Book reviews, new books, publishing news, book giveaways, and author interviews

My former colleague, Proust, and Derek Landys Skulduggery Pleasant

My former colleague, Proust, and Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant

If you're new here, why not subscribe to our email updates or follow us on Facebook? You can also add us to your Google Reader. Thanks for visiting! I once worked with someone who rather reminded me of a tragic pelican. He had this strange, gulping way of speaking, almost as though his words were fish that he was trying to choke down, and these sad, sad eyes...

Lisa Stasses The Forsaken and my frustrations with dystopian YA

Lisa Stasse's The Forsaken and my frustrations with dystopian YA

With its Katniss-lookalike cover illustration, stark black and red cover scheme, and'Hunger Games-reminiscent font, you could be forgiven for mistaking Lisa M Stasses'The Forsaken for fan fiction. But never fear, if you didnt make the connection, the'if you love'The Hunger Games read this!'blurb on the back will drive home the...

Review: The Outsiders by SE Hinton

Review: The Outsiders by SE Hinton

  Sixteen years on the streets and you can learn a lot. But all the wrong things, not the things you want to learn. Sixteen years on the streets and you see a lot. But all the wrong sights, not the sights you want to see. One of the things I feel that I dont see enough of in todays YA is unpolished rawness. Instead theres...

Complementary colours and A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty

Complementary colours and A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty

  Its like were complementary coloursyou know what those are, right? Colours that make each other disappear? So if you cross red with green'or blue with orange, or yellow with purple'you get a pale, pale colour, almost white Interestingly, though, if you put complementary colours next to each other, they make each other...

Nameless narrators and Sarah Brills Glory

Nameless narrators and Sarah Brill's Glory

Im always surprised to read that readers find it easier to get into the head of a first person narrator. For me, theres something about an essentially nameless character that is immensely disorienting and distancing. Second person is even worse, bringing with it the weird double-think that it does, and unnamed thirds are a lesson in nominative...

The Story Girl and Anne: or why we need more quiet books

The Story Girl and Anne: or why we need more quiet books

Last year I happened across the Anne of Green Gables books in audiobook format. These were books that Id pooh-poohed as a child purely because of their scratchy old covers and nondescript titles, and my eventual decision to read them was made with a sort of grim determination, much as how I might have approached an end-of-year examination or a...