropping out of the sky. Like a light going out. Like when Dad left and everything changed, and my voice fell out of my body because it had nothing left to say any more.”

5 Caro – This Is Not Forgiveness, by Celia Rees. This Is Not Forgiveness is a recent release, and it brings the teenage girl protagonist to the forefront with some serious power. Caro is calculating. She’s striking, she knows it, and she isn’t afraid to go after whatever she wants. Like a lot of teenagers, she feels like it’s up to her to tackle the world’s problems, but unlike a lot of fictional teenagers, she has to act within the constraints of her life. In other words – as much as she might want to change the world, and as tough and fierce as she is, she’s a kid, and that proves to be her biggest battle.

“He rakes a hand through his dirty blond hair. It won’t be long before he checks himself in the mirror. There he goes, quick look to see that his hair’s OK. Boys like him are obsessed with themselves. More than girls. Narcissism repels me. He goes on my list.”

I’m sure there must be loads out there that aren’t on this list – who are your favourites?

August, by Bernard Beckett

"Tristan found a new feeling taking hold of him, something lighter than happiness. His thoughts drifted more and more from the present to the future. Hope. That was it, even if he couldn't name it. Hope lifted his gaze and floated his mind. He had no idea what lay ahead of him, but he knew it was something."

Beckett is an author I hadn't heard of until recently, when I was given a copy of 'August' as a gift. (This is just one of the many advantages to having a bookseller for a friend - they always know just what you'll like!)

August is the story of two teenagers - Tristan and Grace - and the things that have brought them together. Not just any kind of together, though - certainly not the nice, happily-ever-after together - but the kind of agonising togetherness that could go either way.

The book starts with virtual strangers Tristan and Grace flying from the road in their car and tumbling part-way into a valley. Landing upside down, they are trapped. It's the middle of the night, and there's no chance they'll be spotted from the road. Bleeding and in excruciating pain, they're in this for the long haul, and they know it.

To keep each other conscious, they tell their stories. And that's what this book is: it's a story about stories, and the ways in which they weave in and out of each other.

Tristan and Grace take it in turns to talk, slowly revealing how they ended up in a car together that night. We follow both through their childhoods and their quests to find adulthood, each step along the way bringing characters as rich and varied as any you could wish for, and each time their stories move on, we are constantly left wondering where the fault for their misfortune lies.

Beckett cleverly weaves good and bad with uncertainty and circumstance, and it is truly difficult to blame anybody for their actions, even if you spend the entire book wishing you could do so.

But the thing I most admire about August is the way it takes its time. There is no rush here. Beckett lets you take your time, allows you to absorb every word of his winding sentences, and lets you feel your way forwards. The build up of tension is incredible, and as Tristan and Grace get closer to understanding the ways in which their lives have crossed in unstoppable and sometimes unforgivable moments, you egg them on with everything you have, even though you suspect you don't want the full story to come out. Very little in their lives has been good, and you feel that life isn't going to start being good to them now.

"Time is passing," Grace replied. "And we are not. It's the best we can hope for."

August is an intense read. Beckett deals with some big philosophical ideas, and as with everything else in this book, he takes his time in doing so. Then again, he handles everything with such ease that it feels just right that you should be reading about the arguments surrounding man's free will one minute, and watching Tristan slowly manipulate a broken tooth to the front of his bloodied mouth with his tongue so that he can spit it out the next.

August is part thriller, part love story. These are two teenagers who time and time again have broken free from their constraints only to find new and darker ones. Every time life turns on them, you can't help but wish for better for them both, especially as they are often one word, one glance over their shoulders away from better things. As a reader, your only hope is that through telling each other their stories, they can figure out a next move that will take them someplace better, and even as you are nearing the end of this book, you won't be sure which way it's going to go. But either way, it's worth going along for the ride.

The Fault in our Stars, by John Green

Seeing as this is a blog about serious teen fiction, what better way to start than to review one of the books of the moment? I should warn you that I started reading this book at around 5pm yesterday, and I finished it three tubes, one train, a hurried walk home so I could start reading again and seven hours later. I may have been close to slipping into unconsciousness by the time I finished this last night, but apparently not close enough to stilt its impact. Not that I cried or anything.

The Fault in our Stars is a book everyone who hasn't been living under an especially large, hibernation-inducing rock has heard about. Like a lot of teen fiction at the moment, it's everywhere, and its following is only growing. And yet - it doesn't have a UK publisher.

How does a book not yet published in the UK gain such a huge following over here?

Because it's freaking awesome, that's why.

Teen fiction does a lot of things. It has strong characters who suck you in, twisting plots that spit you back out and hooks you could hang a blue whale on. Serious teen fiction, however, does something else: it delivers a punch you rarely find in more commercial fiction.

It's often character-driven, for a start, which means that if you wrote down the (action) plot, point by point, you'd often have almost nothing written on the page in front of you.

What's left behind, however, are the characters, and their voices. And boy, does John Green deliver some voices.

Take Hazel, for example, the main character. Hazel is precocious. She's curious. She feels for her place in the world, and then takes the time to stand and admire it. Oh - and she has cancer. The inoperable kind. In fact, it's pretty much the can't-do-anything-about-it kind.

When Augustus Waters turns up at her cancer support group (held in the Literal Heart of Jesus), I'd like to say that everything changes for Hazel, but I don't feel that it does. You could say that it opens doors for her, but Hazel isn't the kind of girl who goes storming through open doors. Quite frankly she'd be happier reading a book. You could say it shows her the breadth of humanity, but Hazel is well aware of how strange and diverse people are. You could say she grows up during the course of the story, but Hazel is already 16 going on 30.

What it does do, is show us the world through the eyes of a dying teenager. It shows us how Hazel feels to find her first love, and how she feels as the world widens and then collapses around her to the sound of the BiPAP that keeps her breathing at night. It shows how she deals with knowing that the moment she dies, the people around her will be left behind to cope with changed lives. And let me tell you, she isn't exactly soppy about it.

Hazel is the kind of character that teen fiction exists for. She's resilient, but not fearless; gutsy but not heroic; curious but not all-knowing. She's the kid sitting on the bus next to you or the girl that lives down the street. She talks like a teenager, processes the world like a teenager and dreams like a teenager.

Which all means that when The Fault in our Stars reaches its end, we feel none of the characters have reached theirs, whatever and wherever they might be.

And that is what I love about serious teen fiction.