Undone by Cat Clarke

review by Maryom

Since childhood Jem Halliday has been in love with the boy next door - Kai. The only snag is, Kai is gay. Jem makes the best of it and they still continue as best friends, spending every spare minute together but then the unthinkable happens - Kai is 'outed' online is such a way that he takes his life. Jem's world falls apart. She almost follows him but is stopped by receiving the first of a series of letters written to her by Kai in his last hours and deciding that revenge on those she believes responsible would be a better plan....

Is it possible to like a book if you don't like the main character? I often say it isn't but in this case maybe it is. I started this book a while ago - and put it down because I didn't like Jem and her attitude - she's far too self-centred. Then, I decided to give it another go and got hooked reading it; although she was still annoying. The story centres on Jem's plan for revenge on the people she feels were responsible for Kai taking his own life - the so called Team Popular, the girls and guys at school that she feels everyone wants to be. As she infiltrates their clique, she grows to see that the people she'd disliked from a distance aren't all bad, that a lot of what she'd thought about them was just her perception and that once she's got to know them they are likeable. As the story progressed, I definitely felt more sympathy for Team Popular than I did for Jem.
It's a no-holds barred story about growing up and finding oneself - and as a parent I didn't like the casual assumption that all 16 year olds drink and have sex; maybe some, let's hope not all, do, but it's too easy for teens to fall into the assumption that that only weirdos and the terminally un-cool don't and this book seemed to re-inforce that outlook.

Overall, I found Undone a rather sad read that left me with a huge sense of loss that so many lives could be ruined by one stupid act.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Quercus
Genre - YA  

 Buy Undone from Amazon

Torn by Cat Clarke

Review by The Mole

Tara is mean one too many times on a school activity holiday, when she humiliates Polly by making sure the whole school trip hears of an incident while pot-holing. Cass is fuming and is determined to dish out some humiliation to Tara. Recruiting Polly, Rae and Alice she devises a plan that will surely do it. Unfortunately things don't go to plan and Alice finds herself between a rock and a hard place.

I shall put my hand up (as I did to Cat Clarke at the Edinburgh International Book Festival) and say that I had no plan to read this while we were away - simply because I had others I planned to read that were removed from the packing at the last minute. [Any suggestions on ereaders and I will happily send an address for you to post one to! ;-)] But - most importantly - I LOVED it. Yes, I may not be the target audience but so what?

I quickly found myself wanting to shake some of the people in the story. Not 'characters' because they were just so real and believable. It's difficult to say more without giving spoilers except to say that it certainly will get you thinking and probably have you taking sides in it all.

Fabulous!

Publisher - Quercus
Genre - teenage, YA, Fiction

Buy Torn from Amazon 

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2012

This year we timed our annual holiday so as to spend a week in Edinburgh to take in events at the festival as well as meet people and step outside a bit and enjoy fringe events too.

The first week was to be our week and we set aside just 3 days to attend the festival but what we didn't realise is that the festival is actually addictive and that we quickly changed that to 6 days, so if you plan on attending the festival at all then be warned!

We met and made a lot of friends and attended events and book signings and here are but a few.

i) Alan Bissett - Maryom chatted about Pack Men and how it is not just for male football fans. We also saw Alan at the Festival Cafe (a BBC Scotland radio show) where he talked about and performed a brief excerpt from his one man fringe show for arachnophobes - extremely funny, catch him if you can.

ii) Barry Hutchinson - We talked with Barry and other Scottish authors about the difficulties caused by branding books as 'Scottish' and how buyers in England avoid such books for some reason perhaps in the belief that they are "all haggis and tartan".

iii) Linda Strachan - We chatted about many things and had a sneak preview of the cover for Don't Judge Me, her next teen novel to be published by Strident in Autumn.

iv) Keren David and Cat Clarke talked about motivations for writing, methods of writing and other things and read from their latest books and The Mole discussed with Cat Clarke the character with which she identifies and although we disagreed on choice her father was in agreement with The Mole.

v) Keith Charters  - We chatted at length on many subjects surrounding publishing and many NOT publishing related.

vi) Matt Cartney - We chatted about several things... but more on this meeting in a later post.

vii) Edward Wilson talked of his route to writing spy thrillers and read from his  book.

viii) James Mayhew - We saw him story telling and painting in a way that he does so well.

ix) S J Watson signed Maryom's copy of Before I Go To Sleep and chatted about it and the publicity campaign surrounding it.

And one of the great things is that at the festival you can meet so many people by chance..while in the yurt, apparently Neil Gaiman walked past and we missed him, we brushed passed and chatted with Nicola Morgan in the bookshop and we met and chatted with Victoria Campbell as well as brushing past an Archbishop.

The problem is that you cannot do everything you want to do and we missed many people. There were also so many authors and friends we would like to have met in the second week, but sadly due to the GCSE results day in England then it had to be the first week only.

Torn by Cat Clarke

Shallow Grave meets Sartre
review by Maryom

On a school outward-bound type trip, Alice and best friend Cass find themselves sharing a cabin with popular but bitchy Tara, emo Rae and the largely ignored Polly. Following a terrifying pot-holing expedition, Tara's meanness reaches new heights and Cass thinks it's time to take her down a peg or two. As things slide from funny to disastrous, Alice finds herself dragged into helping cover up what really occurred.

Torn is another stunning book from Cat Clarke filled with that edgy thought-provoking angst that teens seem to love and which strangely brought back memories of French lessons reading Sartre. Jean Paul had many a hero torn between the cushy option and doing what they knew to be right - and this is where Cat Clarke's heroine Alice finds herself. Should Alice tell all? Does Alice even know all?

The reader is enticed along as Alice's back story is slowly revealed and they come to realise how much the dynamics of the group have changed over the years, how peer pressure and school cliques have shaped the girls' characters and attitudes. This sort of incident is not one to walk away from untouched and I was fascinated by how the girls' characters continued to evolve in unexpected ways - though we aren't talking dead flatmates here, despite the Shallow Grave reference.

Torn is a thought provoking book that proves that not all YA fiction has to be about werewolves and vampires. There's a mystery, quite a lot of romance and important decisions about taking responsibility to be made, as Alice tries to work her way out of the mess.


Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Quercus
Genre - teenage, YA, 

Other reviews: CarnelianValley
 

Buy Torn from Amazon

Other reviews: Serendipity Reviews

Anti-bullying week: Maryom's choices

All of my choices are not books about bullying as such but still ones in which it plays an important part. I had wanted to include The Killer's Daughter by Vivian Oldaker but The Mole picked that first!
Be warned there are probably plot spoilers in this post - though not in the individual reviews.

A Million Angels by Kate Maryon - Mima is depressed and lonely since her father has been posted to Afghanistan. First her best friend Jess starts to torment her with ghastly accounts of what may be happening to her dad, then school bully Tory begins to pick on her as well. The mild teasing turns nasty when their parents mistakenly encourage the girls to spend more time together. The story shows how parents too easily pick up the wrong idea and make matters worse, even though they feel they are helping.

Boys Don't Cry by Malorie Blackman behind the main plot of teenage parenthood is a tale of gay teenager Adam coming to terms with being 'different' but bullied for it. He attempts to hide this from his, mainly accepting, family but the reader is aware that things are growing unpleasant for him. The ugliest aspect is that someone is joining in with the bullying in an attempt to hide their own feelings and sexuality.

Torn by Cat Clarke - how NOT to tackle bullying! Tara is the popular, bitchy queen of school, out to belittle and humiliate anyone not in her clique. She wasn't always like this though, so how did she change from nice girl to bully? Also, if you feel you're being bullied, don't go down the route picked by these girls!

Entangled by Cat Clarke

Inside the Teenage Mind
review by Maryom

Grace has been kidnapped - or so she believes. She is being held in a stark white room by a man who ticks all the boxes for 'ideal boyfriend' - his appearance, clothes, even his name are exactly as Grace would choose. In between his brief visits with food, Grace has nothing to occupy herself other than a stack of blank paper and a large numbers of pens. Guessing that this is what her captor wants from her, she starts to write down the story of what brought her to the point of taking her own life....

An amazingly compelling story - the reader is teased along as Grace's life is revealed little by little leading to the fateful incidents of 'that night' when Grace's world finally crumbled apart.
I felt so sorry for Grace as her past story came to light - so many things have gone wrong for her - and then less sympathetic as I read of her attention-grabbing reactions (though even when I was thinking 'Oh, don't do that. Don't go there, Grace', I was more annoyed with her Mother for not noticing what was going on under her nose).
In some respects, Grace didn't come over as very nice - she drops and picks up friends as and when convenient, always feels her problems are more important than anyone else's - but the character felt more realistic for this.
I did sort-of guess the ending - and then quickly skimmed the last pages to check - but it didn't spoil my enjoyment.

An excellent debut novel that I'd recommend to teens and their parents for an insight into troubled teenage minds. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more by Cat Clarke in the future.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Quercus Books
Genre - teen,YA, fiction

Buy Entangled from Amazon