Rereadathon #5: Day 5 Mini-Challenge - Bookish Collections

I've accumulated several bookish-themed objects over the years (quite aside from the books themselves.) There are several Harry-Potter bits of merchandise, for a start, and last year I finally completed my Malory Towers series in the editions that I grew up with, a quest that started back in about 1994. But today I'd like to show off my Lord of the Rings Lego sets, because, let's face it, I never really grew up.

And of course I have my Anne of Green Gables collection. Up until last year I resisted calling it a collection. I had a very sensible three copies: the big two-in-one hardback with Anne of Avonlea that my parents bought me when I was eight, the 100th anniversary paperback to keep in my bag when out and about, and a second-hand Puffin classics edition for reading in the bath or other times when it might get a bit battered. But then I discovered the little hardback with gold edges and the original illustrations and it really, truly would fit into your pocket, and how could I resist that? Then, my sister ended up with a spare copy and brought it home for me, and when you've got five copies of the same book you might as well go all out and do it properly, right? Not the whole series, of course - that would just be silly. And then there's quite a few bits of stationery as well: Notebooks and journals, address book and pens, and even a colouring book. If it's Anne, it's mine.

Do you have any bookish collections? Maybe you've got one publisher whose books look so good on your shelves that you have to complete the set, or like me with Anne you have several editions of the same book. Or maybe it's bookish tote bags, mugs, or other merchandise. If so, do please show me or tell me about it, linking in the widget below. 

Thursday Stats:

Books read from today: The Handmaid's Tale

Pages read today: 199

Total books finished: 3

What else have I been up to?: Chores.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season One

As I've mentioned before, I have spent the last seventeen years inexcusably ignorant of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, despite being a nerdy teenager at the time it was originally aired. I saw a few episodes, and listened to my friends rave about it, but it was never a show I went out of my way to watch. Even when I'd been introduced to Joss Whedon's other work: Firefly, Dollhouse, Doctor Horrible and The Avengers, Buffy didn't really appeal. I've never been a big fan of vampires. Yet slowly I was won over, and eventually borrowed the boxset from my best friend. I wasn't convinced right away, but I've learned from experience that Joss Whedon's series tend to start grabbing my attention from round about the third episode: in this case, the episode with the witch cheerleader, who turns out to be the cheerleader's mother who's done a body-swap with her daughter, trying to relive her glory days. 

I confess, I'm not a huge fan of the "chosen one" trope, and am still a bit confused about how and why Buffy is the designated Slayer: what is so special about her, that no one else can do the job? Several other characters have been able to effectively wield a pointy stick. Is she naturally abnormally strong, abnormally skilled? She is an awesome fighter, sure enough, but it's clear that she does a lot of rigorous physical training to get that way. When we first meet Buffy, new student at a new school, she is already well aware of her destiny before she ever met Giles, or any other "Watcher" to tell her what she needs to be doing. How did she discover this? What would happen if someone else wanted to battle vampires, without being a "chosen one?" Who chose Buffy and how did they let her know? These are the things that irritate my brain, but for the most part I just put this aside and enjoy the show. And by this point, yes I am enjoying it very much. There is an overriding story arc about one particularly powerful vampire known as The Master (no, he is not nor has he ever been  a Time Lord) and among the monster-of-the-week stories, series one builds up towards a prophesied confrontation between the newly-restored Master and the Slayer.

But for me, at least in series one, it's not the vampire-slaying stories that interest me so much as how the 

events affect the characters. Buffy, her classmates Willow and Xander and their school librarian by day, Watcher by night, Rupert Giles, make an excellent team. I like Buffy a lot more than I expected: she is very human, flawed, yet likable, tough but vulnerable. She is, in short, a sixteen-year-old girl, but one with a huge responsibility. Willow is simply adorable, and her unrequited love for Xander is rather heartrending, because he sees her as just a friend, someone who's been there so long he's kind of forgotten she's a girl. I see parallels to Ron and Hermione in their friendship, possibly because I'm reading

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at the same time as watching Buffy. But I think Willow can do much better than Xander.*

Xander is far too interested in Buffy, and at times displays unattractive signs of "nice guy syndrome,"

but Buffy has eyes only for Angel - who, as a vampire, is her sworn enemy. Oh, teenage romance woes, how I don't miss you! I knew about the Buffy/Angel love story from the start, and did not relish it, yet it was well done. Yes, Angel can be a bit brooding and introspective, but at least he doesn't sparkle. This is more than the standard teen romance between a human girl and an Interchangeable Magical Boyfriend Creature, because Buffy's purpose is to destroy ALL the vampires, adding a deeper level of conflict. It's not the greatest love story of all time, but it's moving and handled well.

I often enjoy the stand-alone monster-of-the-week episodes more than the vampires themselves: let's face it, The Master is an incredibly cheesy villain, and I found him rather irritating - an over-acting Voldemort. Still, the final episode's confrontation was very satisfying; it was an emotional roller-coaster of an episode. After spending eleven episodes getting to know Buffy, experiencing her highs and lows, her vampire-slaying and her longing for a normal life, who could fail to be affected by her overhearing the terrible prophesy. "I'm sixteen years old. I don't want to die." 

Favourite episodes:

3. "The Witch" - the one with the body-switching cheerleader mom. Episode 3: the one where I started really getting into the series.

6. "The Pack." - The one where Xander and some school bullies get possessed by hyenas and the bullies eat the school principal. This series suddenly took a very dark turn.

8. "I Robot, You Jane." - The one where Willow uploads a demon onto the internet. Hilariously dated, so bad it's good.

9. "The Puppet Show." ARRGH VENTRILOQUIST DUMMY NO! In which Joss Whedon takes a classic horror trope and turns it on its head, playing with all our expectations. Not for the last time.

10. "Nightmares." In which everyone's worst fears and nightmares come to life. I cried.

11. "Out of Mind, Out of Sight." The one with the invisible girl. 

*Interesting that I'm having these thoughts right now. The internet tells me today that J. K. Rowling now wishes she'd paired Harry and Hermione together, that Ron and Hermione wouldn't actually have been good for each other. Perhaps my comparison is not so mad after all...

Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell

As soon as I heard about Rainbow Rowell's novel Fangirl, I knew I had to have it. The story of a shy and nerdy girl in her first year at university, who spends more time in the world of her favourite books than in the real world? Gimme! Ellie sent me this book as my Christmas present, and I spent a good chunk of Christmas Day reading the book, once the presents had been opened, lunch had been eaten and everyone was feeling a bit sleepy and unsociable. 

Although nerds have started to become a little more mainstream these days, with the popularity of shows such as The Big Bang Theory and the popular kids proudly wearing words like "Geek" and "Dork" on their T-shirts that were always insults when I was a kid, there isn't an awful lot of representation of girl geeks at the moment. Sure, there is the awkward Amy and brainy Bernadette in The Big Bang Theory, but I want to see girls in fandom. Girls in the comic book store. Cosplay girls. An exploration of the differences between girl-geeking and boy-geeking (broadly speaking: ie Trekkie boys obsessing over starships, Trekkie girls obsessing over relationships.) Fangirl helps to fill that gap. Protagonist Cath's method of geeking out is to write fanfiction of her favourite series of books, Simon Snow. Simon Snow is clearly based on the Harry Potter books, but from the extracts we read, takes the plot in quite different directions. I wondered how much of Simon Snow itself stemmed from Potter fanfiction, as some of its storylines could be very interesting if applied to the Potterverse.

Fangirl brought back a lot of memories of my own sixth form and university days - like Cath, I once submitted a piece of fanfiction (in my case a poem based on Lord of the Rings) as part of my application to one university's creative writing programme. I didn't get accepted onto that course, and I still wonder whether it was because my poem could have been considered, like Cath's story, "plagiarism" - or whether it just wasn't any good. It certainly wasn't subtle. When I was at uni, one of my classmates produced a poem inspired by Torchwood, but she named no names and the poem was a success. I felt annoyed with Cath's professor for failing her assignment for reasons of "plagiarism", but I wondered whether she was write to do so, depending on what the criteria was for the class. If the goal is to produce a story of publishable standard, then no matter how creative and well-written a piece of fanfiction might be, it would still be in breach of copyright.

Aside from the world of fandom, Cath faces other challenges in her new life at university. She is a twin, who up until now has always followed her sister's lead, but now Wren has got a different roommate, is living in a different dorm, leaving Cath to fend for herself. (Cather and Wren - even their names indicate that they are two halves of a whole.) Although I really enjoyed reading about Cath's early days at university, it was marred slightly by flashbacks to Rebecca Harrington's Penelope, for no other reason than the American university setting and the socially awkward protagonist. It improved once I started to get to know the characters, and I really liked Cath's roommate Reagan and her friend Levi. As well as her shyness and anxiety disorder, Cath had to deal with a lot of family issues: a father with bipolar disorder, an absent mom getting back in touch after over ten years and a sister going off the rails. Yet throughout all their ups and downs, despite the times when they seem to be drifting apart, they are kept together by their family ties. Cath, Wren and their father come across as a very believable, far from perfect but loving family.

Although there was a teased love triangle early on, ultimately it didn't go anywhere, instead focusing on a lovely and believable depiction of a first love with one party's fear and trust issues, the combined passion and shyness. The small details made it real.

Fangirl is a celebration of family, friendships, growing up, falling in love with a boy and falling in love with writing, all centred around the fandom community. A really cosy and heartwarming read.

Key Quotes

"I feel sorry for you, and I'm going to be your friend.""I don't want to be your friend," Cath said as sternly as she could. "I like that we're not friends.""Me too," Reagan said. "I'm sorry you ruined it by being so pathetic."

"You give away nice like it doesn't cost you anything. Levi laughed. "It doesn't cost me anything. It's not like smiling at strangers exhausts my overall supply.""Well, it does mine."

To really be a nerd, she'd decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one.

That was the beauty in stacking up words -- they got cheaper, the more you had of them.

Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell

As soon as I heard about Rainbow Rowell's novel Fangirl, I knew I had to have it. The story of a shy and nerdy girl in her first year at university, who spends more time in the world of her favourite books than in the real world? Gimme! Ellie sent me this book as my Christmas present, and I spent a good chunk of Christmas Day reading the book, once the presents had been opened, lunch had been eaten and everyone was feeling a bit sleepy and unsociable. 

Although nerds have started to become a little more mainstream these days, with the popularity of shows such as The Big Bang Theory and the popular kids proudly wearing words like "Geek" and "Dork" on their T-shirts that were always insults when I was a kid, there isn't an awful lot of representation of girl geeks at the moment. Sure, there is the awkward Amy and brainy Bernadette in The Big Bang Theory, but I want to see girls in fandom. Girls in the comic book store. Cosplay girls. An exploration of the differences between girl-geeking and boy-geeking (broadly speaking: ie Trekkie boys obsessing over starships, Trekkie girls obsessing over relationships.) Fangirl helps to fill that gap. Protagonist Cath's method of geeking out is to write fanfiction of her favourite series of books, Simon Snow. Simon Snow is clearly based on the Harry Potter books, but from the extracts we read, takes the plot in quite different directions. I wondered how much of Simon Snow itself stemmed from Potter fanfiction, as some of its storylines could be very interesting if applied to the Potterverse.

Fangirl brought back a lot of memories of my own sixth form and university days - like Cath, I once submitted a piece of fanfiction (in my case a poem based on Lord of the Rings) as part of my application to one university's creative writing programme. I didn't get accepted onto that course, and I still wonder whether it was because my poem could have been considered, like Cath's story, "plagiarism" - or whether it just wasn't any good. It certainly wasn't subtle. When I was at uni, one of my classmates produced a poem inspired by Torchwood, but she named no names and the poem was a success. I felt annoyed with Cath's professor for failing her assignment for reasons of "plagiarism", but I wondered whether she was write to do so, depending on what the criteria was for the class. If the goal is to produce a story of publishable standard, then no matter how creative and well-written a piece of fanfiction might be, it would still be in breach of copyright.

Aside from the world of fandom, Cath faces other challenges in her new life at university. She is a twin, who up until now has always followed her sister's lead, but now Wren has got a different roommate, is living in a different dorm, leaving Cath to fend for herself. (Cather and Wren - even their names indicate that they are two halves of a whole.) Although I really enjoyed reading about Cath's early days at university, it was marred slightly by flashbacks to Rebecca Harrington's Penelope, for no other reason than the American university setting and the socially awkward protagonist. It improved once I started to get to know the characters, and I really liked Cath's roommate Reagan and her friend Levi. As well as her shyness and anxiety disorder, Cath had to deal with a lot of family issues: a father with bipolar disorder, an absent mom getting back in touch after over ten years and a sister going off the rails. Yet throughout all their ups and downs, despite the times when they seem to be drifting apart, they are kept together by their family ties. Cath, Wren and their father come across as a very believable, far from perfect but loving family.

Although there was a teased love triangle early on, ultimately it didn't go anywhere, instead focusing on a lovely and believable depiction of a first love with one party's fear and trust issues, the combined passion and shyness. The small details made it real.

Fangirl is a celebration of family, friendships, growing up, falling in love with a boy and falling in love with writing, all centred around the fandom community. A really cosy and heartwarming read.

Key Quotes

"I feel sorry for you, and I'm going to be your friend.""I don't want to be your friend," Cath said as sternly as she could. "I like that we're not friends.""Me too," Reagan said. "I'm sorry you ruined it by being so pathetic."

"You give away nice like it doesn't cost you anything. Levi laughed. "It doesn't cost me anything. It's not like smiling at strangers exhausts my overall supply.""Well, it does mine."

To really be a nerd, she'd decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one.

That was the beauty in stacking up words -- they got cheaper, the more you had of them.

Eleanor and Park - Rainbow Rowell

Rainbow Rowell is a name I've seen all over the book blogs the last few months, but Ellie's review of Attachments was what prompted me to buy one of her books for myself. Unable to find a copy of Attachments anywhere, I settled on Eleanor and Park instead; after all, it had been on my wishlist for a

while.

When Eleanor steps onto the school bus for the first time, she is all too aware that everyone is staring at her. She can't help but stand out, with her wild red hair and mismatched clothes. But she doesn't stand out in a Manic Pixie-girl way; she stands out in a Carrie White way. A Katherine Edwards circa 2001 sort of way. From her very first day, Eleanor has been marked as the bottom of the food chain. That girl's just weird, think her classmates, and not in a cool way. As she looks desperately around for somewhere to sit, Park Sheridan takes pity on her. On this school bus, seats are allocated for life - or at least for the school year - and woe betide anyone who sits in the wrong place! So Park and Eleanor are stuck sitting together, and though they don't speak, they bond over comic books and music, and a friendship of sorts develops. And as Park gets to know Eleanor better, he discovers dreadful things about her life, both at home and at school.

For a moment, when I read Eleanor's reflections on "the bus situation" in her first chapter, I thought what bus situation, exactly? The other kids stared at her and wouldn't let her sit next to them. Yes, it sucks, but it's not exactly the end of the world, is it? And compared to the other things Eleanor has to deal with - poverty, an abusive stepfather ruling the house with terror, looking after four younger siblings, Carrie-style bullying from the other girls at school - it's not much. But then I remembered my own high school days, and the number 51 bus and all its horrors. Being the unpopular kid is not much fun at school, but without any adult supervision (because the bus driver barely counts) it is the perfect opportunity for the bullies to let loose on you. You're trapped in a metal can with your worst enemies for twenty minutes, and there's not a lot you can do but try to ignore them the best you can, and hope they'll get bored. Confession: I sometimes used my lunch money to catch the public bus home, rather than the free school bus. Some drivers would let me use my bus pass on public transport, others I was too timid to even ask.

At least I had a good, loving family. I was not prepared for the awfulness that was Eleanor's home life, where five siblings would huddle together in a single bedroom as their stepfather raged at their mother, trying not to alert him to their existence or do anything to make him worse. Where there was no door to the bathroom, and no shampoo, toothbrushes or much food. Where everything that would be considered normal teenage behaviour - friendships, phone calls, babysitting jobs, learning to drive, never mind dating - had to be conducted under secrecy for fear of Ritchie's anger. Eleanor's helplessness was so upsetting: thank goodness for Park. Without him, this story would be all doom and gloom - and who knows what might have happened if Eleanor had telekinetic powers! But Park's friendship and later love provide a refuge for Eleanor, a place to go where she can be happy and survive, despite everything, though always in fear of discovery. Their relationship is heartwarming, very funny and gloriously geeky as they bond over comics - X-Men, Swamp Thing, and the ongoing series of The Watchmen. I read Watchmen earlier this year and loved it, so it was great to follow the duo reading it as a serial. Also, Eleanor hates being made-over but Park wears eyeliner and looks great. There are Star Wars and Star Trek references, and this book really made me want to listen to the Smiths again. Just a few songs at a time, though. I don't want to get too miserable.

Early on in the novel, Eleanor voices my objections to Romeo and Juliet - I love Shakespeare, but hate that story, or at least, don't consider it the great romance and tragedy that everyone else does. (I know, I know, I have a heart of granite.)

"Romeo and Juliet are just two rich kids who've always gotten every little thing they wanted. And now, they think they want each other."

I've never had much patience with these young, all-or-nothing romances, and yet Eleanor and Park got to me. I think the book spoke to my inner teenager; there was a bit of longing in me as I read it. Park is an absolutely lovely boy, and the thought of someone like him falling for someone like me as a teenager was more than I could have hoped for. My feelings changed along with Eleanor's, through the growing romance and I so desperately wanted things to work out with the couple. It is a cute but not cutesy relationship, with the necessary complications of anything which involves two insecure people. These are two young people who need each other. Such a need could destroy them, but instead it strengthens them.

In Eleanor and Park, Rainbow Rowell created two characters I deeply cared about, not just as individuals, but as a couple. This is rare for me. I don't do "shipping" and generally romance is a thing that is to be endured for the sake of the story. But this time, the romance was the heart of the story, and it made me cry. That's quite an achievement. Perhaps I'm getting soft.

Memorable quotes:

"Maybe I'm not attracted to real girls, he'd thought at the time. Maybe I'm some sort of perverted cartoon-sexual."

"She tried to remember what kind of animals paralyzed their prey before they ate them...

Maybe Park had paralyzed her with his ninja magic, his Vulcan handhold, and now he was going to eat her.

That would be awesome."

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

I didn't mean for this to happen. I only watched the 2009 Star Trek movie on TV this year so that I wouldn't be completely lost when my friends organised a trip to see Into Darkness at the cinema. But something about the USS Enterprise and her crew caught at my imagination, and I'd be at work on a quiet day and find myself staring into space, thinking about Spock and Kirk and all the rest. No! I told myself, There is a line, and once you've crossed it, once you've got into Star Trek, there's no going back. Yet I went to my friend Sam, who has always been a bit of a Trekkie and conveniently owns most of the boxsets, and borrowed the first Original Series season. I planned to watch the first Original Series, and the first Next Generation series, and maybe a few odd episodes she could recommend for me, just to get an overview of the story. And then, somehow I found myself watching all three seasons in as many months. Perhaps part of me, subconsciously, always knew I could not watch Star Trek casually, because for me there are no half measures: I am either indifferent to a story world or utterly engrossed in it. And in Star Trek, there are a lot of worlds to get engrossed in.

It was my birthday last week, and one of my presents from my parents was the boxset of the first ten Star Trek movies. (6 with the original cast, 3 with the Next Generation cast, and Generations, which features both.) I don't plan to rush through the films as I did with the series, because I have become very attached to Kirk, Spock, McCoy, et al, and though I'm excited about getting to know Captain Picard (do I need to know anything other than that he is Patrick Stewart?) and crew, I don't feel quite ready to see the Enterprise without the characters I've grown to love.

The Motion Picture opens several years after we last met Kirk and the crew. In the TV series, not a lot changed from week to week; you could watch the episodes in any order, as the status quo was always restored by the end of the story, no matter who got married, wounded or fatally ill. (Except for the fallen redshirts, who tended to remain dead, Jim! So it is interesting to come back to the 'verse some time after the five-year mission has ended. The central trio of the cast have all gone their separate ways. James T. Kirk has been promoted to Admiral, and yet his heart still belongs to the Enterprise. (I felt that there was a sort of sadness in this renowned officer yearning for his past glories.) Spock has returned to his home planet of Vulcan, where he is attempting to get rid of those pesky things called emotions once and for all. But something calls to him from among the stars, and apparently he is not as coldly detached as he'd let on. Also, he is in serious need of a haircut.

One can only hope there is a decent Starfleet barber, because Spock is not alone in needing his services. Doctor "Bones" McCoy makes his first appearance with a pretty terrible beard. For reasons undisclosed, McCoy has put his Starfleet days behind him, where he wants them to stay. It was hinted in some episodes that McCoy's life was not what he had hoped for. He did his duty as ship's chief medical officer, uncomplaining (well... often complaining, but not feeling sorry for himself) yet never really happy. I suppose his friendship with Jim (and, though he'd never admit to it, Spock) made life aboard the Enterprise more tolerable, but they have since taken different paths. It is not long, however, before the old crew are all back together - Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov are all right where we left them, and they head off out into the stars to face an unknown foe known as V'Ger, which threatens Earth. It's familiar territory for Star Trek, but the story's conclusion surprised and awed me. It was definitely a story of its era, and I imagine it would have been even more thrilling to have watched at the height of the space age in the 1970s. (This month, too, was a pretty appropriate time to watch the movie for the first time.)

I had been warned that odd-numbered Star Trek films are (to put it politely) not as good as the even-numbers. The Motion Picture was certainly somewhat strange, felt very, very different from the series, and had some strange special effects. I read that it was intended to be a 2001: A Space Odyssey for the 1970s. There are some striking similarities, notably the looooong, indulgent shots of space scenery with grand music (though no monkeys and no freaky giant space baby!) It is more atmospheric than plot-driven. Yes, it is slow, but watching it while knitting at the end of a long day, I found it almost soothing. But I felt that the characters were underused; the relationships between the central trio were strained and awkward, perhaps because they had been apart for so long.

When Spock returned to the Enterprise, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Instead of his usual cold disdain, Spock seemed almost angry to be there. The banter between him and McCoy fell flat. Perhaps it was that the characters had to get used to each other after a long time apart. It had been a while since Spock had been among humans and their strange ways, and maybe their illogical ways reminded him of his recent failure. But upon discovering what a purely logical existence is like, Spock acknowledges and accepts that he does have emotions, and that the Vulcan ideal towards which he has been striving his whole life is not what he wants after all. Which emotions, specifically? Which "simple feeling?" It is most unlike Spock to be so vague, but then, so is speaking of emotions as anything other than a failing of character. It is not a subject that comes easily to him, while clasping Kirk's hand and looking into his eyes... Subtext? No. Not this time.

Reading up on Star Trek: The Motion Picture online, I was not surprise to find that it is widely disliked. Its 2001-esque pacing verges on the ridiculous at times, and I really missed the depth of character from the TV series. I found it interesting in an experimental sort of way, and quite watchable for a lazy evening, but I would be disappointed if all the films were in this style. Next up: The Wrath of Khan. I have high expectations for that one. Also tissues.

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

For several years now, I've had a troubling vision of a future where the physical world is entirely forsaken in favour of twenty-four-hour internet. Where there are no shops, only online shopping, no human interaction but continual tweeting, no social gatherings but Facebook events. Where relationship status updates carry more weight that marriage certificates, and where couples don't even need to be in the same country. Instead of living life, we livetweet, and instead of seeing the world, we photograph it and post it on Instagram. We shun the friends we are with, while exchanging tweets on our smartphones with someone the other side of the world. And as I write this, I wonder how much of this is prediction and how much observation. I'm certainly as guilty as anyone else. The other day I could not be bothered to cook, so I ordered pizza without any human contact except, briefly, with the delivery boy. To this geeky, socially awkward blogger who loves escapism, there is a certain appeal to such a lifestyle, yet its very appeal sets off warning bells in my head. How long before we routinely upload our brains into the internet?

With Ready Player One, Ernest Cline makes a far better job of portraying such a world than I possibly could. In the not-too-distance future, the internet has been swallowed up by a massive, sprawling virtual reality called the OASIS. More than just a video game, the OASIS spans universes, with planets, books, virtual schools and workplaces, shops and restaurants, and of course games galore. Users have an avatar to traverse the OASIS, with headsets and gloves that allow them to experience the virtual worlds as though physically present. A few years before the novel begins, James Halliday, the OASIS' designer died without an heir, and his multi-billion dollar fortune has been left to whoever is first to unravel the clues hidden within the virtual worlds. For a long time, the clues yielded no results, and by many the "Easter egg hunt" has been dismissed as a hoax. Until eighteen-year-old Wade Watts stumbles upon the first key...

 I've never been much of a gamer, and so it took me a long time to be persuaded to read this book that has had such rave reviews. I needn't have worried: it was wonderful. Both the story and the world of the OASIS were utterly engrossing, and I would forget that I was reading about a kid sitting in the remains of a car in a junkyard, plugged into his computer. The OASIS seems more real than Wade's reality, which is in a sad state of being: overpopulated with all the world's resources running low. There's no real future for a kid who lives in a stacked trailer park. No wonder he finds refuge plugged into the internet, where he can be whoever he wants. Problems in the OASIS seem to affect Wade more than real-world catastrophe, and at times it would take me a moment to get reality and OASIS untangled. The OASIS, a computer programme made entirely of 0s and 1s, is as convincing a setting as any.

One of my favourite things in fiction is a good treasure hunt; not that I'm ever any good at solving the clues, but I enjoy watching the characters work them out. The hunt for Halliday's fortune lies in geek culture, especially from the 1980s: in science fiction, early computer games and cult movies. Though many of the references passed me by, many more made me smile - Firefly, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Discworld, Star Trek, Doctor Who... all these are name-dropped, and I had a big goofy grin all over my face through the final test. (Clue: he's using coconuts!)

Ready Player One is as thrilling as the best computer games, with enough real-world peril to keep the reader really caring. Solving the clues is more than just about winning the money: once the first key is uncovered, the big corporations get involved, their ultimate goal to privatise the OASIS. This is not just a case of Yahoo buying Tumblr, or even Amazon taking over Goodreads. For underprivileged kids like Wade, the OASIS is what makes life worthwhile. And the corporation plays nasty. Wade and the other competitors pose a threat to their ruthless ambitions, and must be stopped by any means.

I could not get enough of this novel, and it came as a real shock to reach the end. An outstanding science fiction novel: engrossing, geeky and a lot of fun. I wanted to eat that book.

Pink, Lili Wilkinson

When Ava Simpson transfers to private school, she takes the chance to make a new start, change her image and try to be "normal." She is quickly befriended by popular girl Alexis who persuades her to try out for the school musical. After a disastrous audition, Ava decides to help out behind the scenes and join the stage crew. However, her teammates are a group of quirky misfits who do nothing for her image as one of the popular girls. Who in turn are not the people Chloe, Ava's intellectual and stylish girlfriend, would approve of. Ava finds herself trying to fit in to three different worlds and be three different people, but she can't keep these three lives separate forever.

The title refers, first, to the jumper Ava wears to school, a pink cashmere sweater after years of nothing but black. For Ava, this jumper, and the colour pink represents being an "ordinary" girl, feminine, dressy, interested in gossip and proms and magazines - and boys. Despite her relationship with Chloe, Ava finds herself drawn to one of the boys in the play, Ethan, and as she befriends the stage crew it becomes clear to the experienced YA reader that her friendship with another boy - named Sam, of course! - is something a bit special too.

The plotline was fairly standard modern school-story, and one subplot involving Alexis's former friendship with science fiction nerd Jen was taken straight out of Mean Girls. Just for once, I would like to read a modern school story where the popular kids aren't the evil, manipulative, two-faced queen bee that is so prevalent in the genre! But Alexis has another, secret side to her personality that adds a little characterisation to the stereotype. Certainly, the best-realised characters are the stage crew misfits: Jules, Jacob, Sam, Kobe and Jen, and the book shows the other side of the high school musical. The author shows that she knows her subjects, and I was tickled by some of the references to science fiction geekery - in particular Alexis' use of Battlestar Galactica expletives and Doctor Who's timey-wimey detector. (It goes ding when there's stuff.) I would have loved to have seen the characters go to see Rocky Horror, though.

There are a lot of stories out there that explore the ideas of popularity, identity and being true to yourself in a high school setting, but this one is a bit different in that its overall message is that being you doesn't have to mean categorising yourself and putting yourself in a neat little box.*

*After all, you'll end up in a box given enough time.